This is another entry in my Complete Score Breakdown Series, focusing on the complete scores to films that have had abbreviated previous releases or have gone unreleased.
Today we are looking at U.S. Marshals (1998) by Jerry Goldsmith.
If you’ve heard Jerry Goldsmith’s score to 1998’s film U.S. Marshals, you pretty much either like it or you don’t. It’s a pretty distinct style: late 90’s Goldsmith action/thriller, comparable to Along Came a Spider, Executive Decision, Chain Reaction, and Hollow Man. I personally enjoy these types of scores very much. They aren’t as distinctive as Air Force One, but they have a familiar, comfortable, enjoyable pattern that I really dig, particularly because I love Goldsmith suspense thriller scores with an abundance of electronics, a smattering of furious action content, and the thematic material that Goldsmith always manages to work in. I particularly enjoy the higher-pitched electronic xylophone-type sound that plays heavily throughout U.S. Marshals which was also used prominently in Goldsmith's Star Trek: First Contact.
If you’ve heard U.S. Marshals, you probably know whether an expansion is for you or not. If you like the current 30min 17sec Varese release, you’d most likely enjoy the 35 minutes of unreleased score – I sure as hell would! The complete score as heard in the film runs 66min 10sec, which I think unquestionably warrants an expansion from Varese Sarabande one of these days. Admittedly, a lot of the unreleased cues in the score are quite short, so some creative combinations of cues is probably in order to make for a good CD listening experience.
Highlights from the unreleased material include the brief and thrilling cue I call “Emergency Landing” that scores the prisoners’ 747 crash landing on a rural highway and the tense “Surveillance Footage” as the Marshals piece together what happened while watching U.N. security footage. Most of all, following a 2-minute unreleased graveyard shootout cue and another 2 ½ minutes of more shootout music (released on CD), a huge segment of action scoring went unreleased, representing the scenes from when Royce and Gerard chase Sheridan into the Lorali Building all the way to Sheridan’s escape atop a moving train, three cues totaling nearly 7 minutes of excellent action/suspense music.
CURRENT CD RELEASE RUNTIME: 30min 17sec COMPLETE SCORE RUNTIME: 66min 10sec UNRELEASED SCORE RUNTIME: 35min 53sec
Complete Score Cue Titles and Cue Times (unreleased cues named by me for the sake of identification):
1. Opening (1:33) 2. Nuggets & Bullets (0:45) – (edited from CD track runtime) 3. Boarding the Plane (0:51) 4. Bathroom Break (0:45) 5. Attempted Hit (1:50) 6. Emergency Landing (1:18) 7. Sinking Plane (4:22) 8. Fugitive (0:40) 9. The Investigation (1:28) 10. Heading for the Swamp (2:40) 11. Swamp Search (5:30) – (edited from CD track runtime) 12. Sheridan and Marie (1:28) 13. Sheridan in Chicago (0:30) 14. Apartment Rental (1:29) 15. Windy City Gym (0:45) 16. Watching Marie (1:37) 17. Surveillance Footage (2:43) 18. Eyes on the City (2:14) 19. Identifying Chen (0:28) 20. Airport Locker (1:55) 21. Dressing Room (0:57) 22. Following Chen (6:00) 23. Cab Leaves Cemetery (1:22) 24. Sheridan in Chapel (1:04) 25. Graveyard Shootout (1:58) 26. The Front Gate (2:30) 27. Into the Building (2:08) 28. Newman Killed (3:16) 29. Train Escape (1:16) 30. The Passport (1:34) 31. Tetralezine (0:33) 32. Lone Man (0:55) 33. The Freighter (0:45) 34. Chasing Sheridan (1:59) 35. Sheridan Shot (0:30) 36. The Gun (0:20) 37. Royce Discovered (1:21) 38. Free to Go (2:35)
Current CD Release Track Titles and Track Times:
1. Nuggets & Bullets (1:52) 2. Sinking Plane (4:25) 3. Heading for the Swamp (2:31) 4. Swamp Search (6:06) 5. Eyes on the City (2:22) 6. Airport Locker (1:58) 7. Following Chen (6:00) 8. The Front Gate (2:30) 9. Free to Go (2:38)
I remember around the time this came out it got seriously dumped on by the film score community, ushering in a bad reputation that lasts until this day. That usually hasn't stopped me from listening to a score but somehow I never got around to this one. Sometime last year I caught some of "U.S. Marshalls" on TV and I was seriously impressed by the scoring/spotting, which was excellent. I'd have to listen to it in its entirety to say whether the music itself is great or not (or if it plays well by itself), but in terms of the actual scoring it's far better than the reputation that precedes it.
I've never cared much for this score in its current album form but I wonder if a complete release might change my opinion on it. Same goes for Chain Reaction.
I remember around the time this came out it got seriously dumped on by the film score community, ushering in a bad reputation that lasts until this day. That usually hasn't stopped me from listening to a score but somehow I never got around to this one. Sometime last year I caught some of "U.S. Marshalls" on TV and I was seriously impressed by the scoring/spotting, which was excellent. I'd have to listen to it in its entirety to say whether the music itself is great or not (or if it plays well by itself), but in terms of the actual scoring it's far better than the reputation that precedes it.
Thanks for your thoughts, Dylan. I agree with your thoughts, the score is unjustly maligned, and the spotting is impressive. Lots of short cues, which works well in the film spotting-wise. Goldsmith (and of course others had input) always had a gift at knowing when and where to score. I hope you'll check out more of the score.
I loved the CD the minute I put it in the first time. Always had a soft spot for Goldsmith's thriller/action scores, and thought this was the best of the bunch around this time. (More than Air Force One for example, which I always felt was just too on the nose - not so much "Harrison Ford is the President of the United States" ... as "HARRISON FORD IS THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES!!!!!")
This was when I would buy all of Goldsmith's albums but never see the movies on first run (my daughter was born around this time), so it was a nice surprise when I actually enjoyed the movie when I finally saw it on cable. Never understood why people who love Goldsmith in action mode dissed this score, same with Deep Rising and Chain Reaction. I too would love an expansion of this and Chain Reaction - great writing in both, and substantial music not yet released.
DeputyRiley, I really appreciate you doing these. As a Goldsmith completist I especially appreciate whenever you do one of his, as it can be potentially used to make a case to Varese that they need to expand specific titles of his.
If I may request you do a non-Goldsmith Varese perpetuity title, I highly recommend Cliff Eidelman's Christopher Columbus: The Discovery. It's his longest score and his most complex (his magnum opus, really). There is a lot of GREAT music and development of thematic material in the full score which is left off of the album. I think you'd find it very rewarding and since I'm married and in school and therefore don't have the time to do it myself, it would be really neat to see just how many cues (and how much time-wise) is missing.
DeputyRiley, I really appreciate you doing these. As a Goldsmith completist I especially appreciate whenever you do one of his, as it can be potentially used to make a case to Varese that they need to expand specific titles of his.
If I may request you do a non-Goldsmith Varese perpetuity title, I highly recommend Cliff Eidelman's Christopher Columbus: The Discovery. It's his longest score and his most complex (his magnum opus, really). There is a lot of GREAT music and development of thematic material in the full score which is left off of the album. I think you'd find it very rewarding and since I'm married and in school and therefore don't have the time to do it myself, it would be really neat to see just how many cues (and how much time-wise) is missing.
Yavar
Yavar,
You are very welcome for the Breakdowns, it is my pleasure. You will be pleased to know that I have more Goldsmith scores in the pipeline. I'm not sure if my CSBs will ever make it to Varese eyes and ears, but it's certainly in the back of my mind that in doing these Breakdowns hopefully it will call to attention the amount of missing music and the interest in having it. I would be more than happy to forward any of my CSBs to Varese if I thought they'd be interested or I thought it would help.
As far as Eidelman's Christopher Columbus: The Discovery, I may get to it one day, but unfortunately I don't think I'll be able to get to it anytime soon. I have never seen the film nor heard a note of the score but I believe you that it is a worthwhile endeavor, I just don't really tackle CSBs of scores/movies that I'm not familiar with. Since they take time to do, I have to be picky about what I work on and I have to have a specific, vested interest in scores I look at, usually by my favorite composers. That's not to say I would never make an exception, but as my life is very busy in general right now, I am trying to stick to those guidelines I've set for myself to try to continue doing them on a regular schedule. Moreover, I've already got about 8 scores/movies planned for up next which will take up some time (including some Goldsmith) but if I can ever try to work it in I will do my best. On that note I do hope for your sake that Eidelman's score gets the Deluxe treatment sometime soon and I would definitely check it out upon your recommendation.
“Take it All” might be the scene in the cigar shop or when he rents the furnished apartment.
I absolutely love the unreleased music from the building search leading up to the train jump. The build-up as newman runs through the halls and finds Downey up to no good - excellent stuff. The same theme returns for the final fist fight between Jones and Snipes on the boat.
There could potentially be alternates for the Newman death scene as they cut it different ways for test audiences. One version did not reveal that it was Downey who shot Newman.
