Intrada Soundtrack Forum

INTRADA
Announces:



THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY
Composed and Conducted by JERRY GOLDSMITH
INTRADA MAF 7115


For the 1979 United Artists' film The Great Train Robbery, composer Jerry Goldsmith was offered a chance to score abundant action in a jolly, mischievous mode. In fact, Goldsmith’s score is instrumental in maintaining a playful, upbeat mood and providing an ornamental sophistication in keeping with the elegant expectations of the Victorian setting. His multiple instrumental lines aren’t just complex in and of themselves: Goldsmith also wrote graceful little introductions and concluding flourishes for each line, an approach which adds enormously to the score’s sense of character and its idiosyncratic feel. The Great Train Robbery was Goldsmith’s third collaboration with director Michael Crichton, after his rock-vibe score for Crichton’s telefilm Pursuit and his clanging, Bartok-flavored score for Coma.

At the time of the film's release, United Artists Records released a program that barely reached 28 minutes, and featured some absurdly long pauses between tracks. This same program (minus those pauses) was released on CD and paired with Goldsmith's earlier Wild Rovers. A subsequent, partially expanded release from Varese Sarabande premiered some striking omissions from the original LP program, including "Over the Wall," but also featured a different mix and omitted "Dead Willy," an aggressive action cue missing at the time. For this release, Intrada worked from the complete elements, restoring every note recorded for the score, including "Dead Willy," alternates, and source cues recorded by the composer and featuring a crisp, front-and-center sound. This is contained on the first disc. Disc two contains the original LP program as an added bonus from the original UA LP masters featuring Goldsmith's assembly.

In 1979, Crichton delivered something altogether different with The Great Train Robbery: an elegant and droll Victorian adventure with Sean Connery as an indomitable criminal genius, Donald Sutherland as a top-hatted British “screwsman” (a thief specializing in stealing and copying skeleton keys) and Lesley-Anne Down as a female criminal with a penchant for disguise—a trio embarked on history’s first-ever great train robbery.


INTRADA MAF 7115
Retail Price: $19.99
Available Now
For track listing and sound samples, please visit
http://store.intrada.com/s.nl/it.A/id.7372/.f