Richard Pennycuick wrote:

>The recent purchase of an Everest CD reminded me yet again that much of
>their recording was done on 35mm film.  I wondered: did any other CM
>label do so?

Actually, the recordings in question were not done on 35 mm optical film,
which is a fairly common misconception.

What Everest and Mercury Records used from the mid-1950's was 35 mm
magnetic-striped film stock, same physical size as standard optical film,
and sprocket-driven, so that drive mechanisms common to the film industry
could be used. But the entire width of the film stock was coated with
the ferrous oxide particles for magnetic recording, typically onto three
tracks.

Stereo recording to optical film stock was used in a few film productions,
such as Disney's Fantasia of 1939 and a few others in the '40s, but by
the mid-1950's the film industry had likewise converted to recording on
magnetic tracks paralleling the optical track(s).

Interestingly, some of the quite magnificent symphonic soundtracks from
this era have now been released onto CD, giving us a chance to hear
"state of the art" multitrack from the 1940s and 1950s.  I highly recommend
Prince Valiant (1954--Franz Waxman) and Prince of Foxes (1949--Alfred
Newman), both from the Film Score Monthly label;  Captain from Castile
(1947--Newman) from the Screen Archives Entertainment label; and How
Green Was My Valley (1941--Newman) from the Fox CD label, all of which
are exceptional examples of early multitrack film recording which have
been transferred from the source optical elements and remixed for stereo
CD release.

Alas for sound history, such a transfer of the Leopold
Stokowski/Philadelphia Orchestra soundtrack to Fantasia is not possible.
In 1954, the original eight-channel optical tracks were mixed to two
channel in a Hollywood film studio, and the audio was then sent over
telephone lines (!!) to be recorded onto an Ampex magnetic tape recorder
in another studio.  Subsequently, the optical stock was destroyed. So
that particular historical recording is available today only in an
impaired, second generation dub.

Regards,

John Proffitt