We keep getting letters from readers around the world that add interesting insights into the fact that Fox reused portions of Jerry Goldsmith's previous scores for the 1976 western The Last Hard Men. Now comes this informative letter:
My name is Gergely Hubai. I'm a Hungarian film music
author.
I feel that I must clarify this particular story. This is what happened:
Jerry Goldsmith never worked on The Last Hard Men
(he was working on The Omen at that time). What happened was that Andrew.
McLaglen requested an avantgarde score from composer Leonard Rosenman, which was
eventually thrown out because it turned out it wasn't what he was looking for.
Apparently he wanted to reflect the early 20th century setting by having
contemporary avantgarde music playing in the picture or something to that
effect. Eventually the studio pulled out a number of cues from previous
Goldsmith Westerns, including 100 Rifles and Stagecoach. These were done without
any consultation from the composer, so no, Jerry Goldsmith didn't reuse his own
music.
Gergely also addresses the issue of John Barry reusing his score from Zulu for Cry the Beloved Country:
John
Barry doesn't reuse his own score - the common melody he reuses in both scores
were done deliberately as it is based on a native piece. The theme was used
deliberately since both pictures take place in South Africa. There are many
cases when composers use shorthand and freely quote from their previous works -
I have written whole article series on that subject! These two titles however do
not qualify for that.
Yours sincerly,
Gergely Hubai