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Released by Special Arrangement with Turner Classic Movies Music
In 1952 M-G-M released The Bad and the Beautiful, and the film became an instant classic about the movie business. Ten years later, star Kirk Douglas, director Vincente Minnelli, producer John Houseman, writer Charles Schnee, and composer David Raksin reunited for a film that became a sort of unofficial companion to the earlier masterpiece, Two Weeks in Another Town (1962).
The Bad and the Beautiful had been set in Hollywood, but Two Weeks in Another Town moved the location to Rome, where washed-up actor Jack Andrus (Douglas) is summoned by his former director (Edward G. Robinson) to assist him on a cheapie for a foreign producer. From there Jack's "two weeks in another town" find him coming to terms with his past through a new web of personal relationships.
Although not a sequel to The Bad and the Beautiful, composer David Raksin treated Two Weeks in Another Town as a virtual "part two," reusing several of his themes from the earlier picture, including, briefly, the main theme itself—for a screening of The Bad and the Beautiful as one of the "former productions" by the new film's characters.
However, Two Weeks is not a mere rehash, but an original creation including a whole new set of gorgeous character themes, crafted with the care, sensitivity and intricacy that made Raksin a beloved figure. Like his earlier masterwork, Two Weeks is a deeply melodic, romantic and sophisticated score, with size enough to glamorize the movie business, but an intimate focus on the moods and desires of human beings. Raksin's detailed orchestrations graft themselves to Minnelli's expressionist style with unparalleled grace.
FSM's premiere CD of Two Weeks in Another Town score features the complete score in stereo, remixed and remastered from the 35mm three-track recordings, including cues never before heard, as they accompanied deleted scenes.
