The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1968)

Limited Edition of 3,000 Copies.
Composed by: Dave Grusin

One of the finest dramatic scores of the 1960s—and an important early work of Dave Grusin—gets a deluxe CD treatment from Film Score Monthly: The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1968), for the acclaimed adaptation of Carson McCullers’s popular Southern novel starring Alan Arkin and Sondra Locke.

The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter stars Arkin as John Singer, a deaf-mute who moves to a small town while trying to become the legal guardian of a fellow deaf-mute (played by Chuck McCann) who has been institutionalized. There he touches the lives of a group of disparate people, including a sensitive teenage girl (Locke) whose family has money problems; a proud black physician (Percy Rodrigues) at odds with his daughter (Cicely Tyson); and a self-pitying, troublemaking drunk (Stacy Keach Jr.). Like many dramas during the turbulent ’60s—especially those set in the South—the film explores themes of alienation and racism as its outsider characters struggle to communicate with each other and find their place in society.

Dave Grusin had mostly television credits when he scored The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, and the project was a feature-film breakthrough that produced one of his signature scores—Grusin is renowned for his works for contemporary adult dramas that blend orchestral, pop and keyboard elements and this was more or less the first. Faced with a lead character who did not speak in verbal dialogue, and a story rich in emotion, Grusin wrote a beautifully restrained yet melodic score that delicately evokes the film’s unstated emotions. The main theme is a gentle harpsichord melody for Arkin’s deaf-mute, with a bridge expressing the great melancholy within the character, while secondary themes apply to the supporting cast.

While films today tend to have their source music (car radios, stereo systems, etc.) licensed from existing works, in the 1960s it was common for the film’s composer to custom-generate these pieces. This was the case on The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter as Grusin worked with country-western, rock and blues vocalists to generate the appropriate tracks, many of which were featured on the film’s soundtrack LP.

FSM’s expanded CD of The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter is broken into three sections, all of them newly remixed and remastered from the ½" three- and four-track stereo masters: first is the 1968 Warner Bros. LP program, interspersing source music and underscore cues; then a 31:09 program of just the film’s dramatic score, some of which is repeated from the LP tracks but placed here in chronological order; and an additional four tracks of source music. Liner notes are by Jeff Bond and Lukas Kendall, including new comments by the composer.

Tracklist:

Main Title 3:12
Visiting Hours 2:31
Beyond the Reach of Love (Vocal) 2:41
Married People 2:41
Symphodelic (Mozart’s “Haffner” and “Swampy Four”) 3:25
Drop Out 1:25
I Can’t Afford to Let You Go (Vocal—Mac Davis) 2:57
Growing Pains 2:43
Dr. Copeland 1:45
Elizabeth (Vocal) 2:38
Aftermath 2:18
The Color of the Wind (Vocal—Mac Davis) 2:40
Pipes of Pan (Vocal) 2:20
The Last Walk—Why? 3:18
End Title 1:12
Total Time: 38:16

Score Program

Main Title 3:13
20 Dollar Guest/If You Wasn’t My Sister 1:38
I Hate You (revised) 1:31
I Hate You 1:32
Lullabye 0:53
Dr. Copeland’s Waiting Room 1:21
Alone Again 1:16
Eye to Eye 1:00
Early Jean Shrimpton 1:07
Long Face/Visiting Hours 2:39
Uncle Tom Willie 2:20
Drop Out 2:01
Married People (revised) 1:35
Fellini Follies/Aftermath 2:27
Thank You/Reunion 1:35
Last Walk/Why? 3:17
End Title 1:12
Total Time: 31:08

Bonus Source

Boots 2:01
Gutbucket Stomp 2:31
Short and Sacriligeous 1:21
Sunday Morning Woman 3:27
Total Time: 9:27

Total Disc Time: 79:03

Captain Nemo and the Underwater City (1969)

Limited Edition of 1,500 Copies.
Composed by: Angela Morley

FSM resurrects a delightful fantasy score—and offers a tribute to the great composer Angela Morley (1924-2009)—with the premiere CD of Captain Nemo and the Underwater City (1969), a Jules Verne-inspired family adventure produced at M-G-M’s British studios, starring Robert Ryan, Chuck Connors, Nanette Newman and Luciana Paluzzi.

Angela Morley (a/k/a Walter “Wally” Stott, as billed on the film) was a remarkable English composer, arranger and musician with a long history in the U.K. record and film industries and, more recently, U.S. television such as Dallas, Hotel, Falcon Crest. She received Oscar nominations for her adaptation work on The Little Prince (1974) and The Slipper and the Rose (1976); wrote the admired score to Watership Down (1978); and contributed to the orchestrations of some of John Williams’s best-known scores such as Star Wars, Superman and The Empire Strikes Back.

Morley’s charming symphonic score to Captain Nemo and the Underwater City highlights the film’s fanciful underwater seascapes with a mixture of classical and modernist approaches. The main theme is a buoyant waltz (evoking the Victorian era) and the atmosphere generally light, though it darkens and pulses for the film’s adventure and suspense (such as scenes involving the undersea “Mobula” monster). Like many “B” sci-fi/fantasy films, this production may have fell into relatively obscurity, but its score captivated youngsters who caught it on television and searched in vain for a soundtrack album—until now.

FSM presents the complete score to Captain Nemo (recorded in England) newly mastered from the original ½” three-track stereo tapes. Liner notes are by Jeff Bond and Alexander Kaplan.

Tracklist:

Music Composed by Walter Stott aka Angela Morley

Conducted by Marcus Dods

Main Title 1:50
Underwater 3:39
Return to Templemer 1:28
Introduction to Banquet 1:23
City View/Pool 1:10
To Sea/Fish Farm/Shark Fight 10:20
Changing Room 2:40
Martineau and Organ 2:37
Exit Gold Machine 1:12
Tavern 3:14
Mobula Attack 1:01
Gold Ray/Pool 1:36
Escape Attempt 5:04
Repairing Boat/Forbidden Area/Templemer Future 3:00
Sting/Lead Up to Mobula Attack/Mobula 4:18
Gold Room 1:04
Escape 4:33
Escape From City 1:58
Chase, Part 1 0:42
Chase, Part 2/Joab’s Death—Mala Letter/Rescue From Sea/End Title Music 6:21
All Sea’s Day 1:37

Total Time: 61:35

James