The beat goes on: Black Bag

Big-screen jazz scores clearly have become an endangered species, but good grief; I’ve not been able to showcase a new film release since Confess, Fletch came out in October 2022.

Thank goodness for director Steven Soderbergh and Belfast-born DJ-turned-composer/musician David Holmes, who’ve worked together since 1998’s Out of Sight, which was followed by Ocean’s Eleven and its two sequels. All four boasted sleek, groove-laden jazz scores that were long on percussion, electronic keyboards, fuzz guitar, sleek vibes, walking bass and plenty of rhythmic four- and eight-bar ostinatos.

 

But Holmes’ approach is a bit different this time out. Black Bag isn’t a larkish adventure like the four films mentioned above; David Koepp’s sleek, sexy and — above all else — smart script is solidly in the chill, back-stabbing spyjinks realm of John Le Carre and The Ipcress File. As a result, many of the cues in Holmes’ score are deliberately unsettling atmospheric synth and tension-laden ostinatos. Even so, true jazz elements are present in sufficient number to warrant mention here.

 

Veteran intelligence officer George Woodhouse (Michael Fassbender), an elite operative at Britain’s closely guarded National Cyber Security Unit (NCSC), is summoned to an off-site meeting by his boss, Philip Meacham (Gustaf Skarsgård). A dangerous top-secret software cyber-worm, code-named Severus, has been leaked: likely to Russian agents. Five of George’s colleagues are suspected, one of whom happens to be his beloved wife, Kathryn (Cate Blanchett), a powerful and trusted NCSC agent.

 

George hosts a dinner party that gathers all the suspects: his longtime friend, Freddie Smalls (Tom Burke), whose messy personal life has made him a security risk; ultra-cool upper-echelon agent Col. James Stokes (Regé-Jean Page); staff psychiatrist Dr. Zoe Vaughan (Naomie Harris); and satellite imagery specialist Clarissa Dubose (Marisa Abela).

The after-dinner chit-chat devolves into psychological warfare, with stakes that continue to raise during George’s week-long investigation.

 

As he explained during an interview with Edith Bowman on her Soundtracking podcast, Soderbergh asked Holmes for a score that often would make viewers “feel the clock.” The composer obliged with a score that evokes memories of Jerry Goldsmith’s work on 1964’s Seven Days in May, and Quincy Jones’ score for 1967’s The Deadly Affair.

 

The album’s 18 cues are arranged chronologically, with titles that match on-screen events. Thus, the first cue — “I’m Here to See Mr. Meacham” — sounds like foreboding footsteps and a heartbeat, as one of Soderbergh’s beloved lengthy tracking shots follows George into the restaurant where he’ll be given this difficult assignment. The subsequent cue, “Black Bag,” is a peppy blend of jazzy percussion and mildly disconcerting synth.

 

“Dark Windows” is a hypnotic drum ostinato, while “Iron Maiden” delivers the desired ticking-clock ambiance with rumbling percussion, snare drum and bass licks.

 

The aforementioned dinner party remains unscored, Soderbergh preferring to let Koepp’s psychologically fraught conversational exchanges emerge like verbal gunfire.

 

Contemplative bass riffs, bongos and a snare drum (“Fishing”) back George’s lake sojourn on his small outboard boat, the following morning, as he mulls over what he learned.

 

But then, an unfortunate twist: Something feels wrong about Kathryn’s brief visit to Switzerland (“Zurich”), and George’s suspicions are backed by propulsive drums and synth effects. Duplicity, double- and triple-crosses subsequently multiply among these six individuals, and the anxiety mounts as the week concludes; George’s apprehension is fueled by the suspensefully energetic “Friday.” The next several atmospheric cues employ unnerving single keyboard notes, drawn-out synth and rumbling percussion with another round of tick-tock elements, as Answers Are Revealed.

In the aftermath, playfully snarky bass riffs, bongos and that snare drum fuel “Feet First” during a telling elevator encounter. The final fleeting cue, “Of Course,” is a triumphant blast of drums, bass and keyboards.

Holmes’ entire score is brief, running just shy of 29 minutes. The two longest cues run 3 minutes, the shortest a mere 28 seconds. The album isn’t available on physical media, but can be obtained digitally from Amazon, Apple Music and numerous other options. Qobuz offers CD quality and Hi-Res 48 kHz tracks. 

Fallen Angels redux ... and redux!

As I discussed in this blog’s previous post, Dragon’s Domain finally rewarded the patience of those who enjoyed Showtime’s film noir anthology series, Fallen Angels, by releasing the full scores for the initial 1993 season’s six episodes. I concluded that post with the hope that the label intended similar treatment of 1995’s second season; that wish has been granted with the release of Fallen Angels Vol. 2.

Showtime changed things slightly for that final season. 1993’s episodes were introduced by a slinky femme fataledubbed Fay Friendly (a smoldering Lynette Walden), who set up each premise while slithering — in noir-drenched black-and-white cinematography — to a sensuous title theme by Peter Bernstein. The theme continued against a leisurely montage of noir leitmotifs — swirling cigarette smoke, a sparkling cocktail, a gun slipped into a woman’s purse — until the camera glided back to Fay, whereupon she archly set the stage for the playlet to follow. She was greatly missed during the second season prologues, which offered similar smoke-laden montages, but were introduced instead by an off-camera Miguel Ferrer ... hardly the same!

 

Peter’s celebrated father, Elmer Bernstein, contributed the end credits theme employed during both seasons.

 

As Peter Bernstein explained, during an interview excerpted within my earlier post, most of the episode directors initially requested the sultry, smoky saxophone sound that they mistakenly believed was typical of 1940s and ’50s noirs... which, in fact, had moody orchestral scores. The “sexy sax” ambiance actually was common to much later neo-noir films, such as Body Heat (John Barry), Chinatown (Jerry Goldsmith) and Taxi Driver (Bernard Herrmann).

 

Sadly, for fans of that sound, this new disc contains even fewer jazz elements. Peter Bernstein scored only seven of the nine episodes; the other two — “A Dime a Dance” and “The Black Bargain” — employed various bits of source cues.

 

Evan Hunter’s short story “Return,” about a washed-up boxer with marital troubles, is backed by a mournful orchestral theme. Bernstein relies entirely on synth for his brief score for David Goodis’ “Professional Man,” and hearkens back to the 1940s for his orchestral score for Bruno Discher’s “Good Housekeeping.” That said, the latter has one cue — #10 — which builds considerable tension with “ticking clock” percussion.

 

Dashiell Hammett’s “Fly Paper,” which features his unnamed detective The Continental Op, is a Prohibition-era story; Bernstein’s initially playful score evokes elements of Scott Joplin and Kurt Weill, before turning nervous and twitchy. The musical palette is ominous and foreboding in Raymond Chandler’s “Red Wind,” which features Danny Glover handling the author’s famed shamus, Philip Marlowe (who wasn’t in the original short story, which featured a detective named Dalmas).

 

Mickey Spillane’s “Tomorrow I Die” once again is mostly synth, albeit highlighted by a mournful single trumpet theme. Walter Mosley’s “Fearless,” finally, has the strongest jazz elements. Most of the story takes place in a nightclub that features a jazz singer, played by Cynda Williams, who hires a couple of friends to steal her contract from the club’s manager. Bernstein’s vibrant score makes excellent use of trumpet, trombone, slide guitar and the usual percussion trio of piano, bass and drums.

 

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Jazz fans seeking that “modern” noir sound likely will be happier with a couple of albums recently added to my collection.

The first, 2006’s coincidentally titled Fallen Angel, features a septet dubbed the Bob Sneider & Joe Locke Film Noir Project: Bob Sneider, guitar; Locke, vibes; Paul Hofmann, piano; John Sneider, trumpet; Grant Stewart, tenor sax; Phil Hanigan, bass; and Mike Melito, drums. The album features nine (mostly) noir covers — including the aforementioned title themes to 1981’s Body Heat and 1974’s Chinatown — along with a pair of similarly themed originals: Locke’s pensive, melancholy “Fallen Angel” and Hoffman’s similarly brooding ode to lost love, a piano/guitar duet titled “Last Kiss.” Most of the tracks run close to 6 minutes, allowing plenty of space for solos.

 

Sneider’s mournful trumpet opens the title theme to Chinatown, which then kicks into feistier gear and boasts a tasty solo by Locke. Sultry sax kicks off an initially slow reading of the title theme to Body Heat, which then is backed by a 1-2-3-4 vibes vamp behind sax and trumpet solos. Dave Grusin is represented by two tracks: his title theme from1996’s Mulholland Falls — this album’s tastiest track — which again opens with mournful horn against a vibes vamp, and then accelerates into a moody sax solo; and “Hurricane Country,” an interior cue from 1990’s Havana, which is another lovely piano/guitar duet, with both Hofmann and Sneider wandering in and out of the melody.

 

Hofmann’s solo piano kicks off David Shire’s title theme from 1975’s Farewell, My Lovely; vibes then takes the melody against gentle trumpet shading, backed by forceful 4/4 percussion and Hanigan’s lovely walking bass. Jerry Goldsmith’s “Katya,” a character theme from 1990’s The Russia House, is a wistfully nostalgic ode to the story’s ill-advised love affair.

 

The final three tracks stretch the album’s concept a bit. Sneider’s cheerful guitar and Sneider’s trumpet trade Mark Isham’s title melody from 1988’s The Moderns, about an expat American artist living in 1926 Paris; lyrical solos on trumpet, bass, piano and vibes highlight the tasty arrangement of Vladimir Cosma’s “Promenade Sentimentale,” from the 1981 French thriller Diva. Vibes, piano and trumpet wander through “A Farewell to Maria,” one of many somber tracks from the highly disturbing 1993 Polish Holocaust drama, Pozegnanie z Maria.

 

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Locke, Hoffman, Stewart and Bob and John Sneider returned for a sequel three years later — Nocturne for Ava — this time joined by Martin Wind, bass; Tim Horner, drums; and Luisito Quintero, percussion. The latter adds plenty of fire to many tracks, employing all manner of bongos, whistles and other percussive instruments.

The album’s title and theme are an affectionate tribute to actress Ava Gardner, who played femme fatales and damned dames in numerous noir classics. 

 

“I’m poison, Swede, to myself and everybody around me,” her character says to Burt Lancaster, in 1946’s The Killers. “I’d be afraid to go with anyone I love, for the harm I do to them!”

 

As with the previous Film Noir Project album, all of this disc’s 11 tracks run at considerable length, granting plenty of space for solos. Jazz critic Jack Garner’s liner notes also promise that careful listeners will be witness to a murder ... and he ain’t lying!

 

The album kicks off with a mid-tempo reading of Gato Barbieri’s title theme to 1972’s Last Tango in Paris; pensive percussion introduces the sultry melody, backed by bursts of unison horns. Improv solos on sax and guitar follow, along with a furious bongo solo by Quintero. A prologue of shimmering piano and bowed bass yield to Locke’s gentle handling of David Raskin’s classic title theme for 1944’s Laura; the lovely melody pauses for solos on vibes, piano and guitar, and then Locke brings the tune home.

 

Slow bass and piano open a suitably ominous reading of Johnny Mandel’s title theme for 1958’s I Want to Live; Locke introduces the melody, followed by a sassy guitar solo against piano comping, and a vibrant trumpet solo. Bass and vibes return to the melody, to close the track. Slow, sexy piano and vibes alternate with soft bass shading, in a cool arrangement of Mark Isham’s title theme to the 1997 neo-noir Afterglow; sassy unison horns, vibes and piano duel their way through a feisty reading of Duke Ellington’s “Flirtibird,” from 1959’s Anatomy of a Murder.

 

The album also includes three original compositions. Tick-tock percussion and unsettling sax introduce John Sneider’s “Black Dahlia,” inspired by the infamous 1947 mutilation murder; the tune is highlighted by a pensive piano solo against brooding bongos. Solo piano and brushed cymbals introduce the album’s title track, by Locke, which blossoms into a similarly moody anthem dominated by a lengthy vibes solo against a five-note piano vamp. The entire combo opens Hofmann’s “Kiss Me, Kill Me,” which offers sweet solos by bass, trumpet, guitar and sax ... and then suddenly shifts gears, as Locke delivers a hard-charging vibes solo.

 

The set concludes with an occasionally unstructured handling of Marcus Miller’s “Los Feliz,” which Miles Davis played on the soundtrack for 1987’s Siesta. Piano and guitar wander their way through the introduction, followed by another lengthy vibes solo against piano comping; the arrangement definitely evokes the film’s Spanish setting and atmosphere.

Sadly, Locke subsequently turned his attention to other projects and albums. Perhaps some day he’ll deliver a third Film Noir Project compilation. 

Fallen Angels and a wayward Fugitive

I covered Showtime’s marvelous film noir series, Fallen Angels, in my second volume. This anthology show delivered six episodes in the summer of 1993, followed by another nine in the autumn of 1995. Each playlet was adapted from a story by a famed noir author, and was blessed with a phenomenal attention to detail appropriate to post-World War II Los Angeles: a heavily stylized depiction of the city populated by all manner of dangerous dames, no-account gunsels, bent cops and hapless innocents.

The lush, shadow- and blood-drenched cinematography honors the genre’s roots without succumbing to parody, and top-flight stars persuasively chew into hard-bitten dialogue tough enough to break teeth. Very few of the stories conclude happily, and evil occasionally emerges triumphant: par for the course, when surfing hard-boiled waters originally penned by Raymond Chandler, Jim Thompson, Evan Hunter, Cornell Woolrich, Dashiell Hammett, Mickey Spillane and James Ellroy.

 

Alas, the show’s home media options have been minimal: a U.S. VHS version of the first season, and — much later — European and Australian DVD versions of the second season. Both seasons were combined in a single set released in France in 2020, although it’s notoriously difficult to find. 

 

Each episode begins with an introduction backed by a sensuous title theme credited to Elmer and Peter Bernstein. It opens with haunting strings and inquisitive piano notes, followed by Teddy Edwards’ salacious tenor sax; he introduces a melody dominated by a 3-7-3-5 motif, which plays against a leisurely montage of noir leitmotifs: swirling cigarette smoke, a sparkling cocktail, a gun slipped into a woman’s purse.

 

Peter Bernstein also handled the underscores for all 15 episodes: cues that rely heavily on macabre piano filigrees, sinister strings and occasional sax melodies that wander from lonesome to tragic. Unfortunately, none of that extensive music was included in the initial soundtrack album, which featured only the Bernsteins’ title and end themes, alongside a collection of jazz classics by Charlie Parker, Billie Holiday, Benny Carter, Nat King Cole and J.J. Johnson.

 

Happily, almost three decades later, Dragon’s Domain has just gifted us with Fallen Angels Vol. 1, which includes the aforementioned title and end themes, along with numerous cues from each of the first season’s six episodes. The result is 77 minutes of marvelously moody, smoky music ... but not always in the genre — jazz — that most people would expect.

 

“I loved doing that show,” Peter Bernstein recalled, in a 2019 interview, “writing noir stuff, kind of dark ... a lot of fun.

 

“But it was a very interesting experience. I worked with a lot of directors, big-time directors [including Steven Soderbergh, Peter Bogdanovich, John Dahl and Alfonso Cuarón], and more than one of them said to me, ‘Yeah, I want that smoky, noir saxophone sound.’ Well, if  you go back and look at the actual noir films they’re drawing from, there’s no smoky saxophone!”

 

This is true. Despite what most people assume, the classic 1940s and ’50s noirs had moody, haunting orchestral scores ... without the slightest trace of jazz. This mistaken assumption probably results, in part, from later films such as Chinatown and Taxi Driver, where Jerry Goldsmith and Bernard Herrmann — respectively — punctuated those noirsagas with, yes, smoky sax cues. And since Chinatown is set in the late 1930s, well ... Goldsmith’s score likely enhanced a myth that endures to this day.

 

“[The directors] just projected it backwards to other films,” Bernstein explains, in this new album’s liner notes. “So I found myself not doing that, except in a couple of specific instances.”

 

Indeed, only two of this album’s six scores include jazz elements ... but they’re choice.

 

The Frightening Frammis, from a novelette by Jim Thompson, concerns a pair of con artists — played by Peter Gallagher and Nancy Travis — who keep betraying each other. The episode opens with a cool, mournful blend of bass, horns and synth (“How Did I End Up Here”), before easing into some impudent swing. Unsettling unison horns and sly bass touches return in “A Note for Bette,” “Babe’s Story” and “Babe’s Scam”; the latter also features an ominous piano vamp. “Goodbye Mitchie” is highlighted by an appropriately doleful horn, and “The Biggest Heist in the World” reprises the swinging title theme, backed by unison horn fanfares.

James Ellroy cheekily blends fact with fiction in his novelette Since I Don’t Have You; this adaptation finds heavily indebted Buzz Meeks (Gary Busey) simultaneously working as a troubleshooter for reclusive entrepreneur Howard Hughes (Tim Matheson), and as a bagman for notorious criminal Mickey Cohen (James Woods). To make matters worse, both men — unbeknownst to each other — have fallen for the same sultry dame (Aimee Graham).

 

“Perhaps my favorite of the whole bunch,” Bernstein admits, in the liner notes, “since it was so sprawling and fun. It has noir elements, some jazzy elements, and a little bit of modern. It’s big, and it’s got a big orchestral love theme.”

Indeed, this episode’s nine cues run a full 19 minutes. The first (“Howard Hughes”) opens with sly wandering bass, mildly discordant unison horns, and a disquieting keyboard melody. “Mickey Cohen,” in contrast, is introduced with sassy sax that quickly segues into a hypnotic 2-2-4-2 piano motif against cool walking bass; unison horns augment the cue when it slides into swing. That wandering bass becomes a recurring presence in subsequent cues, notably during the climax of “Break In at South Mariposa,” when foreboding horns back an accelerating bass riff. Events climax at a party thrown by schlocky film producer Sid Weinberg (Ken Lerner), who is introduced with an eponymous cue that blends slowly swinging walking bass with smarmy piano filigrees. Cohen’s theme reprises in the final cue, “End of Story,” with an even more impertinent blend of bass, piano, unison horns and — finally — a despondent sax.

 

And here’s a hitherto unknown detail. “[My father and I] were hired as a team,” Bernstein concludes. “It was ‘theme-by, score-by.’ My father wrote a main title and an end title, but they didn’t like his main title. So he said to me, ‘I’m done. You write it!’ 

 

“So I did, uncredited.”

 

Fingers crossed, that this album sells well enough to encourage Dragon’s Domain to produce a Vol. 2, covering Bernstein’s work on the show’s second season.

 

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On a briefer note...

The current issue of Cinema Retro (Vol. 20, #59) includes Nichola Anez’s excellent four-page discussion of 1967’s Warning Shot, a seriously underrated police thriller that star David Janssen made during his hiatus between the third and fourth seasons of television’s The Fugitive. Back then — as opposed to now — actors rarely moved gracefully between television and big-screen projects; TV actors who made the attempt often were regarded as “uppity,” and suffering from delusions of grandeur.

 

(James Garner was a rare exception. He quickly parlayed his three seasons on TV’s Maverick into an enormously successful film career, starting with 1963’s The Great Escape and The Thrill of It All, 1964’s The Americanization of Emily and many, many more.)

 

Paramount’s execs clearly had little faith in Warning Shot, assuming that few people would spend movie theater money to watch somebody they could see free, on a weekly basis, at home, in — as Anez succinctly puts it — “the role with which [Janssen] was identified.” The studio quietly debuted Warning Shot in small, regional markets in January 1967, after which it slowly migrated to larger territories — granted virtually no publicity — before opening in major cities that summer, as the bottom half of a double bill. But nobody noticed; Janssen’s fans cared only for August’s two-part finale of The Fugitive, which would reveal the fate of Dr. Richard Kimble.

Ironically, Jerry Goldsmith's excellent score for the film — an engaging blend of the suspense and action cues that he had been writing for Thriller and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. — suffered a similarly ignominious fate. As discussed in my first volume, Goldsmith wasn’t allowed to produce his own soundtrack album; the assignment went instead to trombonist/big band jazz leader Si Zentner, who reorchestrated the title theme and five underscore cues for a Liberty LP with the catalog-unfriendly title of Si Zentner Plays Music from the Original Motion Picture Score of Warning Shot and Other Themes Composed by Jerry Goldsmith. In fairness, it’s an excellent jazz album, with swinging arrangements by Bob Florence and Donald D. Dimick, but the half-dozen Warning Shot cues don’t convey the film’s complex emotional sweep. Goldsmith’s original 40-minute score had to wait for a 2012 La-La Land Records release, which was superseded by a superior 2019 release by the same label, paired with Goldsmith’s score for the TV series Archer. 

Recent discovery: Small Vices

I was a fan of Robert B. Parker’s Spenser series from the moment I purchased 1978’s The Judas Goat, fifth in the series. I immediately snatched up its four predecessors, and then eagerly awaited each new release: ultimately 40 novels, one per year, until Parker died in 2010. (Although Ace Atkins has been doing an excellent job of continuing the series, he isn’t quite up to Parker’s unique style.)

The character was a natural for television, and the three seasons of Spenser: For Hire, from 1985 to ’88, proved quite popular ... with everybody except Parker’s fans, and most notably Parker himself. The character’s surface trappings were retained, but the tone was wrong; Robert Urich was too young, too handsome, and much too swaggering. Spenser is quietly smug, not boldly cocky; he knows that he’s the toughest and smartest guy in the room, and has no reason to announce it. Although Parker was involved with the show as a “consultant,” he famously said — in a 1999 Los Angeles Times interview — “I read scripts and offered comments which no one paid attention to.”

 

Urich nonetheless reprised the role for a quartet of made-for-TV movies from 1993 to ’95; although each was based on one of Parker’s novels, the results still were disappointing. That said, they were akin to Citizen Kane, when compared to 2020’s Spenser Confidential, which must’ve had Parker spinning in his grave. Everything about that Netflix original is awful, starting with the badly miscast Mark Wahlberg, but most notably the production’s jokey, action/comedy tone. Sacrilege!

 

Ah, but in between — from 1999 to 2001 — cable’s A&E Network delivered a trio of films starring Joe Mantegna, who is note-perfect as Spenser. Co-star Marcia Gay Harden is equally fine as his longtime main squeeze, psychologist Susan Silverman. Parker exercised far more creative control over these three films — Small Vices, Thin Air and Walking Shadow — all of which are adapted from his novels; he scripted the first two, and co-scripted the third with his wife, Joan. Unfortunately, the parsimonious budgets compromised the results, particularly with the second and third films ... which cut short what A&E originally had intended as a five-film series. Small Vices, however, is a little gem; Parker’s fans must’ve been delighted to hear so much of the dialogue being lifted, word for word, from the source novel.

Recent discovery: Band of Thieves

This droll 1962 British item is a 69-minute music video disguised as a film.

That’s overstating the case, but not by much. The Lyn Fairhurst/Harold Shampan script is a threadbare excuse for a dozen lengthy “live” (diegetic) performances by clarinetist/vocalist Acker Bilk and his Paramount Jazz Band, as the modest story proceeds.

 

Bernard Stanley “Acker” Bilk and his combos were known for “trad jazz,” a popular 1950s and ’60s British offshoot of American Dixieland. (The major difference between the two is Dixieland’s use of “collective improvisation.” Instead of granting each musician individual solos, Dixieland draws on the specificity of each instrument to create a single unique and harmonious sound.) Bilk’s instrumental hit, “Stranger on the Shore” became the UK’s best-selling single of 1962, spending 55 weeks on the UK charts; it also became the second No. 1 single in the States by a British artist. Given Bilk’s popularity — enhanced by his signature goatee, bowler hat and striped waistcoat — it’s no surprise that a feature film would be crafted around his talents. He certainly couldn’t have dreamed of a better showcase.

 

In terms of cinematic history, this film is noteworthy as the second feature boasting cinematography by Nicolas Roeg, who’d later trade his camera for the director’s chair after helming three consecutive hits in the early 1970s: Performance, Walkabout and Don’t Look Now.

Spotlight on Peter Gunn and Mr. Lucky

Film music journalist/historian Jon Burlingame has been an invaluable resource over the years; he’s also a thoroughly entertaining writer. I’ve long followed his Los Angeles Times and Daily Variety articles, and I often refer to his books: 1996’s TV’s Biggest Hits, updated and expanded last year, as Music for Prime Time; and 2012’s The Music of James Bond.

His just-published newest book is the perfect topic for this post: Dreamsville: Henry Mancini, Peter Gunn and Music for TV Noir. Had it existed while I was working on my crime/spy jazz project, it would’ve been footnoted extensively in the first volume’s Chapter 2. 

 

Jon was gracious enough to spend nearly an hour discussing what led to this book, at this particular point in time. After all, we’re talking about two TV shows — Peter Gunn and Mr. Lucky — that are more than six decades old. Aside from creator/producer/director/writer Blake Edwards, they also share a second, equally important individual: Mancini. The impact his music had on that show — and on TV and film scoring at that time, and later — cannot be overstated.

 

That became the obvious starting point for our chat.

 

“I’ve been a fan of Peter Gunn dating back to my childhood, via early 1960s reruns,” Jon explained. “When I got older, and moved to Los Angeles for work reasons in 1986, I discovered that the show was running five days a week on local television. I was thrilled, and started recording them. (This was long before they were commercially available on DVD.) I’ve also been a Mancini fan, dating back to the 1960s. I later had the opportunity to interview him and Blake Edwards, when I was writing regularly for the Los Angeles Times, in the late 1990s and early 2000s. 

 

“I wanted to contribute something to the Mancini Centennial, which is this year. I knew that two solid books on Mancini’s life and career already existed: his 1989 autobiography, Did They Mention the Music?; and John Caps’ excellent 2012 book, Henry Mancini: Reinventing Film Music. What was missing, though, was an in-depth look at that three-year period from 1958 to 1961, which became the launching pad for Mancini and his entire career. He and Edwards formed such a solid bond that Edwards essentially made Mancini his in-house composer for the rest of his career. 

 

“That period also led to Mancini’s big-screen success with “Moon River,” “Days of Wine and Roses,” “The Pink Panther,” “The Baby Elephant Walk” and all manner of other hits during the 1960s and ’70s. So I thought that a book focused on that three-year period, with Peter Gunn and Mr. Lucky, was worth doing.

 

“Besides,” Jon added, with a chuckle, “at my age, I didn’t want to write a book that I wouldn’t have fun with, and I knew this would be fun to write ... and it was.

“Actually, the research was more fun than the writing!”

 

Jon’s prose is engaging, as always, but I’m also impressed by the wealth of detailed information.

 

“The book is designed to satisfy two different constituencies,” Jon admitted. “First, it’s a ‘TV book’ about two shows, so I felt obliged to write about every episode of both shows, listing director, writer, guest cast and a little bit about the plot. 

 

“The second constituency is music fans, and/or people interested in Mancini, and his career. As a result, it was important — to me — to single out the musicians who played on all those shows. Luckily, it was mostly the same guys who played on every episode of both: Ronnie Lang, Gene Cipriano, Bob Bain, Ted Nash, Pete Candoli, Dick Nash, John(ny) Williams and others ... a real Who’s Who of late 1950s West Coast jazz.”

Recent discovery: Four Boys and a Gun

Despite a varied and extremely busy film scoring career that stretched from 1941’s Under Fiesta Stars to 1972’s The Cremators, Albert Glasser (1916-98) is best known these days for the bombastic scores he delivered for low-rent 1950s “creature features” such as Monster from Green Hell, Beginning of the End, The Amazing Colossal Man and The Spider, among many others. He was remarkably prolific during that period, scoring 15 films (!) in 1957, and 10 in ‘58.

Glasser doesn’t immediately come to mind, when contemplating jazz scores ... and to be candid, he didn’t occur to me at all, during the five years spent producing my two-volume survey of crime and spy jazz. But a friend recently alerted me to Kronos Records’ just-released soundtrack album of Glasser’s score for 1958’s Cop Hater, described as containing “...both big orchestral moments [and] more jazzy and big band swing style tunes.” I deem the latter claim an overstatement; having just watched that film; the non-diegetic score is pure orchestral melodrama. The very few jazz touches are brief source cues in bars and nightclubs. 

 

(Cop Hater was the first of a trio of films based on the first three 87th Precinct novels by Ed McBain, aka Evan Hunter, née Salvatore Albert Lombino. It was followed by The Mugger, that same year, and 1960’s The Pusher. Glasser also scored the second one, which has a touch more jazz, but again solely as brief source cues.)

 

Even so, my curiosity was piqued ... and a bit of research revealed that Glasser delivered terrific big band jazz scores for a couple of atmospheric B-films, the first of which is this 1957 noir drama of young men gone terribly astray. As was typical of publicity art at the time, the posters and lobby cards were hilariously lurid: “These kids are going straight to the electric chair!”

 

Director William Berke and his scripters — Leo Townsend and Philip Yordan — based their moody, 74-minute character study on Willard Wiener’s 1944 novel of the same title. The film opens as four young men — Ollie (Frank Sutton), Eddie (Tarry Green), Johnny (James Franciscus) and Stanley (Bill Hinnant) — rob a boxing arena ticket office: an impulsive crime that goes awry when a policeman is shot and killed. The lads are quickly arrested, and then confronted by a district attorney (Otto Hulett) who gravely insists that the killer will “go to the chair,” while the other three will serve 10 years in prison. The story’s gimmick is that three of the boys — and we viewers — have no idea who pulled the trigger. The bulk of the film subsequently delivers flashbacks that depict what drove each of them to commit the crime, followed by the final “big reveal” and a mildly clever twist conclusion.

 

Despite its humble production values, Berke’s film is laden with stars on the rise. Franciscus debuted here, and went on to an extremely busy film and television career, most notably in TV’s Mr. Novak and Longstreet, and popular features such as Beneath the Planet of the Apes and One of My Wives Is Missing. This also marked Hinnant’s acting debut, and he’s best remembered as the original Snoopy in the 1967 off-Broadway production of You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown: a role he reprised in 1973’s Hallmark Hall of Fame presentation of that play. Sutton already had a string of credits dating back to 1949, but he remains best remembered for his iconic role as the harried Sgt. Carter in television’s Gomer Pyle: USMC. Bit parts are filled by soon-to-be-familiar faces such as Ned Glass, J. Pat O’Malley, Diana Sands and Joseph Campanella.

Glasser assembled an impressive roster of 20 musicians known to include four trumpets, four trombones, five saxes and a rhythm section of piano, bass and drums. The full personnel list is lost to the mists of time, but Glasser recalled working with Maynard Ferguson, Rafael Méndez and Jerry Rosen (trumpets), Clyde “Stumpy” Brown and Murray McEachern (trombones), and Calvin Jackson (piano). Shorty Rogers handled the jazz arrangements, all of which are solid ... but Glasser’s frequent repetition of the film’s title theme eventually becomes monotonous.

 

That theme is introduced ominously as the film begins, with unison horns delivering a forceful stinger, rising up the scale, as each “boy” is introduced on screen. After holding briefly on the final note, the band slides into the bluesy main theme, with a repeating 1-2-1-1-4-2/1-2-1-1-4-1 motif. The title credits splash onto the screen as, behind them, the boys are seen approaching the boxing arena. Silence descends while the robbery goes down; Johnny and Stanley stand watch, while Ollie and Eddie beat up the ticket office clerk and snatch the cash. Two cops show up on routine patrol; tension builds as the quartet wait for them to move along. Alas, the clerk sounds the alarm, and one of the cops is killed when shots are exchanged. Glasser swings into a double-time echo of the title tune as the boys flee in different directions; Johnny, shot in one leg, collapses in front of a church.

Ollie “casually” enters a bar and picks up a woman as Glasser delivers a slow, sultry cue; they return to her apartment, where a sassy, up-tempo arrangement of the title theme is heard on her radio. But Ollie’s behavior makes the woman suspicious; she sends him to a nearby store for liquor, and calls the police during his absence. An unsettling, melodramatic cue backs Ollie’s return, just in time to be snatched by the cops. The music shifts to mournful blues as each of the other boys is arrested in turn: Eddie; then Johnny, in a hospital bed; and Stanley, at home, to the mortification of his parents.

 

When gathered in an interrogation room, the boys are left alone to “work it out,” after the district attorney’s grim promise. The scene then flashes back a few days, to when Eddie is employed as a driver for a trucking firm; Glasser supplies some lively “traveling jazz” during a typical run, with Johnny along for company. Alas, Eddie is sweet on the firm’s secretary (Diane Herbert), but she has a gold-digger’s preference for the boss. The music turns sultry as Eddie does his best to woo her, only to be rebuffed — twice! — at which point he loses his temper and punches the boss.

 

And is immediately fired. 

 

Shortly thereafter, Eddie laments his fate with Stanley, as the two shoot pool and drink beer in a borrowed auditorium the quartet has dubbed The Dandelion Room. Lively jump jazz — tasty interplay between Jackson’s keyboard and unison horns — is heard from an unseen radio or turntable.

 

The next flashback focuses on Ollie, the most aggressive of the group, who works as a runner for bookie Joe Barton (Robert Dryden). Unfortunately — and stupidly — Ollie has “borrowed” $300, which he has spent on lavish gifts for his girlfriend, Sophie (Nancy Devlin), who happens to be Eddie’s younger sister. A quiet moment between these two lovers is backed by gentle strings and a mournful solo horn.

 

Ollie and the others later convene at The Dandelion, only to discover that their landlord (Ned Glass) has rented it out to another gang, which intends to use it for a fund-raising sock hop. Ollie and his friends aren’t about to tolerate these interlopers, and chase them away after a brawl set against a raucous big band reprise of the title theme. Our quartet realizes that hosting a door-charge dance would be a great way to raise enough money for Ollie to settle his debt with Barton. First, though, Ollie is summoned by the gangster, who knows full well that the young man has been shorting the weekly take. Ollie is “rewarded” for this indiscretion by being pummeled by Barton’s two henchmen, while another up-tempo arrangement of the title theme is heard on a nearby radio. (That’s apparently the only tune being played, at every moment, by every radio station in the city!)

 

The subsequent dance, with couples filling the auditorium, features a series of live Dixieland numbers by Stanley Rubin and his Tigertown Five (sidemen unidentified); Rubin delivers the vocal on a rendition of “I’ll Never Get Mad Again.” During the dance, Sophie tells the forlorn, nerdish Stanley — who desperately wants a girlfriend — that “A guy has to be good-lookin’ ... or have some money.” After a pause, during which she scrutinizes him, she concludes, “You’d better get some money.” (Ouch!)

 

Although the boys bring in a respectable amount of money, the fix is in; two of Barton’s men steal the gate. This setback unfolds against yet another lively rendition of the title theme, boasting sassy trombone and sax solos.

The next flashback shifts first to Stanley’s morose home life, where he cannot live up to his parents’ expectations: a scene backed by mournful strings and a forlorn solo horn. Elsewhere, similarly despondent strings are heard behind an initially happy moment between Johnny and his pregnant wife ... but the mood darkens when she confesses how much she hates his boxing career. Meanwhile, Stanley has caught up with Ollie and Eddie; the three of them behave very badly at a fancy restaurant — which features an improbable bongo band and a barely dressed female dancer — and later beat up a cabby and stiff him on the fare. By this point, it has become clear: Ollie and Eddie are malevolent, opportunistic thugs.

 

Johnny gets the final flashback; he’s definitely the most moral of this quartet. But his better nature goes south when, after winning an important amateur title bout, his manager (O’Malley) lets him go with nothing but a tin trophy and shattered dreams of what he could have earned during a subsequent boxing career. A slow, doleful jazz cue is heard when the four friends gather across the street from the boxing arena, and gradually work up the nerve to steal the night’s take; this takes us back to where the film began.

 

Fast-cut to the interrogation room: After the DA departs, a sad solo horn is heard as the four young men squabble among themselves. The shooter’s identity is revealed, but — in a way — they’re all guilty. They attempt to choose who heads for execution by throwing dice, but that just causes more arguing and anguish. Their ultimate decision — something of a surprise, particularly to the DA — comes against a portentous orchestral cue; it builds to an intense climax as the end credits appear. Fade to black.

No soundtrack album appeared alongside the film’s release, and the score remained unavailable until the arrival of The Albert Glasser Collection: Volume 3, in May 2023; the disc also features the score for 1957’s Street of Sinners. The 15 tracks for Four Boys cover the full score, and several cues run longer than what is heard in the film. (The music by Stanley Rubin and his Tigertown Five is not included.) A 16th track finds an animated Glasser briefly reminiscing about what he can recall of this assignment. 

Soundtrack updates

Thanks to the ongoing efforts of labels that specialize in soundtracks — and the fans who purchase their products, thereby maintaining the pipeline — quite a few scores have received enhanced treatment since my two books came out in April 2020.

Taking them in the order of release...

 

Music Box Records released an expanded version of Philippe Sarde’s score for 1977’s Mort d’un Pourri (Death of a Corrupt Man) in June 2022. The music is noteworthy for the contributions by famed saxman Stan Getz, who was paid a singular honor by director Georges Lautner: The film opens on a silhouette of Getz, while he delivers an elegant solo version of the film’s haunting primary theme.

 

The original soundtrack album had a dozen tracks; this new Music Box release has 19, all fully remastered from hi-res transfers of the original stereo mixes. Another bonus: Gérard Dastugue’s new liner notes include commentary by Sarde. The original album was already excellent; this new disc is sensational.

 

A very unexpected entry was found in the September 2022 release of Goldsmith at 20th, Volume V, which at first blush doesn’t seem to belong here. But a treat is hidden among this fifth anthology of Jerry Goldsmith’s scores for 20th Century Fox: four tasty jazz tracks from Nick Quarry, a proposed private-eye TV series starring Tony Scotti. As Jon Burlingame explains in his detailed essay, the series was to be based loosely on 1967’s big-screen Tony Rome, the first of Frank Sinatra’s two cracks at that character.

But director Walter Grauman — who had helmed pilots for The Fugitive and Honey West, among others — wasn’t allowed to shoot a legitimate test episode. As Burlingame notes, the 15-minute “presentation film” was just a series of action sequences; Goldsmith supplied slightly more than 10 minutes of music as a favor to Fox music director Lionel Newman. The cues are strongly in the vein of Goldsmith’s Our Man Flint/In Like Flint scores, with plenty of jazz/rock swagger.

 

Riz Ortolani’s energetic jazz/pop score was by far the best part of 1967’s Tiffany Memorandum, which often was the case with the countless low-rent Eurospy entries unleashed by Italian filmmakers determined to cash in on the James Bond craze. It’s therefore ironic that Ortolani’s music was treated so shabbily; decades passed before four tracks were included on the 1996 anthology album Beat at Cinecittà. Fans got a bit more the following year, when nine tracks appeared on an Ortolani compilation album.

Beat Records’ November 2022 release finally features Ortolani’s full score: 22 tracks running just over 55 minutes. The earlier titled tracks are blended with studio session takes simply titled “Tiffany Sequence M8,” “Tiffany Sequence M22” and so forth. All I can say is, It’s damn well about time.

 

This next entry isn’t a soundtrack, but nonetheless warrants mention. In July 2023, not quite a decade after a three-day Man from U.N.C.L.E. convention — cheekily dubbed The Golden Anniversary Affair — took place in late September 2014, Arena Records released a recording of the live jazz concert that highlighted the final evening. Burlingame was present, of course — after all, he worked hard on Film Score Monthly’s four original soundtrack sets of U.N.C.L.E.music — and his brief liner notes for The Jazz from U.N.C.L.E. detail how he and convention organizer Robert Short chose the cues that would be performed by (wink-wink, nudge-nudge) The Summit Six Sextet: Steve Rosenblum, sax; David Lamont, flute; Dave Iwataki, keyboards; Yu Ooka, guitar; Nedra Wheeler, bass; and Dean Koba, drums. 

 The resulting concert clearly delighted the convention attendees, who enjoyed lively covers of iconic cues by Jerry Goldsmith, Lalo Schifrin, Gerald Fried and Robert Drasnin: “Meet Mr. Solo,” “Roulette Rhumba,” “Dog Fight on Wheels,” “There They Go” and many others (including, yes, the memorable title theme). For those of us who couldn’t be there, this album is the next best thing.

 

John Barry’s bluesy, brooding score for 1982’s Hammett perfectly suited the noir conceit of placing a mystery writer — in this case, Samuel Dashiell Hammett — into his own hard-boiled investigation. Barry’s music is very much in the vein of what he did for 1981’s Body Heat, and he was quite fond of what he did on Hammett. “I loved doing [it],” he told Ford Thaxton in 2001. “That was a terrific movie.” (I agree with that appraisal, but the public didn’t; the film withered on the vine.)

The original Prometheus Records release was spare, with 10 score tracks and an eight-track “Suite” of source cues. Silva Screen’s July 2023 update features more of both, for a total of 25 tracks: many of which — such as “Hammett Meets Salt”/“Suicide Is Fascinating”/“I’m Calling It In” — are built from multiple cues. The result is a much richer listening experience.

 

1966’s handsomely mounted Agent 505: Todesfalle Beirut (Agent 505: Death Trap in Beirut, From Beirut with Loveand several other alternate titles) follows the 007 template better than most Italian Eurospy entries, although the plot is ridiculous. Even so, the action is well paced, and Ennio Morricone’s jazz-inflected score — one of his very few spy-fy assignments — gives the film additional bounce. Morricone eliminated strings entirely, relying instead on brass stingers, moody organ touches and a pulsating rhythm section: just right for a story that blends spyjinks with a touch of science-fiction (a means of magically transforming desert sand dunes into arable farmland?).

Despite Morricone’s popularity, a soundtrack album didn’t appear until 2007, with 14 tracks paired with his score for 1963’s Il Successo. Beat Records’ October 2023 update, under yet another title — La Trappola Scatta a Beirut, also combined with Il Successo — doesn’t add any previously unreleased tracks; even so, the audio quality — taken from the mono master tapes of the original sessions — is a notable improvement.

 

Finally, 1992’s Sneakers is a seriously under-appreciated heist thriller with an all-star cast — Robert Redford, Sidney Poitier, Dan Aykroyd, David Strathairn and River Phoenix — backed by a whimsical James Horner jazz score that perfectly complements the film’s breezy tone and character banter. The icing on the cake: Branford Marsalis’ effervescent tenor sax. Jazz fans also got to enjoy bits of classic tracks as diegetic cues: Miles Davis’ “Flamenco Sketches” and Charlie Byrd’s covers of “The Girl from Ipanema” and “Corcovado” (none of which landed on the soundtrack album).

The original Columbia album was okay, but its 10 tracks — at 48:27 — didn’t come close to supplying all of Horner’s lovely, wall-to-wall score; a widely circulating 24-track bootleg was far more satisfying. La-La Land’s December 2023 two-disc expansion is better still: 21 tracks totaling 73:24 on the first disc, with three alternate takes accompanying the original album tracks on the second disc.

As the saying goes, Good things come to those who wait (patiently or otherwise...!). 

Recent discovery: Blue Ice

Michael Caine was born to star in spy thrillers, which became obvious during his career-making portrayal of Len Deighton’s Harry Palmer, in The Ipcress File. (Deighton’s protagonist actually remains unnamed in his 1962 novel and its six sequels. But film audiences expect characters to have names, so Caine and producer Harry Saltzman came up with a moniker that they felt was boring and ordinary, like the man himself.)

 

Director Russell Mulcahy’s Blue Ice (1992) doesn’t come close to that 1965 classic, but Michael Caine’s suave presence makes this modest entry reasonably palatable for undiscriminating viewers, who’ll nonetheless raise their eyebrows over the numerous contrivances in Ted Allbeury and Ron Hutchinson’s script. This is must-see viewing for our purposes, however, because the film spends considerable time in the jazz club run by Caine’s character, Harry Anders. Mulcahy devotes generous footage, half a dozen times, to the high-octane swing performed by the club’s resident septet: Gerald Presencer, trumpet; Peter King, alto sax; Steve Williamson, tenor sax; Bobby Short, pianist and vocalist; Anthony Kerr, vibes; Dave Green, bass; and Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts. Short also has a sizeable supporting role as one of Anders’ friends, Buddy.

 

Following a prologue that finds a guy taking photos near London’s Tower Bridge, while being watched by those inside a suspicious-looking red van, the opening credits conclude as Harry drives his posh Jaguar through London’s Piccadilly Circus region. He pops a CD into the car player, which delivers some tasty big band swing when he pauses for a red light. Stacy Mansdorf (Sean Young), driving the car behind him, is distracted by a phone call from the fellow taking pictures — former boyfriend Kyle (Todd Boyce), we later learn — and crashes gently into Harry’s car. 

 

The damage is minimal, but Harry is nonetheless apoplectic — it’s a Jag, for God’s sake! — and he gets even angrier when she blows him off and speeds away. Harry gives chase, against a peppy jazz cue by soundtrack composer Michael Kamen, and pulls alongside when she finally parks. Harry’s fury melts (a bit of a stretch) in the face of Stacy’s coquettish nonchalance; when she suggests continuing their “conversation” over a drink, he naturally takes her to his bar (not yet open for the evening trade). They exchange come-hither glances and flirty banter while Buddy, accompanying himself on solo piano, croons the Ian Grant/Lionel Rand classic “Let There Be Love,” made famous by Nat King Cole.

Stacy hangs around long enough to enjoy a double-time sizzler by the club septet, and over the next few days becomes a frequent presence at Harry’s side. The affair turns serious when he takes her to his apartment, above the bar; he cooks an elaborate dinner while soft quartet jazz emanates from his stereo system. Alas, the meal remains uneaten when they make love for the first time; Kamen backs this with a soft, sexy sax cue. Subsequently learning that Stacy is married to the American ambassador to England raises Harry’s eyebrows, but doesn’t interfere with the affair. (That said, we viewers wonder what else she’s concealing, and why the hell Harry is being so dense.)

 

Turns out Stacy has “a problem” — what a surprise! — and needs a favor. Former boyfriend Kyle has some “indelicate letters” that she’d like retrieved, lest their public exposure embarrass her husband … and she has no idea where Kyle is. Harry, retired from MI6, cheerfully agrees to track him down. He and longtime cop buddy Osgood (Alun Armstrong) confer in the club one evening — against more swinging sounds from the resident septet — and, soon enough, Osgood locates the guy. Alas, Harry shows up and finds Kyle and Osgood dead; worse yet, Kyle is revealed as an undercover cop, and Harry is arrested for both murders. He has unwittingly stepped into a hornet’s nest that involves dire doings by either clandestine American agents or bent MI6 operatives; he can’t tell which. Stacy pulls strings and gets Harry freed from jail; he returns to his club, flummoxed, to find Buddy accompanying himself on a soulful reading of Ted Koehler and Rube Bloom’s “Don’t Worry ’Bout Me” (a 1938 classic covered by everybody from Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald, to Frank Sinatra and Joni Mitchell).

 

Feeling the need for higher-level assistance, Harry looks up former MI6 buddy Sam Garcia (Bob Hoskins), now working as a security consultant for upper-echelon aristocrats and government officials. Poor Sam doesn’t last long, and is executed while Harry is drugged and tortured for information by a mid-level MI6 operative — Jack Shepherd, as Stevens — during a weirdly overcooked, laughably disorienting sequence set to discordant free jazz. Trouble is, Harry genuinely doesn’t know anything … at least, not yet. His rage, upon learning of Sam’s murder, goes into hyperdrive when summoned for a dressing-down by condescending former boss Sir Hector (Ian Holm), who orders Harry to “drop it.” (Like hell.)

Revelation comes when Stacy finally shares the information Kyle gave her, during the phone call that prompted her to rear-end Harry’s Jag. (Like, what has she been waiting for???) Another sensual sax cue backs their lusty round of shower sex, after which we race into a truly ridiculous climax amid the hundreds of stacked containers awaiting shipment from the Port of London Authority, along the River Thames. The true villain is revealed, to nobody’s surprise.

 

Final scenes include a visit to the hospital, where Buddy is recuperating from his wounds. (Did I neglect to mention that Harry’s club was bombed?) Harry and Stacy find him serenading fellow patients on the ward piano, while singing another torch standard: Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer’s “This Time the Dream’s On Me.” Alas, Stacy’s husband has been recalled to the States, so they part in the manner Harry promised, back when their affair began: toasting each other with champagne, against a mournful sax cue.

Bobby Short gets one more solo, during the first half of the lengthy end credits: Brooks Bowman’s “East of the Sun (and West of the Moon).” The club septet roars through a final blast of jump jazz during the credits’ concluding half.

 

Mulcahy insisted otherwise, during a 2016 interview, when asked if Caine’s Harry Palmer films had influenced Blue Ice. He was being disingenuous; Allbeury and Hutchinson’s script feels like a Palmer thriller in all but name. Both Palmer and Anders are jazz fans and accomplished cooks, and are insolent in the face of authority. Both ultimately are betrayed by an MI6 superior. Most tellingly, this film’s interrogation sequence strongly evokes a near-identical bit of torture in The Ipcress File. 

No soundtrack album was produced, although a couple of the Peter King originals performed by the club septet — “One for Sir Bernard” and “Blues for S.J.” — can be found on his albums. Charlie Parker’s “Perdido” and the Pete Thomas Quintet’s “Blue Bop” also are covered by the septet.