Moonfleet (Limited Edition CD Soundtrack)

 

Sound: B     Music: B+

 

 

Miklos Rozsa and Fritz Lang are giants in their field, but their later works are not always as celebrated as they should be.  In 1955’s Moonfleet, Lang worked in CinemaScope, a format he would later famously put down in Jean-Luc Godard’s Contempt (1963, the Criterion DVD is reviewed elsewhere on this site).  In this case, part of the problem is simply that the film was cut down too much my releasing studio M-G-m and the film has not received the credit it deserves.

 

Though Warner Bros. (owner of the Turner/M-G-M catalog) has not issued the film on DVD, and ought to restore the missing footage while they are at it. The soundtrack has been released for the first time ever by Film Score Monthly Magazine’s FSM CD label with more alternate tracks that you usually find in a c complete soundtrack issuing.  With only 3,000 pressings, you may want to order now at www.filmscoremonthly.com considering the limited supply.  They have ordering details and more information about the content.  If that is not enough, read on.

 

The film itself is not another Lang trip into the future, but a more complex attempt at the swashbuckler cycle, and considering he had proved he could handle huge-budgeted films in the past at Germany’s Ufa Studios, M-G-M’s gamble made sense.  The twist here is that the legendary actor/producer John Houseman was involved, having well-established his producing capacities as far back as Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane, so having Rozsa on board made sense, if we are talking about master craftsmen.

 

Juggling several points of view and still having to score the narrative of the film, Rozsa offers a surprisingly rich and diverse score that seems to hold together exceptionally well.  If it was not enough that this is a good score, this CD offers 13 alternate tracks to show the other approaches the composer was taking in making sure his music was as well-rounded as Lang’s superior knack and skill at narrative was, reminding us how great films can get when the best work with each other and bring each other’s game up.  Music fans and composers in particular will want this rare look into the complexities of approaching scoring a big film that was supposed to be about something and the kind of choices master music men (and filmmakers) make in the process.

 

The PCM 2.0 Stereo sound is very good, especially for a 1955 production, but M-G-M was the top studio of the Classical Hollywood era and they could still mount big productions with the best of them.  Along with early CinemaScope films was the permanent idea of stereophonic sound and their use in film.  This CD comes from the 3-track master and it has survived very well, thanks again to smart actions on the part of Turner Entertainment as soon as they realized what needed to be done with the M-G-M holdings.  Now if only we could get that restored film!

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo