HURRY SUNDOWN (2CD) – Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

Composed and Conducted by  Hugo Montenegro

Magnificent Hugo Montenegro score arrives on 2-CD set with wealth of previously unreleased music! Not only expanded from 1967 RCA album but with much music deleted from finished film and being heard here for first time. Otto Preminger originally intended mammoth story about race relations in the South after WWII as three hour-plus epic with “intermission” and “exit” music. Final picture was cut heavily, with sizable portions of film – and score – dropped entirely. Montenegro originally recorded lengthy score for longer cut, including afore-mentioned “roadshow” music across some 42 reels of 35mm multi-track session elements with multiple layers requiring complex synchronization. In wonderful discovery, Paramount Pictures located every single 35mm reel in absolutely pristine condition, allowing brand new full stereo mix of every cue! Entire score, alternates, versions both with, without various overlays, unused cues, “Entr’acte” and “Exit” music – all survived intact with some of the most astonishingly detailed stereo sound ever encountered with mid-sixties era film score recordings! Michael Caine, Jane Fonda, John Philip Law, Faye Dunaway, Robert Hooks, Diahann Carroll, Burgess Meredith, George Kennedy all feature in large cast, Horton Foote (To Kill A Mockingbird) co-scripts with Thomas C. Ryan, Otto Preminger directs.

For composer Hugo Montenegro, composing the score for the 1967 Otto Preminger film Hurry Sundown was his first assignment for a major Hollywood director.  Montenegro spent three months on location, later crediting the director with helping teach him how “not to Mickey Mouse a film score” and how to avoid placing musical emphasis in the wrong places.  A passionate, dramatic work, Montenegro makes strong use of the ravishing love theme for Lou (Faye Dunaway) and Rad (John Phillip Law).  While a lush, stirring orchestral score in general, Jazz also plays a major role in the music, including the score’s longest sequence, “Playing With Dynamite,” which runs nearly 11 minutes.   Intrada presents the complete score, including the original RCA album assembly on this premiere 2-CD set, featuring nearly 2 hours and twenty minutes of music.

To present this expanded edition of Hurry Sundown, Intrada transferred the 35mm multi-channel scoring session masters, courtesy Paramount Pictures.  The release includes the “roadshow” intermission music and exit pieces as well as music Montenegro recorded for the three-plus hour version of the film that is being heard for the first time. Because of the large number of cues recorded and the many channels of multi-track stereo music involved, Intrada had to mix and edit some 42 rolls of magnetic film. Incredibly, every roll survived in magnificent condition, yielding one of the most dynamic stereo presentations of filmmusic ever drawn from the ’60s.

The film tells the tale of a pair of sharecroppers (one black, one white) battling the local landowner who wants to buy their land and seal the deal on a lucrative housing development and was filmed on location in what was still a racially-charged region.  Based on the 1964 bestseller by K. B. Gilden, the film stars Michael Caine, Jane Fonda, John Phillip Law, Diahann Carroll, Robert Hooks, Faye Dunaway, Burgess Meredith and George Kennedy.

Hugo Montenegro anchors with incredibly strong main theme (“Main Title”), then surrounds with vast array of themes, motifs: the Americana idiom of “Homecoming”, love themes for Caine/Fonda & Law/Dunaway characters, heartfelt variants for Hooks/Carroll relationship (much of which was cut from final film & score) plus much much more! Intrada release also features two versions of powerful, nearly 11-minute “Playing With Dynamite” sequence – just three minutes appeared on original 1967 RCA album.) Intrada also offers Caine’s solo sax pieces, Montenegro’s cool jazz source cues, afore-mentioned “Entr’acte” and “Exit” music plus numerous score alternates. If not enough, find the complete 1967 34-minute LP newly re-mastered from original two-track stereo album masters. It is rare to unearth so much musical material from Preminger’s epic roadshow-style films. Happily, Hurry Sundown is one such discovery! Rich packaging features flipper-style booklet cover: choose between original film campaign art by David Weisman or 1967 LP cover art, also by David Weisman. Richly recorded at Metro Goldwyn Mayer Studios Scoring Stage during October 1966. Leo Shuken, Jack Hayes orchestrate, Hugo Montenegro conducts.