Imagine the surprised collective gasp from Golden Age fans when the album release from this largely forgotten 1957 Jimmy Stewart Western was announced by Intrada earlier this year. Previously the only instance of Dimitri Tiomkin’s score that had been out there was a Silva Screen Records re-recording of its main title song Follow the River (with lyrics by Tiomkin’s frequent collaborator Ned Washington). The new album reveals that Tiomkin wrote a second entertaining song (You Can’t Get Far Without a Railroad, complete with a marvelously goofy folk version done for radio in the extras section) and that both tunes were frequently deployed throughout the score, the composer making them both work in a variety of settings ranging from low-key drama to bustling action. Some of the elements you’ve perhaps heard Tiomkin do elsewhere - that male choir evoking the mythic West, for example - and the composer’s more kinetic and cacophonous passages did tend to be interchangeable across many of his works. Still, Tiomkin’s fealty to his strong themes wins out over the long run.
Sound quality is acceptable for the era. The bonus tracks do indeed show Jimmy Stewart had a capable singing voice. And the liner notes provide plenty of detail on the film and the score.
****. It’s not on the level of Gunfight at the O.K. Corral and Red River (and obviously not The Alamo), but it compares favorably with the next tier down, stuff like Wild is the Wind and The Big Sky.
-----------------
Not to be confused with Dimitri Timokin's Back Passage, that outrageous burlesque show they used to show in the Valley back in the day.
-----------------
Prior posts
- Live and Let Die - https://www.filmtracks.com/scoreboard/forum.cgi?read=131612
- Octopussy - https://www.filmtracks.com/scoreboard/forum.cgi?read=131627
- Hellboy II - https://www.filmtracks.com/scoreboard/forum.cgi?read=131961
- HTTYD: The Hidden World - https://www.filmtracks.com/scoreboard/forum.cgi?read=132742
- Top Gun - https://www.filmtracks.com/scoreboard/forum.cgi?read=132758
- Rock-a-Doodle - https://www.filmtracks.com/scoreboard/forum.cgi?read=132825
- Something Wicked This Way Comes - https://www.filmtracks.com/scoreboard/forum.cgi?read=134359
| 
