All About Eve/Leave Her
To Heaven (Limited Edition CD)
Sound: B- each
Music: B each
As discussed often on this site, the two types of films
that most showed the dark sides of America form Hollywood were melodramas and
Film Noirs. The FSM label of Film Score
Monthly magazine had put together one of their best double feature soundtrack
pairings on a single CD to date. Joseph
L. Mankiewicz’s All About Eve (1950) and John M. Stahl’s Leave Her To
Heaven (1945) are both classics and especially distinct within their genre
realms. Both happen to also be 20th
Century Fox films with music by the great Alfred Newman, the in-house composer
for the studio in two of his most memorable moments.
All About Eve is not just another mere
melodrama, and not just one of the greatest backstage looks at Hollywood ever
made, but a film so well acted and assembled that it endures very strongly 55
years later. It was ahead of its time
in being smart and honest in the way adults interact, even when they have
education and are well spoken. That
those trappings create more snobbery than help anyone is not typical Hollywood
by any means, but to have it happening in theater (a sister to Hollywood and
the “Dream Factory”) is more ironic.
Newman knew this and came up with music that made sense. The 26 tracks from the film take up the
majority of the CD, with the last two in real stereo.
Leave Her To Heaven has the distinction of being
the only full-fledged Film Noir of the original era that is undeniably so and
happens to be in color (and three-strip dye-transfer Technicolor at that!), the
exception for a key cycle known for black and white film all the time. Newman did not make as much music for the
film and it did not need it, yet the backstabbing is more potent here than in Eve. That “leaves” only seven tracks, but the
film works well with its silence and Newman again hits the nail on the
head. This is a great set.
The PCM 2.0 sound is from the original Optical sound
masters form archival film stocks, with the two Eve stereo tracks also
available in mono. They have sonic
limits, but are not bad considering the old sources. The Dolby Digital 2.0 on the titles respective DVDs cannot
compete either. A nice booklet typical
of all FSM releases is also included, informative as usual. However, this CD is also limited to 3,000
copies and with Heaven out on DVD following the successful release of Eve,
more interest will cause fans to seek out the soundtrack and this will be the
only one available on the market. Go to
www.filmscoremonthly.com to find
out more about this and other great soundtrack exclusives. They have a great magazine too.
- Nicholas Sheffo
