MRH : I find Mad Doctor evokes some of the classic B-movie monster music of the fifties, particularly Albert Glasser's own work that was often realized under the pressure of some very low music budgets. Arevalo's style, however, is less classical, and he doesn't bludgeon the listener with massive orchestral swoons, but I wonder if in addition to his own musical training, he was following some of the conventions of Hollywood composers whose films must have reached international audiences hungry for bug-eyed monsters and mayhem.

TF : I can't give you specific examples of influence, but you do make an excellent point when you say Mad Doctor's style is "less classical." It is classical in that it's orchestral, but stylistically it is unique. Unique is a word that is always misused, you hear this blunder every day. Unique means
it is the only one of its kind, a sole example. You can't have something"very unique" or "the most unique" or "kind of unique." It's either unique or it isn't and you can't qualify it.

The Mad Doctor score is the only one of its kind and I defy anyone to point me in the direction of another score that sounds like it. The first time I heard this music it enveloped me into the Blood Island environment. It became an aural touchstone to that place and that place only. In a way it is typecast to those films because outside of them, it simply does not work as well. This score was re-used in Brain of Blood, a film Sam produced with his partner, Al Adamson, for Hemisphere. The music works to some degree, but Arevalo achieved the perfect cohesion of sound and picture with Mad Doctor.

MRH : From what I understand via your liner notes, the source materials for the CD was a single set of master tapes that contained the whole score, and from a producer's standpoint, that must have been a bit nerve-racking, knowing these delicate tapes had to be handled with extreme care. What sort of state were they in, and why were there no sub-masters?

TF : The original masters were hand carried back from the Philippines by Mad Doctor executive producer, Kane Lynn in 1969. He brought them back solely to appease Sam Sherman. Sam produced Hemisphere's trailers, radio and TV spots, post production sessions, etc. He only had public domain classical music to use for these purposes and kept badgering Kane to get him some actual score music from the pictures on which he was working.

This score would have been lost forever because Kane and his partners weren't worrying about Sam's music needs. They refused to buy him any library music and insisted he recycle the free classical music. It was Sam who took good care of the tapes all these years because he has a collector mentality and is a film music expert. As for sub-masters, they were made over here at the time by Sam on 7½ ips reel-to-reel. The scoring master itself is 15 ips and in excellent condition, save for a missing length of tape that destroyed the last seconds of one cue.

MRH : I'm also curious as to why the score wasn't recorded in stereo, as Arevalo must have done some stereo recordings during the sixties. Was stereo still very costly for low budget productions at that time, or was it also a sense of what was necessary, wherein a stereo recording session for a movie aimed at mono theatrical venues was felt to be redundant?

TF : You're right. Stereo would have had no purpose in this instance. It was recorded full track mono and judging from everything Sam has related about the Filipino process of the period, they would have recorded it as best as they could and then went home. In fact, out of 34 cues, 31 of them were recorded in one take! That's pretty telling.

MRH : One hurdle independent soundtrack producers face when dealing with major studios or music labels is total apathy for their idling archive of soundtracks, and elongated legal work that can make a producer wonder whether the whole endeavor is worth seeing through. I wonder if the process in acquiring the rights to releasing your CD was a surprisingly smooth process for you, or whether dealing with a 38-year old film whose ownership may have changed over the decades presented its own set of unique hurdles.

TF : This goes back to your earlier question. There were legal things in the way preventing an earlier release, as well as other circumstances of lesser concern. Once Sam's company, Independent-International Pictures Corp., acquired worldwide rights in perpetuity of the Hemisphere Pictures library, it made it a no-brainer. Sam has been a friend for many, many years and it was like making a deal with a relative. Nevertheless, this was not a project that was expected to produce fortunes. It can't and it won't. Is it worth it? Absolutely! Further, this was a score recorded offshore. There were no AFM (American Federation of Musicians) matters with which to deal. The costs to produce this album were, comparatively speaking, very affordable. Not to mention the favors asked of especially talented friends who helped along the way.




MRH : A few labels - major and independent - have moved into digital downloads, and I wonder if you examined that option, or felt a traditional CD was a more viable venue for your debut release?

TF : I did look into download early on, but this title is so esoteric that such an effort wasn't warranted. It's my thinking that film music releases lend themselves to being sold as tactile products, especially the limited collector editions such as Mad Doctor. Downloading isn't a collector mentality per se; we prefer informative booklets, pictures and inlays. We enjoy the notion of owning one of a thousand of something. Still, downloading is a sensational resource and I use my share of it. If the entire business of film music were to go that way, meaning download-only, then so be it. In the end, it's the music that moves us. The packaging is nice, but iPods don't play jewel cases very well.

Producing a soundtrack has been a dream of mine for decades. Today, it is easier than ever to turn dreams into reality. We have all the tools at our fingertips; capability that was once isolated to professionals in industry is now in consumer hands. It's a gratifying thought that you are responsible for the preservation of someone's artistic expression, especially one that was thought to be lost. I look forward to doing it some more!




MRH : With Mad Doctor of Blood Island now available, do you have plans for a second CD?

TF : Yes! Just don't ask me what because I won't tell you.