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Jerry Goldsmith has sustained relationships with numerous top Hollywood directors, from Robert Wise to Joe Dante to Paul Verhoeven. However, no relationship was as longlasting or as fruitful as his collaboration with director Franklin Schaffner, for whom he scored Planet of the Apes, Patton, Papillion, The Boys from Brazil, Islands and the Stream and Lionheart. But before those classics there was The Stripper (1963), Schaffner's first feature film with a heartfelt and melancholy score by Goldsmith, then only 33 years old.

The title is a bit of a misnomer—the film is based on a play by William Inge titled A Loss of Roses and follows a failed Hollywood showgirl (Joanne Woodward) as she returns to her home town and begins a tentative romance with a young man (Richard Beymer). The story is hardly a day in the life of a stripper but rather a sensitive human drama about loneliness and love.

Goldsmith's score is one of his earliest available to collectors and is a rare chance to hear him tackle an established '50s-styled genre rather than push off into his own ‘60s territory. The score is permeated with melody, as well as some jazz elements, and is very much in the style of Alex North's scores for similar pictures—while still retaining Goldsmith’s unique voice. It is presented here in stereo from the original session masters. Also included for the sake of completeness are the various source cues (not by Goldsmith) and the songs recorded by Joanne Woodward for her strip act at the end of the film, only one of which was used in the picture.

As a special bonus, the CD is filled out with a true Goldsmith rarity: Nick Quarry, an unaired 1968 TV show (actually an abbreviated pilot known as a demonstration reel) produced by 20th Century Fox based on the Tony Rome detective film. Goldsmith wrote 11 minutes of music in his Our Man Flint/In Like Flint style which have never been heard—or for that matter, heard of! His complete score is presented here in clean mono.