February 2012
The Four Poster soundtrack is in production

The Four Poster lobby card H

We are pleased to announce that Dimitri Tiomkin’s score for The Four Poster is in the final stages of production for release later this year. The CD will be the seventh soundtrack in a series of Tiomkin scores produced by Ray Faiola of Chelsea Rialto Studios and Craig Spaulding and to be released by Screen Archives Entertainment in association with Volta Music Corp.

Tiomkin came to The Four Poster through his prior association with producer Stanley Kramer, notably for Cyrano de Bergerac. In fact, The Four Poster recording sessions were completed shortly before the sessions for High Noon, another Kramer production, commenced.

Adapted to the screen from a play, The Fourposter by Jan de Hartog, the film was released by Columbia Pictures in 1952. The Dutch playwright’s examination of matrimony and relationships, first staged in London in 1950, follows the volatile marriage of John and Abby Edwards.

LISTEN: Main Title from The Four Poster

four_poster_main_title

The Broadway stage production and Hollywood film both cast married couples to play the fictional Edwards couple. By the time the play with Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy opened on Broadway on October 24, 1951, the film with Rex Harrison and Lilli Palmer had already completed production.

The film opened in New York in the fall of 1952 before going into wide release in January 1953. The year-long post production process may have been due to the inclusion of animated sequences supplied by United Productions of America (better known as UPA). The sequences open the film and appear between acts. Because there are literally only two characters in the film, Dimitri Tiomkin’s music ably takes on the role of providing musical counterpoint to the story.

The Four Poster magazine advertisement

The Stanley Kramer Company used the title of the play during production; however, the film came to be released by Columbia Pictures under the title The Four Poster. The title refers to the style of bed that figures prominently in the storyline and as part of the set. A fourposter or four-poster typically has tall, often carved, corner posts that may support a canopy or curtains.

Upon release, the CD can be ordered directly from Screen Archives Entertainment.

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