Title: The Recruit Date: 1983 Description: A Wallace & Ladmo Old Time Movie. Comments: In the early summer of 1983, Wallace decided to produce a new batch of Old Time Movies, possibly due to the many times I mentioned to him how much I loved the old ones and several not-too-subtle hints about how much I’d love the chance to be in one. We did five altogether and this one, shot at Legend City (the legendary, long gone local amusement park in Phoenix), is about a recruit who’s a little out of step with the rest of the company (who’s drill maneuvers are rather unorthodox to begin with). You can’t really see me in the finished movie but I’m in the second row, the first guy on the left. I was thrilled when Wallace asked me to compose original music for the new shorts. Of the scores I wrote for each, this one gave me the most trouble. I couldn’t get the timing right so that the music matched the action the way I wanted it to. Somehow, I’d also miscalculated the overall length when I recorded the soundtrack causing the last chords of my masterpiece to stamp to a close before the end of the on-screen antics. The video editor tried overdubbing to stretch the music a bit, but it still came up short. For this presentation I went back to my original score dated 5-9-83, did some retooling, and finally The Recruit can be viewed with music the way I always wanted but couldn’t achieve all those years ago. Dan Horn |
