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Review of The Man (Jerry Goldsmith)

FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:

Buy it... on its only album, a re-recorded performance from 2021, for a moderately interesting but challenging and rather underwhelming Jerry Goldsmith drama score.

Avoid it... if you become frustrated by music that fails to reach its potential, the extreme brevity of this work yielding a lack of development that negatively impacts the movie.

FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:

The Man: (Jerry Goldsmith) Originally set to be an ABC television production, the potential of Irving Wallace's story of The Man pushed the release to Paramount for a theatrical debut instead. With input from Rod Serling, the 1972 tale postulates about the political chaos that would erupt if an African-American were to suddenly become the United States President. (Wait, really? Yes, in 1972, nobody could have conceived of either black or orange men in the White House.) In this scenario, the President and Speaker of the House are killed (unfortunately off-screen) in a building collapse overseas, and a cranky, terminally ill Vice President refuses to take command of the country. Hence ascends the fourth in line, the Senate president pro temp, a respected, moderate senator and statesman who happens to be black. The script shows the immediate and persistent resistance to the new President Dilman, with many in his own white cabinet members scheming with a racist senator to either control the man or force him out of office. The appeal of the movie is the combination of the choice dialogue and James Earl Jones' restrained but powerful performance in the lead role. The position of music in the movie is highly limited, perhaps as a result of the production's origins as a lesser television project. But Jerry Goldsmith tackled television films with the same intelligence as those for the big screen, so it's not surprising that his music for The Man is substantially large at its most prominent moments. The biggest complaint listeners will have about this score and film is the relatively poor spotting of the music in the picture. Only roughly 16 minutes of score made it into the movie, dominating a few scenes in broader spaces with resounding force but diminishing into the background or nothingness for most of the conversational scenes. There are times when Jones performs fantastic lines from the script and a musical reference at that moment could have reinforced the importance of the moment. But silence in the background is often preferred, marking a missed opportunity for both compelling drama and suspense from the music.

The short score is dominated by brass and percussion, with no violins employed. (Violas are the highest in that section.) A vibraphone and flutes are used to create a synthetic-sounding dissonance at the darkest moments. The tone of the major thematic portions is a little too over-the-top, but every moment of the work is steeped in the composer's typical tonalities and meters. Goldsmith's almost omnipresent main theme for The Man exists in two different personas, the first as an ultra-patriotic fanfare of almost Roman vista size while the second explores a softer, blues-inspired version of similar three-note progressions for the main character's personal moments. The six-note phrases for the importance of the office are somewhat challenging and not memorable, though the last phrase ends in heroic form. This idea is heard immediately on brass over timpani in "Douglass Dilman (Main Titles)," reduced in that cue to just the timpani alongside snare by the end. It opens "They Want a President" with the slightly bluesy answer to its main phrase, and the character version of the theme really adopts the ethnic swing to its halting movements on woodwinds, closing on trumpet in a hanging refrain. Fragmented on flute at the outset of "The Lincoln Memorial," the main theme follows different lines thereafter; this secondary brass fanfare material previews the composer's 1990's patriotism mode while also appropriately hinting at the forthcoming Logan's Run. The idea stews in "The Oval Office" before its six-note formation guides the ultra-important middle of the cue, the bluesy secondary phrasing returning in the latter half and yielding a new melody. The bluesy form extends on woodwinds at the start of "An Invisible Man" while the primary variant provides some stark contemplation at the outset of "Mrs. Blore" and barely guides the latter portions of the action in "Let Him Loose." This main, six-note version extends immediately out of the source recording of "Hail to the Chief and End Credits," returning the idea to its performance from "Douglass Dilman (Main Titles)" and featuring a more upbeat ending that previews the resolutions of Capricorn One and The Swarm.

Among the few secondary motifs in The Man is a gravity motif built from a note repeated four times on discordant brass with aggressive brass rhythm underneath, as heard late in "The Lincoln Memorial" and opening "The Oval Office." Also unique in the score is an action motif of propulsive enthusiasm in "Let Him Loose," with good Goldsmith layering of lines and unusual meter changes in a cue extended for better listening on the album. Dissonant strings during the first half of "Fishing" offer the most suspense, followed by a spritely character motif. The dramatic string lament in "Will They Make It?" is then countered by a challenging action burst for brass and percussion in "Protests." None of these moments of action lasts long enough to really appreciate, though, and the same can be said of the sparse moments of the bluesy character variation of the theme for the president. Overall, the score is too short in and out of the movie, Goldsmith exploring challenging but appropriate musical avenues that leave you wanting far more development. The work, both on paper and in its original recording, were lost during the 1970's and will presumably never be released, but Intrada Records commissioned a crowdfunded reconstruction of this score and a subsequent re-recording made in October 2021. Goldsmith expert Leigh Phillips once again performed an excellent reconstruction by ear (he has undertaken this process several times with Goldsmith scores, each with impressive results), which was tough given that some of the score's action material fell under a significant amount of vocal ruckus on screen. Performed flawlessly by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and in perfect sound quality, the 16 minutes of music from The Man was appended to the same group's concurrent performance of Goldsmith's reasonable but not really flashy 1957 Western score for Black Patch, which remains the main attraction on the 2022 combination product. Anyone seeking that album will likely be wanting the longer Western, and The Man is a decent but underwhelming inclusion for the same price. The 1972 score could have and should have been so much more impactful when not overplaying its power in the story's exterior scenes, however, instead content to being a footnote along with the film itself.  **

TRACK LISTINGS:

Total Time: 16:05

• 21. Douglass Dilman (Main Titles) (1:48) • 22. They Want a President (2:12) • 23. The Lincoln Memorial (1:20) • 24. The Oval Office (2:08) • 25. An Invisible Man (0:31) • 26. Mrs. Blore (1:06) • 27. Let Him Loose (1:02) • 28. Fishing (2:11) • 29. Will They Make It? (1:16) • 30. Protests (0:18) • 31. Hail to the Chief and End Credits (2:00)

NOTES & QUOTES:

The insert includes detailed information 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 The Man are Copyright © 2022, Intrada Records and cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 11/6/24 (and not updated significantly since).