Search - Elmer Bernstein :: Gold

In the 1974 film Gold, a gold mine executive floods his own mine to manipulate the company s stock market prices and make millions buying shares of rivals stocks. The movie opens with an explosion in the mine that traps and kills the first general manager and appears to be an accident but is actually a failed attempt to flood the mine. The managing director of the operation, Manfred Steyner (Bradford Dillman), a brown-nosing underperformer, hatched the master plan in an effort to get back at his brow-beating owner Hurry Hirschfeld (Ray Milland), an ethical man who is also the grandfather of his beautiful wife Terry (Susannah York). Roger Moore had just made his successful debut as James Bond in Live and Let Die and plays the lead, Rod Slater, a womanizing but tough general manager of a South African mine who unwittingly becomes a pawn in the sinister plot, but ultimately saves the mine. The film's crew almost reads like a James Bond who's who, with the film directed by Peter Hunt, title design by Maurice Binder, production design by Syd Cain, and film editing by John Glen -- all from the Bond franchise. Elmer Bernstein's score to Gold falls on the edge of Bernstein s golden era of the sixties, boasting his signature big orchestral, muscular action style. However, it is unusual because it also features three different songs with lyrics by Don Black that become the three main musical motifs of the score. The first, Gold Main Titles, appears over the credits and sports a Bond-like feel enhanced by Binder s title design and Black s ominous lyrics. Bernstein uses a four-note motif that only spans a minor third, and that theme holds the entire score together. His use of the triangle in this track and other metal percussion throughout the score give off a shimmery and cool metallic effect that reflects the film s obsession with gold. The main theme is majestically reworked in The Mine and then shifts to a great funky soul/jazz version complete with a wailing sax that suggests a nod to blaxploitation. The second theme is a beautiful love song, Wherever Love Takes Me, sung by Maureen McGovern. The vocal track plays over Slater and Terry s flight over Africa as their love begins to soar, and is reprised in various incarnations in The Lovers, "The Flight, and Aftermath. The third theme, Where Have You Been All of My Life, is the secondary love ballad, a more melancholy and haunting song. Gold is quintessential 1970s Elmer Bernstein, and this Intrada release presents the original ABC Records stereo LP program, remastered and available on compact disc for the first time. This release is limited to 3000 units.