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The soundtrack CD opens with a fun “Main Title” cue that establishes a primary theme for the film that is characterized by Latin rhythms and instruments, including acoustic guitar, tambourines, castanets, and a solo trumpet. The theme is typically distinctive for Goldsmith, but isn’t developed very much during the remainder of the soundtrack. Outside of the titles, Goldsmith’s main theme and Latin-influenced styling is on best display in the cue “Beckdorf’s House” and in a very nicely melodic arrangement in the opening portion of the cue “The Drowning”.
The primary romantic theme in the score isn’t actually composed by Goldsmith at all. Instead, Goldsmith adapted the classic Nat King Cole song “The Very Thought of You”, which was written by Ray Noble. The soundtrack includes a few different instrumental arrangements of the song’s melody. Goldsmith also composed another period-appropriate song entitled “Heaven Knows”, which is sung by his wife Carol on the soundtrack.
A soundtrack CD for the film was originally issued in 1993 by Belgium film music label Prometheus Records. That same label reissued the same program in a limited edition release in 2005. Both editions are relatively easy to find at reasonable prices.
Cain’s Hundred (Jerry Goldsmith, Morton Stevens, 1961): This early 60s TV series was one of the earliest scoring projects for Jerry Goldsmith (he was actually billed as “Jerrald” instead of “Jerry”). Film Score Monthly released a CD containing the scores to the four episodes of the series that were scored by Goldsmith as well as one episode scored by Morton Stevens.
The disc opens with Goldsmith’s end title cue, which is a full arrangement of his main theme and also includes a couple bumpers and alternate arrangements of the theme. Goldsmith also pretty regularly incorporates the theme into his scores and even Morton uses it occasionally. The theme has kind of a swing-style to it, while still being reasonably dark in tone. It is a style that Goldsmith would return to pretty regularly for his TV series themes.
The music is very atmospheric and suspense oriented and is generally a precursor to the style that Goldsmith would use for a number of crime dramas (particularly for TV) over the course of his career. Strings and percussion dominate as well as some occasional piano and some punctuating bursts of brass. The scores seem to be played by pretty much a full orchestra, which is somewhat surprising for a TV series. As is typical for TV scores, the cues tend to be short, although the soundtrack CD is organized to sometimes combine multiple short cues into longer ones.
The Morton Stevens score does follow the basic musical style that Goldsmith had established for the series, but is also recognizably the music of a different composer. In particular, Stevens’ approach included a bit more use of solo instruments, particularly piano and violin.
Cannon for Cordoba (Elmer Bernstein, 1970): Varese Sarbande released this Bernstein western/war movie score as part of their CD Club series on a 2-CD set that paired it with Bernstein’s score to From Noon to Three. While a limited edition of 3000 copies, this set is still available from their website.
The CD opens with an absolutely tremendous “Main Title” cue. The cue starts with some exciting percussion music before transitioning into a wonderfully brassy march. While the little-known film that it came from has kept this theme from becoming very familiar, I think it is in the same league as Bernstein’s famous themes to The Magnificent Seven and The Great Escape.
The film is set during the early 20th century border skirmishes between Mexico and Texas and major parts of the score has a definite Mexican flavor to it, although mixed with some of Bernstein’s usual military-style action cues. The main theme is brought in periodically throughout the score, although Bernstein does use it somewhat sparingly. Acoustic guitar and trumpet are featured pretty prominently during much of the score. There is a particularly nice secondary theme that plays regularly in the score, usually on the acoustic guitar.
The score includes some Bernstein-composed source music, such as the cue “One Man Band” that is a fun tune played primarily on the acoustic guitar and harmonica, while the later “One Man Band II” and “One Man Band III” are other Mexican-style cues that bring in a larger range of instruments, particularly violin and trumpet. The last 25 minutes of the hour and 10 minute disc is all source music, mostly Bernstein’s arrangements of traditional street mariachi music, which is highly entertaining. The last couple tracks also include a belly dance and a fairly traditional, patriotic-sounding march.
(James Horner, 1995): 1995 was a pretty big year for James Horner. That year, he scored two highly-acclaimed films, both of which were front-runners at the Academy Awards. While Apollo 13 was the bigger hit at the box office, Braveheart was the Best Picture winner and both the film and score have retained an extremely loyal following, with the soundtrack album remaining one of the top sellers of the genre. Somewhat famously, Horner’s two scores apparently split the Academy’s vote for Best Original Score, resulting in the award going to Luis Bacalov’s Il Postino, instead. 
album that contained some more of Horner’s music as well as various source cues from the film. I’ve always felt that the first release was enough, though, and have never felt the need to pick up the second album.
(Jerry Goldsmith, 1975): In the 1960s and 1970s, Jerry Goldsmith was given many opportunities to score westerns, although his projects generally were less prominent projects than the assignments his contemporaries like Elmer Bernstein and Ennio Morricone tended to get. This Charles Bronson western was one of the latest ones that he worked on, coming out at a time when audience interest in the genre was definitely on the decline.
(Elmer Bernstein, 1969): This World War II adventure score by Elmer Bernstein was released by Film Score Monthly as a Silver Age Classics limited edition, paired on a single disc with Maurice Jarre’s score to the 1964 film The Train. Bernstein’s score only runs for slightly under 30 minutes on the CD, but the liner notes indicates that to be a complete presentation of the music that he wrote for the film.
(John Powell, 2008): Disney’s 2008 CGI animated feature was not a musical, thus the soundtrack album primarily features the orchestral score by composer John Powell, who has generally done some of his best work in animated features (including Shrek, the Ice Age sequels, Kung Fu Panda, and How to Train Your Dragon). This was his first score for Disney and it is well suited to the film.
(John Williams and Various artists, 1989): This film featured John Williams first of the three scores (preceding JFK and Nixon) that he composed for director Oliver Stone. Those scores were among the darkest and most somber that Williams composed. This means that they weren’t among the most accessible to listen to separately from the films, but the scores were exceptionally effective within the films. The Born on the Fourth of July score isn’t one that I return to very often, but it is a very impressive, serious composition that should be a part of any serious film music collection.
(Georges Delerue, 1983): Not too long after Intrada put out their CD release of The Black Stallion, they also put out a disc of Georges Delerue’s score to the film’s sequel. While this score only required a single CD release, it still contains the complete score as heard in the movie as well as the original 1983 album presentation for a total running time of around an hour and 17 minutes.
(Danny Elfman, 2003): While the film was definitely extremely quirky and off-beat, Big Fish is probably the least flamboyantly weird of Tim Burton’s films to date. The film’s story of an adult son recalling the tall tales that had been shared by his dying father is very character-driven drama, but in a format that still allows Burton to allow his very skewed view of the world to shine through. The variety of settings and circumstances of the recounted tales gave Danny Elfman a particularly rich set of opportunities and he delivers one of his more varied and complex scores.
(Jerry Goldsmith, 1992): Throughout his career, Jerry Goldsmith all too frequently was hired as the composer for bad movies that failed at the box-office. Basic Instinct was a rare case where he scored a bad movie that ended up being a big hit. Obviously, there are probably a lot of people that disagree with my assessment of the film, but I also expect that most people will agree that Goldsmith’s score was among the film’s biggest strengths.
(James Horner, 2001): This Oscar-winning drama was the fifth collaboration between composer James Horner and director Ron Howard. It was the most low-key and introspective of the films that the two have done together and Horner provided a suitably sensitive score, although one that will sound pretty familiar to fans of Horner’s work as it does use many of his favorite motifs.
(Richard Sherman & Robert Sherman, 1971): Disney reteamed a number of key members of the creative team behind Mary Poppins for Bedknobs and Broomsticks, another musical that mixed live action and animation. While not as successful either creatively or financially as the earlier film, it is still a film with many charms, including another winning song score by the Sherman Brothers.
(Alan Menken & Howard Ashman, 1991): Beauty and the Beast is my favorite of Disney’s animated films and on my short list of favorite movies in general. The film’s music is absolutely critical to its success. At the time, it was the closest that an animated film had come to duplicating the style of a modern Broadway musical and, thus, it was no big surprise when several years later an adaptation of the movie became Disney’s first Broadway show.
(1989, Danny Elfman): Although Danny Elfman had already done a handful of film scores (including his first two projects with Tim Burton), his score for Burton’s 1989 Batman film really was the one that established him as an important voice in film scoring. The score was so successful that Elfman has frequently been the first choice for other super-hero movies, to a degree that sometimes has come perilously close to type-casting.
(Danny Elfman, 1992): I’m well aware that my view is in the minority on this one, but I actually prefer both the film and score for Batman Returns to the more popular original. After the enormous success of the first film, both Tim Burton and Danny Elfman were given a considerable amount of free reign and the result was a much more quirky film and score.
(Victor Young, 1956): When I wrote up my comments about the Trevor Jones score to the 2004 remake, I noted that I didn’t have a copy of Victor Young’s score in my collection. Some quick research found that a deluxe soundtrack release of that score from Hit Parade Records was pretty readily available and I ordered a copy from Amazon.com. 
(Alan Silvestri, 2010): It came as something of a pleasant surprise that Alan Silvestri was chosen to score the new film adaptation of the well-known 1980s action series, which was definitely a guilty pleasure for many of my generation. The film seemed like a more likely project for someone from the Hans Zimmer factory or for a more song-driven soundtrack. 
(Hans Zimmer, 1991): I’m pretty sure that Backdraft was the first film in which I really noticed a Hans Zimmer score enough to purchase the soundtrack album. Of course, Zimmer has become one of the most successful working composers in subsequent years, but his distinctive style was something of a fresh discovery back in 1991.
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