Intrada Showcases Unheard Treasures from Goldsmith, Steiner, Conti

Four never-before-released scores by three veritable legends of film music are the latest releases from Intrada over the past three weeks. Works by Jerry Goldsmith, Bill Conti and Max Steiner (with some help from a pair of Disney Legends!) are the order of the day!

Jerry Goldsmith perhaps enjoyed no greater relationship at one film studio than at 20th Century-Fox, where he composed some of his greatest works, from Planet of the Apes to Alien. Intrada’s latest title showcases two scores from 1964: first it’s Shock Treatment, a soundtrack full of typical Goldsmith-esque suspense and some early electronic work. The film, starring Roddy MacDowall and Lauren Bacall on either side of an insane asylum, anticipates some of Goldsmith’s great strengths; ironically, some passages anticipate his work for Planet of the Apes. Meanwhile, Fate is the Hunter (sharing only a name and a hazy theme with the Ernest K. Gann novel of the same name) sees Rod Taylor as a disgraced airline pilot whose last flight left few survivors and Glenn Ford as his old friend who seeks to clear him of any guilt in the process. Goldsmith’s trumpet-based themes and haunting arrangements were among the film’s high points.

Excerpts from both scores were released on a long-out-of-print 2004 box set by Varese Sarabande detailing Goldsmith’s time at Fox, but this new release greatly expands upon both titles, as well as sourcing each from even better-sounding elements.

After the jump, Intrada unleashes another Disney treasure and a premiere score by Bill Conti!

Reissue Theory: “James Bond 007: The Ultimate Collection”

Welcome to another installment of Reissue Theory, where we focus on classic music and the reissues they may someday see. With 50 years of on-screen action and a new film in theaters, the name is Bond…James Bond, and the music is plentiful!

What else is left to say about Ian Fleming’s blunt, British secret agent James Bond? Our 007, licensed to kill, is an international icon of print and, since Sean Connery suavely stepped into Bond’s tuxedo in 1962’s Dr. No, the big screen. Today, the 23rd Bond film, Skyfall – the third to star Daniel Craig as a rougher-hewn 007 and, by nearly all accounts, one of the greatest films in the series – opens in American theaters, guaranteeing the legacy that film producers Harry Saltzman and Albert R. Broccoli created a half-century ago remains as shaken (not stirred) as ever.

Bond soundtrack fans have had much to enjoy in that time period. From Monty Norman and His Orchestra’s brassy, immortal main theme (punctuated by session guitarist Vic Flick’s staccato electric guitar licks), to lush scores by John Barry, Marvin Hamlisch, Bill Conti, Michael Kamen, David Arnold and Thomas Newman, to name a few, to the 23 title themes of varying quality but with boundless cultural currency, music is as vital a part of the Bond experience as martinis, girls, cars and guns. And fans have been lucky: in the 1990s, Rykodisc acquired the rights to much of the Bond soundtrack catalogue (in most cases, controlled by Capitol/EMI). In the 2000s, Capitol itself expanded and/or remastered many of those albums anew. And compilations, from 1992’s rarity-packed double-disc The Best of James Bond 30th Anniversary Collection to this year’s Bond…James Bond: 50 Years, 50 Tracks, have been plentiful as well.

But short of another, even more comprehensive pass at expanding the soundtrack albums to completion (one that seems increasingly like a pipe dream, thanks to the climate of the industry and the varying physical and financial statuses of the scores themselves), one could certainly find worth in a multi-disc box set that would provide the definitive dossier on Bond music. With that in mind, Second Disc HQ’s latest mission file is just that – and you can expect us to talk after the jump!

Soundtrack Surplus: Varese, Intrada, La-La Land Announce List of Heavyweights

Soundtrack fans had a lot of courses to chew on this week, with batches from Intrada and Varese Sarabande landing within mere hours of each other on Monday and Tuesday and a reissue announced for next week by La-La Land Records.

Over at Intrada, fans got to enjoy a new entry in the label’s Special Collection series: Michael Small’s sexy, suspenseful score to The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981). Small’s soundtrack is released in full for the first time anywhere, featuring a handful of alternate cues intended for a soundtrack LP that never materialized.

Intrada’s second release is an interesting one: a reissue of the expanded score to Star Trek V: The Final Frontier by Jerry Goldsmith. As you may recall, La-La Land’s expansion of the album, which combined the complete score with the original soundtrack LP and bonus material, was a sellout not long after its limited release in 2010. Paramount apparently requested it be back in print in perpetuity – now, virtually every classic Trek soundtrack reissue of the past few years is now available in unlimited quantities – and so, with only minor changes in artwork, it can boldly go to your collection once more.

Varese dropped a crazy amount of titles on Tuesday, and you can read all about them after the jump!