f ever a soundtrack album was a celebration of Michael Crichton, then this is it. This double CD presents the scores from three of his early movies, two being based on his own works. Westworld (1973) was his directorial debut, and The Carey Treatment (1972), though directed by Blake Edwards (!), was based on Crichton's pseudonymous novel A Case of Need, written while he was still at Harvard. The other film—Coma (1978)—Crichton directed from his own screenplay, adapted from the novel by Robin Cook.
And remember, he had yet to do Andromeda Strain, much less Jurassic Park or ER. Not too shabby a catalog!
The Carey Treatment stars James Coburn, playing a California pathologist transplanted to Boston, where he becomes involved in a murder mystery. The score was written (and in part performed) by the young British composer Roy Budd, who was active until his untimely death at 46 in 1993. This one is typical of what the liner notes call his "mod symphonic" scores. He was still in his 20s for this one. His piano playing is very good indeed, and the cuts on which he lays out are the best and most interesting, being rather funky jazz pieces with his keyboard at the fore in a strong trio setting periodically backed by some light orchestral passages. The score's appearance here marks the debut of the complete soundtrack. It's got some good toe-tapping moments, thanks in part to an accomplished rhythm section of bass and drums, but isn't what most people would think of as a "thriller" soundtrack. There's even one cue, "Sex Photo," that has samba roots in its first half. Carey was regarded by contemporary critics as Edwards' return to his TV roots, and one can easily imagine the cues sounding pretty good in a living-room setting with Coburn stalking across the screen. Shades of Barney Miller and Taxi!
For Westworld, composer Fred Karlin presents a dynamic and varied score that combines a lot of country-inspired cues with others that smack of the Middle Ages—because part of the movie takes place in Medieval World. It's not a "big" score, but it delivers the goods. Karlin recorded much of the music, including all of the electronics and brass, in his home studio, a real first for the time. The opening cues are heavy on lounge music (aboard the hovercraft) and cowpoke clichés, complete with harmonica, fiddle, dobro, banjo and piano in typical gather-round-the-chuck-wagon style. It gets more intense as it goes, with some good menacing music handed to Yul Brynner's haywire robot gunslinger character, particularly a staccato piano figure.
Aural gold from Goldsmith
The plotline for Coma seems a bit clichéd now, but back in the day when it was released this was not the case. The jaded moviegoing public has seen far more sinister things since, so it might be hard to recall just how shocking the idea of illegal organ harvesting was a quarter-century ago. The lasting image from this flick is of the bodies suspended by wires in the "hanging room." Happily, the accompanying booklet goes into some detail about how this peculiar effect was accomplished.
Goldsmith wrote five other scores that year: Capricorn One, Damien: Omen II, The Boys from Brazil, The Swarm and Magic, all featuring strong action and suspense elements. Coma, however, sounds more like Bela Bartok, particularly the piano phrasing. Listen to the passage in "The Institute/No Interview," at the 20-second mark, then again at 1:32. The piano skitters along under the strings like something alive and noxious. It really raises the goosebumps.
Interestingly, Coma's main theme doesn't even appear until the 49-minute mark, though there has been some incidental music before that. "Stranger on the Street" is very short—only 53 seconds. It's an atonal melody orchestrated for "disturbing strings," as the CD's booklet puts it—Echoplexed autoharp and prepared piano (four of these), with the piano strings hand-plucked and backed by an orchestral passage. Other cues feature spotted percussion—making, for example, a very brief and effective appearance at the tail end of "Hot Wire." No brass is used in the score. "Toys in the Attic" is slightly reminiscent of some of the work Goldsmith would later do on Alien, with sumptuous yet ominous strings and abrupt rattling percussion.
Coma was previously released on both LP and CD, but this Film Scores Monthly disc features the complete, expanded soundtrack in newly remixed stereo.
A worthy addition to your collection, this disc comes with a booklet that is jam-packed with enough info and pictures to be almost worthy of an article in Cinefex. The folks at Film Score Monthly have done it again, and we should all be tickled pink. For aficionados, Goldsmith's Coma is the standout, but, jazz fan that I am, I got most excited about Roy Budd's chops in the trio setting on "Source: Alternate #1," one of the bonus tracks for Carey. Don't miss it!
— Al
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