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The Last Run
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Composed, Conducted, and Produced by:
Orchestrated by:
Arthur Morton
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LABELS & RELEASE DATES
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Chapter III Records
(July 25th, 2000)
Film Score Monthly
(February 10th, 2007)
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ALBUM AVAILABILITY
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The 2000 Chapter III Records album was a regular
commercial release, but the label's failure caused the product to
quickly go out of print. The 2007 Film Score Monthly re-issue was
limited to 3,000 copies and available only through soundtrack specialty
outlets for an initial price of $20. Both products feature this
score alongside other Goldsmith works.
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AWARDS
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None.
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ALSO SEE
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Buy it... for Jerry Goldsmith's compelling primary theme, which
receives several highly attractive renditions matched in their beauty by
a pair of equally lovely source pieces by the composer.
Avoid it... if your primary interest is the action material, which
is more anonymous, at odds with the European specialty instruments, and
poorly spotted in this film.
BUY IT
 | | Goldsmith |
The Last Run: (Jerry Goldsmith) So troubled was the
production of the 1971 crime thriller The Last Run that it burned
through two directors, John Boorman and John Huston, and a lead actress.
Endless rewrites during shooting and conflicts with star George C. Scott
caused Huston to walk off the set and necessitate the re-shooting of
portions of the movie. The only person who seemed to enjoy the
experience was Scott, whose current wife and future wife both appeared
in the movie and who divorced the former and romanced the latter
immediately after this production was finished. Scott was attracted to
the lead role as a retired criminal escort in Portugal who is hired to
transport a terrorist across Spain to France. That terrorist and his
girlfriend are part of an elaborate set up that Scott's character finds
himself sympathetic to. Instead of finishing this final job of his
career, he decides to help the younger couple escape, at the cost of his
own life. The movie relies heavily on Scott's performance, but some
decent car chases involving a supercharged getaway vehicle are of
interest. The studio considered cancelling the production when Huston
left, but director Richard Fleischer completed the project only to see
critical and audience responses universally tepid. One admirable choice
Fleischer retained after taking the helm was continuing his
collaboration with composer Jerry Goldsmith. The spotting of music in
The Last Run was extremely judicious, with many of the most
important conversational scenes and the primary mountain car chase left
without any music. Goldsmith was tasked with providing an identity for
Scott's lead while also punctuating a few of the other suspense and
action scenes with modern but edgy propulsion. The composer was also
asked to provide a handful of source recordings for several scenes where
the music may or may not actually be diegetic. The resulting score runs
less than thirty minutes long in the picture and doesn't really develop
its ideas to any great degree. Still, the character of the work is
distinctive enough to help it stand apart, and there are several scenes
in the movie during which the score is mostly the only sound you
hear.
Goldsmith provides a European demeanor by adding
specialty instrumentation on top of the orchestra, including cimbalom,
harpsichord, electric guitar, saxophone, electric organ, and bass
guitar. These elements give the score a somewhat postmodern Baroque
feeling that defies the time even if contains instruments popular to the
early 1970's. Goldsmith wrote two themes for The Last Run, one a
dominant, primary melody for Scott's criminal and the other an action
motif with a secondary set of figures for the element of panic. The main
theme is a typically lovely, melancholy character identity of romantic
lament, one of the composer's most attractive ideas of his experimental
years during the early 1970's. The long-lined and elegantly European
theme received a song version that was recorded only for the album and
does not appear in the film; that song is Goldsmith easy listening at
its finest and captures the spirit of the movie while maintaining just
enough connectivity with the score. The theme opens the movie on solo
cimbalom in "Main Title" before shifting to electric guitar over
harpsichord, and a lonely saxophone performance over strings in the
latter half of this cue is a highlight. The electric guitar reprises its
position over harpsichord in "The Last Run," and violins carry the tune
for an extended romantic performance over guitar plucks in that cue. The
solemn cimbalom offers a sad, quiet rendition early in "Claudie's
Stockings" while the harpsichord tentatively extends the idea in
"Claudie Says 'Yes'," where the theme finally enjoys some moderate
warmth in the role of a romance identity, even if fleeting. A
surprisingly upbeat and a bit dreamy rendition closes the movie in the
first half of "End Title," reducing to a softly tragic performance for
the specialty instruments under violins. The movie opts the use silence
for the final killing, sadly, robbing the score of any catharsis. On the
flip side, the harrowing chase theme is a rambling action motif in
persistent and brash rhythmic excitement typical to Goldsmith. The
guitar and harpsichord, joined by cimbalom, dance through the theme in
"Rickard Escapes" while brass stabs accentuate certain notes over
frantic harpsichord rhythms, the combination of sounds a bit
jarring.
A nasty electric guitar is manipulated for suspense in
"Double Cross," and the action theme becomes highly stylish with the pop
elements in "Border Crossing," including very cool percussion by the
end; nice xylophone lines and pounding timpani build anticipation here,
but the actual, subsequent chase is then unscored. The panic-oriented
lines of the chase melody explode with desperation in "The Trap," flutes
providing some remarkable performances of the descending lines. Among
the source cues, the sex scene music in the latter half of "Claudie's
Stockings" is oddly dreamy in its artificially pop-like whimsy. The
other two tracks are quite gorgeous, "Yo Te Amo" a lovely source piece
of soft pop romance that fits the instrumentation of the score well even
if the vocals near the end are a bit cheesy. The Spanish-flavored,
orchestral piece in "Spanish Coast" is exceptionally lush and
attractive, though only the acoustic guitar opening appears in the film.
On the whole, Goldsmith provided the necessary, attractive theme of
intrigue for the lead character, but the remainder of the work is
pedestrian outside of the two pretty source pieces. The contemporary
sound of the electric guitar and bass never really becomes bothersome
outside of a few moments during the action, Goldsmith able to keep the
sound mostly European in a classical sense. The film version of the
score has never been released on album and is presumed to be lost,
though the "Main Titles" cue is isolated in the picture. Generally, the
versions of cues Goldsmith arranged for the album are superior, and the
sound quality is outstanding for the era. In fact, the recording
contains amounts of reverb at times that fans of the composer didn't
hear often until the late 1990's. The album recording was released
commercially on an LP record at the time of the film's debut, and that
presentation has since been provided twice on CD. The 2000 Chapter III
and 2007 Film Score Monthly albums both combine The Last Run with
other scores on the same product, the FSM one offering Goldsmith's music
for the television production Crosscurrent, which is
stylistically very similar to The Last Run. Either album will
provide the recording's quality presence, and Goldsmith collectors will
especially appreciate the flavorful rendering and melodic grace of the
score's main theme and source music.
**** @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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| 2000 Chapter III Album Tracks ▼ | Total Time: 29:53 |
• 1. Main Title (2:53)
• 2. Border Crossing (2:53)
• 3. Spanish Coast (2:41)
• 4. Claudia Says Yes (2:01)
• 5. Rickard Escapes (1:57)
• 6. The Last Run (2:39)
• 7. Double Cross (2:47)
• 8. Yo Te Amo (2:33)
• 9. Claudie's Stockings (2:59)
• 10. The Trap (1:56)
• 11. End Title (2:13)
• 12. The Last Run (Vocal)* (2:14)
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* performed by Steve Lawrence
(CD total time: 63:26) |
| 2007 Film Score Monthly Album Tracks ▼ | Total Time: 29:53 |
• 1. The Last Run* (2:12)
• 2. Main Title The Last Run (2:51)
• 3. Border Crossing (2:52)
• 4. Spanish Coast (2:39)
• 5. Claudie Says "Yes" (1:59)
• 6. Rickard Escapes (1:56)
• 7. The Last Run (2:36)
• 8. Double Cross (2:45)
• 9. Yo Te Amo (2:31)
• 10. Claudie's Stockings (2:57)
• 11. The Trap (1:55)
• 12. End Title (2:11)
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* performed by Steve Lawrence
(CD total time: 79:08) |
The inserts of both albums contain notes about the scores and
films represented on the product, though the 2007 Film Score Monthly
album's notes are far more substantial.
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