I have not read a lot of discussion on Goldsmith's "PLAYERS" on Intrada, however without doubt it is one of Goldsmiths more ravishing and uplifting scores and should be placed among his greatest among many great Masterworks.
I haven't listened to it in a hot minute myself, but I do like it a lot. Great love theme, fanfare, etc.
In general this was my favorite period of his, giving us other gems like STAR TREK, THE SWARM, THE OMEN, ALIEN etc. He was really on fire creatively at this time.
I'll take a dozen of these such efforts over any one "Experimental Jerry" a la PLANET OF THE APES any day, personally.
After reading this post I became curious about this score, so I checked it out on YouTube...it completely blew me away !!! I've just gone and bought the CD on eBay, this has to be one of Jerry's greatest soundtracks !
I'm sure there was discussion of it back when the CD came out. I remember watching this movie back in high school just because of the music. It didn't leave a huge impression on me other than the fanfare. The movie is such crap, and I'm not sure how much the music was really audible on the ancient VHS that I must have watched 25 years ago.
In any event, I assumed that the reason the score was never released was that it was too short, and then the CD came out an blew me away. Sort of like the unused Gladiator score, this is one of those Goldsmith gems that really hadn't been heard much until Intrada worked its magic. I like the love theme probably more than the fanfare, and it fits so beautifully in with the Omen / Coma / Magic / Logan's Run sumptuous but intelligent love theme writing that he did.
I never bothered to seek this out because it was a bad film about tennis. But what Goldsmith found in the it was the excitement of competition and he raised that to the level of a pirate adventure. An unknown gem that kept me going for months after I bought it.
I believe it's been stated here that Goldsmith took the assignment because he was a big tennis fan. I think of this as something of a companion piece to JUSTINE. They're Goldsmith's two "Harlequin Romance" scores.
Players is really a transitional one - and shows Jerry on a crossroads of his own styles, somewhere between The Great Train Robbery and Star Trek Motion Picture.
The tennis music I think laid some of the groundwork for the TMP march. The more atmospheric romantic music reminds me of Chinatown, just in its thoughtfulness. But what really stands out about this score for me is that this and Basic Instinct are the two movies where Goldsmith expressively scores the human orgasm.
The tennis music I think laid some of the groundwork for the TMP march. The more atmospheric romantic music reminds me of Chinatown, just in its thoughtfulness. But what really stands out about this score for me is that this and Basic Instinct are the two movies where Goldsmith expressively scores the human orgasm.
But what really stands out about this score for me is that this and Basic Instinct are the two movies where Goldsmith expressively scores the human orgasm.
Hmmm... come to think of it, between those and Reincarnation Of Peter Proud, Goldsmith seemed to be the go-to guy for, well, big finishes.
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