Toys In The Attic (Limited Edition CD Soundtrack)
Sound:
B Music: B
At first,
when going through the limited edition CD soundtrack of George Dunning’s score
for George Roy Hill’s Toys In The Attic
(1963), it is remarkable how many pictures of Dean Martin slapping Yvette
Mimieux are all over the packaging. It is
even on the actual CD! With the film not
out on DVD, we’ll wait to examine that aspect of the film, but this is a good
music score.
Dunning was
able to concentrate on the narrative as the vinyl album version of the score
that was never released finally makes its debut 40 years late. The story surrounds the ugly, dysfunctional
story of a man (Martin) still under the psychological influence of his now much
older sisters (Wendy Hiller and Geraldine Page) as a man who never grew up and
now has a child-like bride (Mimieux), which only accelerates the return of the
repressed.
Unhappy
with the Rock genre of the time, which was in decline just before The Beatles
arrival, he was correctly not happy with how records were just being thrown
into films with no point and how sound effects were substituting for narrative
when they were not outright ruining it, as the usually informative booklet
explains. Dunning had the talent to back
it up, keeping a constant mood going of location of the characters emotionally
and geographically. You can enjoy this
score without the film, but it makes me all the more curious to see it again,
as it has been far too long.
The PCM
2.0 Stereo is good here, with little trouble for its age. The three-track acetate-based tape has held
up enough, and bonus tracks are also in stereo.
The low point is the material with vocal, which is the reason why Rock
was not going to fade away. The CD’s
pressings have been limited to 3,000, so those interested should check out more
information about this title and others on Film Score Monthly Magazine’s FSM
label at www.filmscoremonthly.com
and get ordering details.
- Nicholas Sheffo
