The original Soundtrack from the 1979 motion picture ZULU DAWN featuring music by accaimed composer Elmer Bernstein, performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

In 1964 the British film ZULU was released, which dramatized the events of the 1879 Anglo-Zulu War in South Africa, during which the Zulu nation rebelled against the incursion of British colonialism. Directed by writer-director Cy Enfield and starring Stanley Baker and Michael Caine (in his first starring role), ZULU portrayed the events occurring between the colonial British Army and the African Zulu warriors during the Battle of Rorke s Drift, where 150 British soldiers, many sick and wounded, successfully held off a siege by an army of 4000 Zulu warriors. In that battle, the first major encounter of the war between Zulu warriors and British troops, a massive Zulu force of 20,000 warriors attacked and destroyed 1,800 British, colonial, and native soldiers. This event, considered to be the worst defeat ever inflicted on a modern army by a technologically inferior indigenous force, occurred off-screen in ZULU. This film is meant to serve as a prequel to the earlier film. With a noticeably larger budget than the 1964 picture, ZULU DAWN is a widescreen spectacle, with massive battle scenes and huge, panoramic vistas beautifully photographed by Iraqi-born cinematographer Ousami Rawi. He filmed ZULU DAWN on location at or near the actual places where the events took place 100 years earlier.

Respected composer Elmer Bernstein was brought in to give ZULU DAWN its musical scope and thunder. By 1979 he was just about to embark on his comedy phase, having scored ANIMAL HOUSE the year before and would soon score MEATBALLS, AIRPLANE!, and STRIPES, in the coming years. ZULU DAWN would give him one of his last opportunities to write the kind of broad, large-form action-adventure orchestral score that he’d once excelled at earlier in his career. Previously released on compact disc by Cerberus Records and La-La Land Records and long sold out, BSX Records brings ZULU DAWN back to compact disc with a new mastering by James Nelson of Digital Outland.

Specifications

• Number of Discs: 1
• Runtime: 47:23 min

Directed by Douglas Hickox, Zulu Dawn stars Burt Lancaster, Peter O’Toole, Simon Ward, Denholm Elliott, John Mills, Nigel Davenport, Michael Jayston, Peter Vaughan, James Faulkner, Christopher Cazenove, Simon Sabela, David Bradley and Bob Hoskins.