In the early days of Amblin, composers John Williams
and Jerry Goldsmith were the regular Spielberg collaborators, and only
in the mid-1980's did he begin to branch out to explore the talents of
others writing in the industry. One such diversion from the norm was the
hiring of Dave Grusin for
The Goonies, and the composer's natural
first instinct was to be surprised that he was offered the job at all.
Grusin, despite being active in film scoring for over a decade, was
better known for his contemporary jazz contributions and the very
successful record label that was spawned from those efforts. He had
written serious orchestral scores before, though even in Hollywood, he
was frequently associated with soundtracks like
Tootsie (and
related songs). But his connection to Spielberg went back to an obscure
student project of the director in 1971, and he was thus thrust into an
almost impossible position of conjuring a score that could compete with
the style of Williams and Goldsmith, both of whom were arguably at their
peak at the time. In retrospect, one must wonder whether or not Grusin
was biting off more than he could chew with
The Goonies.
Spielberg, as usual, was omnipresent in the scoring process, from the
conceptual stage all the way through the inevitable heavy rearrangement
of the music in the finished picture. Perhaps it should come as no
surprise that the score Grusin submitted is an awkward blend of
influences from Williams, Goldsmith, and Max Steiner, with only a hint
of his contemporary mannerisms figuring mostly into the end credits cue.
The Steiner presence is somewhat appropriate but bizarre in this
context; quotations from the 1948 score for
The Adventures of Don
Juan are brazenly incorporated into a climactic fight sequence and
are jarringly disparate from the remainder of the score. The Williams
influence comes in the form of the motif development and Grusin's
general attempts to translate the vintage swashbuckling sound into the
dynamic bombast expected during the 1980's. More interestingly, the
touch of Goldsmith in
The Goonies exists in the form of the
employment of synthesizers as an additional section of the orchestra.
You can definitely hear Grusin attempt to take Goldsmith's usual
instrumentation at the time and force it into a Williams mould. To an
extent, this tactic works, but it's obvious from Spielberg's requests
for extensive re-writes and the eventual heavy rearrangement of the cues
in the picture (both of which making it very difficult to match what you
hear on screen with what you hear on album) that Grusin didn't manage to
accomplish the impossible.
In its general grasp of the plot's adventure, Grusin's
score functions. He tends to draw too many similarities to Carl
Stalling's Warner Bothers cartoon music, but he does manipulate that
sound into a broader environment of 1980's fantasy scores.
Unfortunately, the organization of the score seems haphazard and there
is a lack of sweeping majesty of convincing depth in the thematic
structures and disappointingly sparse orchestrations. In places, it
sounds like a demo take on what Goldsmith or Williams would follow with
additional layers of activity. Grusin's four major themes for the film
never gain much traction, regardless of their unintended placements in
the film. The main identity for the Goonies as a group is pleasantly
tonal in a vaguely noble sense, ironically best arranged in the
pop-inspired "End Titles." A theme for One-Eyed Willie the pirate and
the lead boy inspired to seek his treasure is a competent mystery theme
but fails to generate any gravity. The oddly well-preserved pirate ship
is afforded its own theme, one which attempts to address the true
fantasy element, but this idea blends badly with the Steiner material
and loses credibility by its accompaniment of the ship's ridiculous
escape from the coast in "No Firme and Pirate Ship." Finally, the
comically rhythmic, symphonic theme of classical influence for the
Fratelli family of criminals is perhaps the best remembered motif, but
it cheapens the remainder of Grusin's material, especially with its
strange merging of the symphonic performances and drum pads and light
metallic loops. Without any of the themes jumping forth and taking
command of the score,
The Goonies risks becoming generic outside
of its rather unique instrumental balance, and without many truly
consistent, compelling performances of the four themes, the score
wanders without the ability to tell its own narrative tale. Perhaps it
was not meant to, as the use of the Steiner and Williams'
Superman theme in parody fashion would suggest in "The Fighting
Fratellis." A likeable overarching character is the best rebuttal to
these concerns with
The Goonies, and those who worship the film
and accept its faults will find much to appreciate. The score was not
treated well on Epic's original LP and CD releases, both of which only
included Grusin's "End Titles" to accompany the songs by Lauper and
others. After years of bootlegs, a 79-minute, limited release of 5,000
copies from Varèse Sarabande debuted in 2010, selling out within
months. A shorter presentation from Varèse in 2019, subtracting
the four bonus tracks, was a regular, commercial release. Given the cult
appeal of the film, lingering interest in the score is not surprising,
but the merely functional music is a mixed bag of conflicting styles and
thematic ambiguity despite its adventuresome personality.
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