Buy it... if you wish to hear one of Goldsmith's last ventures into the
Western genre with a tender heart and one very rousing and rhythmic brass
theme.
Avoid it... if the concept of a largely fluffy Goldsmith Western
without grit or significant substance turns you away.
Filmtracks Editorial Review:
Goldsmith
Bad Girls: (Jerry Goldsmith) From the dusty streets of
a cliche Old West town, Bad Girls tells us the story of four women
who aren't necessary bad, but badly unappreciated. A group of four
prostitutes in the unsavory town of Echo City, Colorado are forced to band
together to escape local religious fanatics and a hangman's noose after one
of them shoots an unreasonable customer. Cody, Anita, Eileen, and Lilly
traverse the plains to Texas, where their uncanny knowledge of shooting and
explosives comes in handy. They also seem to have the knack for riding
horses without upsetting their nicely arranged hair, putting the film into
perspective for any confused soul who might have ventured across this
amusing spectacle. The babes in the tale are portrayed by a well-known lot
of actresses who seem at home in more urban settings (Madeleine Stowe, Mary
Stuart Masterson, Drew Barrymore, and Andie MacDowell), adding to the film's
charm perhaps while also dooming any serious intent it may have had. The
problem with Bad Girls turned out to be the attempt by the filmmakers
to actually make a serious film of the script, and part of that effort is
heard in composer Jerry Goldsmith's score for the film. Director Jonathan
Kaplan had just worked with the composer on the relatively unknown
segregation drama Love Field, a score that was partially removed from
the final film and replaced with the piano music of comparative novice and
keyboardist Bill Payne. The same problem would not plague Bad Girls,
however, with Goldsmith's score bursting to the forefront in many parts of
the film. Instead of treating the film like one of the numerous ridiculous
comedies that Goldsmith became involved with in the early 1990's, he seems
to have taken a very serious approach to Bad Girls, infusing just
pinch of his more current comedy writing with a revised version of his
1960's Western scores. If a lighthearted interpretation of the Extreme
Prejudice score could exist, then Bad Girls would be its best
evidence.
Despite its resurgence in the "fondness" department ten
years after its release, Goldsmith's Bad Girls was not greeted with
enthusiasm at the time, even though it was one of few sidesteps into the
Western genre for Goldsmith in his later years. Among a few critics'
problems with the film in 1994 --and the reviews were treacherous-- was
Goldsmith's overdone score, stretching the drama to unmanageable levels
while the dialogue and acting was tugging from the opposite direction. Some
film music critics mentioned that the score lacked enough of a feminine
element. Indeed, Goldsmith tackled the project with straight-laced action in
mind, although he does temper the otherwise masculine effort with
emotionally heartening, soft guitar performances of the title theme. The
shorter rips of the theme seem to share unintentional similarities with John
Barry's Zulu, though the fuller, more tender moments of the theme's
performances have a more unique structure played with the woodwind
sensibilities of Rudy's equivalent moments. While some Goldsmith fans
may rejoice in the bouncing retro-Western theme in full brass that is heard
at least three times in the film, the reflective and enjoyable acoustic
guitar performances of that theme which occupy a far greater portion of the
score are likely the heart of the piece. The minimal comedy writing is held
to "Jail Break," a cue that rolls with honky-tonk style piano and triangle
action. Goldsmith's typical synthetic instruments are also evident in Bad
Girls, but only used in keyboard and drum sampling form underneath
purely orchestral material. A cue such as "Josh's Death" has rhythms
established by electronics in much the same fashion as Extreme
Prejudice, but not with the same stark intent. Orchestrally, the
percussion section rips off some wild drum sequences that hark back to the
days of The Wind and the Lion, although the instrumentation sounds
consistent (along with a motif or two in "Bank Job") to his concurrent
The Shadow score. Overall, Bad Girls is an enjoyable, if not
misplaced score, and its reception has softened considerably with fans over
the years. Unfortunately, the album is largely out of print. Still, if you
embark upon a search of Goldsmith's rarer early 90's albums, Bad
Girls should easily be in the upper half of that list. ***
