Sunset Boulevard
Billy Wilder's 1950 classic is an unsettling exploration of Hollywood's heart of darkness--and a beguiling, cautionary horror film at heart. Like the best of that genre, it turns on an axis of human foibles--greed, ambition, delusion, narcissism--that aren't exactly metaphorical in Wilder's skilled hands. The director's musical accomplice, Franz Waxman, was hardly a stranger to the genre, either; hisBride of Frankensteinremains an undisputed classic. Hard to believe, but this glorious new digital recording of Waxman's Oscar®-winning music forSunset Boulevardmarks the first release of the film's complete soundtrack. Carefully evoking every detail and nuance in Waxman's masterful score, conductor Joel McNeely and producer Robert Townson have turned in one of their most rewarding classic film score re-creations yet, offering up a compelling Waxman who evokes Hollywood's golden age allure in one bar, then skewers it mercilessly the next. By turns romantic, mysterious, and thoroughly creepy, this Royal Scottish National Orchestra recording of Waxman's masterpiece should be a cornerstone of any serious collection of classic film music.--Jerry McCulley