A Bridge Too Far: Original MGM Motion Picture Soundtrack [Soundtrack, Original recording remastered]

John Addison | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (May 18, 1999)
• Original Release Date: June 15, 1977
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Soundtrack, Original recording remastered
• Label: United Artists
• ASIN: B00000IXSI
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #161,145 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Overture

2. A Dutch Rhapsody

3. Before The Holocaust

4. Underground Resistance

5. Air Lift

6. Hospital Tent

7. Arnhem

8. Nijmegen Bridge

9. March Of The Paratroopers

10. Bailey Bridge

11. Human Roadblock

12. Futile Mission

13. The Waal River

14. Arnhem Destroyed

15. Retreat

16. A Bridge Too Far March

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The music makes the film!, August 31, 2001

By 

Paul Sayles (Japan) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: A Bridge Too Far: Original MGM Motion Picture Soundtrack (Audio CD)

The music of A Bridge Too Far makes the film a memorable one. The events depicted were memorable but the music cements it into the mind. The theme music makes me, at least, think of the early days of World War I when British officers went over the top into No Man's Land carrying a walking stick or soldiers kicking soccer balls along in front of them, as German machine guns mowed them down like hay being harvested. Unfortunately, the assault on Arnhem, to some degree, is depicted in that same manner, through the music.

The music depicting the aircraft as they load up and head for Holland gives a great feeling for what it must have been like and as shown on the film. I had the feeling that I could see the dust coming off the tow lines of the gliders as they were being pulled into the air. The paratroopers sitting in rows waiting to make the jump into Holland.

Yet there is also the destruction of Arnhem through music. You sense the desperation as the citizens build barricades using furniture, paving stones and even the bodies of the dead, as German tanks come bulldozing through. That is the real tragedy - the destruction of a town that up until September of 1944 had not suffered too severely from the German occupation.

The entire CD tells the story of Arnhem and Operation Market Garden in a way that is unforgetable and moving and heroic. It would do a Greek tragedy proud. If you've seen the movie this is a must have soundtrack. If you haven't, listen to it, then see the movie.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fine score is also a requiem for composer's war buddies, December 9, 2003

By 

Alex Diaz-Granados "fardreaming writer" (Miami, FL United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Bridge Too Far: Original MGM Motion Picture Soundtrack (Audio CD)

The late film composer John Addison (Tom Jones, Sleuth) may perhaps be best remembered by millions of TV viewers for his theme for "Murder, She Wrote," but one of his best scores was written for one of the biggest all-star flops in movie history, 1977's A Bridge Too Far.

Richard Attenborough's epic about Operation Market-Garden isn't a bad movie (as I have stated in my review of the DVD); it just had the misfortune of having been made in the late 1970s, when most moviewatchers were leery about war movies. As the liner notes to this Rykodisc/MGM Soundtrack explain, "A Bridge Too Far is not a typical war film celebrating a heroic victory." Coming on the heels of America's defeat in Southeast Asia and antipathy for most things military, Attenborough's well-crafted film failed to draw audiences and disappeared from theaters and moviegoers' radar scopes. (The success of a movie set "a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away" didn't help A Bridge Too Far survive at the box office, either.)

Pity, because one of the finest attributes this movie has is its score. From the stirring and boldly optimistic march of the opening "Overture" (which will serve as the XXX Corps theme) to the somber and melancholy "Arnhem Destroyed," Addison's score follows the heartbreaking progress of Market-Garden as American, British and Polish paratroopers strive to capture a series of bridges along a single highway in Nazi-occupied Holland while a British armored corps races northward to relieve them.

For the composer, this score was an intensely personal project; Addison had been a young tank officer in XXX Corps, and when he heard his friend Attenborough was making a film about Market-Garden, he asked for the job as composer. Perhaps that's why this score is so powerful and moving. Whether the music is underscoring the breathtaking "Air Lift" (one of the most impressive scenes involving hundreds of C-47s and almost an army's worth of military clad extras), the nerve racking vigil of a sergeant as his company commander is being operated on in "Hospital Tent" or the race-against-time efforts of paratroopers and engineers to build a "Bailey Bridge," Addison gives each cue his heart and soul, thinking, perhaps, about his fellow tankers who fought and died in Northwest Europe in 1944-45. As director Attenborough writes in the liner notes, "[t]he music for A Bridge Too Far is, therefore, in one sense his requiem for those who fought beside him."

This 1999 enhanced CD also contains -- for PCs using Windows 95 and up -- a QuickTime video file of the original 1977 movie trailer.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It's All A Matter of Bridges, July 24, 2000

By 

"panzerss" - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Bridge Too Far: Original MGM Motion Picture Soundtrack (Audio CD)

One of the main reasons why I love this film is because of the music alone. From the stirring introduction to the closing credits, this is one of the few war film soundtracks that proves to be so relevant to the story unfolding. From pomp to tragedy, this soundtrack cannot help but to inspire you and bring tears to your eyes at the same time. I have this soundtrack on vinyl, which my sister bought back in the early 80's. As a huge fan of soundtrack music, this is my very first soundtrack and very few of the many soundtracks that I've bought can compare to this one. Simply put, every track on this CD is irresistable. On most soundtracks, there are only a few good songs thrown in, while the rest are thrown in to provide the film some kind of musical background. It's truly a shame this music never quite reached the legend and fame of other classic soundtrack tunes, such as Rocky, Star Wars, Gone With the Wind, E.T., Jaws, etc.