ABSTRACT
The marketing campaign commenced at Paramount's Little Studio 29 April 1986. Variety's reviewer was unimpressed with the soundtrack, saying, "It seems there is no experience, from lovemaking to jets taking off, that isn't accompanied by Harold Faltermeyer's soundtrack. Life is given the emotional texture of a three-minute pop song". The opening musical gambit for the Iron Eagle campaign was classic. Iron Eagle opens with a pair of shiny, silver F-16s streaking across the screen cutting through mounds of fluffy white cloud banks. The Boudu screenplay, as presented in the depression-ridden France of the 1930s, possessed a strong tinge of class conflict. It is debatable if the tactic would have succeeded in previous years, but 1986 was definitely not the year for another "rock-will-carry-the-film" strategy. The banner performance in music and movies of 1984, with ten platinum film scores, revived the Fever mania. To recreate the atmosphere of 1959, Reiner incorporated a plethora of music artifacts of the period.
