A review by JAMES SOUTHALL

One of the most disastrous films of all time (in every sense of the word), Inchon was made at staggering expense and told the tail of the allied invasion of the port of Inchon during the Korean war, led by General Douglas Macarthur, played by Laurence Olivier, who attracted an extraordinary amount of ridicule for his performance.  The movie was bankrolled by Sun Myung Moon, leader of the religious cult, and was many years in production, with Terence Young (who directed some of the decent Bond movies) have a nightmare time on set.  Originally John Williams was set to score the film, but for whatever reason (he probably saw sense) he was eventually to be replaced by Jerry Goldsmith, who had of course previously scored the biopic Macarthur about the same man (to great effect).

Apart from a strident and entertaining march for the General himself, the two scores have little in common.  Inchon is a very detailed and intricate score featuring a much-extended percussion section favouring wood blocks and boo bams (whatever they are).  It opens with the "Prologue" which features an extended set of variations on one of the score's main themes, a motif for the harbour of Inchon.  "The Bridge" is a powerful piece of action music, very strong and stirring stuff.  "The Apology" introduces the main love theme, which has a strong presence on the album but was eliminated almost entirely from the film for some reason, but it's moving stuff and so typical of Goldsmith's exceptional output of the time.  This is a score of many facets, and another of them is introduced in "The Church", which features a second love theme with a definite Korean twinge (though it is, of course, a distinctly Goldsmithian vision of Korea).

For such a silly film to receive a score of such depth and breadth is rather incredible, but no surprise from Goldsmith.  The march for Macarthur is just as good as the one in Macarthur itself (and gets a full-blown concert arrangement in the final track, though of course it has never been performed in concert, given the notoriety the film attracted).  Unfortunately, this album does have one really negative aspect that makes it far more difficult to enjoy than it otherwise would be - the sound.  Goldsmith recorded the score in Rome and the recording studio was not well-suited for a large orchestra, especially one augmented with so many additional percussionists, and as a result players had so sit very close to each other, some of them on boxes rather than chairs, and the resulting sound is incredibly pinched, far more than on any other soundtrack recording I've ever heard.  The liner notes go into detail about why the sound couldn't be improved any more (basically, there's only so much you can do if the recording in the first place was substandard) - but, alas, that doesn't make it any more pleasurable to listen to!  

Inchon is a fine score, marred only by the poor sonics, but even they can't detract from the level of detail and sheer craftsmanship that went into the composition of the score.  Excellent stuff, if you can find it.

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Tracks

1. Prologue (3:48)
2. Resignation (2:10)
3. The Children (:44)
4. The Bridge (3:30)
5. The Apology (2:36)
6. The Church (4:41)
7. The Mines (5:07)
8. The Landing (1:18)
9. The 38th Parallel (1:15)
10. Corpses (1:44)
11. Task Force (3:07)
12. Medley (2:13)
13. Inchon Harbour (1:12)
14. Love Theme (2:49)
15. The Lighthouse (3:13)
16. The Tanks (3:53)
17. Macarthur's Arrival (:50)
18. Lim's Death (3:12)
19. The Trucks (3:02)
20. Inchon (3:21)