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Review of King Solomon's Mines (Jerry Goldsmith)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... if you own and love Jerry Goldsmith's very similarly
rendered score for Supergirl, though while King Solomon's
Mines shares the same lofty, enthusiastic spirit of adventure, it
bubbles along without the obnoxious electronics of the previous score.
Avoid it... if you have little tolerance for scores that cannot decide whether to treat the subject matter seriously or like a parody, for King Solomon's Mines could be too cheeky in its overly positive tone for some listeners to appreciate its otherwise decent constructs.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
King Solomon's Mines: (Jerry Goldsmith) So often
Cannon Films attempted to imitate top flight movies in their efforts of
the 1980's to strike box office gold, and yet so often they produced the
kind of embarrassing comedic action that permeates their 1985 film
King Solomon's Mines. Marking the 100th anniversary of H. Rider
Haggard's famed novel, this J. Lee Thompson adaptation followed many
authentic renderings of adventurer Allan Quatermain but, due to its
timing, had Raiders of the Lost Ark firmly in its sights.
Unfortunately, a combination of extremely poor casting (both Richard
Chamberlain and Sharon Stone are completely out of place and
uncomfortable with their cheesy dialogue), numerous production problems,
including a much publicized curse placed on the crew, and a ridiculous
level of silly comedy doomed King Solomon's Mines, betraying its
solid conveyor belt of action with arguably racist depictions of the
villains and lines so awkward that they draw unintentional laughs. By
the time the soundtrack becomes a punch line in the film, you know that
it has crossed into the realm of parody. Forced into that situation was
composer Jerry Goldsmith, a veteran collaborator with Thompson despite
no fantastic successes together. The task for Goldsmith was clear:
rearrange the style and spirit of John Williams' music for the
Indiana Jones franchise and weave it in with a very obvious piece
of source music incorporated into the script. The story is one of almost
perpetual chasing through Africa, and the two leads are being pursued by
a tandem of villains, one of which a Nazi Colonel obsessed with Richard
Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries." The fact that this character is
frequently playing this theme on his gramophone on screen generates the
punch line, and Goldsmith incorporates the well known melody of Wagner's
piece into the score as the general representation of the villains.
Otherwise, despite the replacement of the religious component with a tribal one, King Solomon's Mines indeed plays like a tongue in cheek parody of Williams' Raiders of the Lost Ark. The film deserved nothing more or less, and Goldsmith's score pretty much nails the prevailing attitude of the production. But in matching the shallow tone of the film, Goldsmith's score suffers from a fate very similar to his music for Supergirl a year earlier. It's technically smart and effective (and thus a fan favorite for the composer's avid collectors) but also ultimately tedious and obnoxious in its overly positive spirit, straying into the territory of trite futility in parts. Listeners friendly towards Supergirl and its airy symphonic atmosphere will be likely, therefore, to appreciate King Solomon's Mines. The flighty tone of the adventure is equal in both Supergirl and King Solomon's Mines, yielding sibling scores of similar thematic jubilation and orchestral ruckus that dominates the soundscape with overflowing pomp. The title march in King Solomon's Mines is exuberant to a fault, prancing on trumpets with a kind of pretentious heroism usually reserved for straight parody scores. Goldsmith's loyalty to this idea is admirable, though its cartoonish demeanor, not helped by wild xylophone lines in its ranks, makes it memorable whether you like its tone or not. Out of this theme's underlying rhythm does develop one of the two better aspects of King Solomon's Mines, a driving string and percussion identity familiar to the better portions of Explorers and The Swarm. Heard more frequently as the score progresses, this idea flourishes in "Under the Train," a amusingly faithful rip-off of the truck chase sequence in Raiders of the Ark that is followed so closely in structural formula by Goldsmith that the tempo of the rhythm (and key) even increases as the unlikely pursuit continues. A little more original is Goldsmith's love theme for King Solomon's Mines, a piece that would strangely inform Michael Giacchino's primary idea for 2009's Star Trek in its elegantly swaying progressions. Introduced in "Good Morning," it serves as the usual finale crescendo and a bridge for title theme's concert arrangement. The use of the Wagner piece in the actual underscore for King Solomon's Mines is limited to a handful of fragments within cues, but it's quite distracting in its famous progressions. The tribal sequences offer some impressive bursts of percussion, but they are not on par with Goldsmith's best (see The Ghost and the Darkness). Ultimately, the key to King Solomon's Mines is its carefree attitude, and even in its most harrowing action pieces, it's hard not to get the impression that Goldsmith intended no straight-faced outcome for much of this recording. The performance by The Hungarian State Symphony Orchestra isn't always perfect, but it handles most of the composer's usual complexities of competing lines. The history of King Solomon's Mines on CD is lengthy. Originally following Alan Silvestri's Delta Force on a 1987 Milan product from Europe, the score was expanded from 34 to 60 minutes on a 1991 Intrada album that was re-issued in 1997 (both with cover art from the film's sequel, awkwardly). A 2006 Prometheus album stretched the score to 70 minutes (with interesting but not necessary bonus cues) and corrected some digital transfer problems that had affected the playback speed of the music on previous albums. In 2014, Quartet Records revisited the score (by this point, the Prometheus album was out of print) and presented a 2-CD arrangement that eliminated some nuisance crossfades between tracks and included both the film and album edits of the score on separate CDs. A remastering also highlights the 2014 product. In the end, Goldsmith's title theme would live on in Michael Linn's music for the 1986 sequel, Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold, though given its irritatingly bloated sense of enthusiasm, that may not have been a good thing. **
TRACK LISTINGS:
1987 Milan Album:
Total Time: 66:10
1991/1997 Intrada Albums: Total Time: 60:12
2006 Prometheus Album: Total Time: 71:23
* source music written by Richard Wagner 2014 Quartet Records Album: Total Time: 112:53
NOTES & QUOTES:
The inserts of all the albums except the original 1987 pressing include notes about the
score and film.
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The reviews and other textual content contained on the filmtracks.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Christian Clemmensen at Filmtracks Publications. All artwork and sound clips from King Solomon's Mines are Copyright © 1987, 1991, 1997, 2006, 2014, Milan Records, Intrada Records, Prometheus Records, Quartet Records and cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 8/5/09 and last updated 2/7/15. |
