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FILMTRACKS.COM
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Review of Born Free (John Barry)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... on both the 2000 re-recording and the 2004 issue of the
original LP recording if you are a true enthusiast of John Barry's easy
listening hit, for both albums have unique strengths in their
presentations.
Avoid it... on the 2004 Film Score Monthly remastering of the LP record if you wish to hear the full hour-long score that was re-recorded on the 2000 album or, per chance, if you have no interest in the chart-topping song.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
Born Free: (John Barry) One of cinema's most
successful nature documentaries, Born Free was a sentimental
British phenomenon in 1966 that helped spur the cause of the genre on
television thereafter. It tells the true story of an orphaned lioness
raised by two animal rights activists in Kenya; a year after releasing
it to the wild on a remote reserve, the couple returns at the end and
the lion, now a mother of three, remembers her human parents fondly.
Despite director James Hill's best intentions, the film was not a
technical success, relying on photographic trickery to convey certain
plot elements involving the animals and sometimes practically ruining
the narrative by the odd insertion of stock wildlife footage and
inconsistent color in neighboring scenes. The most famous aspect of
Born Free has always been its music. Providing all the glory of
almost every possible score-related award under the composer's belt for
his creation, Born Free confirmed, along with Zulu, that
John Barry was headed in a mainstream direction that wasn't restricted
to his snazzy tones for the James Bond franchise. Barry's fully
orchestral score for the safari tale gained him a collection of Golden
Globe and Academy Awards for both his score and the associated song.
Written twenty years before the composer would score Out of
Africa to much acclaim, Born Free has more in common with
Zulu than anything thereafter in his career. Even though the song
was the vehicle which propelled the music from Born Free to so
many awards, Barry's score, like those for many Walt Disney films
through the decades, is still of solid quality in its wholesome
demeanor. Having just followed Thunderball with the same set of
musical 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 eventually accompanied Barry's
theme for the song, were still under debate when the song, originally
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 even
adopted as one African nation's national anthem.
By comparison to the sensational worldwide embrace met by the title song, Barry's score for Born Free may seem to be rather mellow and understated. 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, a move made against the wishes of the director. Barry insisted upon taking a more subdued, playful route, emphasizing the innocence of the story and therefore keeping the ensemble pleasantly bubbling along in tonal variations of the main theme for much of the score's running time. Nothing as complicated or even as interesting as Alex North's style for the continent is to be heard here, the layers in Barry's structures held to a minimum. As usual, the composer's more simplistic habits of composition cause the main theme to be inserted in practically even place possible, with only slight variations between performances. Only in a few places does he unleash a burst of tonal romping with all the players to accentuate the massive scale of the environment, as he had done with Zulu. The use of prominent brass to mimic the sounds of the animals in "Elephant Stampede" is of special note, but don't expect much of this excitement to prevail. In general, Barry's score is humbled and conservative, a point of criticism from those expecting to hear his expansive tendencies at work in this context. But it is effective none the less in conveying the bright and optimistic heart of the narrative. Like many films of the era, the soundtrack for Born Free received a separate recording that was made specifically for the LP album release. Barry was never satisfied with the performance of the music in the film (performances that included a considerable number of errors by the players), and the later album version is clearly of superior quality. The follow-up recording was made in vibrant stereo, as many of Barry's scores were, and with some remastering the LP presentation sounds just as dynamic today as a digital era recording. The fate of the original film recording has long remained a mystery (the tapes were declared lost at some point), but the album version's masters survived, and in 2004, Film Score Monthly released 40 minutes of the score from those recovered tapes as part of the label's Silver Age Classics series. Due to the popularity of the score and its accompanying song, this was a rare entry in FSM's series not to be limited in its production run. Interestingly, Barry recorded nearly an hour of music for the 95-minute film, so there remains material from Born Free 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. This original version, while clearly dated (especially with those dainty flute lines fluttering about in the background), is a satisfying easy listening experience entry in retrospect, one that should please Thunderball enthusiasts. There does remain an alternate source of music for Born Free, however. A re-recorded presentation of the score was released in 2000 and represented a continuation of the collaboration between conductor Frederic Talgorn and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra (following the "Hollywood '99" compilation released a few months prior). The performances in this interpretation are steady and enjoyable, though Talgorn was one step behind conductor Nic Raine and the City of Prague Philharmonic is capturing the broad essence of Barry's works. The latter group re-recorded both Zulu and Raise the Titanic at roughly the same time with great success, and there seems to be a touch of epic stature that Talgorn is missing in his interpretation of Barry's style. Part of that difference may owe to the smaller scale of Born Free in general, and the sound quality issue is not quite as relevant here given the superior remastering of Barry's original album recording. The Varèse Sarabande label, under the guidance of executive producer Robert Townson, was pressing re-recordings of other best-selling Barry works frequently at the time, including Body Heat, Out of Africa, and Somewhere in Time. It's easy to understand why Born Free was chosen as the next installment in this series of Barry interpretations, especially given the commercial success of the song and score back in the 1960's. But more technical merit might have resulted had the label and the RSNO tackled a re-recording of another, far more impressive Academy Award winner for Barry in the 1960's, The Lion in Winter (something which the City of Prague Philharmonic did eventually do). While the Varèse 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 Barry collector, then you'd be best served by purchasing both the Varèse and FSM albums for a complete survey of the effortless and innocuous music from the concept. ***
TRACK LISTINGS:
2000 Varèse Album:
Total Time: 53:33
2004 FSM Album: Total Time: 39:53
NOTES & QUOTES:
The 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 extremely detailed notes about
the film and score. The original FSM press release was 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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