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ONE OF GOLDSMITH’S BEST IS NOW NEWLY MASTERED AND AFFORDABLE

No need to worry about those import prices anymore! Film Score Monthly releases Jerry Goldsmith’s masterful Under Fire

Linden, VA – May 5, 2008 – Not only will Film Score Monthly’s latest release please the frugal, it will also introduce one of Jerry Goldsmith’s most original scores to many others.

Under Fire (1983) was one of the best films Goldsmith ever scored in his illustrious career, and it earned him some of his best notices from the mainstream press. The film stars Nick Nolte, Joanna Cassidy and Gene Hackman as American journalists covering the 1979 Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua. A love triangle forms between the characters, coinciding with Nolte and Cassidy’s deepening involvement in the conflict in favor of aiding the leftist rebels.

Goldsmith’s masterful score combines several seemingly disparate elements: full orchestra, cutting-edge synthesizers, guitar solos by the esteemed Pat Metheny, and pan pipes (actually commercial PVC piping cut to Goldsmith’s specifications). The pan pipes for the indigenous peasant uprising were a bit of artistic license in that the instrument is actually native to the South American Andes, not Nicaragua. (When someone pointed this out to Goldsmith years later, he kidded, “Yes, I know that, and where have you been all these years?”)

The Under Fire score is a minor masterpiece, led by the husky Sandinista march blending pan pipes and the eerie tones of Goldsmith’s electronics. The composer’s background in science fiction scores perhaps came in handy for giving an eerie, otherworldly feel to the film’s landscapes of countryside villages turned into bloody warzones. Other themes evoke the love story between Nolte and Cassidy (this melody doubles as the romantic theme for the martyred Sandinista leader – a narrative linking open to interpretation) and the lonely, odd-man-out Hackman character.

Under Fire was, in a way, the “gateway” score from Goldsmith’s primarily acoustic experimentation of the 1970s to the electronic rhythm sections he explored in the 1980s; never before had he used keyboards as such a driving force for the musical constructions, and the synthesized tones do wonders in presenting the central characters’ emotions in a way both intimate and fresh.

Adding to Under Fire’s prestige is the fact that the album, produced by Goldsmith with longtime recording engineer Bruce Botnick, was specially devised to showcase the score as a musical work unto itself. Goldsmith wrote two standalone selections for the record (tracks 1 and 7) and after completing the recording sessions in London decided to record additional overlays and linking material in Los Angeles. The record came out so well that many of the album mixes were retroactively dubbed into the film itself.

Although the record does leave off some notable cues – such as the brief, low-key main title and the equivalent film version of “Bajo Fuego” – no masters could be located anywhere, not even in archival sound, to expand the album. This release features the U.S. CD debut of Goldsmith’s outstanding Under Fire soundtrack album so as to put this superlative work back into circulation at an affordable price. (Existing CDs from Warner Bros. Records in Japan and Germany fetch import prices at best.) The two-track 1/2” album masters have been newly mastered for this edition, and definitive liner notes are provided by Jeff Bond and Al Kaplan featuring archival interview comments by Goldsmith, new remarks by engineer Botnick, and a breakdown of all the film cues combined for the album tracks.

ALL RISE! THE HONORABLE FSM PRESIDES OVER TWO GREAT SCORES

Film Score Monthly presents two classic courtroom drama soundtracks on one CD:
George Duning’s The Wreck of the Mary Deare and Johnny Green’s Twilight of Honor

Linden, VA – May 5, 2008 – Film Score Monthly pleads “NOT GUILTY!”... of ignoring two classic scores for films involving courtroom drama by renowned composers George Duning and Johnny Green, respectively.

The Wreck of the Mary Deare (1959) combined courtroom drama with contemporary maritime adventure as it untangled the mystery of the freighter Mary Deare found drifting in the English Channel. Gary Cooper and Charlton Heston team up as the freighter’s former first officer and a would-be salvage man, with Richard Harris a villainous saboteur.

Longtime Columbia Pictures composer George Duning ventured to M-G-M to score The Wreck of the Mary Deare likely due to the film’s producer, Julian Blaustein. Duning provided an excellent score seemingly inspired by the mysterious hulk of the ship itself, with a churning, nautical bass figure giving way to a lovely main theme that achieves a surprising degree of warmth and hopefulness. Adding a modern color is a Novachord synthesizer, suggesting a sonar ping for the seafaring scenes, and foreshadowing the moods of 1960s television adventures such as Star Trek and the shows of Irwin Allen (some of which Duning scored).

Twilight of Honor (1963) was M-G-M’s attempt to make a feature film star out of Richard Chamberlain, TV’s Dr. Kildare. Chamberlain plays a young attorney given the hopeless task of defending the murderer of a popular businessman in contemporary New Mexico; he diligently uncovers a seedy underbelly of sex and infidelity to the case in order to exonerate his client. Claude Rains, Joey Heatherton, Joan Blackman and James Gregory play supporting roles.

Twilight of Honor was the rare straight dramatic score by Johnny Green (billed here as “John”) in the latter stage of his career, which otherwise comprised musical direction and conducting. Green was M-G-M’s former head of music (1949-1958) who wrote one of the greatest scores of the Golden Age in Raintree Country (FSMCD Vol. 9, No. 19) and penned many standards as a songwriter. Green wrote an unusual, propulsive main title for Twilight of Honor that sounds like the wheels of justice rolling over everything in sight; the entire score is written for brass, woodwinds and percussion (no strings) and also features a tender love theme, delightful “Southern gothic” moods and jazzy source cues. The complete score is presented here; an LP featured only four cuts along with miscellaneous selections from the MGM Records catalog.

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The two-track 1/2” album masters have been newly mastered for this edition, and definitive liner notes are provided by Jeff Bond and Al Kaplan featuring archival interview comments by Goldsmith, new remarks by engineer Botnick, and a breakdown of all the film cues combined for the album tracks.

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Newly mastered and liner notes. Sold. The German release sounded alright, but had no liner notes to my recollection. I'm okay with double dipping on this one. This is kind of embarassing, but I'll go ahead and say it... This will be my fourth copy of this soundtrack; a bootleg CD-R, the original LP, the German release, and now FSM's distribution.

*Sigh* I love Jerry... can't help it.

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Originally posted by Jeron:
The German release sounded alright, but had no liner notes to my recollection.

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Originally posted by Jeron:
Newly mastered and extensive liner notes. How is this not a great selling point for this fine score?

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