Filmtracks Traffic Rank: #2,361
Written 7/1/25
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Buy it... for a predictable John Barry entry in the romantic
thriller genre, his softly lovely themes countered by understated
suspense passages of moderate volume.
Avoid it... if you have no tolerance for Barry's excruciatingly
slow tempos in every mode of operation, this score best experienced when
condensed to a suite.
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| Barry |
Masquerade: (John Barry) If you have ever gotten
the impression that just about everyone in your life is out to kill you,
then the 1988 romantic thriller Masquerade proposes that you
might be right. A wealthy young heiress is the target, several men in
her life wanting to split her money between them. The first is the
captain of another rich couples' yacht, and given that this main
character is performed by Rob Lowe, he's also copulating with the
employing wife. Second comes the stepfather of the heiress who has a
particular distaste for her. Finally, there's a corrupt cop who has a
crush on the heiress but is content to scheme for her money as well. As
the movie progresses, the yacht captain and the woman genuinely fall in
love with each other and get married because of actual bonding, posing
problems for the other two conspirators. While its story was moderately
compelling in its pair of revelatory twists as each of the men is
exposed in their involvement with the assassination plot,
Masquerade was largely known for its significant sex scenes and
nudity, which were too gratuitous for some critics and audiences. The
movie was the last of John Barry's scoring assignments before falling
very ill and taking some time off from the industry, capping a period
that saw him mingle his final James Bond scores with sillier comedies
and sultry, suspenseful romances like this one. As Barry's collectors
will know, he rarely attempted to reinvent the wheel for these
assignments, and some listeners will find Masquerade to be a
largely redundant entry in this genre for him. But, as is also usually
the case, there are lovely themes to be extracted from such works. The
ambience for this one is very lightly orchestrated for strings and
woodwinds at the forefront, with piano, harp, and brass supporting at
times. A distant female choral effect contributes to two cues. The tempo
of the score is always excruciatingly slow, even in the source cues,
another trademark mannerism of the composer. Long conversational
suspense passages like "Two Glasses/Violence, Not Affection" are awfully
slow, and there is there is no actual action in the score despite the
scenes of killings and explosions. Even the "Explosion" cue for the
climax on the boat and elsewhere at the end is restrained to rhythmic
fear.
Not surprisingly, the main attractions in Barry's music
for
Masquerade are his flowing melodies for the romantic side of
the story. He coined two such themes in this, one for the main
character, Tim, and the sailing of the yacht. The other is the more
common love theme for the lead couple. The main theme is your typical,
yearning string identity from Barry with pulsating woodwinds and broad
brass backing. It debuts at 1:00 into "Main Title" and repeats several
times in elegant but understated peace, downshifting to solo harp in
"Masquerade." This idea becomes dark against the score's suspense motif
in the middle of "Virgin Sacrifice" with slight choir, and that the
choral mode for women's voices persists in the light panic of "Call the
Police." After reclaiming its optimistic opening mode in "'Obsession' is
Ready," the main theme moves to very high, solitary flute in "Pregnant,"
stutters on low woodwinds in "Your Move, Romeo," and merges completely
with the suspense motif in "Explosion." In the closing suite, Barry
follows the love theme with this one at 1:32 into "End Titles,"
reprising its initial performance format. Meanwhile, the love theme is
slower and more fluid, in line with Barry's character romance melodies.
Developed tenderly for one full rendition in "Graduation," it continues
in "Compulsive Promptness" with low flute alternating with violins for
the melody, and secondary lines are finally explored in full, mainly a
short but elegant ascending passage. The love theme offers whimsy on
violin and oboe lines in "Daddy Would Have Liked You," bass flute taking
the rolling interlude sequence. Deconstructed in the darker "Face Slap,"
the theme struggles in variations late in "Violence, Not Affection" but
returns to its loftier shades of romance in full form during "Married"
with redundancy. After enjoying a brief moment on piano in "I Sleep Like
a Baby With You," this identity informs a suspense crescendo late in
"Pregnant" and becomes more tentative in troubled atmospheres during
"Tim & Brooke Cool It for a While" (better alternate track title: "Tim &
Brooke Stop Fucking") and "Birthday Gift." The love theme is tortured in
the brief "No Crash," given a sadly muted performance at the outset of
"Sabotage," timpani suspense building, and only its baseline survives in
the morbid "She's Alive." It opens "End Titles" on strings with an
extended introduction on piano and its flowing interlude.
On the darker side of the score is the suspense and
conspiracy motif, which exists in two variations. The general one
consists of a series of two-note phrases with urgent wavering
counterpoint at the motif's fullest, the accompanying deep piano thumps
a trademark Barry tool of threat. The varying adaptation eventually
kicks the motif up to three notes to represent the cooked cop, which is
a nice structural choice given that the number of conspirators in the
story increases at that time from two to three. (Barry's scores, while
often sounding simple, are not always simple-minded.) The main
conspiracy motif most clearly occupies the first minute of "Main Title"
and returns at the cue's end. It worries on string layers at the outset
of "Virgin Sacrifice" and becomes softer but creepier in "Tony Dies"
against dissonant whole notes. The idea shifts to the longer, more
meandering line for the corrupt cop in "Two Glasses," and this
adaptation haunts the start of "Ann is Dead" on flute and low strings
and later interrupts the love theme in "I Sleep Like A Baby With You."
The motif previews the alarm at the outset of "Tim & Brooke Cool It for
a While," becomes elongated in agony alongside the love theme during "No
Crash," and occupies anxious piano in "Your Move, Romeo." It emerges
victorious over the other identities at the height of "Sabotage," and
the adaptation for the evil cop thrives on reserved brass in the second
half of "Explosion" as the character is appropriately dispatched. These
themes are perfectly adequate to their task, but the score will
disappoint in its tepid response to the killings and action, leaving the
tone of the orchestra restrained even at its loudest. For those familiar
with Barry's scores in the Bond franchise, the most depth you get from
this ensemble are the passages of stalking and light melodrama you hear
prior to actual commencement of chasing. His source material for
Masquerade retains the snail-like pacing but does offer some
blues and rock spirit alongside more comfortable jazz. The score was
released on a 2002 product from Prometheus that combines 44 minutes of
the actual main presentation with 12 minutes of Barry's unrelated source
material. The sound quality is rather muffled for the score's age, and
the experience runs a bit long. An even longer 2018 Quartet Records
presentation elongates the experience by a few minutes. A 15 to
20-minute suite would be ideal for this moderately attractive and
functional score. There's nothing here that you had not heard from Barry
before, for better or for worse.
*** @Amazon.com: CD or
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Bias Check:
For John Barry reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.83
(in 29 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.51
(in 28,825 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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