City Slickers


Colosseum (4005939532123)
Varèse Sarabande (030206532128)
Movie | Released: 1991 | Film release: 1991 | Format: CD, Download
 

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# Track Artist/Composer Duration
1.Main Title2:42
2.Career End2:11
3.Find Your Smile6:07
4.Walking Funny1:25
5.Cowabunga2:29
6.Young at HeartJimmy Durante2:48
7.Birth of a Norman5:23
8.The River5:48
9.Mitchy the Kid4:19
10.Where Did My Heart Go?James Ingram3:52
 37:04
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City Slickers - 06/10 - Review of Tom Daish, submitted at
The original City Slickers film was a curious comedy which placed Billy Crystal, among others as city executives who wanted to get away from it all and go on a cattle drive. Obviously, things don't go quite as planned and so they have adventures, find their true selves, blah, blah, blah... although the main point of the film was to be a comedy western. I don't recall whether it was any good or not, but they made a sequel so it must have been moderately successful. It is curious that Bruce Broughton got type cast as the only young(ish) composer who can write Western music since Marc Shaiman's hilariously over the top music for both City Slickers films is delightful and if he was given a serious Western to write music for, I think he'd be more than up to the task. The main title for City Slickers must go down as one of the more ludicrous overtures commited to celluloid, the main theme going through a series of variations and bouncing along at a break neck pace after which the orhcestra must have required oxygen. Perhaps the comic high point would be where there's a gunshot and everything stops.

The remainder of the disc goes through various episodes, Career End being a curious jazz number which doesn't seem to have anything at all to do with the Western genre at all, quite nice though. It is the law (I think) that all American comedy films must be sentimental to the hilt and so no Marc Shaiman comedy score is complete without a mushy episode and this is provided in Find Your Smile (which sounds like it could be the title of a Randy Newman song), fortunately, this breaks out after a few minutes and a rousing version of main theme appears rather from nowhere, to then go back to mush again, then the main theme again... oh I give up describing this track. Schizophrenic I think sums it up. Shaiman seems to be able to mix two genres quite cleverly when he mixes his Western theme with a lounge, caberet, big band, whatever style orchestration in Walking Funny, clever indeed - even throws in a bit of harmonica just to remind us that this is in fact a Western.

The River is a fraction more serious than most of the rest of the score and works reasonably well as an action cue, especially when the main theme is employed. The two songs seem strangely out of place, particularly Young At Heart which doesn't appear to have much relevance to the film, although it probably makes sense in context. It would perhaps have been better placed at the end with the original song, Where Did My Heart Go? - which isn't bad, but the naff synths don't help much. Overall, it's a fairly decent score, although I'd really recommend the sequel score over this one since it's longer, the orchestration and recording are much better (particularly noticable on the main title, the orchestra here sounds a bit thin in comparison). The lack of the songs is also a bonus. It's just generally a much more enjoyable effort than this original, plus the fact that it's easier to find (at least in my experience). However, City Slickers, the original, is a fun score and worth picking up if you see it cheap, especially for fans of Marc Shaiman.

Other releases of City Slickers (1991):

City Slickers (1992)
City Slickers (1991)


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