June 22, 2018

  • Return to The Valley of Gwangi!

    The American composer Jerome Moross (1913-1983) wrote just over a dozen film scores in his career.  He is best known for his big Americana orchestral sound that garnered his only Oscar nomination for The Big Country (1958).  His first concert work, which he began writing at the age of 17, was premiered by none other than Bernard Herrmann.  Perhaps one of his finest works for the stage is undoubtedly 1954’s The Golden Apple.  In Hollywood, he most often worked as an arranger with composers such as Aaron Copland, Hugo Friedhofer, and Franz Waxman.  By the 1960s he was providing music for television westerns (Have Gun-Will Travel, Rawhide, and Wagon Train).  When Ray Harryhausen thus turned to his cowboy and dinosaur adventure, The Valley of Gwangi (1969), Moross’s approach would undoubtedly lean more to the former aspects of the story.  Harryhausen’s previous films bore the classic adventure work of Bernard Herrmann and Miklos Rozsa, but Moross’ style was not quite like either of those composers which likely caused some frustration.  Directed by James O’Connolly (Mistress Pamela, The Saint-TV) the story follows the capture of a T-Rex by a cowboy, played by James Franciscus (Mr. Novak, Beneath the Planet of the Apes).  His intent is to make the dinosaur an attraction at the circus.  Thus this unusual genre mash up takes off.

    “Landscape” opens the score with a series of chords and an explosive energy with stark punctuated chords.  These harmonies are themselves rather interesting as Moross makes subtle shifts within each subsequent chord.  This seven-note motif will then move us starkly into the “Main Title” with great brass and timpani interaction.  It is an important unifying component of the score adding a sense of adventure along the way.  A nice subsequent Western-like theme is stated on trumpets with a nice syncopated strings moving forward.  By nature, many of the cues provide just brief brushstrokes repeating the primary motif.  “Night in the Valley” has its roots firmly in Western Americana style with a nice thematic statement.  In “The Forbidden Valley”, the music has a decidedly darker quality with a fascinating little flute line that pops over the gradually gruffer style.  Moross also creates a delightful comedic moment in “The Eohippus Escapes.”  The secondary theme gets a chance to soar a bit more in “Pterodactyl”.  “The Ornithomimus” creates the first real “monster music” moment setting the stage for the appearance of “Gwangi”.  After a brief reprise of the gentle western valley music, we are treated to the extended sequence around the “Capture of Gwangi” becoming one of the great highlights of the score.  Of course this is matched with the exciting “Gwangi Escapes” with its repeated tropes helping to ratchet up the tension leading to dense chords.   All of this moves us toward the big sequence of “Gwangi at the Cathedral” with its infamous organ chord (which gets its own track in the supplements).  Through these final sequences, Moross’ score almost melds together those jungle action pictures with the classic western in a fascinating tapestry of sound.

    The Valley of the Gwangi score has been one of those wishlist scores for fans both of Moross and Roy Harryhausen films.  Moross’ music sometimes feels like a distant cousin of Barry Gray’s work on Gerry Anderson projects.  Intrada has put together a full presentation of the 40-minute primary score.  A host of alternate score takes including the original main title music is included.  A couple of gypsy source cues composed by Ronald Harker appear and an important “dissonant organ chord” is included.  Moross also wrote circus material to be used in those sequences and these stylistically different pieces are collected at the end of the disc as the “Breckenridge Wild West Show Music” (some of which appears briefly in “The Grand Finale Part II”).  The score’s overall sound does occasionally show its age but not obtrusively so.  Certainly a must-have release that one can only hope leads to more Moross.  The album can be purchased at their website:  www.intrada.com.