I do not think there is any soundtrack collector, who does not at least like one French composer, since French composers do have so many different styles to offer! My personal favourites are - in this order - Francois DeRoubaix, Georges Garvarentz (in that context: I offer top-$$$, should anybody have and be willing to part with a (near) perfect copy of Garvarentz´/Aznavours Ricordi-LP-release "DE QUOI TU TE MELES .... DANIELA!" from 1961 aka "Zarte Haut in schwarzer Seide" in Germany, starring Elke Sommer) and Michael Magne as well as the 60ies stuff composed by Georges Delerue (whose compositions got more and more syrupy, especially in his last years, when he was composing for the American screen). And of course Francis Lai and Michel Legrand have some niceties to offer, too! And let us not forget André Hossein and Eric DeMarsan as well as the couple of nice outings by Claude Bolling, whereas I have not yet been able to dedect whatever people like and hear in Michel Sardes and later regular DeFunes-composer Vladimir Cosmas compositins.

In fact each of the above mentioned composers was (and sometimes still is) very versatile and some of them have scored literally hundreds of movies from all different genres, including the very few French western scores (I am especially referring to André HOSSEINs score for "Cimitero senza croce", also issued on LP in Italy!). As said above, my personal top-favourite from France is Francois DeROUBAIX, who scored some 100+ movies in his in fact rather short career (he and a close friend had a diving accident in the mid-70ies and they drowned exploring an underwater cave; his body - I have been told - was never found ...; he is survived by his daughter, who is said to saved have all her Dads recording tapes!), only very few of them having found their way onto the LP-format, but quite a lot having been released on 45 rpm-recordings (and recently a few compilation CDs as well as "L´HOMME ORCHESTRE" have been released!). Except one (LES CHEVALIERS DU CIEL, for which I would offer good $$), all his LP-recordings are shown on this site, which items took me many years to assemble, but were worth the effort. My personal favourite is the already mentioned "L´homme orchestre", but also "Teva" and "Un peu, beaucoup, passionnement" offer top listening entertainment! Unfortunately, three of his scores are somewhat marred by overlapping dialogue, which are "Le guerre d´Algerie", "La mer rouge et ses secrets" (possibly his rarest LP!) and the already mentioned "Les chevaliers du ciel", which contains music and dialogue from the same-name end-60ies TV-series starring Johnny Halliday (four tracks are "available" on a terribly rare EP, but also on the recently released compilation CDs).

In that context a speciality of the French soundtrack-issuing-"policy" should be pointed out. As mentioned in the Japanese section, France was worlds leading country as far as releasing soundtracks on 45rpm-recordings with more than 2 tracks are concerned. This format is commonly referred to as EP, which means "Extendend Play" (LP = "Long Play", SP = "Short Play" = 2 tracks). Every 45rpm-waxing with more than 2 tracks is by definition an EP! This format was very seldomly used in the USA, here and there in Japan and a little more often in Italy (C.A.M. did have an own EP-series, the CEP-series, which I certainly intend to cover on this site in 2003, and RCA Italiana also had soundtrack-EPs published, but not as part of an own soundtrack-EP-series and without any clear pattern, in other words: very eclectic), but it was THE leading soundtrack-format in France! Even movies, which clearly had enough music in them to warrant a complete LP-release, did only receive an EP-release in the majority of cases, because this was what the labels and probably the customers were accustomed to! Usually the best four (sometimes five or six, seldomly more or only three) tracks were chosen and pressed on 45rpm-discs (7-inch format, as opposed to 10-inch or 12-inch LPs). This had the advantage of obviously cheaper production costs but most likely also more buyers, since of course those little discs did cost less at record stores than LPs. But this format also had its drawbacks: usually, meaning in practically all cases, no inner sleeves were wrapped around the vinyl, which lead to the vinyl itself rubbing against the cardboard cover for many, many years (until a caring collector put the item into an inner paper or better antistatic plastic sleeve), thus leaving not only inaudible surface marks on the vinyl (that could be accepted), but furthermore any dust and paper remains from the cardboard cover beeing rubbed into the grooves thus affecting play insofar as hiss and slight crackling noise can be heard when playing nearly all these waxings (please note: it is next to impossible to find any of these items in mint-condition; usually the best condition being discribed on sales-list for EPs is EX+ ...). The next important drawback was that such cheaper releases were not regarded and treated with as much care as LPs, since "they had not cost that much anyway", causing their (first) owners to handle them sloppily and without due respect. Scratches were the worst consequence of this disrespect. But still, we have to live with what is available, and if one makes the collecting-decision, to spend (a lot of) money on (usually) 4-track items, then one has to accept, that EX+ is normally the best condition one can get ...

For the above said reasons, not that many soundtracks have been pressed on LPs in France in the 50ies (if a score was released on a 33 rpm-waxing at all in the 50ies, then it was on a 10-inch-LP, which did have the same "condition problems" as described above, but which are nevertheless highly collectible and usually contain the then-used top jazz-compositions by the leading French soundtrack composers of that era) and in the 60ies (in the 70ies, this slowly changed until the EP-format completely disappeared already quite some time before the CD-format took unforunately over), but IF an LP was pressed, the music was usually top or at least the movie was considered a sure cash-cow (for example movies starring Romy Schneider did receive LP-releases quite often!). Many of these recordings can be seen on the French soundtrack-pages of this site. Some of them definitly deserve a closer description:

Funky and beaty scores seem to be king today, so let us start with these: Top funk-scores deservedly on nearly everybodys wants-lists are the already mentioned "L´homme orchestre", as well as "La dame dans l´auto avec des lunettes et un fusil" (= "The woman in the car with glasses and a gun"), which score was also released in Italy by the Vogue-label, maybe this labels only Italian (soundtrack-)release, and the very popular "Le corps de mon ennemie", "Le point de chute" and maybe BOLLINGs best score ever "Vivre la nuit" (first class beat!). "Le cercle rouge", "L´heritier" and "Le mataf" as well as "La folie des grandeurs" and "La route de Salina" are close follow-ups. For those who have always and will forever adore Romy SCHNEIDERs thoughtful acting, "Les choses de la vie" (aka "L´amante" in Italy, where this score was also released on LP), "Un amour de pluie" and "Le proces" (as well as the mega-rare Japanese-only LP-release "La piscine", only available on SP in France and Italy) are the must-haves, and men who loved the "usual female suspects" will go for "Boulevard du Rhum", "Les petroleuses" (both Brigitte Bardot) and "La sirène du Mississipi" (breathtaking cover-artwork with Cathrine Deneuve and Jean-Paul Belmondo, starring in this nowadays classic Francois Truffaut-movie from the early 70ies; the LP contains mostly dialogue, but for those, who prefer the music alone, there is an early-90ies Milan-CD to help this need and fill the musical gap).

Sure, a lot more could be said regarding individual French OST-LP-releases, but I do not want to stress your patience any further, dear reader, so I will close this introductory statement. I intend to give individual detailed LP-descriptions with each single item presented on this site anyway some day and hope, you will now enjoy and let the covers attract your immagination! If you have any questions, that have been left unanswered (and I am sure there are some ...), please do not hesitate to drop me a line e-mail! I answer all questions as fast as possible, plan to collect them and want to put them into a FAQ-section (which is planned for 2003!). The same goes of course, if you have any info or items for sale or trade available!!

AVAILABLE items (visually graded: cover/record; play-graded upon request):

  
Bell 2C062-92428: Les maries de l'an deux       (Michel Legrand),    EX+/EX+    
Barclay 80196:    Sheherazade                   (André; Hossein),    M-/EX+
Barclay 920.342 T: Boulevard du Rhum            (Francois DeRoubaix),M-/M-
Barclay 80198:    Le rat d'Amerique             (Georges Garvarentz),M/NM 
picture disc:     Brigitte Bardot - the earlyyears  (B. Bardot),    M/M
Popsie xxx:       Les desirs de Melody in love  (Gerhard Heinze),    M/M       
Disc AZ:          La folie des grandeurs        (Michel Polnareff),  NM/EX+    
UAS 29 005:       El mercinario                 (Ennio Morricone),   NM/M-    
CAM Lag 460002:   Cesar et Rosalie              (Philippe Sarde),    M-/M-    
xxx:              Made in France (F/O)          (Francis Lai),       M-/VG 
xxx:              Le mataf                      (Stelvio Cipriani),  NM/NM