Filmtracks Traffic Rank: #1,238
Written 6/7/01, Revised 11/30/23
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Buy it... on the longer album if you typically appreciate Cliff
Eidelman's affably soothing character scores of the 1990's.
Avoid it... if you have no patience for predictable orchestral
romance scores despite this one's attempt to infuse some unique Eastern
European character into its constructs.
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| Eidelman |
The Beautician and the Beast: (Cliff Eidelman) In
something of an unintended parody of The Sound of Music, 1997's
The Beautician and the Beast is a romantic fantasy which revolves
around the outlandish premise that a hairdresser in New York could
accidentally be confused as a tutor for the children of a foreign
dictator, and of course, the unlikely love that spawns in that
situation. Any charm that the film might have hoped to convey is nearly
shattered by the comical dialect of Fran Drescher, whose voice becomes
so intolerable by the end of the film that it is difficult to hear the
music behind it. With the film debuting as a complete failure, one of
the few relatively bright aspects about The Beautician and the
Beast is its score by Cliff Eidelman. For that music, the filmmakers
chose to mix a few traditional Eastern European classical and choral
pieces with the talents of Eidelman, whose career was briefly starting
to look upward again at the time. Aside from The Beautician and the
Beast, which gave him the opportunity to journey to Britain to
record with the London Metropolitan Orchestra, Eidelman also produced an
impressive score for the third installment of the Free Willy
series that same year. Little at the time indicated that The
Beautician and the Beast would be the last boisterous work from
Eidelman for several years, with a career-dooming period of inactivity
ensuing thereafter. For this entry, Eidelman's task was to reflect two
separate worlds colliding sonically. The primary setting of the film is
the fictional Eastern European country of Slovetzia, led by a
perpetually angry former-007, Timothy Dalton. The composer decided to
bypass any New York influence for most of the score (urban jazz only
figures into one short but vibrant cue at the outset) and concentrate on
forming a score's personality with a foundation built on European waltz
rhythms. The majority of cues, whether in robust performances or simple
underscore, have a hint of waltz-like movement, faintly referencing
Russian progressions and occasionally pulling a few measures from Pyotr
Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The consistency of this choice remains strong
throughout the score, with a pompous and almost amusing main theme of
romance fitting naturally with the spirit of a waltz. The primary theme
prances along with buoyant character and spirit, much like Drescher's
character in the film, and it shares many structural similarities to his
leading identity for Free Willy 3: The Rescue.
Just as Drescher's obnoxious voice can cause an ill
mood in the film, the main theme gets old rather quickly, playing too
hard to the romantic comedy side of the emotional scale while trying to
maintain the rhythms of the waltz. It will certainly test the patience
of anyone who can't sit through an entire Rachel Portman score. The only
performance of this theme that breaks loose with a less constraining
rhythm exists in the final marriage cue at the end. This makes sense,
given the lead's growing influence over the dictator and the prevailing
of romance over tradition. The other most memorable cues from the film
are actually the two traditional pieces contained on the album, neither
penned by Eidelman, though the composer's original score fits very
snugly with those classical tracks and thus no awkward transitions break
the flow. A secondary theme for the family of the dictator isn't
particularly well articulated, though an idea representing the main
couple's friction receives satisfactory development on low strings in
"You Are a Beast." The only remaining highlights of the score for
The
Beautician and the Beast, although short in length, are many of the
more sensitive cues composed for conversational scenes during the second
half of the film. As the hairdresser's true occupation is revealed and
the dictator tries to decide what to do about their growing affections
despite this crisis, Eidelman responds with a few very touching
variations of his themes. They aren't remarkable in the larger scope of
film music, but cues such "Cinderella's Confession" and "Going Away"
provide some of the sincere emotion that collectors of Eidelman's music
had become accustomed to hearing over the years. The original 1997 album
was a rare partnership between Eidelman and the Milan Records label, but
the product quickly vanished as the film failed miserably in theatres.
That product for
The Beautician and the Beast contains only 26
minutes of actual original score composed by Eidelman, a typical length
for most of his works on album during the 1990's. Of that material, no
cue is longer than 2:20 minutes, with roughly five minutes of it
remarkable. In 2023, Paramount remastered the score and added two cues
of about 3:30 in total length for a digital offering. The aforementioned
"Make Up" nicely mashes the main theme into the New York jazz atmosphere
while "Animated Dream" is a vital fantasy cue complete with cooing choir
performing the main theme. This latter cue joins the rousingly
conclusive "The Prince and the Princess" as high points. The rest will
be pleasant to the ears and a refreshing change from the somber tone of
many of Eidelman's scores of the period, but it still won't generate
much memorable romantic spark.
*** @Amazon.com: CD or
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Bias Check:
For Cliff Eidelman reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.29
(in 17 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.2
(in 8,864 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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