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Thanks for that link Zap!
Even me, a Golden Age grinch, thinks this is a superb score.
i taped it on cassette from a library copy.
Now, hopefully I can own the original!
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I've never heard the recorded tribute, written by Gene Lees, read by actor Richard Hatch, that was included with the first issue of the re-recording.
Today was my first chance to read it. Here, someone appears to have transcribed it:
http://hugofriedhofer.runmovies.eu/?p=1050
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The film is a miracle and one of the greatest ever made - every performance absolute perfection, with a screenplay and direction that are also perfect.
As to why the score doesn't get more attention? How short memories are. This score three decades ago was routinely listed as the greatest film score ever written. It's only with the subsequent generation's becoming obsessed with certain composers and genre scores that this has changed and today so many youngsters haven't a clew about it, and it's shameful, IMO.
This score is everything a film score should be. It has sequences that are so perfect that it takes the breath away - the entire homecoming scene - the bomber scene with Dana Andrews (this scene is textbook film scoring - all Dana Andrews does is sit there remembering - the music makes what he's remembering all too real - brilliant), the finale. It's one for the ages and one only wishes it could have a proper release like A Place in the Sun or It's a Wonderful Life, to mention two that we happily rescued from the trash heap.
It's on Blu-ray now - anyone who professes to love film and who hasn't seen this, should buy it immediately and see what great filmmaking and art is all about.
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I'd love a complete rerecording of this masterpiece...but since we at least have an album for it (albeit an earlier rerecording somewhat different from the original) I guess I should prioritize my Friedhofer rerecording prayers in the direction of Joan of Arc, an otherwise completely lost score...
On the other hand I guess Friedhofer isn't considered to sell well enough for either to come out. 
Yavar
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Yes, but I do think it possible that Best Years or Joan of Arc could be more popular than the titles on that...the market's very different now. No wide distribution but to the collectors at a higher price maybe the more high profile Friedhofer scores have a chance. At least that's what I tell myself.
Yavar
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Not usually a thread bumper but I wanted to see if there'd been any conversation about the original mix vs. the new mix.
I never even knew there was a new mix - now I have it and have gone back and forth between it and the older CD (based on the LP mix). First of all when Lasher says the original close miking favored the xylophone I almost burst out laughing - listen to the original mix - the xylophone sounds like it's down the hall from the rest of the orchestra - nor does the original close miking favor any of the other instruments he lists - the miking has nothing to do with favoring, the mix itself does the favoring. So, what do I hear?
Certainly things have been "smoothed" out a bit in the remix - the strings are firmly over on the left whereas in the original mix they're closer to center, which was always weird. The original mix always had some crudity to it, but it also had detail. The main problem with the remix is not the mix so much as the mastering - it's been mastered about 5db lower than the original and it would seem Mr. Lasher has done everything possible to make it sound like most of the Varese re-recordings, i.e. that washy and distant concert hall sound. Some of the remix is an improvement, certainly, but he even says in the booklet that it's mastered brightly and we should all turn our treble controls down - um, no, you don't want us turning knobs, that's your job, Mr. Producer. It seems to get better as it goes along, but I really hate pumping the sound on my end to have it be at a normal volume level. So, I prefer the original mastering and mix in certain ways because it sounds more like a film score to me. And I prefer certain tracks in the remix - I certainly prefer none of the 2000 remastering. I don't know what's on the eight track tapes, I wasn't at the sessions, but part of me would love to get my mitts on this thing and have my way with it.
All that said, the music's the thing, and it remains, for me, the finest film score ever written.
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