Saturday, January 9, 2016

Disney Song #16: The Rocketeer



To Listen: Click Here

The Facts:
  • Composer: James Horner
  • Year: 1991
  • Key: several

Heard In: 
The Rocketeer

Background:
Let's talk about The Rocketeer, quite simply one of my favorite movies of all time.  I loved it as a young kid, and it still holds up just as well as an adult.  It's everything I ever wanted in a movie - tremendous plot, action, adventure, characters, actors, cinematography, locales and dare I say...music.  It reminds me of MacGyver insofar as it fits me so well that it feels almost like they must have had me in mind when they created it.

Some big names were involved here, including Jennifer Connelly, Timothy Dalton, and Alan Arkin. The Rocketeer himself, Bill Campbell, is probably less well known to the average person, but he nailed the part of Cliff Secord, the down-on-his-luck pilot and regular guy who finds a mysterious rocket jet pack and gets thrust (literally) into an unfamiliar and dangerous world of 1930's Hollywood, American gangsters, and Nazi spies.

Sadly, the movie didn't fare well at the box office which stopped any talk of a sequel or a trilogy. But the triumphant James Horner score lives on and is always a top listen for me (especially the final minute of the main title).  And one fun MacGyver connection is Griffith Observatory, which served as the locale for the climactic scene in The Rocketeer and also was MacGyver's house in the pilot episode.  

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