The Spy With My Face Soundtrack
© FSM
U.N.C.L.E., Tex Avery, & Oscar Noms
By: Randall LarsonDate: Thursday, January 25, 2007
THIS WEEK’S RECOMMENDATIONS
Film Score Monthly’s last release of 2006, the fourth and potentially final collection of vintage Man From U.N.C.L.E. television music, is The Spy With My Face, a collection of original scores written for the eight feature U.N.C.L.E. movies, which were either longer versions of TV episodes (such as the pilot) or feature-length films compiled from two-part episodes of the series, and released overseas. To Trap A Spy, for example, a feature version of the series pilot, was released in Hong Kong in November 1964 and in London in May 1965, not long after it’s September 1964 television debut in the US, while The Spy With My Face, premiering in London in August 1965, was expanded from the first-season episode, “Double Affair” (all this is dutifully explained in great detail by album producer and U.N.C.L.E. music expert Jon Burlingame in his authoritative liner notes, which thoroughly document the origin and source of music in each of these features).
Most of the feature films simply utilized the music composed for the episodes they were compiled from; sometimes with additional music tracked in from elsewhere in the episode. In a few cases, such as most of One of Our Spies Is Missing and The Karate Killers, U.N.C.L.E. composer Gerald Fried came in and composed original music in stereo specifically for the feature version. With The Spy With My Face, the episode’s original composer, Morton Stevens, returned to score the extra scenes in like manner.
Thus, FSM’s new single-disc collection both contains music culled from the show’s four seasons presented in different form and placement, along with some original music not hitherto released on CD. It’s all vintage U.N.C.L.E. music, with frequent reprisals of Jerry Goldsmith’s classic theme, which pops up in various guises. The music is thoroughly enchanting, from the bongo-intensive material of Fried cut into One Spy Too Many and the new music he wrote for the two aforementioned episodes, the big-band swing of Morton Stevens’ first season music reprised in The Spy With My Face along with his own original new music, Nelson Riddle’s Batmanlike pizzazz recurring in The Spy In The Green Hat, Richard Shores’ Schifrin-like jazz re-used in How To Steal the World, or re-arranged Goldsmith heard in The Helicopter Spies. As a recording in its own right, FSM’s The Spy With My Face is a wonderful compilation of terrific mid’60s television jazz, plenty of verve and vibe from the trendy spy show, while as a capper to follow-up FSM’s first 2-disc Man from U.N.C.L.E. and Girl From U.N.C.L.E. releases, the music is different enough in its presentation and form, and includes enough uniquely original scoring, to make it well worth picking up. No serious collection of U.N.C.L.E. music would be inclusive without it.
Tom and Jerry & Tex Avery Too! © FSM
FSM has concentrated on Bradley's last period at M-G-M in order to provide examples of Bradley’s stirring compositions in their best available sound quality. An earlier 1993 recording from Milan of Bradley’s Tex Avery music was compiled from the shorts' composite soundtracks, and included dialogue and effects; while the new FSM collection includes complete or near complete scores from 25 cartoons in outstanding sound quality – nine of them in rich stereo.
The music is a wild riot of colorful passages, pastiches, power, and poignancy; it’s all you’d imagine cartoon music would be. A great example is Bradley’s score for the 1955 Droopy cartoon, Deputy Droopy – which quickly morphs from its heraldic opening statement into an epic Americana Western score, complete with coconut-shell horse hoof beats, into a quirky array of piano and winds and violins playing a dazzling, miasmic scherzo that ranges and rages through a mix of instruments and textures and musical figures that are almost impossible to keep track of. “T.V. of Tomorrow” runs the gamut from show-like musical overtures to tuneful orchestral dance numbers, to quotations from William Tell, Yankee Doodle, and Over the Rainbow and motifs set to fits visual gags, like the clarinet arpeggios that fit the jumping picture shown on a television screen. All two dozen-plus scores contain similar moments of ecstatic merriment, and are not to be missed. The pristine sound reproduced from these 60-year old scores is phenomenal. It’s endearingly impossible music and completely enchanting.
FILM MUSIC NEWS
The Academy Award nominations were announced this week, with an interesting mix of contenders in the Original Score category. Spanish composer Javier Navarrete has been nominated for Pan’s Labyrinth, as has his countryman Gustavo Santaolalla (last year’s winner for Brokeback Mountain) for Babel, Thomas Newman for The Good German, Philip Glass for Notes on a Scandal, and Alexandre Desplat for The Queen (Desplat won the Golden Globe Award earlier this month for a different score, The Painted Veil). All of these scores are currently available on soundtrack CDs. Both Babel and The Queen were also nominated for best music in the British Academy Awards, BAFTA, announced last week. The Oscar winners will be announced during the Oscar ceremonies on Sunday February 25th, hosted by Ellen DeGeneres
The Music From Rainer Werner Fassbinder Films © 
– partially via filmmusicradio.com
Prolific British film music recording producer and historian David Wishart has passed away. Wishart was involved in the record and recording industry for more than 35 years, working as a producer and liner notes author on more than 200 film music albums, most notably for Silva Screen Records and Cloud Nine Records, his own label [the British soundtrack label, not the rock label of the same name based in New Jersey]. He was also a noted soundtrack reviewer and author of concert notes in the UK. Film Music Radio has posted this remembrance they received from Wishart’s long-time colleague and friend, James Fitzpatrick, who worked with him on numerous Silva Screen recordings, see: http://www.filmmusicradio.com
This Friday’s episode of Masters of Horror, airing at 10PM on Showtime, will feature a new episode with a new score by veteran horror composer Richard Band. The episode, “The Washingtonians,” directed by Peter Medak, postulates an investigation into the Father of Our Country being a cannibal… (“sighting fresh meat across the Delaware, Washington stood in the boat and licked his parched lips, hungrily…” ???). Band earlier scored the Mick Harris episode, Valerie on the Stairs (based on an original story by Clive Barker) and last year he received an Emmy nomination for his score for Stuart Gordon’s H.P. Lovecraft-inspired MoH entry, Dreams in the Witch House.
Varese Sarabande Records has announced they will release Trevor Raben’s sinewy action score for Snakes on a Plane by the end of February. Only one cue appeared on the previous song soundtrack released last year. Mychael Danna’s Breach and Carlo (Punisher) Siliotto’s Nomad: The Warrior, join the SoaP score CD on February 27th. www.varesesarabande.com
The soundtrack to Joel Schumacher’s taut, psychological thriller, The Number 23, starring Jim Carrey in a dead serious role, will be released by Silva Screen on February 23rd. The film has an exciting new score from one of the top Brits working in Hollywood today, Harry Gregson-Williams. His track record is synonymous with some of the biggest hits of the last ten years including Armageddon, Chicken Run, Shrek and Shrek 2, Kingdom Of Heaven and the Grammy nominated score for The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe. www.silvascreen.co.uk
Hercules In The Haunted World © Digitmovies
Nicely coinciding with last week’s release of the DVD version of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning, with TCM Terror well on the roll, Perseverance Records has release their first CD in their new Limited Composers Series. Jim Manzie's frighteningly chilly score for Jeff Burr’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III: Leatherface, is now available.
Warner Bros. Records will release Tyler Bates’ innovative score for Zach Snyder’s special effects spectacular, 300 on March 6th, three days before the movie, also distributed by Warner Bros., opens nationwide. The film, which stars Gerard Butler, Lena Headey, and Rodrigo Santoro, is based on the acclaimed graphic novel by beloved comic book writer and artist Frank Miller which recounts in epic visualization the climactic Battle of Thermopylae that pitted 300 Greeks against the massive Persian Army in 480 BC. In addition to the 25-track CD, Warner Bros. Records will release a special edition deluxe-version Digipak, which includes a 16-page booklet as well as three two-sided trading cards.
Bates is best known for his work on the zombie horror films The Devil's Rejects and 2004's Dawn of the Dead, also directed by Zack Snyder (read Mania’s interview with Tyler Bates about 300 in my Nov. 2, 2006 Soundtrax column at http://www.mania.com/52650.html).
www.300themovie.com
www.warnerbrosrecords.com
Recommended Soundtrack sources:
www.arksquare.com/index_main
www.intermezzomedia.com/ (Italy)
www.moviemusic.com
