Thanks,

Mark

Vol. 1: GODZILLA, RODAN, MYSTERIANS

Vol. 2: KING KONG VS. GODZILLA (mono tracks), VARAN THE UNBELIEVABLE (including alternate tracks recorded for US version, some of which pop up in Japanese version, NONE of which finally show up in US version! Maybe twelve seconds of Ifukube's score finally does. A shame, I think it's one of his VERY best.)

Vol. 3: GODZILLA VS. MOTHRA (1964), TERROR OF MECHAGODZILLA, DOGORA THE SPACE MONSTER

Vol. 4: ATRAGON, KING KONG ESCAPES, LATITUDE ZERO

Vol. 5: GHIDRAH THE 3-HEADED MONSTER, GODZILLA VS. MONSTER ZERO, DESTROY ALL MONSTERS

Vol. 6: FRANKENSTEIN CONQUERS THE WORLD, WAR OF THE GARGANTUAS

Vol. 7: BATTLE IN OUTER SPACE, YOG: MONSTER FROM SPACE

Vol. 8: THE BIRTH OF JAPAN (not released on US video, but known here variously as THE THREE TREASURES and AGE OF THE GODS -- one of his biggest, most epic films and scores, HIGHLY recommended)

Unnumbered releases (packaged the same way, but not part of the other "numbered" series):

A double with KING KONG VS. GODZILLA (in stereo! a whole other experience!), WHALE GOD, ADVENTURE IN KIGAN CASTLE (aka DAREDEVIL IN THE CASTLE)

A double of the MAJIN trilogy (all 1966)

A double of LITTLE PRINCE & THE 8-HEADED DRAGON (animated film) (one CD is the complete recording, the other is the music as heard and edited throughout the film ... a maddening tic of the later Futureland releases, including GODZILLA VS. MOTHRA and GODZILLA VS. DESTROYER, of which I do not approve at all)

A couple of the numbered series include alternate takes of various main titles and marches. Not quite as interesting as it might sound, it's often just a question of a piano punctuating HERE rather than THERE.

Good luck finding the old doubles, they're long out of print, except for volume 1, which is a perennial. Single CDs of most of the above were also subsequently issued, most with a handful of bonus tracks. All those dropped out of print almost as soon as they were issued -- the company overextended itself badly. (The only ones listed above that were NOT issued as singles were WHALE GOD, ADVENTURE IN KIGAN CASTLE, LITTLE PRINCE AND THE 8-HEADED DRAGON, and THE BIRTH OF JAPAN -- it wouldn't be POSSIBLE to issue that one as a single unless you cut it way down, that score is nearly three hours long.)

Hope that helps.

NP: KING KONG vs GODZILLA *****/*****

Y'know, I just might have an extra copy of Masaru Sato's HALF HUMAN ... fell into my lap as if a gift from the sky ... and there it is ...

NP: DESTROY ALL MONSTERS (by Mr. I)

But above, you DID write: "I was able to get all of the singles issued for the non GODZILLA movies, with the exception of Masaru Sato's HALF HUMAN."

I wondered if that included a few I *didn't* have, e.g. MATANGO, THE H-MAN and THE HUMAN VAPOR ... I waited WAY too long to buy 'em. (Ironic that I ran into an extra copy of HALF HUMAN, considering.) it's okay if you DON'T have 'em, perhaps I misunderstood ...

http://www.idsi.net/larryt/Godzilla/godzilla.htm

To correct one thing: I never even met Mr. Kurosawa, I only wish I did, and God knows I tried, but everyone around him kept up an Iron Curtain. Not because I was such a bad guy (I hope), but because he had a "no visitors" policy in his last years. No "relationship" there at all, alas alas alas alas.

HIGH AND LOW: Japanese title is HEAVEN AND HELL, and I'll tell you frankly, it's a decent picture, but his previous THE BAD SLEEP WELL (1960) is a WAY better exploration of much of the same material. I find HIGH & LOW to be somewhat digressive, although certain sequences are (as is inevitable with Mr. K) completely amazing. Based on an Evan Hunter novel (one of his Precinct novels written under the name Ed McBain.) Masaru Sato's score is sparse but interesting. During the climactic Yokohama sequences, we hear one of his songs from THE H-MAN, either "The Magic Begins" or "So Deep Is My Love" (haven't seen it in a while). Later in the score, the female solo voice as the crazed Tsutomu Yamazaki stalks the heroin-addicted woman through the alleys is absolutely hair-raising, and a direct echo of the climax of Sato's earlier ABOMINABLE SNOWMAN (1955).

HIGH & LOW isn't unique in Kurosawa's ouevre either for its length or its depression ... but it's a fairly clear preview of what he was going to make in what turned out to be the thirty years to follow. (If anything, I think Mr. K lightened up a bit in his final ten years.)

You want to own HIGH & LOW? I wouldn't say not to, but I myself intend to own every Kurosawa before I'm done, so I'm not the one to ask. Just yesterday, over the telephone no less, someone was asking me about the DVD of one of Mr. K's earliest pictures, SANSHIRO SUGATA PART II. All I can do is think about how much I'd love to have every one of them, even the ones I don't like (THE MOST BEAUTIFUL, anyone? Try "THE MOST BORING. A wartime propaganda piece, at heart, but Kurosawa remembered it fondly because he married one of the film's actresses.)

In the case of Mr. Ifukube, you're probably thinking of the tape of Herrmann chamber music I gave him (almost TWELVE YEARS AGO!) that he really responded to.

In the case of Mr. Kurosawa, I did EVERYTHING I could to meet him ... short of the one thing that might finally have worked: just go to his home in Yokohama and STAND OUT THERE FOR AS LONG AS IT TOOK UNTIL HE AT LEAST SAID HI TO ME. (I know it sounds like stalker behavior, but in Japan, it often works. At the recordings sessions for GODZILLA VS. KING GHIDRAH in 1991, I met a friendly Japanese fellow who told me he'd done that very thing; Ifukube noticed him after about half an hour, and they hit it off; today Mr. Ifukube is that fellow's child's godfather. How bout that! You wouldn't get away with that if you tried standing in front of Jim Cameron's mansion, I betcha.)