And now - our two new releases - they'll be live on the site at six, but if you want them before that you know what to do.
Kritzerland is pleased to present a new limited edition soundtrack CD – two great scores on one CD:
THE FLY
and
RETURN OF THE FLY
Music Composed by Paul Sawtell and Bert Shefter
“HELP MEEEEE”
The Fly began life as a short story by George Langelaan. Twentieth Century-Fox snapped up the rights and hired James Clavell to write the script, his first screenplay assignment (Clavell would go on to write the screenplays for The Great Escape, 633 Squadron, The Satan Bug, To Sir, With Love, the latter which he also directed – he also become a very successful novelist, turning out such books as King Rat, Tai-Pan, Shogun, and Noble House, all of which became either films or mini-series). Kurt Neumann was in the director chair. He’d already done a couple of sci-fi films, Rocketship X-M and Kronos. Of course, The Fly was both science fiction and horror.
A top-drawer cast was assembled, including young Al Hedison (who would soon change his name to David), Vincent Price, Herbert Marshall, Patricia Owens, and the child actor, Charles Herbert. It was given the Cinemascope and color treatment (shot by veteran cameraman Karl Struss). And it was a smash hit with audiences everywhere, grossing $3,000,000 on a budget of $700,000, in at time when those figures actually meant something.
In those days, sequels were not all that common, but after the success of the first film, Fox decided to do another Fly picture, Return of the Fly, which was rushed into production and released a year later.
The scores to The Fly and Return of the Fly were written by the team of Paul Sawtell and Bert Shefter. Beginning with just the kind of bombastic and memorable music you’d want for a movie called The Fly, Sawtell and Shefter immediately introduce the theme for the happy couple at the film’s center, and it establishes immediately the human element of the story, which is so important for any sci-fi or horror film. From there it’s classic Sawtell and Shefter, with the scary music and the human music balancing out each other and creating a symphony of terror and things gone wrong, all in that unbelievably great Fox stereo sound. It’s one of the great sci-fi/horror scores. Return of the Fly is equally strong as a score and it’s not just a rehash of the first score, which is refreshing.
The Fly and Return of the Fly were both previously released in a box set on Percepto Records (which also contained Curse of the Fly, composed by Shefter alone), which has been long out of print and hard to find. For this reissue, we decided to just present the first two films, since they were made only a year apart and were both composed by Sawtell and Shefter. We’ve done some cleanup work and remastered the sound, combined a couple of shorter cues and removed the “Fox Fanfare” since it obviously wasn’t composed by Sawtell and Shefter. Both scores are complete – The Fly in glorious stereo, and the low budget Return of the Fly in glorious mono. So, turn off the lights and bask in the eerie glow of two classic sci-fi/horror scores by the great team of Paul Sawtell and Bert Shefter.
The Fly/Return of the Fly is limited to 1000 copies only. The price is $19.98, plus shipping.
CD will ship the last week of August – however, never fear, preorders placed directly through Kritzerland usually ship one to five weeks earlier (we’ve been averaging four weeks early). To place an order, see the cover, or hear audio samples, just visit
www.kritzerland.com.
and
WALLANDER
Music from the original Swedish TV series
Music Composed and Conducted by Adam Norden
Believe it or not, it didn’t all start with The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. No, Nordic crime novels, movies, and TV shows had been around long before. One of the most successful of the Nordic crime authors was Henning Mankell with his series of Wallander books – they were beautifully written and seemed like naturals for movies and TV and so we first got a series of Kurt Wallander movies based on the books that had been written to that point in the 1990s – those starred the wonderful actor Rolf Lassgard. Then the decision came that Wallander would start up again, this time as a TV series (with occasional movie releases), called, simply enough, Wallander. That was great news for Wallander fans. This time we got a new Wallander, Krister Henriksson. As good as Lassgard had been, Henriksson was even better, perfectly embodying the character. The first series consisted of thirteen ninety-minute films and was shot in 2005/2006.
The composer of all series one’s thirteen films was Adam Norden. A prolific composer, he really captured the essence of the films and the characters with his evocative and perfect music. His music is a key element in making those films unique. The scoring usually consists of recurring themes for Kurt and Linda, and the approach to orchestration is usually spare and filled with interesting textures and melodic invention, somehow capturing perfectly the loneliness, the cold, the sordidness of some of the crimes, the despair. Most of the music is contemplative in nature, but there’s some wonderful action music, too, especially in the “Mastermind” film.
While some of the music has been available as downloads only and only outside the United States it has never had a proper CD release. The show now has so many fans, thanks to its being aired in the UK and elsewhere (and now on DVD) that doing a CD release seemed like a no-brainer. The selections as presented here were personally chosen and assembled by Norden (who also contributes to the liner notes) and are from his masters, which he owns.
If you’re a fan of the Wallander films, especially of that brilliant first series, then this will be a lovely souvenir of the music that made that series so memorable. If you haven’t seen the series, the music stands perfectly well on its own and is a wonderful listening experience.
Wallander is limited to 1000 copies only. The price is $19.98, plus shipping.
CD will ship the last week of August – however, never fear, preorders placed directly through Kritzerland usually ship one to five weeks earlier (we’ve been averaging four weeks early). To place an order, see the cover, or hear audio samples, just visit
www.kritzerland.com.
