feedthecats
04-26-2014, 01:35 PM
THE MAN WHO HAUNTED HIMSELF was the first score I ever heard by Michael J. Lewis, and I fell in love with it immediately. Many years later, when the promo CD came out (paired with “92 In The Shade”) I was absolutely thrilled… until I received it. The main and end titles were lifted straight off the movie, including sound effects, all the action cues were missing, and the catchy piece of source music that everyone remembers wasn’t included either. Sigh.
Fast forward to the present… and Network DVD (God bless ‘em) have included a suite of the COMPLETE score on their remastered DVD & Blu-Ray.
And here it is. That suite.
But… yeesh… it needed a lot of work. There are massive volume dips all over the place. Some tracks end abruptly. One or two tracks were so quiet they barely registered as a wave form, and raising their volume to normal levels resulted in deafening tape hiss and rumble.
Luckily, there were a number of tracks on the promo CD that could be used to replace the worst sounding cues, although they needed brightening to match the rest of the score.
Where tracks cut off abruptly, I created cleaner endings with some cunning reverb.
Those volume dips, though… I decided to raise them as much as I could, feeling that some hiss was a small price to pay for actually being able to hear the music. If you’re planning on listening to this over headphones - don’t! You will want to hunt me down and kill me. If you’re listening over decent speakers, the hiss probably won’t annoy you too much. Probably.
The track a lot of people remember is “The Record” - the LP source music that plays twice in the film. On both occasions it cuts off abruptly, just as it does in the film. To remedy this, on the first one I blended in a section from the second cue to create a more natural fadeout at the end. On the second cue I replaced the abrupt cutoff with a repeated section from earlier - this allowed me to create a much cleaner, definitive ending. This is a bit of a cheat, I admit, but it makes for a nicer listening experience. I’ve included the truncated film version as a bonus track for those who want to compare the cues and scrutinise my trickery.
The promo CD, by the way, contains quite a few unused cues and alternate takes. Just for the sake of completeness I’ve assembled them into a sort of “outtakes” suite.
So here it is… everything from THE MAN WHO HAUNTED HIMSELF.
01 Main Title (2:42)
02 Motorway Madness (2:12)
03 Two Heartbeats / Home Again (0:54)
04 Swimming Pool Encounter / The Record (0:59)
05 Mystery Car / Bedroom Talk (3:08)
06 Snooker / Troubled Pelham (1:36)
07 The Other Woman / Where Is He? (2:32)
08 The Pendant (1:06)
09 Julia's Place (1:30)
10 That Record Again (extended) (2:31)
11 Sad Pelham / Secret Meetings (1:44)
12 Frantic Drive Home (1:50)
13 Did You See Me? (1:43)
14 What Did The Doctor Say? (1:26)
15 Julia And The Other Pelham (0:41)
16 I Don't Remember! (3:19)
17 You Frightened Me / Other Pelham Takes Over (2:16)
18 Night Club (0:46)
19 Wedded Bliss? (0:42)
20 The Letter (0:53)
21 I Am Pelham! (0:59)
22 Duelling Cars (2:32)
23 Two Hearts Into One / End Titles (1:46)
BONUS TRACKS:
24 That Record Again (abrupt film end) (1:52)
25 Outtakes Suite (8:39)
PM for link.