Some Nice Things We’ve Missed: Quartet Records’ Trio of Sondheim and Double Mancini

As 2012 yielded to 2013, more than a few noteworthy releases may have been lost in the shuffle.  Some of the most impressive of those December releases came from Spain’s Quartet Records.  The label closed out the year with three particularly spectacular titles that no film score buff will want to miss.

Two came from the prolific pen of Henry Mancini, perhaps the most-represented soundtrack composer in terms of 2012’s releases.  Having previously issued the complete score to Curse of the Pink Panther (1982), the label turned its attention to 1978’s Revenge of the Pink Panther.  The last Panther film to star Peter Sellers in his lifetime (the 1982 picture utilized outtakes of Sellers to create a new film), Revenge was previously on CD only in a severely truncated form emphasizing the funkier sounds in Mancini’s score.  The new Revenge features a full 27 tracks, demonstrating the full breadth of the composer’s work and even including alternate takes from the original album issue.  This deluxe package also includes a detailed essay and track-by-track notes from John Takis in its 16-page full-color booklet.

Perhaps even more noteworthy is Quartet’s reissue of Mancini’s original soundtrack to 1985’s Santa Claus: The Movie.  Quartet’s predecessor label Singular Records had released (most of) the original soundtrack album on CD in 2009, but that release was considered lackluster despite the label having done its best with its resources at the time.  The new edition is a completely different case, however: a 3-CD edition presenting the complete film score (34 tracks!), 17 alternates and bonuses, and the original, complete 13-track soundtrack LP, with many themes modified from the originals plus pop songs from Kaja and Sheena Easton.  This new set presents the score in its entirety, remixed from ½″ 3-track stereo and 2″ 24-track session masters housed in mint condition in Abbey Road Studios, London.  The 1985 LP has also been remastered from first generation master tapes stored at Abbey Road.  Jeff Bond provides the annotation for the stellar 32-page booklet.  Though many critics derided the epic Santa origin film as excessive, this release proves that Mancini’s score (also containing songs with lyrics by Leslie Bricusse) was just right.

After the jump: take a trip to the Forum, plus the full track listings and order links for all three titles!

Lastly, Quartet has a surprise with an expanded CD reissue of the 1966 film soundtrack to the screen adaptation of Stephen Sondheim’s A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.  Director Richard Lester’s picture has always been a controversial one to fans of the classic musical farce.  Though it preserved the original performances of Zero Mostel and Jack Gilford and added the titanic talents of Phil Silvers and Buster Keaton, not to mention a young Michael Crawford, the screenplay eviscerated Sondheim’s Broadway score.  The movie preserved just “Comedy Tonight,” “Lovely,” “Everybody Ought to Have a Maid,” “[Bring Me] My Bride,” “The Dirge [Funeral Sequence]” and a couple of reprises, leaving the clever likes of “Free,” “Pretty Little Picture,” “Love, I Hear,” “That’ll Show Him” and the rest nowhere in sight.  Rykodisc reissued the original United Artists LP in 1998 on CD, but Quartet has done that release one better.  The film’s musical director and composer/adapter of its orchestral score, Ken Thorne, has assisted in providing his complete incidental music and bonus tracks.  So the LP’s original 16 tracks (15 on this release, with “Erronious’ Return” and “Orgy Music – Roman Style” combined into one) have been supplemented by eighteen cues (the complete incidental music) and five bonus tracks.  Famed MAD illustrator Jack Davis’ artwork has been utilized for the cover.  This makes for the definitive edition of this soundtrack, and spotlights Thorne’s fine and interesting work in adapting Sondheim’s original music for the necessities of Lester’s film.

All three of these new titles are available from Quartet Records’ website as well as from other fine sites including Screen Archives!

Henry Mancini, Revenge of the Pink Panther (Quartet Records SCE050, 2012)

1. The Mafia Meeting
2. Main Title: The Pink Panther Theme
3. Enter Mr. Chong
4. Not Tonight, Cato
5. The Silver Hornet
6. Mamade Jacque
7. French Taps
8. A Touch of Red
9. Almond Eyes
10. Ode to Clouseau
11. Thar She Blows
12. Move ‘Em Out!
13. Give Me Some Mo’!
14. After the Shower
15. Simone
16. The Fire Escape
17. Balls’ Caprice
18. Welcome to Hong Kong
19. Enter Scallini
20. Simone (Piano Lounge)
21. To the Shipyard
22. Before the Fireworks/Hong Kong Fireworks
23. Salute to Clouseau
24. Finale – The Pink Panther Theme
25. Main Title – The Pink Panther Theme (Album Version)
26. Hong Kong Fireworks (Album Version)
27. Thank Heaven for Little Girls (Album Version)

Tracks 25-27 from United Artists LP LA 913-H, 1978.  Portions of other tracks also appear on this LP.

Henry Mancini, Santa Claus: The Movie (Quartet Records SCE052, 2012)

CD 1: The Film Score

1. Main Title: Every Christmas Eve/Santa’s Theme
2. North Star/Arrival of the Elves
3. Santa’s New Home
4. The Magic Workshop
5. Reindeer Stable
6. Making Toys (Film Version)
7. Season’s Greetings
8. The Ancient One
9. Santa Claus/First Sleigh Ride/Christmas Rhapsody
10. Naughty or Nice
11. Into the 20^th Century
12. It’s Christmas Again
13. March of the Elves
14. Table Scraps
15. A New Sleigh Ride/Santa Meets Joe
16. Sleigh Ride Over Manhattan
17. Cornelia’s Home
18. Bad Toys
19. Sad Patch
20. Vanishing Elf
21. No Free Toys
22. Present for Joe
23. Patch, Natch!
24. Patchmobile/Patch Versus Santa
25. Lollipop Fight
26. Stronger Formula
27. The World is Different
28. A New Doll
29. Eavesdropping

CD 2: The Film Score (Tracks 1-5), Plus Bonus Material (Tracks 6-22)

1. Letter from Cornelia
2. Elf Portrait
3. Flight from Police
4. To the North Pole/Super Duper Looper/Reunited Again
5. End Titles/Thank You, Santa
6. Every Christmas Eve (Alternate Lyrics)
7. Making Toys (Children’s Choir)
8. Making Toys (Carousel Version)
9. Making Toys (Men’s Choir)
10. Making Toys (Instrumental Alternate)
11. Patch Versus Santa (Alternate)
12. To the North Pole (Alternate)
13. Thank You, Santa (Alternate Vocal)
14. Every Christmas Eve (Instrumental)
15. It’s Christmas Again (Instrumental)
16. It’s Christmas Again (Christmas Bells)
17. Chopin’s Waltz (Source)
18. Patch, Natch! (Instrumental)
19. Thank You, Santa (Instrumental)
20. Patch Toys (Percussion Insert)
21. Christmas Jingles (Rehearsal)
22. Making Toys (TV Spot)

CD 3: The Album

1. Main Title: Every Christmas Eve/Santa’s Theme
2. Arrival of the Elves
3. Making Toys
4. Christmas Rhapsody
5. It’s Christmas Again
6. March of the Elves
7. Patch, Natch!
8. It’s Christmas All Over the World – Sheena Easton
9. Shouldn’t Do That – Kaja
10. Sleigh Ride Over Manhattan
11. Sad Patch
12. Patch Versus Santa
13. Thank You, Santa

Stephen Sondheim and Ken Thorne, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (Quartet Records SCE051, 2012)

1. Tibia Solo into Comedy Tonight
2. Search for Mare’s Sweat
3. Lovely
4. Tintinabula’s Dance
5. Vibrata’s Dance
6. Roman Emissary
7. Everybody Ought to Have a Maid
8. Riot at the Funeral
9. Domina Returns (Fanfare) into My Bride
10. Erronious’ Return/Orgy Music, Roman Style
11. Lovely (Reprise)
12. In the Arena
13. The Dirge
14. The Rescue of Philia into The Chase
15. Comedy Tonight and Playout
16. 2M4
17. 2M5
18. 3M3
19. 4M1
20. 5M1
21. 5M2
22. 6M1
23. 6M3
24. 6M4
25. 7M1
26. 7M2
27. 7M3
28. 7M4
29. 7M7
30. 8M1
31. 10M1
32. 10M2
33. 11M2
34. Comedy Tonight (Instrumental)
35. Lovely (Instrumental)
36. My Bride (Instrumental)
37. Everybody Ought to Have a Maid (Instrumental Excerpt)
38. Fanfares

Tracks 1-15 from United Artists LP UAS 5144, 1966
Tracks 16-38 previously unreleased