/ Soundtracks

Long before Andrew Lloyd Webber set Sunset Boulevard to music, Franz Waxman was Norma Desmond’s composer of choice, having created the score to the original Paramount picture.  But Sunset wasn’t Waxman’s only Paramount film.  Nor was it his only collaboration with legendary director and screenwriter Billy Wilder. Waxman’s scores for the studio are among his most renowned works – think of A Place in the Sun, Come Back, Little Sheba or Rear Window, to name three.  The Kritzerland label, already

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kh9GDlGZm7Y] "I am Locutus of Borg. Resistance is futile. Your life, as it has been, is over. From this time forward, you will service us." Fewer words sent a chill down the spine of millions of Trekkies on the night of June 18, 1990, toward the conclusion of "The Best of Both Worlds, Part I," the third season finale of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Not since James T. Kirk engaged Khan Noonien Singh in the Mutara Nebula in 1982's Star Trek II: The Wrath

Before pioneering cinéma vérité techniques on groundbreaking films like Faces and Husbands, John Cassavetes was signed to direct his first major-studio motion picture with 1962’s Too Late Blues.  Handed the assignment on the strength of his first film, Shadows, Cassavetes was a brave choice to direct the story of jazz musician “Ghost” Wakefield and his struggle to stay true to himself while pursuing fame and romance.  This raw and revealing story starred Bobby Darin, no stranger to the darker

From four-legged critters to gun-blazing Westerns, La-La Land's release slate this week features some great, little heard soundtrack material coming out of the vaults. Outside of horror circles, the 1971 film Willard - about a misfit with an affinity for rats - is best known for its 1972 sequel, Ben, which featured an oddly sweet, wildly successful theme song sung by Michael Jackson (his first solo No. 1 hit). The films themselves were considerably less cuddly, a point driven home by a 2003

Everybody knows the music of Henry Mancini, whether the slinky jazz of “The Pink Panther Theme,” the wistful nostalgia of “Moon River” or the jaunty charm of “Baby Elephant Walk.”  But thanks to the dedication of labels like Intrada, Kritzerland, La-La Land and Quartet Records, more and more listeners are getting to know Henry Mancini the musical dramatist.  2012 saw a staggering number of Mancini soundtracks on CD – many appearing for the first time in complete form - arguably making him the

When producer Carlo Ponti and director Vittorio De Sica, both giants of Italian cinema, sought out Henry Mancini to score their 1970 film I Girasoli (or Sunflower, in English), the American composer jumped at the opportunity.  Though creative differences between producer and director plagued the production of the film starring Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni, Mancini turned out one of his strongest, most romantic scores.  Thanks to the team at Quartet Records, Mancini’s absorbing work on

Kritzerland strikes gold with another pair of archival soundtracks, released earlier today. One is a resurrected reissue of a Jerry Goldsmith score - the label's first - and the other pairs two scores by Alfred Newman on one disc, one expanded and the other never before released. Breakheart Pass was a hearty Western adventure starring Charles Bronson as an undercover agent attempting to uncover a villainous plot aboard a steam train hurtling toward an Army post. Alistair MacLean of The Guns of

Well, this one snuck up on us like a pack of velociraptors: in honor of its 20th anniversary and impending 3-D theatrical reissue, Geffen has quietly snuck out an expanded, albeit digital-only, reissue of John Williams' score to the 1993 blockbuster Jurassic Park. Michael Crichton's 1990 technothriller novel asked an astounding question for a new decade of popular science: what if geneticists could extract preserved DNA of dinosaurs and recreate them in the present day? As is typical of

Four never-before-released scores by three veritable legends of film music are the latest releases from Intrada over the past three weeks. Works by Jerry Goldsmith, Bill Conti and Max Steiner (with some help from a pair of Disney Legends!) are the order of the day! Jerry Goldsmith perhaps enjoyed no greater relationship at one film studio than at 20th Century-Fox, where he composed some of his greatest works, from Planet of the Apes to Alien. Intrada's latest title showcases two scores from