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Posted: |
Jul 18, 2011 - 7:21 PM
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By: |
manderley
(Member)
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THE ADVENTURES OF HAJJI BABA was a Walter Wanger production for Allied Artists Pictures, distributed (in the US) by 20th Century-Fox, and in the rest of the world by Allied Artists.
After leaving MGM in the 1930s, Wanger continued as a fine producer, but he had a checkered career, always producing, but for his own company, then Universal, then Allied Artists, then ???, culminating in his production of CLEOPATRA at Fox, which, essentially killed him. Some of the Wanger pictures are in PD, including SALOME, WHERE SHE DANCED and NIGHT IN PARADISE and SMASH-UP, THE STORY OF A WOMAN.
I don't believe BABA was shot at Fox, nor do I believe it was recorded there. None of the below-the-line crew names are TCF "regulars". Although the theatrical release of this film WAS in 4-track mag stereophonic sound, I've never heard it that way since the original release, and, as someone has pointed out, the video transfers (so far) have been Pan-and-Scan.
A number of the Walter Wanger 1950s films (including the original INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS) are in the NTA/Republic/Worldvision/Spelling/Paramount/Viacom library. Allied Artists pictures are generally to be found in the TimeWarner library, through their acquisition of Lorimar, who purchased the post-48 Monogram/Allied Artists library. At this moment I've not been able to ascertain exactly who holds BABA in their library. It's anybody's guess.
Since this is an independent production, I'll bet the original stereo session masters have not been retained or preserved. I'd love to be wrong about this.
It's a fun film, and at the time it was released, was most particularly known for its Tiomkin score, the art direction by Gene Allen, and the color design and coordination by Hoyningen-Huene.
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As Manderly mentions above, there isn't a lot of music in HAJI BABA, other than that song, which keeps showing up now and then. Tiomkin had a good idea with this in HIGH NOON (1952), then used it more as a connective device in HAJI BABA (1954), and repeated the use of it in the later GUNFIGHT AT THE O.K. CORRAL (1957), where it was much more effective, serving almost as a kind of Greek chorus effect. (I guess he thought that, if the device worked once, why not use it again, but it resulted in a song taking the place of what used to be an only orchestral main title, thereby signaling the eventual end of the use of orchestral film scores.)
As for the movie, well, it's kind of turgid, with John Derek trying to be a hero, playing a "barber," who becomes an action figure. With Amanda Blake, of later GUNSMOKE fame, playing a kind of Amazon, i.e. sort of 50's, kind of lesbian, fantasy, where all the women warriors wear matching tailored outfits.
The whole thing is really a hodge-podge, looking as it's attempting to capitalize on previous Arabian-themed fantasy pictures, which had already run their course.
On the other hand, any Tiomkin score is a good thing, and I'd certainly buy it, were it ever released.
(Though, I may add, there are a lot of Tiomkin scores that just seem to lie there. I had high expectations for CYRANO DE BERGERAC, until I actually heard it, and it's really not up there with the greats, I'm sorry to say.... A lot of times, Tiomkin seemed to rely on swirling mood pieces, undercurrents of orchestration, rising and falling, but mostly just kind of meandering all over the place. There are, of course, grand scores, like his wonderful TARZAN AND THE MERMAIDS, but, on the other hand, something like THE MOON AND SIXPENCE, which you'd think would be great, just seems to kind of lie there. Oh well. I'll take second-rate Tiomkin any day, compared to most of what I hear blaring at me nowadays...)
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The film is run every so often on the FXM channel. I saw it earlier this year and thought the film was colorful but not very good. Tiomkin was a master of melody, but that song was dreadful. I also don't recall very much music in the film.
I highly recommend the new Twilight edition. To me the movie is great fun, full of crazy ideas and stylizations in design as well as story-line. Besides beeing a work of "high camp", the fast-moving balladesque style certainly is not without merit and has a great oriental flair.
The Tiomkin score is everything to be expected of - besides the already mentioned ballad there are great set-pieces, all sounding magnificent in the new 5.1 mix.
The only let-down is the isolated music and effects-track which for long passages uses not Tiomkin´s score but passages from Korsakov´s "Scheherazade" instead (!!) - terribly cut together.
This certainly strikes me quiet ironic as Tiomkin composed his score in the Russian Oriental tradition and there are certainly passages in the score which seem to draw their inspiration from Korsakov in the first place...
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Thanks Stefan for your insightful comments about the M&E-track on this new Twilight Time edition. I have seen the movie many years ago on German TV and found the film as well as Tiomkin´s music - the "Hajji Baba" song is still floating around in my head - quite delightful. And as the rights belong to Fox, I always hoped that a CD with the Tiomkin score would appear at some time, but of course this was never the case throughout all the last years.
But if now even the M&E-track had to be filled up with classical pieces by Rimsky-Korsakov as the Tiomkin music was probably not available anymore, this sounds very disappointing so that I almost assume that the actual original music tracks have been lost.
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The only let-down is the isolated music and effects-track which for long passages uses not Tiomkin´s score but passages from Korsakov´s "Scheherazade" instead (!!) - terribly cut together.
I could now also listen to the isolated M&E-track on the Twilight Time Blu-Ray disc and am very disappointed by it. Not only have excerpts from Rimsky-Korsakov´s "Scheherazade" been often used above all during the first half, but even library music (for example even with piano and synth strings which seems to come straight from the 70s) which is totally inappropriate and additionally some repetitions of parts of the song in a few places where they can´t be found in the regular film version.
The original Tiomkin score had to be replaced for almost all scenes which contain longer dialogue and is therefore often faded out as soon as dialogue appears.
This means that what is on the Blu-Ray is not the original M&E-track from 1954 which has probably not been preserved. I almost assume that a new M&E-track had to be produced during the 60s or 70s because it was needed for a new dubbing in one of the European countries at that time. So is this something similar to what happened with the Goldwyn productions like THE HURRICANE, THE WESTERNER etc. which got new M&E-tracks during the end of the 60s (as the old ones were lost) so that they could be used for dubbing overseas?
In the end this isolated M&E-track doesn´t add up to much and I ask myself why Twilight Time did even bother to add it to this BRD edition. You don´t hear much more isolated original Tiomkin music on this "isolated track" than when you just watch the normal film version and then listen to the original Tiomkin score. It is more or less a joke.
As therefore not even the correct original M&E-track is available at Fox anymore, it is obvious that a CD with the original music tracks will never be released.
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The music tracks do not exist at all and there was never an original M&E created. There are thousands of what are called "filled" M&E's created by studios later for foreign language use. The music can be retained as-is, obviously, for any sections where there is no dialogue, but otherwise dialogue is covered by tracking music from other parts of the movie, putting in library music, or having no music at all! My recollection on this title is that when no music elements could be located, Twilight Time elected to include the M&E "as-is" from the HD master that the studio provided.
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Many thanks for your interesting reply, Mike.
Of course, I know all the problems of missing original M&E-tracks from dozens of new German dubbings (from the 70s or 80s) for older US classics in and out and therefore know that the original music during dialogue scenes then always has to be replaced. However, I thought that in such cases it was the task of the foreign dubbing firms to create their own new M&E-track and fill it up with library material (or tracking music from other parts of the movie) as after several decades they often didn´t get any original M&E-track from the US studios anymore.
Therefore it is a bit new to me that the studios themselves apparently very often "filled up" such M&E`s many years after the film´s original release for foreign language use. Many years ago I got the info from a German TV editor that if a new dubbing had to be made for an old US film for example from the 40s in most cases the German dubbing firm didn´t get ANY M&E-track from the US studio anymore at all. But apparently it is a bit different according to your posting. Or did each US studio handle this differently?
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One recollection I have was for the DVD isolated score for Can-Can. I got the M&E and found that for every scene where there was supposed to be Cole Porter tunes in the background of conversations, there was no music at all. Just the same loop of "walla-walla" in all of those scenes. There was nothing to work with other than the multi-track, which was transferred on a Friday and mixed (sans vocals) over the weekend in order to get the isolated music track done. I pointed out to the studio that they now had the means to make a better M&E track. I'm not sure that they ever did.
More recently, there was a Twilight Time title with no isolated music track where I discovered that the M&E for foreigns used a rerecording of the score.
Fox has made quite a lot of "filled" tracks themselves here in L.A. over the past twenty years.
This title, unfortunately, seems to have slipped through without the score being checked. it didn't come my way. I don't think there are any others where the filled track went out.
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