Intrada Soundtrack Forum

Wonder what the possibility of this score seeing the light of day might be? I have the Japanese LP coupled with song of Bernadette which is a reissue of two 10" Decca long play recordings with Island In The Sky narrated by John Wayne. A complete recording of the four composers who worked on the score would be something to see preserved if it isn't already lost.

Hugo Friedhofer, Emil Newman, Herb Spencer and Earle Hagen... That's a hell of a line up!

Not only is the score great, the film is pretty darn good too. The best John Wayne film I've ever seen.

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"I used to worry about losing my mind. Now that I've lost it I don't worry about it anymore." -Wavy Gravy

Once upon a time, Varese reissued this iteration of ISLAND IN THE SKY on LP, with the Wayne-narrated original on one side and a music only version on the other. (Can't recall if it also included the BERNADETTE stuff.) It's not the complete score and has some fairly obvious edits in it, but it seems to have many of the score's highlights. By the way, I wish Decca had actually used director William Wellman's much better reading of the narrative from the film.

Would be great to see this paired with the same composing teams' other Wayne score of the same year, HONDO. I rather doubt any extant masters remain though.

So the original opening narration is director William Wellman? I've often wondered whose voice it is. Really is a great adventure/survival film. I read the Ernest Gann novel awhile back, love those sort of stories.

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"I used to worry about losing my mind. Now that I've lost it I don't worry about it anymore." -Wavy Gravy

ISLAND is a better, more tight film than Wellman's big hit the following year, THE HIGH AND THE MIGHTY (although I have a lot of nostalgic fondness for that one also.) Wayne was wonderful as "Dooley" and was surrounded by that terrific cast of old hands, including that supremely laconic, atypical role of "Moon" for Andy Devine.

That scene where Sean McClory's co-pilot gets lost in the blizzard, sits down in the snow, drifts off to a freezing death while thinking of his wife and child, and then the camera tracks back to reveal he had been only 15 feet away from the airplane remains tremendously powerful.

I still puzzle over how Mike "Touch" Connors got billing up front when he's barely visible in one shot, while Fess Parker is much more on camera and got no billing whatsoever.