Intrada Soundtrack Forum

Because of advances in audio technology over the last decade, we have seen the resurrection of a number of 20th Century-Fox soundtracks with markedly improved sound quality. (Need I go any further than Intrada's own THE BLUE MAX and THE SAND PEBBLES?) One can only dream about the sonic improvements which Mike Matessino's restorative wizardly could unlock on this North masterpiece. If the relative availability of the Varese edition is a potential discouragement, might I point out that the same applied to the Columbia/Legacy edition of THE BLUE MAX, yet Intrada's definitive restored edition sold out almost immediately. And since the 20th Century-Fox LP program has never legitimately appeared on CD in the U.S. or Europe, might one hope for a 3-disc set?

I wouldn't hope for a 3CD set that takes up eight times as much space on my shelf and has a disc of entirely redundant music.

Would love to buy a remastered version of the 2CDs, though.

I'm sure a remaster would improve it with all the advances, but I have to say I'm very happy with the discs as they are. I'm not a huge Alex North fan, but this is a huge favourite, I prefer it to Spartacus. But it's still in print, & I'd think Varese has the rights forever.

Being North, Townson probably has it well locked up. I'd go again on this one,
it's brilliant, and if you compare the cd to what you hear on the DVD even...
it's amazing. :-/

To some extent I agree that releasing the LP program with the film tracks is a bit redundant, but it might be the only way that Intrada might consider re-releasing this monumental score. (After all, Doug included the MCA LP program on his 3-disc set of CONAN THE BARBARIAN.) As far as taking up space, it would take up hardly much more space than 2 regular CDs in their cases. I'm not talking about Varese's SPARTACUS, which really was a vanity project for Townson. And as a number of other 20th Century-Fox titles originally released by Varese have been re-issued on other labels, I'm not convinced that Varese have their talons on CLEOPATRA in perpetuity.

Not entirely sure about your arithmetic as to the mass of a 3 disc set. If you own Intrada's THE BLACK STALLION or the recent THE GREAT ESCAPE, then you must admit they don't really take up much more space than 2 regular CDs in their cases on a shelf. (This is in contrast to Varese's SPARTACUS, which takes up the space of 6 ordinary CDs!)

I you think Intrada would simply re-issue exactly the same program as Varese's CLEOPATRA (even with greatly improved sound quality), then I think you're extremely optimistic. Adding the LP program as a separate disc is nothing to do with rationality, it's marketing!

As Roger hasn't posted a message to the effect that CLEOPATRA rights are controlled by Varese, then there is hope this may come out sounding even better than a decade ago.

It looks as though Varese is discontinuing their original 2001 2-disc set, so hopefully this will pave the way for a restored and vastly sonically improved CLEOPATRA along the lines of a number of 20th Century-Fox titles (THE BLUE MAX, THE SAND PEBBLES, FANTASTIC VOYAGE et al).

If Varese still has the rights, then I'd say the chances of a re-release is just about zero. Varese seems to have all but given up. We're halfway through September & Varese has release one old score this year (The List Of Adrian Messenger). They may have been great in the past (I bought a great many of their releases), but they've lost interest now.