The Barbarian and the Geisha

The movie The Barbarian and the Geisha was not something of which either its star (John Wayne) or anyone else associated with it, onscreen at least, was terribly proud -- it was a poor fit for director John Huston, as well, and ended up as a "non-credit" (in the sense of being to no one's credit) for most of the parties involved. The only exception was composer Hugo Friedhofer, whose work here was exemplary -- Wayne might have been miscast and Huston the wrong man to direct him, or a movie about its subject -- a 19th century cross-cultural romantic encounter between an American diplomat and a geisha -- but Friedhofer wrote a memorable score that stands well on its own, and Intrada Records has assembled the complete original stereo film scoring sessions into a complete account of the music. Friedhofer's music is a fascinating amalgam of western orchestral and Japanese sounds, all achieved with a conventional array of western instruments, including pizzicato violins emulating the sound of the koto and other Japanese instruments and timbres well, and represented mostly in well developed and elaborate themes that stay with the listener, quite separately from the movie for which they were conceived.