Call Me Madam Soundtrack
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Composer: Irving BerlinPerformer: Ethel Merman
Performer: Donald O'Connor
Performer: George Sanders
Edition: Music CD
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language)
Format: Import
CD Release Date: 2007-08-07
Music Label: Hallmark UK
Music reviews of Call Me Madam Soundtrack
Music Review: Excellent recording marred by disappointing sound quality
Rating: 2 Stars
The so-called "original cast recording" of CALL ME MADAM is not satisfying because, due to contract problems, RCA Victor was forced to substitute Dinah Shore for Ethel Merman and it is not an ideal replacement. Decca's studio album with Ethel Merman singing 12 songs from the score lacks theatricality.
Fortunately the movie version retained Merman, surrounded her with a great set of performers (Donald O'Connor, George Sanders) and retained most of the score from the stage show. Even the changes are mostly improvements: The lugubrious "Once Upon a Time Today" is replaced by the lively "What Chance Have I with Love?" giving O'Connor his requesite eccentric dance routine. We lose "Washington Square Dance" (heard in the film as an instrumental background to a Washington party scene) and the showstopping "They Lke Ike" (Eisenhower's election in the fall of 1951 made the song unusable, and besides it had nothing to do with the plot) but the film gains from the redistribution of songs. It takes some of the emphasis off Ethel Merman, though she remains ver much the star. Her second act opener "Something to Dance About" is shifted to O'Connor and Vera Ellen and sets up an entertaining dance sequence. George Sanders is perfectly cast as the foriegn minister Merman falls for and here has a chance to display his warm baritone.
The orignal release of this album was on a 10-inch Lp (the standard format for most movie soundtracks in the early 1950s) and Decca ensured that all of the songs were included. Not all of the dance music would fit, but a good amount of it is heard nonetheless. Best of all this little album has the theatricality missing from the two stage cast albums, and consequently was the preferred version of the score. The problem was that the 10-inch format went out of vogue by the mid 1950s and this version of CALL ME MADAM vanished from the catalogues. It was briefly reissued on one side of a 12-inch Lp in 1981, but aside from two tracks on Rhino's Cd IRVING BERLN IN HOLLYWOOD, it has not been available on CD until now. (Part of the problem is that Decca no longer owns the rights to these tracks, since they are owned by 20th Century Fox. At one time a few years back there were rumous of a new complete and expanded soundtrack album to be released on CD but as of this writing that has not happened. It may yet - the movie was finally released on DVD in 2004.)
This CD comes from Hallmark in England and appears to have been issued through the legal loophole that places recordings in England that are more than 50 years old in the public domain. The CD was not remastered from the original tapes but appears to have been taken from a poor tape of the original LP. There are numerous drop-outs and phase problems: The sound refuses to stay centred in pure mono. There is also a loss of the crisp highs and the detailed bottom end that characterized Decca's original album. The CD is also short, containing just the 28 minutes of music on the original album with no extras. The short playing time I could accept, but the sound quality is so poor that this CD isn't even a mixed blessing. Best to wait until Rhino (or some other label) brings out a new and expanded MADAM.
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