Outer Limits (Original Series) - Why Rereleased? (1 Viewer)

[Hollywoodaholic]

I was such a fan of the show and the music that I actually called Frontiere in Beverly Hills back when I was in college in Florida (mid 70s) and spoke with him. Besides praising his music, I asked if he had any plans to release a recording. He said no, and that he had donated all the TOL tapes to his alma mater, which, if I remember correctly, was like the University of Wyoming. (Can anybody confirm this?) He didn't think there'd be a demand for it.

I was happy hear about and pick up that GNP release many years later, but I wondered if anyone else contacted the school or found out if there were any other plans to release more of the music.

Also, when I talked to Frontiere, he had recently worked with Dan Fogelberg preparing the orchestrations for his album "Netherlands." If you're not familiar with it, pick it up, it's really quite a great album and Frontiere's work on it is really inspiring. Dan Fogelberg died just last month of prostrate cancer.

 

[Ockeghem]

Hollywoodaholic,

Here is an interesting link (mostly biographical) on D. Frontiere. It mentions UCLA. I didn't realize that he was married to the recently-deceased Georgia Frontiere.

Dominic Frontiere Biography

Wiki also mentions that he enrolled in UCLA.

Dominic Frontiere - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Here is another interesting link, including some musical samples:

Dominic Frontiere Website - Soundtrack legend [ Outer Limits - Hang Em High ]. With biography, discography and audiosamples.

 

[michael_ks]

Nice site. When it initially loads, the music that plays sounds indentical to that heard on the car radio in "The Galaxy Being" when Gene 'Buddy' Maxwell switches it on. If true, it's not often that a composer has both his diegetic (source music that the characters are supposed to hear) and non-diegetic musical underscore featured in the same episode!

And you've got me very curious about "The Children of Spider County", Scott. I need to check the teaser out tonight.

 

[Hollywoodaholic]

Yeah, Georgia Frontiere was married to Carroll Rosenbloom, who owned the L.A. Rams, and he drowned on a beach as I recall. And Frontiere went to prison for a while for scalping Super Bowl tickets and tax evasion while he was married to her. She since divorced him. And she died last month.

But UCLA was not the school that Frontiere told me he donated the tapes to. I really believe it was the music department at the University of Wyoming. Maybe he was given an honorary doctorate there or something. The mystery deepens. GNP would have had to go to that library to license the music for their release. Interesting characters, interesting story ... behind TOL music.

 

[Ockeghem]

Michael,

I played that opening for my children a few months ago. They were very intrigued and wanted to see the entire episode after that.

 

[Ockeghem]

Hollywoodaholic,

I wonder if the liner notes to the GNP Crescendo recording have anything on the university he donated the tapes to on it? I will check over the weekend.

And yes, I read that info. on D. Frontiere (about the tickets). That's another thing I had never heard of before today.

 

[Harry-N]

Drifting this thread slightly off-topic, but a response to the above: check out John Williams music for the pilot episode of THE TIME TUNNEL, "Rendezvous With Yesterday". You'll find that he composed and conducted the "Titanic Trot", the incidental music that's heard onboard the Titanic as James Darren's Tony meets up with Susan Hampshire's Althea character.

Mr. Williams of course scored the entire episode and wrote the theme music. And he would repeat the composing of music heard by the characters in STAR WARS ("Cantina") and 1941 (the 40's dance music).

Back on topic, I'll have to check out that teaser as well. The description has me curious.

Harry

 

[Ockeghem]

I watched it again last night. I hope I haven't overstated its effect too much. I still loved it, but I hope it's as good as I described it.

 

[Dave Jessup]

I wonder if the liner notes to the GNP Crescendo recording have anything on the university he donated the tapes to on it? I will check over the weekend.

The GNP Crescendo CD liners carefully omit any mention of where the source tapes were/are - just that there was a long search to find them.

 

[Ockeghem]

Dave Jessup,

Okay, thanks.

I've been reading through this thread, which dates back a few years. There are some really interesting posts here.

Has anyone purchased the three-volume DVD set of TOL? I have been trying to find out if the set is any better than the two-volume set that I own. I did have to return my set twice, but I now have a copy which seems to be in very good working order.

Here is a pic from the three-volume set. I'd appreciate any feedback from those whom have purchased it. Many thanks.



Okay, nevermind. I found this gem around page two or three:

Doug Otte:
This is very helpful.

 

[Hollywoodaholic]

It's also my understanding from the thread that the re-release did not digitally re-master or improve the image from the first release, which is why I haven't bothered to pick them up. Hopefully, there will be a Blu-ray version some day. Wouldn't that be great?

Re: the "location of the master audio tapes was cloaked in an aura of mystery" on the GNP soundtrack liner notes ... Hey, did they just ask Frontiere like I did (back in the 70s)? Maybe he couldn't remember later on when that soundtrack was prepared, but I'm pretty sure he told me the University of Wyoming. "The game is afoot," as Holmes would say. I'll check with that university to confirm this.

 

[Ockeghem]

For my own part, I have little desire to move toward (or purchase) another format. But, I must say that if TOL were to come to Blu-ray, I would be very tempted to go that route, since I love this show so very much. Heck, I was tempted to try to obtain as much of the series as I could on videodisc once I learned that the DVD problem existed. Thankfully, that appears to be solved, at least with some runs of the sets.

Thanks for the info. on the liner notes. I'd be interested to learn what you find out.

 

[Hollywoodaholic]

Okay, this is very cool. My short term memory may be toast, but I actually remembered my phone conversation with Dominic Frontiere from more than 30 years ago correctly.

There are 18 boxes of archival musical material donated by Frontiere at the American Heritage Center at the University of Wyoming. These boxes include all the musical scores or sheet music for The Outer Limits as well as other television projects he did between 1952-1975 (including The Invaders). Here's the durable link to his catalogue page:

Brief Display

What's not known is whether or not there are actual audio tapes of these scores. But the curator there (John Waggener) said he would check in some of the boxes and get back to me, because many of the boxes are actually unprocessed: No one's looked in them yet.

So when Frontiere said he donated his music to the University of Wyoming, as a composer, he was most probably referring to his actual handwritten music sheets, etc. This is the material that anyone wanting to re-orchestrate his music today would use. I know there are some serious musicians on this thread, so they might find some interest in this. There are 905 leaves (?) of music sheets on TOL alone here.

Whether this information gets us any more TOL soundtracks, I don't know, but as far as this amateur sleuth case, we now know where at least this "national treasure" was buried.

 

[Ockeghem]

Thank you so much! Your work is very much appreciated.

I looked at the link for the Dominic Frontiere papers 1952-1975. That's a brief display for the catalog record. I tried to look at the full display (what we catalogers call a MARC record); but I could not. But what you have linked here is great. It's a bibliographic record which represents the entity that is cataloged at some level. I use these on a daily basis, and I often create them when I do original cataloging.

You're quite correct too about the music scores often being used by composers, arrangers, etc. My training is in medieval and renaissance manuscripts, so I've been to many archives to use these types of things as well as facsimiles when originals are lacking. I am guessing that one would have to be a serious musician or scholar in order to gain access to these papers. The archivist would be the person to contact if anyone is interested. We have a university archivist, and she will frequently help students and scholars with important materials such as these.

Again, very interesting. I think I need to watch an episode of TOL in your honor.

 

[michael_ks]

In doing some research on the net over Dominic Frontiere's scores to TOL I came across a licensed release to his score for "The Forms of Things Unknown". I never knew about it! It doesn't appear to feature the entire score, oddly enough and is weighted toward the episode's first half.

LA LA LAND RECORDS, A Name For Evil, The Unknown

There are two mp3s you can play, one for the main title to the unsold pilot "The Unknown" and one for Andre's theme.

BTW, thanks Wayne, for all that great info regarding material donated by Frontiere to the American Heritage Center at the University of Wyoming.

 

[Hollywoodaholic]

From a post on The Fugitive Season 2 thread by Harry-N ....

" ... I know that THE OUTER LIMITS music was recently re-released by La-La Land Records - my copy is ordered and on the way.

It's a new and more thorough release than the old GNP Crescendo disc:

LA LA LAND RECORDS, OUTER LIMITS

Limited edition, it claims. We've already missed the autographed versions that were available for about 1 day."

- Harry*

I pasted this info here from Harry's post so that any Outer Limits fans browsing the Forum would know about this motherlode (three hours) of re-mastered music by Dominic Frontiere from the original series.

*(As a WGA writer, we are very picky about acknowledging proper credits.)

 

[Harry-N]

Thanks Wayne. Great idea posting it here, more where it belongs.

Mine's shipped but still hasn't arrived - perhaps today.

Harry

 

[Hollywoodaholic]

Working my way throught the first CD on the new soundtrack release and enjoying it thoroughly. The sound is definitely a step up from the previous GNP release, if still a little thin and with some distortions here and there. But it's still better than we've ever heard it.

The cues from "Architects of Fear" are so evocative of the story, you can tear up just hearing the themes. I mark that episode and "The Man Who Was Never Born" as two of the finest moments in television writing and imagery, though a bit melancholy. I guess I was always drawn toward the tragic tales.

The cues on "Tourist Attraction" have all the Spanish flare. Frontiere must have had a field day with the TOL anthology structure that allowed him to explore completely different worlds and styles with each episode.

Thanks again to La-La Land Records for putting this out and for giving us TOL and Frontiere fans an unexpected thrill.

 

[Carabimero]

I just ordered mine a couple days ago and can't wait!

 

[Ockeghem]

Yes, some of those Spanish elements (somewhat flamenco-esque) can be heard in The Chameleon, near the beginning of the episode where we see Duval being recruited.

Have you had a listen to "The Thaw" (from Tourist Attraction)? I haven't heard it yet (I will be getting this recording soon); I'm guessing it's the same segment we hear in The Special One during that wonderfully dark and eerie sequence as we wait for Mr. Zeno to arrive (the one we've discussed on various threads recently).