"Dear Lord, don't let me f**k up!". When audiences read the "test pilot's prayer" in Tom Wolfe's 1979 book THE RIGHT STUFF - a retrospective on America's early Project Mercury space program; it's story tethered to that of iconoclastic test pilot Chuck Yeager - they knew they weren't in for a standard dry historical treatise. A patented "Wolfe-sian" high-wire balancing act in difficult tonality, it was a look, satirical AND reverent at once, on media-influenced national mores merely FILTERED THROUGH that history.
For example, gleaned through hundreds of hours of personal interviews and research with all involved, Wolfe makes it (hilariously) clear in one chapter how early NASA medical teams charged with choosing astronaut candidates, had absolutely no idea where to start or what to try - therefore they clumsily tried EVERYthing. Yet, while still proceeding to (almost Don Quixote-like) place their lives on the line by willingly sitting atop "a huge Roman candle, then waiting for someone to light the fuse", the Mercury astronauts - in the most ironic manner - exercised the true bravery necessary to the national morale of the day. Now, while a difficult tone to capture in book form, it would prove more elusive to realize on film, which is why many considered THE RIGHT STUFF to be un-adaptable. Just as foolishly / bravely, however, two men would attempt, and they too would utter "the pilot's prayer".
In 1979 independent producers Robert Chartoff & Irwin Winkler (riding high on the success of ROCKY) purchased the rights to Wolfe's book and found a home for it at United Artists. After HEAVEN'S GATE sent UA into bankruptcy, the project was rescued by The Ladd Company (OUTLAND, BLADE RUNNER) to be distributed by Warner Bros. The first script by William Goldman (ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN) dropped Yeager to focus on the seven Mercury Astronauts, and was more "gung ho" patriotic. After directors Michael Ritchie and ROCKY's John Avildsen came and left the film, Philip Kaufman (writer on THE OUTLAW JOSEY WALES and RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK; director of THE WHITE DAWN and 1978's INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS) came aboard. But he, not thrilled with Goldman's "guts and glory" take on the material, fashioned his own script more tonally in sync with Wolfe's difficult (and at times uncomfortably "sacrilegious") historical drama / satire combo. Missing one play date, and with another fast approaching, the film's "tonal balancing act" problems continued with the all important musical scoring. Original composer John Barry was dismissed, and Chartoff / Winkler old gun Bill Conti (ROCKY, FOR YOUR EYES ONLY) was called in to start from scratch with less than four weeks to THE RIGHT STUFF's world premiere at D.C.'s Kennedy Space Center.
At first at creative loggerheads, Conti was finally able to zoom in on Kaufman's intended dichotomous film "vibe" when the director presented him with a detailed "temp track" comprised mainly of Holst's "The Planets" and Henry Mancini's score to Kaufman's own arctic adventure THE WHITE DAWN. Urged to "get closer" to the temp material, Conti, while his first loyalty is always to the director, was rumored to have said, "If I get any closer, I want a disclaimer". But he pressed on. Calling himself a "worker bee", "adrenaline junkie" and "bullfighter", Conti not only delivered a simultaneously majestically classical and (at times) experimentally intimate work, but he'd also colluded with sound effects designers to create the "dragon roar" of Yeager's X-1 test craft and the "buzz" effect heard when the relentless press corps appears throughout the film. Frequently the musical director / conductor of the Academy Awards ceremony / telecast, Conti's efforts on THE RIGHT STUFF would lead to his first (and to date only) Oscar win for Best Original Score.
Of particular interest - note the energetically swirling "Jupiter: The Bringer of Jollity"-like strings and woodwinds of "Breaking The Sound Barrier", the Gliere inspired (yet sinister) balalaika of "Russian Moon", and the soaring mini baroque brass fuge heard during the launch of "Glenn's Flight": multiple musical influences seamlessly combined to produce what could only be called a magnificent one of a kind "Bill Conti score". He far from f***ked it up!
CEJ
1) Breaking The Sound Barrier (0:00 of 14:59)
2) Light This Candle (4:45 of 14:59)
3) Training Hard / Russian Moon (7:30 of 14:59)
4) Glenn's Flight (9:48 of 14:59)
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