Music From the Films of Orson Welles volume 1 - new cd on amazon

[Nate H]

this looks really neat, does anyone know anything about it? not much info on the site. nice cover though


on a similar note does anyone know if this is the music from the original Othello or is it the crummy 'restored' version? thanks

[Jeff Wilson]

Nice find. Here is the record label's page on the release. I've always wanted the music from Arkadin, so it'll be nice to have at least a track, assuming the quality is good. And that Othello disc is the re-recorded version, not the original.

[Kevin Loy]

Speaking of soundtracks, I know that Michel Legrand and Bill Evans (the pianist, that is) have both re-recorded the theme from F For Fake...but does anybody know if the original recording has ever been released?

[The Night Man]

The 4-CD compilation LE CINEMA DE MICHEL LEGRAND, from Universal France, contains two tracks from the OST - "Orson's Theme" (3'22) and "F for Fake" (3'40).

If we're lucky Universal France will produce a Misraki disc that has music from ARKADIN on it. This thing from el/Cherry Red is probably ripped from DVDs. I'm not expecting much in the way of quality.

[Roger Ryan]

Be aware that the Cherry Red site's track listing has some formatting issues; for about five seconds I thought they found some lost Bernard Herrmann score for the "Finale" of "The Lady From Shanghai"!

[Tony]

I believe all this material has been, or is currently, available on cd, except for the Arkadin and the Shanghai; so it would be buying the disc for those 3 tracks- though I do think that the score to Arkadin is underrated. If they actually release a Volume 2, it might be more interesting.

It's interesting that the covers are different; the American one with the Shanghai shot reminds me that Rita didn't wear that dress in the movie, though almost all the publicity showed her in it.

[The Night Man]

I found a copy of this album in a local shop and it is much as I suspected - LADY FROM SHANGHAI, MACBETH, THE THIRD MAN, and MR. ARKADIN all seem to be ripped directly from DVDs. WELLES RAISES KANE is the radio broadcast by the CBS Symphony; JANE EYRE is the isolated score which, I'm guessing, was probably booted from the previously-released original tracks.

The sound quality is variable. Sorry to report, Jeff, that the ARKADIN track is the worst-sounding of the lot, with a noticable drop in volume about 2/3 of the way through.

If the isolated music tracks for ARKADIN still exist, there's a chance that they may be released one day in good-quality sound. As I said, we'll be lucky if Universal France does the job since their soundtrack series is uniformly superb.