Good Morning Vietnam [Soundtrack]

After several flops, Good Morning, Vietnam was the movie that turned Robin Williams from the popular alien of TV's Mork and Mindy into a cinema superstar. Applying a comic touch to the Vietnam conflict in the tradition of M*A*S*H and its treatment of the Korean War, the movie capitalised on Williams's fast-talking improvisation and mimicry by casting him as a madcap DJ. In a novel twist which predates Reservoir Dogs soundtrack dialogue extracts by five years, the album is presented as an Adrian Cronauer radio show, mixing seven clips of Williams's brilliant monologues with a dozen classic tracks which collectively define the era. From "Nowhere To Run" by Martha Reeves & the Vandellas, through Beach Boys' "The Warmth Of The Sun" and "I Get Around", "Sugar And Spice" by The Searchers and "Game Of Love" by Wayne Fontana & The Mindbenders, 60s pop was rarely better than this. Topping-up the veritable jukebox of essential tracks is "I Got You (I Feel Good)" by James Brown and "Baby Please Don't Go" by Them, while rounding off the set is Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World". One of the best pop soundtracks since American Graffiti, this anthology wouldn't be bettered until Forest Gump. --Gary S. Dalkin

Nineteen eighty-seven's Good Morning, Vietnam was a turning point for Robin Williams, garnering the comic his first Academy Award nomination and leveraging him into the first rank of American film stars. As directed by Barry Levinson, Williams imbues the "true life" story of Armed Forces Radio rebel Adrian Cronauer with his patented machine-gun comic banter, undercut by dollops of now equally familiar tragi-comic bathos. But contrary to the tired hit parade we've come to expect from period soundtracks, the '60s music Williams's character spins here is often a refreshing surprise, drawing from trashy garage-band chic ("Liar Liar" by the Castaways), underexposed British Invasion hits (the Searchers' "Sugar and Spice," "Game of Love" by Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders), and relatively obscure American chart hits ("Five O'Clock World" by the Vogues, the Rivieras' "Warm California Sun"), all of it gratuitously punctuated by Williams's manic DJ rantings. The inspired revival of Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World" also became one of the 1980s' most unlikely hits. --Jerry McCulley

A&M, CDMID163 19 Track