Intrada Soundtrack Forum

INTRADA Announces:



BILLIE/POPI
Composed and Conducted by DOMINIC FRONTIERE

INTRADA Special Collection Volume 125

Intrada presents a double-header from the United Artists record catalog of the 1960s. Billie (1965) and Popi (1969) are two flavorful, enthusiastic film scores by then-prolific composer Dominic Frontiere. Billie is hip, spunky and tuned to the sixties teenage beat with musical pleasures aplenty -- while most of the songs here are in pop mode (with bubblegum lyrics to match), Frontiere’s score is often funky, bluesy, jazzy—befitting a man who, earlier in his peripatetic career, fronted a jazz sextet. Billie tells the coming-of-age story, with songs, of a 15-year-old girl (pluckily played by Patty Duke) whose athletic ability sets her apart from her peers, causing all sorts of endearing trouble with boys, parents, and school officials.

Five years later, Frontiere was offered a very different kind of project. Popi is a small film dealing with an unusual subject: the struggles of a Puerto Rican immigrant (Alan Arkin) to provide a decent life for his two little boys in New York’s Spanish Harlem. Eventually, he concocts a desperate scheme to pass them off as Cuban Boat People refugees, hoping that the resultant publicity will attract a potentially wealthy adoptive family who will get his children off the city’s mean streets. The music for Popi includes more dramatic content, including some beautiful Latin-flavored melodies and a wonderfully symmetrical, nautically-buoyant sailing sequence. Frontiere shows his mettle, providing a score that both supports and enhances the film’s complex mix of comedy and wistfulness. He begins right out of the gate with a sprightly tune for the film's main character.

For this premiere release of Dominic Frontiere's scintillating, sparkling works for Billie and Popi, Intrada had access to the original stereo LP masters stored at MGM. This release features the original LP programs and is limited to 1000 copies.

INTRADA Special Collection Vol. 125
Retail Price: $19.99
AVAILABLE 3/16/2010
For track listing and sound samples, please visit
http://store.intrada.com/s.nl/it.A/id.6520/.f

Well Billie has always been one of my grails. I have the LP, Popi is a delightful bonus. As they say (btw who are "they" anyway?) ordered.

_________________
Jerry Goldsmith conducting the Detroit Symphony and nearly knocking me through the back wall with Air Force One....priceless.

I'm really enjoying this one. "Popi" gets the edge as my favorite of the two, but not by much - "Billie" is great fun as well. The '60s pop music sensibility may put some people off but for those who like Neal Hefti's music from around the same time or Charles Bernstein's music for things like "White Lightning" and "Mr. Majestyk" as well as the majority of Roy Budd's output from the '70s might just dig this as well. Not that there's a stylistic similarity between any of these guys, but they were among the cleverest at adapting popular idioms to their film scores.

Give it a chance, guys! If "Discoteque" doesn't have you strutting about the place, you'd better see a doctor; you just might be DEAD!!!

_________________
Karl Morton IV

"Enjoy every sandwich."
-- Warren Zevon