MOVIE MUSIC UK

THROWBACK THIRTY

Original Review by Jonathan Broxton

When the movie Free Willy played in cinemas in the UK in the summer of 1993 the title elicited a great deal of snickering from the more childishly-minded among us, but in the end it turned out to be a very heartwarming film about the relationship between a troubled young boy and an orca killer whale. The film is directed by Simon Wincer and stars Jason James Richter as Jesse, a troubled orphan, who is assigned to do community service at a marine theme park after committing a minor crime. At the park he forms a deep connection with Willy, an intelligent and sensitive orca who has just been captured in the wild by unscrupulous whalers, and is now being held in captivity. As Jesse spends more time with Willy, he observes the orca’s miserable living conditions and the park’s exploitative practices, and with the help of his friends and a sympathetic park trainer named Rae (Lori Petty), devises a plan to release Willy back into the ocean. The film ended up being a popular success at the box office, and eventually spawned two sequels in 1995 and 1997.

The score for Free Willy was by the late great Basil Poledouris, who by 1993 had developed an excellent composer-director relationship with Simon Wincer over several films, notably Quigley Down Under in 1990, and Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man in 1991. Wincer is also the director who inspired Mario Millo to write the wonderful score for The Lighthorsemen in 1987, as well as Bruce Rowland’s Phar Lap in 1983; his film music taste is very much in the classic, orchestral, thematic tradition, which is why he and Poledouris got on so well – that’s the type of score at which he excelled, and Free Willy is another one written mostly in that style.

Free Willy is one of Basil Poledouris’s most popular and enduring scores, and it’s not difficult to see why. It’s a warm, charming, wholesome score built around an excellent recurring main theme that expresses a love for nature, a deep friendship between boy and beast, and the enduring pull of the boundless ocean – something that Poledouris felt himself in his personal life, and which he expressed through his own earlier work, notably things like Wind.

After a few moments of gentle, atmospheric build-up, the main theme emerges early in the “Main Title,” and quickly establishes itself as a charismatic, inviting melody in the most appealing Poledouris style. The theme is prominent through a great deal of the score, but to his credit Poledouris is clever enough to alter its dimensions in order to give it varied emotional impact. He occasionally uses a soft chorus to accentuate the theme, with lovely results, while at other times he augments the theme with a soft wash of soothing electronic tonalities that have a dream-like and magical-sounding sheen; this latter element is especially notable in cues like the playful “Connection” and “The Gifts”.

The harmonica sound in “Connection,” performed by the great Tommy Morgan, relates directly to the fact that young Jesse plays the instrument too, and this is partly what allows he and Willy to bond. The second half of “The Gifts” and the majority of the subsequent “Friends Montage” sees Poledouris engaging in some light pop and rock instrumentals that remind me a little of early Alan Silvestri, orchestral lines enlivened by lively percussion and bubbly electronic rhythms, while the “Audition” cue offers a lovely performance of the main title theme that is superbly satisfying.

Once in a while, to illustrate the darker and more threatening parts of the story, Poledouris underpins his orchestra with a harsher electronic pulse, similar to the one he used in scores like The Hunt for Red October and Robocop; this is most noticeable towards the end of the “Main Title” cue, underscoring the scene where Willy is captured by ruthless whalers far out at sea and separated from his family. However, these sideways shifts into more serious scoring are rare, and for the most part Poledouris’s music stays firmly in the realms of the positive, the upbeat, and the whimsically appealing.

The 12-minute “Farewell Suite: Jessie Says Goodbye/Let’s Free Willy!/Return to Freedom” underscores the film’s crowd-pleasing finale which sees Jesse and Rae putting into practice their plan to release Willy into the wild, and which culminates with the iconic image of Willy leaping out of the water, over a sea wall, and out into the ocean, as Jesse punches the air in triumph. Poledouris’s music for the sequence runs the gamut of emotions. It begins with a playful version of the film’s ‘friendship theme’ for a lovely solo oboe, which is underpinned with a sense of bittersweet tenderness, and shows allusions to the main theme in the strings.

The middle section of the cue is livelier and more urgent – quick synth pulses, harp glissandi, more tension in the strings – and returns briefly to the Whaler’s action material initially heard at the end of the main title, although here Poledouris cleverly interlaces it with Jesse and Willy’s Friendship theme, reminding the listener of what the emotional impetus of the story is. The cue reaches its finale via a series of outstanding statements of the main Free Willy theme that range from the tender and intimate to the rousing and majestic, with the most rewarding performances beginning at the 10:12 mark as the giant cetacean makes his acrobatic bid for freedom and victoriously returns to his family.

Unfortunately only 30 minutes of Poledouris’s excellent score made it on to the album, which is instead dominated by pop songs. There are two versions of an original song by Michael Jackson, “Will You Be There,” which is misleadingly labeled on the CD cover as being the ‘Theme from Free Willy’ when it most assuredly is not. The song is pleasant enough, with its gospel anthem chorus and environmentally conscious lyrics, and it was clearly intended to be a bid for a Best Original Song Oscar nomination, but it’s a minor work from the King of Pop and the spoken word finale – which sees Jackson almost crying his lyrics – feels cloying and strikes a false note. Other songs include “Keep on Smilin” by New Kids On The Block which screams ‘early-90s,’ and a good R&B jam called “Right Here” which was co-written by former Toto keyboardist and occasional film composer Steve Porcaro, with lyrics by Jerry Goldsmith’s regular lyricist John Bettis, and which is based on a sample from Jackson’s 1982 song “Human Nature”.

Considering that the film is celebrating its 30th anniversary in 2023, Free Willy is a score long overdue for an expansion from a specialty label. It’s one of Basil Poledouris’s most charming and playful works, a lovely sentimental celebration of the friendship between a boy and an orca that revisits many of the great composer’s most admired musical traits, and uses them in service of one of his most rousing and celebratory main themes.

Buy the Free Willy soundtrack from the Movie Music UK Store

Track Listing:

• Will You Be There (written and performed by Michael Jackson) (5:53)
• Keep on Smilin’ (written by Narada Michael Walden, Sylvester Jackson, and Sally Jo Dakota, performed by New Kids On The Block) (4:36)
• Didn’t Mean To Hurt You (written by Taj Jackson, Taryll Jackson, and TJ Jackson, performed by 3T) (5:47)
• Right Here (Human Nature Remix) (written by Brian Morgan, John Bettis, and Steve Porcaro, performed by Sisters With Voices) (3:50)
• How Can You Leave Me Now (written by Paul Frazier, performed by Funky Poets) (5:44)
• Main Title (5:06)
• Connection (1:44)
• The Gifts (5:19)
• Friends Montage (3:40)
• Audition (2:04)
• Farewell Suite: Jessie Says Goodbye/Let’s Free Willy!/Return to Freedom (12:02)
• Will You Be There – Reprise (written and performed by Michael Jackson) (3:40)

Running Time: 59 minutes 25 seconds

Epic Soundtrax EPC 474264-2 (1993)

Music composed and conducted by Basil Poledouris. Orchestrations by Greig McRitchie. Recorded and mixed by Tim Boyle and Paul Wertheimer. Edited by Thomas Milano. Album produced by Basil Poledouris.