Intrada Soundtrack Forum

INTRADA Announces:



THE HUNTERS
Composed and Conducted by PAUL SAWTELL

ON THE THRESHOLD OF SPACE
Composed by LYN MURRAY
Conducted by LIONEL NEWMAN

INTRADA Special Collection Volume 152

For their latest double-header from 20th-Century Fox, Intrada presents two 50's scores featuring the work of Paul Sawtell and the highly underrepresented Lyn Murray. In the 1956 semi-documentary On The Threshold of Space, Lyn Murray avoids the obvious action-adventure scoring, opting rather for the eerie and unsettling, providing only a few repeating themes. From the opening blast of brass and rapidly descending strings, listeners are thrust into a world without moorings. It's a score of furious movement, dizzied by downward spiral figures -- swirling strings backed by sinister woodwinds have a certain dark peace, not unlike the mysterious reaches of space unfurling just beyond the protagonists’ reach.

On The Threshold of Space is a rarely seen, semi-documentary look at the world of doctors, technicians, and flyers engaged in the risky business of testing means and methods for stratospheric flight: the milieu, in essence, of the pre-Mercury Right Stuff pioneers. It’s a film that looks forward, into the future.

The Hunters, on the other hand, casts its gaze back a few years, to examine the lives and hazardous work of Korean Conflict fighter pilots, putting themselves on the line in “the forgotten war.” For The Hunters, Paul Sawtell provides a more traditional blend of action and romance, exhibiting a score of astonishing range and power. He lets out all the stops, offering a score that combines patriotic splendor, heart-tugging romance, and plenty of thrills to superb effect. While the action cues are jam-packed with brass-laden, throbbing excitement, the sweeping romantic moments are the highlights here.

This release is limited to 1200 units.

INTRADA Special Collection Vol. 152
Retail Price: $19.99
AVAILABLE NOW
For track listing and sound samples, please visit
http://store.intrada.com/s.nl/it.A/id.6863/.f

Ordered. Making it a grand slam.

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Jerry Goldsmith conducting the Detroit Symphony and nearly knocking me through the back wall with Air Force One....priceless.

This was a no brainer...ORDERED!

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Chris

An exciting and challenging set of sounds samples! I get the feeling I can listen to this and never get bored.

I look forward to having this in my hot little paws!

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DavidinBerkeley

"Ask [the director] where the camera comes from and I'll tell him where the music comes from" (David Raksin)

Last June, Nick Redman thoughtfully let me know that my suggested pairing of THRESHOLD and THE HUNTERS was actually going to come to pass "later in the year." Last week Nick confirmed that THRESHOLD/HUNTERS was, indeed, tonight's golden age offering.
To finally hear that spellbinding Murray main title in crisp, clean stereo is the ultimate capper to an incredible year that has seen more personal grails show up than any I can remember (and many from Intrada.) This is a score that made a definite impression on me when I saw it back in the summer of 1956, although in those days I didn't connect composer to score yet.
I caught it a few times in the mid-60's on TV and by then was aware of Lyn Murray and could more fully appreciate what a thrillingly sophisticated effort his score was.

Then the film all but vanished from local televison after the early 80's, only recently putting in appearances in a faded mono pan-and-scan print on The Fox Movie Channel last spring and summer, no doubt the same mid-60's transfer I had watched back in the day. Murray's score still held up beautifully after all these years, and I now look forward to fully drinking in it's qualities in the clear.

Let me thank Doug and Roger for letting Nick persuade them it would be a worthy release. The clips give evidence of the wonderful restoration work done by Mr. Redman and Mike Matessino. I'd like thank the both of them, Julie Kirgo for her notes, and Joe Sikoryak (for somehow taking the poster elements of THE HUNTERS, one of Fox's clunkier graphic efforts, and making something quite presentable out of it.) As i said over at the FSM board, you've made this old "airport boy" a very happy camper this holiday.

Thanks again, guys. You are aces!

Good stuff, no wonder it was requested.

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"Questions are a burden to others; answers a prison for oneself"
"Unlike me, many of you have accepted the situation of your imprisonment and will die here like rotten cabbages."
"Everyone votes for a dictator."
THE PRISONER

Thanks for this one. I believe it'll hit the mailbox Monday. It sounds very good in the clips.

I Probably won't post here again until Twenty Eleven, until then Merry Christmas, Happy New Year.

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WE HAVE COME TO VISIT YOU IN PEACE AND WITH GOOD WILL.

Having lived with this disk since Saturday, when mine arrived, I have come to recognize this score to be a close relative to Waxman's THE SPIRIT OF ST. LOUIS, composed a year later. Murray and Waxman share a similar musical language for the awe and wonder of things pertaining to flight and high altitude. The beginning section of the terrific long cue, "Ascent," has a real connection to the "St. Johns" cue in SPIRIT, and as the cue builds to the moments of the Martin Milner character's loss of nerve over the 100,000 foot freefall, one picks up precursors to the famous Waxman "Asleep" cue and the agitated final moments of "Landing at Le Bourget."

Fascinating to see Murray shy away from a flatly stated romantic theme for the relationship between Guy Madison and "wife" Virginia Leith, keeping an anguished and slightly anxious tone to the scoring for their scenes together, as Leith remains unsettled about husband Madison's pursuit of his chosen work. The scenes of high altitude balloon experimentation in the
second half of the film also seem to have some of Leith Stevens' sci-fi scoring DNA in them, especially the Stevens orchestral device of putting a high register flute in combo with lower woodwinds. And, yes, "Black Sky" does have it's reminders of Alex North and a few fleeting smatterings of Rosenman.

It's something very unique in Murray's ouvre, combining a golden age accessibility with a more advanced, impressionistic
feel. As someone here or at FSM mentioned, it doesn't wear out it's welcome prematurely. Wonderful to be able to sate oneself on it's endless dark and mysterious edges--and finally truly appreciate cues like "satellite" which hid under a lengthy dialogue sequence as the Walter Coy character explained his dream of a high altitiude experimental platform.

Interesting to note that another "test pilot" drama was produced the same year, TOWARD THE UNKNOWN, and, amusingly also featured Virgina Leith in the female lead opposite William Holden. That film had a one-off score by Paul Baron (who evidently had some connection with CBS) that had scattered moments of the same musical feel of THRESHOLD and SPIRIT, although having more straightup triumphant underscore and less unresolved moments in it. (It also features a bizarre rocket engine acceleration musical effect, seemingly utilizing a stretched out electric guitar chord, almost reminding one of that strange musical "boing" at the beginning of the Looney Tunes theme.)

I find myself surprised at how much THE HUNTERS is front-loaded with the romantic theme material. (When I had this on reel-to-reel from it's first NBC showing, I always gravitated towards the action stuff.) It also seems that the End Titles were not actually used as they stand on the disk, save the last 30 seconds which are crossfaded up over a tracked reuse of "Lovers Love"in the film. It remains one of Sawtell's best efforts.

Thanks again to everyone involved in making this one a reality.

My best friend was ECSTATIC when he logged on to the SAE website and saw that THE HUNTER had been released! On behalf of my best friend....THANKS, Doug!

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I-love-Goldsmith, yes-I-do...
I-love-Ber-nard-Herr-mann-too! EVERYBODY SING!!!

I'm surprised this one hasn't sold out yet. What a fine cd and what wonderful writing.

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Jerry Goldsmith conducting the Detroit Symphony and nearly knocking me through the back wall with Air Force One....priceless.

I'm also surprised. I guess it was the least known of all the plethora of soundtracks that came out just before the holidays. Perhaps when peoples' bank accounts have replenished, more people will take a chance on this gem. Admittedly, this was a personal grail of mine, but I haven't tired of THRESHOLD yet. And it's one I seem to listen to from beginning to end, not just select tracks.

Not so surprising. A film not many people have seen by a composer not many people know. It's great that Intrada puts out titles like this, it's what makes them fans as well as a record label. I didn't buy it, there's a handful of titles that I'd really love from 50's Fox, but this isn't one of them. I'm glad the follow up, River Of No Return sold so well. Revolt Of Mamie Stover/Hilda Crane still hasn't sold out after nearly six years, & that's Friedhofer & Raksin! I think that's becouse they're two women's pictures. It looks like Intrada learnt a lesson there, as the next Friedhofer was, A Woman Obsessed, but they paired it with a war film, In Love & war.

I'm both surprised and disappointed that FSM has had two online issues since this release and still hasn't even bothered to review it.