Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold
Michael Linn
" An Adventure of a Lifetime Continues... "Written by Thomas Kiefner - Review of the limited release
What do you get when you mix the novelist H. Rider Haggard of She fame, Clinton, Goldsmith, Linn, Chamberlain, Stone, James Earl Jones, and Cassandra "Elvira" Peterson with the Cannon Group? You get a so-so film and a patchwork score to the Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold film. The real star of this show has to go to music editor Virginia Ellsworth who dealt with 137 music cues in the film. She worked on King Solomon Mines (music by Jerry Goldsmith), Avenging Force (music by George S. Clinton), original material from Michael Linn, and unnamed cues from other Cannon films. She also had to deal with an 80-piece orchestra, a 40-piece orchestra, and who knows what size ensemble. Put all of this together and make it sound like all original OST material and she likely should have been nominated for an Oscar. Liner notes writer Randall Larson called it a "sonic stew" and a "difficult one to analyze".
Michael primarily worked in Hollywood as an orchestrator and music editor thus his discography as a composer is rather thin with only two additional listings in the soundtrack collector database. Couple this with the fact that he died of cancer at the young age of 43 and he didn't start in Hollywood until he was 30 didn't give him a lot of opportunity to compose.
For this La-La Land release #1099 we get another editing job of 32+ minutes of the OST material written for the film by Michael Linn along with a couple of cues that contain the Goldsmith theme to King Solomon Mines. The primary theme from Michael first appears in "Don't Fool With Quatermain" and the melody is used several times throughout the release. It is a nice one, romantic and upbeat with a catchy melody played smoothly by the strings. While it is never really permitted to be fully developed you'll hear it enough times to recognize it as the theme to this movie.
Linn loves brass, especially trombone, and being a former trombone player I absolutely loved the bawdy trombone play alone, and with the trumpets and tuba in "Umslopogaas". The slide of the trombone comes in quite handy in "Worms", continues in "Love Scene", which is not your warm and fuzzy music at all but more of an exercise in tone and technique for trombones. "Jessie Fingered" is a fun comedic track with the Don't Fool with Quatermain theme and good brass harmony to back it up.
Overall I like the score. The theme along with the orchestration, especially the brass, is strong enough to give this a recommendation. Anyone who collects everything Goldsmith is going to want this as there are brief cues from King Solomon Mines included. If nothing else it will likely be the only score that Larson calls "sonic stew".
This release is limited to 1200 units.
Tracklisting
1. Train Delivery / Don't Fool With Quatermain * (1.48)
2. Quatermain Shows Off (1.53)
3. Quatermain Meets Swarmi / Dumont Dies (3.20)
4. The Ruse (2.53)
5. Jessie Fingered (2.07)
6. Umslopogaas (3.27)
7. Earthquake (2.57)
8. Quatermain Leaves Akawi (1.40)
9. Worms (1.12)
10. Love Scene (3.02)
11. Agon Wants Revenge (5.04)
12. Dumont's Gold City / Coda * (3.11)
* Contains theme from "King Solomon's Mines" composed by Jerry Goldsmith
Total Length: 32.34
Michael primarily worked in Hollywood as an orchestrator and music editor thus his discography as a composer is rather thin with only two additional listings in the soundtrack collector database. Couple this with the fact that he died of cancer at the young age of 43 and he didn't start in Hollywood until he was 30 didn't give him a lot of opportunity to compose.
For this La-La Land release #1099 we get another editing job of 32+ minutes of the OST material written for the film by Michael Linn along with a couple of cues that contain the Goldsmith theme to King Solomon Mines. The primary theme from Michael first appears in "Don't Fool With Quatermain" and the melody is used several times throughout the release. It is a nice one, romantic and upbeat with a catchy melody played smoothly by the strings. While it is never really permitted to be fully developed you'll hear it enough times to recognize it as the theme to this movie.
Linn loves brass, especially trombone, and being a former trombone player I absolutely loved the bawdy trombone play alone, and with the trumpets and tuba in "Umslopogaas". The slide of the trombone comes in quite handy in "Worms", continues in "Love Scene", which is not your warm and fuzzy music at all but more of an exercise in tone and technique for trombones. "Jessie Fingered" is a fun comedic track with the Don't Fool with Quatermain theme and good brass harmony to back it up.
Overall I like the score. The theme along with the orchestration, especially the brass, is strong enough to give this a recommendation. Anyone who collects everything Goldsmith is going to want this as there are brief cues from King Solomon Mines included. If nothing else it will likely be the only score that Larson calls "sonic stew".
This release is limited to 1200 units.
Tracklisting
1. Train Delivery / Don't Fool With Quatermain * (1.48)
2. Quatermain Shows Off (1.53)
3. Quatermain Meets Swarmi / Dumont Dies (3.20)
4. The Ruse (2.53)
5. Jessie Fingered (2.07)
6. Umslopogaas (3.27)
7. Earthquake (2.57)
8. Quatermain Leaves Akawi (1.40)
9. Worms (1.12)
10. Love Scene (3.02)
11. Agon Wants Revenge (5.04)
12. Dumont's Gold City / Coda * (3.11)
* Contains theme from "King Solomon's Mines" composed by Jerry Goldsmith
Total Length: 32.34