Capitol Records - Broadway and Films

Broadway and Films

Capitol Records also released some of the most notable original cast albums and motion picture soundtrack albums ever made. Between 1955 and 1956, they released the soundtrack albums of three now-classic Rodgers and Hammerstein films, Oklahoma!, Carousel, and The King and I. All three films were respectively based on the Rodgers and Hammerstein smash hit stage musicals of the same name. The mono versions of the albums were all released the same year that the films were released. But the films had been made in then state-of-the-art stereophonic sound, and so, Capitol was able to release stereo albums of the three respective soundtracks after stereo LP's became a reality. However, the mono and stereo versions did not contain always identical material. Because stereo grooves took up more space at the time than mono grooves, the stereo versions of the soundtracks were always somewhat shorter than the mono ones. This was not much of a problem with Oklahoma!, because the album itself as then printed was relatively short, so all that was missing from the stereo version was a few seconds of the overture. With Carousel, however, half of the Carousel Waltz had to be lopped off for the stereo LP, and with The King and I, the instrumental bridge from the song Getting to Know You was completely removed from the stereo version of the album. These soundtrack albums (especially Oklahoma!) were bestsellers for Capitol for many years, until, in the 1990s, the rights to them were bought by Angel Records. Angel Records not only restored the portions which had been omitted from the stereo LPs and original CD issues, but, in 2001, issued new expanded editions which included all music which had been omitted from every previous edition of these soundtracks, bringing the playing time of each to well over an hour. All three albums continue to be best sellers to this day.

In 1957, Capitol Records issued the original cast album of The Music Man, starring Robert Preston, an album which became one of the biggest cast album sellers of all time, even after the highly successful film version of the show was released in 1962. Capitol was also responsible for the original cast and film soundtrack albums of Cole Porter's Can-Can and the original cast album of Stephen Sondheim's A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. In 1962, Capitol issued a studio cast recording of the songs from Lionel Bart's Oliver!, in anticipation of its U.S. tour prior to its opening on Broadway.

In 1966, Capitol released the soundtrack album of the documentary tribute, John F. Kennedy: Years of Lightning, Day of Drums, a film made by the United States Information Agency, and originally not intended for general viewing. However, the quality of the film was considered so high that the public was eventually allowed to see it. The film featured the voice of Gregory Peck as narrator, with narration written and music composed by Bruce Herschensohn. The album was virtually a condensed version of the film — it included the narration as well as the music.

One spoken word album which was immensely successful for Capitol was that of the soundtrack of Franco Zeffirelli's smash film Romeo and Juliet, based on Shakespeare's play. The film became the highest grossing Shakespeare film for years, and the album was also a tremendous hit. It featured not only Nino Rota's score, but large chunks of Shakespeare's dialog. The success of this album in that pre-VHS era spurred Capitol to issue two other Romeo and Juliet albums — one a three-disk album containing the entire soundtrack of the film (dialog and music), and another album containing only Nino Rota's score.

However, as Capitol was to be later accused of doing with Beatles albums, there was some tampering with the Years of Lightning and Romeo and Juliet albums. Extra music was added to some scenes which, in the actual film, contained little or no music, such as the duel between Romeo and Tybalt. Presumably this was done to show off the score — and at the end of both the abridged and complete versions of the Romeo albums, the end credits music was omitted, especially unfortunate since virtually all of the film's credits were saved for the end of the picture.

Capitol tried to strike gold again with another spoken word album, one made from the 1970 film Cromwell, starring Richard Harris and Alec Guinness, but in this case, both film and album were not successful.

The influence of the Romeo and Juliet album spread to other record companies for a brief while. Columbia Records issued an album of dialog and music excerpts from the successful 1970 Dustin Hoffman film, Little Big Man, and 20th Century Fox Records included George C. Scott's opening and closing speeches, as well as Jerry Goldsmith's score, in their soundtrack album made from the film Patton.