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36 Hours (1964)
Music by Dimitri Tiomkin
36 Hours 36 Hours
Click to enlarge images.
Price: $19.95
Limited #: 3000
View CD Page at SAE Store
Line: Golden Age
CD Release: April 2002
Catalog #: Vol. 5, No. 5
# of Discs: 1

The legendary Dimitri Tiomkin joins the FSM Classics series with 36 Hours, a 1964 M-G-M war thriller starring James Garner as Jefferson Pike, an American army officer kidnapped by the enemy. Led by Rod Taylor, the Germans set up an elaborate ruse to convince Pike that the war has been over for six years and he is suffering from amnesia—all in an attempt to coax from him vital information. Eva Marie Saint co-stars as Anna Hebner, a concentration camp refugee forced to act as Pike's nurse who becomes his love interest.

Coming off of The Guns of Navarone, Tiomkin provided a taut, piano-dominated score with an accent on stealth—flamboyant where necessary, but blending with the naturalistic style of filmmakers George Seaton and William Perlberg. The muscular main title is a highlight, with an up-and-down theme for pizzicato strings alternating with full orchestra, always embellished by piano. Inside the military hospital, Tiomkin's muted, atmospheric cues capture Pike's disoriented state of mind; outside, the rambunctious scoring adds a sense of scope to the film's black-and-white cinematography, as the brainwashing plot gives way to an escape-and-pursuit adventure. Throughout is a memorable, rhapsodic love theme, "A Heart Must Learn to Cry."

36 Hours was originally issued by Vee-Jay Records on LP at the time of the film's theatrical release. The LP was reissued in the late 1970s by Varèse Sarabande. FSM's complete-score premiere on CD is remixed and remastered in stereo from the original three-track masters, doubling the playing time of the LP and adding bonus tracks of the song's vocal version and piano acetate demos, as well as a jazz trio improvisation of the main title. As always, the illustrated booklet provides background on the film, composer and score, and detailed information on the placement of unused cues.

Dimitri Tiomkin Scores on FSM
About the Composer

Russian composer Dimitri Tiomkin (1894-1979) was larger-than-life both for his showman-like personality and mammoth symphonic scores for epics like Land of the Pharaohs, Giant and The Fall of the Roman Empire. But his sense of theatricality also told him when to go "small" as well as "large," as in the ballad "Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Darling" from High Noon. He wrote everything from the western staple "Rawhide" to the hysterical theremin horror score for The Thing From Another World. He had a knack for melody, for knowing his audience and wearing his heart on his sleeve. IMDB

Comments (14):Log in or register to post your own comments
22 years later and here's the first comment. "This is great."

I took a chance on this possibly old-hat score. I say a "chance", a gamble, because on my terribly limited exposure to old Dimi, I often felt that he was too "in yer face". But this title promised, being from a decade I generally like and having a subject matter which would suggest sobriety.

I'm so glad I crumbled and went for this, 22 years down the line. It's my first Tiomkin. Love the piano throughout and the way it rumbles and darts in peaks and troughs. I was worried that the song, in its instrumental variations as underscore, would be too schmalzy for me, but I like it. It's got a touch of Les Baxter exotica in the way it modulates. One of the bonus tracks - the jazz trio version of the main theme - is exceptional, and almost "worth the price of admission alone", as the kids didn't use to say.

36 HOURS. I love it. And I'm looking forward to spending the rest of my life picking up soundtracks from the time before most of us were born.

It is a fine score. The Main Title is wonderful, one of his best.

I prefer the 'shorter' James Horner score.

I was mesmerized by the Main Title and the film which I watched decades ago on TCM. So it was only a few months ago that I picked this off from SAE at their annual FSM sales.Ive yet to pry open the set but this thread is a good reminder.

I've heard very positive and exciting feedback from most folks and besides I'm really digging into Tiomkin's work these days. He is the new Golden Age idol for me now as well as Hugo Friedhofer. Herrmann, Rozsa and Korngold are all already done.

My favourite cue is "Lisbon Cha-Cha", especially the way its bright mood evolves into something sinister. In a quite subtle way, too, for Dimitri.

My favourite cue is "Lisbon Cha-Cha", especially the way its bright mood evolves into something sinister. In a quite subtle way, too, for Dimitri.[/endquote]
I'm very much in agreement. While I love Tiomkin's over-the-top action cues, I also find his much more subtle -- what I'd almost call nuanced-mood cues -- to be supremely effective film scoring.

Graham, I'm with you in your previous feelings about Tiomkin, and in finding this score to be a pleasant exception which I enjoy quite a lot. Probably Top 3 Tiomkin for me, along with The Old Man and the Sea and The Alamo (the one over the top bombastic Tiomkin I really enjoy for whatever reason).

Yavar

22 years later and here's the first comment. "This is great."

I took a chance on this possibly old-hat score. I say a "chance", a gamble, because on my terribly limited exposure to old Dimi, I often felt that he was too "in yer face". But this title promised, being from a decade I generally like and having a subject matter which would suggest sobriety.

I'm so glad I crumbled and went for this, 22 years down the line. It's my first Tiomkin. Love the piano throughout and the way it rumbles and darts in peaks and troughs. I was worried that the song, in its instrumental variations as underscore, would be too schmalzy for me, but I like it. It's got a touch of Les Baxter exotica in the way it modulates. One of the bonus tracks - the jazz trio version of the main theme - is exceptional, and almost "worth the price of admission alone", as the kids didn't use to say.

36 HOURS. I love it. And I'm looking forward to spending the rest of my life picking up soundtracks from the time before most of us were born.[/endquote]

I wish we had scores like this today in particular scores that feature a piano. For a while many other film composers followed Tiomkin's lead even Goldsmith did in some cues in scores like The Sand Pebbles.

This is a terrific score! I grabbed it in the "Buy 10, get a free, out-of-print Towering Inferno" deal FSM had, in which I grabbed a number of blind buys I to this day remain glad I did.

I rescore movies, especially silents, many of which I find are scored badly, in a way which turns a specific film into a generic Silent Film Experience, which, once you've had that, you don't need to do again. Fritz Lang's Woman In The Moon is Bollywoodlike in its length, and its being an all-genres sort of movie: science fiction, romance, spy thriller, adventure, and for the spy parts, 36 Hours proved to be perfect! Even though most of the scores I used were from much earlier, the instrumentation blending so well with the images made it fit spectacularly, and I find I often watch those scenes less as part of the film, and more as a sort of music video for the tracks.

Great music, this.

Great story, Lorien!

Interesting that Les highlights in his post "Lisbon Cha-Cha" - I listened to that carefully the other night and it's quite striking how, instead of merely overlaying the disquieting underscore onto the source cue, it seems to cleverly be in time with it, Tiomkin's unsettling rumblings and stabs punctuating the dance music with mathematical precision. The rest of the score is, as I mentioned before, great - I am so glad I can still be surprised by scores/soundtracks from 60 years ago and more, by composers I hadn't paid much attention to in the past.

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Track List
Instruments/Musicians
Click on each musician name for more credits

Leader (Conductor):
Robert Armbruster, Dmitri Tiomkin

Violin:
Israel Baker, Harry Bluestone, Herman Clebanoff, James Getzoff, Benny Gill, Anatol Kaminsky, Murray Kellner, Bernard Kundell, Dan Lube, Alfred Lustgarten, Joy Lyle (Sharp), Alexander Murray, Lou Raderman, Sally Raderman (aka Sarah Kreindler), Marshall Sosson, Heimann Weinstine

Viola:
Cecil Figelski, Allan Harshman, Virginia Majewski

Cello:
Adolph Frezin, Raphael "Ray" Kramer, Lucien Laporte, Frederick R. Seykora, Eleanor Slatkin, Gloria Strassner

Bass:
John Bambridge, Jr., Mario Camposano, George E. Green, Keith "Red" Mitchell

Saxophone:
Gus Bivona, William E. Green, Jerome Kasper, Don Lodice (Logiudice), Hugo Raimondi

French Horn:
John W. "Jack" Cave, Vincent N. DeRosa, Herman Lebow, Sinclair Lott, Arthur Maebe, Jr.

Trumpet:
John Audino, Uan Rasey, James C. Zito

Trombone:
Randall Miller, Richard Noel

Piano:
Artie Kane, Raymond Turner

Organ:
Edwin L. Cole

Guitar:
Robert F. Bain, Allen Reuss

Harp:
Catherine Gotthoffer (Johnk)

Accordion:
Carl Fortina

Drums:
Hubert "Hugh" Anderson, Frank L. Carlson, Ralph Collier, John Cyr, Stevan Dweck, Frank J. Flynn, Frank "Hico" Guerrero, John Peter Morgando, Harold L. "Hal" Rees

Orchestrator:
Gus Levene

Orchestra Manager:
James C. Whelan

Copyist:
Gene Bren, Wolfgang Fraenkel, Maurice Gerson, Donald J. Midgley, Richard Petrie, Fred Sternberg, Harry Taylor, Bill Williams (aka George Davenport)

Assistant Librarian:
Theodore E. Bergren

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