Sold Date: May 10, 2021
Start Date: May 24, 2020
Final Price: £30.00 (GBP)
Seller Feedback: 1651
Buyer Feedback: 17

Deluxe US gatefold edition soundtrack import to Robert Wise’s ‘Star!’ (1968), featuring music arranged and conducted by Lennie Hayton.

The movie starred Julie Andrews, Richard Crenna, Michael Craig and and Raymond Massey. This is from 20th century Fox’s Deluxe Album Series and contains an 8-page full-colour story and picture book.

Julie Andrews, Lennie Hayton ‎– Star! (Original Motion Picture Sound Track Album) (1968)

Condition (refer also to notes at bottom):
Vinyl – VG. A superbly clean surface showing no signs of wear or marks on side A. Side B has a number of hairlines and scuffs. Played just pre-listing and sound clarity is great throughout. Some light surface noise in places and the odd click/pop. Vocals sound super.
Outer Sleeve (Cover) – VG-EX. Superb heavy-duty thick card gatefold cover. Some corner nicks and light rubbing towards the corners on the edges. A few scuffs, dents and minor marks on front. Spine is clean and intact with a few creases. Aperture has a few nicks. Rear outer gate is clean bar a case in bottom left corner. Hole punch in bottom right corner. Inner gate and all pages are clean. No tears or creases. Superb.
Inner sleeve – EX. Original. Thick plastic-lined ‘window’ paper with squared corners. Tiny tear on one side by aperture. Clean and intact.


Label: 20th Century Fox Records ‎– DTCS 5102
Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Stereo, Gatefold Sleeve
Country: US
Released: 1968
Genre: Stage & Screen, Musical, Jazz, Vocal, Blues, Pop
Style: Soundtrack, Classical, Score, Instrumental, Theme, Big Band

Track listing:
A1. Overture (Medley) Star! Someone To Watch Over Me Jenny Dear Little Boy (Dear Little Girl) Limehouse Blues.. 3:02
A2. Star!. 1:16
A3. Piccadilly. 2:00
A4. In My Garden Of Joy. 1:28
A5. Oh, It's A Lovely War. 1:42
A6. 'N' Everything. 1:44
A7. Burlington Bertie From Bow. 2:00
A8. Parisian Pierrot. 2:24
A9. Limehouse Blues. 4:15

B1. Someone To Watch Over Me. 3:11
B2. Do, Do, Do. 1:36
B3. Dear Little Boy (Dear Little Girl). 1:57
B4. Has Anybody Seen Our Ship?. 1:35
B5. Someday I'll Find You. 1:39
B6. The Physician. 3:08
B7. My Ship. 2:15
B8. Jenny. 5:28

Distributed By – ABC Records

Arranged By – Lennie Hayton
Directed By – Robert Wise
Producer – Saul Chaplin
Written By – William Fairchild

Deluxe Album Series.

Issued in gatefold sleeve, with 8-page booklet glued inside.

Printed in U.S.A.


Review:

Star!, a film biography of the British actress/singer Gertrude Lawrence (1898-1952), must have seemed like an excellent vehicle for Julie Andrews when it went into production in 1967 for a fall 1968 release. Andrews was, after all, the top female film star of the day, with a string of movie musical hits including Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music behind her, and she was steeped in the vaudeville/music hall tradition from which Lawrence had emerged.

But the project was inherently less likely to be accepted by a mass audience than Andrews' earlier triumphs, since it would not appeal to children and would feature a song score filled largely with evergreens from the 1920s, '30s, and '40s instead of new material.

Also, despite the apparently appropriate casting, Andrews was really more of a singer than an actress (the opposite of Lawrence), and not nearly as earthy. Barbra Streisand may have found a winning approach to portraying Fanny Brice (in some ways an American counterpart to Lawrence) in the almost simultaneously released Funny Girl despite their differences, but Andrews was not so successful with Lawrence.

And a lot was riding on the film. Robert Wise, who had helmed The Sound of Music, was back as director, and 20th Century-Fox expected something comparably lavish and lucrative. So, lots of money was spent, and the picture was released at a nearly three-hour running time. The result was a financial disaster that crippled Andrews' film career.

That said, the soundtrack album is in some ways the best of it.

One can simply ignore the film and its history and enjoy a LP's worth of Andrews interpreting a bunch of good songs by Noël Coward, George Gershwin, Cole Porter, and Kurt Weill, among others.

She's not particularly convincing on suggestive lyrics such as Porter's "The Physician" and doesn't really dig into "The Saga of Jenny," but she's terrific on the ballad "Someone to Watch Over Me" and some of the vaudeville songs. Although Andrews dominates the disc, she does share the spotlight here and there, notably on "Dear Little Boy (Dear Little Girl)," joining Daniel Massey, who portrays Coward.


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Postage and packaging FREE to UK.

Will post worldwide.
Europe (Royal Mail International Standard) – £8.
Europe (Royal Mail International Tracked and Signed) – £12
N and S America, USA, Canada (Royal Mail International Standard) – £10.50
Asia, Australia, Japan (Royal Mail International Standard) – £11.50

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ITEM CONDITION - items are graded according to Record Collector definitions - see below:

MINT: The record itself is in brand new condition with no surface marks or deterioration in sound quality. The cover and any extra items such as the lyric sheet, booklet or poster are in perfect condition. Records advertised as Sealed or Unplayed should be Mint.

EXCELLENT: The record shows some signs of having been played, but there is very little lessening in sound quality. The cover and packaging might have slight wear and / or creasing.

VERY GOOD: The record has obviously been played many times, but displays no major deterioration in sound quality, despite noticeable surface marks and the occasional light scratch. Normal wear and tear on the cover or extra items, without any major defects, is acceptable.

GOOD: The record has been played so much that the sound quality has noticeably deteriorated, perhaps with some distortion and mild scratches. The cover and contents suffer from folding, scuffing of edges, spine splits, discolouration, etc.

FAIR: The record is still just playable but has not been cared for properly and displays considerable surface noise; it may even jump. The cover and contents will be torn, stained and / or defaced.

POOR: The record will not play properly due to scratches, bad surface noise, etc. The cover and contents will be badly damaged or partly missing.

BAD: The record is unplayable or might even be broken, and is only of use as a collection filler.