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...!). 

From the cutting-room floor: Les Tricheurs

This is another one I hated to lose, given its sensational, wall-to-wall jazz score. But as with Alfie, this is a study of deplorable behavior, rather than actual crime. Nor are these selfish young sybarites deliberately “evil” in the sense of the characters in Roger Vadim’s handling of Les Liaisons Dangereuses (which did make the cut). They’re merely foolish … but goodness, they do have great taste in music.

 

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Director Marcel Carné’s Les Tricheurs — released in the States as either Youthful Sinners or (a more direct translation) The Cheaters — isn’t a crime saga, although the story does include a dollop of blackmail. And while the conventional settings preclude much in the way of atmosphere, Claude Renoir’s black-and-white cinematography does achieve classic noir overtones during a melodramatic finale. For the most part, though, Carné’s film is a study of undisciplined, cynical twentysomethings who believe themselves too hip for conventional jobs, and certainly too cool for something as prosaic as romantic love; they spend all of their time dancing, drinking, swapping bedmates and — most importantly, for our purposes — listening to jazz records. Indeed, few films have depicted youthful decadence with such a ubiquitous swirl of swing. 

 

Carné wasn’t content to merely commission original music from Norman Granz’s Jazz at the Philharmonic (JATP) ensemble, which had just performed at Paris’ Salle Peyel; he also bought the rights to a dozen existing recordings by luminaries such as Lionel Hampton, Chet Baker and Fats Domino.¹ The incredible JATP ensemble featured Oscar Peterson (piano), Roy Eldridge and Dizzy Gillespie (trumpet), Stan Getz and Coleman Hawkins (tenor sax), Herb Ellis (guitar), Ray Brown (bass) and Gus Johnson (drums). With one brief exception, all the tunes are heard as diegetic cues that emanate from juke boxes, home music systems and tiny portable turntables.

 

The story focuses on Bob (Jacques Charrier), a “square” university student whose interest in jazz leads to a chance encounter with Alain (Laurent Terzieff) in a record store. The latter, a manipulative bohemian who cheerfully freeloads off his friends, introduces Bob to Clo (Andréa Parisy) and her best friend, Mic (Pascale Petit). Although Bob first hooks up with Clo, he’s quickly smitten by Mic, whose greatest desire is to purchase the expensive Jaguar at the car shop that employs her older brother Roger (Roland Lesaffre). Bob is embraced by the greater Rive Gauche gang with whom Alain, Clo and Mic hang out; his studies begin to slide as his evenings are consumed by sybaritic parties. 

 

Despite her stand-offish pretensions, Mic falls in love with Bob, but professes the opposite in order to avoid losing face with her friends; taking his cue from her behavior, Bob feigns similar nonchalance. This emotional maelstrom climaxes during a huge, liquor-fueled bash thrown by Clo — her “farewell party,” as she has become pregnant — when Bob and Mic confront each other, with disastrous consequences. The film’s title now comes into play, as it becomes clear that these restless youths are “cheating” themselves out of happiness and true love.

 

Carné opens his film in a café, the title credits displayed while two young guys bop in front of a jukebox playing JATP’s lively cover of Pete Rugolo’s “Oscar and Pete’s Blues.” (In a nice nod to the soundtrack’s importance, the credits acknowledge all the purchased recordings and the artists performing them.) The camera pans to Bob, looking miserable in a booth by himself; the reason for his anguish then unfolds via a lengthy flashback that begins in a record store — Chet Baker’s cover of “Tommy Hawk” playing in the background — when Bob spots Alain stealing a 45 single. The latter takes Bob to a nearby café, introducing him to Clo and Mic as other patrons groove to Fats Domino’s “Second Line Jump.” Now part of the group, Bob is swept along to Clo’s home — her parents conveniently absent — where everybody dances breathlessly to a pair of JATP originals: “Les Tricheurs,” a mid-tempo swinger that opens with Oscar Peterson’s smooth piano chops, and then delivers sweet solos on tenor sax and trumpet; and the lazy “Clo’s Blues,” with Hawkins breaking hearts on sax, as Peterson and Ellis comp quietly in the background.

 

The scene shifts to Mic’s apartment, where she “tolerates” a visit from her older brother while Peterson and Gillespie roar through a lively JATP original titled “Mic’s Jump,” emanating from her record player. When that disc concludes, she switches to Gerry Mulligan’s cover of “Bernie’s Tune,” which prompts an appreciative nod from Roger. He departs as Bob arrives, already entranced by Mic; they wind up in bed, then embark on a blackmail scheme that nets the 600,000 francs she needs to buy the Jag. She consents to join him for a dance at the “snobby” club frequented by his father’s social set, and is surprised to find the “oldsters” cutting a rug to the Bob Scobey Band’s cover of “Wild Man Blues” and Al Castellanos’ jovial “Speak Up Mambo.”

 

Pride, misunderstandings and willful stubbornness drive Bob and Mic apart, until they both wind up at Clo’s farewell party. Everybody is dancing to Fats Domino’s “If You Need Me” when Bob enters the spacious venue; the mood then gentles down for a slow dance, the revelers swaying to JATP’s “Phil’s Tune,” with its sweet Eldridge sax melody against Peterson’s keyboard comping. Clo, close to hysterics due to the impending marriage that has been “arranged” by her parents, demands that things liven up; she puts the Lionel Hampton/Mezz Mezzrow bopper “Crazy Hamp” on the phonograph, and the crowd responds. 

 

Next up is Buddy Rich’s “Desperate Desmond,” which prompts Clo to scream “Make it louder!” Bob and Mic have their final confrontation in one corner; crushed by his (contrived) indifference, she runs from the room, hops into her car and roars off into the night. Bob follows in a borrowed vehicle, realizing that he needs to admit that he definitely loves her. He chases her down a twisting two-lane road at ever-increasing speeds, the ongoing blast of “Desperate Desmond” now becoming a non-diegetic underscore. The scene’s intensity peaks as Rich hits the song’s legendary solo, the furious drumming propelling Mic to floor the accelerator ... until she crashes. 

 

Back in the present, the flashback concluded, Bob — wiser but now alone — watches as two boys and two girls, younger even than he is, agree to raid their parents’ liquor supply for a rowdy party that evening ... and then, with the word “Fin,” the film concludes.

 

The four original JATP tracks — “Les Tricheurs,” “Clo’s Blues,” “Phil’s Tune” and “Mic’s Jump” — were released as a double-disc 7-inch EP on France’s Barclay label. Three of the “purchased” songs — “Tommy Hawk,” “Bernie’s Tune” and The Champs’ cover of Chuck Rio’s “Tequila” — were issued separately, on a 45 single by Disques Vogue. Verve followed up with a 10-inch LP that featured “Les Tricheurs” and “Mic’s Jump,” with three additional songs recorded during the same studio session, featuring Sonny Stitt guesting on alto sax, although none was used in the film: “Sweet Georgia Brown,” “Get Happy” and “On the Alamo.” The four Barclay tracks were augmented by “Crazy Hamp” when they were digitized in 1988 on the Fontana label, for a compilation disc paired with Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers’ score for 1959’s Des Femmes Disparaissent. Most recently, the four Barclay tracks and the three “extras” (with Stitt) were granted prestige treatment as part of Moochin’ About’s 2012 five-disc anthology set, Jazz on Film: Beat, Square & Cool.

 

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1. Selwin Harris, booklet notes for Les Tricheurs, in the box set Beat, Square and Cool (Jazz on Film, 2012), 27-28.