Hitting The Road: Kritzerland Offers World Premiere of Mancini's Original "Two for the Road"

Hitting The Road: Kritzerland Offers World Premiere of Mancini’s Original “Two for the Road”

With its most recent release, the Kritzerland label has one for the books…Two for the Road. The soundtrack specialists are now accepting pre-orders for the world premiere release of Henry Mancini’s original score as heard in the 1967 film classic. As Mancini fans and collectors know, it was the composer’s practice to re-record his scores for pop-friendly (and indeed, quite popular) LPs on the RCA Victor label. This release from Kritzerland marks the first appearance anywhere outside of the film of Mancini’s complete, original score.

Mancini scored four films for Audrey Hepburn – Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Charade, Wait Until Dark and Two for the Road – and in doing so, created scores as spellbinding as the star herself. Directed by Stanley Donen with a cast also including Albert Finney, Eleanor Bron and William Daniels, Two for the Road was described by The New York Times as a “bitter account of domestic discord amid surroundings that should inspire nothing but delight.” The paper praised the film’s beautiful color cinematography and noted the director’s impressionistic and “fractured cinematic style” to chronicle the story of Finney and Hepburn’s marriage. Mancini captured the darkness and the light of the central characters’ relationships in his striking theme (set to memorable lyrics by Leslie Bricusse) and the film’s varied cues.

Two for the Road has been restored by Kritzerland from a mono back-up copy of the original score, happily preserved in the Fox vaults. Don’t miss out; pre-orders are open now for this release which is limited to 1,000 units only. CDs will ship by the last week of April, but pre-orders from the label usually arrive an average of four weeks early. Pre-orders are open now at the links below!

Henry Mancini, Two for the Road: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (Kritzerland, 2017)

Two for the Road (Main Title)
Window to the Past
Wheels of Our Own
Hitting the Road
Happy Barefoot Boy (Film Version)
Chicken Pox
Indispensable Woman
Hitchhike
First Hotel
Breakfast is Served
Bonfire
Hamburger Pills
Religious Reasons
Something for Audrey (Film Version)
The Chaser (Film Version)
Not So Lovely
It Doesn’t Show
Beachy
Asbestos Skin
Early Tea
The Lovely Life (Film Version)
Sow
I’m Back
Stopping to Think
Two for the Road (Finale)

Joe Marchese

JOE MARCHESE (Editor) joined The Second Disc shortly after its launch in early 2010, and has since penned daily news and reviews about classic music of all genres. In 2015, Joe formed the Second Disc Records label. Celebrating the great songwriters, producers and artists who created the sound of American popular song and beyond, Second Disc Records, in conjunction with labels including Real Gone Music and Cherry Red Records, has released newly-curated collections produced and annotated by Joe from iconic artists such as Dionne Warwick, Diana Ross and The Supremes, Smokey Robinson and The Miracles, The Spinners, Johnny Mathis, Bobby Darin, Meat Loaf, Laura Nyro, Melissa Manchester, Liza Minnelli, Darlene Love, Al Stewart, Michael Nesmith, and many others.

Joe has written liner notes, produced, or contributed to over 200 reissues from a diverse array of artists, among them America, JD Souther, Nat "King" Cole, Paul Williams, Lesley Gore, Dusty Springfield, BJ Thomas, The 5th Dimension, Burt Bacharach, The Mamas and the Papas, Carpenters, Perry Como, Rod McKuen, Doris Day, Jackie DeShannon, Petula Clark, Robert Goulet, and Andy Williams.

Over the past two decades, Joe has also worked in a variety of capacities on and off Broadway as well as at some of the premier theatres in the U.S., including Lincoln Center Theater, George Street Playhouse, Paper Mill Playhouse, Long Wharf Theatre, and the York Theatre Company. He has felt privileged to work on productions alongside artists such as the late Jack Klugman, Eli Wallach, Arthur Laurents, Betty Comden and Adolph Green. In 2009, Joe began contributing theatre and music reviews to the print publication The Sondheim Review, and in 2012, he joined the staff of The Digital Bits as a regular contributor writing about film and television on DVD and Blu-ray.

Joe currently resides in the suburbs of New York City.