The Big Bus (1976)
Music Composed And Conducted By David Shire
Score Produced by David Shire
Album Produced by David Shire, Martin Erskine, and Lukas Kendall
Film Score Monthly FSM Vol.14 Vol.1 Limited Edition of 2000 Copies
Running Time: (55:27) Released January 2011
The Big Bus is the original disaster spoof in the history of disaster spoofs and also, the most forgotten. The film gave birth to a genre that would see such classics like Kentucky Fried Movie ("That's Armageddon" skit), Airplane!, which is the genre's classic and unforgettable comedy, and a host of others over the years and decades to come. The film stars a long list of comedic and dramatic talent like Joseph Bologna (who would co-star in The Woman In Red with Gene Wilder and have his own TV series with Matt LeBlanc and Joey Lauren Adams in the Married With Children spinoff, Top Of The Heap), Stockard Channing (Grease and a renowned Broadway actress in her own right), Ned Beatty (Delieverance), Ruth Gordon (Harold And Maude), Lynn Redgrave, and Larry Hagman (who would gain major fame as J.R. on the classic TV series, Dallas) and more and more and more...! The film's major star is Cyclops, the first nucelear powered passenger bus created by a Professor named Baxter and his daughter, Kitty and is to take it's first madien trip from New York City to Denver. Filled with a zany group of characters, a wealthy villian named "Ironman" (!), attempts to sabotage the trip on behalf of his olil driven industry allies. Along the way, the bus drivers get injured and Kitty (Channing) has to recruit her ex-boyfriend Dan (Bologna), to drive the bus to it's destination in which "Ironman" makes one futile attempt to destroy the bus by causing an "electronic earthquake" (only an evil mastermind could think of such a devious plan), which backfires destroying his mansion in the process. The film was directed by James Frawley, a former actor, who would go on to direct episodes of Law & Order among other things.
Along for the ride is Composer David Shire, who was riding really high at the time he scored this film with genre classics like The Conversation and The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3, The Hindenberg, Farewell, My Lovely (marking the return of aged Phillip Marlowe and writing a brilliant noir jazz score). All The President's Men, an important and special film followed along with underappreciated Straight Time starring Dustin Hoffman and Saturday Night Fever, for which he would forever be associated with. For this film, Shire took the approach that the late Elmer Bernstein would do for National Lampoon's Animal House and Airplane!, which is score the film straight. Treat the film as a drama, but also throw in bits of comedy in which Shire does and has fun with the material. The "Main Title" which sold this album to me in the first place, is a wonderful piece of joyful pleasure. It's almost similar to his opening and closing music for Taking of Pelham 1-2-3 which was cocktail jazz, but here it's just a straight orchestrial rendition of that with a little of that jazz swing thrown in, but still straight as an arrow. The rest of the score is full of comedy and action ("The Eye of Cyclops/Alex Plants The Bomb", "The Big Fight", "Kitty In Jeopardy/Kitty, I'm Coming/Dan Rescues Kitty", and The Rescue") and also moments of tenderness featured in the tracks "Bush and Camille & Kurtz & Claude" and "Claude & Sybill" filled a little lush romance. Shire also spoofs Richard Strauss' "Also Sprach Zarathustra" famously known as the theme from Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey" and a preview of his scoring that film's sequel, "2010" recording the same piece again with the Los Angeles Philharmonic eight years after this film. Also in the score there a few source tracks like Irving Berlin's You're Just In Love, Bach's Ar on the G-String, Julie Styne and Stephen Soundheim's Everything's Coming Up Roses along with the Tommy Joyce Medley written by actor Murphy Dunne, who plays the lounge singer in the film.
Film Score Monthly has released a nice little score here and one that Shire fans have wanted for sometime. To be honest, I never heard of the movie still I sampled this album and looked up the film on IMDB.com and I'm intrigued to see it myself. As for the music, aside from the fun main theme, the score which sounds fantastic is too straight of an arrow to enjoy at times. Shire's main theme is wonderful and I was expecting a little more of it throughout. That's why some of Elmer Bernstein's comedy scores worked so well was because he was able to spoof himself in some like in Animal House with a little swashbuckling music that recalls The Buccaneer and also Airplane!, using the famous Notre Dame Football March as part of the score and also as fun and rousing piece of music. I can't blame Shire for not having to a particular piece of music from his filmography to spoof and maybe the approach may have succeeded to everyone's satisfaction to be honest. The music is solid there's no question about it and I always like to hear that new David Shire albums are released and this one is no exception.
There is great production value all around here from the very informative liner notes and track by track breakdowns by Scott Betancourt, Jeff Bond and Alexander Kaplan. The sound quality is excellent for a 35 year old recording and the art design is solid.
The BIG Bus is an album to get if you're a David Shire fan (like I am) and you like good comedy scores. If you're not, I can't recommend it on that basis unless you see the film, which would most likely help you make a decision on getting the album. In the meantime, I'll have to catch up with this Big Bus leaving the station. Might be just as good as the score!
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