The very 1960, very movie-music Alex North score for "Spartacus"
Nov 02 '09
The Bottom Line A bronzey oldie?
Someone I used to know and whose taste and knowledge about music I respected considered Alex North the greatest of movie soundtrack composers (he especially doted on the one North wrote for "Cleopatra").
The soundtrack for the 1960 epic produced by and starring Kirk Douglas in the title role (directed by Anthony Mann, finished by Stanley Kubrick) is one of the fourteen North movie scores nominated for Oscars (there was also one for the song "Unchained" that I don't remember from "The Rose Tattoo" in 1955; his 1968 score for "Shoes of the Fisherman" won a Golden Globe; "Spartatcus" was his only other Golden Globe-nominated score, and there was an Emmy for "Rich Man, Poor Man"). Having begun playing Ernest Gold's "Exodus" theme at an impressionable age, I think Academy voters chose correctly. if not that, then Elmer Bernstein's "Magnificent Seven" or "Never on Sunday"...
The CD of what had been the analog original recording sounds very generic movie music to me, derived from the alternately bombastic and sickly romantic scores of Miklos Rosza. There are lush strings for the "love theme," a theme that is also the basis for "Homeward Bound" in a bombastic and brass-heavy variation. The end of "On to Vesuvius" manages to be even more bombastic.
There is soft and twinkling music for the prelude to battle, and more Orientalist twinkling bells (I don't think it's a xylophone, but maybe it is) for the infamous "Oysters and Snails" (in which the Roman officer played by Laurence Olivier obliquely sought to ascertain the sexual orientation of the slave played by Tony Curtis—a scene restored in the 1990s)… giving way to a sort of North African gigue.
Plus dramatic action-enhancing "movie action" at the outset, for the gladiator duel to the death (between Kirk Douglas and Woody Strode), and "Headed for Freedom" (with what sounds like a marimba included). Such upbeat, fast-tempoed music is muffled by the love theme being repeated and repeated (a penchant I also find tiresome even with themes I like more in movie scores by Elmer Bernstein and Maurice Jarre, but not in those by Ennio Morricone, Bernard Hermann, or Sergei Prokofiev who comprise the Movie Music Trinity).
Play the martial main title music and the soggy ('spozed to be dreamy or wistful) final track with a crescendo at the end for the moment of Spartacus's death in the arms of Jean Simmons, but no musical climax. and you've heard about 90% of the music from the movie—missing only some of the Orientalist kitsch. And will probably never have any wish to hear it again separated from the movie (which I've seen thrice). Indeed, it does not fit outstandingly well even where it was commissioned to go (into the movie, that is).
Tracks and Titles
Main Title 3:21
Love Theme 2:51
Gladiators Fight To The Death 2:23
Blue Shadows And Purple Hills 3:12
Homeward Bound: (A) On To The Sea (B) Beside The Pool 6:30
Hopeful Preparations, Vesuvius Camp. 2:00
Prelude To Battle: (A) Quiet Interlude (B) The Final Conflict 5:14
On To Vesuvius: (A) Forward, Gladiators (B) Forest Meeting 4:55
Oysters And Snails - Festival 3:26
Headed For Freedom 2:22
Goodbye. My Life, My Love. - End Title 4:17
Though padded, I wouldn't categorize the disc as lean in sound. Though the running time of 42 minutes isn't much, my review is aimed at lean-n-mean-VIII. The movie had an overture and could easily have been added to what was on the LP for CD release. (The Criterion DVD also includes some music that was not included in the movie.)
I've never heard Khachaturian's ballet suite "Spartacus, BTW.
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