H. Rider Haggard’s genre-spawning adventure novel King Solomon’s Mines was published in 1885 and sees Allan Quartermain lead an expedition through Africa in the search for the missing brother of an aristocrat. It has been adapted into movies numerous times (most popularly in 1950 in a version starring Deborah Kerr and Stewart Granger) and to mark the 100th anniversary of the novel – not to mention the fourth anniversary of Raiders of the Lost Ark – Cannon Films produced their own version with Richard Chamberlain and Sharon Stone.
In the hands of producers Golan and Globus and director J. Lee Thompson we got a comedic treatment which didn’t seem to really know if it was trying to replicate Indiana Jones or parody him. I have to say that as a seven-year-old at the time, with critical faculties yet to develop, I remember absolutely loving the film as I sought to scratch the Indy itch and I also distinctly remember the film’s main musical theme getting stuck in my head and remaining there for many years before I finally became an adult and, as most people do when becoming an adult, bought the most recently-released version of the King Solomon’s Mines soundtrack so I could enjoy it anew (because by that time my critical faculties had developed sufficiently to convince me that I didn’t really want to watch the film again).
While Jerry Goldsmith notoriously worked on numerous films that were frankly way beneath him – and King Solomon’s Mines is most certainly one of those – he always approached them with the utmost professionalism and based on listening to the music alone, you can’t really tell whether he was working on insipid dreck or a masterpiece for the ages. And for all their faults, people like Golan and Globus really did understand the power of music and the composer was left free to do his thing.
That theme that I fell in love with when I was seven still thrills me to this day. An incredibly cheerful adventure theme, it is so inherently hummable, Goldsmith getting just the right balance between playing for comedy and playing for thrills (he would repeat the trick years later with his main theme for Brendan Fraser’s character in The Mummy, though this theme is much longer-lined and more developed). He must have known that he wasn’t working on a film that was going to stick around like Indiana Jones but you’d never tell, such is the enthusiasm with which it’s presented.
It’s an action/adventure movie which calls for the composer to provide a lot of music in that vein and, as he so often did, he crafts this from elements of that main theme – the little phrase which introduces the theme over the main titles is often the springboard for this, used as an action ostinato in numerous cues, with the main section of the theme bursting forth heroically when appropriate.
Action highlights abound: the gloriously exciting “Under the Train”, rambunctious “Dancing Shots”, beautifully intricate and exuberant “Pot Luck” and early on in “Have a Cigar” the composer introduces a rather famous motif used to represent the German villain, interpolating Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries” into his music (the character frequently listens to the piece on-screen). He doesn’t directly quote it that often (the most notable example being “Forced Flight”), but interestingly does use a villainous motif which builds from a similar place throughout the score. Goldsmith frequently uses a battery of percussion in the action sequences, an obvious but effective way of representing the various tribes Quartermain and his troupe encounter on their way.
The score’s other major theme is its love theme – heard in the mid-section of both the main and end title cues – it’s a brilliantly sweeping, swooning, romantic creation which is quite simple and direct and very charming. I love its presentation in “Good Morning”, which then goes on to present the main theme in a wonderfully innocent kind of setting, reminiscent of the composer’s contemporary score for Explorers.
One of my favourite cues is “Upside Down People” – it starts with a new thematic idea, quite gentle and playful and so heartfelt and lovely. This segues into the more familiar love theme, but the gossamer-thin gentleness continues. After a while a more martial sound arrives, with the cue’s initial theme getting a very different treatment. The score is very much a product of the era where Goldsmith was exploring quite Ravelian, impressionistic ideas (see also scores like The Secret of NIMH and Legend) and it is in this cue that they reach their zenith in this one (though it’s a pity, for album purposes, that in its closing stages the composer has to briefly dust off the Wagner because that prevents it from being elevated to quite such a lofty place).
By the time we get to the magnificent end titles piece “No Diamonds”, it’s been quite the ride. Given the strength of his body of work, few would argue that King Solomon’s Mines is genuinely top-tier Jerry Goldsmith, but it’s really very good indeed, with great themes and some wonderful action cues. In many ways it’s like a companion piece to the previous year’s Supergirl (another film where it felt like the composer was following in the footsteps of John Williams but on vastly-inferior films) though it doesn’t have that score’s abundance of synths (indeed, in a rarity for Goldsmith, it doesn’t have any of them at all). The Hungarian State Opera Orchestra give an enthusiastic performance which suffers somewhat in the score’s more complex sections, but it’s no deal-breaker.
Somewhat improbably, this 40th anniversary release from La-La Land Records represents the sixth CD release for King Solomon’s Mines – and even more improbably, it is the first one where the music plays at the correct pitch. The initial CD release on Milan played the music a shade too slow – Intrada’s two releases of it over-corrected and played it a shade too fast – then the Prometheus and Quartet versions went back to the Milan pitch. While I’m too much of an ignoramus to have ever noticed, one thing that is noticeable is that is sounds better than it ever has before. Now I’m going to go off and hum the main theme for the rest of the day.
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