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Music Conducted By
Jerry Goldsmith
Orchestrations By
Arthur Morton
Recorded By
-
Performed By
The Hollywood
Studio Symphony
Album Produced By
-
Label
Kritzerland KR
20025-4
Previous Release(s)
La-La Land Records
LLLCD 1044
Pony Boy
PBCD 1002
POO LP101 LP
Year Of CD/Film Release
2013/1976
Running Time
49:43
Availability
Limited Edition
(1000)
Cues
&
Timings
1. Breakheart Pass – Main Title
2. Free Ride/Hot Stove
3. Medical Supplies
4. The Trestle
5. On the Move/Runaway
6. No Word Yet
7. Night Watch/Help Yourself
8. Who Are You?
9. The Casket/Box Car Fight
10. Make Up Your Mind/Leaving the Fort
11. A New Friend
12. Here They Come Part I
13. Here They Come Part II
14. Raiding Party
15. No Entry
16. Last Battle
17. Reunited/Breakheart Pass – End Credits
BONUS TRACKS
18. Here They Come (film version)
19. Four Styles
20. End Credits (alternate mix)
Soundtrack
Ratings
Disappointing
Functional
Average
Good
Excellent
Outstanding
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Breakheart Pass
Jerry Goldsmith's third score
for director Tom Gries was the railroad western adventure Breakheart
Pass written by Alistair Mclean. It remains one of the composer's
more interesting assignments for the western genre. Essentially
for being more of a murder/mystery set aboard a wild west steam
train rather than the usual Cowboys and Indians storyline.
Though of course they do appear.
Goldsmith begins with an exhilarating Main Title, with guitar
and maracas for the locomotion of the engine, while woodwinds,
piano and trumpet complete the picture of a wild west train steaming
across a hostile wilderness. From here on in though this score
is essentially confined to the interior of the train, as Charles
Bronson's Secret Service Agent attempts to discover a conspiracy
to sell arms to a vicious band of outlaws, with the exchange
taking place at Breakheart Pass. Throughout these sequences
Goldsmith provides some extremely claustrophobic and unsettling
scoring for the espionage, murders and confrontations with very
avant-garde writing for strings, castanets, anvil and a plethora
of distorted, stabbing and throbbing electronics. The highlight
during these cues though is the 7 minutes of The The Casket
/ Box Car Fight,
with Goldsmith providing confined gritty suspense moves showcasing
brooding strings, crackling brass and crisp percussion.
Though essentially a violent thriller, Goldsmith does get a chance
to show off his triumphant theme in short sharp bursts for most
of the exterior shots of the train trundling through the mountains
and the action finale as the bad guys are thwarted. While a melancholy
variation of the main theme provides a nice contrast for Bronson's
lonely agent, John Deakin, with a further variant for a possible
love affair with the story's only female character; Marcia Scoville.
The Deakin theme returns for the aftermath with an unusually
haunting final cue which sees the bad guys dead or in custody,
but Deakin standing alone in the snow as the screen freezes and
draws in the rousing end credit and elaborate coda.
The Breakheart Pass soundtrack had a strange past.
We had a Japanese
boot LP on the Poo label, with monophonic sound and about 27
minutes of score, with one track repeated. For most Goldsmith fans
this disc was a prized possession in their collections. However,
that was until an impressive CD appeared in the early 90's with the complete
score, though still in mono. Although labelled a promotional
release with basic artwork, this disc is still classed as a boot, though some believe
it was actually pressed by an 'official source'. Then we
had the first official release of this brooding but exciting western score, thanks to La-La Land.
This sold out and we had a short 1000 copy re-issue with one missing cue and a
cue created editorially by the film makers, which some thought was an actual
missing cue from the score. Sadly the source is still mono but it is a slight improvement on the previous CD
in terms of less hiss and considering it is mono is quite dynamic. Play it with
a Surround Sound Processor and the fidelity is improved further. |
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