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Kritzerland is proud to present a world premiere limited edition soundtrack CD release – two great film scores on one great CD:
THE FAR HORIZONS
Music Composed and Conducted by Hans J. Salter
and
SECRET OF THE INCAS
Music Composed and Conducted by David Buttolph
Two movies from the Golden Age, both starring Charlton Heston, a double bill in the old style – well-made pictures designed solely to entertain.
The Far Horizons holds the distinction of being the only major motion picture made about the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Based on a fictional novel by Delia Gould Emmons, the film combined fact and fiction in its depiction of the two-year expedition. Heston played Lt. William Clark; co-starring as Captain Meriwether Lewis was Fred MacMurray. The director was Rudolph Mate, and the film was shot in gorgeous Technicolor and Paramount’s then-new widescreen process, VistaVision, by Daniel Fapp. And it has a terrific score by Hans J. Salter.
For a composer whose name is rarely included among the top composers for film, Hans J. Salter scored an amazing number of beloved horror and sci-fi films, including Man Made Monster, The Black Cat, The Wolf Man, Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, Son of Dracula, House of Frankenstein, Creature from the Black Lagoon, This Island Earth, The Mole People and The Incredible Shrinking Man, but he was equally at home in every genre and wrote great scores for such diverse films as Hold That Ghost, Fritz Lang’s Scarlet Street, The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry, Magnificent Doll, The Reckless Moment, Against All Flags, The Black Shield of Falworth, Autumn Leaves, Hold Back the Night, Come September, If a Man Answers, and Bedtime Story, to name but a few from his extraordinarily prolific career. And he also scored a number of western and adventure films, including Bend of the River, The Far Country, Man Without a Star, Wichita and many others.
His score for The Far Horizons is a majestic beauty, with a wonderful main theme that gets plenty of variations, along with some great dramatic scoring. For this CD, we present all the surviving cues, which thankfully constitute most of the score. It’s movie music in the grand tradition – full-bodied, emotional, and filled with melody. The score is presented in mono.
Here’s the plot for Secret of the Incas: A legend says that the Inca Empire was destroyed by the gods when a starburst of gold and jewels was stolen from the Temple of the Sun many centuries ago. The legend continues that the empire will be reborn once the treasure is returned. Now, an adventurer is seeking the treasure, as is his nemesis. The adventurer wears a brown leather jacket, a fedora, tan pants, and an over-the-shoulder bag and revolver. Sound familiar? Can we say Indiana Jones? But this was 1954, and the adventurer was Harry Steele, played by Charlton Heston. Secret of the Incas was definitely an inspiration for the Indiana Jones series. It was and is a fun picture. Shot on location in Peru at Cuzco and Machu Picchu (the first major Hollywood film to shoot at those locations), with a great cast that, in addition to Heston, included Thomas Mitchell, Robert Young, Nicole Mauray, and the then very popular exotic singer, Yma Sumac. Helping to make it so much fun is the film’s musical score by David Buttolph.
Like Hans J. Salter, David Buttolph is a bit of an unsung film composer. Buttolph, over the course of his extremely prolific career, scored hundreds of films, including some pretty great movies such as This Gun for Hire, The House on 92nd Street, Somewhere in the Night, 13 Rue Madeleine, The Brasher Doubloon, Kiss of Death, The Enforcer, House of Wax, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, Phantom of the Rue Morgue, Long John Silver, The Lone Ranger, The Horse Soldiers, and PT 109. He also moved into television scoring, working on such series as Laramie, Wagon Train and The Virginian.
Buttolph’s score for Secret of the Incas is exotic and adventure-filled like the film. Because of Yma Sumac’s involvement, it was decided to use a piece of music that was from one of her albums, specifically “High Andes” by Moises Vivanco, which Buttolph uses sparingly. Otherwise, Buttolph has memorable themes of his own, underscoring all the adventure, romance and thrills. For this CD we present all the surviving film cues in glorious stereo sound.
THE FAR HORIZONS/SECRET OF THE INCAS is limited to 1000 copies only. The price is $19.98, plus shipping.
CD will ship the first week of August, but preorders placed at Kritzerland usually ship one to five weeks early (we’ve been averaging four weeks). To place an order, see the cover, or hear audio samples, just visit www.kritzerland.com.
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In a season of happy Kritzerland surprises, this is one of the happiest surprises imaginable. All these years, I've been under the impression that there were only a few surviving tracks from this major Salter score, the tracks which Tony Thomas included on his LP anthology of Salter western scores. Hans was proud of his theme for Donna Reed's character, and I'm sure he would have been delighted to know that this score is finally going to be heard in this expanded form. God knows I am.
Bravo Bruce!
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These are two movies I'm unfamiliar with. That, along with the delicious samples, has persuaded me to order a copy. Really looking forward to hearing the music.
Bruce, in light of your comment in another Kritzerland thread, I'll try to comment more on the releases once I get them.
The amount of research and time spent remastering these releases is considerable, and I'm sure you and everyone else involved would love to hear more feedback.
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The audio clips sound very exciting, especially SECRET OF THE INCAS! And i know someone who is already frantic about FAR HORIZONS -- my dad gave me a call about it in the afternoon short after the announcement!
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Posted: |
Jun 17, 2013 - 1:55 PM
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By: |
manderley
(Member)
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Over the years I think that Spielberg has acknowledged that SECRET OF THE INCAS was an influence on his RAIDERS film and the INDIANA JONES character.
What he hasn't talked about much is the obvious influence of two other films of the same period, with all three films released in little less than a 5 month period.
The first is an English Technicolor production called SOUTH OF ALGIERS, starring Van Heflin and Wanda Hendrix, filmed on location in Algeria in 1953, which involves a search for a golden mask in an undiscovered tomb. There are a number of elements in this film which turn up in RAIDERS, and, in fact, the US Title of the film is THE GOLDEN MASK. It was released in the US by United Artists on March 1, 1954.
Next up was the aforementioned SECRET OF THE INCAS, with its own golden medallion, shafts of light in the tomb, and archaeologist hero. It was released on June 6, 1954.
Finally, there is VALLEY OF THE KINGS, an MGM color production filmed in Egypt in 1953, starring Robert Taylor and Eleanor Parker. This one has the hunts through the bazaars for clues and information, the archaeologist hero, and the hidden tomb to be revealed. It was released on July 23, 1954.
As you can see.....within a 4-5 month period, Mr. Spielberg---then Master Spielberg, nearing 8 years old in 1954---could well have seen one or all of these three films, and likely did, if he went to the movies regularly. I certainly did, and enjoyed them all---and they left lasting impressions on me. The actual filming on exotic locations was also a plus for the visuals of each film.
(It might also be pointed out that Spielberg could have been primed for the above three movies after seeing TREASURE OF THE GOLDEN CONDOR, a 20th Century-Fox Technicolor adventure picture released in February, 1953, starring Cornel Wilde. This one concerned a search for hidden treasure in the lost world of the Mayans, and was photographed on location in Guatemala.)
It is curious that four films, all involving a search for mysterious hidden treasure, all filmed in color, all filmed in exotic locations, and all involving an archaeologist hero, could have been shot and released by 4 different companies in such a short time span.
It is also curious that we've now had 3 of the 4 music scores released---TREASURE OF THE GOLDEN CONDOR, by Sol Kaplan, on Intrada, VALLEY OF THE KINGS, by Miklos Rozsa, on FSM, and now SECRET OF THE INCAS, by David Buttolph, on Kritzerland. It's unlikely we'll ever get the music of THE GOLDEN MASK---it's probably long gone by now. It was composed by an Englishman named Robert Gill (a name I've never heard before), who died in 1955 at the young age of 38, only several years after doing this score.
Once again, Bruce has done it, and this CD will be a delight to have, not only for INCAS, but also for the FAR HORIZONS score.
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These are two movies I'm unfamiliar with. That, along with the delicious samples, has persuaded me to order a copy. Really looking forward to hearing the music.
Bruce, in light of your comment in another Kritzerland thread, I'll try to comment more on the releases once I get them.
The amount of research and time spent remastering these releases is considerable, and I'm sure you and everyone else involved would love to hear more feedback.
It is always lovely when people post after hearing the music, especially for unknown scores like these.
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My God, this is AWESOME!
I'm ordering two copies ASAP, one for me and one for my friend who is a huge fan of this type of music.
By the way, here's the ultimate site for everything Secret of the Incas related: http://www.secretoftheincas.co.uk/
Definitely worth a look.
Fun site!
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I'm out of town right now and I don't have it on this computer.