BABY: SECRET OF THE LOST LEGEND
Composed and Conducted by JERRY GOLDSMITH
INTRADA Special Collection Volume 62

Intrada presents one of Jerry Goldsmith's last unreleased scores from the 1980s, scored during one of his many career high points, and marking the first Walt Disney album Intrada has released since the earlier releases of Night Crossing, Honey I Blew up the Kids, and Homeward Bound some years ago. The 1985 Touchstone film, Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend was the first of many impressive scores delivered by Goldsmith that year, a year which included Rambo: First Blood Part 2, Explorers, and King Solomon's Mines. Of all these, it's most interesting to note that the break-loose, thundering action music in Baby most resembles the action music in Rambo, where Goldsmith chose to focus on his aggressive action style for the relentless chase sequences. Baby was a particularly challenging assignment for Goldsmith. Coming 8 years before the CGI revolution and Jurassic Park, Goldsmith needed to come up not only with an exciting dinosaur theme, but be the emotion and character of the somewhat inexpressive rubber baby dinosaur character and endear it to the audience. He also had to express the familial instincts of the two adult dinosaurs, their anger and anguish as they confront the dinosaur hunters, and the baby dinosaur's developing bond with the human couple (played by William Katt and Sean Young). But wait, there's more. Goldsmith also had to characterize the Sunufu tribesman, flesh out the atmosphere of the African location photography, and provide the driving rhythms that would propel a number of elaborate action scenes in the film. The result: Goldsmith delivers a score that compares favorably to masterpieces like Legend and Rambo 2, in a way creating a satisfying synthesis between the fanciful, exotic fantasy of the former and the hard-charging, relentless action of the latter.

The film follows the story of a young paleontologist (Sean Young) on an expedition to Central Africa, where she eventually runs afoul of the expedition's leader (Patrick McGoohan), who is on the trail of living dinosaurs rumored to be roaming deep in the African jungle. When the paleontologist and her husband chase a dinosaur clue, they do discover a family of sauropods. A band of rogue military men are not far behind, however, and soon the father is killed, the mother is captured, and the baby escapes with the paleontologist and her husband and begin an exciting race to freedom.

Intrada's premiere release of the complete score to Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend is limited to 3000 units, and it is with our great pleasure to make this top sounding recording available at last.
http://www.moviemusic.com/soundtrack/baby1985

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Originally posted by BigT1981:
I've heard a few cues of this score before. It's one I'll be skipping on. Yes I know it's Goldsmith's but with most of it being synth it just doesn't take me in like a regular Goldsmith score would...

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Everyone who has ordered through MM is safe, right Peter? Are you nearing your end of supply too?

This has to be a record...

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Originally posted by franz_conrad:
I've bought some pretty obscure stuff on this limited edition bandwagon. But how can I justify buying this score when I don't have arguably more impressive Goldsmith scores like Bandolero, Chinatown, Cassandra Crossing, The Night Crossing, Bad Girls, The Chairman, Poltergeist, Rambo III, Damian, Flim-Flam Man, Stagecoach, Hour of the Gun (I've heard it, but don't have it), Rio Lobo, Ghost and the Darkness...

Truth is I can't, and won't this time. Hearing BABY described as the 'mid-80s equivalent of CHAIN REACTION' really flattened chances I would get it.

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If you based your decision on that then you made a grave mistake. Whoever said it is the equivalent of Chain Reaction is sadly mistaken.

If people were saying BABY was the equal of LEGEND or UNDER FIRE, or that is showed off a totally unique side of Goldsmith, or if it was one of his 70s scores, I would have been in there like a flash. But I've learnt that when it comes to Goldsmith, there are some periods when it's best not to buy without knowing what you're getting. And I can't say the 7 minute suite on Silva's Goldsmith album ever gripped me to search for more.

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Originally posted by tjguitar:
why dont you have rambo III?

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But dismissing Legend because of the vocals is almost akin to the people who trash Morricone's Mission to Mars because of that one organ cue. One cue! Talk about grasping. Of course Legend features vocals on more than one cue, but I don't think they're bad enough to brush the whole score off.