"Chinatown" Enchantment

When I saw Roman Polanski's "Chinatown" when it was released in 1974, the music haunted me as much as the story. "I Can't Get Started" and "The Way You Look Tonight" hinted at a world of music and emotion beyond the Top 40 sounds I heard on KRIO and other AM stations. In those pre-VCR, pre-Internet, and almost pre-FM days, I could only depend on fragmented memory to retain the shimmering music. I didn't even know the names of the songs.

I just knew I had to have the soundtrack.

As an adult in New York, I scoured record stores and could not find it, for any price. As great and honored as the movie was, the soundtrack simply did not exist.

As with my need for love, I never stopped searching. Finally, during a backpacking month in Europe in September 1984, I spied a Japanese import version at Virgin Records in London. I bought the album (back in those vinyl days) on September 29 for a king's ransom of 17.99 pounds and VERY carefully brought it back to the U.S. I have it to this day, and it remains a listening delight. For proof of my purchase, see below:



I only regret I didn't scoop up every single copy. I did a Google search for the Chinatown soundtrack and discovered it remains unavailable, although the movie itself is typical video-store fare. On Amazon, prices range from $127 to $250, for what seem to be CDs. How can that be? In this age where every digital blip can be found, why does the Chinatown soundtrack remain so scarce and pricy? It must be the rarest of my hundreds of albums, not counting albums with the vocal stylings of the like of Jerry Lewis, Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner, or a battered version of the Rolling Stones' "Their Satanic Majesties Request" with the groovy 3-D cover.

My favorite rarity, after Chinatown, is a "beautiful music" album from the 1950s featuring a young Mary Tyler Moore in a beauty-contest outfit and high heels gracing the cover of "Million Sellers" by the renowned Lew Raymond and the Hollywood Studio Orchestra. Now doesn't that look like Mary? Those legs! That smile!