As much as I love Newman's original AIRPORT, and the single Cacavas AIRPORT score I have heard (75), I am kind of surprised that no one seems to have mentioned Schifrin's CONCORDE: AIRPORT 79 yet.
That`s actually my favorite score of them all. It is a bit more energetic than the Cacavas scores that I love as well. Anyway I would buy such a box set immediately.
And how about an album of Schifrin`s Starflight: The Plane That Couldn't Land? Also a great score.
After 32 years of wondering if anything other than the handful of "theme" cover versions of "Airport '77" may have existed I found this on a forum, which will remain anonymous as I don't want the poster flooded with requests as desperate as mine was. In the end I elicited the help of the forum founder who relayed: "Once he gets his LPs in a digital format, he will reach out to people." (hopefully myself included).
Anyway - the post went like this (it was in relation to some fan-art cover mockups that had somehow found their way to a vinyl forum): "I have a test pressing acetate with 6 songs from Airport '77. No frills, center label hand written. Has theme/end credits and 4 of incidental background music tracks. Plain white cover. Are either of these the proposed cover art if they hadn't scrapped the soundtrack?? Anyone??"
No other information was forthcoming... sounds very much like what may have been Side 2 of a proposed soundtrack album.
Fingers crossed and will advise as I hear anything.
That is awesome! I had no idea they even considered an LP release of '77.
His large-scale orchestral library music is often spectacular as well - Really showcased some amazing orchestral chops and makes me wish he'd been granted more high-profile projects that would have called for music of that type.
I actually had a conversation with John Cacavas about five years ago when I wanted to produce a CD of Airport 77. He was a real gentleman about it but he said he didn't even have a copy of the tapes himself. He suggested that I go through Universal, a true dead end. They won't even let hm=im have them.
To be done right the soundtracks would have to be from the original session tapes with the music actually used in the film. The opening theme for example was much more dramatic in the opening credits. This would make sense as no album version was ever recorded for 77 and the music would be the original score. The studio rerecording could be included. I would pay fifty bucks just for those two.
Adore these scores/films. Just picked up the new blu-ray box set. Like others I have CDs of the first two.
This has got to be a sure thing thing for Intrada, especially with the Universal connection. Probably not a box set - but certainly separate releases like Jaws.
I had to chuckle when I noticed that the Universal stock sound effects for the bulkhead door opening up in '77 came directly from the malfunctioning elevator in Thoroughly Modern Millie.
Well "Airport '77" scenes in turn were used "Airwolf" season 2 episode 9 "Flight #093 is Missing".
Some time in the early 80's, a local TV station showed AIRPORT 77 in two parts over two nights. Probably in an effort to expand the movie to fill four hours, the station tinkered with the film speed. However, they failed to take into account how this would effect the pitch of some of the voices...
I can remember back in the video-tape days the trailer for "Predator" had all involved have ridiculously low voices. Any lower and it would all have been on a frequency only Elefants and Whales can detect.
Still would love to see '77 and '79 The Concorde released since they've never had official releases. I wonder if any of our labels have these on their radar?
