Expanded Score CD for Danny Elfman's MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE (1996) Out this Week from La-La Land

Years in the making, La-La Land Records finally made the announcement today that Mission: Impossible fans have been craving: an expanded score CD featuring Danny Elfman's amazing music from the first Tom Cruise Mission movie! The 2-disc limited edition soundtrack to the 1996 Brian De Palma film (review here) will contain the original score album assembly, mastered by Patricia Sullivan, on Disc 1, while Disc 2 (per the label) "showcases the remastered film score, expanding the original album release by more than twenty minutes. Produced by Dan Goldwasser and Neil S. Bulk and remastered by Mike Matessino, this powerhouse 2-CD set is limited to 3000 units and features exclusive liner notes by writer Jeff Bond. The sleek art direction is by Dan Goldwasser." It should be noted that, like the original score album, this release will not contain the version of Lalo Schifrin's "Mission: Impossible Theme" by U2's Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen, which was originally included on the entirely different album Mission: Impossible - Music from and Inspired by the Motion Picture (remember those annoying "From and Inspired by" albums so popular in the late Nineties?), and also issued as a single. Elfman's music, however, frequently incorporates Shifrin's theme, too, as well as his distinctive cue "The Plot" from the Sixties TV show. Missing from the track list for the new release are the three Elfman tracks originally included on that "From and Inspired by" album, but my guess is that that those tracks contain music already inclued in other tracks on the original score album. (Can anyone confirm or refute that?) Last year, Mondo released Elfman's Mission: Impossible score on vinyl, but that release contained no extra music.

Strictly limited to 3000 units, La-La Land's Mission: Impossible - Limited Edition soundtrack retails for $29.98. It's available to order now, and starts shipping later this week on September 13.

Here's the full track listing from the La-La Land website:

DISC 1 ORIGINAL POINT MUSIC SCORE ALBUM
1. Sleeping Beauty(†) 2:33
2. Theme From Mission: Impossible(§) 1:07
    Composed by Lalo Schifrin, arr. Danny Elfman
3. Red Handed(§) 4:23
4. Big Trouble 5:37
5. Love Theme? 2:24
6. Mole Hunt 3:05
7. The Disc(†) 1:58
8. Max Found 1:05
9. Looking for “Job”(†) 4:40
10. Betrayal 2:59
11. The Heist(†) 5:49
12. Uh-Oh! 1:31
13. Biblical Revelation 1:37
14. Phone Home 2:28
15. Train Time(§)(†) 4:15
16. Ménage à Trois 2:57
17. Zoom A 1:54
18. Zoom B(§) 2:58
TOTAL DISC TIME: 53:20

DISC 2 FILM SCORE
1. Sleeping Beauty**(†) (Film Version) 3:03
2. Theme From Mission: Impossible(§) 1:07
    Composed by Lalo Schifrin, arr. Danny Elfman
3. Red Handed** (†/§) (Film Version) 6:21
4. Big Trouble** (Film Version) 7:01
5. Lonely March* 0:54
6. Mole Hunt** (Film Version)/Escape* 3:35
7. Looking For “Job”(†) 4:44
8. Max Returns*/Max At Last* 1:30
9. Max Found 1:05
10. The Disc(†) 1:59
11. Disavowed*/Worse Than You Think** (†) 2:48
12. Langley*(§) 1:01
13. The Heist** (†) (Film Version) 5:05
14. Uh-Oh! 1:31
15. Biblical Revelation 1:36
16. Phone Home 2:28
17. Betrayal** (Film Version) 3:01
18. Love Theme? 2:24
19. Train Time** (Film Version)/Is He?* 5:33
20. Ménage à Trois 2:57
21. Zoom A** (Film Version)/Zoom B**(§) (Film Version) 5:21

ADDITIONAL MUSIC
22. Red Handed**(†) (Alternate Ending) 1:46
23. Disavowed* (Alternate)/Worse Than You Think*(†) (Alternate) 2:59
24. Zoom A** (Alternate)/Zoom B**(§) (Alternate) 5:19
TOTAL DISC TIME: 75:15

TOTAL ALBUM TIME: 128:35

* previously unreleased
** contains previously unreleased material
§ contains “Theme From Mission: Impossible” by Lalo Schifrin
† contains “The Plot” by Lalo Schifrin

Mondo To Release Danny Elfman's MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE Score on Vinyl... Plus More Info on La La Land's MISSION Plans

Austin-based T-shirt company turned record label Mondo announced today that they would release Danny Elfman's terrific score for Brian De Palma's original 1996 Mission: Impossible movie on vinyl in October. It will be that score's first ever vinyl release, as the film came out between the "death of vinyl" in the early Nineties and the format's miraculous resurrection in the past decade. (The movie's version of "The Mission: Impossible Theme" by U2's Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen, however, was released at the time as a 12" single for the DJ market.) Mondo's 2-disc release, sporting a retro-style record sleeve that will make a nice companion piece to the original 1960s Lalo Schifrin Mission: Impossible LPs, and liner notes by Austin composer Brian Satterwhite, will be pressed on 180 Gram colored vinyl. There will be a "Red Light/Green Light" edition (in honor of the film's explosive chewing gum), limited to 1,000 copies, and an unlimited translucent red version. (Hm... that's a tough call!) Both retail for $35, and are available for pre-order on the Mondo website, shipping in October. (Hopefully that gives them time to correct the spelling of Lalo Schifrin's name on the back cover!) Here's the track list:

Side A
01. Sleeping Beauty
02. Mission: Impossible Theme
03. Red Handed
04. Big Trouble

Side B
05. Love Theme?
06. Mole Hunt
07. The Disc
08. Max Found
09. Looking For “Job”

Side C
10. Betrayal
11. The Heist
12. Uh-Oh!
13. Biblical Revelation

Side D
14. Phone Home
15. Train Time
16. Ménage à Trois
17. Zoom A
18. Zoom B

For those who want even more music from that movie, La La Land Records recently mentioned in a post on the Film Score Monthly Forum that they're working on an expanded, double CD release of Elfman's score that was supposed to be out for the 20th anniversary in 2016, but has (obviously) been held up. They hope to have it out next year. That will certainly be exciting! (They also mention they might do an expanded release of Joe Kraemer's score for Rogue Nation... but not until that movie's 10th anniversary in 2025. I would sure love to see all the source music from the opera included on that release should it happen!)

Meanwhile, La La Land's Mission: Impossible - Music from the 1988 Television Series, announced last week, is now available to buy from their website... which also offers some more intel on the album's contents. The 2-disc set seems to include nearly all the music original theme composer Lalo Schifrin (The Liquidator) wrote for the revival series (three episodes' worth) along with a good sampling of Ron Jones' (Star Trek: The Next Generation) work. While the official copy claims this release "showcases the series’ musical highlights over its two season run," all the episodes on the track list are actually from its first year, the 1988-89 TV season. So I remain hopeful (which is to say, greedy!) that perhaps in a few years we'll get a second volume containing some more Jones tunes and a healthy selection of John E. Davis's (Matt Houston) music for that series (a few tracks of which can be found on the GNP album The Best of Mission: Impossible... Then and Now). But before we get ahead of ourselves, let's just be thrilled about what they're offering right now!

Finally, to celebrate the release of that new set, the company are offering their indispensable 6-CD box set from the original series, Mission: Impossible - The Television Scores (normally $100; details here) at the bargain price of just $80. Fewer than a hundred units of the limited run remain, so the fuse is burning rapidly down! The sale price is in effect through August 13.

Thanks to Mike for the heads up about the vinyl!

Read my review of Mission: Impossible III (2006) here.
Read my review of M:I-2 (2000) here.
Read my review of Mission: Impossible (1996) here.
Read my review of Mission: Impossible: The Seventh TV Season here.
Read my review of Mission: Impossible: The Sixth TV Season here.

Read my review of Mission: Impossible: The Fifth TV Season here.
Read my review of Mission: Impossible: The Fourth TV Season here.
Read my review of Mission: Impossible: The Third TV Season here.
Read my review of Mission: Impossible: The Second TV Season here.
Read my review of Mission: Impossible: The First TV Season here.

La La Land Announces 2-Disc Soundtrack for MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - THE 1988 TELEVISION SERIES

Here's some fantastic news for Mission: Impossible Week! In 2015, coinciding with the release of Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation, La-La Land Records brought us the utterly fantastic 6-disc set Mission: Impossible - The Television Scores. (Which is still available from their site.) This had long been a Holy Grail for fans of the series, and completely lived up to (and exceeded!) our wildest expectations. Every single episode of the original 1966-73 TV series that had an original score was represented... but the 1988-90 revival series was not. (Which was entirely appropriate, as the Eighties music had a different vibe and would have felt out of place.) But now, to coincide with the release of Mission: Impossible - Fallout, La La Land is doing it again!

Next week they'll release a 2-disc collection of music by Lalo Schifrin and Ron Jones from Mission: Impossible - The 1988 Television Series! I was really hoping they'd do this, but didn't dare actually expect it. As with just about any score incorporating Schifrin's iconic theme, this series featured some great music. Some of it was included on GNP Crescendo's release The Best of Mission: Impossible Then and Now, but that was really just the tip of the iceberg, and didn't feature any Jones music. (It did include John E. Davis's score work, however.) La-La Land has released very little information about this title so far (basically just a teaser to whet our appetites), so I'm not sure if this release will feature music from both seasons of the revival series or just the 1988 one. (If it's the latter, hopefully that means we'll see another volume around the time the next Mission movie hits screens!) Here's what we do know:

It's a limited edition of 1988 units. The album is produced by Lukas Kendall, with liner notes by Jon Burlingame (whose extensive spy music expertise has also graced his own productions, like the aforementioned 6-disc original series set, FSM's Man from U.N.C.L.E. discs, as well as his book The Music of James Bond) and art direction by Dan Goldwasser. The price point will be $29.98, and the set goes on sale through the La-La Land website on July 31, 2018 at 12 pm Pacific. That's next week! I can't wait.

La-La Land will also be releasing the physical CD of Lorne Balfe's score for Mission: Impossible - Fallout, due out on August 3. (They also put out the soundtrack for Rogue Nation.)

New Spy DVDs: Warner Archive Releases Sol Madrid (1968)

Wow, the hits just keep coming from the Warner Archive Collection for spy fans! On top of last week's release of The Scorpio Letters and last month's Where the Spies Are, WAC today (finally!) released the long-awaited Sol Madrid (1968)! So apparently the recent TCM broadcasts were indeed a hint of things to come. Just as Robert Vaughn made The Venetian Affair (also available from WAC) to capitalize on his Man From U.N.C.L.E. stardom while at the same time broadening his horizons to grittier spy far, so his co-star McCallum made Sol Madrid (along with a bunch of U.N.C.L.E. guest stars!). Sol Madrid found McCallum starring as an agent tasked by Interpol to take down a drug kingpin (On Her Majesty's Secret Service's Telly Savalas, of "The Five Daughters Affair") hiding out in Acapulco. To accomplish the task, he goes undercover as a heroin smuggler and finds himself trapped with a beautiful woman (Stella Stevens, The Silencers) between Savalas's drug kingpin and the Mafia, in the person of Rip Torn ("The Alexander the Greater Affair"). Ricardo Montalban ("The Dove Affair"), Paul Lukas ("The Test Tube Killer Affair"), Michael Ansara ("The Arabian Affair") and Pat Hingle (The Ugly American) also star. Where Eagles Dare's Brian G. Hutton directed, and, as with The Venetian Affair, Lalo Schifrin provided the fantastic soundtrack. Sol Madrid is available as a made-on-demand (MOD) DVD from The Warner Archive Collection for $21.99, though it's currently on sale at a discount.

Upcoming Spy Music: The President's Analyst Finally Gets a Soundtrack Release

Quartet Records recently announced the first ever official soundtrack release of Lalo Schifrin's score for Theodore J. Flicker's peerless James Coburn spy satire The President's Analyst—one of my very favorite spy movies. (One day I'll get back to doing that series of reviews of My Favorite Spy Movies, and The President's Analyst and Otley will probably be next.) It's paired with Schifrin's score for the Cliff Robertson suspense drama Man on a Swing. (I've never seen that one.) The President's Analyst follows Coburn as a psychoanalyst selected by the heads of the thinly disguised CEA (Central Enquiry Agency) and FBR (Federal Bureau of Regulation) to be the President's personal analyst. But soon the pressures of the job become too much to bear, and the man with all of the nation's secrets in his head goes on the run, making himself a target for spies of all nations (including Russia and Canada) and, worse than the KGB, the omnipresent Phone Company. It's a hilarious film that deftly treads the line between Pink Panther-style absurdity and smart, prescient satire. Its prescience, in fact, is somewhat scary, as the film neatly predicted our current surveillance culture and willing surrender of our privacy in exchange for the latest communications gizmos. Rather unfortunately, it remains as relevant today as it was when it was made in 1967. Per Quartet's copy, "the terrific Schifrin score, one of his most imaginative from the period (and one of the most desired by his fans), is a kaleidoscope of parodic patriotic music, throbbing spy/suspense sound, pop, jazz, Christmas songs and a catchy 'paranoid' theme." Sadly, the soundtrack appears to be missing the folk epic "Inner Manipulations" by "Eve of Destruction" singer Barry McGuire that scores the movie's best setpiece, as well as The Clear Light's "She's Ready to Be Free." (The latter at least is available elsewhere, but the movie version of the former is the piece of music from this film I, frustratingly, most want to own!)

Rock songs aside, though, Schifrin's score is also terrific and I've long desired it as well, and am very happy I'll finally be able to own it! Quartet does offer connoisseurs a word of warning about their source material, however: "Sadly, the only available source for The President’s Analyst was the mono music stems, but we have made a big effort to restore them as much as possible. We have evened out the up-and-down shifts in volume and minimized the small bits of dialogue that bled into the audio masters. We think the end result is satisfactory—and the music is well worth the effort!" I'm sure it is. I've always been quite happy with Quartet's releases, including their epic, 2-disc, as near-definitive-as-possible version of Burt Bacharach's score for the 1967 Casino Royale. And if that release, which went out of print, started commanding astronomical prices, and eventually earned a rare second printing due to popular demand, is any indication, you may want to get your hands on The President's Analyst sooner rather than later. Like the first printing of Casino Royale, it's limited to just 1,000 copies. And without the juggernaut affiliation of James Bond, I suspect that in this case, when they're gone, they're gone. And if you need one more reason to pull the trigger, the record company promises that "the lavish package includes a 20-page booklet with in-depth liner notes from film music writer Jeff Bond." Man on a Swing/The President's Analyst is available for pre-order from Screen Archives Entertainment for $19.95. You can listen to samples from it on Quartet's website. Here's the complete track list:

MAN ON A SWING

1. Maggie’s Theme (0:23)
2. Source Muzak #2 (1:06)
3. Source Muzak #1 (0:34)
4. Maggie’s Theme (0:56)
5. Evelyn Story (1:42)
6. Source Muzak #3 (0:41)
7. Wills’ Trance (5:56)
8. Source Muzak #5 (1:21)
9. Source Muzak #6 (1:41)
10. Source Muzak #7 (0:35)
11. Rosehaven Motel (1:54)
12. Maggie Retraced (1:49)
13. Source Muzak #9 (1:20)
14. Choked Up (1:48)
15. Juke Box Source (1:25)
16. Radio Source (1:39)
17. Dialatone / Empty Porch / Mailman / Phone Voice / A Wet Nothing (3:25)
18. Penultima Trance (4:11)
19. Wills’ Last Trance (1:14)
20. Forest Finale (0:21)
21. End Credits (1:17)

THE PRESIDENT'S ANALYST

22. Paramount Seal and Opening / Main Title (4:46)
23. Hey Me (2:24)
24. The Long Walk (1:02)
25. The Nest (1:27)
26. On Call (1:58)
27. Lonely Hours (1:29)
28. Paranoid Starts / Cocktail Lounge (3:14)
29. Spies Paranoid / Dream Paranoid / Suspicious Paranoid (0:43)
30. Sidney Plans Escape (1:30)
31. Car Radio / More Car Radio (2:12)
32. Total Sound (1:15)
33. Stinger #1-2-3 / Cooler and Sweater Number (1:10)
34. Sidney’s Flight (2:02)
35. Fast Boat to Moscow (1:40)
36. Telephone Trap (1:09)
37. T. P. C. / Cerebrum Communicator (1:47)
38. End Title (3:05)