TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE (1983) was one of those projects that was always rumored about but which took a while to come to fruition.  When it finally made it, the classic television series creator, Rod Serling, had since died.  The project was spearheded by Steven Spielberg, recovering after a disastrous flop (1941), and John Landis.  George Miller and Joe Dante filled out the rest of the director talent.  The film was marred early on by a Hollywood-policy changing disaster when Vic Morrow and two young children were killed in a horrible on-set helicopter crash whose court case lived on far past the premiere of the film itself.  Four stories were told with a bookend sequence featuring Dan Ackroyd rounding off the film.  Three of the stories were essentially episode remakes.  The film has many highlights including a standout paranoid performance by John Lithgow (revisiting a classic episode that originally starred William Shatner), and a heartwarming story of recaptured youth featuring Scatman Crothers. 

There is of course the music by Jerry Goldsmith at the height of his career.  Goldsmith was one of the original composers who provided music for the television series, though not these particular episodes.  It gave him a chance to show off various sides of his musical personality.  Unlike the hard-to-find reissue of the original LP on CD, this new Film Score Monthly presentation allows us to hear the score as intended.  The disc is presented first in film order with the final alternates for the album edits being provided as a concluding portion of the disc (making an almost 2-for-1 release). 

Goldsmith often programmed the “Overture” from this score in concert and recorded it as well.  It turns out that this is just the tip of the iceberg.  The most noticeable addition to disc is the music composed for “Time Out” (the story featuring the extremely racist Vic Morrow character with tables turned).  The eight or nine minutes of the score are fairly minimal cast in a sort of PLANET OF THE APES atonal style with piano, percussion, and synth serving as the aural components of the score.  “Kick the Can” features the composer writing in a more romantic Americana style with beautiful intimate music and heartwrenching melodic ideas.  It is the music most prominent in the “Overture” and it turns out that it was just the tip of much wonderful music.  “It’s a Good Life” finds the composer exploring the bizarre antics of a little boy who can “do things.”  The parallel cartoon atmosphere of the story finds music by Stalling leaping of the small screen and into the main score along with plenty of scares.  The album material appears to have expanded more of the cartoonish music than what appears in the score proper.  The music here is an apt companion to the maestro’s last score, LOONEY TUNES: BACK IN ACTION.  The other highlight of the disc is the music from “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet.”  Here, Goldsmith creates a wonderful ebb and flow to underscore the tension of a passenger who “sees something out there on the wing.”  The disjunct solo violin line, revisited by Goldsmith for GREMLINS (of which the theme is a very close cousin), helps to give the proper off-kilter sound needed.  It perfectly matches Lithgow’s performance without going over the top.

The sound of the score is unique in its recording of the synthesizers “live” with the regular orchestra which adds a different sonic dimension to the overall texture.  The clearer sound picture in FSM’s release allows us to appreciate the electronic layers here very well which shows Goldsmith’s perfection of integrating these sounds with orchestra so totally that they sound unbelievably full and natural in the texture.

Goldsmith’s song “Nights Are Forever”—heard on the jukebox during “Time Out”—is provided along with another song which appears to be making its CD debut, “Anesthesia” by Joseph Williams (John Williams’ son).  Jennifer Warnes performance features an arrangement by James Newton Howard.  The program notes and package are up to the regular standards and beyond for the label.  This is as close to a definitive package as one can hope for playing out to near 80 minutes.