On the VHS front, I visited the Hollywood's Attic web site. In their TV section they have tapes available from Checkmate episodes scored by John Williams and Riverboat episodes scored by Elmer Bernstein. The amazing Riverboat theme was conducted by Buddy Morrow for his Double Impact album back in the late 50s (it's been re-ished by BMG Spain I believe). The theme shines even in his treatment and I can only speculate, until I order, on how good the original must be.
The good news is that both Of Love Possessed (Elmer Bernstein) and Return to Paradise (Dimitri Tiomkin) can be found on VHS.
The somewhat bad news is that two films with Malcolm Arnold scores that were on video are out of print: Africa, Texas Style and Island in the Sun. Still they were out there at one time so maybe they'll turn up.
One out of print VHS tape I did turn up was an episode of Combat! Both the theme and the episode score by Leonard Rosenman were great. I don't know if the episode was specifically scored or used stock, but if all the episodes have original scores, there is a treasure mine of music to be found in this series.
I also learned about a VHS of a British print of Strangers on a Train that was cut differently from the US version. But I don't know if the scoring is different as it is in the 1945 pre-release version of The Big Sleep, which has different music in some cues than the 1946 version.
The DVD of I Dreamed of Africa has an isolated score.
MGM/Chapter III re-issues--It's great to finally have The VIPs on CD (I know it was bootlegged before but still). Sony didn't issue this in the early 90s when they were issuing other MGM scores like El Cid and Far From the Madding Crowd. It sounds just a tad muddy and is a kind of 3 stars out of 4 for Rozsa, but it's completely worth buying for one cue alone, the English pastiche, "Dutchess of Brighton."
Once again El Cid returns (!) as well and Where Eagles Dare too.
Hotel Paradiso is an Italian flavored score with a solo woodwind presiding over trots and waltzes by Laurence Rosenthal. It doesn't sound as much like Rosenthal as it does Offenbach and Nino Rota. The entire time I was listening to it I also kept thinking of Shostakovich's score to The New Babylon. The Comedians on the same CD is more serious in tone. Once you get past the still-good Caribe source music there are some low-key cues that are nonetheless wonderful.
I wish I could feel as positive about The Biggest Bundle of Them All (Riz Ortolani) and Zigzag (Oliver Nelson). When Bundle doesn't sound like bad Italian restaurant musak it actually has "comedy" cues that have a muted trumpet going wah-wah-wah. The jazz score to Zigzag is much better by comparison but still nothing exceptional IMHO.
I enjoyed The 10th Kingdom by Anne Dudley. Danger: Diabolik is a great 60s score by Ennio Morricone. The problem with D-D is that the original tapes were lost (which explains why there's been no release until now). When this new CD came out, I thought maybe they'd finally found the tapes or they'd booted the missing material from a private source, but alas, the CD comes straight off the film's soundtrack, sound effects, dialogue, and all. Since the film is on Laser and VHS maybe DVD too, the CD is overpriced at its' $30 asking price. I should have asked questions before jumping on it.
Tan Dun's 2000-A Symphony for the Millenium came as a shock. Having heard Crouching Tiger and Nanjing 1937, I wasn't expecting this full orchestra and choir piece of John Tesh-like world music. What I heard was good but I'm still getting used to it.
A CAM CD with 3 scores by Mario Nascembene turned out to be a welcome surprise. La Raggazza Con La Valigia (The Girl With The Suitcase) was a great score for harpsichord and Guitar (Lute?). Estate Violenta (Violent Summer) was more conventional but included a great 4 minute slow jazz source cue. La Mort Di Un Amico (Death of a Friend) turned out to be a great suite of very American sounding crime jazz.
Another CAM Nacsembene score, Gli Atti Degli Apostoli, is really good. The hitch is that of its' 40 minutes, 30 minutes have cuts with lengthy Italian dialogue underscored by the music. There are a few cues played without the dialogue but woefully few.
A CAM CD of two scores by Nino Rota: Accade Al Penitenziario and Un Eroe dei Nostri Tempi, both from 1955, had obvious Rota touches but were ultimately third rate and disappointing.
I saw The Pledge and 13 Days. The Pledge co-written by Hans Zimmer has an OK score. But one world music cue with a soloist singing something African or Polynesian set over shots of Nicholson fishing in a mountain lake seemed glaringly out of place. Trevor Jones score to 13 Days was wonderful from the main title on. But once again, at the film's end, something glaringly out of place--to score the final triumph of the crisis, the strings swell, the trumpets blare, and while the music is well-written in and of itself, it's just too much. The film is somewhat detached and the ending is flat and the film doesn't succeed in conjuring up the emotion it had hoped for and so the scoring is being called on the help boost the feeling but all it does is call attention to the attempt.
Lastly, I have to come around on Zimmer if but for one score alone--The Thin Red Line. Sure, Zimmer is using a trick by mimicking a sound that is already associated with the mystic and religious but he does it brilliantly. TRL is like an Adagio for Strings that lasts an hour or Ives' Third Symphony, a slow low-key work that speaks with great depth. It may not be an American masterpiece, but it's the best thing I've heard Zimmer do so far.
Next time: 2 anime scores (I didn't mention them here because I can't remember how the composer's names are spelled), the 2CD Moross set on Silva and more film music by Aaron Copland.
[Message edited by Lou Goldberg on 02-18-2001]
