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Filmtracks Editorial Review:
The title theme for the film is as simplistic and heroic as you can get while preserving the base motif of duality that runs through the entire score. The duality, of course, represents the masked and unmasked personalities of the main character, and it manifests itself in the music through the constant shifts between major and minor keys... sometimes as frequently as every other measure of music. It was a tactic that Danny Elfman so masterfully manipulated for Batman, and Goldsmith's theme for The Shadow is simply an exaggerated and extended brass version of that theme. Since the non-specific time frame of the film (once again, a la Batman) displays numerous elements of a more innocent decade long past, the shiny and bold brass theme is a perfect statement during the scenes of comic book heroism. To balance the theme and, at the same time, satisfy the bizarre, futuristic mechanisms within the film, Goldsmith makes fine use of his array of synthesizers. Heard at the very start of the film is the main incarnation of the electronics: a single, rising tone that reappears throughout the score (perhaps representing the psychological elements of the film's primary villain), often followed by shwooshing that resembles passing tires on a wet street. Combined with a tinkling and bouncing electronic substitution for the bass and upper strings during performances of the secondary theme, Goldsmith's synthesizers add a strong continuity to the score. Even the trombones perform some striking synth-like slurs in the "Hotel" track. You easily get the feeling that Goldsmith and his orchestrators did everything they could to tinker with each orchestral element without causing them to become dysfunctional... In fact, so successful was Goldsmith that no subsequent performance of The Shadow by another body of musicians has ever been able to capture the same magic. Even with all of its strange instrumentation and eclectic performances, Goldsmith manages to create a consistent level of "hero vs. villain" battle within the orchestra. Scattered throughout the score and album are noble performances of the title theme that shook the theatre with power during the film. Also present are the Mongolian "bad-guy" outbursts in which a bloated section of native drums, as well as the normal array of metallic and wooden percussion, rocked the theatre with equal power. No better of an alternating, orchestral battle is there than the one between the grand, brass theme and raw, percussive pounding at the end of the "Chest Pains" track. The "Frontal Lobotomy" finale showcases the Mongolian percussion, brass theme, and string-dominated love theme (which is unfortunately absent from much of the score and album). The commercial album had only thirty minutes of score, but it has all the essential pieces that you will hate to love, and your neighbors will love to hate. There is enough action of significant, surround-sound volume on this album, whether it be noble, pounding, or just downright strange, to cause your neighbors to become irate. But it is Goldsmith at his most fun, and as bad as the film really was, it's just impossible to put this album too far away. It was rounded out by two dialogue clips (the first of which, with the slogan of the legend performed in a distorted mix by Alec Baldwin, is of perfect length and substance to whip on telephone solicitors at the highest possible volume) and two songs. The Taylor Dayne song (with two performances on the album) is the ridiculously out of place pop song demanded by the studio, and the commercial album furthers the error by breaking off Goldsmith's opening cue from the rest of the score by an otherwise reasonable, vintage jazz piece. This commercial album disappeared from the market a year after its release and has since fallen badly out of print. Never fail, however, do those illustrious Goldsmith fans. An expanded album with only Goldsmith's score appeared many years later, and offers an additional 14 minutes of material. While the packaging of this album suggests that it is a Universal Music-produced promotional product, it is much more likely to be a bootleg from birth. Before you Shadow fans get too excited, though, you should realize that Goldsmith didn't write a whole lot of original material for the film. When you study the expanded score, you find that there are about 35 minutes of music that is actually unique, with more than seven additional minutes simply being rearrangements and bad edits of the music into different sequences which suited the film. The problem is that there is about 32 minutes of excellent score material that Goldsmith had to condense down to less than 30 minutes for the commercial album. So when you seek the promo/bootleg/whatever-it-is, you're actually getting only two things: a couple of extra minutes of very good score, and the satisfaction of your curiosity on the subject. Twelve short cues comprise the extra material, and many of them repeat short cues (0:15 or less in length) from the larger, better structured cues. Of note in particular is the "Nightmare" cue, which is arguably the best short burst in the whole score, featuring rolling, heavy brass over rhythmic strings and tolling bells that hints of the intensity of Poltergeist. The tolling bells are back over more noble brass in "The Coin." Both "Next Time" and "You Are The Shadow!" exhibit a fluffier performance, led by the piano, of the score's main theme. As expected, the album indeed confirms that the title theme is heard more often in the film, but not always with unique performances. Sadly, the main fault of Goldsmith's The Shadow is the failure to adapt more performances of the love theme into the score, and there is no extra performance of this theme on the expanded album. And other than a short, themeless burst of the Mongolian motif's percussion in "The Palace," there is no extra performance of that theme with its percussion either. Overall, the expanded album is advisable only for seriously devoted fans of this score, and if only Goldsmith could have squeezed the short nightmare cue onto the commercial album, the issue would be moot.
Promo/Bootleg Album: **** Overall: ****
* Contains commercially unavailable music
Both inserts (commercial and promotional/bootleg) contain extensive credits, but no information about the score or film. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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