Rollercoaster 

Music by Lalo Schifrin

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rollercoaster (1977) was a half thriller, half disaster movie released in Sensurround fever, the sound system whose projection of low frequencies did shake up even the audience´s contact lenses.

Its soundtrack should follow the up-to-date impact and display a main theme, Rollercoaster running somewhere between jazz and disco music. With electric piano lines, strong bass harmonics and motifs going upward and downward moves, it simulates undulations as in the better rollercoasters. Interestingly this strong main theme only appears in the second part when the bomb threat is planted and the suspense intensifies. The nice sppimg marching motifs of Magic Caroussel works as second main theme. Impossible to imagine another composer who could do that job as good as Lalo Schifrin in this period (Jerry Goldsmith maybe...). Including a wide variety of musical genres the score is one of the most eclectic of Schifrin´s works. The jazz tradition is present in the be-bop climate of Apple Turnover and blue lament Other Side of Harry. The track Reflections in the Window uses baroque scales by a string quartet, Tension Rock is obvious for its title and could have been in Dirty Harry soundtrack. Suspenseful passages are exemplary in the genre, and usually are built for strings as in Persistence and The Chase. Rollercoaster has the advantage of belonging to a time when composers also did the source music: tunes that come from natural ways as radios or speakers and so Schifrin displayed versatility in foxtrots, dixielands and marches with perfect playgroud feel as Penny Arcade and Cotton Candy, besides the sweet melodies of Children's Merry-Go-Round and Children Ride. If musical variety is to be considered as a requirement for a good soundtrack, then Rollercoaster is an honorable and unquestionable classic.