Best Soundtracks

I'll kick off with my two latest non-Bond crazes: the scores for The Russia House and The Fabulous Baker Boys.

Recommend both films with the volume cranked up. They just don't make scores like they used to.

In light of recent posts -I'd put up Dirty Harry and Magnum Force. Dirty Harry has suck tracks as Floodlights (almost ethereal in its sound), Dawn Discovery (which doubles as the end title) and School Bus. MF has the main theme which is exciting as well as The Faceless Assassin.

I've yet to see either film but will check those out! If I hear it has a good score I'm there.

Both are classic Schifrin, what he started to hone in Coogan's Bluff and Bullitt blossomed by Dirty Harry. They have that singular sound, almost another world in terms of Magnum Force.

Anything by Goldsmith or the other greats is a great listen even if the film isn't so hot. My personal favorite Goldsmith score is THE SHADOW which is a film I really adore.
Barry is my favorite composer and my obsession is The IPCRESS File. Staying in the Palmer series, Billion Dollar Brain has a great haunting Richard Rodney Bennett score. (Whose Murder on the Orient Express score is a great throwback piece)

Thinking about this stuff just makes me wish I made a ton of money to be able to afford all the great FSM, La-La Land and other specialty label releases.

The Ipcress File soundtrack is brilliant. Felt like an undiscovered Bond film score when I first watched it.

And I agree re: Goldsmith. Chinatown springs to mind too.

Can't get enough of IPCRESS in any shape or form (what I like about the book is that Harry isn't his name. It's a throaway line "He called me Harry, I let it slide" kind of line). Film is fantastically put together and you have the likes of Nigel Green for one (a Bond alum that never was).


If you are to listen to Goldsmith, go for his hidden gems (I love JG but there's stuff no one really knows), his theme to Police Story (TV series), Von Ryan's Express, but also the likes of Boys from Brazil, MacArthur, Patton, Wind and the Lion and the Swarm to name but a few. (Wind and the Lion is a beautiful score. Though it conjures Sean Connery to mind playing an Arab: "Mrs Pedacaris you are an annoying woman")

According to Some Kind of Hero, Harry Palmer was named after Harry Saltzman. Modesty wasn't exactly his strong suit!

John barry is the only film soundtrack composer i listen to when not watching a film, there are of course stand alone tunes that i enjoy by composers such as Ennio moriccone, Lalo schiffin and others but i would be unlikely to sit and listen to a whole soundtrack. With John barry however i pretty much know what i'm gonna get and that i'm going to enjoy it as a whole piece of work.
Somewhere in time
Dances with wolves
Out of Africa
Raise the titanic
The specialist
Scarlett letter........and so many more

I gave Out of Africa and Jagged Edge a watch recently and was excited to discover more of Barry's work. What a year he had in 1985: A View to a Kill, Out of Africa and Jagged Edge. All wildly differently films and he did terrific work on all three - AVTAK especially being one of his absolute best, in my opinion.

Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang wrote:

I gave Out of Africa and Jagged Edge a watch recently and was excited to discover more of Barry's work. What a year he had in 1985: A View to a Kill, Out of Africa and Jagged Edge. All wildly differently films and he did terrific work on all three - AVTAK especially being one of his absolute best, in my opinion.

I listened to Out of Africa after my grandad passed (he served in Kenya during WWII). Before and after it's a superb theme. Flying Over Africa is beautiful.

And he did win an Oscar for it to boot.

There's probably not a week that goes by in this last century that I don't get some play out of my Goldsmith FLINT and BREAKHEART PASS CDs. (take it back, I had pneumonia for five weeks five years back and was not in the mood.) I love his EXTREME PREJUDICE and a lot of his earlier TREK work, plus THE WIND AND THE LION and PATTON are what got me into film score appreciation at a very young age, along with BREAKOUT of all things. He and Barry were geniuses, no question. Wish he had done NSNA!

just about anything by Popol Vuh like Nosferatu the Vampyre, Aguirre,Fitzcarraldo

Goblins Argento work

I have always loved the George Bruns scores for Disney, The Jungle Book in particular. Some memorable songs as well.