Cimarron (1960, Limited Edition CD Soundtrack)
Sound: B Music:
B
The original Cimarron (RKO, 1931) is still one of
the only Westerns to ever win the Best Picture Academy Award. When M-G-M was trying to find huge
productions to compete with television, they decided to remake the film. At first, it was conceived as one of the
ultra-rare MGM Camera 65/Ultra Panavision 70 productions with the Cinerama
ultra-wide process with a whopping 2.76 X 1 aspect ration. However, it eventually became a normal Panavision
scope 2.35 X 1 production, though the production was dubbed CinemaScope as if
it had used those older and by then out of date lenses. That was good, because it did not do well at
the box office.
As if the original held up so well, this still broke the
rule that classics should not be remade.
Before Warner Bros. can issue either film on DVD, the FSM CD soundtrack
label of Film Score Monthly Magazine has issued a fine limited edition of the
music score by the great Franz Waxman.
This is the premiere of the music as a soundtrack 44 years after the
film’s release and in some ways, the first time the music has been properly
heard at all. As explained in yet
another great booklet included within the CD case, the multi-track magnetic
stereo sound the film was released in degraded the music and often buried it
under bombastic sound effects, something we are used to all the time in most of
the bad films out today. Old Hollywood
had more respect for the customer then on that level.
For the 22 tracks here, including the final “outtakes
suite” track, are from the original three-track soundmaster the music was
recorded on. Until this CD was
released, this was practically a lost score, but FSM and their love of film music
is astonishing and we have this fine music that might have saved the film
somewhat if audiences could have only heard it!
Granted, fine music can only go so far in saving a lost
cause, but Warner Bros. needs to use these tracks to do a necessary 5.1 remix
that would flesh out Waxman’s work again and allow audiences for the first time
ever to really be able to appreciate what Waxman was trying to do for the
film. The PCM 2.0 CD Stereo is fine and
since the magnetic master survived as well as it did, it also happens not to
have been played too much, so it sounds good.
That makes this released a vital CD soundtrack to have and experience,
but there are only 3,000 copies being pressed, so you may want to go to www.filmscoremonthly.com for more
details in their CD section for this and other highly collectible
exclusives. Track listings and
downloadable samples are also available there.
- Nicholas Sheffo
