The Varese Sarabande CD Club has announced a whopping five new CDs, which can be ordered now and which will begin shipping the week of October 4th.

Varese Club had released a handful of early Jerry Goldsmith feature scores from the Universal vaults, such as The Spiral Road, Lonely Are the Brave and the Oscar-nominated Freud, and the label continues this welcome trend with the first-ever release of the 1963 military drama A GATHERING OF EAGLES, starring Rock Hudson and Kevin McCarthy. This was the composer's first feature project in the military genre, which would inspire such beloved Goldsmith scores as The Blue Max and Patton. This disc is limited to 3000 units.

The Golden Age is represented by two scores from Oscar-winning 20th Century Fox films involving mental illness, on one CD. THE SNAKE PIT was one of the top Oscar films from 1948, earning six nominations (and an Oscar for Sound) including Best Picture and Best Actress, for Olivia de Havilland's performance as a woman hospitalized after a nervous breakdown. Alfred Newman's original music earned the composer a nomination as well, and the Varese CD is the first release of his score.

Joanne Woodward won the Oscar for her performance as THE THREE FACES OF EVE, the 1957 fact-based drama about a woman with multiple personalities. The original score was composed by Robert Emmett Dolan, probably an unfamiliar name to our readers but an eight-time Oscar nominee, with seven nominations for adapting the songs for such musicals as Holiday Inn and Lady in the Dark, as well as an Original Score nomination for The Bells of St. Mary's. This is the first release of Dolan's Eve score, which was conducted by Alfred Newman and his brother Lionel.

THE FORMULA was the film version of Steve Shagan's novel about the search for a synthetic fuel that could replace gasoline, and starred George C. Scott, Marthe Keller and Marlon Brando. It was the third film that BIll Conti scored for his Rocky director John G. Avildsen, and his somber, brooding score emerged from a particularly fruitful period in the composer's career. The Varese CD features the same cues as their original LP, produced at the time of the film's release in 1980, and because of the relatively brief running time the disc, limited to 1200 units, is offered for a lower than usual price.

Another Varese LP now released for the first time is NIGHTFLYERS, the science-fiction thriller from 1987 starring Catherine Mary Stewart, based on the novel by George R.R. Martin. The score is by Doug Timm, the orchestrator of such scores as Terror in the Aisles and Night of the Creeps, whose life and career were tragically cut short when he was murdered in 1989 at the age of 29. This disc is limited to 1000 units.

The final new CD Club release is FIMUCITE 2: CLOSING NIGHT GALA 2008, featuring both a DVD and CD of a film music concert featuring Joel McNeely and Diego Navarro conducting cues from such scores as Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Fahrenheit 451 and Alex North's 2001.

Intrada plans to release one new Special Collection CD next week.

Stephen Warbeck will present a film music seminar at the Ghent Film Festival on October 20th.

CDS AVAILABLE THIS WEEK

Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes - John Scott - La-La Land
Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'hoole - David Hirschfelder - Watertower [Borders store exclusive]*
The Mentalist: Seasons 1 & 2 - Blake Neely - Watertower/Amazon [CD-R]
The Pillars of the Earth - Trevor Morris - Varese Sarabande
Spartacus: Blood and Sand - Joseph LoDuca - Varese Sarabande
Takers - Paul Haslinger - Madison Gate/Amazon [CD-R]
True Blood: Season Two - Nathan Barr - Varese Sarabande

IN THEATERS TODAY

Buried - Victor Reyes
Leaves of Grass - Jeff Danna
Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole - David Hirschfelder - Score CD on Watertower [Borders store exclusive]*
100 Voices: A Journey Home - Charles Fox
Waiting for "Superman" - Christophe Beck - Score CD due Oct. 19 on Lakeshore
Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps - Craig Armstrong - Soundtrack CD featuring 6 min. of Armstrong score due Sept. 21 on +1
You Again - Nathan Wang
You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger - Soundtrack CD-R due from Amazon on Sept. 21

COMING SOON

September 28
Julgamento (The Trial) - Nuno Malo - MovieScore Media
Music of DC Comics: 75th Anniversary Collection - various - Watertower
Resident Evil: Afterlife - Tomandandy - Milan
October 5
Fimucite 2: Closing Night Gala 2008 - various - Varese Sarabande CD Club
The Formula - Bill Conti - Varese Sarabande CD Club
A Gathering of Eagles - Jerry Goldsmith - Varese Sarabande CD Club
Let Me In - Michael Giacchino - Varese Sarabande
Nightflyers - Doug Timm - Varese Sarabande CD Club
The Snake Pit/The Three Faces of Eve - Alfred Newman/Robert Emmett Dolan - Varese Sarabande CD Club
Tamara Drewe - Alexandre Desplat - Silva (import)
October 12
Angelo Badalamenti: Music for Film and Television - Angelo Badalementi - Varese Sarabande
Hachi: A Dog's Story - Jan A.P. Kaczmarek - Varese Sarabande
The Social Network - Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross - Null
The Tudors: Season Four - Trevor Morris - Varese Sarabande
October 19
Howl - Carter Burwell - Lakeshore
Mirrors 2 - Frederik Wiedmann - La-La Land
Waiting for "Superman" - Christophe Beck - Lakeshore
November 16
Tangled - Alan Menken - Disney
Date Unknown
Cinema Tivoli - Alfonso Santisteban - Quartet
Curse of the Pink Panther - Henry Mancini - Quartet
Jason and the Argonauts - Simon Boswell - Perseverance
The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue/Horror Express - Giuliano Sorgini/John Cacavas - Quartet
The Special Relationship - Alexandre Desplat - Varese Sarabande
Star Trek: The Next Generation: The Ron Jones Project - Ron Jones - Film Score Monthly
The Unforgiven/The Way West - Dimitri Tiomkin/Bronislau Kaper - Kritzerland

THIS WEEK IN FILM MUSIC HISTORY

September 24 - Douglas Gamley born (1924)
September 24 - Bernard Herrmann begins recording his score to Joy in the Morning (1964)
September 24 - Billy Goldenberg records his score for the Amazing Stories episode "What If...?"(1986)
September 25 - Dmitri Shostakovich born (1906)
September 25 - Michael Gibbs born (1937)
September 25 - Randy Kerber born (1958)
September 25 - Danny Elfman and Steve Bartek's score for the Amazing Stories episode "Mummy Daddy" is recorded (1985)
September 26 - Edward Ward died (1971)
September 26 - Robert Emmett Dolan died (1972)
September 27 - Cyril Mockridge begins recording his score for Many Rivers to Cross (1954)
September 28 - Miles Davis died (1991)
September 28 - John Williams begins recording his score to Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992)
September 29 - Mike Post born (1944)
September 30 - Miklos Rozsa begins recording his score for Young Bess (1952)
September 30 - Elmer Bernstein begins recording his score to The View from Pompey's Head (1955)
September 30 - Andrew Gross born (1969)
September 30 - Virgil Thomson died (1989)

DID THEY MENTION THE MUSIC?

DEVIL - Fernando Velazquez

"'Devil,' the superior, super-creepy supernatural thriller from producer M. Night Shyamalan, opens with a gorgeous aerial shot of the Philly skyline. Gorgeous, but also superbly unsettling: The city is upside down. Skyscrapers, churches, apartment blocks -- William Penn's statue atop City Hall -- jut out and down above us as the camera sweeps across the city to the intense swells of Fernando Velázquez's score."

Tirdad Derakhshani, Philadelphia Inquirer

"Fernando Velazquez's orchestral score heightens the pic's urgency without resorting to bombast."

Dennis Harvey, Variety

NEVER LET ME GO - Rachel Portman

"Much of the action is devoted to a conventional three-way love affair. The two women, starting when they are schoolgirls, are both taken with Tommy, an awkward boy, an outsider at the school. As the years go by, and first one woman and then the other sleeps with him, they all grasp at the hope that some nameless authority will defer their fate for a while. But the movie is so vague about how its world works that the love affairs (aided by Rachel Portman's overly insistent music) seem like the doomed romanticism of young people in many other movies. It's not all that different from the situation of, say, the preppy and the dying girl in the drivelling 'Love Story,' of almost forty years ago. You can easily draw banalities from 'Never Let Me Go' about prizing every minute of life and appreciating your friends and so on, but who needs science fiction for that?"

David Denby, The New Yorker

"This extreme approach requires a level of commitment not only from the cast but from the audience as well, asking us to look past huge plausibility holes (the whole donor system seems terribly inefficient) and instead dedicate our attention to deciphering the subtlest of nonverbal cues, often aided by Rachel Portman's grieving score and Adam Kimmel's lensing, which transforms every images into a source for introspection."

Peter DeBruge, Variety

THE TOWN - Harry Gregson-Williams, David Buckley

"Whether zeroing in on a tete-a-tete or following a high-velocity chase through narrow streets built for another century, Robert Elswit's fluent widescreen camerawork and Dylan Tychenor's editing are strong components, as are of the design contribution. The treacly score by Harry Gregson-Williams and David Buckley, on the other hand, tends to distract rather than enhance."

Sheri Linden, Hollywood Reporter

THE NEXT TEN DAYS IN L.A.

Screenings of older films, at the following L.A. movie theaters: AMPAS,American Cinematheque: Aero, American Cinematheque: Egyptian, LACMA, New Beverly, Nuart, Royal, Silent Movie Theater and UCLA.

September 24
MANHATTAN (George Gershwin), L.A. STORY (Peter Melnick) [Cinematheque: Aero]
THE MISFITS (Alex North) [AMPAS]

September 25
DUCK, YOU SUCKER (Ennio Morricone) [UCLA]
MISCHIEF (Barry DeVorzon) [New Beverly]
MONSIEUR VERDOUX (Charles Chaplin)[Silent Movie Theater]
THE MUMMY [Cinematheque: Aero]
REPO MAN (Steven Hufsteter, Humberto Larriva)[Cinematheque: Aero]

September 26
MISHIMA (Philip Glass) [Cinematheque: Aero]

September 27
BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN (Franz Waxman) [UCLA]

September 28
MYSTERIOUS SKIN (Harold Budd, Robin Guthrie), BURY ME IN KERN COUNTY (Roger Neill) [New Beverly]

September 29
BEST WORST MOVIE (Bobby Tahouri), TROLL 2 (Carls Maria Cordio) [New Beverly]
MY LEFT FOOT (Elmer Bernstein) [Cinematheque: Egyptian]
A WOMAN OF PARIS (Charles Chaplin) [Silent Movie Theater]
THE YOUNG PHILADEPHIANS (Ernest Gold), OH, MEN! OH, WOMEN! (Cyril J. Mockridge) [Cinematheque: Aero]

September 30
THE PLAYER (Thomas Newman), THE RAPTURE (Thomas Newman) [Cinematheque: Aero]
S.O.B. (Henry Mancini) [AMPAS]

October 1
ACROSS THE UNIVERSE (Elliot Goldenthal) [Nuart]
TWENTIETH CENTURY, MIDNIGHT (Frederick Hollander)[New Beverly]

October 2
PSYCHO (Bernard Herrmann) [Royal]
TWENTIETH CENTURY, MIDNIGHT (Frederick Hollander)[New Beverly]

October 3
CLOAK & DAGGER (Brian May), WARGAMES (Arthur B. Rubinstein) [New Beverly]

*I'd like to thank our Message Board members, especially Movieben1138, for letting us know of the existence of the Legend of the Guardians CD. As with the exclusive Best Buy DVD releases of some vintage sci-fi/horror movies a few years back, I continue to be mystified by this approach to disc marketing - not even that it's so hard to find these discs, but that it's almost as hard to find out these discs even exist. This morning (Saturday the 25th) I went to the three Borders in my West LA/Hollywood area, and found a grand total of one copy of this CD (I bought it, of course, and at $7.99 it's quite a bargain). It doesn't seem to even be available on the Borders website.

In additional hard-to-find soundtrack news, the German edition of Amazon is currently offering the CD of Herbert Gronemeyer's score to The American, which doesn't seem to be available at the other Amazons. The shipping price from Germany to the U.S. is slightly more than the price of the disc itself, so with luck it will be come easier to find.