Veröffentlichung Intrada: Ron Goodwins UNIDENTIFIED FLYING ODDBALL

[Gast Stefan Jania]

 

Chaos in the cosmos! Premiere release of exciting Ron Goodwin score for Walt Disney Production time travel space comedy, loosely based on Mark Twain novel A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court, directed by Russ Mayberry, starring Dennis Dugan, Jim Dale, Ron Moody, Kenneth More (as King Arthur). Energetic tale finds NASA scientist inadvertently launched into space, passing through time warp, landing in England's Camelot during the year 508. Romance with maid Alisande, tangles with Mordred, antics with Merlin, heroics with King Arthur lead to battles and intrigue galore! Ron Goodwin scores largely to period adventure, rousing action of story. Lengthy, climactic battle music highlights with abundance of dazzling brass, rhythmic percussion. Fun to know that Goodwin not only visited legendary Camelot characters here but also in Sword Of Lancelot (aka Lancelot And Guinevere) and Sir Gawain And The Green Knight. Courtesy our friends at Disney, entire CD presented in stereo from 1/4" two-track session mixes engineered by Eric Tomlinson at Anvil Studios in March 1979. Film was originally released in UK as The Spaceman And King Arthur. Colorful packaging designed by Joe Sikoryak, informative liner notes by John Takis. Ron Goodwin conducts. Intrada Special Collection CD available while quantities and interest remains!

Composer Ron Goodwin had previously scored five films for Disney and producer Hugh Attwooll: two for television (Diamonds on Wheels and Born to Run) and three for theaters (One of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing, The Littlest Horse Thieves—a.k.a. Escape From the Dark—and Candleshoe). Unidentified Flying Oddball marked his last feature for Disney, and was a fairly light affair, being a family comedy loosely inspired by Mark Twain’s 1889 novel A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court.

Goodwin delivered an energetic score that mostly plays the action straight. The greater part of the score is a showcase for the composer’s vivid themes, injecting space-age pluck and dynamism into the film’s cheerfully anachronistic vision of early medieval Cornwall. Most of the score’s themes relate directly to the eponymous oddball spaceman, Tom Trimble. Foremost is a sparkling misterioso motif that opens the film in flute and bells over hushed tremolo strings. As the film moves into more adventurous territory, Goodwin beefs up the orchestration and reworks the motif into a propulsive action setting. Finally, the line is absorbed into a heraldic theme that confirms Tom as the tale’s triumphant hero.

This premiere release of Ron Goodwin’s bright and action-filled score for Disney’s Unidentified Flying Oddball was made possible by the discovery of the original stereo session mixes, surviving on ¼˝ two-track tape. The rolls of tape were in very good condition and included everything that Goodwin recorded for the film, allowing Intrada to present his entire score as intended, including a handful of cues recorded but ultimately not used. The recording features a crisp stereo image, with the profuse action sequences for brass in the latter part of the score being especially vibrant.

Happy-go-lucky NASA scientist Tom Trimble (Dennis Dugan) is tasked with creating an intelligent android to pilot a faster-than-light spacecraft. At the last minute, the android gets cold feet, and Trimble boards the craft and is inadvertently launched into orbit. The pair hurtle through time and wind up in England in the year 508, where Tom’s spacesuit causes him to be mistaken for a monster by the lovely maid Alisande (Sheila White). He is swiftly taken prisoner by the deceitful Sir Mordred (Jim Dale) and brought to Camelot. Tom regales King Arthur (Kenneth More) with a befuddling crash course in world history, but is nonetheless sentenced to burn at the stake...

 

http://store.intrada.com/s.nl/it.A/id.10032/.f?sc=13&category=-113

 

[Gast Stefan Jania]

Zitat

AVAILABLE UNTIL FEBRUARY 13 2017 OR WHILE SUPPLIES LAST!