Kritzerland is proud to present a new release – a classical/film music-related album:
GAIL KUBIK SCENES FOR ORCHESTRA, SCENARIO FOR ORCHESTRA, STEWBALL: FOUR VARIATIONS FOR BAND
Music by Gail Kubik
Gail Kubik is not a name that many are familiar with these days. And yet, he was a Pulitzer Prize-winning composer of both classical and film music. He composed many scores for the World War II documentaries produced by the government, as well as composing the score for the Oscar-winning UPA cartoon classic, Gerald McBoing-Boing. His classical body of work included symphonies, two violin concertos, and others, including his Symphony Concertante from 1952, which won him the Pulitzer.
In 1955, Kubik was hired by Paramount Studios to score their adaptation of the Joseph Hayes novel and Broadway hit, The Desperate Hours, directed by William Wyler and starring Humphrey Bogart, Frederic March, Arthur Kennedy, and Martha Scott. Everyone thought his score was very effective, but very different from other Paramount scores of that era – jagged, atonal, no themes – and ultimately the head of Paramount thought it was simply to “modern” and kept only a portion it, including its main title, and bringing in composer Daniel Amfitheatrof to compose some replacement music.
In 1962, he got another prime scoring assignment, this time for the MGM film, I Thank a Fool, starring Susan Hayward, Peter Finch, Cyril Cusack, and Diane Cilento, a Cinemascope and color potboiler. Kubik wrote an excellent score for the film, which, in another dispiriting turn of events, was rejected and replaced with a score by Ron Goodwin. But, smartly, Kubik wasn’t about to let his scores for either The Desperate Hours or I Thank a Fool go to waste. He fashioned The Desperate Hours into a piece called Scenario for Orchestra, which is basically all the music he wrote for the film, shaped as a concert piece. Then, after the rejection of I Thank a Fool, he did the same thing, this time calling it Scenes for Orchestra.
One can see instantly why his score for The Desperate Hours might have made the head of Paramount a bit nervous – there’s no relief in it, no helpful, hopeful notes or tunes, no comfort – exactly as it should be for that film. They were smart enough to leave the nerve-wracking main title, which does get the film off to a great start. Interestingly, his score for I Thank a Fool begins in the same jagged way, but quickly veers away from that into a slightly more conventional but still uniquely Kubikian musical world.
The final work on the album is Kubik’s 1942 work, Stewball: Four Variations for Band, and it’s quite a delightful piece based on the American folk tune. It’s great to be able to bring this music to CD. Gail Kubik was a real original and his music deserves to be heard.
GAIL KUBIK is limited to 500 copies only and priced at $19.98, plus shipping. This is a PRE-ORDER – CDs will ship by the third week of December, but never fear, we’ve actually been averaging three to five weeks early in terms of shipping ahead of the official ship date. To place an order, see the cover, or hear audio samples, just visit www.kritzerland.com. Also note that your PayPal receipt is the only receipt you get – we don’t send out confirmations beyond that.
And for those who might be interested, a great show reissue, too, out of print for many years, and an album I produced twenty-five years ago.
COLETTE COLLAGE
Music by Harvey Schmidt Book and Lyrics by Tom Jones
Starring Judy Kaye, Judy Blazer, Jason Graae, George Lee Andrews, Rita Gardner, Jonathan Freeman and more
Based on the life of Colette, the Colette project had its origins in a play by Elinor Jones called Colette, starring Zoe Caldwell and Mildred Dunnock with a supporting cast featuring Keene Curtis, Holland Taylor and Barry Bostwick. Harvey Schmidt contributed incidental music, which he played at the piano onstage, and Tom Joes wrote lyrics for three songs which were sung at the beginning of the play. In the late ‘70s, Jones and Schmidt decided to try to make a full-length musical out of Colette’s life and thus begin the long struggle to compress her lengthy and colorful career into the “two hours traffic of the stage”. The first attempt reached its climax (and demise) in 1982 when a very elaborate version produced by Harry Rigby and Roger Stevens closed out of town.
A second version, considerably clarified and shorn of its large cast and elaborate production numbers, was well received when it was presented by the York Theatre Company in 1983. Even so, the authors were not completely satisfied with the results, feeling that some of the better songs from the Broadway version had been unnecessarily tossed aside. And thus it was that in 1991, in a production by Musical Theatre Works at St. Peter’s Church, Colette Collage achieved its final form. That production was sub-titled “Two Musicals About Colette”, and that, indeed, is what it was: two separate one-act musicals based on the same subject.
It’s hard to believe that this studio cast album came out twenty-five years ago. Produced by Bruce Kimmel, with a stellar and brilliant cast, and lovely orchestrations by Larry Moore, the music of Harvey Schmidt and lyrics of Tom Jones displayed the wit and beauty that is unique to them. The score is classic Jones and Schmidt – at once heartbreaking, haunting, and even occasionally hilarious. The original CD has been out of print for many, many years. We’ve spruced up the packaging and the sound and are thrilled to once again make this CD available on its twenty-fifth anniversary. If you missed it the first time around, which is probably the case, now’s your chance to discover this wonderful theater score. And, of course, the great cover art is by Harvey Schmidt.
Colette Collage is limited to 500 copies only and priced at $19.98, plus shipping. This is a PRE-ORDER – CDs will ship by the third week of December, but never fear, we’ve actually been averaging three to five weeks early in terms of shipping ahead of the official ship date. To place an order, see the cover, or hear audio samples, just visit www.kritzerland.com. Also note that your PayPal receipt is the only receipt you get – we don’t send out confirmations beyond that.
Oh, and if you really want obscure, there's this:
THE CREATURE WASN’T NICE
Starring Cindy Williams, Bruce Kimmel, Leslie Nielsen, Gerrit Graham, and Patrick Macnee as Dr. Stark
Written and Directed by Bruce Kimmel
After thirty-eight years, the original director’s cut of The Creature Wasn't Nice finally comes to DVD. Horribly mangled by its producers, the released version, entitled Spaceship and then Naked Space, was not the film that its writer/director wanted. Now you can finally see the original version and judge for yourselves.
Spaceship had a very brief theatrical release and went to cable immediately thereafter, where it became a kind of small cult film due to its young 1980s viewers. But then it was released on home video in a horrible looking DVD, where it was retitled for the second time as Naked Space – not only was that transfer terrible, it was open matte and not in its proper screen ratio.
For decades, writer/director Bruce Kimmel has wanted to get the original cut onto DVD so people could at least see the film he meant The Creature Wasn’t Nice to be. Of course, there would be no guarantees that people would like it better, but at least they could judge for themselves. Thankfully, back in 1981 Kimmel had had the foresight to transfer the original answer print of his cut to three-quarter-inch video. While not of wonderful quality, it at least existed. With the aid of editor Marshall Harvey (The ‘Burbs, Matinee) a few changes were made that Kimmel had never had the opportunity to do, mostly involving a few minor trims and adding more sound effects and music, making a version that was fairly close to what the film would have been if the producers hadn’t taken it away before that work could be done. The producers simply tried to turn it into an Airplane clone (hence the title change to Spaceship), since that kind of comedy was suddenly all the rage. But the film was never designed to be that kind of gag-a-minute-throw-everything-in-including-the-kitchen-sink kind of film.
While the quality of the three-quarter-inch video was not great, thanks to some new technology that became available at the last-minute, the 4x3 letterbox image was able to be blown up to 16x9 without losing any further quality, which was very good news. So, while the image is still obviously a little blurry and what it is, it is, at least, in its proper ratio and everything that could technically be done to improve the image has been done. And, for the first time, music and songs in stereo.
The DVD is loaded with extras, including: BOTH VERSIONS OF THE FILM THREE COMMENTARY TRACKS – one with writer/director Bruce Kimmel, one with Kimmel and star Cindy Williams, and one with Kimmel and editor Marshall Harvey. TWO EPISODES OF OUTSIDE THE BOX, Bruce Kimmel’s critically acclaimed musical comedy web series. THE HONEYMOON SKETCH – a sketch from the TV variety series Dinah and Her New Best Friends, featuring Cindy Williams and Bruce Kimmel and written by Kimmel. RODZINSKI REMINISCES – New 2019 video with Gerrit Graham CREATURE COMFORTS – New 2019 video with Ron Kurowski on playing The Creature THEATRICAL TRAILER FOR SPACESHIP COMPLETE SOUNDTRACK AND SONGS IN 24-BIT
THE CREATURE WASN’T NICE is priced at $19.98, plus shipping. This is a PRE-ORDER – DVD will ship by the first week of December, but could ship earlier. To place an order, just visit www.kritzerland.com. Also note that your PayPal receipt is the only receipt you get – we don’t send out confirmations beyond that.
We have a nine-minute presentation of Desperate Hours on the Intrada "Film Noir at Paramount" set (consisting of four tracks by Kubik and one by Amfitheatrof). I really like it. Is there much additional Kubik music from this score in the Kritzerland presentation? What is the playing time?
We have a nine-minute presentation of Desperate Hours on the Intrada "Film Noir at Paramount" set (consisting of four tracks by Kubik and one by Amfitheatrof). I really like it. Is there much additional Kubik music from this score in the Kritzerland presentation? What is the playing time?
Man, the hits keep on coming. Both new releases are fascinating (I'm already getting the not nice Creature through my Indiegogo contribution). I don't know Colette Collage at all (and still reeling from the release of Philemon by Jones and Schmidt). And Kubik is right up my alley, with great sounding clips.
I knew there was a reason I was waiting to add another title to my Steiner Westerns order - the Kubik music is great. I wonder who the youtuber is who posted both rejected soundtrack re-renderings.
The YouTube videos are from the same source ours is - Mr. Kubik, but ours is from tape, not compressed, and Mr. Nelson has done a fine job, as always. This was part of my batch of tapes from the 1970s. I'm sure like Mr. Glasser, Mr. Kubik sent people stuff.
Miklos Rozsa once mentioned Kubik and THE DESPERATE HOURS. I can't recall why it came up. He said he told Kubik, "If you get that music into the picture, you're the greatest composer in Hollywood!"
Thomas Hilshak's "The Enyclopedia Of Film Composers" doesn't even include an entry on Kubik, and the only other recordings by Kubik I recall were that C.D. by Delos which had his suite based on "Gerald McBoing Boing" and that "Scenario For Orchestra" which was on Intrada's "Film Noir At Paramount" 2 C.D. set. Nevertheless, it's nice to see he's getting some recognition for his symphonic works from this C.D.
Kubik has 11 film title credits including 3 cartoons in FILM COMPOSERS OF AMERICA (1911-1970) by Clifford McCarty. No reference to the re-orchestrated versions here (since they aren't soundtracks).
Kubik has 11 film title credits including 3 cartoons in FILM COMPOSERS OF AMERICA (1911-1970) by Clifford McCarty. No reference to the re-orchestrated versions here (since they aren't soundtracks).
They're perhaps re-configured, not reorchestrated. Simply pull up on YouTube the main title of The Desperate Hours - it sounds exactly the same, orchestration-wise.
Kubik has 11 film title credits including 3 cartoons in FILM COMPOSERS OF AMERICA (1911-1970) by Clifford McCarty. No reference to the re-orchestrated versions here (since they aren't soundtracks).
They're perhaps re-configured, not reorchestrated. Simply pull up on YouTube the main title of The Desperate Hours - it sounds exactly the same, orchestration-wise.
Were any of the three titles on the CD released before? Were their contractual issues that prevented it?
Kubik has 11 film title credits including 3 cartoons in FILM COMPOSERS OF AMERICA (1911-1970) by Clifford McCarty. No reference to the re-orchestrated versions here (since they aren't soundtracks).
They're perhaps re-configured, not reorchestrated. Simply pull up on YouTube the main title of The Desperate Hours - it sounds exactly the same, orchestration-wise.
Were any of the three titles on the CD released before? Were their contractual issues that prevented it?
Kubik is not represented well on CD, which is why I did this. No one's interested, which is why I did this. I believe there is exactly one Kubik orchestral work on CD and I'll probably reissue that at some point in the near future, and have it on hold, licensing-wise. It would have been on this release but it was too long to include it.
Kubik has 11 film title credits including 3 cartoons in FILM COMPOSERS OF AMERICA (1911-1970) by Clifford McCarty. No reference to the re-orchestrated versions here (since they aren't soundtracks).
They're perhaps re-configured, not reorchestrated. Simply pull up on YouTube the main title of The Desperate Hours - it sounds exactly the same, orchestration-wise.
Were any of the three titles on the CD released before? Were their contractual issues that prevented it?
Kubik is not represented well on CD, which is why I did this. No one's interested, which is why I did this. I believe there is exactly one Kubik orchestral work on CD and I'll probably reissue that at some point in the near future, and have it on hold, licensing-wise. It would have been on this release but it was too long to include it.
Many great scores would go unsung if not for people like you Bruce. I'm buyin'.
Kubik is not represented well on CD, which is why I did this. No one's interested, which is why I did this. I believe there is exactly one Kubik orchestral work on CD and I'll probably reissue that at some point in the near future, and have it on hold, licensing-wise. It would have been on this release but it was too long to include it.
Guess I'm a big fat 'No one', 'cause I'm interested. As for those folks who are not interested, they are Stewballs!
Next is the difficult part: how to generate interest amongst Generation 'Z' & millenials for music by caucasian males written in Western European molds?
Is there any FSMer besides me who noticed that the Pulitzer music board/judges awarded its Prize to a hip-hop artist?
