, 20th Century Fox
reunited actors Donald Sutherland and Elliott Gould for a far crazier
spoof in 1974's
. The spy genre is pilfered in this movie
as if it were a combination of
, the physical humor and nonsensical plot so annoyingly
ridiculous that you can't help but laugh at it. Sutherland and Gould,
the latter of whom initially refused to be a part of the production
because of the asinine story but was talked into it by the former, are
two American CIA agents who spend the whole movie screwing up their job
and thus running across Europe for their lives. Their endeavors begin
with the failed defection of a Russian gymnast that leads to the
accidental deaths of two Russian agents, and as their government seeks
revenge throughout the movie, the British, French, and Chinese get
involved as well. It suffices to say that the movie is intentionally
dumb, even down to its famously preposterous car chase. The production
even threw aside its own script by the end of filming, relying solely on
the comedic intuitions of the two leads. It's not surprising that
was reviled by critics and a cataclysmic failure at the
box office. Its music didn't really help the overall equation, either.
In Europe, the movie was graced with a rather subdued John Scott score
that offered some Henry Mancini style but otherwise stayed out of the
way of the action. When Fox brought the picture to America, its music
head, Lionel Newman, insisted that Jerry Goldsmith re-score it, likely
as a measure to help save the viability of the product. The resulting
replacement score became the ultimate bastard child of Goldsmith's
career, perhaps the zaniest and most intentionally obnoxious piece of
music the composer ever put to a major cinematic endeavor. Rather than
playing the parody element straight, he goes all-out to accentuate the
silly, juvenile humor of the movie by accentuating it at every
opportunity. This shameless circus of sound only amplifies how awful the
film plays on screen, a head-shaker of an embarrassment so quickly
purged from memory that Goldsmith himself was surprised when the music
finally achieved an album release in 2004.
In Goldsmith's top-level strategy, imagine the tactics of
The 'Burbs but expressed with the insanity of
Link. There
are some basic connections to his
Our Man Flint and
In Like
Flint dallies from the 1960's, but don't expect a single serious
espionage element to survive. It's not like the humor you hear in the
crazed, piano-led pursuit music from
The Flim-Flam Man despite
similar outlandish car chasing here. There's only 34 minutes of
Goldsmith music in the American version of the picture, aided by some
source placements. But there's plenty of ethnic stereotypes and parodies
at work in that short running time, mainly poking at Russian folk
mannerisms. Along with a typical orchestra, Goldsmith employs a wide
variety of specialty instruments to color his score with carnival tones.
Saxophone, slide whistle, electric guitar, Russian balalaika, accordion,
cimbalom, marimba, and harmonium, electric, and Hammond organs are all
contributors, but they cannot compete with the composer's sound effects,
vocals, and especially synthetics. The effects are a clear preview of
The 'Burbs, with everything from alarm bells to ooga horn effects
in the mix. The vocals are mainly Russian in nature but also provide
some humming at the end of the score and an exuberantly chorus-like,
faux-whispered "Spies!" chant during three performances of the main
theme throughout. The synthesizers in this era of Goldsmith's career
were fairly primitive by standards set just five years later, but they
absolutely dominate the wacky character of this work. His synths emulate
burping and farting noises to yield squishing effects that bounce in
juvenile fashion through the soundscape. There's no escaping just how
hideously awful these synthetics can be as they tear through the mix,
their rhythms inducing headaches or insanity by design. When the
composer combines all of these elements into a cue like that for the
hallucinatory scene in "The Buy," he is emboldened to litter even more
outrageous effects into the mix to push the boundaries of comedy. As one
would expect, the score is extremely tight in its thematic narrative as
per usual with Goldsmith, but the main theme's prevalence does not
necessarily yield a positive outcome. Even though the development of his
themes is smart from beginning to end, the overstated emotional tone of
almost every performance makes you want to commit an act of terror by
the end of the soundtrack.
Goldsmith's main theme for
S*P*Y*S is arguably a
career low point, a melody and rendering so atrocious that it can be
painful to tolerate even in short bursts. Its synthetic craziness is
certainly intended to amplify the idiotic antics of the two leads, but
it only makes their blunders more insufferable. The theme's underlying
rhythm alone is its own chase motif, and the most prominent performances
of the rhythm and theme together include the "Spies!" vocals in a
sickening tone. Formally introduced at 0:41 into "Main Title" on
blurting synths, the theme continues with a second performance
punctuated by a ticking bomb sound effect and nervous flutes for the
espionage factor later in the cue. The synthetics remind of the idea in
"Anybody Got a Key?" while the melody moves to sleazy accordion at the
end of "New Friends." The idea is intentionally clumsy in its
overlapping with the love theme in "A Welcome Guest," the main synth
mode returning later. It comically torments the love theme in "Table
Talk," becomes a bit stealthier in "A Little Investigation" but cannot
lose the synth idiocy, and it extends out of the Chinese instrumentation
in "Who's Paying?" The underlying rhythms carry "Get Rid of the Dog"
until flutes offer a snippet of the melody, and echoplexed marimba
transitions the mood to suspense in "One for the Road." The synth rhythm
briefly opens "Woops" but explodes in full form with "Spies" vocals and
wild cymbal tapping in "Dog-Gone Paris." A saxophone slinks through
"Tools of the Trade" with the idea, after which it is intertwined with
chimes and ridiculous sound effects, including insertions appropriate
for outer space, in "The Buy." A hummed version at 0:42 into "A New
Start" is layered with percussive silliness, but the primary rendition
of the theme returns at 1:15 with the "Spies!" vocals to conclude the
outrage. Serving dual purpose as a love theme and an interlude to the
main theme is Goldsmith's idea at 1:00 into "Main Title," these smoother
rock-oriented lines the most attractive aspect of the score. Conveyed in
lazy 1920's mode on accordion and sax in "New Friends," this love theme
continues on accordion and piano in "A Welcome Guest," where it is
overlapped with the main theme. It turns more sensual on strings in
"Table Talk" but cannot escape the ridicule of the main theme once
again. The idea shines once more in its interlude duties in "A New
Start." While there was much promise in this second theme, Goldsmith
doesn't allow it to flourish outside of the main thematic performances
at the beginning and end.
The third theme in
S*P*Y*S is the cultural
identity of the Russians, a parody march and hymn styled after Russian
folk stereotypes and heard first on piano only in "Russian Warm-Up." As
the chase gets started, a balalaika and male chorus are added for the
motif in "Anybody Got a Key?" It's adapted to a bizarre diversion for
flutes, harmonium, and choir in "The Mannequin" as the defector becomes
distracted by French attire, and Hammond organ and drunken tuba carry
the tune to its pitiful destruction in "The Siberian Blues." But despite
the closure of that portion of the plot, the two leads simply can't
escape the Russian pursuit, and this theme is reprised late in "A
Welcome Guest" on tragic choir and balalaika. It returns more ominously
in "Woops" after a burst of sound effects, becomes elongated for slight
drama on organ and balalaika in "Triple Cross," and follows tolling
chimes with gusto in "The Buy." A tuba blurts along with accordion for
the idea's closure at the opening of "A New Start." Aside from these
themes, Goldsmith tosses in some tongue in cheek references to famous
tunes along the way, starting with the piano humor early in "Main Title"
that invokes Béla Barték. The chase in "Anybody Got a
Key?" references the traditional "The Song of the Volga Boatmen" on
choir for total Russian saturation, and Goldsmith then switches briefly
to Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake" on sickly synthesizer in the
same cue. For the arguably racist but nonsensical representation of the
Chinese, he adapts "Symphony No. 5" by Ludwig van Beethoven at the
outset of "Table Talk," with a fuller rendition with wilder percussion
in "Who's Paying?" and a reprise late in "Tools of the Trade." At the
end of that latter cue is a quick reference to "Hail to the Chief" for
the American interests. No corner of Goldsmith's score for
S*P*Y*S is free from wretched renderings and eye-rolling
references to the circus-like shenanigans of the composer's own themes.
While this music could perhaps be described as Goldsmith's equivalent of
Danny Elfman's totally zany 1980's output for synthetics, there's
something maddingly insipid about
S*P*Y*S that makes it even less
palatable. Just under 20 minutes of the score was included on
Varèse Sarabande's massive 2004 compilation, "Jerry Goldsmith at
20th Century Fox," but La-La Land Records mercilessly expanded that
presentation to a full 33 minutes in 2021 on a dual album with the
composer's earlier
The Stripper. There's no good way to strip
away the insanity of
S*P*Y*S, however, Goldsmith's score
representing much of the most irritatingly silly and outrageously
overblown music of the composer's career.
@Amazon.com: CD or
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- Music as Written for the Film: **
- Music as Heard on Album: *
- Overall: *
| Bias Check: |
For Jerry Goldsmith reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.24
(in 132 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.27
(in 154,087 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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