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I'm sure this has been mentioned previously but does anyone know why 'Wuthering Heights' by Newman has not been commercially released. I believe there was once a release of the complete score some years ago but I cannot find any details about it. I'm sure there would be a market for this score and as far as I know it is in good condition.
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Good question.
There is a highly questionable "promo" release around 2000, which was later ripped off by Membran.
There is also Bernstein's re-recording (also available within FSM box).
Proper release of the original tracks is long overdue and this magnificent score would certainly deserve LLL treatment (similar to their stunning and gorgeous The Diary of Anne Frank and Man Hunt). The movie was initially released by United Artists, who knows who owns it now.
As far as the rights situation is concerned, I would imagine that the Samuel Goldwyn Estate owns the film, along with the rest of the films produced by Goldwyn. Warner had a distribution deal with them, but it’s questionable as to whether that’s still in effect (the last film released through said deal was Dodsworth in 2020) and the estate is unfortunately being very slow in restoring the films themselves, which unfortunately are in very poor condition. And yes, I would love a legitimate release of the original tracks for Wuthering Heights.
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Posted: |
Nov 28, 2024 - 8:09 AM
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By: |
doug raynes
(Member)
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Good question.
There is a highly questionable "promo" release around 2000, which was later ripped off by Membran.
There is also Bernstein's re-recording (also available within FSM box).
Proper release of the original tracks is long overdue and this magnificent score would certainly deserve LLL treatment (similar to their stunning and gorgeous The Diary of Anne Frank and Man Hunt). The movie was initially released by United Artists, who knows who owns it now.
As far as the rights situation is concerned, I would imagine that the Samuel Goldwyn Estate owns the film, along with the rest of the films produced by Goldwyn. Warner had a distribution deal with them, but it’s questionable as to whether that’s still in effect (the last film released through said deal was Dodsworth in 2020) and the estate is unfortunately being very slow in restoring the films themselves, which unfortunately are in very poor condition. And yes, I would love a legitimate release of the original tracks for Wuthering Heights.
The Samuel Goldwyn film library is certainly complicated with different distribution rights applying. I don't know if the Warner deal still applies but part of the Goldwyn library of films which were acquired by Orion, which is part of MGM, are now owned by Amazon. The film, Wuthering Heights, is available free on Amazon Prime in HD, along with other Samuel Goldwyn films. Goodness knows who owns the music rights.
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Even if the morass of licensing issues could be worked through, I don't expect that our current market of active score-CD collectors would support a release of WUTHERING HEIGHTS -- not that I wouldn't love it. Consider that LaLaLand's magnificent release of THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK didn't sell out (if it did at all) before nearly the end of its license term recently; and that label's earlier issue of Newman's sublime A CERTAIN SMILE (though an inferior and obscure picture) had to be discounted heavily to clear the LLL shelves. That was a shame, being one of my favorite Newmans... but it's true that most of us who really appreciated that composer are no longer here to buy new releases.
But David, if you can obtain or have access to anyone's working laserdisc player, Pioneer issued a 1995 LD of WUTHERING HEIGHTS that offered Newman's complete score as an isolated track on one analog channel. The track is clean, with the exception of (I think) only two spots with brief substitutions from the music-and-sound-effects track. You could make a satisfying CD-R from that, as I did for myself. (Another member here reported that an early DVD release of HEIGHTS also included that isolated score before it vanished from a reissue, but I don't know of that.)
Elmer Bernstein's re-recording for his 1970s music label is faithful and impressive (and is how I was introduced to the music), though it presents little more than half of the HEIGHTS score with an economically smaller orchestra. If you don't want to spend what the full FSM Bernstein Filmmusic Collection Box set might cost you now, you could at least look for a nice surviving copy of the original LP. Good luck.
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Thanks to everyone for your replies and advice.
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I can recommend the Membran version, which sounds very good. The source may be questionable, but it is a pressed CD. Many of the Membran CDs were available years ago for three euros at JPC in Germany. Without having done any research, I think you can still get them cheaply. And of course, great music by Newman.
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I remember that thread as if it were only a year or two old.
Some remarkable claims were asserted there of Japanese re-recordings being added as isolated scores. That sounded odd to me at the time, and, with zero corroboration, I guess it falls under the category of "amazing comments made with no historical facts to back them up."
It is indeed true that for some of these former Goldwyn films of the 30s isolated music and effects tracks had been made - at least partly - with re-recordings for a much smaller orchestra. For example, I have the one for THE HURRICANE (from 1937) for a long time on a CDR and there you get a rather poor re-recording of some of the original music for all the scenes which had dialogue in the film itself and on the other hand the original recording for those scenes without dialogue. It is totally crazy as it changes from one recording to the other all the time on this M&E track, but it is just the same what you get to hear in the German dubbed version of this film from the 70s. The reason for this was of course that music and dialogue couldn´t be separated anymore and the dubbing firm in Germany didn´t receive an M&E track from the US studio with the original score intact anymore at that time.
I only don´t know whether these re-recordings were actually done in Japan. Joe Caps maintained that whereas I had always thought they were done somewhere here in Europe for the new dubbings of those old films which in our country were mostly made during the late 60s and early 70s.
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