Intrada Soundtrack Forum

Celebrate a love of books and music with one of these scores to movies based on books!

What's your favorite soundtrack to a movie based on a book? There's Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings, of course, but what about less-famous ones?

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_________________
-Regina Fake

"To all who come to this happy place; welcome."
"I'm your huckleberry."
"Well what you plan and what takes place ain't never been exactly similar."
"Pootingineous!"

Even if Alfred Newman's THE RAZOR'S EDGE isn't in stock and Jerome Moross' THE BIG COUNTRY might not be in print currently, you do have these two other top favorites of mine on hand:

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http://store.intrada.com/s.nl?sc=16&cat ... %20Pebbles

Captain from Castile (by Alfred Newman). Damn great book too -- much better than the excellent movie, which only covers the first half of the book.

Of course, my favorite novel is To Kill a Mockingbird, which got a superb film adaptation and possibly Elmer Bernstein's greatest score.

Yavar

Nice choices, Yavar! MOCKINGBIRD excels as one of the best screen adaptations ever, of one of the finest novels ever, and bears an intimate score that's also a superior classic. Add in one of Gregory Peck's greatest performances and TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD scores a grand slam! (Although I'm not a baseball guy.)

The film of CAPTAIN FROM CASTILE does end early, although I remember it being closer to dropping about a third, rather than the last half of the novel. (As Goldwyn's WUTHERING HEIGHTS -- another worthy entry for this thread -- does end only midway through the tale.) However, I think PRINCE OF FOXES (by the same author, Samuel Shellabarger) is an even better book; and unlike CASTILE, the Fox adaptation does make it to the original ending! Even though Alfred Newman's score for the less well-known FOXES is not magnificent as his CASTILE, it's still brilliant (with FOXES containing the more gorgeous love theme between the two, I think).

Anyway, the best rendition of TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD is still available within Intrada's superb release of Bernstein's Ava Collection. But while I'm still between Regina's original topic of noteworthy scores for book adaptations, and Yavar's turn into significant abridgements for the screen (even if this is another title that's out of print), there's Jerry Goldsmith's THE RUSSIA HOUSE.

There, director Fred Schepisi and screenwriter Tom Stoppard delivered a film that's beautifully constructed and wonderfully told, even though it sadly will never appeal broadly to the modern mass audience. (Nor did it upon its release in 1990.) I personally feel this score is the richest and most emotionally expressive among Goldsmith's several works with jazz elements. But as satisfying as I find the movie version, when I later read the novel I discovered author John Le Carre's original epilogue, which is even more poignant for being still more realistic.

Jeff knocked us all to the floor here in the office with his first suggestion for a featured title with origins in a book: The Ten Commandments, reminding us that it did come from a rather epic page-turner.
--Doug