Rating : - Unusual But Brilliant Herrmann
"If the world were made of gold men would die for a handful of dirt".So
goes the theme of this off beat western directed by Henry Hathaway in 1954. This was 20th Century Fox's first western to be filmed in the then new process of Cinemascope and sterophonic sound. With locations in Mexico it had some breathtaking scenery and boasted a top notch cast in Gary Cooper, Richard Widmark and Susan Hayward.
Composer Bernard Herrmann would seem an odd choice to score such a fiilm.
This would be his only western - if you discount Burt Lancaster's early frontier epic "The Kentuckian" in 1955 and a few obscure episodes of TV's
"The Virginian" in the sixties. Herrmann however scored the film rather
as a conventional adventure story and avoided the usual cliched style of writing associated with this type of film. Only twice does he resort to what we might call 'cowboy music' - in the cue called "The Feather" a
piece which he developed the following year as a lovely Pastoral in his
score for "The Kentuckian" - and in the attractive cue for the protagonist
Hooker (Cooper). Here he was either influenced by Grofe or by Victor
Young's 'Call Of the Faraway Hills' from "Shane" (1953)which it sounds remarkably like.
As presented here on this terrific Marco Polo album we have the complete score of 52 minutes brought to vibrant life by the accomplished Moscow
Symphony Orchestra conducted by William Stromberg. It is one of their finest recordings!
The score is an intense and strident work,full of suspense and foreboding.
Particularly clever is the ominous figure on the Octave flute which points up the unseen but ever watching Apaches. The main theme - first
heard over the credits - is a brilliant defiant statement for full orchestra - and is heard throughout the score in different guises. There
is no love theme as such but tender music in the composer's gentlest
manner underscores the Hayward character beautifully rendered in the cues 'Leah' and 'Nocturne'. All the stops are pulled out in the cue
'The Chase' a scene towards the end were the Apaches are in hot persuit of the interlopers.It is a sensational swirling and thundering piece calling for some virtuoso playing from the orchestra which they zealously deliver.
Also on the disc is a splendid eleven minute suite from another 1954 20th. Century Fox Cinemascope picture the now forgotton "Prince Of Players" which starred Richard Burton as the early American shakesperean actor Edwin Booth whose brother John Wilkes Booth (John Derek) ironically gained more fame than his thespian sibling when in 1865 he assassinated Abraham Lincoln. Herrmann's score is the best thing about this turgid and yawn inducing film. The spectacular 'Prelude' with its infectious central martial statement is one of the composer's best themes and it is quite amazing that only now it is getting its first rerecording. I suspect because of the picture's poor reception the music got buried along with the film,
as was the fate of many a great score.
Kudos to Marco Polo and to conductor William Stromberg for bringing us two great unusual works by a master craftsman in an exceptional recording with splendid notes and a nice cover graced with a poster of "Garden Of Evil".