MRH: Lastly, are there any further original score CD releases in the works?

DS: I'm hoping to put out the original scores from pictures like It! The Terror from Beyond Space (1958), which is one of my favourite films, and was scored by Paul Sawtell and Bert Shefter; and also The Monster That Challenged the World (1957) by Heinz Roemheld – really great scores and really good quality recordings from the composers and their archives and everything - and Project Moonbase (1953) which nobody remembers (and maybe rightfully so) by Herschel Burke Gilbert.

 There's some nice scores out there that I've got sitting in reels in my closet or garage, and I'd love to put them out. Most of the battles right now are dealing with the rights owners. Somebody will have an asset that nobody has done anything with for 50 years, and as soon as you call and say 'You know, there's only 40 people who know this picture but we'd really like to put the music out because I think that it's important that it gets preserved,' and they go 'Oh, well let me talk to so-and-so,’ and then they want $15,000 dollars for it because they think if somebody wants it, then it must be worth a lot more.

Sometimes it's worth half of what I'm willing to pay, but I think it's important to get it out there, so if these come out, it's because the rights owners are not trying to destroy us financially; if it doesn't come out it's probably because they don't want to help, so you do the best you can.

The nice thing about doing the re-recordings is that you get to own the recordings, and you only have to deal with one of the rights owners, and you don't have to deal with the people who own the actual recordings; those are the people who usually hold you up.

When you're talking about studio films... it's really hard to get them to commit to anything because they have to get all their lawyers involved. There's a minimum cost to that, and it's usually not worth it. If you sell a 1000 or 2000 copies and we're going to break even, that's not really an investment [for them].

MRH: I think Gilbert orchestrated Richard Rodgers's Slaughter on Tenth Avenue (1957), and he scored The Moon is Blue (1953), but from the latter’s soundtrack album (released by the murky Crown Records), it's just one theme played endlessly.

DS: I know. I was so happy when I found the album and then I put it on, and I though 'Oh boy.’

MRH: But Gilbert did write some interesting stuff in the fifties and sixties.

DS: He did a lot of good films. He's a very good composer, but again, nobody knows him. He did The Rifleman (1958-1963), but he doesn't have any name recognition value there. When I talked to Hershel – this was probably 12 years ago – and I was interested in doing Project Moonbase for one of our re-recording albums, I called him up and I said 'I'd like to do Project Moonbase. Do you have the scores or anything?' and he said 'Why would you want to do that?'

I said 'Because it's important to me,' and he said 'Ah, it's in the basement somewhere, and nobody cares about that.' Then we had another ten phone calls over the years and he was equally curmudgeonly and it never got out there, but then I discovered that the original tracks exist. Hershel's not here anymore, so I'm not dealing with him, but I still have to deal with other people, so if we can do it I'd like to put it out. It's got early use of Theremin and it's kind of fun, and it's much better than the picture!

MRH: The music from the TV series Burke's Law (1963-1966) was released a few year ago on CD, and I picked up an old mono LP by Liberty, and it's a nice selection of jazzy cues, beautifully engineered by Liberty.

DS: It's a nice album. He did While the City Sleeps (1956), a lot of his music appeared in The Adventures of Superman, and he wrote music for Open Secret, an anti-Semitism move from 1948. He did a lot of nice work, and he also did that really weird film with Ray Milland – The Thief (1952) - where there's no dialogue.

MRH: It's a Cold War drama about spies.

DS: It's like a 10 min. idea stretched out to excruciating length. It's a hell of an assignment. Herman Stein used to say he hated doing main titles because he was 'naked' - it was just the music there, there was no dialogue, no sound effects or anything covering him, and certainly Gilbert in that score was naked the entire time.

NOW ONLINE:

In Part 1 of our conversation with David Schecter, we discuss MMM's companion album, The Intruder (and other music by Herman Stein), which features Herman Stein's complete score to The Intruder, plus selections from unreleased projects. Click HERE to read more!

In Part 2 of our conversation with David Schecter, we discuss MMM's companion album, The Blob (and other creepy sounds), which features Ralph Carmichael's complete score, plus goodies from the Valentino Production Music Library. Click HERE to read more!

Monstrous Movie Music’s current release is the two-volume Your Imagination Presents series - Space Flight to the Unknown and Mystery Island - an inventive interactive concept that combines original music, sound effects, dialogue, and a storybook where kids can create and enact their own sci-fi adventures.