Buy it... if you are as enthused about Jerry Goldsmith's more pastoral and folksy Western style of the 1960's as you are his robust action themes for the same genre.

Avoid it... if a Goldsmith Western largely absent his trademark brass themes and dominated by conversational underscore for jaw harp, harmonica, and banjo doesn't warrant a tough choice between the score's several albums.

Goldsmith

Stagecoach: (Jerry Goldsmith) Remakes happen all the time in Hollywood. In the 2000's and beyond, they've become shameless attempts by studios to make an easy buck. Rarely, though, does the director of a remake send a note to the director of the original classic and tell him that the remake was being done because the original, despite public opinion otherwise, was a screw-up. This brazen attitude belonged to director Gordon Douglas, who was given the task of "modernizing" and improving upon the 1939 John Ford hit Stagecoach starring John Wayne. While the cast and crew of the 1966 remake was accomplished, and critics generally considered the new Stagecoach to be a worthy update, Douglas' efforts could not ultimately unseat Ford and Wayne in the history books. Both followed roughly the same screenplay, though the revision allowed for more sexual undertones amidst its portrayal of a quirky collection of men facing off against Hollywood's stereotypical Indian baddies. As expected, Douglas reunited with composer Jerry Goldsmith, with whom a very strong score for Rio Conchos had resulted two years earlier. The resulting music was one area in which the remake was almost uniformly considered an improvement over the Ford film, which had relied upon source-like applications rather the kind of original music that would later constitute a typical score. By 1966, Goldsmith had already been nominated for two Academy Awards and was well established in the Western genre, both on the big and small screens. Indeed, the composer was best known early in his career for his consistently engaging Western scores, with a musical style distinct to his efforts in modernizing the genre's sound. From Rio Conchos to Take a Hard Ride, the sound of Goldsmith's music for the West is easily recognizable in its merging of folksy rhythms and bold action themes. In its basic stylistic characteristics, Stagecoach is no departure from this norm. But it is different, however, in the approach taken towards the topic. Whereas most of Goldsmith's other westerns are dominated by their action themes and apply the folk rhythms as colorful accents, Stagecoach is far more thematically subdued in its folksy and pastoral approach. This is, quite simply, because the action scenes in the film were left to their own sound effects.

In some ways, the low-key personality of the music for Stagecoach causes it to be an interesting interlude to the bombast and whip-cracking sound effects of Goldsmith's other Westerns of the early to mid-60's. For many listeners, however, the score will lack the excitement necessary to float the pastoral sways and funky honky-tonk rhythms that would be put to far more expansive use elsewhere. The main theme of Stagecoach serves as a weak preview of the pretty and memorable identity for Wild Rovers; it wasn't uncommon for Goldsmith to pull inspiration from one Western score to another at the time, and the solemn trumpet performances of the title theme here are definitely precursors to the better developed and more memorable Wild Rovers. The "Main Title" and "Get Out of Town" cues feature the most notable performances of this theme, with some subtle fragmented usage in between. Even at its heights, it doesn't rollick as much as its peers, but it rather rolls along with pleasant and unassuming friendliness. A notable secondary theme on trumpet (over snare and ambitious strings) in "First Born" is more unique to Stagecoach, previewing, oddly enough, some of John Barry's forthcoming work in the genre. Otherwise, the score is largely uneventful, especially in "The Aftermath" and other cues defined by barely audible suspense atmosphere. The jaw harp, guitar, harmonica, and banjo lead the middle sections of the score through several capitulations of the main theme during scenes of dialogue, and these mundane cues have little to offer the experienced Goldsmith collector. The composer's standard honky-tonk source music is put to work a few times as well. With only 23 minutes of non-source material spread throughout Stagecoach, and with so few passages of Goldsmith's exciting travelling styles for the West (a cue such as "The Stage is Coming" is horrifyingly short), it's difficult to recommend the score on album. Equally subdued is the film's primary and disappointingly brief song, "Stagecoach to Cheyenne," performed not by the movie's star, Ann-Margret, but rather by Las Vegas regular Wayne Newton. While failing to incorporate Goldsmith's thematic material for the score (and resembling the progressions of Dimitri Tiomkin songs for his Westerns of the era), the song does ultimately leave a greater impression upon the listener because of its rather defiant personality.

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In its long history on album, Stagecoach has been released three times on CD, not considering the pseudo-bootlegging Tsunami label's stab at the music in 1995. In 1991, the majority of the score was released by Mainstream Records on the same CD with Goldsmith's concurrent The Trouble With Angels. Seven years later, the score became the first entry in Film Score Monthly's (eventually lengthy) "Silver Age Classics" series, along with a couple of Goldsmith mini-scores for the television series "The Loner" on the same product. In 2012, La-La Land Records revisited the FSM item and presented the same contents (plus additional incidental/alternate music) from Stagecoach and "The Loner" rearranged and in improved sound based upon better master access. Unless you're a die-hard Goldsmith collector, however, none of these releases will probably be worth your time; in subsequent years, FSM would go on to release Rio Conchos and Take a Hard Ride, both of which superior by significant measures. But if you're in the market for Stagecoach, then there are pluses and minuses to each of the offerings. The Mainstream album lacks some source music cues but includes the film's second featured vocal performance absent from the other albums. The FSM album presents the score in proper order but suffers from a less vibrant mix. More importantly, the music isn't the same. The Mainstream album features extra banjos in its mix, which are arguably a neutral element. In the process of providing a clear, intimate mix of the score, FSM sucked the life out of the recording, giving the Mainstream album a slight edge in ambience. The additional scores included on the albums also favor The Trouble With Angels, which features a preview of the snazzy style of Goldsmith's much later Gremlins rhythms. It has the loveable attitude of The Flim-Flam Man and a few funny source cues for vocalists and marching band. While "The Loner"'s episodic scores do feature some of the same techniques used in Rio Conchos, the lack of a string section for those recordings (typical for cost-conscious television scores of the era) causes it to leave you wanting more. Its only true highlight is its enjoyable opening titles with narration. When La-La Land presented a better overall mix of Stagecoach on a limited album similar to FSM's in 2012, the contents were again rearranged. The additional cues are not particularly noteworthy, though improved sound quality on the product is an attraction. In the end, however, Stagecoach is too mundane a Goldsmith score to merit so much attention.   Amazon.com Price Hunt: CD or Download

Music as Written for the Film: ***
Music as Heard on Mainstream and FSM Albums: **
Music as Heard on La-La Land Album: ***
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 133,461 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.