"Main Title" alternate (Original LP version): This version -- recorded during the same sessions -- differs from the film version slightly and is almost identical. Those with astute hearing will notice there is a different balance of instruments in 2 spots, and in particular the snare drum percussion is much less prominent than the film version recording and features additional cymbal work.
Hey Browny. You certainly do know this score well. I would certainly welcome your version of the score if it was ever to be re-issued. Are you sure about the main title being a different recording? I always thought this but after years of listening and comparing the two I'm pretty much convinced it's just a different mix. I remember reading somewhere that Lukas confirmed this when assembling the FSM edition. Also I thought the faux, credit highlight cymbal crashes (I actually don't like these and glad there not on the CD or LP version) were done post recording at Irwin Allens request. The two versions are pretty disparate but I love em both.
Hey Browny. You certainly do know this score well. I would certainly welcome your version of the score if it was ever to be re-issued.
Are you sure about the main title being a different recording? I always thought this but after years of listening and comparing the two I'm pretty much convinced it's just a different mix. I remember reading somewhere that Lukas confirmed this when assembling the FSM edition. Also I thought the faux, credit highlight cymbal crashes (I actually don't like these and glad there not on the CD or LP version) were done post recording at Irwin Allens request. The two versions are pretty disparate but I love em both.
Steve the LP version is definitely different to the film mix. Same with the End Credits. I actually like both versions, but prefer the Film Version of the Main Title as the percussion is far more prominent. The additional cymbal work I am referring to is quite subtle (not the cymbal crashes) and is heard on the LP version only, and if you can visualise it in your head, is specifically the scene as the helicopter is flying above the Golden Gate Bridge.
Ironically, subsequent re-recordings of the main theme (ie. by the RSNO and the City of Prague Philharmonic) preserve this cymbal percussion in their orchestrations, replicating the original album recording.
Additonally if you have only ever heard the film (or FSM CD) of the End Credits you will know straight away that the two recordings are different takes as the sound is quite obvious. As I noted above the fade out quietly subsides in the higher register and is not as sustained a final note as the film version.
This is why we need a new 2 CD set... so we can have and compare all the alternates and extras!
A bit off topic, I know, but not on the LP is the sequence towards the end when the water cascade down the stairwells starts to ebb. The music begins, imparting a sense of genteel wonderment with high strings as the survivors pick themselves up from the mess. There follows, after the mellowness of the intro, a more business-like arrangement with horns and string blending. However, the bit I really like is the vertical shot of the stairwells with that heartbeat sound that gets stronger and stronger. Williams then introduces a variation of the main title motif over this, but the effect is not the jazzed up enthusiasm that represents the father on his way to see his baby as at the start; more like a sense of weary wisdom learned from having overcome a tremendous obstacle. That is my favourite piece of music from the movie accompanying the visuals.
It's just an amazing piece of music and with great visuals. The perfect marriage. If I HAD to choose a favourite bit though, it would be from just AFTER what Steve mentioned in his original post. From about 2:13 on, as we see the Golden Gate through the clouds and the helicopter descends to almost sea level - I love the complexity and sheer adrenalin of all that stuff. Then the credit "Directed by John Guillermin" comes up and you expect a kind of fade out, but it just keeps on going. Brilliant.
There was a writer named William Krasnoborski who praised this score to the skies in an early issue of Soundtrack Collector's Newsletter (later Soundtrack!). It was a thoughtful review essay, one of the things that drew my attention to the rising young composer, who would go on to far greater things. I didn't catch the movie until a few years later, and by then the music, overshadowed by Williams's later achievements, did not seem particularly striking. (The movie struck me as an overscaled TV "movie of the week.") The FSM disc release did not change my mind. But there are some good observations above --thanks -- and I'm convinced that I need to have another look.
Rozsaphile, it was a pretty big affair back then. The top billing itself caused problems. Whose name would appear on the left? That's the captain's side, don't you know? So the name on the right has to be a little higher than the name on the left, to compensate. It took two studios to hash out this blockbuster - a motion picture event (as they were known). To be involved with it signified immense prestige.
The music written to summon up the conflagration for Trapped Lovers is nothing short of phenomenally staggering. The music really fans the flames! In fact, it sounds very similar to the audio inferno that Kaper composed for the end of the Bounty. There's a distinct musical signature, or flavour, that captures the essense of fire.
It took two studios to hash out this blockbuster - a motion picture event (as they were known).
This was actually the first time such a thing had happened, paving the way for the likes of Dragonslayer (Disney/Paramount), Gorillas In The Mist (Universal/Warner Bros.), Starship Troopers (TriStar/Touchstone) and Master And Commander: The Far Side Of The World (Twentieth Century Fox/Universal/Miramax).
Been collecting for nearly 25 years and this soundtrack is largely one of the first I coveted. I was surprised (to me at least) no one seemed to give it its due until the FSM release of it (and subseqeunt sellout). It's brilliant Williams before Speilberg/Star Wars/NBC/Superman all took off.
For me the simplest and best part is 0:17-0:23. It just teases a bit before then and then makes a quick accelerated statement then seques to the main title. It also helps that it comes over the two main stars' credits (McQueen & Newman).
I posted a thread elsewhere on FSM looking for anyone who might have recorded this movie way back when it was a two parter on NBC network television. Specifically, the beginning of the SECOND part had an edited re-cap of the first night's stuff and the helicopter sequence was edited down with a shorter version of the main title (a different recording, not the original just editied). It has a bit of punch to it that is different to William's version and I long have wanted to get the recording on CD. If any one has it still on VHS or transferred DVD-R, please contact me as I've love to get a copy. Please note- you could only have gotten this if the tv station that aired it did so in TWO parts or two nights. If they simply ran them together back-to-back one night, they undoubtedly would've removed the recap section I refer to. Thanks!
A long opening sequence like that must have effective changes in material i.e. motivic shifts, orchestrational changes, etc and these all have to make sense with the visuals. Williams so nailed it with this opening, keeping the energy level up throughout the entire sequence by making brilliant choices musically to picture.
Another similar opening sequence that was surely inspired by The Towering Inferno is Ragland's gorgeous main titles for Grizzly. Again, it's the perfect shifts in orchestration and thematic/motivic material with what's on the screen that pulls us breathlessly through.
I like how in the GRIZZLY clip that they used a lot of POV shots.
Wish there were more in the TOWERING INFERNO opening. I like it when they make us feel we are taking the ride.
This flying POV type stuff reminds me of that short, but great sequence early in THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK with the flight over the snow and mountains on the Ice Planet. In the theater on the big screen, that was awesome.
A lot of GRIZZLY's opening footage also totally reminds me of the SOARIN OVER CALIFORNIA ride at California Adventure.
Love aerial photography in movies.
The Helicopter/Bi-plane chase at the end of CAPRICORN ONE is great stuff.
A lot of GRIZZLY's opening footage also totally reminds me of the SOARIN OVER CALIFORNIA ride at California Adventure.
I wonder how many people are guilty of trying to "kick" the tops of the waves in "Soarin". I know I did.
I wanted to parachute out over the Golden Gate bridge, which again closing resembles, almost to a tea, the Towering Inferno opening sequence where the Helicopter comes out of the clouds to reveal the bridge below.
Here's an alternate LP style playlist of the score Iv'e been tinkering around with;
Let There Be Light 0:38 (This track is too good not to be included so i used it as a kind of mini fanfare to kick the score off) Main Title 5:01 An Architect's Dream 3:28 Lisolette and Harlee 2:35 Something for Susan 2:42 Trapped Lovers 4:45 (this is the extended version from the FSM CD. There's a little deterioration in the first part of the track but it's acceptable) We May Never Love Like This Again 2:05 (Film version of the track. I considered a segue with Alone at Last as it appears in the film but it plays allright on it's own.) More for Susan 1:56 (I used this instead of the album track Susan and Doug. i dont know why? I just prefer it) Helicopter Rescue 3:07 (I used this instead of Helicopter Explosion. There's no edit and it concludes with bold statements of the familiar Rescue motive) Planting the Charges 9:07 Finale 3:55
I wanted to include "The First Victims" and Harlee Dressing" but it wont come in under 40mins. Cheers.
Okay, I heard this when I was sound editing at the time of TOWERING INFERNO came out. Supposedly Williams wrote just another disaster score like EARTHQUAKE and POSEIDON ADVENTURE for this. Enter master showman Irwin Allen (whose first feature was the modest THE STORY OF MANKIND). He wanted some spectacular heroic opening so Williams pumped up the main titles for the helicopter ride. It really doesn't make sense. Paul Newman, the architect, is heading for the disastrous opening of his building. Due to shoddy construction it goes up in flames. The only real heroes are the firefighters and many of them die. It may have some fuzzy suggestion of the building being some kind of triumph for mankind but it always seems incongruent to me. And gossip was everywhere so it may not even be true. But who cares it was great music. Lo and behold on Allen's next film I hear the same thing and in context to that one Jerry Goldsmith's triumphant end titles to THE SWARM is even more out of place. And at that point I bought the gossip. The likelihood is that these two really cool, but wrong, pieces of music can be partially credited to the Barnum and Bailey of film, Irwin Allen.
Pardon for what might be a stupid question but why John Williams doesn't deserve credit on the opening titles ?
This was probably contractual with the film, as he didnt receive main title credit on THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE. This may have been a tv holder when most tech credits were on the end crawl. He did receive credit on the poster, something which very few composers got back in the old days...Max Steiner was an exception.
