Filmtracks Traffic Rank: #1,622
Written 7/22/09, Revised 6/25/16
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Buy it... if ten minutes of an outstanding Jerry Goldsmith Western
theme is worth the cost of acquiring a rare album for an otherwise
surprisingly generic suspense score.
Avoid it... if you have never been able to appreciate Goldsmith's
similarly prominent Western themes in his many other efforts in the
genre, because Breakheart Pass really offers nothing else of
interest.
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| Goldsmith |
Breakheart Pass: (Jerry Goldsmith) It's amazing
that studios continued milking the genre of the Western well into the
1970's despite audience disinterest in dusty tales from the old West.
They did everything they could to alter the equation, sometimes yielding
frightfully bizarre and comedic results. One more conventional
experiment was Tom Gries' 1975 adaptation of an Alistair MacLean story,
Breakheart Pass, that transitioned cult movie icon Charles
Bronson from his Death Wish fame into a saddle, though he still
played predictably into the role of reluctant killer for the betterment
of humankind. This time, he's a secret service agent embroiled in a
complicated plot involving weapons on a train, raiding parties
interested in that and other loot, and double crossing agents of the law
and the train that make Bronson's life difficult at every turn. Throw
Bronson's real-life wife Jill Ireland into a helpless role and round out
the supporting cast with a strong collection of veteran actors and
Breakheart Pass is decent entertainment. It's especially
appealing to fans of old railroad pictures, for the filming of the
production in Idaho resulted in some spectacular locations in which to
shoot dangerous fistfights and battles without the assistance of special
effects. One crew member who always seemed inspired by trains was Jerry
Goldsmith, whose music for Westerns persisted into the dying days of the
genre. His career had already been littered with many Western scores,
some of which considered classics while others never gaining much
traction. Usually present in these scores is a strong theme, and the
composer doesn't disappoint in Breakheart Pass. In fact, so
attractive is Goldsmith's primary idea for this score that everything
else he provides for the picture sounds completely generic by
comparison. It's a classic case in which an extremely memorable theme
has to carry the entire load of a score, and the success or failure of
the soundtrack depends on how frequently and creatively the composer
adapts that idea into the non-title portions of the work. Unfortunately,
Breakheart Pass only rarely lets rip with full statements of
Goldsmith's fantastic theme, but those highlights make the endeavor
worthwhile. On screen, some editing rearrangement of the score by the
director solved this issue to a degree. It's always difficult to rate a
score like this, because its highlights are so outstanding and the rest
of it so mundane and mediocre.
The first and last cues of
Breakheart Pass, both
featuring Goldsmith's concert arrangement of the infectiously bold and
almost hip title theme, along with "Here They Come" and brief moments
from other cues, form 10 minutes of material that is absolutely
necessary in any Goldsmith collection. It's a Western theme along the
same exciting route as
Wild Rovers and
Take a Hard Ride,
serving up a rowdy acoustic guitar rhythm and lofty brass performances
of a surprisingly romantic progression. The secondary phrase of the
theme is as pretty as anything Goldsmith ever wrote for the genre, and
the composer thankfully translates this sequence into solo woodwind
performances at least twice in the work. The theme is full of energy and
features outstanding performance emphasis, especially in the trumpets,
begging for repeat enjoyment. The rest of the score references this
theme but never states it in full with enough consistency to make the
entire soundtrack worth a lengthy album appreciation. The story involves
a significant amount of conversation and sneaky suspense, and Goldsmith
thus responds with generic, pulsating material rooted in the lower
regions of the ensemble. A rhythmic train motif, using percussion to
imitate the engine, is underutilized. A synthetic theme for the villain
(and Native Americans, oddly) barely registers. The sensitive moments
are handled with quiet fragments of the title theme. The fight sequences
never explode with the kind of consistency that Goldsmith has applied
elsewhere, leaving fifteen-second bursts of greatness that never connect
into a satisfying whole. The best aspect of
Breakheart Pass,
interestingly, is the superior sound quality of the Los Angeles
recording. When the guitars suddenly erupt in the title theme
performances, an added dose of reverb creates a generous soundscape that
brass utilizes throughout these tracks. It took quite a long time for a
good album of
Breakheart Pass to chug along. Bootlegs with flat,
distant sound negating the naturally strong recording existed in several
formats since 1997, featuring a nearly complete 45 minutes of material.
In 2006, La-La Land Records officially released that music (plus two
short source cues, the latter of which being handy if you have access to
an apartment or dorm intercom system after midnight) in crystal clear
sound, albeit in limited form that went out of print. When Kritzerland
released a similar presentation in 2013, adding one key cue, the
woefully short-printed run of 1,000 copies sold out within days. Don't
hesitate to find either limited CD if ten very strong minutes of a
classic Goldsmith theme is worth your money.
*** @Amazon.com: CD or
Download
Bias Check:
For Jerry Goldsmith reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.23
(in 140 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.25
(in 154,807 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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