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Posted: |
Feb 13, 2012 - 5:30 PM
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By: |
BasilFSM
(Member)
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INTRADA Presents:
BORDERLINE
Music Composed and Conducted by GIL MELLE
INTRADA Special Collection Vol. 194
Composer Gil Mellé wrote highly experimental music for his film projects, melding orchestral writing with jazz, blending electronics with percussion, and utilizing both pleasant and dissonant harmonies. Yet, even with his history of experimentation, Mellé found the 1980 feature Borderline to be an unusual challenge. He composed over an hour of music but considerably less than that was used in the finished picture. And in an unusual turn of events much of his score was actually recorded twice. His initial approach was brazen, with an array of unusual ideas that were symphonic as well as jazz-based. It is rich with intense harmonies, full of percussion activity, and brimming with significant electronic keyboard effects and featuring a plethora of brass. As it turned out, the producers weren’t fully satisfied with this austere approach and Mellé went back to rescore several sequences, bringing in new and more accessible thematic ideas as well as incorporating a slightly more traditional harmonic language performed by the London Symphony Orchestra. The final film draws from sizeable portions of both scoring approaches, although many cues are heavily truncated in the film and several appear in places different from where they were intended to go.
Intrada's premiere release of Borderline features all the music from the stereo 1/4" masters stored by Denise Mellé.
Borderline is the first of the “Mexploitation” films of the early ’80s featuring predatory smugglers who traffic in illegal immigrants. Charles Bronson plays Border Patrol agent Jeb Maynard, in charge of a group understaffed, underpaid and overworked patrolmen on the southern California border. Ed Harris plays a Marine Vietnam veteran who makes money transporting poor undocumented immigrants across the border to work as cheap labor. When Maynard’s senior deputy, Agent Scooter Jackson (Wilford Brimley), stops a tomato truck for a routine inspection, he discovers it is filled with human cargo. Hotchkiss greets the deputy with a shotgun blast, killing him instantly—along with an innocent teenage boy who is standing nearby. After Border Patrol agents discover the bodies, they call in the F.B.I. Assuming the murders resulted from a drug transaction gone wrong, the federal agents begin to work the case only to find evidence that makes Maynard think otherwise.
INTRADA Special Collection Vol. 194
Retail Price: $19.99
Available Now
For track listing and sound samples, please visit
http://store.intrada.com/s.nl/it.A/id.7445/.f
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Love the samples and cool coverart. 80's action scores are always welcome so ordered!
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Intriguing score by one of the many underrated "mostly-TV" composers of the 70s and 80s. Great sound, too.
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I highly recommend seeing this film if you aren't sure about the samples. Seeing/hearing Melle's score work so well with the film has made this a long time want of mine and may well convince you to get this great score. This seems like a niche score, so thanks Intrada for thinking about the small people.  No matter what score you put out, there will always be those who have fantasized about having it for years or decades and will forever be appreciative. This is one of those scores for me.
Now, ahem...about that Time Bandits thing. ;-p
Off topic: Speaking of Time Bandits, what's the story with that score? It's grail of mine too and I would love to see it released someday by one of the Labels. Is something holding it up from being released? Was it even released on LP?
On topic: I've always been a fan of 80's Action flicks with Bronson, Norris, Arnie, et al. This is a fine sounding score that I look forward to adding to the collection! Thanks Intrada!
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Thanks for your concern, Timmer! I'm right here! I had decided to start a new "spiritual" phase of life in which I would make no more purchases of CDs, but Intrada has gone and wasted that idea for me.
I had an idea that this was in the pipeline, but had really just about given up hope. And at 60 mins it's simply great news - much more music than was in the actual film.
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What, no love for his superb work on Columbo? The guy defined the sound of the show almost as much as Billy Goldenberg!
By the way, did I mention that the complete scores to the entire first season (including the two pilots) fit perfectly on two CDs (barring alternates)?
Yavar
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Quoting a previous post of mine:
The Columbo scores are so good I would prefer complete score releases a la Intrada's superb Amazing Stories sets. I went through my Columbo season 1 set some years ago and wrote down the times (and made up titles) for each and every cue. Since the final episode of season 1 is a tracked score (and less than 5 minutes, too), assuming there isn't any recorded but unused music, the complete scores for season 1 including the two pilot episode scores will barely fit on a two disc set. Here's a post I made at Intrada's board about it (follow the link to see the complete cue breakdowns):
http://www.intrada.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=3369
"Know what I just realized from looking at my Columbo cue lists? Assuming that there aren't many unused cues, and assuming the most of the source music isn't really necessary, and since the score to the final episode of season one is tracked music, THEN...
...all of the original scoring for the pilot episodes and first season of Columbo can fit on one two-disc set, neatly dovetailing with the DVD release! How about it, Intrada? I'd sure as hell would buy a Columbo: Season 1 complete scores set with Grusin, Goldenberg, and Mellé, wouldn't you? I'll bet this would sell a lot better than most feature film scores by those three composers.
And I suspect this would even have some appeal beyond regular film score fans (unlike, say, Amazing Stories). Columbo is a long-running show of great stature and critical acclaim, and it would be a great tribute to Peter Falk (while he's still around and *might* understand).
Here's how I would do it:
Disc 1:
Prescription: Murder (Grusin) - 25:32
Ransom for a Dead Man (Goldenberg) - 28:17
Murder by the Book (Goldenberg) - 13:46 (this is the Spielberg episode)
Death Lends a Hand (Mellé) - 13:47
Total Time - 81:22
Now, I'm pretty sure that even with complete scores this will still fit on one CD, because Intrada would tastefully combine shorter cues into each other, and probably with some crossfading (and taking into account that I erred on the side of caution when listing cue lengths, not wanting to cut any off, so I probably included more silence than was necessary). I would estimate the total time would actually end up around 79:40.
Disc 2:
Dead Weight (Mellé) - 20:00 (this is including the most important "semi" source music which I am almost positive was written for the episode by Mellé)
Suitable for Framing (Goldenberg) - 16:48
Lady in Waiting (Goldenberg) - 20:34
Short Fuse (Mellé) - 21:36
Total Time - 78:58
Again, that total time does not take into account editing/crossfading/combining of shorter cues which I am sure would take place. Additionally, as noted I'm almost positive that several cues in Short Fuse are actually tracked from earlier episodes' scores (like was done for the entirety of the short score to Blueprint for Murder, the final episode of season 1 which Falk himself directed). This would leave more space on Disc 2 for some original source music (possibly include original source from Ransom for a Dead Man here, as it was used in many subsequent Columbo episodes).
As you can see, it's uncanny how well all of these complete scores would fit on two CDs, in chronological airing order and without having to be broken up!
Yavar"
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