Do any of you have some film titles in this category you can share, as well as any understanding you might have as to why music had to be changed in these instances? I recall at various times people talking about music subsequently being changed from how they heard it in their youth, but I can't recall any specific titles that were mentioned.

Also, is anyone knowledgeable in cases where a film was released simultaneously with two different scores -- one in the U. S., and another overseas -- and why this was done? I know some Italian sword-and-sandal films and other foreign films were released in America with different scores than they had in their original foreign releases.

Most of the time when music is changed years later it's because of copyright issues. This happens more often with songs that have been licensed for use in a show or a film. For instance, I've heard that the DVDs for the TV show "Felicity" that are out now contain very few of the songs that were used in the broadcast version, because the rules are different for home video releases.

There are times when this happens with scores, though. If you look around John Ottman's web site you'll find that he did a replacement score for McLintock for a small home video company that had somehow secured the rights to release the film, but for whatever reason had not been able to secure rights to the music.

I believe the US distributor shortened the film, which made the re-score necessary.

http://www.johnottman.com/projects/features/mclintock/index.html

Also, you can go to Don Davis's web site and listen to some alternate cues from The Matrix Reloaded. There's "Multiple Replication," which was written for the Burly Brawl sequence before Juno Reactor got a hold of it, and "Chateau Swashbuckling," which was the alternate for the Rob Dougan track "Chateau."

Here's the link:
http://dondavis.filmmusic.com/audio.html

Kirk

Why was this done? I have no clue. It's probably because somebody was a huge idiot.

I seem to recall that one of the original STAR TREK episodes, perhaps "The City On The Edge Of Forever", incorporated a song called "Goodnight Sweetheart" which had to be changed in more recent re-runs when the rights expired.

Several Italian-produced horror movies from the sixties, such as BLACK SABBATH, had Roberto Nicolosi's original scores replaced on their American release by newly-composed works by Les Baxter.

Sticking with Les Baxter for a moment, British composer Wilfred Josephs had this to say (in John Williams' - no, not that one - "TV Composer Guide": "There were 38 murders and a massacre in CRY OF THE BANSHEE, which starred Vincent Price. I wrote a complete score and was paid for it, but when I finally saw it here I found it had a jazz score (sic) by Les Baxter. Apparently Hollywood had decided it wanted a jazz score and brought in another composer." I've seen that film in Britain, and it did indeed have a score by Baxter, but when I caught it recently on Spanish TV they used the Josephs score.

Another thing over at FSM on the same topic reminded me that many of AIP's films from the 60s (WITCHFINDER GENERAL, SCREAM AND SCREAM AGAIN, CURSE OF THE CRIMSON ALTAR etc) had synth scores tracked in by "Kendall Schmidt" when released through Orion.