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| • | Newest Major Reviews: | . | • | This Week's Most Popular Reviews: | • | Best-Selling Albums: | ||
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1. Nim's Island 2. The Life Before Her Eyes 3. Horton Hears a Who! 4. Leatherheads 5. The Spiderwick Chronicles | . | . |
1. Moulin Rouge 2. Gladiator 3. POTC: Curse of the Black Pearl 4. Star Wars: A New Hope 5. Edward Scissorhands |
6. Pearl Harbor 7. Schindler's List 8. Titanic 9. Braveheart 10. Home Alone | . | . |
1. Varèse Sarabande 25th 2. The Last of the Mohicans 3. Legends of the Fall 4. Schindler's List 5. LOTR: Return of the King (Set) |
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Filmtracks Recommends:
Buy it... both the 2000 re-recording and the 2004 issue of the LP recording if you are a John Barry collector, for both albums have different strengths. Avoid it... the 2004 CD of the LP if you wish to hear the full hour-long score that was re-recorded on the 2000 album and/or you don't care for the song. Filmtracks Editorial Review:
Having just completed Thunderball with the same set of collaborators, the grand success of Born Free's music was more of a mistake than the intent. Arguments over the level of scope for the score, as well as the vocals that would accompany Barry's theme for the song were still under debate when the song, performed by Roger Williams, launched itself to the top spot on the American music charts. So popular was Barry's theme that it was eventually performed by over 600 artists around the globe and adopted as one African nation's national anthem. With that success, Barry's score seems rather mellow in comparison. While still retaining a theme of noble stature for the lions and the landscape, Barry chose to avoid the grandiose string style that he would eventually become even more famous for (against the wishes of the director). The end result of Born Free is a more playful endeavor. As usual, though, Barry's more simplistic habits of composition cause the main theme to be inserted in practically even place possible, with slight variations between performances. Only in a few places does he unleash a mass of thematic romp with all the players, though, as he did with Zulu. The elephant stampede track, and its use of brass to mimic the animals, is of special note. Like many films at the time, a separate recording was made specifically for the LP album release. Barry was never happy about the performance of the music in the film (performances that included a considerable number of errors by the players), but the album was of superior quality. The recording was made in vibrant stereo, as many of Barry's scores were, and with some remastering, the LP sounds just as dynamic today as a modern recording. The fate of the original film recording is unknown (the tapes may be lost forever), but the album masters survive, and in 2004, Film Score Monthly released 40 minutes of the score from those album masters as part of the label's Silver Age Classics series (but not a limited run production in this case). Interestingly, Barry had recorded nearly an hour of music for the 95-minute film, so there is material from the film that has never made it in original form onto an album. The FSM album does have the Oscar-winning song performed vocally by Matt Monro (the original version-- and while dated, especially with those dainty flutes fluttering in the background, it's a good tune), and their album package is strong as usual. There does remain an alternate source of music for Born Free, however, from the year 2000. A re-recorded album that year was a continuation of the collaboration between conductor Frederic Talgorn and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra (following the "Hollywood '99" theme of compilation a few months previously). The performances in this interpretation are steady and enjoyable, though Talgorn is one step behind conductor Nic Raine and the City of Prague Philharmonic is capturing the essence of John Barry's works (the latter group re-recorded both Zulu and Raise the Titanic at roughly the same time with great success). The Varèse Sarabande label, under the guidance of executive producer Robert Townson, has pressed re-recordings of other best-selling Barry works, including Body Heat, Out of Africa, and Somewhere in Time. It's easy to understand why Born Free was chosen as the next installment, given the success of the song and score back in the 1960's. But many fans would likely rather have heard a re-recording of another Academy Award winner for Barry in the 1960s, The Lion in Winter (something which the City of Prague Philharmonic did eventually do). While the Varèse Sarabande album does not feature the song in its pop form, it does have nearly the entire hour-long score represented. Thus, if you're a true John Barry collector, then you'd be best served by purchasing both the Varèse Sarabande and Film Score Monthly albums.
2004 FSM Album: *** Overall: ***
Insert of the 2000 Varèse Sarabande album includes notes about the score, but little about the recording process of the album, or Frederic Talgorn's involvement with the RSNO. The 2004 FSM album contains the usual excellent quality of pictorial and textual information established in other albums of FSM's series, with extremely detailed notes about the film and score. The FSM press release is as follows:
Key to the film's success is its famous score by John Barry. Barry was red-hot from his work on James Bond films and Zulu (1964), and Born Free would cement his reputation as one of the most vibrant composers of the 1960s -- if not of all time. Barry's main theme -- given lyrics by Don Black and sung by Matt Munro -- became a pop sensation and one of the world's most recognizable movie songs, a veritable cultural landmark. The song "Born Free" has been so successful that it has overshadowed the rest of the score, which is a thoroughly satisfying, romantic and dramatic work. Barry maintains the predominant tone of Disneyesque charm but ranges from dark, suspenseful passages (for the hunting of a man-eating lion) to buoyant setpieces for Elsa's development, and a heartbreaking finale as Elsa is returned to the wild. The sound is symphonic, but with ethnic African touches (in Barry's inimitable style); the score is a far more serious and diverse work than most people realize. Barry was rushed in his film recording of Born Free and at his insistence performed it again for album release (on MGM Records). This premiere CD release presents the 39:55 LP program, remastered from 1/4" stereo tapes. New, authoritative liner notes by Jon Burlingame tell the heretofore unknown story of the film's development and production, and feature new interview material with Barry and Black. SYNOPSIS - Born Free is the heartwarming true story of a British couple who teach their pet lioness how to survive in the wilds of the African jungles. Joy and George Adamson (portrayed by real-life married couple Virginia McKenna and Bill Travers) involuntarily domesticate several lions while living in Kenya. They keep one, named Elsa, until she is fully grown, and rather than turn her over to a zoo, they decide to train her to live like a wild animal so that they can release her into her natural habitat. Geoffrey Keen is a sympathetic government official who convinces the Adamsons that they should set Elsa free to avoid being ordered to place her in captivity. The film, based on Joy Adamson's book, is poignant and emotional without ever becoming banal or overly sentimental. The title song and film score both won Academy Awards. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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