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CD Reviews: The Chase and The Black Swan
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| Posted By: Stephen Armstrong, Darren MacDonald on October 31, 2004 - 10:00 PM |
CD Reviews: The Chase and The Black Swan
The Chase (1966) ****
JOHN BARRY
Sony Legacy CK 89265
16 tracks - 56:05
With a script by the great Horton Foote and a cast that includes Marlon
Brando, Jane Fonda and Robert Redford, The Chase could have been and
should have been a hit, or at least a strong movie. But Arthur Penn's
1966 soap opera about love and betrayal in Texas flopped commercially
and critically. And over the course of the four decades that have
passed since its premier, this overheated "contemporary" western hasn't
been re-discovered and rescued from obscurity by film critics or
scholars, and it probably never will. The same cannot be said about the
picture's soundtrack, however. Thanks to Sony Legacy, listeners can now
enjoy a re-mastered copy of John Barry's score, which the label has
released to commemorate the English composer's 70th birthday.
Alternating between classical arrangements and more popular ones, the
material that makes up this collection generates a multitude of moods,
ranging from gray depressions to peppy moments of joie de vivre. On a
track like "What did I do Wrong?" for example, Barry surrounds a
melancholy flute figure with strings that roll up and down like waves
in a barren sea, creating an intensely gloomy, intensely fragile sound.
"Call that Dancin'?" in contrast, is a gorgeous slab of blues, which
juxtaposes a muted trumpet and a narcotic organ together to produce a
sound that is sexy and dreamy and hopeful all at once. And "Saturday
Night Philosopher," a rock and roll tune, features a swaggering bass
and horns that zoom around each other as confidently as jet fighters in
a summer sky.
But as fresh as much of this music is, there are passages that betray
the obvious influence of other composers. Consider the track called
"Look Around." With its seesawing rhythms and "easy listening"
ambiance, the composition tips its hat to Mancini. And on "The Chase is
On," one of the album's most exciting pieces, Barry develops a tense
and suspenseful arrangement of strings, which he quickly disrupts with
a strain of mariachi notes and an onslaught of horns and drums, a
tactic that he may have borrowed from Tiomkin's themes for both Rio Bravo and Rawhide. One wonders, as well, if
perhaps Barry, in 1966, wasn't also familiar with Morricone and his
pop-inflected scores for Sergio Leone's spaghetti westerns.
But these imitations -- or allusions, if you will -- only enrich the
work. In other words, because of Barry's penchant for eclecticism, his
score is interesting -- and charming. Few film composers, in fact, have
ever been as fun as Barry. And few ever will.
-- Stephen B. Armstrong
The Black Swan (1944) ****
ALFRED NEWMAN
Screen Archives Entertainment SAE-CRS-010
17 tracks - 68:25
"When villainy wore a sash and waved a cutlass!" declared posters for The Black Swan. Naturally, the film
came from a time when Hollywood pirate films were more concerned with
the exploits of a dashing (if somewhat flawed) hero and heaps of
swashbuckling adventure than they were with realistic portrayals of
gritty pirate life -- not that these films are much more realistic
today. That said, Alfred Newman's score for The Black Swan is rousing,
swashbuckling music that also has a sense of fun, composed in a similar
fashion as Erich Wolfgang Korngold's The
Sea Hawk or Captain Blood.
It's the kind of music that a filmmaker of any era should be happy to
have in his swashbuckler.
The score is as thematically rich as one might expect, with themes for
the main characters, for the ship The
Black Swan, for the villain, etc. One of the highlights is the
wonderful danger motif for the ship, given a virtuoso treatment by the
principal trumpet on numerous tracks. The main theme is of course first
heard in the "Main Title," where Newman provides a great choral
rendition that not only serves to introduce the story, but also (with
lyrics by Charles Henderson) acts as a great sea shanty in the
tradition of "Strike for the Shores of Dover" from Korngold's The Sea Hawk.
No score of this type would be complete without a little romance and a
giant, climactic finale. Newman provides the right dose of love in the
lengthy "Lady Margaret's Pillow" and "Jamie Kidnaps Lady Margaret."
Only in old Hollywood do rational women fall in love their kidnappers,
so it takes a characteristically passionate Newman love theme to make
it at all convincing. Then, the whole orchestra is used to its fullest
extent in the 15-minute final track, which scores the battle on the
coast and aboard the pirate ship. The main themes for the hero and the
pirates battle back and forth on the soundtrack, just as the characters
duel it out on screen.
Sound quality on this release is not quite as good as Dragonwyck or Down to the Sea in Ships. But as
always it's still great to have this music in the best presentation
possible, with the music having been remastered well enough to hear the
occasional squeaky chair from the orchestra. --
Darren MacDonald
MailBag@filmscoremonthly.com
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Today in Film Score History:
March 26 |
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| Alan Menken wins his first Oscars, for The Little Mermaid score and its song "Under the Sea" (1990) |
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| Alan Silvestri born (1950) |
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| Bernard Herrmann begins recording his score for White Witch Doctor (1953) |
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| Charles Dumont born (1929) |
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| Fred Karlin died (2004) |
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| Harry Rabinowitz born (1916) |
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| John Corigliano wins his first Oscar, for The Red Violin score (2000) |
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| Larry Morey born (1905) |
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| Leigh Harline born (1907) |
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| Louis Silvers died (1954) |
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| Malcolm Arnold wins his only Oscar, for The Bridge on the River Kwai score (1958) |
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| Noel Coward died (1973) |
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| Recording sessions begin for Miklos Rozsa’s score for Five Graves to Cairo (1943) |
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| The Fall of the Roman Empire opens in New York (1964) |
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| Victor Young begins recording his score for Little Boy Lost (1953) |
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