THE GREAT ESCAPE (3 CD)

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Original Motion Picture Soundtrack Disc 1 01. Main Title (2:30) 02. At First Glance (3:07) 03. Premature Plans (2:28) 04. If At Once (2:31) 05. Forked (1:28) 06. Cooler (1:58) 07. Mole (1:28) 08. "X"/Tonight We Dig (1:30) 09. The Scrounger/Blythe (3:50) 10. Water Faucet (1:23) 11. Interruptus (1:33) 12. The Plan/The Sad Ives (1:43) 13. Green Thumbs (2:28) 14. Hilts And Ives (0:38) 15. Cave In (2:01) 16. Restless Men (1:56) 17. Booze (1:47) 18. "Yankee Doodle" (0:55) 19. Discovery (3:40) Disc 1 Time: 39:24

Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (Continued) Disc 2 01. Various Troubles (3:52) 02. Panic (2:05) 03. Pin Trick (0:59) 04. Hendley's Risk (1:43) 05. Released Again/Escape Time (5:25) 06. 20 Feet Short (3:06) 07. Foul Up (2:37) 08. At The Station (1:33) 09. On The Road (3:27) 10. The Chase/First Casualty (6:49) 11. Flight Plan (2:09) 12. More Action/Hilts Captured (6:07) 13. Road's End (2:06) 14. Betrayal (2:20) 15. Three Gone/Home Again (3:13) 16. Finale/The Cast (2:47) Disc 2 Time: 50:56

Original 1963 United Artists Score Album Disc 3 01. Main Title (2:07) 02. Premature Plans (2:08) 03. Cooler And Mole (2:26) 04. Blythe (2:13) 05. Discovery (2:54) 06. Various Troubles (2:40) 07. On The Road (2:54) 08. Betrayal (2:05) 09. Hendley's Risk (2:24) 10. Road's End (2:00) 11. More Action (1:57) 12. The Chase (2:48) 13. Finale (3:14) Disc 3 Time: 32:34

Tech Talk From The Producer…

Although this legendary film score has been available in some form from its LP origin in 1963 right on through the present day, this is the first presentation of both the original re-recorded album released by the United Artists label when the film opened and the actual soundtrack recorded for the picture in a single package. Both versions are valuable listening experiences and certainly compliment each other.

The original 1963 LP was for more than forty years the lone presentation of the score. Some 33 minutes of highlights were included that touched on almost every major set-piece in the movie, if just briefly in many cases. In fact, its first release on CD was through Intrada during the early days of the CD format. The more recent discovery of tapes for the complete score as recorded for the soundtrack resulted in a handsome 2-CD package from the Varese Sarabande label. Now Intrada presents everything under one roof, so to speak, in a specially-priced 3-CD set for those who may have missed out on one or both of the earlier releases.

The first two CDs offer the actual soundtrack in stereo, mastered from the same ¼” 7 ½ ips two-track tape sources used for the Varese Sarabande release – but restored and re-mastered to address the annoying tape printthrough that plagued certain tracks of that release, such as the accented fortissimo hits in brass during the opening bars of the “Main Title” and other similar loud passages that are followed immediately by quiet ones. While the reasonably dynamic audio quality remains similar, the print-through is now happily absent. The stereo mix, made back in 1963, remains vivid but listeners should note the perceived heavier weight of the 17 right channel is due the extreme positioning of all the brass plus the low strings (cellos and basses) on the right. Those instruments play with vitality and are very active throughout the score. The left channel is restricted to violins, violas and some woodwinds (which also appear in the center with percussion), all which are much less active than the brass and lower strings. In other words, the stereo mix is accurate and genuine but will often feel weighted to the right due to the composition of the music and the original engineering of the instrumental familes.

A final word about this 2-CD soundtrack presentation: the second half of the film has more music than the first half. The previous release chose to make each CD roughly equal in length but we have elected to retain the integrity of the musical balance of the film thus dedicating one CD to each act of the film. This allows the first CD to end with the music naturally as it does in the first act of the film, but does result in the first CD being shorter in length than the second. As such the second CD contains most of the action music of the film, just as the second half of the film did.

The LP re-recording from 1963 is presented here as CD 3, mastered from the ½” 15 ips three-track stereo album masters vaulted courtesy of MGM. These were preserved in mint condition and remain amongst the most dynamic and well-engineered album masters of the era.

So now sit back, stretch your legs within the confines of your own audio compound, and enjoy a double dose of one of the all-time great film score classics with Elmer Bernstein as your commanding officer.

—Douglass Fake