This week’s “Lost in the Shuffle” selections span the globe–from England to Australia, Japan to France, and even Disneyland.
QUANTUM OF SOLACE (2008) – Forgive Yourself
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David Arnold has come under his share of fire for his James Bond scores and nearly everyone it seems was unhappy with QUANTUM OF SOLACE. I don’t have any particular affection one way or another for the series so I was pleasantly entertained by this latest 007 shoot-em-up. After a brief swell of action in this track, Arnold takes a breather from the requisite synths and drum machines so prevalent in today’s film scores and provides a tender piano melody. This may be one of the few quiet moments in the score, but it is quite lovely.
BAD BOYS (1961) – Part 8
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Talk about lost in the shuffle… I’ve never heard of this film and I’ve never heard Toru Takemitsu‘s score! I own it and I’ve never even heard it. According to All Movie Guide, Susumu Hami’s film FURYO SHONEN was based on a collection of papers written by boys at a reform school, in which the inmates act out their own troubled stories. The score was released on volume 3 (Music for Films) of the mammoth Complete Takemitsu overview of the composer’s entire output, and since the track is located on disc two, I guess I never made it very far into the collection. Don’t expect taiko drums and wailing Peking Opera voices. The cue is a lovely, childlike waltz for harmonica, guitar, harp, and celeste. I can’t find the film anywhere so I’ll have to be content to explore what sounds like a beautiful Takemitsu’s score.
ASCENSEUR POUR L’ECHAFAUD (1958) – Sur l’autoroute
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With his first film, ELEVATOR TO THE GALLOWS (1958), Miles Davis composed the first fully improvised score. This French film noir, the feature film debut of director Louis Malle, stars Jeanne Moreau and Maurice Ronet as lovers who agree to murder Moreau’s husband and make it look like a suicide. The score was recorded on December 4, 1957, in multiple takes. Miles gave the other musicians in the small ensemble an outline of where the themes were to be played, but nothing was written down. Though Miles was experimenting with a new form of modal jazz, in which the main theme’s slow-moving notes represent the antithesis of the fast-moving bebop that was so popular at the time, bebop wasn’t totally absent from the score. In this track, the second of two takes, Miles’ trumpet and Barney Wilen’s saxophone improvise on “Sweet Georgia Brown.”
SUMMER MAGIC (1963) – Beautiful Beulah
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In 1963, the Sherman Brothers were still a year away from their worldwide success with MARY POPPINS. After writing for Hayley Mills in THE PARENT TRAP (1961), the songwriting team was once again asked to contribute tunes to Mills’ latest live action film about a widow (Dorothy McGuire) and her daughter who move into smalltown “Beautiful Beulah,” Maine. The upbeat song may not be “A Spoonful of Sugar,” but it has a certain turn-of-the-century charm.
WALKABOUT (1971) – Walkabout
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Nicolas Roeg’s film concerns two children (Jenny Agutter and Luc Roeg), stranded in the Australian outback, who are befriended by an aborigine boy (David Gulpilil). The main theme of John Barry‘s score, with its languid string theme, flute countermelody, and strumming harpsichord accompaniment, bears a resemblance to his Oscar-nominated work on MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS that same year. The tune, like so many of the composer’s melodies, carries an unmistakable Barry sound that would become more prevalent in later scores such as OUT OF AFRICA and DANCES WITH WOLVES.
