If there’s one thing I’ve learned… it’s that not every DVD is meant to be watched straight after you buy it.  Or CD to be listened to.  Or book to be read.

I’ve got all my soundtrack CD’s in the office at the moment - to put onto the computer… then onto my iPod.  I’ve built up a rather small collection, mostly of MGM musicals.  Some of the CD’s were firm favourites but others I haven’t really listened to yet.

And today I learnt a lesson that just because a movie isn’t a classic or well-received… doesn’t mean that the score ain’t good.

I bought the Rhino Handmate relase of Summer Holiday (not the Cliff Richard one) sometime last year and never listened to it in full.  Made in 1946, it sat on the shelf for a couple of years because the MGM executives freaked.   It tanked when it was released in 1948.  I guess there was a lot in that - Mickey Rooney’s career was sliding, Gloria DeHaven had failed to become the big star that MGM had groomed her to be… and Rouben Mamoulian… well he was Rouben Mamoulian.  Needless to say it’s not mentioned when people refer to the great movies that Arthur Freed produced or included in the That’s Entertainment trilogy.  I’ve watched approximately half of it and all I can remember is the stars wearing white and prancing around a field.  I think.  I don’t remember Marilyn Maxwell or Agnes Moorehead… but they were in there.

According to the CD liner, Harry Warren was immensely proud of his score, and if it wasn’t fo him… there would be no twenty-first century release.  He managed to compile the complete score and “privately” issued it.

The music is a treat.  The score which was heavily edited out of the release film has been tracked down and presented on the disc in full.  I had Our Home Town and The Stanley Steamer in my head all afternoon.  It was witty, it was turn of the century feel good music.  Certainly better than some of the other music of the period.  I don’t think it was ahead of its time… maybe more never given a chance would be accurate.
I too wonder what it would be like to see the unedited film, but it is something I’ll never know.  The film footage from the deleted numbers is gone forever, and the stills will never fully make up for it.  If I ever get TCM I will record it.