Inevitably, Jerry Goldsmith's music for MacArthur has to be compared to his score for Patton -- and, amazingly, it does not come off at a disadvantage. Nor does it really resemble the earlier score in many of its details. Whereas his music for Patton was largely martial in nature, in keeping with the subject matter of the movie for which it was written, MacArthur is a much more reflective body of music, and has an almost elegiac air about it; in a sense, this is understandable, as the two subjects -- despite their outsized egos and other similarities -- were so different. Not that MacArthur doesn't have its moments of full-blown, big orchestra glory, but if anything, much of this soundtrack more closely resembles the reflective, lyrical parts of Goldsmith's music for In Harm's Way (1965). It's surprising that the soundtrack was allowed to go out of print, as it was one of the last great, serious orchestral scores of the 1970s, before everything started having to resemble John Williams' flashy, splashy, playful work on Star Wars, Close Encounters, etc. Goldsmith's conducting here is also first-rate, incidentally, especially in the quiet, reflective passages, which points to an additional level of subtlety that he maintained, long after such attributes were understood or appreciated by producers or most audience members. ~ Bruce Eder
