So it was great to read that
Universal Pictures have announced plans to preserve and restore its classic library of movie music. The Universal Pictures Film Music Heritage Collection
will launch this week as a joint venture with La-La Land Records. What is even
better is that they have also announced that new retro titles will include the
first ever official CD release of Morricone’s Two Mules for Sister Sara.
Great,
wonderful news in fact!
However, I do hope that this
joint venture will take the opportunity to make this release the very best
possible. I’m hoping that the score will be newly remastered. I also hope that
Universal have the original radio spots, because now is the right time and the
perfect opportunity to use them. The Radio Spots are an integral part of the
film’s audio history, as much as a Trailer is to a film’s Blu-ray or DVD
release. Shamefully none of these spots were included on the Blu-ray release of
Two Mules for Sister Sara. Which begs the question, does Universal even have
the masters in their Archives? Are they lost or destroyed?
Firstly, I have always offered
pieces from my collection to make any Eastwood product the very best possible.
So I just wanted to throw it out there, right now, especially among my friends
that work in the soundtrack industry in the states. I have the full set of
Radio spots, on an original Universal vinyl disc. If Universal do not hold the
masters for these, then good luck in trying to find them, as they are extremely
hard to find. I’m offering to help here…
Secondly, if you want to go
deeper (and even rarer) into the film’s audio history, how about an extremely
rare open ended interview on 7”inch vinyl Side A with Eastwood, side B with
Shirley MacLaine. This 7” single runs at 33 1/3. Again this has never been
available to the public and only used on local radio broadcasts at the time of
the film’s original release. I can't even begin to explain how rare this particular
piece is. On top of that I also have the original script that accompanied this
record.
The script includes the questions for the local DJ to ask and the recorded responses from
Eastwood. I would also gladly reproduce this for the booklet. Sadly there is no
script sheet for the MacLaine interview.
These are the kind of examples
that fans would love to hear included. I am offering these, I have nothing to
gain from this, in fact, I am prepared to offer material here which would (in
all probability) devalue my original source material, the original products.
I just wouldn’t want to see or
read stories of woe about ‘how such material wasn’t available to us’. It is...
but only if you want it done right. I am easy to contact, either through the
archive – leave a comment here, it will NOT be published, but contact
information for me to get in touch would be welcome. Alternatively contact
Cinema Retro Magazine and they would forward information to me. It would be so
refreshing to see this project done properly while at the same time offering
the Eastwood fans something new to enjoy. Why would you not?
No comments:
Post a Comment