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Williams was already in a position to pull some weight with the studio and director as of 1974, and it was his idea to showcase the score so prominently during the opening helicopter sequence. A highlight of the film, the first five minutes of the score, consisting of one of Williams' best adventure themes of all time, marches across the soundscape almost unimpeded, leading to the magnificent initial view of the massive tower standing at the heart of San Francisco. While the entire film would pass before the theme would receive another lengthy performance of heightened bravado, the inclusion of this landmark title theme is alone usually worth the cost of the score for many Williams collectors. The final two cues, dealing with the aftermath of the fire in "Finale" and "An Architect's Dream," showcase some great shots of the charred and mangled tower, and Williams' score once again swells to magnificence. A brilliant subtheme of triumph highlights the "Let There Be Light" fanfare and introduces the opening of the building with one of the better statements of brass by Williams. The lengthy film launches quickly into the action, not dabbling around in an excess of character development before the fire ignites. In fact, most of the significant character scenes are interspersed throughout the stressful trials of the ordeal, which is one of the greater points of the film (also of positive note is the fact that Allen isn't afraid of killing off major, sympathetic characters). Williams handles the mass of suspense and dramatic material in the middle of the film with creative percussive rhythms, highlighted by the very first ignition of the fire. A tapping effect is used to mimic the sound effect of a short circuit ignition, and in an age before synthesizers could accurately produce a "zapping" effect, this technique by Williams is as accomplished as it could be for the time. Manipulation of fragments of the title theme, and especially the opening, rising figure, is well integrated into dissonant sequences that extend the drama into not only the tragic realm, but one of terror as well.

During the early cues that do accompany character development, Williams also extends his talents in providing casual pop rhythms to place the film in its contemporary time frame. What's most interesting about these contemporary cues is that they haven't aged as badly as one might expect for early 70's pop style, allowing the score to hold a more timeless personality. The Maureen McGovern song ("We May Never Love Like This Again") was the highlight of the music for the film in 1974, gaining songwriters Al Kasha and Joel Hirschhorn an Academy Award win and catapulted the album's success much in the same way "The Morning After" did for The Poseidon Adventure. Williams once again incorporates the song into his own material, translating it into one of the two love themes for the film. The other one (which, like the previous theme, is sadly doomed as the story progresses) is equally strong, evoking some powerfully emotional moments in the middle sequence of the film and score. A lengthy performance of this idea in "An Architect's Dream" is extremely attractive, and Williams collectors will even hear a distinct foreshadowing of the theme for Presumed Innocent in the melodramatic tones of that cue (especially at the 1:05 mark). A mournful horn solo at 1:55 into "Finale" is a glimpse of what fans would hear for the "Force" theme in Star Wars. For the majority of such collectors, the action and suspense material, along with the bold thematic statements, will provide about 22 minutes of outstanding material (spread between five tracks, including the lengthy "Planting the Charges") absent of any of the pop tones of the era. Always high on the list of top ten most requested scores during the 1990's, The Towering Inferno was never properly released on CD until April of 2001. The LP record that existed for The Towering Inferno still stood on many film music collectors' shelves, twenty-seven years after its initial release. The reason for the lengthy delay in the transferring of this score to CD undoubtedly rests in the duality of the studio ownership of everything related to the film.

The Film Score Monthly label made this projects a top priority, one that logically also resulted from their superior presentation of The Poseidon Adventure as one of their earliest entries in the "Silver Age Classics" series that would eventually last longer than a decade. The release of The Towering Inferno was a shot in the arm of that series in 2001, selling out quickly and once again proving the label's top status for collectors. Album producers Lukas Kendall and Nick Redman managed to acquire nearly the entire score for presentation on this album, and although a few incidental cues were lost due to damage, their CD contains twice the amount of music heard on the original LP. So complete is the album that a section of bonus tracks is offered at the end, including the original LP's re-recording of the song (the film version is presented as well). With "The Morning After" from The Poseidon Adventure ironically playing as background source music in a conversational scene in The Towering Inferno, the instrumental recording from that moment is provided, too. Finally, a few of the more damaged cues are appended for completists. But the first twenty-two tracks have been meticulously arranged in their film sequence, and the album reaches an astonishing 75 minutes in length when tallied with the bonus material. The sound quality is as to be expected for the early 70's (slightly tinny and muted, especially in the pop sections), but Silver Age fans aren't typically bothered by the results of older recording technologies. The packaging of the album is nothing short of spectacular, explaining the complexities of the film's production and providing a cue by cue analysis (along with intriguing concept art and a fascinating, if not spooky, picture of the entire major cast enthusiastically walking arm in arm down the studio lot). Overall, this is the The Towering Inferno album that Williams fans had been dreaming about for decades, and it remains by far the crowning achievement of Film Score Monthly's growing enterprise of "Silver Age Classics" albums. Since almost immediately selling out, FSM's 3,000 pressed copies of The Towering Inferno have understandably become a top collectible.  *****   @Amazon.com: CD or Download

Bias Check:

For John Williams reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.8 (in 75 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.68 (in 351,231 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.

Total Time: 75:31