Filmtracks: High Velocity (Jerry Goldsmith)

Filmtracks Traffic Rank: #2,337
Written 8/19/24

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Buy it... if you consistently appreciate Jerry Goldsmith's suspenseful action mode of the 1970's and wish to hear that sound infused with Latin specialty instrumentation.

Avoid it... if you expect any of the melodies or performance techniques of this score to reach out with distinction, the terribly archival quality of the recording hampering the soundscape considerably.

Goldsmith

High Velocity: (Jerry Goldsmith) Although it skirts the same issues that eventually informed First Blood a few years later, 1976's High Velocity was a lower-rate project and made as much commentary about the politics of the Philippines as the agony of the men who fought the Vietnam war, though that conflict still haunts the two leads here. Those mercenaries are hired to rescue an American executive who was taken hostage by guerrilla fighters in the Philippines. This private army of two manages to find the man but realizes all too late that the entire operation was set up to cover the tracks of other wealthy white men. A mistress is involved as well, naturally, and she doesn't have kind thoughts for any of the protagonists. Although High Velocity lurches to a very unsatisfactory ending, it does exhibit some worthy bonding between the mercenaries via the chemistry between actors Ben Gazzara and Paul Winfield, and the movie offers just enough explosions and killings to keep it rooted in the action genre. The film represented the one and only venture at the helm for its novice director, and it disappeared from memory with haste. Never seeming to find a way to avoid such assignments was composer Jerry Goldsmith, who approached this film with a seemingly unfair amount of seriousness. Stylistically, the music for High Velocity would serve as a testing ground for works like Under Fire and First Blood, but nothing as impressive would emerge here. The composer utilizes a sizable orchestra for this score and augments it with a variety of interesting soloists to yield a blend of Latin and Asian tones, mostly the former. For some listeners, the foreign sound may be too disjointed from the symphonic elements or, more likely, regionally illogical. But the blend generally works when you assume that the average viewer of this film isn't striving for intellectual stimulation.

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The instrumental highlights of High Velocity include cimbalom, marimba, harpsichord, acoustic guitar, castanets, and exotic percussion, the last of which embodied most by seed shakers and medium drums. Listeners may be surprised by how much of a Latin tilt these performers generate, the sense of jungle tribalism intruding at times but the whole sounding as though the music would feel at home in Central America. It's in some of these hints that Goldsmith collectors may hear similarities to Under Fire. While there seems to be an occasional contribution from synthetics, they don't feature as prominently as in concurrent efforts in the same genre. The orchestral presence isn't particularly deep, with some passages of atonality and stingers proving a challenge, but the spread of their duties is pretty typically handled by the composer. Most of the suspense and mayhem in High Velocity is provided by Goldsmith's suspense and action formations for the fuller ensemble, and while there are motifs at work in that portion, don't expect them to reach out and grab you. The material for the villains is built upon a thumping, low piano motif of ascending minor thirds. It sounds synthetic at times, but that is difficult to discern because of archival sound quality. This motif is prominent in the opening and closing moments of "The Hostage" and earns something of a descending theme over the top of it by "The Mission Begins." That theme matures in the first half of "Night Flight" over the explicitly thumping piano motif with a very Latin tone. Of course, Goldsmith couldn't resist providing a more romantic primary theme despite the movie's doomed plot. This melancholy and troubled idea never resolves to a satisfying finish, its main two to three-note figure leading to an ascending phrase that meanders from there. This main theme informs the locale-specific pleasantries and action of "Welcome to the Philippines/The Observers/The Sniper" and consolidates for its first major performance at 5:14 on cimbalom. It opens "The Night Before" on flute over acoustic guitar and continues later in the cue.

The main theme emerges from purely Latin guitar rhythms on flute at 0:34 into "The Mafia Marines," where it builds to a moderately romantic conclusion with the help of strings and eventually explores keyboarded elegance in secondary phrasing to suggest the score's smoothest moment. The highlight cue of "The Hostage" features the theme on flute and then trumpets and strings, the renderings of this motif increasing in intensity as the cue progresses. The cimbalom performance of the theme in the middle of "The Mission Begins" extends from the suspense motif, and the melody's inverted form struggles early in "The Rope Trick." It's likewise tortured in "Ring/Not Thirsty" before securing some empathy in the latter half, further simmering in the background at the start of "The Archer." The theme offers some respite from woodwinds early in "Coffee Break" but the cue is distorted in its sound, and the cimbalom carries the tune in an awkwardly meandering performance to boot. Closing out the score, Goldsmith presents his main theme in agony at the start of "Just a Little More/No Victories - End Title." The latter half of that cue supplies the theme in an accelerated panic before a short and somewhat overly melodramatic crash for the hero's death at the end. As a somewhat odd coda, the composer compromises for a bittersweet performance of the theme for strings and cimbalom in the very brief "End Title." On the whole, there isn't much to become excited about in the music for High Velocity, "The Hostage" serving as a good, accessible summary for Goldsmith collectors seeking just a touch of the work in their collection. The purely atonal parts like "The Rope Trick" are not entirely insufferable, but they are hampered by an archival sound quality that diminishes their impact. An extremely dry soundscape restricts the exotic percussion and other specialty instruments. The score was never released on LP record but received an equivalently short CD in 1994. That 34-minute presentation was offered digitally in 2012 without any revisions. It's a completely serviceable score by Goldsmith, but its poor sound quality and tendency to exhibit lesser incarnations of music in his other works make it a merely average experience. *** @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 154,785 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.

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