Buy it... on the 1999 Film Score Monthly album if you seek the best source for the original film version of the Patton recordings, as well as a superior work by Frank DeVol for The Flight of the Phoenix.

Avoid it... in Patton's original recordings if you prefer the outstandingly vibrant re-recording conducted by Jerry Goldsmith in 1997.

Goldsmith

Patton/The Flight of the Phoenix: (Jerry Goldsmith/Frank DeVol) After collaborating with director Franklin Schaffner for the highly praised Planet of the Apes two years prior, Jerry Goldsmith would unite with Schaffner to produce a memorable score for one of the most successful and Oscar-worthy war films of all time. Perhaps the most dominating of character studies from any war, Patton won Academy Awards for nearly all of its major players, with Goldsmith being an exception. The effect of his score on the film is far more complex, though, than many people may believe. Despite the pompous title march that defines the film's music for most casual viewers, Goldsmith's work for Patton also studies all the deeper elements that Patton himself explored. It's a surprisingly short score for the impact that it has, with the title theme only used sparingly to represent the massive, victorious ego of the general. That march opens the film, occupies the "Enr'acte" in the middle, and is featured prominently in the later battle sequence in which Patton's relentless movements are successfully waged. Film enthusiasts will likely grasp onto the triplet movement on trumpets as their favorite aspect of the score. Serving on the surface as a call to war, these triplets were run through what was called an "echoplex" box, which essentially contained tape loops that took the three note motif and repeated it in a way that later synthesizers would eventually accomplish with ease. By echoing these trumpets, Goldsmith more than addressed the concept of reincarnation, a central theme in Patton's personal interests. Also of use is a distantly mixed organ, representing the general's deeply rooted religious beliefs. A significant amount of relatively uninteresting underscore exists in Patton, causing most of the cues in the first half of the film to meander at minimal and somewhat intimate levels. Only in the second half of the score do the famous portions come to light, with snare-driven marches abounding. Goldsmith also explores a subtheme for the German army that is briefly treated in "German Advance" but was largely cut from the finished film.

On album, Patton has never received the fullest treatment. Three full recordings were conducted by Goldsmith throughout the years, and only two of them have been released in digital format. He recorded the score twice during the film's initial run; as was customary at the time, an album version featuring more harmonious tones was recorded separately from the film version. This London recording for LP was easily more listenable than the sparse film version, though it has never made it onto CD. To help rectify this situation, Goldsmith re-recorded the score again in 1997 as part of the Varèse Sarabande label's series of albums featuring the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. With a vibrant and crisp quality to the updated recording, as well as Goldsmith's own conducting of that performance, the 1997 version (reviewed separately at Filmtracks) is superior all around. Die-hard Patton enthusiasts have exclaimed, though, that hearing the trumpet triplets performed acoustically rather than through the echoplex in that 1997 recording was unsatisfying... an opinion that is so picky that it should be considered rubbish. The film recording of Patton has been released a couple of times on CD, however. In 1992, the German Tsunami label released the score alongside A Patch of Blue. Generally considered a bootleg, this label's sound quality was always suspect, and Patton is no exception. In its favor, the album did feature much of the opening dialogue to the film, including the general's famous speech ("No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country."). In 1999, Film Score Monthly released the film version of the score with The Flight of the Phoenix on an album widely considered at the time to be the best entry in the label's Silver Age Classics series to date. This album improved the sound quality of that recording, taking the audio from the same sources for Fox's 1997 laserdisc issue of Patton to provide a complete and ordered presentation of the music.

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The Film Score Monthly album, while making some waves for treating the Patton score with respect, is more often cited as a success for the presence of The Flight of the Phoenix on the same product. Frank DeVol's score for the 1965 adventure film existed atop many film music collectors' "most wanted" lists for a long time. The film featured a brilliant cast thrust into a collaborative effort of rebuilding an airplane in the Sahara desert to escape a previous plane crash. While DeVol collaborated with director Robert Aldrich on over a dozen films, including The Dirty Dozen, it is his dramatic work for The Flight of the Phoenix that the composer is best remembered for. Whereas the Patton score had extended sequences of nearly inaudible underscore, The Flight of the Phoenix consistently provides a wealth of ominous and ultimately rewarding cues. The conflict between the characters, as well as the sorrows of death and alienation, are accentuated by occasionally militaristic, yet appropriately exotic tempos. Smaller motifs for individual characters are employed, but not with obvious effect. The piano and harp for the German character is often underplayed, and the military march for the sergeant is somewhat distracting. A source song for the ill-fated Gabriele character breaks the tone of the score with some Connie Francis vocals. The score picks up in intensity with "The Propeller;" while still using the bass strings to remind us of the precarious and ominous situation, DeVol provides the first glimpse of hope. When that hope is realized and the plane takes flight, DeVol's score soars with fully orchestral harmony and a straight forward sense of satisfaction. The Film Score Monthly CD on the whole was a great success, beautifully produced as usual and essentially hitting two birds with one stone. Veteran collectors flocked to the limited edition item mostly because of the DeVol work, though, for the Varèse album from a few years prior provided such a reverberating rendition of Patton that the necessity for the original film version was diminished. You know you're a true enthusiast when you're still holding on to the original 1970 LP recording from London, a product also rendered somewhat pointless in the presence of the superior 1997 recording (on which you'll hear a great performance of Tora! Tora! Tora! as well). Be sure to read the separate Filmtracks review of that re-recording.

Patton: *****
The Flight of the Phoenix: ****
1992 Tsunami Album: **
1997 Varèse Sarabande Re-Recording: *****
1999 Film Score Monthly Album: ****

Bias Check:

For Jerry Goldsmith reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.22 (in 111 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.36 (in 120,040 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.