In the previous installment
of Mining for Goldsmith I took a look
at film composer Jerry Goldsmith’s work on films about conspiracy and
espionage. It was a fruitful genre for him all the way up to the 1990s. But
this time I wanted to look at a genre that Goldsmith is very famous for:
science fiction. The man provided scores to some real classics like Planet of the Apes and Star Trek: The Motion Picture. But he
also provided scores for science fiction films that are less well known and some
are quite frankly not that good. But Goldsmith always went that extra step and
provided a solid (and sometimes a stellar) score for these.
Here a few of my favorites
from this forgotten set of films:
Seconds (1966)
Damnation Alley (1977)
Runaway
(1984)
Wow, I haven't thought about "Seconds" in decades though it is an interesting film. "Damnation Alley," based on the Roger Zelazny book, is simply cheesy scifi fun; since it doesn't try to be anything else, it works. "Runaway" didn't do much for me -- the score might be the best thing about it.
ReplyDeleteI'm really intrigued to see "Seconds". The description of it sounds like a pretty unique film and some of the clips I've seen were visually impressive. The music is unnerving for sure. I have't seen "Runaway" in years, and I remember very little about it. But I love the 80s synth music.
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