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| McNeely |
Radioland Murders: (Joel McNeely/Various) After
Willow in 1988, writer, director, and producer George Lucas
struggled to coordinate successful projects outside of the
Star
Wars and
Indiana Jones franchises. Up until
Red Tails
in 2012, his only realized production outside of this comfort zone was
1994's
Radioland Murders, a labor of love that he had been
toiling with since he first optioned
American Graffiti and
Star Wars to studios in the 1970's. Originally set for filming in
1979, the Lucas film became one of the most discussed examples of what
it means to be stuck in "production hell," and after several re-writes
and the eventual combination of multiple scripts into one finished
product by Lucas himself,
Radioland Murders moved forward for its
disastrous 1994 release. The producer's obsession with 1930's and 1940's
radio shows was the basis for the film's plot, which details the opening
night of a brand new radio station ("WBN") in Chicago circa 1939. The
haphazard crew of this station, eager to impress the demanding sponsor
on hand, stumbles through its initial programming while writing it on
the fly. Unfortunately for the cast of mostly television personalities
of the early 1990's, the characters get knocked off one after another,
leading to a murder mystery conducted while the night progresses. By the
end, the writer and secretary who lead the in-house investigation (while
trying to reconcile their marriage) track down the murderer in their
crew and are lead to an unlikely confrontation atop the roof of the
studio's building. All of this is handled with slapstick at the
forefront, cameos from the likes of Rosemary Clooney and Christopher
Lloyd (among countless others) abounding. There wasn't much substance
behind the constant, artificial attempts to generate laughs, however,
and critics absolutely skewered the film. Its limited release in
theatres netted only $1.3 million on a budget more than ten times that
size, qualifying
Radioland Murders as an embarrassment for
Universal and Lucasfilm that in part caused Lucas his later difficulties
finding a distributor for his other non-franchise endeavors. At the
time, though, the success of "The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles" on
television had made composer Joel McNeely a regular Lucasfilm
collaborator, one who would handle a number of subsequent Lucas
projects, including
Radioland Murders. Whereas many of these
scores involved the adventure genre, a realm that McNeely was making
himself known for by 1994, this film required an entirely different set
of skills. The role of music in this instance is integral due to the
on-screen applications in the context of the WBN radio show and
beyond.
Not only are there the production numbers you would
expect for the era in
Radioland Murders, but you also have all
the filler material heard around those features, including numerous
commercial jingles. McNeely's primary job was to arrange a wide variety
of era-appropriate songs and re-record many of them with fresh vocals
and instrumental clarity. On top of that, he wrote several jingles
(including some of the lyrics) for a range of products advertised on
WBN, most of them stereotypically saccharine but a few on the funnier
side. In between all of this is a limited amount of original score, most
of it defined by the jazz of the era (to coincide with the songs) but
some of the later cues of suspense requiring the services of the full
orchestra. The period songs are exactly as you would expect for
Radioland Murders, their high jazz style guided by Johnny Mercer,
Gene Autry, Ralph Rainger, and Irving Berlin. Most of them are
enthusiastic and optimistic to a fault, expressing the gleaming delight
of the station's most attractive material but also serving as humorous
counterpoint (embodied best by "Love is on the Air Tonight") to the many
killings happening at the station. McNeely's original jingles are highly
entertaining, from the feel-good (though nearly 1950's-styled)
"Applebaum Shorts" to the faux-campfire "Gene's Pork and Beans." By
"King's Washing Machines" and others, these little vignettes become akin
to their own musical numbers, the xylophone seemingly a common thread in
their background instrumentals. There isn't much original score to be
found on the album release for
Radioland Murders, and most of
that material outside of the suspense music at the climax is directly
tied to the surrounding big jazz numbers in style. One specialty cue,
"Gork, Son of Fire," exhibits McNeely's orchestral sense of humor quite
well, his spin on vintage sci-fi wonderment well executed. Even more
memorable, however, is his duo of "The Killer is..." and "Death on the
Radio Tower," nearly ten minutes of outstanding action and drama that
isn't entirely original but clearly a lasting highlight in McNeely's
career. Some of the bursts of force from the ensemble in these cues
foreshadow the swirling magnificence of the storm cue in
Virus.
They both owe quite a bit to Bernard Herrmann, however, because aside
from the fleeting, original thematic constructs that stomp through these
two cues, it's Herrmann's classic
Vertigo that really defines
them. Hinted in the previous cue but absolutely saturating "Death on the
Radio Tower," the
Vertigo references become increasing prevalent.
McNeely, who would conduct that famous score just a couple of years
later for an acclaimed, full re-recording, handles it with admirable
respect despite its humorous application. Overall, the soundtrack album
is a lovable tribute to the doomed film, but with only 12 minutes of
interesting score material, it isn't entirely recommendable.
*** @Amazon.com: CD or
Download
| Bias Check: |
For Joel McNeely reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.38
(in 16 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.14
(in 8,429 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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The insert includes no extra information about the score or film. Despite the
misspelling of track #17 on the packaging, the insert is abnormally well designed.
