steviefromalaska
02-18-2016, 01:17 AM
THE BEST THINGS IN LIFE ARE FREE was a largely fictitious 1956 CinemaScope musical biography film, produced by 20th. Century-Fox, based on the lives of composers BG �Buddy� De Sylva, Lew Brown & Ray Henderson, who wrote many hit songs that were introduced and are still associated with the Roaring 1920s. They also wrote the popular score for the twice filmed stage musical, GOOD NEWS. The movie starred Gordon MacRae (his final musical picture), Dan Dailey & Ernest Borgnine as the composers and Sheree North as Kitty Kane (vocals dubbed by Eileen Wilson). The music for the film was supervised & conducted by Lionel Newman with vocal supervision by Charles Henderson. Two albums of music from the film were released at the time of its initial theatrical engagements but neither one was from the actual soundtrack. Gordon MacRae recorded a solo studio album of songs from the film arranged & conducted by Van Alexander for Capitol Records and an instrumental album arranged by Billy May and played by members of the 20th Century-Fox Orchestra conducted by the film's music director, Lionel Newman, available very briefly on Liberty Records and very rare since it has been out of print for over 50 years and has never been reissued in any format other than LP.
In the 1990s the magnetic 3 track orchestral & vocal separations of THE BEST THINGS IN LIFE ARE FREE were examined and found to suffer from damage called "mag wow" which is irreversible and unsuitable for use as a soundtrack source. There is 4 track music & effects master which is in very good shape but the foley effects would make it difficult to use as a soundtrack source since the complete originally recorded versions of many of the songs are not present on this source. A video master was produced in the early 1960s for showing on NBC and unbelievably this pan & scan version is still being used on recent Fox Movie Channel showings of the film, which has never been restored to its CinemaScope splendor. But the video master has a 2 track stereo soundtrack mix which is quite good and several years ago I used this and the portions of the music & effects tracks to master a soundtrack album of this wonderful score. It has foley effects but they are not as intrusive as I thought they would be and the stereo spread is great with solid directional vocals. I have also remastered both of the studio recorded albums from excellent sources as well. I hope you will enjoy the actual soundtrack selections I put together from less than ideal sources; musically it is pure gold. I also hope someday soon Fox or some other enterprising video company (Twilight Time?) takes on a full remaster of THE BEST THINGS IN LIFE ARE FREE, which was the final musical film of Gordon MacRae, one of the greatest singers and musical stars of the 20th Century. There are two downloads here, one of the actual soundtrack selections & the complete Lionel Newman Liberty LP and the second, which features the complete Gordon MacRae studio recorded album. The songs of De Sylva, Brown & Henderson deserve a wider audience as this is some of the most energetic, exciting & enchanting music ever composed for the musical stage.

THE BEST THINGS IN LIFE ARE FREE
Original Soundtrack vocal performances plus studio recorded Liberty album instrumentals:
https://mega.nz/#!etNGBTob!b61URxpV02vzsn6yCZ1Oru-ThQxYFBQWamNpMh86IKo
Gordon MacRae studio recorded solo vocals from the film:
https://mega.nz/#!Ts8wWLBK!dzWrlyVKWSnEBc_d30exaT6EEyAWlotV_SbDRHjHfF8

The tracks on the first download are programmed to play without any pause between tracks (if you burn a CD configure ITunes or your burning software to not put a 2 second pause between tracks)




flurb
02-18-2016, 01:25 AM
Very nice - thank you very much. The best things in life really are free!

KWB
02-18-2016, 01:33 AM
Fantastic share!!!

Thank you!

Creedmoor
02-18-2016, 02:00 AM
Any musical featuring Ernie Borgnine deserves a cherished spot on my hard drive. Thank you for these rarities!

siriami
02-18-2016, 11:53 AM
Nice one - thanks for this one!

uncut1
02-18-2016, 01:17 PM
Another fantastic job by you Steve thank you very much for all your efforts -really wonderful

Petros
02-18-2016, 02:24 PM
Great upload!
Thank you, Stevie!

pjmontana
02-18-2016, 03:39 PM
Thank you steviefromalaska for another wonderfully unique post and as always for your authoritative and detailed notes.

Amoskind
02-18-2016, 05:01 PM
Thank you again so much Stevie! Maybe one day we can see it as it is meant to be seen but in the mean time, I never thought I would have this to listen to on my own!

turner6
02-18-2016, 05:16 PM
Great soundtrack, thank you very much for sharing this treasure with us, really appreciated :)

laohu
02-18-2016, 05:41 PM
thanks

milesgloriosus
02-18-2016, 06:40 PM
Thank you very much!.

vedran10
02-19-2016, 12:06 AM
Thank you for sharing your work!

Pablo82
02-19-2016, 04:58 AM
I agree!!!!... Thousand thanks, Stevie!!!... :)

scoredaddy
02-19-2016, 05:18 AM
wonderful! thanks

lordtalien
02-19-2016, 06:06 AM
I love your descriptions of your restoration materials and processes! Thanks for all the work you do. I might not have downloaded this normally, but I have appreciated so many of your past shares that I am definitely checking this one out.

AussieGent
02-19-2016, 11:36 AM
Thank you so very much

RayKay
02-19-2016, 02:42 PM
Thank you!!! Great Work!

rgg
02-19-2016, 03:51 PM
Many thanks !

enio otani
02-20-2016, 12:37 PM
Lionel Newman got an Academy Award nomination for BEST MUSIC,SCORING OF A MUSICAL PICTURE,along with THE EDDY DUCHIN STORY,HIGH SOCIETY and MEET ME IN LAS VEGAS but the winner was THE KING AND I.

jamaral
02-20-2016, 12:54 PM
Thank you very much.

gpdlt2000
02-20-2016, 03:24 PM
Great share, stevie!
Thanks a lot!

samy013
02-26-2016, 01:08 AM
Thank you share!