Ice Station Zebra (FSM Limited Edition CD Soundtrack)
Sound: B Music:
B
What is it about Michel Legrand when he does an Action
film score? This is a man who usually
does Operettas, Musicals, and Dramas, but his action scores either have humor
when needed, or are unintentionally funny at times. This does not render them ineffective, but
his music for Ice Station Zebra (1968) has the disadvantage of being
trivialized by the overload and glut of similar soundtracks in commercial
Action films since the 1980s that want to emulate it. Marvin Hamlisch could be said to be the first
one to take-off from this film in that respect for his James Bond score The
Spy Who Loved Me (1977), but that had more humor as well.
This new CD of Ice Station Zebra goes farther than
the limited M-G-M and MCA (both now defunct labels names) LPs and Pendulum CD
by expanding the available music to fill the entire disc at nearly 80 minutes
in length. This limited edition version
is from the music label of Film Score Monthly magazine, with only 3,000
copies being produced, which can be ordered exclusively from them at www.filmscoremonthly.com with an
entire series of vital movie music that has something for everyone.
The music sounds good, in part because it was recorded
with the knowledge that the film was being shot in Super Panavision 70 (65mm
negative footage with Panavision’s lenses at the time for the larger-frame
format), and would be issued in the later Cinerama presentation process that
skipped three projectors. Wider
single-lens, single strip 70mm Cinerama with a lens unsqueezing the anamorphic
70mm print into a wider 2.76 X 1 image was used in its place. The 70mm presentation would offer five
channels of stereo sound behind the screen, while Cinerama could offer up to
nine channels. Legrand actually
conducted his material, and this likely helped him keep his vision of the big
music for the big screen in tact.
The big sounds are underlined with interesting motifs for
various key elements of the film, as well as its narrative that makes
sense. The Tigerfish, the name of the
submarine, is announced as the “good” vessel.
The theme song constantly announces its goodness in intent and greatness
in size and capability. That may seem
hokey, but it actually works for the film much as the U.S.S. Enterprise and its
various versions work in the Star Trek franchise. The hokey-ness that is avoided by Legrand is
any dated pseudo-Russian music that permeated far too many Cold War-era
Comedies and Thrillers, making them seem dated and even older after recent
international events.
These
sounds also play well from the CD, with all tracks decoding well in Dolby Pro
Logic, though the case does not identify it as encoded that way. The tracks are clean for their age, but do
seem a slight touch off in the clarity department. This is very minor, but needed to be noted
just the same. Otherwise, this is a fine
sound presentation in all 15 often-long tracks.
A DVD
with Dolby Digital 5.1 sound from the original 70mm 6-track magnetic stereo was
issued and it was not bad, but not as good as this CD set, which is still in
print. No Blu-ray had been announced at
press time, but considering how well Grand
Prix, 2001: A Space Odyssey and Baraka turned out in 1080p, Warner
Bros. will hopefully be planning it with
a DTS HD or Dolby TrueHD 5.1 mix. FSM
just added Grand Prix to their CD
releases ironically and their series continues to be one of the best in the
business. Ice
Station Zebra is a key highlight and still very much recommended.
- Nicholas Sheffo
