After Animal House, Bernstein scored a number of beloved ‘80s comedies, including Airplane! and Ghostbusters. And he was the perfect choice for Three Amigos since he was the composer for The Magnificent Seven, which was clearly the primary narrative inspiration for the comedy. As Landis later stated, Bernstein turned in a “spectacular, rousing western score” with “a 108-piece orchestra.”
And it’s the earnest, old-fashioned score that makes the comedy work so well; it’s basically a musical straight man for the absurd characters to bounce off of – as if Martin, Chase, and Short’s buffoonish characters somehow stumbled into a legit, old-timey Western … albeit one with some sentient shrubbery.
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