Intrada Soundtrack Forum

Until I recently revisited the DVD of this movie, I didn't realize just how exceptional and expressive is the score. There will be some who appreciate the 'concept' album narrated by Charles Laughton. However (as with the original CROMWELL LP) I would find the experience too frustrating. At least with RCA's THE BAD SEED from the same year, we've been able to enjoy the Alex North score intact. I imagine that MGM doesn't have any suitable music-only elements from this movie. If only it could be...(Ideally as the score isn't lengthy, it could be coupled with the RCA LP program.)

This masterpiece of a score is one of my holy grails. I suspect tapes are lost, but I've heard there are acetates in varying quality...maybe it's possible album masters survive? If it's possible even to release that on CD, and perhaps include the music sans-narration if it exists separately, I think that would still be a great release.

It's possible that the best bet might be a re-recording. James Fitzpatrick has talked about doing it on Tadlow for years, and I know it's also something John Morgan and William Stromberg have long wanted to tackle, but who knows given the present situation how soon something could or would happen...

Yavar

I'm so glad that I'm not a voice in the wilderness in regards to this exceptional work. Considering the high level of audio restoration these days, even acetate might be an option. I wasn't aware that the current great practitioners of bringing classic stores back to the recording stage, were considering this as a project. (In the case of James Fitzpatrick and Nic Raine, I wonder what happened to their complete new recordings of Bernstein's THE TEN COMMANDMENTS and Rozsa's KING OF KINGS, which have yet to be released?) It's with great sadness I learned that Walter Schumann died at an early age (only 3 years after composing THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER).

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS was only in the advance planning stages when they canceled those plans, after learning that Intrada was working on a release of the complete original recording. In retrospect I really wish Intrada hadn't shared that information (though I'm sure it worked out better for their sales), because James Fitzpatrick made it sound like a complete new Ten Commandments would exist otherwise, and it took like 4 years after Tadlow would have done it, for Intrada to finally release their version. While I value Intrada's fine work in releasing the score, the sound quality is extremely variable (because they were working from multiple sources), and sometimes quite disappointing. This masterpiece really needs a complete new recording to shine, and now I think that will never happen.

As for KING OF KINGS, that's already recorded (a while ago, really) and should be announced in the next couple of months.

Yavar

James Fitzpatrick specifically said it was the news of Intrada having it in the works, which stopped his plans for a re-recording. I have no reason to doubt either him or Roger, so I presume James didn't agree with Roger's assessment, or perhaps sales for an original recording don't suffer as much from the presence of a re-recording released prior, as much as sales for a re-recording might suffer if the original recording is released first (and James didn't know how long it would be before Intrada came out with their version).

Yavar