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The Last Hard Men And Some Provocative Questions About Tracking

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Author	Topic: The Last Hard Men And Some Provocative Questions About Tracking

Graham Watt Oscar® Winner	I was watching The Last Hard Men on TV last night, and was struck by the fact that there didn't seem to be any original score. I noticed bits culled from Goldsmith's other westerns like 100 Rifles and Stagecoach. My questions are: A- Were there other scores used on the soundtrack? B- How did this situation come about? C- (Take a deep breath, because this is the provocative bit): The music seemed to fit really well. Bearing in mind that it was the work of a music editor, do we really need composers any more? The original Star Trek series worked phenominally with scores largely tracked from previous episodes, as did the old Universal and Columbia films. If we erudite people didn't know the true story behind The Last Hard Men, would we be be talking about how Goldsmith had obviously pondered over how exactly to approach this film? I shall now duck for cover.
posted 07-01-2000 08:01 AM PT (US)

John C Winfrey Oscar® Winner	Graham, don't know all the details on it, but you are right there are chunks of those two in there and also some of Rio Conchos too. The two I noticed the most were 100 Rifles and Rio Conchos. Reminds me of Culpepper Cattle Company and Kingdom of the Spiders. In CCC there is a slower version of FlimFlam Man music in the Main Title. In Kingdom of Spiders it is tracked with the Back There music from Twilight Zone. Best, John.
posted 07-01-2000 10:30 AM PT (US)

H Rocco Oscar® Winner	Leonard Rosenman wrote the original score for THE LAST HARD MEN, and it was thrown out. As Goldsmith later observed, "Fox owned all this music [his own] anyway, so they just rerecorded it." I've never seen the film nor heard the tracks, so I can't confirm if it was actually rerecorded. (I can't believe they'd go to that much trouble -- it would have cost as much just to hire Goldsmith to do an ORIGINAl score -- probably Goldsmith misspoke.) Supposedly all the music was taken from 100 RIFLES and STAGECOACH; there might be RIO CONCHOS in there as well, I couldn't say.
posted 07-01-2000 01:43 PM PT (US)

John C Winfrey Oscar® Winner	To expand a little, I remember parts of the Bandit Ho cue in there and some of the background scoring from 100 Rifles. It sounded like it was right off the old tapes to me. I have seen it twice in the last 25 years. When it first came out and again in 1986. I have tapes of some of the cues from the film too. Best, John.
posted 07-01-2000 02:40 PM PT (US)

joan hue Oscar® Winner	Hey, don't duck for cover Graham. You raise an interesting point under letter C. "Do we really need composers anymore?" I think we do, of course. I wouldn't want to listen to the same scores over and over and see new films temped by old scores. However, sometimes certain scores are SO awful or so incompetent when placed with the film's visuals, an old scored temped into it may be a better fit. So it depends. Overall, I prefer to to have film composition continue to evolve. NP Soft Cousins over..time for Supergirl.
posted 07-01-2000 07:58 PM PT (US)

H Rocco Oscar® Winner	Occurred to me I should clarify a few things: THE CULPEPPER CATTLE COMPANY, which I've never seen, did reuse much of Goldsmith's FLIM-FLAM MAN. The rest of the (original) score was composed by Tom Scott, who also did CONQUEST OF THE PLANET OF THE APES the same year (and which also used Goldsmith's scarecrow music from the original PLANET as its finale). KINGDOM OF THE SPIDERS used music from Goldsmith's TWILIGHT ZONE episode "The Invaders" as well as "Back There." The SAME director, John Cardos, used the SAME cues in his subsequent THE DARK (1979). "The Invaders" was also much heard throughout ALLIGATOR (1980) as well. NP: SUPERMAN (expanded OST) (Mark Hatfield said I should put aside two hours just to listen to this one all the way through, but I haven't done it yet; I will, though)
posted 07-02-2000 12:24 AM PT (US)

John C Winfrey Oscar® Winner	HR, as a matter of fact I have never watched more than five mins of CCC myself. When I was theatre officer in Germany long ago I went in to sign the paperwork at the theatre and sat down and watched the first five mins. I noticed Flim Flam Man in the opening credits in a slower version and somewhat disguised. But I recognized it immediately. On Kingdom of Spiders, I only saw a few mins at the end of it once and heard Back There in the scene. On Alligator I have seen parts of this several times. What a lousy film. I like Robert Forster though, good actor. Invaders is a great score for that limited dialog TW Zone episode. The music really carries that one. Best, John.
posted 07-02-2000 02:56 PM PT (US)

Howard L Oscar® Winner	You guys beat me with the TZ references. This sort of thing drove Herrmann bug-eyed; he ranted and raved that the original composers should be credited and paid for this sort off thing. He was right.
posted 07-02-2000 03:16 PM PT (US)

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