A holy grail should a long sought after object that restores us and elevates us to a greater understanding of our art. It should involve an arduous quest, fraught with difficulty and frustration, ultimately being resolved through forthrightness and perseverance. It should be personal choice, not a consensus.
My holy grail, has been and will always be: The Caine Mutiny (by Max Steiner).
I first heard the score in the film as a child and I remember loving the movie, especially the final scene with the men of the Caine and Lt. Barney Greenwald.
I dabbled in film scores but gradually fell away from the faith in the 80’s. On a whim, I bought Classic Film Scores for Humphrey Bogart – Casablanca and was renewed by the Charles Gerhardt recording of the Caine Mutiny March.
It was then that I learned that was no release on LP or CD save for a few test pressings and a bootleg LP made from those pressings and the legal trouble with RCA and Herman Wouk. I was told by someone who had actually had a cassette of the LP that I would be disappointed. (so true)
I talked to John Morgan, then of Marco Polo, about the score and he told me that he didn’t really think that there was that much music to the score and that what was there wasn’t very diverse. After poster on several threads he decided that he would take a look in Columbia’s vaults and see what remained of the score, recorded or written. This didn’t happen because there was talk of RCA Spain releasing a CD transfer of the old LP. Alas, this also fell through.
I was never able to acquire either the cassettes that the Max Steiner Society had available before the plug was pulled by the copyright holders, (when I discovered them they had announced that they would be putting these on CD so I decided to wait) but I suppose there is some small chance that BYU will one day issue this, but there are no plans presently.
A kind friend made me a CD of an LP transfer and this is the current state of my grail quest. It is maddingly frustrating as anyone who has heard the LP can attest what music there is obscured by dialogue and the second half of the LP is basically the court martial scene.
_________________ No matter where you go, there you are....Wait a minute! That's how it always works out.
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