CBS COLLECTION 072 UCLA - Film Score Rundowns

named-changed to the Film Music Society in September, 1997. Perhaps at that general
mangement period, this name change was a distinction without a difference. At any rate,
this account is necessary for two reasons: (a) to offer a brief background history of how
the CBS Collection got to UCLA and, in part, in the hands of SPFM; and (b) how I was
instrumental in getting the audio music from the CBS transcription discs (and later Dats)
back to UCLA. Note that this presentation occasionally will reveal a rather unfavorable
side of the old SPFM management at the time based on my personal experience. I
certainly do not have issues with the present day Society that morphed from SPFM, and
in fact I am completely uninvolved with it (not a dues-paying Member, for example),
although I notice on the Internet from the Film Music Society website that a few of the
Officers/Directors there now were intimately involved way back in the old SPFM. In
other words, it is not completely “new blood” there, not a total makeover. But I did have
issues with management of the old Society largely under different management back in
1997-1998 related to the CBS material. Let me explain.
Now: While the written music, log books, reel tapes, cassettes (etc.) were kept in
possession (and ownership) by UCLA in the Deed of Gifts # 1 and # 2, the 16”
transcription discs were not. Information on this was initially fuzzy in my investigations.
Either UCLA did not want them (which was quite unlikely considering that all the other
sound recordings were accepted) or, most likely in my opinion, there may have been an
overlap of allegiances involved with both UCLA Music Library and the old SPFM. A
certain Officer (Trustee) of SPFM then was also a long-time employee of UCLA at the
Music Library. He was a central figure instrumental in saving the CBS material because
otherwise they would have been trashed. He gave quick action to secure the precious
CBS materials that would have otherwise been hauled away as “junk,” thus preventing a
travesty that occurred two decades earlier at MGM when a similar belt-tightening policy
of new management resulted in the literal burial of their scores into a landfill for a golf
course.
Specifically, according to a highly informative letter to me by this gentleman
dated January 7, 1998, Robert Drasnin (a UCLA Music Department alumnus) phoned
him about the immediate availability of the first Deed of Gift materials in late November
1988. The UCLA Music Librarian (again, who was also an official of SPFM) arranged
for the UCLA Library Gifts Section to deliver about a thousand acid-free document
boxes (930 were used) to the CBS Studio warehouse on Monday & Tuesday, November
29/29. I believe the location was CBS/MTM at 4024 Radford, North Hollywood, 2 nd floor
scoring building. Preprinted labels were affixed to identify boxes by numbers, and sheets
were provided (more on this in the next paragraph) to write down details of the contents
of each box. Four to six UCLA staff personnel processed the collection from that
Tuesday thru Friday (12/2/88). The boxes were then delivered to SRLF in UCLA-owned
trucks. Once a rough inventory was made of the material a week later, UCLA drew up the
Deed of Gift # 1 and CBS signed it (“I do hereby irrevocably assign, transfer and give all
our rights, titles, and interests of the above described property to the Regents…” etc.) and
later added addendums (such as the March 7, 1989 permission to photocopy from Harry
Heitzer meant for educational and/or personal research). In the letter I was told that the
estimated 800 transcription discs (his rough estimate) were sent to SPFM for storage only
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