INTRADA Announces RIVER OF NO RETURN/NIAGRA

Roger Feigelson · **Joined:** Sat Nov 19, 2005 3:47 pm **Posts:** 3415

Presents

NIAGARA
Composed by SOL KAPLAN

RIVER OF NO RETURN
Composed by LIONEL NEWMAN, LEIGH HARLINE, and CYRIL MOCKRIDGE

INTRADA Special Collection Volume 157

Intrada's latest double-header from the 20th Century Fox catalog features two films starring Marilyn Monroe. The first, Niagra (1953), is a tight, nasty film noir, crisply directed by veteran Henry Hathaway and starring Monroe, Joseph Cotten as her tortured husband, and Jean Peters as an innocent young woman whose kindness entangles her with Monroe’s nefarious plans to get rid of her spouse. Composing duties fell to composer Sol Kaplan, whose music for Niagara features an aural landscape of fretfully circling strings, blaring brass, and rumbling percussion. There is unsettling thriller music aplenty here and even the occasional moment of overheated humor.

The second score featured is to the 1954 film River of No Return, telling the tale of a rancher with a past (Robert Mitchum), his young son, and a dance hall girl (Monroe) who yearns for a better life -- all thrown together by chance and forced to brave Indians, mountain lions, a host of scurvy Western no-accounts, and the vagaries of a wild and woolly river. Their efforts are supported by a delightfully varied and colorful score, delivered by no less than four composers. Lionel Newman wrote the main title song, “River Of No Return,” with lyrics by Fox mainstay Ken Darby, here sung by Tennessee Ernie Ford . This tune—along with another Newman/ Darby composition, “Down in the Meadow”—gets considerable instrumental play in the score; both featuring charming pieces of gentle Americana. The rest of the scoring duties were divided between two other superb Fox staff composers, Leigh Harline and Cyril J. Mockridge. Roughly speaking,
Harline was responsible for most of the action cues while Mockridge took on the more “pastoral” music. Further to that, the luxuriant, expansive first 40 seconds of “Matt And Mark” are credited to none other than boss of all bosses, Alfred Newman. The miracle is that this hodge-podge of composers gelled as well as it did; considerable credit is due to the supreme talents of orchestrator Edward B. Powell, resulting in the perfect tribute to an entire music department.

This release is limited to 1000 units.

INTRADA Special Collection Vol. 157
Retail Price: $19.99
AVAILABLE NOW
For track listing and sound samples, please visit
http://store.intrada.com/s.nl/it.A/id.6924/.f

Creepshow2 · **Posted:** Mon Jan 24, 2011 5:38 pm

I just can't get enough of these "Golden Age" double headers. Thanks a million Intrada!

niall · **Posted:** Mon Jan 24, 2011 5:44 pm

Superb Intrada release, thank you Gentlemen, ordered, and now it's off to bed I happily go, yahoo!!!

Creepshow2 · **Posted:** Mon Jan 24, 2011 6:11 pm

Is releasing a score like RIVER OF NO RETURN difficult because of there being more than one composer? I would think the more people involved the harder it might be for a release. Just wondering, thanks again Intrada!

WorkingWithKnives · **Posted:** Mon Jan 24, 2011 6:14 pm

Have always loved both of these films, true classics.

I don't want to scream too loud and wake niall all the way in Ireland. :lol:

niall · **Posted:** Mon Jan 24, 2011 6:20 pm

Gary S. · **Posted:** Mon Jan 24, 2011 9:18 pm

Ordered. Love these twofer Golden Age releases.

Gizmo · **Posted:** Mon Jan 24, 2011 10:32 pm

Big surprise for me :shock:

I love both films and now his scores too

Thank you hamsters :cry:

sorry I can't hold back my tears I'm very excited :cry:

Douglass Fake · **Joined:** Sat Nov 19, 2005 3:48 pm **Posts:** 2773

Stefan Schlegel · **Joined:** Tue May 12, 2009 5:46 am **Posts:** 22

This is a great release, but I really wonder what happened with the choral part during the Main Title of RIVER OF NO RETURN. If you listen to the samples, on track 1 of the CD there is now no chorus at all!
Neither the eerie chorus heard before the Main Title of the film nor the one which is heard throughout the song in the movie itself.
Were these choral overdubs which are now missing in the Fox archives? This would be a great pity.

WorkingWithKnives · **Posted:** Tue Jan 25, 2011 8:43 am

Both films are great and true American classics. Saul Kaplan's Niagara is really going to be a treat, the more obscure titles are the best. Haven't seen the film since I was kid and remembering bits and pieces of it. Character actor Max Showalter always has a strangeness about him, always a little crazy and funny. What a great piece of American culture to rescue, this score is.

I contacted a Marilyn Monroe website and let them know about this recording in case they're not aware of it.

Casey Adams! That's the other name Max Showalter acted under, just remembered. :lol:

WorkingWithKnives · **Posted:** Tue Jan 25, 2011 1:20 pm

Less than 150 remaining.

Roger Feigelson · **Joined:** Sat Nov 19, 2005 3:47 pm **Posts:** 3415

scoreman1001 · **Posted:** Wed Jan 26, 2011 2:51 pm

kipling71 · **Posted:** Thu Jan 27, 2011 5:57 pm

I'm really digging Sol Kaplan's work on "Niagara"! I listen to "Treasure of the Golden Condor" a lot, but this might supplant it in my personal list of stuff. Do my ears deceive me or is there a hint of Alex North at his most mainstream in this? Kinda cool if it's there.

Great disc, guys!

(To be clear, my use of the exclamation point is in no way meant to be tongue-in-cheek.)

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