On Dangerous Ground (Limited Edition CD Soundtrack)
Sound:
B- Music: A-
RKO was
the last major studio to rise out of the Classical Hollywood era and by their
arrival, sound was kicking in at al the studios. Lasting into the late-1950s, the studio more
than made its mark with some of the most important films ever made, from Orson
Welles’ Citizen Kane to
unacknowledged late gems under Howard Hughes (always held responsible for the
end of the studio, though it is not that simple by a longshot), and this
included what is the most underrated music catalog of all the studios.
Turner
Entertainment gained its assets when it bought-out the old M-G-M catalog (the
holders of the films and related materials), and for the last few years, Time
Warner have become the caretakers of this archive. Besides a mountain of painstaking work the
RKO films need on their own, which is why so many of the classics are so slow
to arrive on DVD, there is the matter of the music. Some of the scores have been out there in one
form or another, but many more soundtracks are long overdue for
rediscovery. That is why the release of
Bernard Herrmann’s score for the 1952 Film Noir classic On Dangerous Ground is such a music event.
Coming a
decade after Kane and only a few
years before his legendary collaborations with Alfred Hitchcock, On Dangerous Ground has all the
aggressiveness and darker tones that later work (and by extension, his scores
for Francois Truffaut, Brian De Palma, Larry Cohen, and Martin Scorsese) would
offer are all clearly evident in this incredible work. It is, along with Kane, is Herrmann’s only other actual Film Noir score. The booklet missed that Kane was the beginning of Noir.
His work with Hitchcock would extrapolate on that sensibility, taking
film music into a new direction.
The PCM
CD sound is an amazing recovery of the original monophonic soundtrack from
extremely fragile hard-acetate (Collins 16” type) record discs. Film Score Monthly’s FSM label had done such
a release before with their double set of Gerald Fried’s Horror scores
(reviewed on this site under Fried’s name) and those acetates also needed
work. Though this may not have the best
sonics of a soundtrack CD, what is here is remarkable and that it survived this
well to be restored is stunning in itself, as this came from a Herrmann
archive. The RKO music archive materials
are lost, but the music is out there in other forms besides the surviving
optical tracks on the actual films and it is up to collectors, alternate
archives and contact with serious fans and collectors that will keep alive the
possibility that we will see a repeat of this kind of a soundtrack
release. It is also a huge treat to hear
Herrmann himself talking during a recording session, the genius in action, at
the end of this CD.
And then
there is the sound when it is not at its best, even after the
reconstruction. There are several tracks
where you can hear the wear and the needle due to the damage form the fragile
original source. Herrmann still gets the
last laugh, however, for this reason. As
many fans know, he began doing music in the glory days of network radio,
including key work with Orson Welles.
Today, tens of thousands of those great shows are getting issued on CD
as they already had on vinyl LPs and audio cassette tapes. All those programs were captured on the same
16” Collins-format discs all those programs were captured on in the first
place. Radio drama fans like me are
accustomed to hearing the needle, wear and limitations when enjoying The Shadow and many of the other
classics of the era. That even extends
to the always amusing radio commercial advertisements. When all is said and done, Herrmann is still
right at home.
The first
19 of the 21 tracks here are in chronological order, so the more worn tracks
are not isolated. I agree with this
approach, because it spells out the incredible impact of how strongly
Herrmann’s music backed this film. The
CD itself has been limited to 3,000 pressings, and can be purchased only and
exclusively from FSM and the website www.filmscoremonthly.com. This is one of the most key soundtracks to
come to CD yet and whether Warner does a DVD or not, this CD is a must-have.
- Nicholas Sheffo
