This 25-track, 62-minute collection of songs drawn from the soundtracks of movies featuring Alice Faye picks up where a similar album, This Year's Kiss, leaves off, including songs from ten of the pictures Faye made between 1938 and 1941. At this point in her career, Faye was a big star -- 20th Century-Fox's biggest musical attraction, in fact. The studio didn't put the care or money into its musicals that competitors like MGM did, but its songwriting staff, in this period prominently featuring lyricist Mack Gordon (who ...
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This 25-track, 62-minute collection of songs drawn from the soundtracks of movies featuring Alice Faye picks up where a similar album, This Year's Kiss, leaves off, including songs from ten of the pictures Faye made between 1938 and 1941. At this point in her career, Faye was a big star -- 20th Century-Fox's biggest musical attraction, in fact. The studio didn't put the care or money into its musicals that competitors like MGM did, but its songwriting staff, in this period prominently featuring lyricist Mack Gordon (who gets nine credits here) and composers like Harry Revel, Harry Warren, and James V. Monaco, was strong. Unfortunately, they didn't provide Faye with any real classics in these years (it wouldn't be until 1943 that Warren and Gordon gave her "You'll Never Know"), so the best stuff found here comes from two period movies. First, there's Alexander's Ragtime Band (1938), with its score of Irving Berlin favorites, including "Blue Skies," which Faye sings with Ethel Merman (who goes unmentioned on an album cover that cites the presence of such other guest stars as Natcho Galindo!). Second, there's Rose of Washington Square (1939), a thinly veiled account of the life of Fanny Brice featuring 1920s standards like "I'm Just Wild About Harry" and "I'll See You In My Dreams." But despite Faye's always warm and straightforward readings, too many of the songs here are mediocre. The sound quality, enhanced by the CEDAR system, is adequate. The annotations are skimpy. ~ William Ruhlmann, Rovi
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Add this copy of Original Soundtracks to cart. $24.95, very good condition, Sold by Spidle's Antiques rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Mechanicsburg, PA, UNITED STATES.
