Intrada Soundtrack Forum

December 3, 2002

Star Trek Nemesis
Composed and Conducted by Jerry Goldsmith
Varese Sarabande 302 066 412 2
Tracks: 14 Time = 48:31

It's turkey day. At my house this is a family affair. The kids do the veggies, mom and dad do the real food. Writing about movie music takes a backseat this week.

Between the first course and that final piece of pie I'm taking a quick look at Jerry Goldsmith's newest work.

STAR TREK NEMESIS is good music but it has hurdles to jump. Advance hype had me planning on prime seventies and eighties-type Goldsmith. Hair-raising action. Unbridled, breaking loose action. Stuff to put hair on you.

There is energy, more than the last several Goldsmith scores but it's not what I had expected. Or rather, it's not what I'd hoped for. I did get what I expected.

The music generates excitement but those incredible, propulsive rhythms and ferocity of decades gone by are just history now. That busy stuff, that frenzied Stravinsky-on-steroids stuff? Just part of our old collections, now. This is the recent stuff. Cleaned up, crisply designed, without the zigzag, without the clutter. We feel a pace but we're not running loose like we once did.

But he's still on top of it. For a moment during "The Mirror" you hear rhythm. Trombones, odd meters remind you Goldsmith wrote the most exciting action music in movie history.

Goldsmith works several familiar ideas into the score. His triplet motif from STAR TREK V plays a role, gets warm, melodic treatment on oboe during "My Right Arm". His original 1979 debut STAR TREK movie theme is here, too. Actually, a minor distraction in these TREK scores, and it may be a collaborative choice, are the formula end credits. The "TV fanfare theme - original movie main theme - new secondary theme - original movie main theme - same final coda" has been used in every Goldsmith feature, countless concert performances, theme collection recordings, whatnot. Familarity is one thing but I'd love something new, unexpected. Perhaps it just isn't in the cards.

That said, the new secondary melodies Goldsmith creates for each score always provides nice contrast. The one designed for STAR TREK NEMESIS is easily the most expressive. It sandwiches the familiar original theme sections of the end credits in rich, beautiful style.

Interestingly, Goldsmith introduces the melody not in warm guise but as an action theme during "Odds and Ends". Pretty crafty.

Electronic ideas, lean suspenseful things show up, too. Goldsmith continues to permeate his serious writing with amazingly simple knocks and beeps from his keyboards. Again, probably a collaborative decision. Movie makers seem to want pretty basic, pretty simple stuff. Can't interfere with those over-the-top sound effects, audiences might not understand there's a space laser battle in progress.

Varese Sarabande delivers a terrific sounding album. The variety of music is good, the generous playing time welcome.

Completing the package are brief but enthusiastic notes by Robert Townson and a plethora of color stills from the movie.

The voyages of STAR TREK seem endless. Whew! The show's flown from the small screen to the big screen, back to the small screen, back to the big screen. Throughout the journeys, a lot of composers have been in STAR TREK's flight path.

Jerry Goldsmith remains the pilot.

December 10, 2002

The Racers
Composed by Alex North Conducted by Lionel Newman
Masters Film Music SRS 2015
Tracks: 20 Total Time = 50:26

Running laps. Well, sort of. Actually, winding at high speed through the streets of Monte Carlo.

Kirk Douglas has a series of edgy roles following his dynamic turn as a ruthless boxer in CHAMPION (1949). THE BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL, THE BIG SKY, the knockout ACE IN THE HOLE (also known as THE BIG CARNIVAL), are great, gritty fifties stuff. His intense trumpet player on-the-way-up-then-down in YOUNG MAN WITH A HORN (1951) is a gem.

In 1955, 20th Century Fox used the ruthless side of Douglas for a great-looking widescreen take on the celebrated Monte Carlo motorcar racing circuit and called it THE RACERS.

Looks were everything.

Most of the movie focuses on Douglas romancing with ballet dancer Bella Darvi. I focus on what’s behind them. Lush scenery, great color. Douglas gets to show some edge but director Henry Hathaway lets too much kiss and melodrama interfere.

The world has yet to see a really great racing moving, anyway. Steve McQueen and LE MANS, Paul Newman and WINNING, James Garner and GRAND PRIX, Tom Cruise and DAYS OF THUNDER, Sylvester Stallone and DRIVEN. The stars are there, the drama isn’t. Maybe after Blake Edwards tore racing apart and smashed it to bits in THE GREAT RACE (1965) it just wasn’t supposed to be put back together.

Alex North was a relative newcomer to Hollywood in 1955 but his work was already incredibly diverse. It swung from the sexually-charged New Orleans of A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE to the Mexican rebellions of VIVA ZAPATA, from the lonely failures of DEATH OF A SALESMAN through the Napoleonic pomp of DESIREE.

North excelled in sultry jazz music. Besides A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE (1951) he broke important ground with THE LONG HOT SUMMER (1958) and THE SOUND AND THE FURY (1959). Even HOT SPELL (1958), obscure as it is, carries a treasure chest of riches.

So does THE RACERS.

Almost unique to this movie, North fashions his music in individual, wholly-contained pieces. It’s interesting that he either works with one central love theme or spends time with individual jazz tunes. Dramatic underscore shows up only during select moments. The jazzy ideas are seldom brazen, up-tempo. North prefers the sultry wails of woodwinds, whether they be traditional (sax) or decidedly not traditional (English horn). Woodwinds are a North trademark. So are strings. Actually, percussion and brass stand out. Keyboards… you get the idea.

Here’s a composer comfortable with anything, anytime, anywhere.

THE RACERS has a roaring main title, ripe with energy and inertia to burn. Though master elements show modest damage, North’s four-note fanfare for brass and wild melody for woodwinds and strings manages to cut through just fine. Ostensibly a brief overture in simple A-B-A form (fast theme, slower theme, return to fast theme), this cue presents material largely isolated from the rest of the score. A later cue (“Grand Prixâ€