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Review of Addams Family Values (Marc Shaiman)

FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:

Buy it... if you loved Marc Shaiman's approach to The Addams Family, the sequel score offering a handful of related highlights with most of the same set of waltz-derived themes.

Avoid it... if you expect the narrative of this score to survive based upon Shaiman's new material, the pre-existing themes carrying most of the weight to less cohesive ends.

FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:

Addams Family Values: (Marc Shaiman) After pleasantly surprising audiences in 1991 with The Addams Family, Paramount and director Barry Sonnenfeld returned to the concept in a 1993 sequel that lost some of the charm of the 1960's television show and added macabre humor in much greater doses. The famously morbid family welcomes in a new nanny for the youngest new Addams baby, and this woman takes an immediate interest in Uncle Fester. Meanwhile, the older children are sent off to a summer camp which, much to their pleasure, they literally destroy. The nanny's interest in Fester is one of gold digging, however, and the family must unite to teach the woman about what happens to people who cross the Addams family. Addams Family Values was met with a mixture of opinions depending on how audiences handled the tonal shift of the story, and with diminished box office returns and the death of lead actor Raul Julia within a year of the film, the franchise concluded there. Both movies were treated to Broadway musical elements despite also being littered with songs; the sequel's soundtrack is built upon hip-hop covers of 1970's funk tunes and a pair of sickeningly chipper children's sing-alongs. The latter were in the wheelhouse of composer Marc Shaiman, who approached these films with a stage-proven lyricism and unashamed exuberance that overplays the story's comedy for effect. The scores for The Addams Family and Addams Family Values are exercises in funny waltz structures and some Carl Stalling residuals, haphazard in pacing and rarely stopping for a breath. They are undoubtedly fun scores, but they also tend to exhaust in their combined lengths, the highlights ultimately residing in the more romantic moments. For Addams Family Values, not much is new for Shaiman, many of the first score's themes returning, the general format of the work's narrative similar, and the orchestral coloration and their specialty contributors remaining familiar. The harpsichord seems to receive more airtime in this entry, often paired with higher woodwinds. A greater emphasis is placed on action music in Addams Family Values, wild, cymbal-crashing sequences of expressiveness for the two main themes especially pronounced.

The two main themes from The Addams Family return in the obligatory placements, the main waltz most often associated with Morticia continuing to serve well as these film's primary identity. Here, it's frantic at 1:13 into "It's an Addams!," these manic renditions carrying over to the opening of "Sibling Rivalry." The most alluring performance of the idea occurs in "Love on a Tombstone," an initial solo violin leading to a lushly romantic but brief tribute to the theme, like the "Evening" cue in the prior score but shorter. The waltz informs the memorable "The Tango" scene with wild integration of famous phrases from other inspirations, building to the theme's concert-like conclusion from the previous score. The theme sadly does not figure into the closing cue, Shaiman opting to really concentrate on the main Vic Mizzy television show theme there instead. In the action scenes, the waltz is often mashed together with Shaiman's broader family theme from The Addams Family. This idea opens "It's an Addams!" delicately and joins the waltz in swirling action later, persisting to mingle on harpsichord with that waltz early in "Sibling Rivalry." It achieves defiant size at 1:16 and 1:29 into "Escape From Debbie," opens "Wednesday's Revolt" with mystery and builds to rousing action, shifts to action force at 6:15 into "Debbie's Big Scene," and closes out "Some Time Later," first in suspense and then as a horror stinger for the movie's humorously surprising conclusion. The lighter theme for Fester that doubled as a love theme of sorts for the two brothers returns in Addams Family Values and is dedicated to his swooning over the nanny. Fester's theme occupies most of "Fester's in Love" in a yearning crescendo, becomes tortured in "Fester and Debbie's Courtship," returns to full form in the first 80 seconds of "Debbie's Big Scene," and is back in character at 0:30 into "Some Time Later" with a downbeat and lovely statement, though it quickly turns humorously lush at 0:56 for Fester's new love. The sad theme for Wednesday from the previous movie uses the same chords but different phrasing here as the character matures into her own potential romantic interests. It opens "Wednesday and Joel's Courtship" in a lighter, more hopeful variation, continuing as a soft interlude at 1:56 into "Escape From Debbie." After whimsically descending late in "Wednesday's Revolt," the melody returns to its normal incarnation, though hints of the lighter version return for the final conversation at 1:52 into "Some Time Later."

The final returning theme in Addams Family Values is, of course, the classic Mizzy television tune, and it figures as an accent here a little more often than it did in The Addams Family. Its full rhythm with finger snapping adorns "It's an Addams!" at 1:46 without the actual theme, and a fragment of this rhythm concludes "Wednesday's Revolt" just as it did the equivalent action scene in the prior movie. The theme enjoys a cute snippet at 1:57 into "Sibling Rivalry" and informs some of the comedy action in the middle of "Debbie's Big Scene." It really shines in the first half of "Some Time Later," opening the cue with harpsichord and woodwind tenderness and presenting a redemptive moment at 1:20, just like the previous score's resolution scene. Shaiman does explore new thematic territory in Addams Family Values, but not with spectacular results. Most of the new material is related to the nanny, Debbie, which uses the family waltz formations but in a twisted, cynical way. It espouses mysterious whimsy in the first half in "Debbie Meets the Family" before segueing to a sleazy and jazzy tone in "The Big Date." Debbie's music toys throughout "Fester and Debbie's Courtship," becomes more forceful at the outset of "The Honeymoon is Over" (and comical later), is sadly disappointed early in "Escape From Debbie," and disintegrates in the second minute of "Debbie's Big Scene" before concluding the cue with appropriate gusto. The composer also introduces a few other waltz manipulations that sometimes persist. Most obvious of these is a cutely prancing identity at 0:53 into "Sibling Rivalry" and 1:23 into "Debbie Meets the Family," possibly representing the new baby. Likewise in "Sibling Rivalry" is a skittish and naughty identity at 2:14. Outside of the themes are a few outward parody moments, including the "Rock-a-bye baby on the tree top" nursery rhyme at 0:52 into "It's an Addams!," the various borrowings in "The Tango," and the two source-like children's school songs, "Camp Chippewa Song" and "Eat Us," both quite annoying despite their humor. Unfortunately, Gomez's tango from the first film did not return to inform any of "The Tango" here, which is perhaps Shaiman's most obviously disappointing spotting decision. The two main themes remain the best attraction in this music, but their appearances are fewer and less robust. With the new Debbie material and Fester's love theme not able to pick up the slack, Addams Family Values remains a step behind its predecessor. The sequel's score-only album didn't take long to go out of print and fetch collector's prices. Ideally, four or five cues from this work would be added to the prior score's highlights for an affably hyperactive, combined listening experience.  ***

TRACK LISTINGS:

Total Time: 38:14

• 1. It's an Addams!* (2:05) • 2. Sibling Rivalry* (3:01) • 3. Love on a Tombstone (1:01) • 4. Debbie Meets the Family (2:17) • 5. Camp Chippewa Song (1:36) • 6. Fester's in Love (0:32) • 7. The Big Date (2:28) • 8. The Tango* (2:44)

• 9. Fester and Debbie's Courtship (2:42) • 10. Wednesday and Joel's Courtship (1:18) • 11. The Honeymoon is Over (1:27) • 12. Escape From Debbie (3:27) • 13. Eat Us (1:02) • 14. Wednesday's Revolt* (2:26) • 15. Debbie's Big Scene* (6:59) • 16. Some Time Later* (3:09)

NOTES & QUOTES:

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