 |
|
| Poledouris |
|
|
The Adventures of Conan: A Sword and Sorcery
Spectacular: (Basil Poledouris) In the early 1980s, Americans were
consumed by the need for adventures from the mythical age of sword and
sorcery. With films such as
Dragonslayer,
Excalibur, and
Beastmaster came audiences' desire to see even more of such
fantasy epics. The most successful film of the genre was, of course,
Conan the Barbarian, and not only did the 1982 film inspire a
full-length motion picture sequel two years later in the form of the
substandard
Conan the Destroyer, but it also led to the creation
of a live-action Conan stage show located at Universal Studios in 1983.
The Landmark Entertainment Group show, formally titled "The Adventures
of Conan: A Sword and Sorcery Spectacular," ran for ten successful years
in Hollywood before being replaced by newer, more technically
sophisticated attractions such as "Jurassic Park: The Ride." The Conan
show was produced in between the two feature films starring Arnold
Schwarzenegger, and it was therefore logical to ask the franchise's own
Basil Poledouris to score the live-action version as well. The
production wasn't all that long in its duration, lasting for about 20
minutes, but its intense Hyborean Age action required almost constant
underscore of sufficient volume to give the audience a consistent rush
of Conan-related fever. Poledouris tackled the assignment with the same
seriousness as he had for the original film, employing orchestrator
Greig McRitchie and the large London Studio Symphony Orchestra and
Voices to duplicate the pounding depth of the music from
Conan the
Barbarian.
The resulting quarter of an hour of music by Poledouris
remained a difficult item to obtain on album for quite a while. A
limited album from SuperTracks, the now-defunct soundtrack specialty
label, was released in 2000 and is devoted to only the Conan show. It
includes two tracks: the music alone and a selection of material with
the original dialogue from the live action on stage. The suite which
comprises the second track on this album had appeared on a few
compilation bootlegs of Poledouris' work, some of which selling for
hundreds of dollars at online auction houses. The music itself is a
viable extension of
Conan the Barbarian. While neither the title
nor love themes from the motion picture score are directly translated
into the show for lengthy statements, bits and pieces do appear in
mutations throughout. For instance, a bar of the title theme from
Conan the Barbarian is inserted at 6:50 and the finale in the
second, score-only track, and the pulsating rhythm of Crom occurs at
8:30 in the same track. Avid fans of Poledouris and the Conan series
will recognize many of the composer's woodwind and brass styles carrying
over from the film as well. A strong presence of timpani and a few new
thematic ideas keep the live-action score distinct enough to enjoy apart
from
Conan the Barbarian (unlike the "Back to the Future: The
Ride" score, for which Alan Silvestri just took his original film themes
and pieced them together into a suite for the ride). In fact, a lovely
new theme of romance is introduced at about 4:20 into the score-only
track that translates into a couple of extremely attractive performances
throughout the piece.
The evil dragon receives an appropriately hypnotic
theme heard at 2:30 and 5:10 into the same track. Poledouris' music is
typically heavy with choir, chimes, and brass in a dramatic environment,
with only the wildly shrill scoring for the slaying of the dragon at the
end providing a dissonant weakness in its musical content. Taken from
analog originals for digital mastering onto this CD, there is a
noticeable tinniness to the sound of the music in general, but that's to
be expected from a 1983 recording. The first track features select
portions of the dialogue and music together, while the second track
includes only the expanded score of 16+ minutes by itself. The digital
transfer has caused a few notes of interest for those of you running
your audio through larger stereo systems. On a smaller setup, the CD
sounds much more uniform, but audiophiles will notice that the music is
of slightly poorer quality on the track with the dialogue, with a
greater amount of treble hiss. Making this artifact more apparent is the
comparatively booming, superior quality of the dialogue. On the whole,
however, the album is a grand addition to the collection of any
Poledouris collector. It's like traveling back in time to the early
1980's and living in the age of Conan mania all over again, with a fresh
new Poledouris score to enjoy. It's hard not to keep coming back to the
dialogue version, with a rumbling, majestic narrator and wildly animated
and equally deep vocal performance by the villain, both of whom will be
certain to awaken your neighbors at any hour of the night. The death
screams of the villain in particular are the kind of material that any
sound effects collector will desire. The man portraying Conan needs to
work on his Austrian accent, though.
****
| Bias Check: | For Basil Poledouris reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating
is 3.48 (in 30 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.42
(in 27,554 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
|
The insert contains notes about Poledouris, Landmark Entertainment Group, and the
show itself.
