The Mummy CD Review

Yes, a certain sci-fi is opening today. We'll no doubt have comments about it soon. For today, here's a review and then a letter regarding the latest genre score by another famous composer:

The Mummy **1/2

JERRY GOLDSMITH

Decca Records 289 466 458-2. 15 tracks - 57:46

This Jerry Goldsmith score bears the distinction of being singled out by Variety as "one of the worst in the composer's distinguished career." I wouldn't go quite that far, but it does seem to indicate that Goldsmith is a little tired of scoring movies that depict evil menaces which must be destroyed. Stephen Sommers's rethink of the classic Universal mummy concept wants to be Raiders of the Lost Mummy, but it plays a lot more like King Solomon's Mummy: it's designed to generate more cheap laughs than thrills. Goldsmith's job seems to have been to simply provide an extra layer of crushing, epic noise to the proceedings, and he accomplishes the mission. There's an impressive, heavy brass theme over clanging percussion for the film's opening, which is kind of a live action version of The Prince of Egypt (which was itself an animated version of DeMille's The Ten Commandments...), and a powerful motif for the threat of the mummy itself. But I miss the era in which Goldsmith approached every lame antagonist of a movie with a striking and utterly unexpected new sound. There's no substantive difference between Goldsmith's treatment of the mummy and his approach to the Borg in Star Trek First Contact, or for that matter to the killer apes in Congo: a menacing low brass theme seems to be the way to go in each instance (and it may well be that this is the only way to cut through the wall of sound effects racket that these kinds of movies generate).

Sometimes it seems like Goldsmith has written so many notes over the course of his career that the only ones left available to him are the bad ones. Case in point: The Mummy's heroic adventure theme, first hinted at in "Tauger Attack" and introduced full force in "Night Boarders" -- Goldsmith correctly divined that Brendan Fraser's Rick O'Connell is more comedian than action hero, and his broad heroic theme is in reality a comic melody masquerading as an action fanfare. Goldsmith's treatment of the African desert is evocative of Jarre's Lawrence of Arabia (in orchestration if not in the actual melodic approach) but it's effective, particularly in "The Caravan" with a sprightly tambourine rhythm and bouzouki melody played over a big, exotic theme for brass and choir (seemingly developed from an Arab-style motif written for Lionheart), and "Camel Race" which takes his Arab-style love theme soaring over a rapid-fire string run.

The mummy theme comes into its own in "My Favorite Plague" and "Crowd Control," both of which recall Goldsmith's action writing for King Solomon's Mines--there's a creepy string take on the mummy motif that indicates that Goldsmith probably could have made this film scary had director Stephen Sommers actually taken the material seriously. "Rebirth" probably features the most lively action material, again in the mode of King Solomon's Mines, wrapping up with a march version of the heroic theme against brass 32nd notes. Fans of Goldsmith's action writing will have a field day as the last four, lengthy cues before the end titles ("My Favorite Plague," "Crowd Control," "Rebirth" and "The Mummy") comprise 22 minutes of nonstop action, and while "My Favorite Plague" gets off to a kind of monotonous start, once things get rolling there's some fairly spectacular, energetic material with Goldsmith balancing ethnic instruments against the forces of the orchestra for the film's Harryhausen-like climactic mummy battle (there's a great, oriental-like string ostinato operating against the mummy motif in "The Mummy" cue that put me in mind of Goldsmith's score to The Chairman, not to mention Rozsa's The Golden Voyage of Sinbad). It's too bad the score has to wrap-up with a march presentation of the heroic theme for O'Connell, which puts the entire project back in perspective (although the choral take on the love theme is nice). I suspect a serious movie would have inspired Goldsmith more.

--Jeff Bond

From: Zatzrite@aol.com

When I heard that Jerry Goldsmith was going to be doing the score to an update of one of my favorite Classic Horror films of all time I was more than enthusiastic. I anticipated a score with a Middle-Eastern sound ALA his scores from the mid-1970's.

This afternoon THE MUMMY premiered in theaters and as of this writing I have not seen the film. I did however buy the soundtrack by Maestro Goldsmith and I got just what I anticipated and more. Unlike many other soundtrack buyers I like to hear the music before I see the film. For me it heightens my anticipation of the filmic experience wondering where and how the music will fit in a scene. Which is one of the key purposes of film music scoring.

So I say to all of those out there who will wait until they see THE PHANTOM MENACE to hear the soundtrack, it's like when you read a book and you allow your imagination to be carried by the words. And if the book is made into a movie you become the judge as to whether the film makers did justice to the story in the way it was cast, shot and edited. Don't deny yourself the pleasure of hearing the music, not "Seeing" the music.

Anyway I digress. Back to THE MUMMY. I haven't heard this kind of scoring by Jerry Goldsmith in a long time. There are great action moments, great moments of suspense and fantastic moments of grandeur that remind me of MAURICE JARRE's scoring for the many films that he had done for DAVID LEAN. Kudos also go to his now orchestrator ALEXANDER COURAGE for the way that he utilizes the full orchestra on nearly every cue.

I think I can clearly say that this score will be on most everyone's Top 10 List of 1999. Without having seen one frame of this film I think I can realistically say that this will also be in the Top 10 of Jerry Goldsmith's scores for the decade. Think of this film as "THE WIND AND THE LION" meets "THE GHOST AND THE DARKNESS" meets "POLTERGEIST."

The score captures the flavor of the region and has great percussive cues and fantastic wordless chorales that remind me of the great music that he scored for "POLTERGEIST." There are also remnants of "DEEP RISING" in the score. Almost everyone did not enjoy that score from 1998 but I must say that it was the one redeeming factor of that "Slosher Film."

Anyway I'm off to the theater to see the experience the full impact of this score on the film. I know I won't be disappointed with the score. I hope THE MUMMY as a score will live forever. I guess I should keep my attempts at humor under wraps.

MailBag@filmscoremonthly.com