= GAILY, GAILY =

.................. Partial liner notes ..................

    Gaily, Gaily certainly had the makings of a hit - a terrific cast including young Beau Bridges, Brian Keith, Hume Cronyn, Melina Mercouri, and a very young Margot Kidder, along with a large cast of wonderful character actors. The whole look and sound of the film was wonderful - in fact, the film garnered three Academy Awards nominations: Best Art Direction, Best Costumes, and Best Sound. But, in the end, the film felt very episodic, frenetic, and, yes, old-fashioned. But with actors such as these, much of it still managed to be entertaining.

    The one area where it succeeded perfectly was in its score by Henry Mancini. By this time, Mancini was already a legend. After toiling in the music department at Universal (the highlight of his tenure there would be Orson Welles' Touch of Evil), he hit it big, first with his TV score to Peter Gunn - which also provided that Blake Edwards series with its signature sound, but which also produced a best-selling album on RCA - and then in a series of film for which he provided amazing scores, one right after another - Breakfast At Tiffany's, Charade, Hatari, The Pink Panther, Days of Wine and Roses, and many others. Many of those films also produced best-selling albums. Mancini not only knew how to score a film perfectly, but he was one of the great melodists and each of his scores was jam-packed with one memorable tune after another. His songs from films received many Academy Award nominations, and he won back-to-back statuettes for "Moon River" and "Days of Wine and Roses."

    Mancini's score for Gaily, Gaily is short but perfect. As was his wont, the soundtrack album was, in fact, a rerecording - it featured all the themes from the film, but not the actual score tracks from the film. The main theme, "Tomorrow Is My Friend" (with lyrics by Marilyn and Alan Bergman) is one of Mancini’s most sublime and haunting melodies, and Jimmie Rodgers' performance of it in both film and on the album is wonderful. The other themes are pure Mancini and a great deal of fun. As a wonderful bonus, the album gave us Melina Mercouri's recitation of "Christmas Eve On Skid Row" with Mancini's underscore.

..................

    The LP presentation of Gaily, Gaily was assembled by Mancini with his customary good taste, and since the album presentation in no way resembles the music as heard in the film, we left it as he assembled it. The album masters were in excellent condition.

-- BRUCE KIMMEL