INTRADA Announces:
TREASURE OF THE FOUR CROWNS
*Expanded Edition*
Composed and Conducted by ENNIO MORRICONE
INTRADA Special Collection Volume 81
When writer-actors Gene Quintano and Tony Anthony teamed with director Ferdinando Baldi for 1981’s Comin’ at Ya! their profitable transformation of the Spaghetti Western into a 3-D extravaganza sent a stereoscopic shockwave through Hollywood, inspiring a new wave of paper glass-required entertainments like Spacehunter, Jaws 3-D, Amityville 3-D, The Man Who Wasn’t There, Parasite and Metalstorm. Now fueled with bigger aspirations than doing another vivid horse opera, Quintano, Anthony and Baldi decided to go on a mystical treasure hunt for their next film. But where Indiana Jones only dealt with 2-D snakes, Anthony’s adventurer J.T. Striker (and his audience) would be ducking demons, vultures, arrows, skeletons and a fountain pen in “Super-Vision 3-D” for 1983’s Treasure of the Four Crowns from Cannon Pictures. Along for the extra-sensory ride would be Ennio Morricone, whose majestic score would lend the often-outlandish visuals a dramatic gravitas worthy of “a world where good and evil collide.” Morricone begins with the aptly named “Crowning Glory” theme, music that builds with a kingly sense of honor, until it’s joined by a full, glorious orchestra and chorus. With trumpeting hosannas that recall his biblical work on Moses, Morricone not only bestows the relics with religious awe, but also makes Striker stand out as a hero much greater than himself. The score is uniquely Morricone -- repleat with brooding, noble themes and eerie orchestral suspense—the kind of musical treasure that was the distinct voice of Italy’s greatest and most prolific maestro.
Whether it’s the result of any re-editing that Cannon did for Crowns’ American translation, or how its makers chose to cut the music in, the surprisingly small amount of Morricone’s score that’s heard in the film rarely reflects what’s occurring on screen. Any attempt to decipher the puzzling use of Morricone’s score was compounded by the Four Crowns LP (and subsequent LP-mastered CD) on the General Music label in 1983, which reshuffled tracks and repeated others in its attempt to provide a more “musical” listening experience. But now, finally heard here in its complete stereo form from the recently discovered original master elements, the Four Crowns soundtrack reveals itself to be a real find in Morricone’s temple of scores, possessing as much melodic lyricism and thematic passion as his soundtracks for the far bigger pictures that would soon follow.
This release is limited to 1500 copies.
INTRADA Special Collection - Volume 81
Retail Price: 19.99
IN STOCK NOW
For track listing and sound samples, please visit
http://store.intrada.com/s.nl/it.A/id.5950/.f
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