Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
Superb score for a great movie., 21 Mar 2004
As a collector of soundtracks,Roy Budd only became known to me through the Wild Geese. I shall delve into his work further now. What a score this is. It's just right for the movie. Budd's clever use of the Notturno movement from Alexander Borodin's String Quartet No.2,is marvellous and suitably emotional to score the relationship between Rafer (Richard Harris) and his son. Staying with that,a superb cue on this disc is no.14 - Rafer's Death. It explodes with a high strings scream of the Notturno, and is very well written and "very" emotional. And just as i screamed "NOOOooooooo" during that exact scene in the movie (so near,so close) the cue represents that feeling. It then explodes into the heroic Wild Geese theme as the plane takes off. Much of the rest of the score is re-arrangements of the Wild Geese theme in varying forms, or your usual Military March material. Exciting and suitably "military" in feel throughout. Either full blown marches or snare drum score for "sneaking up on people" moments, along with that very 1970's scores use of the "shaker" for scoring "exotic" or "dangerous" moments. On track 6, there is a slight sound wobble around 0:23. I'm guessing this is due to an un-rectifiable original master tape problem. But it's only a brief glitch. Still a shame though as it's quite an unusually restrained cue and the glitch would of been noticed less on a louder cues. But it's not the end of the world. Overall,Budd has a style which is a hybrid of 1970's Jerry Goldsmith and that early 1970's style of John Williams. Yet,Budd's sound is still unique in it's own way. Track 10 - "Parade Ground" harks back to the Dirty Dozen "thing". A military marching song (well, training song in this case). Very British indeed. Track 16- "Left,Right" is a semi instrumental,semi dialogue track of the Regimental Seargeant Major "Sandy" rousing his troops along with snare drums and then into the soliders chorus march. Usually i find dialogue in movie scores on disc extremely annoying. But this is enjoyable stuff as Sandy was such a great character in the film. One song on the disc - "Flight of the Wild Geese" (at the end of the movie as it began playing,i remember thinking "What on earth is this doing here?") actually grows on you. It's still very bizzare and dated now. But i guarantee you'll end up playing it more than a few times. I think it's just so bizzare that you cant help but play it. The other 70's song is "Dance with Death", and to be honest it just does NOT belong on this soundtrack at all (or at least, not in the very middle of the disc). I'm sorry but it's absolutely awful and straight out of "Saturday Night Fever" and Disco Boogie. Very unwelcome in the middle of the disc as far as i'm concerned). It should of been placed right at the end of the disc so that we have a choice. But this is a great disc nonetheless. I highly reccomend it.
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
EXCELLENT BRITISH FEELGOOD SOUNDTRACK, 26 Oct 2001
By A Customer
Roy Budd's soundtrack is truly marvelous - not only complimenting the film but also great to listen to just on it's own. Joan Armitrading's title song is beautiful and excellent lyrics make it a relevant piece. Even though Burton, Moore, Harris and Kruger are the superstars of the film, the soundtrack is a superstar in itself. I definately recommend this to anyone who is a fan of sountacks!
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Fantastic score to match a fantastic film!, 1 April 2005
'The Wild Geese' is a superb action movie for the modern era! Loaded with a handfull of stars: Richard Burton, Roger Moore, Richard Harris and Hardy Kruger! Plus spectacular action sequences topped off by a marvelous score from Roy Budd! What more could you ask for? Plus a booklet packed with film notes and a poster of the film! What can i say?.... a classic!
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