Buy it... only if your love of highly personal, intimate Jerry Goldsmith themes from the 1960's and 1970's for small ensembles has no boundaries despite their occasional redundancy.

Avoid it... if the cost of the collectible album is not worth a highly disjointed, repetitive score that offers very little new material for the learned Goldsmith enthusiast.

Goldsmith

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 wholesome love story or a cheap 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 conveyed. 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 the operator, and a strikingly violent and disturbing end. Critically, the film performed well, though there was widespread sentiment that the narrative 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 whoever scored the film, for the original music would have to somehow strike the same balance without losing cohesion. Composer Jerry Goldsmith was no stranger to small-scale drama, the humbling vistas of Americana, or the brazen 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 the more largely romantic sound of a full ensemble behind his solo highlights. As hard as it might be to imagine for enthusiasts of his more modern, digital age works, Goldsmith had received award nominations for scores like A Patch of Blue, making him a very credible choice for a small-scale, personal project like Raggedy Man. Unfortunately, Goldsmith's score predictably suffers from the same identity crisis as the film's itself. As expected, he establishes a gorgeous primary theme for the film, but it will instantly remind listeners of several of his others, and he repeats that theme here until it's beaten like a dead horse.

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Performed with subdued elegance in the opening and closing titles of Raggedy Man with acoustic guitar, flute, and harmonica, Goldsmith's lovely theme expands to include a light string accompaniment. The only problem is that this theme is nearly identical to the primary idea that would appear the next year in Poltergeist, and it subsequently shares traits with every theme attributed to "Carol Anne's Theme" thereafter and will present some challenges to those who have little tolerance for self-repetition from composers in general. The similarities wouldn't be so bothersome if the structures and the use of strings and woodwinds (even down to the swirling interlude sequence) weren't so identical, and if the theme doesn't remind you of Poltergeist, then it could draw comparisons in its note for note borrowing from Magic, too (and that's not just because of the presence of a harmonica), as well as 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's wayward plot. A hoe-down carnival-like motif, softer than similar insanity-inducing incarnations of the same idea in Goldsmith's 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 repeating its purely small-town heart with its simple instrumental authenticity several times, the composer hits you with subdued versions of the electronic "dooing" sound effect from the Blaster Beam of Star Trek: The Motion Picture fame in "Runaways." After the "Mexican Tune," complete with Spanish vocal performance (and sadly this is perhaps the most interesting new material from Goldsmith in the score), the mood of the score is permanently disrupted by the horrifying "End of Calvin" mayhem. The score was released on album as the seventh entry in Varèse Sarabande's original club series and sold for hundreds of dollars after disappearing from the market. About ten years later, a bootleg with 25 additional minutes of music appeared in circulation, though this expanded version suffers from terrible sound quality, short cue lengths, and the same disjointed feel to the contents in the rest of the score. Overall, the title theme is very sweet, but you have heard it in other places and it'll likely not be worth the price or search for the collectible album. **   Amazon.com Price Hunt: CD or Download

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