I’ll have to admit that I really know
next-to-nothing about Flash Gordon. I have only seen brief snippets from the
original black-and-white serials and only occasional moments of the 80’s
film version. I do know that Howard Blake’s music to the film was only
half of the equation. The rock group Queen provided the main theme, as well
as moments of underscore that were not tackled by Blake, and there is an
album of their music to the film (which I have never seen, nor do I care
much about). Blake’s contribution was in the traditional orchestral
method, but with an interesting twist. Think of all the scores from cheesy
sci-fi films from the 30s and 50s being put in a blender and the end result
being reconstructed and recorded with better sound quality and you have an
idea of what Blake may have been attempting. When I was first listening to
the CD I was highly dismayed since it didn’t match my expectations, but
when I realized that Blake was paying homage to those old sci-fi scores
things got infinitely better.
The themes that Blake utilizes in his score were
provided by the music done by Queen. The theme for Flash Gordon himself is
highly bouncy and heroic, but it doesn’t pop up all that often. There are
several other sub-themes that Blake wrote himself for his portions of the
score, but they are not as memorable as the themes from Queen. The music is
generally light underscore seasoned with quite a bit of action cues. Some of
the action pieces are not that great and actually teeter on boredom while
others are quite interesting (such as Football Fight section on track
six). The score builds up to a satisfying climax in the last few tracks
which are actually quite good and which continue to build on that cheesy
sci-fi homage to the very end.
While Blake’s contribution to the Flash
Gordon film was long enough to deserve a CD release just to itself, the
producers of this CD must have decided to squeeze every last drop of space
out of the CD and tacked on portions of his score to Amityville 3D at
the end. I have absolutely no idea what this film is, but judging
from the style of the music I would say it has at least one foot in the
horror genre. The style is really close to that of Flash Gordon
(which may be the reason it’s included here), except you won’t be
startled by the sudden appearance of the Flash Gordon theme. The
opening refrains of the main title actually sound like music from Flash
Gordon mixed in over the atmospheric sections from Psycho. After
this interesting opening, the music turns over to a creepy female vocalist
"ahhhing" a piece that sounds very Elfmanesque (especially in the
vein of Sleepy Hollow). From there the
score follows on with creepy atmospheric pieces and while there are some
interesting moments here (including that female vocalist which moves back
and forth between the choral styles of Elfman’s Sleepy
Hollow and Mars Attacks! scores), it didn’t grab my
attention that often, and to me it just sounded like a tweaked version of Flash
Gordon being used for horror purposes instead of light-hearted sci-fi
action.
Flash Gordon is one of those scores that
will disappoint if your expectations are somewhere along the line of the
music from Star Wars. This score is meant to be taken as homage to
the old sci-fi serials and films. In this regard, it excels. If this kind of
style interests you, it will make a worthy addition to your collection.
Otherwise, unless you’re big a Howard Blake fan, I would recommend that
you try to sample this one first. ****
