Filmtracks Traffic Rank: #2,334
Written 8/27/24
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Buy it... only for the notable finale cue of sentimental
remembrance from the full ensemble, the bulk of Babe understated
in its pleasant but underwhelming acoustic guitar, harp, and string
presence.
Avoid it... if you expect Jerry Goldsmith to provide a film about a
historic female athlete with anything remotely resembling the
inspiration of his later, famous sports drama scores.
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| Goldsmith |
Babe: (Jerry Goldsmith) Among the greatest women
athletes of the 20th Century, "Babe" Didrikson Zaharias was not only a
hero of the 1932 Summer Olympics but went on to a successful
professional golf career and dabbled in baseball, basketball, and track
and field. With a sassy Texas attitude and the support of her husband, a
former athlete himself, Didrikson defied gender stereotypes in an effort
to promote women's ability to compete directly against men. Along the
way to defining concepts of femininity and equality in sports leagues
and sporting equipment, she earned a plethora of both adoration and
scorn. Her death from colon cancer in her 40's was an immense loss to
the progressive movement for female athletes. Television producers had
for years attempted to buy the rights to her story from Didrikson's
husband, eventually managing to do so after an initial conflict with him
about the studio contract. By the time Babe debuted on CBS in
1975, however, he loved the end result, and the movie was nominated for
eight Emmy awards, winning two. Among those two triumphs was recognition
for Jerry Goldsmith's score. While he wrote a capable score for
Babe, the music's presence is surprisingly minimal in the final
product and competed with a few source pieces that included a diversion
showing Didrikson singing and dancing on stage. In reality, the win was
something of a hat-tipping capstone to a career that was shifting back
from the small to big screen for the increasingly popular composer. In
fact, Babe came near the end of the line for Goldsmith in his
regular work for television, his music only gracing that medium for
choice, singular projects with regular collaborators in the immediate
years to come. Goldsmith's Emmy win for Babe likely came from the
prominence of his music in the closing scene of the movie in which
Didrikson is embraced by her husband as she dies in a hospital and the
end credits feature a tribute to her life. The remainder of the score is
extremely sparse, and some of what the composer recorded for the film
was never used in the final product. Goldsmith recorded several variants
of his main theme, including a song adaptation, that never made the
final cut, as the movie opted to proceed without music for much of its
length. Although the format of the narrative is conducted in flashbacks
deviating from Didrikson's gloomy hospital stay, the music is used
inconsistently in scenes for both the present and past.
The limited budget for
Babe may have impacted
the scope of Goldsmith's score, for there is no attempt to use the music
to provide dramatic grandeur to any of Didrikson's exploits. The
composer limited himself to only 24 orchestral players for his ensemble,
highlighting the strings, woodwinds, piano, and minimal brass with
accents from acoustic guitar and harp. The heart and soul of the score
comes from the guitar, which Goldsmith keenly utilizes to suggest a
folksy warmth emanating from Didrikson's sometimes defiant Texas charm.
The bulk of the character portions of the work, those involving scenes
of interaction between Didrikson and her husband, are driven by the
guitar and harp, with the ensemble rarely making significant
appearances. The brass is largely confined to Goldsmith's source-like
newsreel passages that occupy a few cues early in the narrative.
Interestingly, only some of the material in these scenes is provided by
Goldsmith, and its sparse but uppity brass and percussion demeanor
stands apart like a sore thumb. Cues like "The Team," "Round Trip," and
"On the Green/Can She?" aren't flagrantly offensive, but they are also
too dainty for the gravity of Didrikson's accomplishments. The remainder
of the score is anchored by Goldsmith's main theme for the character,
summarized in the unused recording of "Theme" for guitar, harp, and soft
strings. Secondary passages for the violins are a throwback to the
golden age of Hollywood, as appropriate for the setting. This material
is tapered back and aided by piano in "Babe/High Off the Hog," which
pleasantly opens the movie and accompanies the earliest flashback. After
the meandering string suspense of "Where is It" and "Sick Nun,"
Goldsmith offers the theme on solo violin at the end of the latter cue.
The idea bubbles in "You Bet Ya/It's Late/I Do," earning brighter shades
late. The guitar continues that light, friendly tone in "Morning
Edition" until its suspenseful end. The feel for the guitar and strings
turns darker in "No Changes/Sudden Pain" but achieves its romantic
catharsis in "Always a Winner" with the subtle addition of a vibraphone
to the ensemble. At the 2:54 mark in that cue, the film offers its
optimistic coda with rambling piano accompaniment that likely won the
Emmy for Goldsmith. The score isn't one of his best dramas, but it does
just enough to win the day. It was released only on a rare 2003 Film
Score Monthly compilation of Goldsmith television scores from the era. A
mono presentation of the song version of the theme performed by the
composer's wife is a nice addition to bring additional appeal to an
otherwise muted and bittersweet experience.
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- Music as Written for the Film: ***
- Music as Heard on Album: **
- Overall: ***
Bias Check:
For Jerry Goldsmith reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.22
(in 138 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.25
(in 154,649 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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