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THE SPY WITH MY FACE (MUSIC FROM THE U.N.C.L.E. MOVIES)
Composed by Jerry Goldsmith, Gerald Fried, Nelson Riddle, Morton Stevens, Richard Shores.
Original Soundtracks from Film Score Monthly

The fourth volume in FSM’s U.N.C.L.E. series featuring this time additional cues recorded, sometimes with more musicians, for the theatrical releases of formerly two-part MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E episodes, namely TO TRAP A SPY, THE SPY WITH MY FACE, ONE SPY TOO MANY, ONE OF OUR SPIES IS MISSING, THE SPY IN THE GREEN HAT, THE KARATE KILLERS, THE HELICOPTER SPIES and HOW TO STEAL THE WORLD, some of which also had additional scenes filmed.

To be honest this one is for U.N.C.L.E. fans and completists as most of the music from the series was represented on the three previous double CDs (this is only a single) and some of those cues are repeated here. Of course, if you don’t have volumes 1 – 3 then this is a fine and representative compilation of music from the four seasons of the show and one that is sure to bring back some fond memories.
I personally enjoy the longer, slower cinematic arrangements of the U.N.C.L.E. theme, usually by Fried, and there is a fine one here from ONE OF OUR SPIES IS MISSING. Again, as with all FSM’s releases, it is accompanied by excellent and lavishly illustrated sleeve notes.
Also, if you like this kind of thing, check out FSM’s releases of the other 60s shows I SPY by Earl Hagen, and the WWII based espionage series JERICHO, produced by the same stable as U.N.C.L.E., and also with (extremely) similarly styled music from Goldsmith, Shores, Fried, Stevens and Lalo Schifrin, and which also includes the soundtrack for THE GHOSTBREAKER series by John(ny) Williams, which is an interesting listen given his subsequent work.

THE AVENGERS (50 YEARS OF THE MUSIC OF LAURIE JOHNSON)
Composed by Laurie Johnson
Original Soundtrack from Demon Records

Sticking with the 60s Spy genre, here’s our humble British counterpart. The 35 tracks on the album feature 70 minutes of previously unreleased music from the original series – 15 episodes from the Emma Peel era, and one from the Tara King era. The opening and closing credits are also from the Tara King era and even feature the announcing of the number of the take used.

Episodes featured are Dead Man’s Treasure, Escape in Time, What the Butler Saw, Honey for the Prince, Joker, Return of the Cybernauts, Quick Quick Slow Death, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Station, The Superlative Seven, Murdersville, Mission Highly Improbable, From Venus With Love, The See-Through Man, Hidden Tiger, The Living Dead and Invasion of the Earth Men.

The album is well balanced and representative of the series in terms of tension (many of the tracks feature the individual episode title theme leading up to the dramatic on screen caption), romance (From Venus With Love (Section A) which even interpolates a little of Holst’s ‘The Planets’ suite), action cues, suspense, whimsy (take March of the Butlers from What the Butler Saw for instance) and the playful (Mission Highly Improbable), but overridingly it demonstrates Laurie’s considerable skill at juxtaposing the eerie or menacing against the urbane or innocent. Consider the Greensleeves style pastoral that belies the sinister goings on in Murdersville and the detached 1930s gramophone record playing in The Joker.

Much of the music written for these particular episodes was of course tracked into others where required, the racy episode title music from A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Station accompanied many of Steeds and Emma’s fight scenes as the final minute of The See-Through Man would accompany many of their car chases through the sleepy lanes of Buckinghamshire. You will no doubt find more. That is one of the joys of this album, the memories and images that these tracks evoke.

The album, just before the end titles of course, rounds off with the ‘Tag Scene’ which would cover the witty exchanges between Steed and Emma/Tara at the end of each episode. Each track is played in its entirety, ranging from 49 seconds to five minutes 29 seconds, and which would then have been edited and re-cut to suit its particular use. The main and end titles are of course the original, shorter, standard TV recordings. The sleeve notes are written by Laurie Johnson himself.

THE AVENGERS Soundtrack disc comes as part of a three disc set, ’50 Years of the Music of Laurie Johnson’ with THE AVENGERS being disc 1. Disc 2 features some of his other TV and film work including re-recordings of THE NEW AVENGERS and THE PROFESSIONALS themes, and also his themes from THE FIRST MEN IN THE MOON (Ray Harryhausen and Charles H. Schneer’s cinematic working of the H.G. Wells novel); DR. STRANGELOVE (or – How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb), which starred in several roles, the late, great, Peter Sellers and HOT MILLIONS featuring a bizarre cast which included Peter Ustinov, Bob Newhart, Dame Maggie Smith, Caesar Romero and Karl Malden. Also the themes from HEDDA and THE BEAUTY JUNGLE. Disc 3 comprises Laurie’s concert hall work, and very patriotic it is too. Rest assured, disc one is worth the cover price alone for AVENGERS fans. Also, it is promised as volume one, so hopefully there’s more of his marvellous AVENGERS music to follow.

RUN, FAT BOY, RUN
Composed by Alex Wurman
Original Score from Commotion Records

RUN, FAT BOY, RUN is a rom-com about an overweight guy (Simon Pegg (SHAUN OF THE DEAD, MI3, HOT FUZZ and soon to be the new Scotty in STAR TREK) who leaves his pregnant fiancé on their wedding day, only to realize five years later that she is his one true love (as you do). As in many contrived comedies like this, to make her realise that her new Mr. Right is in fact Mr. Wrong and thereby win back her heart, he must prove himself by achieving something utterly contrary to his character type, in this case finishing a marathon. ‘How do I prove my devotion? I know, I’ll run a marathon.’ Yeah, right…

Composer Alex Wurman (MARCH OF THE PENGUINS, CONFESSIONS OF A DANGEROUS MIND) furnishes us with all the soul searching angst, ROCKY style exercise, rhythmical running and yearning for lost love motifs you could wish for, all the while building toward what you know will be a happy ending, with a few nods at heroic Arnold/Hamlisch Bond and spaghetti western parodies. It’s light and good natured, with a warmth and feeling that has you cheering for our hapless hero even though you doubt whether his motives are that honorable.

Wurman proves his worth, and versatility, here (PENGUINS was too limiting) and this stands alone as an album you could happily leave jogging away on your car stereo.

(This release is not to be confused with the soundtrack album released containing songs from the movie, dialogue snippets and a small sample of Alex Wurman’s score.)

ALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS
Composed by Christopher Lennertz
Original Score from Universal

Now, I really don’t know where to start with this one. ALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS, the latest vintage cartoon series to be transmogrified into CGI animation, are obviously a big deal in the States, maybe worldwide, I don’t know, but they were never big in the UK*. In fact I’d never heard of them until I caught a cartoon show about ten years ago, and I think that was the first time they ever appeared on UK TV screens. In the sixties we had our own musical Chipmunks, which I gather were a British equivalent, but even they didn’t have there own TV show. So, all the fuss is lost on me. Also I gather that the essential element of A & TC is that they sing, are pop stars in fact, and obviously an important part of their ‘charm’ (?) is their songs, but this album contains none. Those are to be found on a separate soundtrack album. This album is the orchestral music score only, so anyone expecting some rodent on helium to burst forth will be disappointed.

This is a lush score utilising a 94-piece orchestra, and has all the elements you’d expect with an animated feature of this type. ‘Elements of the score will bring you back to your youth with the sounds reminiscent of cartoon scores from the Golden Age by Carl Stalling’ says the promotional material, but I’m afraid I detected none of this, and to be honest, though supremely competent, this could be the score to any one of a number of family adventure films currently out there doing the DVD rounds. The promo-material also says that ‘Lennertz is able to creatively incorporate subtle, technical elements, such as backwards percussion and mallets that sound like acorns falling, without compromising the organic sound of his original score.’ D’you know, I would never have noticed if they hadn’t told me? In fact, I still didn’t notice.
Be warned: The cover to this is almost identical to the soundtrack release with the songs. If it’s for the kids make sure you buy the right one.

*We never got UNDERDOG either.

From the ridiculous back to the sublime – Now, last but by no means least, two long awaited classics, finally released in all their glory, and filmusic at its absolute best:

NAVAJO JOE
Composed by Ennio Morricone (as Leo Nichols)
Original Soundtrack from Film Score Monthly

Here is presented the premiere release of the full stereo soundtrack for the 1966 spaghetti western starring Burt Reynolds and what film director Jim Wynorski (who co-produced this release) describes as his own personal soundtrack Holy Grail. NAVAJO JOE is an aggressive score and stridently different to Morricone’s more lyrical and poetic scores for the DOLLAR movies. Reynolds plays a Native American hell-bent on revenge and the score is unrelentingly and appropriately tribal and violent. The soundtrack had been partially released in mono in the past, and in varying versions on cinematic releases of the film, many of which were edited for violence content requiring the music to be badly re-edited, not always successfully, to match the new splicing of the film. LP releases had tracks mis-titled and listed in the wrong order. Here all has been corrected. The music cues are presented in full and in film chronology order with sleeve notes fully explaining the re-edit and sources of the material. Also both film and album versions are presented for some tracks. The harmonica player on the album is also the legendary ‘Man With the Harmonica’ from ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST, Franco De Gemini.

The as usually excellent sleeve notes have features on director Sergio Corbucci, star Burt Reynolds and composer Morricone, plus full information on each track.

‘This music was NOT drafted to slavishly trace a fictional narrative involving a character named Navajo Joe – the score IS Navajo Joe.’ (Sleeve notes)

THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN
Composed by Elmer Bernstein
Original Soundtrack from Varese Sarabande

I recently visited the Louvre Museum in Paris and bought myself a souvenir. What did I buy? A replica of the Mona Lisa perhaps, or the Venus de Milo? No. I bought this CD from the Virgin Megastore just to one side of the La Pyramide Inversée.

Unbelievably this recent release is the first time that this classic soundtrack, one of the most famous and universally popular ever, has ever been released. Sure there have been re-recordings available but never the soundtrack from the movie conducted by Bernstein himself. Interestingly, although the film is about the Seven, the only character to get his own individual theme is the bandit Calvera (Eli Wallach), otherwise it’s the SEVEN theme itself, the plaintive Spanish guitar for the villagers (which becomes synonymous with Chico’s romance) and various stirring action cues (not least the STRANGE FUNERAL where Chris and Vin first meet).

The stories behind the making of the movie are as legendary as the actors taking part have become, but the music is also legendary and has become one of those scores that are inseparable from the movie. Walter Mirisch is quoted in the sleeve notes as saying ‘(The) music is such an integral part (of the film) that you can no longer separate the music from the picture. If you were to look at (THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN) without the music, you would be jarred because the mold would be broken.’ Bernstein also states ‘I like the film. But if you watch it without the music it is slow, strangely enough. It develops very slowly. I thought, ‘I’m going to infuse this film with energy.’ And it worked.’ He was right of course – Consider the scene when the SEVEN are first together as a group (the fishing Chico has just joined them), the rousing theme kicks off, yet, if you look, all our characters are doing is ambling along a little stream trying to out act each other with little bits of business behind Yul Brynner’s back. Imagine that scene without the music. James Coburn is also cited as saying ‘One of the reasons I’m here (in this business) is because of that score.’

This is a must have. Choosing it alone out of all the beautiful things in the Louvre has to be proof of that.

That’s all for now folks and, as always, keep listening.

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