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| Williams |
The Poseidon Adventure: (John Williams) After the
surprising success of
Airport in 1970, the stage was set for a
series of highly popular disaster films in that decade, led by a leap
from television to big screen by producer Irwin Allen. Having offered
several documentaries and fantasy TV series in the years prior, Allen
jumped from the massive success of
The Poseidon Adventure in 1972
to
The Towering Inferno in 1974 before
The Swarm several
years later ended his fantastic run. At the height of the genre's
dominance in the early 1970's, however, audiences couldn't get enough of
these films, which usually put stellar casts on display and dazzled with
their mammoth production values for the time. The talented ensemble
cast, led by Gene Hackman, finds itself trapped in an ocean liner
overturned by a mammoth wave, the group one of several trying to find
its way up to bottom hull of the ship to await uncertain rescue odds.
Riding its wave of popularity,
The Poseidon Adventure received
nine Academy Award nominations, winning for its song and special
effects, an important recognition of the quality of the film despite its
incredibly outdated technology and cultural elements from today's
perspective. A 2006 remake did not challenge Allen's authority on the
topic even when attempting to address these aspects of the original.
Among the Oscar nominations for the production was one for the score by
John Williams, who had morphed from the "Johnny" Williams of 1960's jazz
into a capable symphonic action composer by the time his collaboration
with Allen reached the big screen. While having no association with the
production of the famous song, Williams incorporated Al Kasha and Joel
Hirschhorn's popular "The Morning After" (performed by Renee Armand for
the screen version but made famous by Maureen McGovern's single version)
into some of his underscore where appropriate, creating a subtle but
important link to the film's lasting musical identity.
Regardless of Williams' soon-to-come reputation, however,
casual observers tend to forget that his work for
The Poseidon
Adventure is largely atmospheric and, in the case of many cues,
dialed out in the finished film mix anyway. His harsh, brass theme of
epic proportions for the opening shots of the ship is utilized often,
best when accompanied by its tumultuous rhythmic figures denoting watery
movement in Bernard Herrmann fashion. It stylistically resembles the
main theme for
The Towering Inferno and inspired chord
progressions for Jerry Goldsmith's
The Swarm and David Arnold's
1990's disaster music. But unlike
The Towering Inferno, in which
the main theme receives a glorious performance of optimism in
technological advancement before the disaster strikes, Williams gives
The Poseidon Adventure a doomed demeanor from the very start.
Judging from the composer's earlier recorded versions of the "Main
Title" cue, his inclination was to make the score even more dissonant
and challenging than what the film eventually received, initially opting
not to highlight the theme at all. There is little setup time before the
cruise ship is struck by the tidal wave and flipped, and the music that
introduces the liner at the opening doesn't vary much from the troubled
environment of the escape attempts during the rest of the film. Only a
few source cues of light jazz in the early, main dining hall sequence
interrupts Williams' perpetually gloomy string and brass rumblings in
the deep layers of bass. Even the piano is tethered to these dark bass
regions, often crashing to accentuate a hit from the 58 other players or
rambling without direction in the more tentative cues. The major effects
sequence involving the rogue wave and the capsizing of the ship is
scored counter-intuitively, utilizing high string whining, occasional
groaning from brass, and intrigue from harp to function as another form
of sound effects for the scene. As such, anyone looking blazing Williams
action will be left very cold by this listening experience. Not
surprisingly, most of this lengthy cue was left out of the film,
allowing the sound effects to produce the terror of the moment.
For casual appreciation, the plethora of tumultuous
underscore in
The Poseidon Adventure doesn't have the muscular,
more tonal appeal of a work like
Black Sunday, instead serving up
Williams' avant-garde tendencies without much more than infrequent
respites in the form of longing, subdued references, usually on horns,
to the main theme. The "Morning After" melody's references in several
cues is intentionally subdued and fragmented, a hint of its former,
glamourous self. Some sequences are so minimally rendered in general
that listeners may not receive enough reminders of Williams' typical
mannerisms to satisfy themselves. The composer does excel at creating an
atmosphere of dread, however, and no matter what qualms one might have
about the score's grim personality, its effectiveness is rarely
questioned. The nonstop environment of unease finally yields to a
slightly more upbeat variation on the score's memorable, tumbling string
rhythms in the finale cue, slowly building in
E.T. The
Extra-Terrestrial fashion to a cymbal crashing statement of triumph
for the main theme during the rescue scene that remains the highlight of
the score. Listeners opting to enjoy the more voluminous, tonal passages
will want to add the "Main Title" to the final three cues, "The Red
Wheel" finally fulfilling the score's opening moments. Be mindful,
though, that even when these cues are added to other brief passages of
development for the main theme, as in the early capsized ballroom escape
scenes involving a Christmas tree, the total sum of time spent by
Williams on his primary theme is only about ten minutes. One
disappointment of the work is the composer's lack of attention to his
watery rhythmic movements despite their incredibly effective application
at times, including "Saving Robin" and "Hold Your Breath." The score
instead undersells itself in its suspense stance, which is perhaps why a
fair amount of it was abandoned in the final mix of the movie. Still,
the work is an important stepping stone for any appreciation of
Williams' 1970's output, especially in its foreshadowing of its superior
sibling,
The Towering Inferno. Since it's a score that relies
upon textures, though, poor sound quality was a significant drawback for
album appreciation.
On album,
The Poseidon Adventure suffered from
sound quality and availability issues for many years. During "The
Aftermath" on some albums, for instance, it was difficult to tell if
electronic clicking sounds in the background of the dissonant blanket of
strings is an intended Williams effect or simply an artifact of the poor
sound quality and the efforts to master the surviving tapes into a
presentable form. A 40-minute bootleg was released in 1995 with all
pertinent cues, and although its sound quality was horrendous, it
remained the only available source of music from the film and sold for
as much as $150 in the years that followed. In 1998, the Film Score
Monthly magazine was introducing its fledgling Silver Age Classics CD
series to collectors, and its well-received second entry consisted of a
compilation of three Williams scores of the early 1970's. The selling
point of the album was
The Poseidon Adventure, with a source cue
added to the bootleg material and the entire score transferred directly
from the original tapes; unfortunately, only the mono backup recordings
remained viable at that time for most cues. Listeners of that album will
note a significant improvement in quality for two seemingly random cues
in the middle of the score for which the stereo tapes were available.
The album also featured premier releases of
The Paper Chase and
Conrack, both of which differ in style from the disaster classic.
The contemporary drama
The Paper Chase exhibits both some of
Williams' more romantic, jazzy pop themes and modern classical
interpretations. An unassuming, relaxing score, its pop-influenced love
theme is genuinely enjoyable, swinging with a small ensemble through an
eclectic collection of cues that includes some classical source
material. The societal commentary of
Conrack, on the other hand,
runs parallel musically to
Sugarland Express, and its heartfelt
theme is dominated by vibrant solos. Presented on the album was the only
surviving music from the film (roughly a third of the overall length of
Williams' composition for the project), but easily the most important.
This cue, as Jon Voight prepares to teach school in a backwards Southern
community, features guitar and flute solos that mark some of the best
thematic material Williams composed for small-scale drama in that
period.
Still, even with the popularity of the 1998 FSM album,
issues of sound quality continued. Especially when you consider John
Barry's scores of the era, the recordings of the 1970's were often worse
than those of the 1960's, and
The Poseidon Adventure is clear
evidence of that quirk. Contrary to early rumors, the 1998 album
featured better sound quality than the bootleg, but still not satisfying
by any means. Nevertheless, the three scores together sound equivalent
in their muted qualities, and this shouldn't stop any ardent Williams
fan from seeking the FSM offering. Along with FSM's even more impressive
release of
The Towering Inferno, the limited
The Poseidon
Adventure edition of 3,000 copies disappeared within a short time
and quickly escalated in price on the secondary market. As technology in
the music mastering process matured over another decade, the opportunity
to finally clean up the surviving stereo masters and make them suitable
for another album release finally came. La-La Land Records presented
this update of
The Poseidon Adventure in another limited
3,000-copy run in 2010, also adding numerous alternate takes and the
film versions of the song. More importantly, the entire score was
offered in stereo; the only trouble spot unfortunately remained "End
Title," for which the stereo version is really warped beyond
listenability, a truly unfortunate coincidence given that it is easily
the highlight of the score. (
Black Sunday's finale suffered a
similar fate.) For those who had grown accustomed to the decent but
still mono presentation on the 1998 FSM album, the 2010 product may seem
redundant, especially with the additional, alternate takes and source
cues not really offering much more than a curiosity factor for those
inclined to study these works from an intellectual standpoint. Many
collectors didn't have the opportunity to purchase the 2010 album at
all; it sold out within weeks and became yet another source of income
for speculators at online auctions. Fortunately, La-La Land returned to
the score with even better mastering in 2019, including mostly the same
presentation (subtracting an alternate "End Title" track and adding the
McGovern song performance) but finally prevailing with better sound.
This 5,000-copy "Disaster Movie Soundtrack Collection" includes
The
Towering Inferno and
Earthquake as well, making it a highly
recommended companion to
Black Sunday for listeners angling to
get a taste of Williams in full dread mode.
@Amazon.com: CD or
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- Music as Written for the Film: ****
- Music as Heard on the 1995 Bootleg: **
- Music as Heard on the 1998 FSM Album: ***
- Music as Heard on the 2010 and 2019 La-La Land Albums: ****
- Overall: ****
| Bias Check: |
For John Williams reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.68
(in 91 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.54
(in 363,495 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
|
The 1995 bootleg insert includes no extra information about the
score or film. The 1998 Film Score Monthly album includes the label's
usual standard of in-depth notes about the films and music for all three
scores represented on the product. The 2010 La-La Land album's insert
also features an extensive analysis of the film and score. The 2019
La-La Land album contains this score in its own jewel case separate from
the outer sleeve that also houses the other scores in the set. Its
booklet contains extensive information about the score and film as well.
