Movie Songs: worse than the movie, better than the movie, carried the movie, senseless without?

tuxgeo · Jan 16, 2014

Would "Lawrence of Arabia" have been nearly as good without the score? Would "Doctor Zhivago" have been even fractionally as popular without Lara's Theme?

On the flip side, would anything have saved "The Seventh Dawn?" The theme song [youtube video] doesn't appear to have sold the movie to audiences, despite the glorious harmonies of The Lettermen in the theme song. Even the presence of movie star William Holden (and Capucine!) didn't sell that flick to the general public.

In comments, please share examples of movies where you either wonder, "What's A Song This Good Doing In That Crap Movie?" or "Couldn't They Just Have Left Out That Song And Made A Better Movie By Doing So?"

My contributions:
(1) "The Great Race" with Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis was fun; but when the movie took time off to include their love theme, "The Sweetheart Tree," that broke the jovial mood completely for me.
(2) "Love Potion Number Nine" was made into a movie. (Yes, I saw it. Yes, I'm sorry I did.)

Stormonu · Jan 16, 2014

Star Wars (A New Hope) would not have been half as awesome without its score.

I find the score for Black Hole far more compelling than the movie.

The music for Lady Hawke made a horrible movie even worse.

sabrinathecat · Jan 16, 2014

Jerry Goldsmith's music could make or break a movie, depending on how experimental he was being. Planet of the Apes may have suited the action, but it was not something I'd ever want to listed to. On the other hand, Star Trek:TPM, Gremlins & G2, The Wind and the Lion, Warlock, Lionheart, Looney Toons Back in Action, and Patton would be so much less without him--they might have had to rescore with Danny Elfman!
Flip-side: not even Jerry Goldsmith could save Supergirl.

Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid really didn't need "Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head."

Kevin Kiner did more to revitalize and bump up Star Wars with his update to The Clone Wars soundtrack than John Williams did with all three prequels.

John Williams work on Harry Potter was probably the best thing to come out of the whole HP phenomenon.

The_Silversword · Jan 16, 2014

Jaws, definitely Jaws, the music really made the movie, and the movie really made the song, without the movie, youd be like what the crap is this?

PigKnight · Jan 16, 2014

All I remember about Inception was "BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!"

billd91 · Jan 16, 2014

Conan the Barbarian's score is and was designed to be a significant part of the storytelling. Just read the liner notes on the album. Without it, the movie really would suffer.

Jhaelen · Jan 16, 2014

Is this about songs or about movie scores?

Anyway, many movies I really like also have an excellent score. My favorite is Bladerunner, which wouldn't be 'complete' without Vangelis' score.

There's a lot of movies that would be better if they didn't have such an obnoxious score, though. In many movies it's simply overdone. My favorite example: The Lord of the Rings. In theory it's fine to have a theme for every character in a movie, but if it gets repeated too often, it gets on my nerves. And The Lord of the Rings trilogy is simply too long for that kind of thing.

There are also a few movies I noticed because of their choice of songs, e.g. Donnie Darko. Magnolia is also notable for Aimee Mann's 'Save Me' - it's the high point of the movie! And the beginning of 'There Will Be Blood' is especially impressive and memorable because of Johnny Greenwood's music.

In many movies, though, the choice of songs seems to be mostly dictated by the popularity of the bands (in the hope of selling the soundtrack, I suppose) and not by how well they support a given scene.

Dioltach · Jan 16, 2014

In terms of television, I've always thought that the choice of Gangstagrass for the theme song for Justified was inspired.

tuxgeo · Jan 16, 2014

Jhaelen said:
Is this about songs or about movie scores?

Either or both. I named it to be about songs, but then also mentioned scores in the OP. Since the composer of the score often writes the music for the songs as well, it's sometimes hard to draw an exclusive line between them.

Henry Mancini scored "Breakfast at Tiffany's" and wrote the included song, "Moon River," which was covered by other artists. The song was a part of the story, and the film would have been worse without it.

The soundtrack to "The Lion in Winter" (1968) was very listenable; but I don't think anybody covered "Chinon/Eleanor's Arrival," though that's a memorable part of the movie.

sabrinathecat · Jan 17, 2014

Well, in terms of a song being obnoxious or overdone, the song from "The Graduate" definitely rank among the highest, most bloated, and just annoying after a while. It's like they decided to play "Hello Darkness My Old Friend" every 5 minutes or so, whenever there was a quiet moment without dialog. I'm not sure the movie would be better with a different song, but maybe putting in a couple others to break up the monotony would have been good.