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Posted: |
Oct 15, 2021 - 11:47 AM
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By: |
Bob S
(Member)
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August saw the release of a new Vestron Video Collector’s Series Blu-ray edition of 1989’s Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat, a decidedly less-than-B-movie western about warring vampire factions in latter day Utah. This rare gem stars David Carradine and a painfully new Bruce Campbell, hot off his role in Evil Dead, but long before Xena. Sundown is memorable (in a good way) only for its wonderful cowboy movie score by the late, he-died-way-too-young, Richard Stone. Our own Ford Thaxton thankfully rescued the music in 2000 and had it released on CD. This was reissued in 2013.
What makes the new video package so special is the isolated music track with commentary by music historian Randall Larson. The track contains ALL of the music written and recorded for the film, including some cues that are not on the soundtrack CD and others that were not used in the movie at all. These are presented in what would have been their proper order, punctuated with intelligent commentary.
Stone’s score is essentially a tribute to western music composers that came before him, lights such as Morricone, Tiomkin, Amfitheatrof, and especially Elmer Bernstein. Recording in Germany with the Graunke Symphony, source of many original scores, Stone brought in Edda Dell’Orso to do the wordless vocal overlays for his Morricone-inspired passages, just as she had done so many time for Ennio himself. Tiomkin gets double recognition with haunting Mexican trumpet solos such as those found in Rio Bravo and The Alamo, plus his own pop movie song Town Without Pity as source music. Bits of Daniele Amfitheatrof’s rousing march from Major Dundee are used almost directly from the original. But Stone is not playing copycat here. What he brings us is respectful and knowing pastiche, seeking out the best of what made all of the old scores so memorable.
The centerpiece here, of course, is Stone’s main theme for Sundown, a rousing, full-throated epic hung directly on the sturdy rhythmic framework of Elmer Bernstein’s The Comancheros. If you haven’t heard this before you will find yourself cuing it up over and over. I know I still do.
CD copies of the score are now rare, but you can listen to the cues here. For the full main theme jump to "Redemption of the Damned (Finale)." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsO4dbvYGoU&list=OLAK5uy_lkIENjRxVDCwBfPWkd8oQIGXg4WWSb8sk&index=13
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The film and score are a great ride.
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