Buy it... only if you consider yourself a staunch collector of Jerry Goldsmith's works, because while Inchon is a decent composition, its terrible recording nearly ruins the listening experience.

Avoid it... if you demand a truly vibrant and engaging representation of the war genre from an otherwise reliable Goldsmith, though the sound quality issues are mostly to blame for this score's ills.

Goldsmith

Inchon: (Jerry Goldsmith) So what happens when a religious leader decides to bankroll a major American motion picture in order to put a positive spiritual spin on a disastrous military operation of an era past? Inchon in the answer. When Korean Reverend Sun Myung Moon decided in the late 1970's to spend $48 million on a lavish tribute to the United Nations invasion of South Korea's important port of Inchon in 1950 to repel Communist forces from the North, little could have anyone have predicted what an unimaginable nightmare the production would become. Poor casting, led by a completely out of place Sir Laurence Olivier as General Douglas MacArthur, astronomical cost overruns, an awful script with laughable dialogue, botched direction of action sequences by James Bond director Terence Young, and an anti-North Korean religious tone that defines the film purely as propaganda all combined to make Inchon one of the most unfortunate entries in the history of cinema. The process of making the film dragged on for four years, during which time the length of the epic war film was drastically cut several times and the death of a lead actor necessitated the total removal of his character. Decent action sequences could not salvage ridiculous side-stories for unnecessary characters, and the Communists are portrayed as such savages that they don't even have a spoken word of dialogue in the picture. Ultimately, Inchon's $48 million cost yielded a gross of only $150,000 in return, despite efforts by Reverend Moon's devoted followers to hype the film at its eventual 1981 debut. The situation regarding the music for Inchon was just as problematic, with Jerry Goldsmith stepping in when John Williams reportedly bowed out early in the process. Goldsmith was a natural choice for the assignment given his experience in handling large-scale war films, including those with an oriental tilt. It must have been tempting for the composer to utilize his familiar theme for General MacArthur from the 1977 film bearing his name, but instead he conjured a new identity for Olivier's sickly portrayal. The recording of the score was itself a nightmarish part of the production, forced into a small room under a church in Italy and rotating players over the course of a haphazard month of recording in 1980. The lack of a proper facility caused daunting restrictions for Goldsmith, especially with such a large percussion section, but the composer looked back at the experience as a generally positive challenge.

The composition itself is adequate in every one of its tasks, but not particularly memorable in any of them either. Goldsmith did indeed try to make the best of the situation by spicing up his ensemble with creative percussion that dominates portions of the score. Also at play is a significant depth of melody, with no less than four major ideas intermingling regularly throughout the work. As such, Inchon is a relatively smooth listening experience. The title theme for the General stirs up a fair amount of pomp but does not compete with Goldsmith's material from MacArthur. Its two major performances ("MacArthur's Arrival" and "Inchon Theme") would make for worthy compilation material (though it's rare to hear Inchon anywhere else). A romantic melody heard in "The Apology" and rearranged in "Love Theme" is a foreshadowing of Goldsmith's most heartfelt ideas of the 1990's and is the highlight of the score. A theme for the martyr character of Lim has just as poor an impact as Goldsmith's representation for Inchon harbor; both could pass without notice for any listener not closely deconstructing the work. The overall tone of the score is predictably variable, with the composer taking little stylistic chances in either the action or contemplative sequences. This conservative approach, distinctive only because of its faint oriental progressions at times, causes Inchon to be a somewhat pedestrian score. Goldsmith rearranged the Italian recordings into an LP presentation that is so jumbled and spliced into pieces that it doesn't really resemble what is heard in the picture, though it made for a more interesting listening experience. A mock version of that arrangement was reassembled by the composer and Intrada Records in 1988, with Goldsmith making a few new changes for a 55-minute edition. In 2006, Intrada revisited the score once again, presenting a very limited 2-CD album of both the original LP arrangement and the complete 55 minute score (without the edits and minor truncations of the 1988 CD). Unfortunately, all of these albums, despite the best mastering technology available in their times, could not salvage a recording that featured major distortion, ambient studio sounds, and a very flat soundscape. In short, Inchon sounds awful, even compared to its contemporary peers. The distortion in the swelling string portion of "The Apology" nearly ruins the cue. Performance flubs, such as the low brass errors in the latter half of "The Scroll," don't help. This score badly needs a full re-recording, and in lieu of such treatment, only Goldsmith's most ardent collectors should seek either of the rare albums.   Amazon.com Price Hunt: CD or Download

Music as Written for the Film: ***
Music as Heard on All Albums: **
Overall: ***

Bias Check:

For Jerry Goldsmith reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.26 (in 113 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.32 (in 133,462 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.