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A Thousand Men and a Baby (Narrow Escape): (David
Michael Frank) This original CBS movie was titled
A Thousand Men and
a Baby at the time of its debut on a Sunday night in December, 1997.
It caused a moderate stir in the television world by beating
X-Files and a showing of
Terminal Velocity in Nielsen
ratings on competing networks the same night. The title of the movie was
changed to
Narrow Escape when it made the journey to European
television the following year. It is a typical feel-good Sunday night
network affair, telling the true story of an event that occurred
somewhat often in wartime for American forces. At the end of the Korean
War, a half-American, half-Korean baby is found left for dead in the
garbage of an Army Depot near Inchon, and soldiers take it to an
orphanage. Unable to meet the medical needs of the infant, an unlikely
transfer is approved to allow a Navy aircraft carrier to take on the
child in its sick bay. As it recovers, and the carrier is reassigned to
other duties after the war despite the end of hostilities, the crew
collectively adopts the child. In order to legally adopt the child, the
doctor on the ship resigns his commission and brings the child home to
his wife in Seattle (where the couple had been unable to have children
themselves). The film is a Hallmark-style fluff story, taking
inspiration from any number of similar true stories that occurred in the
Korean War and others.
A Thousand Men and a Baby was a usual
project for American composer David Michael Frank, whose career in
television scoring has been lengthy. Beginning with episodes of "Laverne
& Shirley" in the 1970's to "Columbo," "Different Strokes," and "Fortune
Hunter," Frank's only significant ventures into feature films involved
his collaboration with Steven Seagal projects of the early 1990's. His
most famous score was for the Oscar-nominated IMAX film
Cosmic
Voyage in 1996.
In many ways, Frank's career has mirrored that of Lee
Holdridge, restraining significant talent to the small screen, and Frank
is another composer who has never gotten the break he deserved.
A
Thousand Men and a Baby isn't the type of score that would help him
break through, though it suffices in what it needed to accomplish. A
mostly monothematic score, Frank's effort here is as sugar-coated as
possible, staying close to safe lyrical territory and offering the same
title theme and spin-off motif consistently from start to end. The
ensemble is The City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra, a formidable
group that has never sounded so tender in their performing days. Indeed,
despite the financial benefits of recording in Prague, it's hard to see
why a group of that magnitude was necessary for
A Thousand Men and a
Baby, or even if its full ranks were employed for the project. The
score itself has the melodic sensibilities of Holdridge, ironically,
pleasantly simple and undemanding in its loyal thematic presentation
from start. A title theme halfway between John Williams'
Home
Alone and Randy Edelman's
Kindergarten Cop is delightfully
appropriate. Instrumentation rotates in the performances of the theme,
from solo woodwinds to solo violin, with brass and metallic percussion
taking a secondary role. The only notable instrumental deviation comes
in the Christmas-inspired light percussion of the opening cue. Only in
"High Stakes Poker" does Frank partially abandon the hopelessly upbeat
major-key attitude of the title theme. The great loyalty to that theme,
and its lovable nature, is also the score's weakness, causing it --even
after only 30 minutes on album-- to potentially become tedious. On that
album, a 30-minute selection was pressed by Prometheus (in the
Narrow
Escape name) shortly after the debut of the film on TV, and not long
after their more satisfying album to
Cosmic Voyage. It should be
noted that the L.A. Times newspaper filmed a title theme performance of
A Thousand Men and a Baby, with Frank conducting, and used the
actual footage in a television commercial promoting their paper.
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The insert includes information about the film.
