An animated comedy set in WWII, Valiant tells the story of some British homing pigeons and their adventures as they are despatched across the English Channel to send messages to Allied troops on the front line. Despite featuring an extraordinary voice cast of just about every British actor you could think of (McGregor, Gervais, Curry, Broadbent, Cleese, Hurt, Mayall, many more) and its acquisition by Disney, it really didn’t make much of an impression on release and seems to have subsequently disappeared without trace.
One thing the film had going for it which is absolutely glorious is George Fenton’s incredible score, comfortably one of his best. Deliberately written as a nod to the great war scores of Ron Goodwin and the like, it is a huge orchestral piece of derring-do full of action and adventure, not to mention great themes.
The opening piece treats us to the score’s main heroic theme – the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra give it their all and it’s one of those tracks that just demands to be listened to at the loudest volume you can bear – it’s unbelievably rousing, stirring all sorts of feeling – and unbelievably it’s not even the most stirring of the score’s themes (that one, an extravagant fanfare, is introduced in “Wish Me Luck”).
The whole score is a real treat as Fenton offers a parade of exciting action/adventure tracks, often based on those two themes – while there is an occasional comic feel, what’s most striking here is how ultra-serious things get in parts – there’s no doubt that there’s real danger lurking along the way.
Amongst all this there’s a brilliant piece of WWII-era swing in “Arrival at Camp – Drummed Out of the Claw / In the Coop” along with a smile-inducing main theme for the pigeons heard a couple of times as “March of the R.H.P.S.” and delightfully performed by the Central Band of the Royal Air Force. If ever a piece of music is designed to make you want to grow a handlebar moustache and shout “Chocks away!” then it’s this one.
The whole score is terrific but things really come together near the end, first in the extraordinary 13-minute tour-de-force “The Rescue and Escape”, where all of the themes (including a comically villainous theme for the nasty German falcons and eagles earlier introduced in “Von Talon and the Bastion”) do grant battle – it’s one of the most impressive pieces of Fenton’s career really, breathlessly exciting from start to finish.
One thing you could never accuse the composer of is not loving a big finish and I don’t think they ever came bigger than “Winged Heroes (Adagio and Fanfare)” which reprises a beautiful piece of Elgar pastiche introduced in the earlier “Eve of the Mission” and plays it along with that glorious fanfare theme at its most triumphant. It really is stunning. Well, the whole album is – an exquisite treat from start to finish, one of the 21st century’s least-known film music masterpieces.
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