 |
|
 |
|
 | |||||||||
| • | Newest Major Reviews: | . | • | This Week's Most Popular Reviews: | • | Best-Selling Albums: | ||
| . |
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) |
 | ||||||||
|
|
|
Filmtracks Recommends:
Buy it... on the 1999 Film Score Monthly album if you seek the best source for the original film version of the Patton recordings, as well as a superior work by Frank DeVol for The Flight of the Phoenix. Avoid it... in Patton's original recordings if you prefer the outstandingly vibrant re-recording conducted by Jerry Goldsmith in 1997. Filmtracks Editorial Review:
On album, Patton has never received the fullest treatment. Three full recordings were conducted by Goldsmith throughout the years, and only two of them have been released in digital format. He recorded the score twice during the film's initial run; as was customary at the time, an album version featuring more harmonious tones was recorded separately from the film version. This London recording for LP was easily more listenable than the sparse film version, though it has never made it onto CD. To help rectify this situation, Goldsmith re-recorded the score again in 1997 as part of the Varèse Sarabande label's series of albums featuring the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. With a vibrant and crisp quality to the updated recording, as well as Goldsmith's own conducting of that performance, the 1997 version (reviewed separately at Filmtracks) is superior all around. Die-hard Patton enthusiasts have exclaimed, though, that hearing the trumpet triplets performed acoustically rather than through the echoplex in that 1997 recording was unsatisfying... an opinion that is so picky that it should be considered rubbish. The film recording of Patton has been released a couple of times on CD, however. In 1992, the German Tsunami label released the score alongside A Patch of Blue. Generally considered a bootleg, this label's sound quality was always suspect, and Patton is no exception. In its favor, the album did feature much of the opening dialogue to the film, including the general's famous speech ("No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country."). In 1999, Film Score Monthly released the film version of the score with The Flight of the Phoenix on an album widely considered at the time to be the best entry in the label's Silver Age Classics series to date. This album improved the sound quality of that recording, taking the audio from the same sources for Fox's 1997 laserdisc issue of Patton to provide a complete and ordered presentation of the music. The Film Score Monthly album, while making some waves for treating the Patton score with respect, is more often cited as a success for the presence of The Flight of the Phoenix on the same product. Frank DeVol's score for the 1965 adventure film existed atop many film music collectors' "most wanted" lists for a long time. The film featured a brilliant cast thrust into a collaborative effort of rebuilding an airplane in the Sahara desert to escape a previous plane crash. While DeVol collaborated with director Robert Aldrich on over a dozen films, including The Dirty Dozen, it is his dramatic work for The Flight of the Phoenix that the composer is best remembered for. Whereas the Patton score had extended sequences of nearly inaudible underscore, The Flight of the Phoenix consistently provides a wealth of ominous and ultimately rewarding cues. The conflict between the characters, as well as the sorrows of death and alienation, are accentuated by occasionally militaristic, yet appropriately exotic tempos. Smaller motifs for individual characters are employed, but not with obvious effect. The piano and harp for the German character is often underplayed, and the military march for the sergeant is somewhat distracting. A source song for the ill-fated Gabriele character breaks the tone of the score with some Connie Francis vocals. The score picks up in intensity with "The Propeller;" while still using the bass strings to remind us of the precarious and ominous situation, DeVol provides the first glimpse of hope. When that hope is realized and the plane takes flight, DeVol's score soars with fully orchestral harmony and a straight forward sense of satisfaction. The Film Score Monthly CD on the whole was a great success, beautifully produced as usual and essentially hitting two birds with one stone. Veteran collectors flocked to the limited edition item mostly because of the DeVol work, though, for the Varèse album from a few years prior provided such a reverberating rendition of Patton that the necessity for the original film version was diminished. You know you're a true enthusiast when you're still holding on to the original 1970 LP recording from London, a product also rendered somewhat pointless in the presence of the superior 1997 recording (on which you'll hear a great performance of Tora! Tora! Tora! as well). Be sure to read the separate Filmtracks review of that re-recording.
The Flight of the Phoenix: **** 1992 Tsunami Album: ** 1997 Varèse Sarabande Re-Recording: ***** 1999 Film Score Monthly Album: ****
The 1992 Tsunami album contained no extra information about the film or score. The Film Score Monthly 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 films and scores. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
