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Raggedy Man: (Jerry Goldsmith) One of a few films
directed by regular production designer Jack Fisk,
Raggedy Man
suffers from a very odd, disjointed script that can't decide if it's a love
story or a slasher film. Opening in the early 1980's, it could have been
either, and despite a flourishing acting performance by Fisk's wife, Sissy
Spacek, along with the outstanding art direction and cinematography, the
film's strange plot dooms it. Starring as the sole telephone operator in a
small Texas town during World War II, Spacek's character meets a traveling
sailor and the film essentially follows the innocent emotional attachment
that the two feel towards each other and the woman's two young boys. The
colors of the film are very deeply rooted in the early 1940's, with the time
capsule effect very well captured. But the movie goes all awry with the
involvement of a scarecrow type of character, a "raggedy man," a group of
loudmouth men who have a keen eye for Spacey, and a strikingly violent and
disturbing end. Critically, the film performed well, although there was
widespread sentiment that the film should have kept its focus on the budding
love story rather than the larger symbolism that the violent elements are
supposed to represent. This strange pairing of movie genres presented a
challenge for whomever scored the film. Composer Jerry Goldsmith was no
stranger to small-scale drama, the vistas of Americana, or the violence that
exists in his horror ventures. His qualifications in the department of
sensitive, highly personal woodwind themes extends from
A Patch of
Blue to
A Girl Named Sooner, and it is this type of intimacy that
Goldsmith would largely abandon later in his career in favor of a more
largely romantic sound of a full ensemble behind his solo highlights. As
hard as it might be to imagine for fans of his modern, digital age works,
Goldsmith had received award nominations for scores like
A Patch of
Blue, making him a very credible choice for a personal project like
Raggedy Man.
Unfortunately, Goldsmith's score suffers from the same
identity problem as the film. He sets up a gorgeous theme that will
instantly remind of several of his others, and repeats that theme until it's
beaten like a dead horse. Performed in the opening and closing titles with
acoustic guitar, flute, and harmonica, the lovely theme expands to include a
light string accompaniment. The only problem is that this theme is nearly
identical --and people who document self-rip-offs for a living will have a
field day with this-- to the primary idea that would appear the next year in
Poltergeist, and subsequently shares traits with every theme
attributed to "Carol Anne's Theme" thereafter. The similarities wouldn't be
so bothersome if the structures weren't so identical; if the theme doesn't
foreshadow
Poltergeist, then it steals ideas note for note from
Magic (and that's not just because of the presence of a harmonica)
and the aforementioned light drama projects. It could be argued that
Goldsmith already wrote the most emotionally gripping version of this music
in
A Patch of Blue. Another difficulty with
Raggedy Man is the
lack of focus caused by the film. A carnival-like motif, softer than similar
incarnations in other scores, melds with a Mexican theme and mingles
ultimately with a shockingly sharp series of horror cues late in the score.
Jabbing, violent strings and brass attacks similar to those in
Leviathan (of all places!) completely destroy whatever mood the
softer moments of the score create for you. After establishing its purely
small-town heart with its simple instrumental authenticity, its hits you
with subdued versions of the electronic "dooing" sound effect from
Star
Trek in "Runaways" (that's right... the "Blaster Beam"). After the
"Mexican Tune," complete with Spanish vocal performance (and sadly this is
perhaps the most interesting new material from Goldsmith on the album), the
mood of the score is permanently disrupted by the horrifying "End of Calvin"
mayhem. The score was released as the 7th entry in Varèse Sarabande's
original club series, and sells for hundreds of dollars. About ten years
later, a bootleg with 25 additional minutes of music appeared on the market,
although this expanded version suffers from terrible sound quality and the
same disjointed feel to the content of the score. Overall, the title theme
is very sweet, but we've heard it in other places, and it'll likely not be
worth the price or search.
**
| 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.
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The insert includes no extra information about the score or film.
