About The Re-Creation Project --- Now that I am finished with my composing assignment on Troma Entertainment’s upcoming film noir film "The Power Of Positive Murder" (currently mixing the music), I'm turning my attention to "re-creating" unreleased cues from Jerry Goldsmith's Twilight's Last Gleaming".
I must give a big thanks to Yavar Moradi for inspiring me to do this project. Based on all the prior research by Yavar, there is currently NO sheet music or any other documentation available pertaining to the score or recording sessions other than the liner notes of the original album. I have been trying to get Ford Thaxton (who was involved in the album's release) to respond to me regarding the transferred masters as those transfers would presumably have all this unreleased music - if the unreleased music did in fact get transferred from the tapes Joel Goldsmith provided Ford. Until that day comes, I am doing re-creations of all the unreleased music as heard in the film.
In the spirit of Yavar’s detailed score breakdowns, I did an extensive breakdown of the unreleased cues in the movie, comparing the music on the album versus what's in the movie. There was a significant amount of editing, short cues, whole sections of longer cues that were not used on album and conversely short sections released from longer cues and included on the album. It's a brilliant edit of all the music into a great listening experience. The album is also not in chronological order for the most part, which made it a bit difficult at first to realize all the edits that were occurring.
Yavar had informed me that the history to date of this score was rumored to have around 5 or so minutes of unreleased music as well as a “recorded for but not used” End Credit suite, much like that of Rambo. There is a short “coda” at the end of the End Credits in the film but its literally around 30 secs in length.
My research uncovered about 9-10 minutes of unreleased music that is in the film. This new runtime still does not include the "recorded for but not used" End Credits suite in that 9-10 minute. Additionally, there is at least one "alternate" of the big finale cue “The President Falls” as the film version IS different from the album during the last half of that cue on the album version. I will include the detailed breakdown at the end of this post.
I have had to do everything by ear at this point. From determining the size of the orchestra (number of instruments Goldsmith used in each section) to balancing my re-creations to match the balance of the orchestra on the album. The mix on the album is also very left heavy, much of the orchestra (percussion, brass and mid-low strings are all mostly heard from just left of the center channel to the far-left extreme left channel. Not much is pushed to the right but that is reserved for the high register instruments. So, I tried to emulate that "balance".
Also, I have tried (to the best of my ability) to recreate processed instrument thumping sounds and the echo-plex the "effects”. I know there are echoplex plugins, but I prefer to do it with delays since I am familiar with using them. I do not know what original instruments were used before the processing was made on them, but it seems like they were combinations of timpani, tom toms and snares, and sometimes all mixed together before then given an echo-plex effect and a “slight fuzz distortion”. What I came up with is close but still it would be helpful to know how it was originally done.
The First Cue: “The President’s Expendable”
The first cue I chose to re-create was one of the easier ones to start with. The cue is soft, dark, brooding, and intimate. It is simple writing – a single melodic idea that is repeated several times in a row but in different keys/modes. It starts in the bass and celli before transitioning to the strings with transitions on brass. There are a few quotes of chimes / vibraphone, all ending with a crescendo of all strings and rolling snare with drum hits to punctuate a dramatic moment. The track name is my own choosing as I have no documentation to know what the cue was originally called.
For my recreation, I matched the tempo, the notes and the performances as closely as possible based on what I could hear in the movie. I then overlaid my recording (using virtual instruments which I also performed and mixed) over the existing audio track and made it louder to be more audible. Additionally, I also tried to match the balance the original album had as in the movie, everything sounds mono.
The video clip below will first play the scene as originally scored with the 1977 mono mix of the cue by Goldsmith. When the scene ends it will repeat with my re-creation overlaid in the scene and in stereo. However, I added additional elements at the beginning just before Goldsmith’s cue started and then when the cue ends as Goldsmith’s did, I extended the cue a bit with more with the echoing thumps and a brief statement of the military theme ending with a gated synth – all elements that WERE used in other cues in the core, just not this one. These extensions are just teasers to demonstrate my attempt at re-creating the “processed and synths” used in the score without knowing what was actually done originally.
The other cues in the pipeline will be more complex and some require the use of atonal techniques which I will be able to do with the virtual instruments.
Here is the entire breakdown of the unreleased music.
TWILIGHT’S LAST GLEAMING Additional music in the movie that was not on the Album Analysis conducted 03/23/2025 by Matthew C. Hightshoe Rough runtime of music used in movie but not included on the album 9:48 roughly.
1. 00:08:36 – 00:09:00 Pick-up Truck drives down entry driveway to Silo 3. a. Metal Hits with echoplex effect. b. Subtle shaker rattles. c. Chime. Note: While not included on the album, this very brief segment could be considered an extended intro to Track 1 on the album. The next time we see the truck getting closer and pulling up to the gate of Silo 3, Track 1 on the album begins and [lays through the scene as intended.
2. 00:29:23 – 00:30:40 Using a Pen to prevent the two gold tips from touching. a. Long passage of slowly rising low to mid register dissonant strings. b. Tam-Tam scrapes and shrieks. c. Low woodwind rumbles and growling (possibly clarinet or bassoon. d. The rising of the strings ends with some subtle stingers from the tam-tam as the pen prevents the touching of the gold tips. Note: This is not on the album. It is a scene that follows shortly after The Bubble.
3. 00:34:42 – 00:35:38 General Mackenzie leaves the church service to respond to an incoming call. Note: Note included on the album. However, this cue is almost identical in composition and orchestration as the track entitled “Special Forces Arrive”. However, it builds in intensity as the track comes to an end with a stronger punctuation and emphasis on the string triplets and snare hits. But overall, it is pretty much the same cue again.
4. 00:46:51 – 00:47:19 Opening the safe to get access to the 2 launch keys. a. Rising fifths on woodwinds ending on hits and brass. b. Strings end the cue with the main victory melody. c. Snares punctuate the victory of obtaining the keys. NOTE: This very brief cue is not on the album.
5. 01:27:40 – 01:29:01 Military soldiers Unloading the Gold Bomb outside the main door to Silo 3’s command center. a. Metal hits with echoplex effect. b. Drum rolls on the various pitched drums, all using the snare springs, not the door stop flutter sound by bouncing the drum sticks on the drumheads. c. Low trombone grumblings. NOTE: Not on the album. This cue picks up immediately after where the first half of the album track “Down the Elevator Shaft” ends at 1:41. This cue above plays out and then at 01:29:01 the music as heard on the album from 1:41 on plays out in the movie as it does on the album. This would have extended the album track to include 3 segments and not 2.
6. 02:03:25 – 02:05:08 Winfield convinces Lancaster they should walk out of there with the President but makes him realize they are going to probably not make it, essentially, go down in a blaze of glory. a. Just low strings (cellos or more likely basses) brooding melodic lines. NOTE: Not on album.
7. 02:16:05 – 02:17:53 The President and the 2 terrorists exit Silo3 and as the three walk down the driveway, they become targeted by the hiding soldiers as the tow terrorist walk in circles around the President in hopes to avoid getting shot. a. Prominent snare rolls & hits. b. Some low register piano hits. c. Low metal hits and rolls. d. Cymbals. e. Large drum hits. f. Dissonant strings at one point for tension. NOTE: After Mackenzie tells the soldiers, “They are on their own” the large drum hit, and the music as heard in the movie plays out the same as it is heard on the album. On the album this portion of the film cue starts at 0:40 and ends at 01:01 (indicated as “Heading For Home”) before it then cuts to the segment “The President Has Fallen”. However, the film version of the last segment of the album track “The President Has Fallen” is different from the album.
The film version plays the same as the album up until the moment the President falls to the ground, then the film version is all strings. It removes all the brass hits as heard on the album. Then it just uses somber but brooding strings and horns similar to the music heard between Winfield and Lancaster before the President arrives in the Silo 3 command center, just bigger.
The film version of the President has fallen starts at 02:18:23 and ends at 02:20:10
8. 02:23:26 – 02:23:57 The End Credits coda. NOTE: Not on album and comes in on a sustained string note that matches the ending chord note of the song.
9. MISSING END CREDITS CUE It has been rumored that there was an actual End Credits cue recorded but not used in favor of the song currently heard over the End Credits. This is a similar situation to Rambo 2 having an End Credits cue recorded but not used in favor of a song.
Total music not on the album (including the film version of The President Has Fallen totals: 9:48 roughly. Not knowing how long the rumored original end credits cue (and possibly a recorded for but not used main title sequence) there could be an additional 5- 6 minutes additional music.
I must give a big thanks to Yavar Moradi for inspiring me to do this project. Based on all the prior research by Yavar, there is currently NO sheet music or any other documentation available pertaining to the score or recording sessions other than the liner notes of the original album.
I'm so honored by the shout-out and your work here is very impressive! I feel like the praise is more than I deserve because really all I did was tell you that if written music did survive for Twilight's Last Gleaming, I didn't know where it might be. (It doesn't seem to exist as full scores or sketches at the Academy's Herrick Library like the vast majority of theatrical film scores written by Goldsmith). Since you'd expressed an interest in reconstructing unreleased Goldsmith music, I just thought it wouldn't make much sense for you to waste your time tackling something that we know for sure *does* exist in written form at the Herrick Library, like say In Harm's Way or Ransom (aka The Terrorists) for example.
I feel like the board's Kev McGann (aka Hurdy Gurdy) deserves more credit for leading to this, because he's always going on and on about this score and how much he adores that unreleased 30 second End Credit coda, which is his favorite cue of the whole thing I think! It's Kev's advocacy for a new expanded edition of this score over many years which made it stick out in my mind to suggest. I also want to shout-out Doug Fake who was the one who revealed to me (in one of our three-hour-long pandemic era conversations) that Goldsmith's original orchestral End Credits piece was much longer, along the lines of the unused one he did for Rambo: First Blood Part II. (Before anyone asks, Doug didn't give me the impression that he necessarily had a tape copy of this in his possession; I suspect he just asked Jerry about it at some point due to his strong interest in militaristic Goldsmith scores, and found out about it that way as an anecdote.)
Your reveal that there's actually almost 10 minutes of unreleased music in the film in amazing, Mateo! I confess I've never seen the film myself, but for years in various threads on this board I'd heard that it was around 5 minutes or less. Maybe it was hard for folks to tell, exactly, because some of the unreleased cues sound very close to released cues. That would gel with the Goldsmith Society's ad for the album which said some cues were omitted from the album "due to repetition":
And maybe that ad's stated "four minutes deleted" is another reason why folks were claiming "under five minutes" of unreleased music for so many years. I've heard it speculated that the orchestral End Credits coda might have been recorded at a late pick-up session or something, resulting in it not being on the tape source used for the existing album. I certainly don't think it would have been knowingly omitted for reasons of "repetition", particularly if the full End Credits composition was included!
Hopefully one day some additional sessions paperwork will turn up for this score... or at least an official cue sheet for what recorded pieces made it into the film itself. For now, thank you for shining a light on this Goldsmith score which calls out for a complete and chronological edition!
Yavar, the complete film is available in great HD quality for free on YouTube:
Since the film was a German co-production, filmed and scored at Bavaria Studios in Germany, the written score as well as the original recording may be archived there. Germans are very good about record-keeping and usually don't throw things away.
Has anybody ever tried to contact the company? Maybe if you connect with the right person, you might strike gold.
And now it's my turn to thank Yavar, for name checking me in the creation of this new Goldsmith endeavour. Yes indeed, I have been banging on about this score, especially the End Title coda, brief though it may be, which is a quintessential JG piece, for quite some time. And now, the thought that those 30 seconds might just be the 'last bit' of a much longer End Title, just fills me with sadness and regret, as it's unlikely I will ever get to hear it. I always wondered why the string sustains matched, from unrelated song to score piece, and figured it was just clever editing and/or quick thinking Goldsmith on the podium. It's a shame no one in the biz, at the time, managed to keep a copy of the recording sessions from Germany. But hope springs eternal (remember Moonraker, Dracula etc etc).
Since the film was a German co-production, filmed and scored at Bavaria Studios in Germany, the written score as well as the original recording may be archived there. Germans are very good about record-keeping and usually don't throw things away.
Has anybody ever tried to contact the company? Maybe if you connect with the right person, you might strike gold.
The written scores are at Warner Bros and the recordings probably are, as well. I have inquired with this German company for other productions and they confirmed they did not archive music.
The written scores are at Warner Bros and the recordings probably are, as well.
Thanks for this ray of sunshine, Neumation! Maybe even if tapes are lost (or if surviving tapes don't include that full End Credits piece), those written scores at WB could one day be used to facilitate a new recording of the lost music (particularly the full End Credits).
On the other hand, Warner Bros. sadly hasn't had the manpower to work with the specialty labels since 2020, so folks hoping for an expansion of this score one way or the other might have a bit of a wait. With that in mind, I'm still glad that Mateo is shining a spotlight on this score's unreleased music. Hopefully after this project he may turn his sights towards mockups for some of the unreleased Ballad of Cable Hogue cues (another incomplete Warner Bros. title which doesn't seem to have sketches at the Herrick Library): https://filmscoremonthly.com/board/posts.cfm?threadID=150235&forumID=1&archive=0
That’s fantastic news too, thank you! (Are they more accessible than those for Twilight’s Last Gleaming, somehow? Can you confirm whether the official cue titles Steven Lloyd provided match those on the written scores, and whether any unused cues exist in written form which didn’t make it into the film or onto the album?)
This recollection is from five years ago during the height of Covid... but I'm pretty sure Doug Fake (also a big Frank DeVol fan of course) mentioned that he did write one, at least! Would be amazing to get a DeVol/Goldsmith doubleheader if they both exist in the WB vaults, and the studio re-opens for business with the specialty labels again.
I am so grateful for this work. One of my favorite Goldsmiths. Yavar, the film is a pretty slick thriller with gifted cast at the top of their games, great dialogue, and taut editing including some wonderfully effective use of split screen. It's set post Vietnam and deals with a lot of the political implications of our time there. I strongly encourage taking a look at a letterboxed version.
