Love in the Afternoon

I had a request to reup this EP, which was an early share on my other blog. I thought I might as well go ahead and retransfer it for posting here. The notes that follow, however, are a rerun from six years ago:

This certainly is not the best soundtrack album I own, but it's probably the shortest - 3 songs.

This is the only soundtrack ever issued for the Hepburn-Cooper-Chevalier opus Love in the Afternoon, a somewhat odious young girl - old man comedy. There sure were a lot of those in the 50s, with other examples also involving Chevalier (Gigi) and Hepburn (Funny Face).

I don't recall why, but the music features the cimbalom, which hardly seems the thing for its Parisian setting. There must have been a reason.

The listed musical adapter for the movie is Franz Waxman, but these songs were not written by him. The big hit here was Fascination. An old song, but its use in the movie inspired the recording of a vocal version by Jane Morgan, which became quite popular.

The Barkleys of Broadway

Soundtrack recordings from The Barkleys of Broadway are not unusual, but I thought you might be interested in seeing how the relatively new M-G-M record company issued the music from its storied productions way back when.

Barkleys was a spring 1949 release (as was I, come to think of it), and at that time the 78 was still the dominant format. M-G-M took four songs from the score and issued them in a gatefold package for this release, with a colorful cover and the interior devoted to a spectacular Fred-and-Ginger montage (see below). As always, restored high-res scans are in the download.

The plug song from this production was the (to me) almost unlistenable "My One and Only Highland Fling," with the performers adopting broader accents than would be heard in your local high school's presentation of Brigadoon, and the added detraction of Rogers' wavering intonation. But things improve thereafter, and Astaire is terrific in the other numbers - although "Shoes with Wings On" isn't much of a song.

To me, one of the great pleasures of this package is the work of Conrad Salinger (and perhaps other studio hands) on the arrangements, which are simply glorious, and extremely well played by the orchestra led by Lennie Hayton. The sound on these original 78s is very vivid.

LINK

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