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This is a score and a movie I've never heard about, and am excited to hear this new Alfred Newman music. Sounds samples were excellent. I took advantage of the special deal and got the score to Cuba as well.
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I saw this when it was first released and loved it; what struck me most, beyond the principal performances, was the look they managed to achieve. They really put across the look of what living in Germany was like under the Third Reich. I'd never seen a film present it that comprehensively before. Every outdoor shot has people in various uniforms, a very realistic detail, and the casual elements of racism, including a conversation with Holden's friend's wife and her little demon of a son, so devoted to his status in the Hitler Youth. Or the casual shot of an older couple, wearing yellow stars, being escorted downstairs at Gestapo headquarters, as Holden passes, and a couple of people in uniforms nearby are laughing at some joke. Telling, casual details give COUNTERFEIT TRAITOR a depth not often found in such films.
And let's not forget Klaus Kinski's cameo as a desperate escapee, towards the end of the film. (He also has a chilling appearance in A TIME TO LOVE AND A TIME TO DIE, as a Gestapo bureaucrat.)
(Cameos, though? Well, not really, since this was long before his climb to being well known. These are small parts, little better than extras. In the Screen Actors Guild, they'd be referred to as "Under-Five's," with a separate contract, since the part has five lines or less.)
And, speaking of Paramount, what about a new release of A TIME TO LOVE AND A TIME TO DIE while you're at it. Gorgeous Rozsa score, fascinating film. (Douglas Sirk returns to Germany to make an anti-war film about the last days of the Third Reich, starring John Gavin no less!) Originally released on lp, it had a decent, but short-lived, appearance on CD from Japan, which is now rarer than platinum.... (Would love to get the complete tracks. Are they available?)
Thanks for the long paragraph on The COunterfeit Traitor John. A film I've never even heard of before, but I liked how you described the elderly Jewish couple and Holden's passing them on the stairs etc. I found this title at Netflix and hopefully, should have it on Wednesday. The member reviews for the film also sounded quite entusiastic. Unfortunately, I'll have to pass on the album at present. Unless I love the music so much in the film that I must order it.
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Posted: |
Mar 14, 2011 - 12:50 PM
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By: |
Robert0320
(Member)
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I saw this when it was first released and loved it; what struck me most, beyond the principal performances, was the look they managed to achieve. They really put across the look of what living in Germany was like under the Third Reich. I'd never seen a film present it that comprehensively before. Every outdoor shot has people in various uniforms, a very realistic detail, and the casual elements of racism, including a conversation with Holden's friend's wife and her little demon of a son, so devoted to his status in the Hitler Youth. Or the casual shot of an older couple, wearing yellow stars, being escorted downstairs at Gestapo headquarters, as Holden passes, and a couple of people in uniforms nearby are laughing at some joke. Telling, casual details give COUNTERFEIT TRAITOR a depth not often found in such films.
And let's not forget Klaus Kinski's cameo as a desperate escapee, towards the end of the film. (He also has a chilling appearance in A TIME TO LOVE AND A TIME TO DIE, as a Gestapo bureaucrat.)
(Cameos, though? Well, not really, since this was long before his climb to being well known. These are small parts, little better than extras. In the Screen Actors Guild, they'd be referred to as "Under-Five's," with a separate contract, since the part has five lines or less.)
And, speaking of Paramount, what about a new release of A TIME TO LOVE AND A TIME TO DIE while you're at it. Gorgeous Rozsa score, fascinating film. (Douglas Sirk returns to Germany to make an anti-war film about the last days of the Third Reich, starring John Gavin no less!) Originally released on lp, it had a decent, but short-lived, appearance on CD from Japan, which is now rarer than platinum.... (Would love to get the complete tracks. Are they available?)
That was a Universal film.
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Unless something is worked out with whomever owns the album rights, it's a difficult road with Anne Frank.
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Great news! I’m really looking forward to hearing Alfred Newman’s complete score and in stereo. I watched the film on DVD again recently and confess I was hardly aware of the music. For a very long film it’s sparsely scored (I see that the CD includes music cut from the film) and, apart from one or two scenes, is dubbed at a low level. Mind you, I’m the sort of person who can get so engrossed in a film that I am routinely unaware of the music (I often wonder how I ever got interested in film music in the first place!). The film is very well cast, not only due to William Holden - excellent as always - but also because of a host of very well-known (on this side of the Atlantic anyway) European supporting actors. I also loved the location shooting with so many well-known sights, such as the Town Hall Square in Copenhagen elaborately decorated with numerous period vehicles and extras for the wartime setting.
It really is a wonderful film - and somehow it just got somewhat forgotten over the years. But people discover it every now and then and it's always the same - they're just roped in by the storytelling and the performances and the music.
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I saw this when it was first released and loved it; what struck me most, beyond the principal performances, was the look they managed to achieve. They really put across the look of what living in Germany was like under the Third Reich. I'd never seen a film present it that comprehensively before. Every outdoor shot has people in various uniforms, a very realistic detail, and the casual elements of racism, including a conversation with Holden's friend's wife and her little demon of a son, so devoted to his status in the Hitler Youth. Or the casual shot of an older couple, wearing yellow stars, being escorted downstairs at Gestapo headquarters, as Holden passes, and a couple of people in uniforms nearby are laughing at some joke. Telling, casual details give COUNTERFEIT TRAITOR a depth not often found in such films.
And let's not forget Klaus Kinski's cameo as a desperate escapee, towards the end of the film. (He also has a chilling appearance in A TIME TO LOVE AND A TIME TO DIE, as a Gestapo bureaucrat.)
(Cameos, though? Well, not really, since this was long before his climb to being well known. These are small parts, little better than extras. In the Screen Actors Guild, they'd be referred to as "Under-Five's," with a separate contract, since the part has five lines or less.)
And, speaking of Paramount, what about a new release of A TIME TO LOVE AND A TIME TO DIE while you're at it. Gorgeous Rozsa score, fascinating film. (Douglas Sirk returns to Germany to make an anti-war film about the last days of the Third Reich, starring John Gavin no less!) Originally released on lp, it had a decent, but short-lived, appearance on CD from Japan, which is now rarer than platinum.... (Would love to get the complete tracks. Are they available?)
That was a Universal film.
You're right.
Never mind....
(I'd still love to get the complete tracks, though.)
Let's just urge other Paramount releases, like NEVADA SMITH and PLEASURE OF HIS COMPANY.
But, for anyone who likes Newman, his score for THE COUNTERFEIT TRAITOR is a must-have. Gorgeous love theme to break your heart.
Grab this one while you can, folks. Its like may not be seen much again.
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I have to say that if this doesn't sell out it's not going to be so easy to keep doing these kinds of titles. We still have a couple hundred Fear Strikes Out left, which is so surprising. So far this is selling well, though, and if it continues over the next few days, it should be fine. I should have said it was made in 1986 then it would have sold out in an hour 
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Posted: |
Mar 14, 2011 - 7:22 PM
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By: |
manderley
(Member)
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I ordered this score this morning from SAE, but, of course, it won't reach me as fast as ordering from Mr. Bruce. I can wait, though, since I've already waited fifty years for this breathtaking music!
It is so wonderful to know this score still exists in fine form. We are very lucky.
I saw the film when it originally came out and found it exceptional---both in Holden's and, particularly, in Palmer's incredible performance, which I've always remembered---and the reality of the locations. Over the years, I bought the old Laserdisc and also the DVD of the film---but I have to say I have never watched the film again on any of these formats and perhaps never will.
This is no fault of the film---as I think it is a brilliant achievement---this is my personal issue.
As I've gotten older I have found it especially hard to revisit a number of older films I once greatly enjoyed, but that have extreme jeopardy and life-threatening elements which are portrayed in a very realistic way.....Man's inhumanity to his neighbors. This film is one of them---THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK is another, and there are others for me.
I suspect that, in my case, this difficulty has to do with a realization of my own mortality---I am 71, after all, and cheery as I usually try to be, I certainly understand that most of my life is behind me.
Many years ago when I was working at the SAUL BASS company, one afternoon I pulled out some rusty old film cans of newsreel footage we needed to look at for the film montage work on Carl Foreman's THE VICTORS. In the cans were various rolls of 35mm footage of random newsreel shots of The War. As we unwound some of the rolls, it was obvious they were beginning to have nitrate deterioration. It turned out that these particular rolls were newsreel outtakes, never used in the newsreels of the day, and never seen by the general public. This "censored" footage consisted of the most horrifying shots of the concentration camps, its fatal victims, and its barely existing survivors. I think I'll never forget that day which happened when I was so young and relatively naive---and I think it comes back to haunt me even now nearly 50 years later.
I'm sorry to subject you all to my conversation about this, but I'm sure the glorious Newman music will serve to blunt MY feelings and memories. In a way, this Newman music is the one thing I take away from THE COUNTERFEIT TRAITOR that eases my feelings. Perhaps that is what music should always do.
To lighten things up a bit, let me tell you about another moment relating to THE COUNTERFEIT TRAITOR which also happened in the early 1960s. I was once invited with some friends to a "writers" party at the home of writer/producer Lawrence Weingarten. Many well-known Hollywood writers of the time were there, among them the writer/director of THE COUNTERFEIT TRAITOR, George Seaton. Seaton was very well thought of among his peers; For years he and his producing partner, William Perlberg, had been doing very highly respected films in many genres---from MIRACLE ON 34th STREET, to THE COUNTRY GIRL, to THE RAT RACE---among many, many more. I got into a conversation with Seaton, who had just come back from, I believe, the Berlin film festival, where he had premiered COUNTERFEIT TRAITOR to much acclaim. Somehow we got into a conversation about the dubbing of foreign films into English, as opposed to subtitles, and about those American critics who felt that the undubbed foreign-language films seemed better written and performed than their Hollywood counterparts, produced in English. Seaton had felt this way, too, until TRAITOR was shown before a German audience at the festival, and was dubbed into German. Seaton laughed, saying that when he had worked on the film, it was always in English, and he was very proud of it, but when it was dubbed into German, it was a very different animal, and HE thought his own film was much better in a foreign language, too! The argument then became, for him, "Does the language you are unfamiliar with give a particular film a special creative cachet that isn't really warranted?" We'll never really know the answer to that since various audiences like their foreign films either dubbed or sub-titled. But Seaton seemed very amused by that creative question.
A few years after this party I spent some time in Germany in the 1960s, and saw many US films dubbed into German that I had previously seen in their US forms. I must say that, as Seaton indicated, they seemed to have more import and depth than in their original English-language versions; Perhaps all countries should make their films in languages other than their own.
.....I'm really looking forward to THE COUNTERFEIT TRAITOR, knowing that the music will transcend all languages.
Thanks for this fine release, Bruce!
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Holy crow. I'd buy this CD just for the main title alone! Amazing track...
Tough decision. I have the cash, I'm just unsure whether or not to get it now on its own, or wait and bundle it with other future titles I might be interested in...
Edit: Then again, I *am* interested in Ordeal by Innocence as well. Tempting.
Tip- a HOT tip. Buy this cd. I don't know how much you know about Al Newman, this score has one of the most beguiling themes he ever wrote. Check out the movie- it's a haunted, wrenching experience. Trust ol' Steve.
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Listen to the man.
This is Newman in his classic style.
This score is right up there with Newman's best-known work.
A real gem.
Grab it while yiou can.
I've been wanting this legit for years.....
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Chalk another one up for Kritzerland. Mr. Kimmel's trips to the Paramount vaults have been yielding some superb CDs. THE COUNTERFEIT TRAITOR remains writer-director George Seaton's finest hour: an understated World War II espionage drama that eschews easy thrills in favor of a sober tackling of issues such as patriotism, religion, friendship and personal engagement in a time of chaos. At its core is the adult relationship between the characters played to perfection by William Holden and Lilli Palmer. Palmer's performance in particular is heartbreaking; seldom did she get such a good part. Seaton had used her before in ultra-chic roles in a pair of comedies, BUT NOT FOR ME (which he only produced) and THE PLEASURE OF HIS COMPANY, but here he gives her an opportunity to fully display her dramatic gifts. And, of course, Seaton had the luxury of counting on his favorite composer, Alfred Newman, to aid in making TRAITOR such a memorable film. The way the love theme is introduced as source music and then developed as the relationship between Holden and Palmer intensifies is a testament to Newman's unerring sense of how to communicate feelings musically. Bravo!
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Wow! That is some incredible music... And incredible artwork. Ordered, of course. Thanks, Bruce.
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Chalk another one up for Kritzerland. Mr. Kimmel's trips to the Paramount vaults have been yielding some superb CDs. THE COUNTERFEIT TRAITOR remains writer-director George Seaton's finest hour: an understated World War II espionage drama that eschews easy thrills in favor of a sober tackling of issues such as patriotism, religion, friendship and personal engagement in a time of chaos. At its core is the adult relationship between the characters played to perfection by William Holden and Lilli Palmer. Palmer's performance in particular is heartbreaking; seldom did she get such a good part. Seaton had used her before in ultra-chic roles in a pair of comedies, BUT NOT FOR ME (which he only produced) and THE PLEASURE OF HIS COMPANY, but here he gives her an opportunity to fully display her dramatic gifts. And, of course, Seaton had the luxury of counting on his favorite composer, Alfred Newman, to aid in making TRAITOR such a memorable film. The way the love theme is introduced as source music and then developed as the relationship between Holden and Palmer intensifies is a testament to Newman's unerring sense of how to communicate feelings musically. Bravo!
That's one of the most interesting aspects of the score, the way the Marianna theme is introduced as background music in scenes in which she appears. Normally on a CD presentation you might not think that ideal, as it happens a few times in the early part of the film, but it's absolutely integral to the development of it and one of the most interesting ways of introducing a major theme - nobody did this better than Mr. Newman, a genius of the highest order.
And I have to tell you - this thread is my favorite kind of thread on the FSM board - about the movie, the music, and the release. No other unnecessary clutter. BTW, hoping to have this in really early, maybe even the beginning of next week.
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