Lord
Jim/The Long Ships (Limited Edition CD Soundtrack)
Sound: B Music:
B-
Columbia Pictures was on the upswing in the 1960s and
after Lawrence Of Arabia, why not do more epics films. Though not as well known, critically or
commercially (but when it comes to Lawrence, what is?), Lord Jim
(1965) directly by casting Peter O’Toole himself and The Long Ships
(1963) by its ambition, wanted to follow badly. This included in their scoring, so Bronislau Kaper (Mutiny On
The Bounty, The Brothers Karamazov) did the former, while Dusan
Radic got the latter.
While we intend to cover the features when we can get the
DVDs (or Blu-rays) later, we will examine the scores first. Kaper is an underrated composer and the
first achievement about Lord Jim is that it does not try to duplicate or
top Lawrence Of Arabia. Instead,
the adaptation of the Joseph Conrad book by the great director Richard Brooks
needed the kind of score about soul searching that more befit as more explicit
journey into darkness. As is the case
with all Kaper scores, you first hear the more familiar type of music, then he
twists it in subtle ways to emphasize narrative. In this case, though, there is not enough of that. Whether that is because of the film or Kaper
is something we will investigate when we get the film to cover, but a slightly
flawed Kaper score can outdo most of the music we get now anytime.
The Long Ships was also a big 70mm epic,
helmed by the great cinematographer Jack Cardiff. It is another Vikings film and comes across as more naturalistic
than Richard Fleischer’s The Vikings, but Radic’s work (conducted by
Borslav Pascan) is more on par with the music by Mario Nascimbene. Ironically, Cardiff was the cinematographer
on Fleischer’s 1958 film. The score is
at least as lively and has its needed bombastic moments, but also tracks
sounding like foreign-exotic music, though none of it is condescending. It offers more, but is still a bit dated and
lacking in a certain fullness that might make more sense when (re-)screening
the picture. More on that down the
line.
The PCM 2.0 16Bit/44.1kHz Stereo sounds good, but more
aged than expected despite Both are from ¼” album masters, while The Long
Ships was stereo boosted in its vinyl debut. The liner notes say it was recorded monophonic, which must have
been something when hearing the film in 6-channel magnetic stereo when shown in
70mm. Both films had that kind of
theatrical playback as they were shot that way, with five of the six speakers being
behind the screen for traveling dialogue and even sound effects. None of that is evident here, though one has
to wonder if the 70mm soundmaster (or what copies may have survived) offer
something sonically at least different than this CD. The CD is a fine sonic transfer, however, and Lord Jim was
issued in Dolby Digital 3.0 on DVD, meaning the 5 channels behind the screen
were “folded down” for the DVD release.
We intend to get back to both titles as soon as possible, but are glad
to see a solid CD of two 70mm epics arrive at all. It is shocking how many are NOT in print.
However, the FSM label of Film Score Monthly Magazine has
issued the soundtrack for the first time on CD, limited to only 3,000 copies
(which can be ordered directly from the magazine’s site at www.filmscoremonthly.com) and have
done their usual exemplary release of the music. It was on vinyl a long time ago through the long defunct Colgems
label, but that was it. Now, there is
another opportunity to get it, however limited. Collectors should especially pay attention.
- Nicholas Sheffo
