Intrada Soundtrack Forum

INTRADA Announces:



NO MAN OF HER OWN/THUNDER IN THE EAST/WILD HARVEST
Composed by Hugo Friedhofer
INTRADA Special Collection Vol. 288

Intrada announces a trio of Hugo Friedhofer scores from the Paramount vaults in this latest edition of the Intrada Special Collection. In Wild Harvest (1947), set against images of combines threshing amber waves of grain, Friedhofer put his “Americana stamp” on the score with a bright major-mode theme, featuring galloping trumpet and woodwind figures set to a Copland-flavored syncopation in the bass line. In the film, Alan Ladd stars as Joe Gibson, the foreman of an itinerant harvesting crew in wheat country. Robert Preston plays his freewheeling buddy Jim, and Dorothy Lamour sexily slinks her way through the film as a scheming farmer’s niece.

For 1953’s Thunder in the East, Friedhofer gave his signature bold harmonies an Oriental flair. The film is set during the taut early days of Indian statehood following the end of British rule in 1947. Alan Ladd stars as Steve Gibbs, a Yank who lands in the tiny mountainous principality of Ghandahar with a plane full of guns and ammunition to sell to the local maharaja. With the Brits under threat of death by invading tribal forces, Gibbs must weigh his options between his mercenary ambitions and his feelings for the blind woman he loves (Deborah Kerr).

In 1950’s No Man of Her Own, Barbara Stanwyck poses as the wife of a dead man in order to start a new life and give her newborn bastard son a name. When she goes to live with the deceased’s family, she falls in love with her “husband’s” brother Bill (John Lund), while her former lover (Lyle Bettger) threatens to expose her secret. Friedhofer’s score is built on a trio of strong themes that provide rhythmic and melodic cells throughout the score to increase the tension as Helen’s situation becomes more tenuous and bleak. Throughout the score, Friedhofer uses vibraphone and harp figures to pull Helen in and out of her indecisive and guilty dreamlike state. For all its mid-century melodramatic trappings, Friedhofer utilizes his customary musical craftsmanship to capture the emotion and drama lurking behind the story’s seemingly implausible situations.

No Man of Her Own and what still exists of Thunder in the East have been mastered from 2˝transfers of mono 35mm mag originals, and Wild Harvest comes from acetates housed at Brigham Young University. As an added bonus and included among the extras is a revised track from Bride of Vengeance that incorporates a “Foreword” which Intrada was unable to include on its earlier release of that score.

INTRADA Special Collection Vol. 288
Retail Price: $19.99
Available NOW
For track listing and sound samples, please visit
http://store.intrada.com/s.nl/it.A/id.9140/.f

I love Friedhofer's scores also. Hopefully some label will re-record his score for JOAN OF ARC. Doug or Roger,does anything exist at the 20CF vault of his score to THREE CAME HOME, a favorite of mine? I know you guys have done a lot with Nick Redman in the past and therefore I have posed that question to you. Another one I would love to see released is his score to Bogie's last film, THE HARDER THEY FALL. I know that elements are hard to locate, if any exist at Columbia. The film was released in 1956. You guys have found ON THE WATERFRONT, I hope the same can be said of THE HARDER THEY FALL.

excellent. 2014 continues to be the year of Friedhofer for me.

Received my CD a few hours ago. Playing it a third time around. A great release. There are sound issues with WILD HARVEST, a great score, but I am so glad they included it on this CD. Think of all the wonderful scores from this era and earlier that have deteriorated so badly that they could not have been rescued. Thanks, Intrada.