Prince Valiant (Limited Edition CD Soundtrack)

 

Sound: B-     Music: B+

 

 

Robert Wagner may have been a mixed choice for the title role of Prince Valiant (1954), one of the biggest stars of the early CinemaScope production is the score by Franz Waxman.  The booklet notes how it is one of his best works, and it is certainly one of his most influential as far a big orchestrations go.  That is additionally true in the Spielberg/Lucas films since the late 1970s.  Since its release, it has even proved more relevant in the last few years with the upswing in feature film adaptation of comic book heroes.

 

This is especially relevant as the Henry Hathaway-directed film was a huge epic with a big budget when that usually still meant something.  We will save any more comments for the film until we get to Fox doing a DVD of it, but its recent new relevance is undeniable and that makes a beloved music score whose rising orchestrations (like that of Erich Wolfgang Korngold) have been gutted out in the last quarter-century by feel-good movies that try too hard, are phony, are manipulative, and/or are so many generations down as to be irrelevant.

 

What is impressive is how the original stands the test of time, because this one is heartfelt.  It makes for an especially interesting comparison to the overrated Howard Shore score for the Lord Of The Rings films, in which a composer took a problematic series of films (and its various cuts, most of which run on and on) and brought it to a higher level.  He deserves more credit than he has received for its success.  Hathaway was a solid journeyman director in Hollywood and Waxman is in the same position as Shore as a result.  The layers of various orchestra sections are distinct apart from their stereophonic intentions.  This is music with rare character.

 

The PCM 2.0 Stereo sound is off of the 35mm magnetic film soundmaster and though there is some warping here and there, the outright damaged tracks (two that add up to about 9 minutes) are included as bonus material.  Early CinemaScope films were always stereophonic and Fox banked on it the way Warner successfully banked on sound in the first place when films were silent.  The sound shows its age, even outside of damage, but was also groundbreaking sonically for its time.

 

All this is why it is great that the FSM label of Film Score Monthly Magazine has issued the soundtrack in a very comprehensive CD set, which has been out for a while and was only pressed at 3,000 copies.  It is still in print, but is a key title that you will want to look into getting before it is too late.  Find out more about it and how to order by going to www.filmscoremonthly.com while supplies last.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo