that should cover quite a few Newman scores. Please include the short but powerful score to THE GUNFIGHTER. That is one that I have wanted for so many years.
FALLEN ANGEL is fantastic, especially its main title which doesn't sound like a main title but rather like a montage sequence : a real addictive track i keep playing on and on. Gorgeous melodies too for the other scores and a very welcome darker approach in WHIRLPOOL. This set is a gem!
This 2CD set is by far the best purchase I've made all year. I too am stunned that it wasn't an instant sell out. The sound is great for the age of the scores and the booklet has an appropriate noir look. I can't stop replaying the first disc so I haven't yet listened to the 2nd. After reading the replies here I'm looking forward to WHIRLPOOL.
So, if you have any interest in Golden Age scores I highly recommend this if there are still any left.
Bruce, if they are anything like this set I will be in line to buy more of your possible 'Director Series'. Thanks for making so much wonderful music available.
I've been listening to this a lot over the past few weeks. There's some terrific stuff on Disc 1, but I feel it's just a shade burdened - or perhaps "unbalanced", by the quantity of (excellent) source tracks on FALLEN ANGEL. The Mockridge/ Newman score has yet to make much of an impression.
Disc 2 is absolutely brilliant. The two tracks from DAISY KENYON are a treat: that second track is as complex and dramatically engaging as anything Raksin wrote for FOREVER AMBER (possibly my favourite Raksin score).
WHIRLPOOL is startlingly great. I find it totally compelling - Raksin is weaving that appropriately hypnotic spell of his throughout. There's a memorable romantic theme in the LAURA vein, and the whole thing is enveloped in a strange phantasmagorical sense of unease - and inevitable destiny at the same time (and no, I haven't been reading Harry Knowles). Check out that inexorable plodding motif that appears in so many tracks - absolutely riveting.
By the way, the last track on the CD is the trailer music for WHIRLPOOL. The middle section is part of the Raksin score, but both the opening and closing portions of the trailer don't bear any thematic resemblance to the rest of the score at all. It doesn't even sound like David Raksin to me, but I could be wrong about that. Anyway, what's going on there? Here it is on YouTube -
WHIRLPOOL TRAILER - Music by David Raksin and.......?
Just bumping this four days later so that you can all read again how much we like this release, but also to see if anyone can confirm that the trailer music for WHIRLPOOL (see Tube connection - but don't go to Mornington Crescent!) might not be all David Raksin. The middle bit yes, but the bookends?
Graham: You almost convinced me to not buy the set, until you wrote this: "Disc 2 is absolutely brilliant," so 1 out of 2 is probably good enough for me!!!
Graham: You almost convinced me to not buy the set, until you wrote this: "Disc 2 is absolutely brilliant," so 1 out of 2 is probably good enough for me!!!
I like BOTH discs and have played them a lot.
I too hope Bruce will do more Directors at Fox cds.
I think there are only about 30 copies left so if you want it you had better hurry.
Graham: You almost convinced me to not buy the set, until you wrote this: "Disc 2 is absolutely brilliant," so 1 out of 2 is probably good enough for me!!!
Did you buy it or will you wait until it's sold out so you can post how you missed it as in the Poltergeist II thread?
Just bumping this four days later so that you can all read again how much we like this release, but also to see if anyone can confirm that the trailer music for WHIRLPOOL (see Tube connection - but don't go to Mornington Crescent!) might not be all David Raksin. The middle bit yes, but the bookends?
I'll agree with you about the bookends not being Raksin. It's sounds a little too.... uuuh..... "symmetrical"?
Just bumping this four days later so that you can all read again how much we like this release, but also to see if anyone can confirm that the trailer music for WHIRLPOOL (see Tube connection - but don't go to Mornington Crescent!) might not be all David Raksin. The middle bit yes, but the bookends?
I'll agree with you about the bookends not being Raksin. It's sounds a little too.... uuuh..... "symmetrical"?
The very ending music of this trailer.....from about 2:30 to the end.....has been driving me nuts for the last few hours.
Listen to the last seconds of this.....from about 5:47 to the end at 5:52.
Since it's in the "Rio" section of Alex North's ballet for DADDY LONG LEGS, we can surmise that he wrote it for DLL. But of course, North was not at Fox in 1949-50. Is it possible that this style of very short ending in WHIRLPOOL and in DADDY LONG LEGS are by someone entirely different, and that person was NOT David Raksin OR Alex North? Could it have been Alfred Newman, who wanted to tie each of these things up with a kind of multi-beat ending he was so fond of?
This is a special set, featuring Raksin's spellbinding gift for melody. "Lieutenant in Ann's Room" from WHIRLPOOL has great variations of the main theme, and I love how the fast-paced FALLEN ANGEL opening morphs into a cool blues take.
Mockridge's score does have a lot of "Street Scene," but those piano chords that open "Dixon Stiffens," the agitated strings that follow and lead into a quiet, mysterious statement of "Street" on strings, wow.
A great release, easily one of my favorites of the year.
Just bumping this four days later so that you can all read again how much we like this release, but also to see if anyone can confirm that the trailer music for WHIRLPOOL (see Tube connection - but don't go to Mornington Crescent!) might not be all David Raksin. The middle bit yes, but the bookends?
I'll agree with you about the bookends not being Raksin. It's sounds a little too.... uuuh..... "symmetrical"?
The very ending music of this trailer.....from about 2:30 to the end.....has been driving me nuts for the last few hours.
Listen to the last seconds of this.....from about 5:47 to the end at 5:52.
Since it's in the "Rio" section of Alex North's ballet for DADDY LONG LEGS, we can surmise that he wrote it for DLL. But of course, North was not at Fox in 1949-50. Is it possible that this style of very short ending in WHIRLPOOL and in DADDY LONG LEGS are by someone entirely different, and that person was NOT David Raksin OR Alex North? Could it have been Alfred Newman, who wanted to tie each of these things up with a kind of multi-beat ending he was so fond of?
Raksin was famous for his witty and sarcastic cue titles. I've never seen DAISY KENYON, but the cue "Love on the Cape" suggests something the Klingons might have had in mind.
You bring up something interesting, Erik.
I can't remember this cue from the film. After I saw the film, I recalled only one piece outside the main title: a jaunty, odd-meter piece when Crawford and Fonda go on a trip to the seaside.
The piece titled "Love on the Cape" on the cd is fast and violent. Does anyone know which scene it accompanies?
Raksin was famous for his witty and sarcastic cue titles. I've never seen DAISY KENYON, but the cue "Love on the Cape" suggests something the Klingons might have had in mind.
You bring up something interesting, Erik.
I can't remember this cue from the film. After I saw the film, I recalled only one piece outside the main title: a jaunty, odd-meter piece when Crawford and Fonda go on a trip to the seaside.
The piece titled "Love on the Cape" on the cd is fast and violent. Does anyone know which scene it accompanies?
Well here's how wrong I can be.
The movie as it is on dvd has the following:
1 - main title 2 - phonograph source (main theme), used twice 3 - Stork Club source (main theme) 4 - driving to the dock and nightmare scenes 5 - "love music" on the cape and trip 6 - Daisy returns to cape 7 - Daisy drives off in anger 8 - finale
The cd has 2 cuts: #5 titled "Daisy Kenyon" (a small piece of which is tacked on to the end of the main title in the film); and #7 as "Love on the Cape".
I'm always sorry to see source music go missing, especially when it is original stuff, and Raksin to boot. #4 is especially nice as it has 2 of his trademark sounds: an odd-meter, humorous piece, plus a version of that horror-piano sound that would appear later in THE BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL. #6 also has some nice solo cello.
Well, I'm still liking this score, and still smarting that most of the music is unaccounted for. The main theme is especially nice, now after it's second listen*, particularly in the main title.
I also missed that cue #4 contains the song "You Do" before the main theme gets the pop treatment.
