{"id":1544,"date":"2010-11-18T03:08:22","date_gmt":"2010-11-18T08:08:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=1544"},"modified":"2010-12-20T22:15:19","modified_gmt":"2010-12-21T03:15:19","slug":"cd-poseidon-adventure-the-1972","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=1544","title":{"rendered":"CD: Poseidon Adventure, The (1972)"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Return to<\/strong>:\u00a0Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Soundtrack \u00a0Reviews<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>Rating: Excellent<\/p>\n

Label: La-La Land Records\/ Released: April 27, 2010<\/p>\n

Tracks & Album Length: 28 tracks \/ (60:39)<\/p>\n

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Special Notes: 20-page colour booklet with liner notes by Jeff Bond \/ Limited to 3000 copies<\/p>\n

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Composer: John Williams<\/p>\n

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Review:<\/p>\n

In 1972, John Williams scored the first of his three high-profile disaster films, two of which were for producer \/ disaster genre pioneer Irwin Alen.<\/p>\n

Williams\u2019 work with Allen actually went as far back as 1965 when he was hired to score the classic\u00a0Lost in Space <\/strong>series, as well as the themes for the similarly juvenile fantasy and sci-fi shows\u00a0The Time Tunnel<\/strong> (1966) and\u00a0Land of the Giants<\/strong> (1968).<\/p>\n

Allen recognized Williams had a gift for title themes as well as dramatic underscore that went to the essence of a film\u2019s characters and drama, and the composer was also one type who didn\u2019t spray-paint a film with a mass of cues. Williams knew when and how to move in and out of a scene and write around dialogue, emphasize striking visuals, and work around the genre\u2019s second-most vital component after visuals: sound effects.<\/p>\n

Without crashes and explosions, a film like\u00a0The Poseidon<\/strong> Adventure <\/strong>would lack impact, even though, as with every disaster film, it’s about a small group of ordinary people struggling to get from Point A to B, with all manor of bad crap getting in their way, and the most annoying members dying now and then.<\/p>\n

Poseidon<\/strong>, like Williams\u2019 other great score for Allen,\u00a0The Towering Inferno<\/strong> (1974), was based on a literary source, but the tale was ironed out to maximize the special effects and scope offered by a widescreen epic originally released in 70mm with 6-track sound.<\/p>\n

As popular as Williams\u2019 score was among genre fans, it took years before it received a legit CD release. A bootleg disc of mono tracks (plus the vocal song \u201cThe Morning After\u201d) appeared in the nineties under the Johnny Boy label, and then in 1998 Film Score Monthly brought out their own CD, which gathered surviving music from Williams\u2019\u00a0The Paper Chase<\/strong> (1973),\u00a0Conrack<\/strong> (1974), and\u00a0Poseidon<\/strong>; in all three cases, whatever music had survived over thirty years wasn\u2019t always in its original stereo form.<\/p>\n

Even\u00a0Poseidon<\/strong> on home video was never in true stereo, as the old laserdisc edition featured rechanneled stereo tracks to give the mix a bit depth. Fox\u2019 current DVD offers up a Dolby 5.1 mix, but the score on the FSM CD remained a patchwork of mono and stereo tracks, and one could argue the search for true stereo cues was a minor Holy Grail for film music preservationists.<\/p>\n

According to his liner notes for this new CD, Jeff Bond (who also co-wrote the notes for the 1998 disc) explains the stereo tracks were never lost, but their condition and flaws made it tough for FSM to create clean stereo mixes. With big leaps in technology, the elements could now be cleaned up in ProTools (something that will also benefit the film\u2019s inevitable Blu-ray release).<\/p>\n

For La-La Land\u2019s 2010 edition, music has been organized into a chronological presentation of the score (roughly 35 mins.), and various alternates and the film\u2019s source and vocal cues (25 mins. worth) make up the disc’s second half.<\/p>\n

Now in stereo, the nuances of Alexander Courage\u2019s orchestrations reveal the striking colours Williams created to evoke a fluid mass that will soon to threaten the integrity of the world’s largest ocean liner, the Poseidon. Rumbling bass undercurrents and waves of eddying string patterns set up the ocean\u2019s power, while brass and a reverberating metallic tone (not dissimilar to the \u2018blaster beam<\/a>\u2019 used by Jerry Goldsmith in\u00a0Star Trek<\/strong>) evoke the danger that besets the world\u2019s biggest ocean liner.<\/p>\n

The \u201cMain Title\u201d contains the film\u2019s primary theme which refers to the human struggle of the story\u2019s wandering survivors. The cue\u2019s opening bass and metallic imagery are replaced with a step-like rhythm that foreshadows the survivor\u2019s journey, as they climb up and around areas to get to the surface where there\u2019s light and air. Williams refers to that endpoint with a swelling of strings that match the tones of a chorus.<\/p>\n

More melodic and soothing music appears in \u201cRogo and Linda\u201d (a cue unused) and the treackly song \u201cThe Morning After,\u201d but the optimism in those cues is contrasted by various crises most of the main characters seem to be experiencing right from the film’s beginning: there\u2019s feuding Rogos; the priest who\u2019s about a foot away from tearing off his habit and getting hammered because of personal demons and big mouth; and the two arguing kids who eventually bond and set aside their differences once the ship goes topsy-turvy.<\/p>\n

Those whose lives seem ideal \u2013 the career of \u201cfree spirit\u201d singer Nonnie, her romance with a bandmate, and her affections for the ship\u2019s purser; Belle\u2019s devotion to her husband – are nearly destroyed by the massive wave that inverts the ships and sends passengers into lots of fragile, glassy surfaces.<\/p>\n

Poseidon<\/strong> was the first real meaty film where Williams could go experimental and weird using his extraordinary gift for orchestral composition. The dissonance in the opening title music is a mere droplet of the experimentation in subsequent cues. The snarling brass and metallic reverberations in \u201cThe Big Waver \/ The Aftermath\u201d give way to eerie chords, and whole tones lose any semblance of harmony, and become pliable, as if a large mass keeps exerting pressure.<\/p>\n

Williams then brings up a quiet triadic figure, then bass piano hits and eerie descending chords on woodwinds, foreshadowing a distant danger that\u2019s making a rapid advance to the ship. Part of the cue wasn\u2019t used in the film, and Allen\u2019s reliance on sound effects again illustrated Williams\u2019 correct instincts in scoring just key dramatic moments.<\/p>\n

\u201cRaising the Christmas Tree\u201d is the first cue as well as the first time the main theme (and that metallic tone) is recapped, and it plays after the wave has struck. The cue\u2019s placement also comes after a long period of silence; once the ship is inverted, we\u2019re subjected to the same sounds as the characters, as well as the sonic vacuum that exists in their underwater coffin. There’s also the sounds of chaos \u2013 bickering, screaming, crying \u2013 and producer Allen basically let emotional sounds ride the soundtrack before the music signaled the next stage of the story\u2019s progression.<\/p>\n

\u201cNonnie and Red \/ Up the Tree\u201d is comprised of the main theme’s midsection, but it lacks further development and closes with several unsustained chords which relate to the group’s murky, labyrinthine journey. That discontinuous approach, as well as the score’s often brief cues, is further goosed with Williams\u2019 use of dissonance and strange tones, of which the most striking (albeit annoying to the ear) is an electronic squeal that permeates \u201cDeath\u2019s Door \/ The Upturned Gallery.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another unique effect occurs in \u201cThrough the Galley,\u201d where the horror of fire and physical chaos is scored with pliable notes and sustained chords – an approach that\u2019s rather reminiscent of Alex North\u2019s writing (particularly the plastic notes in \u201cThe Fire Burns\u201d, a sequence where fire foreshadows the future of Caesar\u2019s son in 1963\u2019s\u00a0Cleopatra<\/strong>.)<\/p>\n

In \u201cSearch for the Engine Room,\u201d Williams captures some screen action and character confusion using a skittering piano over uneasy notes, and he frequently returns to direct quotes of the first bars of the \u201cMain Title,\u201d including the eddying string motifs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Morning After\u201d is also quoted in \u201cBarber Shoppe Scene\u201d and early into \u201cHold Your Breath\u201d; in the latter cue, Williams uses the theme in its most elemental form and creates a revolving 5-note pattern for the underwater swim that\u2019s fraught with danger and confusion. The use of high register notes and woodwinds also marks a rare moment of orchestral warmth, and foreshadows the group\u2019s nearing the escape route after hours of seemingly aimless wandering.<\/p>\n

Williams quotes the step-like portion of his journey theme \u2013 pretty much unheard since the group ascended the Christmas tree \u2013 in \u201cThe Red Wheel,\u201d as well as a full-blooded version in \u201cEnd Title (The Rescue).\u201d<\/p>\n

The \u201cEnd Title\u201d isn’t just the first full quotation of the film\u2019s “Main Title” but a lament for the lost lives trapped in the ship, and the sheer exhaustion of the survivors. Williams thickens the cue with high register notes, thunderous percussion, and that amalgam of brass which mimic the sound of a mournful chorus.<\/p>\n

Poseidon<\/strong> hits all the marks inherent to an Irwin Allen disaster flick, but Williams went far deeper in capturing human misery, the consequences of conflict, emotional scars, and the scope of puny banal lives rendered even more insignificant when the rage of an ocean has them slowly sinking into oblivion, with no help in sight.<\/p>\n

The very image of an upturned boat makes it a near impossible feat to rescue lives because all access points are under deep water. The score, by its construction, infers that impossibility of escape through its sparseness and general lack of warmth. Even the “Main Title” feels cosmetically heroic.<\/p>\n

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The bonus cuts on La-La Land\u2019s CD are a mix of source cues, alternate instrumental and vocal versions of \u201cThe Morning After\u201d (still an insipid tune, 40 years later).<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also two rare alternate versions of the \u201cMain Title\u201d cue, which are more abstract than his music for\u00a0Close Encounters of the Third Kind<\/strong> (1977), and\u00a0Images<\/strong>, which Williams composed the same year as\u00a0Poseidon<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The alternate “Main Title” is a head-scratcher as to how it would\u2019ve fit the film\u2019s opening titles, since both takes are a m\u00e9lange of orchestral effects that plunge the viewer into a state of utter discomfort. They\u2019re brilliantly conceived, and sound like mini-portraits of drowning in slow motion, as someone takes breaths of water and sinks into darkness while every physical nerve ending goes numb. (The first alternate closes with weird vocal tones, whereas the second alternate just fades out.)<\/p>\n

The alternate \u201cEnd Title\u201d seems to offer a different emphasis of brass and harder percussion, and its length is almost a minute shorter. The cue also contains some of the wow artifacts the CD producers had to fix, although the flaws are less piquant than what the liner notes suggest. The only noticeable differences are between the clean true stereo tracks (many of which were present on the FSM CD) and the damaged cues, whose fidelity was already poor; the only way to clean things up was to first ensure the orchestrations and performances came through clearly, and then focus on creating a sense of rudimentary stereo. The surviving film version of the \u201cEnd Title\u201d is a good example of where the elements were at their worst, but it\u2019s still preferable to the flat (albeit clean) mono safety copy that FSM had to settle for in 1998.<\/p>\n

Some of the \u2018pliable\u2019 sounds also make one ponder as to whether they may be residual effects from the damage, or were deliberate, and part of Courage\u2019s orchestrations, as in \u201cThe Barber Shoppe Scene.\u201d (Good illustrations of wow can be found in FSM\u2019s early Fox score CDs, where damaged cues were presented at the end of the CD, as was done with 9 mins. of affected material in\u00a0Prince Valiant<\/strong>. In that track, it sounds as though someone\u2019s pulling on a \u00bc\u201d reel to reel tape as its moving past the playback head.)<\/p>\n

If the wow effects were the primary flaws La-La Land had to fix, then\u00a0Poseidon<\/strong> is an example of how technology has advanced far enough to where some of the most messed up audio can be transformed into something\u00a0very<\/em> listenable (and one suspects some of the older FSM recordings might get some restoration treatment in the future).<\/p>\n

In any event, for fans of the composer and disaster films, this is a mandatory album to have, but don\u2019t get rid of the FSM CD, because it contains those selections from\u00a0Paper Chase<\/strong> and\u00a0Conrack<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Williams was ideal for the disaster genre, and while scoried the genre\u2019s pinnacles\u00a0 –\u00a0Poseidon<\/strong>,Towering Inferno<\/strong> \u2013 he also got out when it started to become a parody of itself, as was the case in the awful, bloated mess that is\u00a0Earthquake<\/strong> (1974).<\/p>\n

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\u00a9 2010 Mark R. Hasan<\/p>\n

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Related external links (MAIN SITE):<\/p>\n

DVD \/ Film: \u00a0Lost in Space, Year 1<\/a> <\/strong>(1965-1966) —\u00a0Prince Valiant<\/a><\/strong> (1954)<\/p>\n

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External References:<\/p>\n

IMDB <\/a>— Soundtrack Album<\/a> — Composer Filmography<\/a><\/p>\n

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Return to<\/strong>:\u00a0Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Soundtrack Reviews<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Return to:\u00a0Home \/\u00a0Soundtrack \u00a0Reviews . Rating: Excellent Label: La-La Land Records\/ Released: April 27, 2010 Tracks & Album Length: 28 tracks \/ (60:39) . Special Notes: 20-page colour booklet with liner notes by Jeff Bond \/ Limited to 3000 copies . Composer: John Williams . Review: In 1972, John Williams scored the first of his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[20],"tags":[149,148],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-oU","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1544"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1544"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1544\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1945,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1544\/revisions\/1945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}