Customer Reviews

Calamity Jane

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I have been looking for the soundtrack to Calamity Jane for years and was so excited to find this one. But I was so disappointed that it's not actually the film's soundtrack. "Deadwood Stage" sounds like it was recorded straight from the movie, but it is missing an entire portion in the middle of the song. My favorite songs "Windy City", "Black Hills of Dakota", and "Woman's Touch" are all studio re-recordings by Doris -- not the actual versions from the film. "Windy City" includes lyrics not used at all in the movie. "Black Hill" and "Touch" don't include her duet partners. Doris didn't even sing "It's Harry I'm Plannin' to Marry" in the film at all, yet, here she is singing it.

What a waste and disappointment. I could have saved money and just recorded them myself straight off my DVD of the film.

This is a good soundtrack, with plenty of music from Calamity Jane and from other Doris Day films (Romance on the High Seas, Young Man With a Horn, My Dream is Yours). In some of the tracks from Calamity Jane, Doris sings alone although in the movie someone else sang the song or sang with her, so it's not exactly authentic but still lively and fun.

When I first saw this being advertised, I was hoping they had gone back to the original master film recording tapes, and remixed a true and complete recording of this wonderful score, much as Turner/MGM and Rhino records has done with veritably every major film musical that MGM produced from the Wizard of Oz through Gigi. Alas such was not the case. This is just the same flat monophonic undigitalized record that Columbia records has been passing off as a soundtrack since they first released it as a 10" 33RPM LP in 1953. It is a real pity too. This is one of the few original film scores that compares with the best of the great Broadway scores of the same period. This atrocious recording has been available with a truncated PAJAMA GAME soundtrack on records and CD's for decades. The film is one of the great movie musicals. Doris Day deserved a major revival for what she was, one of the foremost interpreter of song during the 1050'2 and 60's(anyone who doubts this need merely to hear her HOORAY FOR HOLLYWOOD double LP and DAY FOR DAY and DAY FOR NIGHT albums reissued on CD in a convenient Two Classic Albums CD from Columbia). Maybe the folks who did the marvelous Rhino remastered soundtracks for MGM might have a go at this one!!

This was a great cd to share with students and it came promptly. We enjoyed the selection. It was a great part of our program. Jo White