Filmtracks Traffic Rank: #2,307
Written 8/16/24
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Buy it... if you have an intellectual curiosity for John Williams'
diverse but mostly understated character score that opened his
collaboration with Steven Spielberg.
Avoid it... if you expect this score to express a convincingly
dramatic heart despite having the harmonica and guitar solos to make
that happen.
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| Williams |
The Sugarland Express: (John Williams) Having
dropped out of college to pursue a film directing career, Steven
Spielberg had the story of The Sugarland Express in mind since
the very start. It took the success of his gripping 1971 television film
Duel before he finally convinced the studio system to allow him
to make The Sugarland Express, and he landed a fairly impressive
cast and crew based on his reputation as a dynamite director in the
making. The plot of the 1974 film is loosely based upon a real husband
and wife duo who defies the law in the process of leading police on an
extended chase through Texas so they can reunite with their child at a
foster home. The movie prides itself on its extended scenes of the
ever-lengthening convoy of police and civilian vehicles as news spreads
that this couple has taken an officer hostage and is forcing him to
drive. The police are, as was typical in the 1970's, conveyed as the
villains to a large degree, with the end of the film bittersweet as
necessary to stay true to the real-life inspiration. Spielberg's knack
for guiding the photography was on full display, and critics applauded
his techniques. Audiences didn't find much to like about the movie
despite the popular Goldie Hawn in the lead role, and the studio pulled
it from theatres after just a couple of weeks. More importantly for most
cinema enthusiasts, The Sugarland Express marked the first entry
in a long and extremely successful collaboration between the director
and composer John Williams. Spielberg had been a fan of Williams' work
upon hearing The Reivers the decade prior, and after his regular
collaborator at the time, Billy Goldenberg, was too swamped with work to
handle this assignment, Spielberg whimsically asked a producer if
Williams could be obtained. The composer sat down at a restaurant with
Spielberg thereafter and initially thought the director was a child, but
the two men immediately hit it off and the collaboration was born.
Spielberg first thought the score should utilize a large orchestra with
a grand Americana spirit in the Aaron Copland vein, but Williams quickly
schooled the young director in shifting the emphasis to one of more
intimate, bluesy character to address the two leads' familial plight.
The resulting score is not very significant in scope or melody, though
it does provide a decent balance of spirited, rural-appropriate
enthusiasm, a dash of wholesome Americana, and a handful of suspenseful
moments for the orchestra late in the narrative, including a grim finale
for the ensemble.
Williams kept his ensemble for
The Sugarland
Express to an economical 35 players, opting to record each section
and the various soloists separately to allow the latter to improvise.
Strings are present through much of the score, but woodwinds are
occasional and brass only appears in the closing action sequence and
some source cues. Percussion is highlighted by snare driving scenes and
timpani for the dread that arises late. The soloists offer the soul of
the score, led by the legendary Jean 'Toots' Thielemans on the
harmonica; his contributions later graced Williams'
Cinderella
Liberty and even, quite memorably, Christopher Young's
Hard
Rain decades later. Joining his stoic but pretty performances are
acoustic guitars, steel guitars, fender bass, and percussion specific to
that ensemble. The emphasis on the soloists allowed Williams to shift
seamlessly between source material and outright score, with a
considerable mingling of the two in the central portion of the work. The
flair they offer to the soundscape is dominant in the first half,
whereas the gravity of the situation begins to force the orchestra to
weigh down that attitude late. The only fully orchestral cue is The
Final Ride," which follows subdued ambient suspense and is akin to the
composer's disaster scores of the era. Thematically, the music is
anchored by a main theme for the leading couple, a playground for the
harmonica performances in the opening and closing title cues. In
between, Williams doesn't rely too heavily on this idea, however,
adapting it into "Trading Stamps," "Man and Wife," "Over the Next Hill,"
and, most notably, "The Final Ride." Year later, the maestro's concert
arrangement from this score didn't make explicit use of that exact
melody. Frequent in the middle sections of the work is his puffing,
clicking suspense rhythm. In "Sugarland Dance," "Out of Gas," and "Open
Highway," the composer allows the soloists to improvise through this
rhythmic tool and throws in some vocal exhaling effects that are
somewhat distracting. Like most of the ideas in the score, this one
shifts to prominent timpani, occupying most of "Pursuit" at the
forefront. Williams teases a separate militaristic motif for the police
in "Police Cars Move," but this snare-ripping motif isn't explicitly
developed elsewhere. Overall,
The Sugarland Express is a
proficient but not remarkable score, stylistically in tune with
Williams' early 1970's mode but not standing apart. It was never
released on album until 2024, when La-La Land Records offered its 40
minutes on a limited product in stereo. It includes the rambunctious
rejected cue, "The First Chase." In the end, Williams collectors will
find this score to be a worthy intellectual curiosity, but it lacks the
kind of dramatic heart to keep you coming back.
*** @Amazon.com: CD or
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Bias Check:
For John Williams reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.68
(in 91 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.54
(in 363,716 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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