The Traveling Executioner (Limited Edition CD Soundtrack)

 

Sound: B     Music: B

 

 

For such a morbid-sounding title, Jerry Goldsmith’s score for Jack Smight’s offbeat film about a man (Stacy Keach) who loves an electric chair almost as much as a woman (Marianna Hill) is as off-kilter as the plot.  Warner has not issued The Traveling Executioner (1970) on any video format to date, nor had Turner and MGM/UA when they had the rights, so we will save any examination of it until they get around to a DVD, but this music should inspire new interest.

 

Part Western, part deconstructionist look at American in 1918 and 1970, this was one of Goldsmith’s chances to experiment with narrative music despite not using or needing electronic instrumentals.  The more you like and know Goldsmith’s work, the more entertaining this particular score gets.  It has range, even when staying within the sound and feel of a certain era.  You can appreciate how good this is if you do not know his music (and odds are next to impossible that you have never heard his work), and will appreciate the effort and ambition involved with scoring what seems like an unusually ambitious picture.

 

The PCM 2.0 stereo also sounds good, though the Panavision scope film likely was an optical monophonic theatrical release.  There is not any major damage of any kind to report, with the only thing holding back the sound is the simple age of the material.  There are no bonus tracks, and the music is assembled in chronological order.  The booklet, as are all those in the FSM label family of soundtracks from Film Score Monthly Magazine, is fact filled and is one of those cases where it may be the most comprehensive information available on the film to date.

 

The pressing has been limited to only 3,000 and can be ordered exclusively from the company at www.filmscoremonthly.com where the list of key movie music keeps growing and growing.  When the DVD comes out, interest for this one will jump.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo