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Editorial Reviews

The two albums contained on this discount-priced two-fer each contain Percy Faith's arrangements of movie music of the 1960s. Born Free was originally titled The Academy Award Winner and Other Great Movie Themes when it appeared in the spring of 1967 because, while Faith had recorded all five of the 1966 Oscar nominees for best song on it, the LP was printed before the winner, "Born Free," had been announced. Windmills of Your Mind, in 1969, appeared after the Oscar ceremony, but it, too, featured all five of the year's nominees. Also included were themes that, while they might not have been "songs" in the Academy sense, were Oscar-worthy, such as "Somewhere My Love (Lara's Theme From 'Dr. Zhivago')," from Maurice Jarre's score, which won the 1965 original scoring award. There were also ringers, such as "How Are Things in Glocca Morra?," which had been written for Finian's Rainbow, the 1947 Broadway musical that didn't earn a film treatment until 1968. Faith featured his own work in "Song From 'The Oscar,'" taken from one of the handful of film scores he composed, and the curious "Elvira's Theme," actually a treatment of Mozart's "Piano Concerto in C-Major, K. 467," which had been featured in the 1967 film Elvira Madigan and which Faith disingenuously claimed a composing credit for. More than 30 years after the albums were recorded, some of the tunes remained familiar and enjoyable -- "Georgy Girl," "Somewhere My Love," "A Man and a Woman," "Born Free," "This Is My Song," "Alfie," "How Are Things in Glocca Morra?," "The Windmills of Your Mind," and "As Long As He Needs Me" (the last another ringer, from the stage musical Oliver!) -- while the rest were long forgotten. William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide

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