: (Jerry Goldsmith) With Westerns
falling from grace with mainstream audiences in the 1970's, Hollywood
was doing everything it could to infuse some last breaths of life into
the tired genre. If that meant inserting kickboxing, helicopters, black
football stars, unconventional filming techniques, and the
concept-bending sounds of Ennio Morricone into the mix, then it was
done. The 1975 flop
was one entry that attempted
to do most of the above, and it exuberantly did so to such an extent
that the film drew its own unique form of ridicule. The emergence of the
spaghetti western sub-genre and its subsequently quick demise forced the
last few kings of the old 1960's Western classics to adapt in order to
survive. One such artist was composer Jerry Goldsmith, who approached
at a time when his career was branching off in
other, more successful directions. After such a grand variety of works
for the genre over the previous dozen years, this film would be the last
Western he would score until 1994's
lured him back to
the Wild West. He was very familiar with the direction that Morricone
had taken the genre's music, and since the director was an Italian
working under an altered screen name, Goldsmith knew that some of
Morricone's experimental new sounds would need to be used to satisfy
expectations. Interestingly, though, Goldsmith chose also to continue
his own metamorphosis in the Western genre by leaning more heavily on
lyrical themes to create a melodic identity for those works. He had
discovered this lyrical style with
he would create arguably the
most attractive Western theme of his career (though fans of both
could make a stake for those
scores' themes as well). With these easy melodies came a symphonic
representation of Americana that brought Goldsmith as close to Elmer
Bernstein's equally popular Western style at the time as he would
get.
For film score fans, Goldsmith's culmination of
thematic development in the genre caused
Take a Hard Ride to
contain several lengthy statements of rolling, accessible orchestral
harmony (over genre-favorites tambourine and guitar) that would elevate
demand for the score on album. Perhaps the most surprising aspect of
Goldsmith's thematic identity for
Take a Hard Ride is his choice
of piccolo and recorder to render some sensitivity to an otherwise
brutish, unsophisticated film that glorifies senseless killing. The
piccolo in particular is integral in performing several of the film's
smaller motifs. In the primary statements of the title theme, heard best
in "Main Title," "Friendly Enemies," "The Wagon," and "A Long Walk,"
Goldsmith hands the theme over to high strings and brass for their most
satisfying performances. Outside of these statements, Goldsmith tackles
Take a Hard Ride with a wider sense of ambient sound design.
Early electronics make a significant impact on the score, foreshadowing
the disembodied echoing effects that would later define the
Rambo
scores. The use of the harmonica as somewhat of a source instrument is
Goldsmith's nod to Morricone, as is some of the striking, shrill brass
usage late in the score (among other techniques of disillusionment).
These effects would be taken out of context in the final edit of the
film and provided with far more frequency than Goldsmith had originally
intended. A mingling of ethnic spice for "The Trek" is also a twist of
the same style. Closer to home for the composer is the use of
percussion, especially during some of the hand to hand combat scenes;
for these moments, Goldsmith employs a range of thunderous timpani and
medium-range drums that closely reflected his concurrent use of such
sounds in
The Wind and the Lion. In its full album presentation,
Take a Hard Ride strikes a satisfying balance between the
maturation of Goldsmith's thematic sensibilities in the genre and the
Morricone-like ambience resulting from the demands of the filmmaker and
sub-genre. Unfortunately, the director ultimately mangled Goldsmith's
score in the film, rearranging it to death and failing to use some
sequences.
On CD album,
Take a Hard Ride has had a long
history. A 2000 product from Film Score Monthly presented the score in
its chronological and original form. Marking the first album of Film
Score Monthly's third volume of Silver Age Classics products (and
sporting a new look since their inaugural release two years prior),
Take a Hard Ride was one of the more obscure but noteworthy
releases for FSM at the time. Having provided many Goldsmith scores in
the series, including the questionably redundant
Patton and
Rio Conchos, FSM's treatment of
Take a Hard Ride was by
far the most attractive Goldsmith entry of the series' early years. Like
FSM's immediately previous release,
The Film-Flam Man, this score
had only been available before on the Society for Preservation of Film
Music's tribute dinner CD to Goldsmith back in 1993, a collectible that
had become one of the most rare and expensive in the soundtrack
community. That tribute album contained all four major statements of the
primary theme from
Take a Hard Ride (listed in the cues above),
so casual collectors who were never impressed by those cues on the
compilation needed not investigate FSM's product. But the expanded 2000
release received strong treatment of sound quality by Intrada's Douglass
Fake and, unlike many other Film Score Monthly albums in their series,
offered a very simple, 45-minute experience of continuous, quality
Goldsmith music. With no source cues, mono versus stereo versions, or
songs, the album makes few demands. Additionally, unlike the troubles
experienced by many previous FSM releases, the original multi-track
(stereo) masters with individual instruments alone for
Take a Hard
Ride were available to Fake for the best possible mix. Crisper
stereo sound has come out of a few of Goldsmith's other scores of the
era, but the presentation here ranges from adequate to impressive. With
3,000 copies available to the film music community, yet another portion
of the 1993 SPFM tribute album was rendered defunct. Not surprisingly,
that album eventually went out of print as well and was supplanted by
another remastering in 2016, this time from La-La Land Records. This
presentation doesn't sound significantly better and is slightly shorter,
but availability of this solid Goldsmith Western is the key attraction
here. It's a relatively easy ride on the ears.
**** @Amazon.com: CD or
Download
| Bias Check: |
For Jerry Goldsmith reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.26
(in 125 reviews)
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