Filmtracks Recommends:
Buy it... only if you're looking to replace a few of your old Citadel Records' LP products that are digitally transferred on this product. Avoid it... if you're tempted by the substandard re-recordings of the Bruce Broughton or Dimitri Tiomkin material, both of which painful in their quantity of performance errors. Filmtracks Editorial Review:
Adventures in Hollywood: (Compilation) From a production standpoint, you can see what Citadel Records was trying to do when they assembled the "Adventures in Hollywood" compilation in 1996. There was a sudden rush of film music compilations in the 1990's, often featuring theme-based combinations of re-recordings of popular film scores and original recordings that the labels happened to own. By this time, many of these compilations were outstanding, featuring re-recordings by some of the best ensembles in the world. Citadel owned the rights to a handful of scores they had released on LP that they felt were worthy of a digital transfer onto CD. In this case, they were the 1959 Hans J. Salter score to the NBC television series Wichita Town and select 1960 re-recordings of Robert Farnon's 1951 score to Captain Horatio Hornblower. To make the CD more attractive, Citadel contracted for the right to release two recordings by a relatively unknown orchestral ensemble in Texas. This group recorded the usual suite cue from Bruce Broughton's fantastic Silverado and a suite of famous Western themes written by Dimitri Tiomkin. The album was then assembled by Citadel under a sort of "adventure" theme despite the obvious fact that everything on the album was a Western score except for the nautical Farnon swashbuckler. Unfortunately for Citadel, their ability to produce compilations that could compete favorably with their competitors was lacking; they simply didn't have the funds to offer anything spectacular (which is necessary on such compilations). Citadel has instead always been known for their release of B-rate scores by young or second-tier composers. In the case of "Adventures in Hollywood," the product doesn't work on any level unless you're interested solely in the straight digital transfer of Salter's Wichita Town from the label's previous LP release. A largely forgotten series, Wichita Town ran for just one year before being pulled due to an over-abundance of Western television series around 1960. Salter's light, orchestral Western music may have utilized every structural cliche of the time, but it was praised for being written by the composer before the series was filmed. Its original recording is presented here, and it's rather unassuming and undemanding in its rapid succession of quick cues. The three cues from Captain Horatio Hornblower are easily the anomaly on this album. Despite their placement at the end, Farnon's soaring combination of high seas adventure and Golden Age love theme make for a score far better than most of the others on the album, and definitely different from them. The 1960 recording was conducted in London by Farnon himself and is more vibrant than its preceding offerings on the album. For the other two selections, Citadel contracted the services of the Midland-Odessa Symphony Orchestra out of West Texas. Perhaps it was their intent to use a performing group that hailed from an area that could capture the true spirit of Tiomkin and Broughton's music. Unfortunately, the performances by the volunteer group are horrendous in parts and barely serviceable at best in others. They absolutely crucify Silverado with their wretched horn section, and their inability to correctly hit the slurring brass counterpoint that exists in the theme serves the listener's ears a healthy dose of pain. With so many great performances of Silverado available out on the market, this one is truly embarrassing. The Tiomkin suite is performed without much enthusiasm; while the Red River and High Noon themes aren't exactly barn-burners in their original form, the group manages to make them even more drab and uninteresting. Several errors in this 11-minute suite are also clear. Overall, there's really no point to this compilation unless you're looking to replace your old Citadel LPs. The filler material from the 1988 recordings of the Texas group is a major detraction from the product. ** Track Listings:
Total Time: 63:35
All artwork and sound clips from Adventures in Hollywood are Copyright © 1996, Citadel Records. The reviews and notes contained on the filmtracks.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Filmtracks Publications. Audio clips can be heard using RealPlayer but cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 10/31/96, updated 7/23/06. Review Version 4.1 - PHP (Filmtracks Publications). Copyright © 1996-2013, Christian Clemmensen. All rights reserved. |
