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Review of 100 Rifles (Jerry Goldsmith)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... if you delight in Jerry Goldsmith's darkly dissonant and
richly textured Western action mode that tests you with its often harsh
and brutal tone.
Avoid it... if you'd prefer to be entertained by romantic Western stereotypes without feeling the need to study any of Goldsmith's multi-cultural intricacies in this case.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
100 Rifles: (Jerry Goldsmith) Attempting to utilize
the same basic elements as The Wild Bunch, 1969's 100
Rifles was a predictable failure. Stagnant direction by Tom Gries,
worn action concepts in the Western genre, and a cast of stereotypically
supporting stars like Jim Brown and Raquel Welch thrown into prominent
roles doomed the film. The Indian versus Mexican versus lawman concept
prompted significant spaghetti Western action scenes, but they were shot
with such a fixed, unengaging technique that nobody could ever have
expected audiences to stay interested in them. Trying valiantly to
compensate for this bland direction was composer Jerry Goldsmith, whose
score for 100 Rifles could most easily be described as
overachieving. Goldsmith was already well established in the Western
genre at the time, with most of his classics in that area already on
film, and he was clearly defining the style of his sound as an
alternative to Elmer Bernstein's more heroically fluid sense of
Americana for 1960's Westerns. The composer approached 100 Rifles
after having finished the highly acclaimed Planet of the Apes,
and while the quality of later project represented a significant
decline, the composer strove to maintain much of the instrumental
creativity from that famous score in this undeserving Western. The
complex, highly-layered music that Goldsmith provided for 100
Rifles saves the film from total mediocrity and embarrassment. It's
an interesting paragraph in Goldsmith's career story, but isn't of the
caliber of his classic Western scores. He utilizes, perhaps more
pervasively here than in any of his other genre scores, a creative array
of traditional Latin instruments along with the more typical, moderately
sized orchestra for broader genre expectations. His energetic Latin
rhythms are mixed directly with his bombastic, brassy style of thematic
resonance, making 100 Rifles a more intelligent multi-cultural
listening experience than some of his other Westerns. At the same time,
though, Goldsmith also infuses a significant sense of dissonant darkness
into the score as necessary for some of the film's brutal scenes of
killing.
Goldsmith establishes the primary themes for 100 Rifles in succession over the first five or six minutes of the score. His main theme will perhaps sound a bit stock-oriented for Goldsmith collectors, though its staggered progression represents the brash attitude of the film quite well. This theme is reprised several times by the full ensemble throughout, including a climactic finale in "I'll Go Back." For enthusiasts of Goldsmith's bold Western themes, the opening and closing cues, along with the ambitious "Escape and Pursuit," will provide the seven best minutes of material when heard on album. The middle portions of the score are more interesting than they are enjoyable, with "Cliff Fight" being completely intolerable. Goldsmith's diversity of Mexican instruments is employed in disjointed rhythms concurrently with the orchestra, creating a truly odd crossover effect in parts. From marimbas and castanets to electric and acoustic guitar, the score's parts aren't as difficult to grasp as the dissonant layers with which Goldsmith applies those instruments. The only respite in the middle of 100 Rifles is "Lydecker and Sarita," a romantic variant of the main theme which, after some mariachi movements at the opening, yields a combination of instrumentation and counterpoint that well foreshadows his later Under Fire. The two disparate mixes of the original recordings available on the albums bring out differing accentuations in the Latin instrumentation. The same album presentation exists on a 1999 Film Score Monthly product and a 2018 La-La Land Records re-issue, the latter offering remastered sound and joined by Goldsmith's Rio Conchos on the same product. The album arrangements include the maximum amount of music available for 100 Rifles, and due to the varying quality of the sources, the entire score is included in mono (as heard in the film) while others were mixed into stereo. The stereo tracks do better justice to the large-scale opening and closing themes (the mono version of the finale is greatly muddled), however some of the mono tracks bring out the best of the marimbas, flutes, gourds, and other featured instruments. The careful assembly of music on these albums, including two tracks of source material, will appeal to the most studied Goldsmith collectors, but the majority of it will fall short of stirring the interest of casual listeners. ***
TRACK LISTINGS:
All Albums:
Total Time: 77:08
(On the 2018 La-La Land album, 100 Rifles occupies disc one of the set.)
NOTES & QUOTES:
Both albums' inserts contain detailed information about the film and score.
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The reviews and other textual content contained on the filmtracks.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Christian Clemmensen at Filmtracks Publications. All artwork and sound clips from 100 Rifles are Copyright © 1999, 2018, Film Score Monthly, La-La Land Records and cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 3/8/99 and last updated 9/1/20. |
