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Red Sonja/Bloodline: (Ennio Morricone) It was with
great fortune that composer Basil Poledouris was able avoid an
assignment on Dino de Laurentiis'
Red Sonja in 1985, though
Arnold Schwarzenegger wasn't as fortunate. The actor was contractually
bound to appear in three
Conan films, but by 1985,
Schwarzenegger's career was headed elsewhere and the stunningly poor
quality of
Conan the Destroyer was enough of a deterrent for
anyone. Amazingly, director Richard Fleischer from the failed sequel was
brought back for a third installment of adventure from Robert E.
Howard's Hyborian Age, and to satisfy the reluctant Schwarzenegger, the
contract for another
Conan film was dissolved in return for the
Austrian appearing in a supporting role in
Red Sonja. While the
Red Sonja character never appeared in Howard's novels, she was a
spin-off character written by David C. Smith and Richard L. Tierney in
their six Red Sonja novels "based on Howard's Hyborian Age" in the early
1980's. In this film, she is represented by Swedish model Brigitte
Nielsen in her American film debut, long before her freakishly large
breast implants. Between her emotionless performance, Schwarzenegger's
bumbling attempts to be a romantic in the story, and production values
that were so bad that they included boom microphones in the picture,
Red Sonja turned out to be even worse in some regards than
Conan the Destroyer. The only highlights were the return of
actress Sandahl Bergman from
Conan the Barbarian, who plays the
evil lesbian Queen Gedren here, and an often overstated symphonic score
by Ennio Morricone. With the film shot in Italy, it's no surprise that
Morricone would be a convenient choice for this assignment, and you have
to give him credit for doing what he could, like Poledouris in many
regards, to compensate for the film's obvious flaws with a significantly
overblown score. Morricone retains some of the common melodic structures
that Poledouris proved for the Hyborian Age, though tackles the identity
of his interpretation with vastly different instrumentation in
areas.
Familiar to listeners of
Conan will be the
consistent use of prominent woodwinds, large symphonic blasts of noise,
layers of brass, and, most notably, the accentuated adult chorus.
Morricone handles brute force relatively well in
Red Sonja,
producing propulsive sections with bashing, deliberate statements of
theme over quicker timpani rhythms. His battle sequences for
Schwarzenegger's character are just as impressive as similar cues in
Conan the Barbarian, and they easily eclipse the often sparse and
tepid performances by the ensemble in
Conan the Destroyer. Where
Morricone sets off in a new direction is with his instrumental
representations for the Red Sonja character. Using, oddly enough, a
trumpet as the title instrument, Morricone offers a somewhat trite theme
to represent the entire film, and the high pitch of the trumpet along
with the lightly prancing rhythm under the theme doesn't really suit a
female warrior seeking revenge for being raped. Outside of this theme,
however, Morricone's other ideas for the film are lush and romantic, as
to be expected, and are generously repeated with great beauty
throughout. One such performance makes use of an electronic rhythm,
heard five minutes into the first suite of music on album, and oozes
with the "coolness" of the 1980's fantasy/adventure genre. On album,
Varèse Sarabande released
Red Sonja first on LP and then
as part of its original Club Title CDs in 1990. The CD suffered a few
major faults, however, even aside from the fact that the 1,000-copy run
(low even for the Club CDs) caused it to become a top collectible almost
immediately. The arrangement of the music for the LP existed in 17
minutes on "side 1" and 19 minutes on "side 2," and the CD simply takes
the music from each side of the LP and combines it into two lengthy
suites. This format fails to correct several unfortunate cue mixes that
plagued the second side of the LP. On CD, the second suite of music will
disappoint with its hasty edits. Also of note is poor sound quality on
the Club CD; some people prefer the commercial Varèse Sarabande
cassette release of
Red Sonja, with arguably better clarity.
Luckily, the Club CD's sound quality for the other Morricone score in
its double feature,
Bloodline, is significantly better.
A few years before
Red Sonja, Morricone composed
the score for
Bloodline, the only R-rated Audrey Hepburn film and
a project she was dissatisfied with because of its unnecessary subplot
involving snuff films and the subsequently gratuitous nudity it
involved. Hepburn is the sole heir to a pharmaceutical company after her
father is assassinated, and her life is the only thing separating the
board members of the company from a piece of the wealth. The snuff film
subplot weaves in and out of several attempts on her life, and while the
film's direction by Terence Young lacked cohesion, the ensemble's star
power led it to moderate success. Signing on for the ride is Morricone,
whose thriller score is sophisticated for the era, exhibiting many
common characteristics of urban mystery and thriller scores of the
1970's. His instrumentation is extremely broad, ranging from a decent
orchestral ensemble to modern light rock elements and occasional soft
choral use. Cues such as "Almost Perfect Indiscretion" and "Dinner at
Maxims" present an almost Georges Delerue-inspired light jazz
atmosphere, while the murder investigation cues turn 180 degrees to
minimalistic brooding of strings and piano crashes. The highlights of
the score are the title theme for Hepburn's character herself, appearing
three times on album, including the opening and closing titles. A lonely
female voice performs over a lofty string theme that elegantly and
romantically sways with the spirit of Elmer Bernstein's softer Silver
Age classics (the voice even sounds like Bernstein's trademark use of
the ondes martenot). The eleven cues from
Bloodline are
rearranged from the LP release for inclusion on this Club CD, and while
both composed by Morricone,
Bloodline and
Red Sonja really
have nothing in common and should be appreciated separately.
Red
Sonja in particular is overdue for an overhaul on album from source
tapes. The Club CD has disappeared from the market, fetching in the
hundreds of dollars at the peak of rare CDs in the late 1990's.
Identical bootlegs have popped up, but include no new material and
arguably worse sound quality. Morricone fans will delight in this rare
gem, though, for it offers a small piece of his vast and usually
high-quality production from the early 1980's era.
Red Sonja: ****
Bloodline: ***
Album: ***
| Bias Check: | For Ennio Morricone reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating
is 3.17 (in 8 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.46
(in 7,497 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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The insert includes no extra information about the score or film.
