B
Bill
Just thought I'd post an email I sent to Varese Sarabande regarding their upcoming "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" Soundtrack release.
My email:
I have been anxiously awaiting your "very special edition" of the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang soundtrack. I noticed tonight that the site has been updated with a track listing. To my disappointment, I found that your "very special edition" has 16 tracks...7 less that the mere "deluxe edition" put out by Ryko a few years back. I'm just curious...what is "very special" about this release? Wouldn't a "very special edition" have had actual score on it? Not trying to be facetious....I'm just curious how this differs from the previous (and current UK) editions of the soundtrack.
Varese Sarabande's response:
Thank you for your note.
The reason our CHITTY CHITTY BANG BANG CD is not part of our own "Deluxe Edition" series is because no tapes exist that would have allowed us to add any additional music. All we could do was remaster the sound to improve it in any way we could, remove, what we felt, were annoying dialog excerpts and design a nice CD package, featuring new liner notes. We did all of this and that's all that was possible. Not all reissues can include new tracks. We would have loved to have produced a Deluxe Edition of this soundtrack but sometimes the tapes just do not exist. Our "Special Edition" designation simply referred to the fact that this is the official soundtrack for MGM's so-designated "Special Edition" DVD.
My comments:
Now I find this a bit strange. "No tapes exitst" seems like a cop out to me. I supposed every known copy could have been destroyed in a fire or something, but....come on.....Chitty was produced by Albert Broccoli the same producer as the Bond franchise and released by UA (now MGM). They have just released the Bond soundtracks all with extra score. Are we to believe that the archiving of the Chitty material was, for some strange reason, mishandled unlike all of the Bond films? I'm sure they're out there...the email probably should have read: "We didn't want to spend the time and effort to track it down"
My email:
I have been anxiously awaiting your "very special edition" of the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang soundtrack. I noticed tonight that the site has been updated with a track listing. To my disappointment, I found that your "very special edition" has 16 tracks...7 less that the mere "deluxe edition" put out by Ryko a few years back. I'm just curious...what is "very special" about this release? Wouldn't a "very special edition" have had actual score on it? Not trying to be facetious....I'm just curious how this differs from the previous (and current UK) editions of the soundtrack.
Varese Sarabande's response:
Thank you for your note.
The reason our CHITTY CHITTY BANG BANG CD is not part of our own "Deluxe Edition" series is because no tapes exist that would have allowed us to add any additional music. All we could do was remaster the sound to improve it in any way we could, remove, what we felt, were annoying dialog excerpts and design a nice CD package, featuring new liner notes. We did all of this and that's all that was possible. Not all reissues can include new tracks. We would have loved to have produced a Deluxe Edition of this soundtrack but sometimes the tapes just do not exist. Our "Special Edition" designation simply referred to the fact that this is the official soundtrack for MGM's so-designated "Special Edition" DVD.
My comments:
Now I find this a bit strange. "No tapes exitst" seems like a cop out to me. I supposed every known copy could have been destroyed in a fire or something, but....come on.....Chitty was produced by Albert Broccoli the same producer as the Bond franchise and released by UA (now MGM). They have just released the Bond soundtracks all with extra score. Are we to believe that the archiving of the Chitty material was, for some strange reason, mishandled unlike all of the Bond films? I'm sure they're out there...the email probably should have read: "We didn't want to spend the time and effort to track it down"
