The Sword and the Sorcerer: (David Whitaker) The
age of sword and sorcery returned in the early 1980's, when Hollywood
saturated the market with similar films involving the ancient world,
heroes with swords, sexy princesses, and villains with snakes. Many of
these films were adequately funded by studios, but the results they got
often looked second rate. The exception remains, of course,
Conan the
Barbarian. Otherwise, films like
Krull,
Excalibur,
Beastmaster, and
The Sword and the Sorcerer all failed to
achieve the same classic status, and of these,
The Sword and the
Sorcerer is often the most ridiculed of the lot. The crew and cast
of the film consisted of names that would never amount to anything in
the industry, though most of the blame for the lack of audience
enthusiasm for
The Sword and the Sorcerer was due to the lack of
a major star and an abysmal, rushed plot. One of the relatively unknown
names attached to the film is David Whitaker, whose career is littered
with B-level sci-fi and action scores. This is the score that has
highlighted his career, and that for which he will most likely be
remembered. It existed on many soundtrack collectors' "top ten wanted on
CD" lists for many years. At the time Whitaker scored
The Sword and
the Sorcerer, this particular genre of sci-fi/fantasy music was at
its peak as well. Between 1981 and 1983, a variety of outstanding scores
often blessed these films with massive (and sometimes overblown)
orchestral action music. Whitaker's score takes us back on that
nostalgic journey to the majestic and curiously appealing time, when
most of the films were undeserving of the music written for them. Even
more than his contemporaries, Whitaker wrote a score that absolutely
must be separated from the trash that it accompanied on screen, though,
for some listeners, even that won't be enough. His work is relatively
unique in that it bucked the trends of the genre's music and instead
recreated the swashbuckling sound of Erich Wolfgang Korngold. So uncanny
are the resembles that
The Sword and the Sorcerer can, at times,
sound bizarre.
For the most part, it's this Golden Age retro style
that defines the score for
The Sword and the Sorcerer. It
emphasizes the playful and jubilant aspects of the story while
downplaying the interludes of the dark, brooding, and mysterious
material. The majority of fully orchestral sequences, which make up a
healthy portion of Whitaker's score, are fully equipped with the usual
string and brass domination, a driving percussive force, and an
occasional xylophone. Variations of woodwinds are utilized for the
softer and source related cues. There are few moments of mundane
underscore, with some instrumental development at work in each cue. Not
all of it is harmonious, however, which will cause some problems with
listeners looking for an easy sci-fi thrill; with a plot that contains
as much gore and blood as this (another common complaint about the
picture), perhaps this less than tonal approach is necessary. The lack
of respite extends to "Alana's Theme" and its consistently rousing love
interest variations throughout the latter half of the score. The
performing ensemble, the Graunke Symphony Orchestra, is that which also
gave us the remarkable recording of John Scott's
King Kong Lives,
though the balancing of the ensemble here is not always handled well.
The mix of the flutes in particular seems unsynchronized with the rest
of the ensemble. On the other hand, these very "personality" traits of
the score lend the music very well to the often flawed characteristics
of the film anyway. In the end, you can't elevate
The Sword and the
Sorcerer to the level of
Conan the Barbarian or many of the
other guilty pleasures in the genre. The dependency on old Korngold
techniques and a muffled sound quality are both major detriments. The LP
release of the score, if memory serves, seemed to have offered better
clarity. The limited 1999 album, however, did extend the running time of
the score by a considerable margin. But due to track mislabeling on that
CD, don't expect the cues to match with what you see and hear in the
film. As an album,
The Sword and the Sorcerer serves its purpose,
but the majority of film score collectors would likely be more satisfied
with SuperTracks' release of James Horner's
Krull the previous
year.
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The insert contains a short note from Randall Larson about Whitaker's career.
