Here is the time-honored way of promoting a movie. First, get someone (in this case Frank Skinner) to write a theme song. Then get someone marketable to record that song, and send it out to the radio stations, promoting both it and the movie. With any luck, they both will become a hit.
In this case, the movie didn't do too badly, but the song went nowhere. The record above is the theme song for The Perfect Furlough, here presented by one of the stars of the film, Linda Cristal, whose character was "Sandra Roca, the Argentine Bombshell." A Universal promo man sent this record out to a radio station with his sticker that seems to suggest that the DJ should play the record because it is from a Universal film.
The promo man also sent along a recorded interview with Linda Cristal (see below). That would have been accompanied by a script (which I don't have). The DJ would read the questions off the script and this 45 would obligingly answer. The record has silences for the questions to be read, which I have edited out of the file linked below.
Besides the theme song and promo records, the file also includes the flip side of the musical 45, which is a tune called It's Better in Spanish. (English, Spanish, doesn't make much difference - it's not good.) Cristal is not a bad singer, but has a little too much "personality" for my taste.
I have to assume that this is the same Bill Downer:
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Seems like to big of a coincidence not to be.
Ernie - Nice sleuthing job! It has to be the same person - this song was published by Northern Music and he was the head of same. Another great reason to push the record!
ReplyDeleteThis was supplied to radio stations with a script for the local announcer to read against the pre-recorded responses from "the star."
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