{"id":5862,"date":"2012-12-06T16:34:00","date_gmt":"2012-12-06T21:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=5862"},"modified":"2012-12-06T16:39:31","modified_gmt":"2012-12-06T21:39:31","slug":"cd-ship-of-fools-1965","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=5862","title":{"rendered":"CD: Ship of Fools (1965)"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Return to<\/strong>:\u00a0Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Soundtrack \u00a0Reviews<\/a> \/ <\/em>S<\/a><\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>Rating: Very Good<\/p>\n

Label: Monstrous Movie Music<\/a>\/ Released: March 27, 2012<\/p>\n

Tracks & Album Length: 23 tracks \/ (57:06)<\/p>\n

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Special Notes: 16-page fold-out colour booklet with liner notes by CD co-producer David Shecter \/ Limited to 1000 copies.<\/p>\n

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Composer: Ernest Gold<\/p>\n

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Review:<\/p>\n

Monstrous Movie Music\u2019s second Ernest Gold CD \u2013 after The McCullochs <\/a><\/strong>[M<\/a>] (1975) \u2013 features his elegant source-based score for Stanley Kramer\u2019s gloomy pre-WWII drama about disparate and desperate characters on a ship en route to Europe.<\/p>\n

Gold\u2019s score is a blend of underscore and source cues, most of which were written by Gold and are featured on MMM’s CD (excepting a rare handful that no longer survive). Whereas a prior album was released by RCA (and later reissued by Artemis) with re-recorded and sometimes radically different cue arrangements under the baton of Arthur Fiedler, this marks the first time Ship of Fools<\/strong>\u2019 original mono film tracks have been released.<\/p>\n

The Main Title is almost perfunctory in establishing the film\u2019s opening Veracruz location as well as a brief love theme quote, yet it really glows with Gold\u2019s detailing, especially the brassy finale before the cue winds down and fades out. Gold has the brass play in a discretely mockingly tone that presages the more menacing, satirical style Jerry Goldsmith adopted for his 1978 masterwork of Nazi delusion, The Boys from Brazil<\/a> <\/strong>[M<\/a>] (1978).<\/p>\n

Gold later revisits the love theme in a short cue (\u201cBedside Manner\u201d), and interpolates short bits of moody score between \u201cCharleston for Fools.\u201d The theme also materializes in the album\u2019s final set of cues, which mark a deliberate shift from atmospheric source cues to underscore with direct character statements (especially full orchestral stabs in the super-brief \u201cThe Visit\u201d).<\/p>\n

After the first track, the CD immediately gets into the original source cues which demonstrate Gold\u2019s amazing skill in capturing an era’s musical style. Be it the looped gentility of \u201cCaptain\u2019s Table\u201d or archaic elegance of \u201cThe Gorplander Waltz,\u201d the immersion into the world of the film\u2019s aging and increasingly conflicted characters is total. As David Schecter writes in his liner notes, Gold\u2019s cues were designed to flow with a scene\u2019s mood as well as punctuate dramatic points, if not exaggerate the stilted conventions and faux personas of certain characters.<\/p>\n

Also worked into the score is the short vocal cue \u201cHeute abend geh\u2019n Wir bummeln auf der Reeperbahn,\u201d a ridiculously catchy tune sung by Jose Ferrer and Christiane Schmidtmer in which Gold and lyricist Jack Lloyd express a couple\u2019s glee in their intention to go strolling down Hamburg\u2019s prostitute district.<\/p>\n

The source cues are performed by a small chamber orchestra (mostly strings and piano) and there is a similarity in each tune\u2019s idyllic mood which gives the score a continuity. The lilting style may also lend a slight sameness at times, but Gold\u2019s tunes feature small solos, and specific parts that allow the string players to express a special type of preciousness that’s well-suited to certain characters.<\/p>\n

MMM\u2019s CD features all surviving Gold originals in clean mono, and while the cues could\u2019ve been re-arranged to alternate between source and score cues, the chronological order works as a musical journey where for a short, concentrated time we\u2019re forced to join the pretentions and experience the closeted fears of the film\u2019s central characters.<\/p>\n

Shecter\u2019s liner notes are massively detailed in production and composer bio details, as well as comparative details between the score and re-recorded RCA versions, and the inclusion of stills provides a rich overview of this small gem.<\/p>\n

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\u00a9 2012 Mark R. Hasan<\/p>\n

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External References:<\/p>\n

IMDB <\/a>— Soundtrack Album<\/a> — Composer Filmography<\/a><\/p>\n

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Return to<\/strong>:\u00a0Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Soundtrack Reviews<\/a> <\/em>\/\u00a0S<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Return to:\u00a0Home \/\u00a0Soundtrack \u00a0Reviews \/ S . Rating: Very Good Label: Monstrous Movie Music\/ Released: March 27, 2012 Tracks & Album Length: 23 tracks \/ (57:06) . Special Notes: 16-page fold-out colour booklet with liner notes by CD co-producer David Shecter \/ Limited to 1000 copies. .. Composer: Ernest Gold . . Review: Monstrous Movie […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[20],"tags":[741,740],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-1wy","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5862"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5862"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5862\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5873,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5862\/revisions\/5873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}