SCI-FI IN HIFI Classic Film Themes of the 1950s & 60s – Dick Jacobs, Mancini, Tiomkin

One of the first LPs to exploit the directional possibilities of stereo was a very atypical album of film themes by band leader Dick Jacobs and his Orchestra, Coral CRL-757240, released in 1959 titled, THEMES FROM HORROR MOVIES, which featured music from Universal films of the 1940s & 1950s. Although it included a few themes from classic Dracula and Frankenstein films, the majority of the album’s tracks were from Universal’s more recent 1950s Science-Fiction films. This album was unique among movie theme albums of the time in that instead of presenting the music in the usual “movie theme” easy listening style of the 50s & 60s, Jacobs’ arrangements were somewhat faithful to the original film orchestrations. Unfortunately, cheesy directional sound effects were added to the music mix and each selection was preceded by even cheesier “voice of doom” intros by Bob McFadden, which tended to depreciate the album’s musical content. The album was released very briefly on LP & CD by Varese Sarabande in the 1980s minus the narration and the majority of the sound effects with the more appropriate title THEMES FROM CLASSIC SCIENCE FICTION, FANTASY & HORROR FILMS and for the first time, the music and the superb stereo sound took centre stage. But the original album’s music content was only about 29 minutes. About 10 years ago I decided to compile a more expanded collection using Jacob’s album as the base and adding themes from Sci-Fi films of the same period from other Studios besides Universal. The end result is a 78 minute compilation which I titled SCI-FI IN HIFI (although the majority of the themes are in real stereo). Since this is a “Sci-Fi” collection, I excluded 4 tracks on the original Jacobs album which were from genuine “horror films”, Horror of Dracula, Son of Dracula & House of Frankenstein, but these can be found on another expanded compilation of mine titled “Movie Monsters: Classic Film Music for Creature Features” (Thread 209253). In the meantime I hope you enjoy this collection of Sci-Fi Themes as much as I enjoyed putting it together.

SCI-FI IN HIFI
LINK & THREAD NOW CLOSED

Thank you.

Thank you steviefromalaska for another wonderful compilation album and for your hard work in putting it together and as always for your detailed and informative liner notes.

Thanks 🙂

Thanks very much. Much appreciated.

Thanks!!

Wonderful idea – Thanks!

Wonderful! Thanks.

another wonderful job thank you for your continuous efforts

Muchas gracias.

Well, if this isn’t just the coolest compilation ever! Than you so much for sharing this!

Merci beaucoup

Thanks a lot steviefromalaska !

Clearly a labor of love. Thanks

Thank you.

What a beautiful cover, and a great selection : thanks a lot

Great job, Stevie… Thanks!!

Nice collection and the stereo comes across very nicely on my laptop, thank you Stevie.

thanks !
I need to check this !!

wow thanks

Thanks for this great compilation. Looking forward to Halloween!

Fantastic work. Many thanks, Stevie!

Thank you.

Many thanks!

Thank you very much

thanks

thank you Steve

Thank you for sharing!

Nice!!!!!

Awesome! Thanks!

thanks