Mixed from the film sound track and first time in stereo, the score to the 1957 Cinerama epic Search For Paradise! Opera star Robert Merrill sings on the solo numbers. Lyrics by Ned Washington and Lowell Thomas.
Cinerama, a three-camera widescreen process designed essentially to pry filmgoers away from their TV screens in the early 1950s, was rooted in the "Triptych" process invented by director Abel Gance for his 1927 epic Napoleon. Most American theatre managers of the 1920s couldn't be bothered with the bulky equipment and huge, curved screen necessary for Gance's Triptychs, but by 1953 they were willing to try anything that would improve business. The first Cinerama effort, appropriately titled This is Cinerama, thrilled audiences with its peripheral-vision shots of roller coasters and auto races. The second feature film, Cinerama Holiday was essentially a travelogue. Number three in the Cinerama series, Search for Paradise (1957), was distinguished by its breathtaking aerial and underwater shots. Dmitri Tiomkin supplied most of the stereophonic-sound musical score. In the early 1960s, Cinerama ventured into "story" films with How the West Was Won and The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm. These were successful financially, but only when the Cinerama people abandoned the three-camera technique (and those irritating "creases" separating the three screens) in favor of a single wide-gauge camera would the process be aesthetically satisfying ("It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World"). -SEPIA
1 Prologue - Elmer Bernstein Conducting The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra 4:54
2 The Search For Paradise** 1:41
3 A Thriller Of The Sky 5:57
4 Ceylon Temple 3:07
5 Deep In Hunza Valley 2:44
6 Goddess Of The Snows 1:12
7 Search For Paradise - Robert Merrill 2:52
8 Happy Land Of Hunza 1:28
9 Native Drum Dance 2:44
10 Shalimar Garden - Robert Merrill 2:45
11 Valley Of The Waters 2:16
12 Indus River Fugue 3:31
13 Kashmir - Robert Merrill 2:25
14 Elephant Grand Parade 1:16
15 Homeward Bound 4:24
16 Epilogue - Robert Merrill 2:49
17 Exit Music** 2:37
** Tracks Not Previously Released
Bonus Tracks
18 Kashmir (Pop Version) Robert Merrill 3:26
19 Happy Land Of Hunza (Pop Version) Robert Merrill 2:38
20 Search For Paradise (Pop Version) Robert Merrill 2:41
21 Shalimar (Pop Version) Robert Merrill 2:26
22 Search For Paradise - Hugo Winterhalter And His Orchestra 2:49
23 Kashmir - Hugo Winterhalter And His Orchestra 2:33