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Raggedy Man (Jerry Goldsmith) (1981)
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Average: 2.82 Stars
***** 27 5 Stars
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Nice Goldsmith score
Rende - October 14, 2006, at 6:50 a.m.
1 comment  (2373 views)
Raggedy man   Expand
Marcus Atkinson - July 7, 2005, at 8:33 a.m.
2 comments  (3735 views) - Newest posted November 19, 2007, at 1:37 p.m. by Evan
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Composed, Conducted, and Produced by:
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1991 Varèse Album Cover Art
2019 Varèse Album 2 Cover Art
Varèse Sarabande
(1991)

Varèse Sarabande
(March 15th, 2019)
The 1991 album was the seventh entry of Varèse Sarabande's original CD Club series, VCL 9102.07. It was limited to 1,500 numbered copies and sold for over $150 after selling out. The 2019 Varèse re-issue was limited to 1,000 copies and available initially through soundtrack specialty outlets for $20 before quickly selling out as well. The label did, however, continue offering a digital option for the re-issue.
The insert of the 1991 Varèse album includes no extra information about the score or film. That of the 2019 re-issue offers details about both.
Filmtracks Traffic Rank: #1,082
Written 8/10/97, Revised 6/24/22
Buy it... only if your love of highly personal, intimate Jerry Goldsmith themes from the 1960's and 1970's for small ensembles has no boundaries despite their occasional redundancy.

Avoid it... if your affinity for Goldsmith's light dramas cannot justify a highly disjointed yet repetitive score that offers very little new material for the learned enthusiast of the composer.

Goldsmith
Goldsmith
Raggedy Man: (Jerry Goldsmith) One of a few films directed by regular production designer Jack Fisk, Raggedy Man suffers from a very odd, disjointed script that can't decide if it's a wholesome love story or a cheap slasher film. Debuting in the early 1980's, it could have been either, and despite a flourishing acting performance by Fisk's wife, Sissy Spacek, along with generally outstanding art direction and cinematography, the film's strange plot dooms it. Starring as the sole telephone operator in a small Texas town during World War II, Spacek's character meets a traveling sailor and the film essentially follows the innocent emotional attachment that the two feel towards each other and the woman's two young boys. The colors of the film are very deeply rooted in the early 1940's, with the time capsule effect very well conveyed. But the movie goes all awry with the involvement of a scarecrow type of character, a "raggedy man," a group of loudmouth men who have a keen eye for the operator, and a strikingly violent and disturbing end. Critically, the film performed well, though there was widespread sentiment that the narrative should have kept its focus on the budding love story rather than the larger symbolism that the violent elements are supposed to represent. This strange pairing of movie genres presented a challenge for whoever scored the film, for the original music would have to somehow strike the same balance without losing cohesion. Composer Jerry Goldsmith was no stranger to small-scale drama, the humbling vistas of Americana, or the brazen violence that exists in his horror ventures. His qualifications in the department of sensitive, highly personal woodwind themes extends from A Patch of Blue to A Girl Named Sooner, and it is this type of intimacy that Goldsmith would largely abandon later in his career in favor of the increasingly romantic sound of a full ensemble behind his solo highlights. As hard as it might be to imagine for enthusiasts of his more modern, digital age works, Goldsmith had received award nominations for scores like A Patch of Blue, making him a very credible choice for a small-scale, personal project like Raggedy Man. Unfortunately, Goldsmith's score predictably suffers from the same identity crisis as the film itself. As expected, he establishes a gorgeous primary theme for the location and character, but it will instantly remind listeners of several of his others in both the drama and Western genres, and he repeats that theme here until it's beaten like a dead horse.

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