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All of them are out on both DVD and CD (complete scores).
Magnum Force - love the movie and music
The Enforcer - love the movie and music
The Dead Pool - movie and music are pretty good
Sudden Impact - movie and music are pretty good
That's one person's opinion. Others will disagree particularly on the music for the last two but I wasn't crazy about them.
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I have all five Aleph issues of these scores and The Dirty Harry Anthology, which includes some alternate material. I really like the scores to these films, particularly the first three. Schifrin's music is prickly, frightening, gritty and determined. Fielding's score adds a little more levity, I think it's the most fun to listen to out of all of them (the funky chase sequence in the middle is awesome).
The latter two Schifrin scores are interesting as they continue developing the thematic material for Harry, but in context of the sound of a different era. There are undeniably very good moments in the latter two scores, but like the films they are shoehorning something from the 70s into an 80s idiom with some uncomfortable results. I like them, but they're not as effective as the scores for the first two films.
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Posted: |
Sep 27, 2011 - 6:15 PM
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By: |
lexedo
(Member)
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The first three scores are excellent, and the last two are also good. I have them all. Lalo is mostly Lalo on "Magnum Force," and this is heard emphatically with intense Argentinian / Afro-Cuban horn blasts a few bars before the end of the main title. Love Lalo. But the first two scores are really 1960s scores (e.g. fuzzed-bass, creepy vocal-synth lines) projected onto 1970s films.
The gem of the bunch is "The Enforcer." It is a study in the American 1970s jazz-fusion film score approach. It is a bit thicker than the typical Calfornia studio-musician sound (e.g. Tom Scott, L Carlton), but that's only bc of Fielding's compositions, which account for the politcally toxic and socially upside-down 70s. His score also (rightly) borrows thematic material as needed from the first two DH films. You'll also hear typical Fielding 12-tone flurries, and behind the bridge phrases that Penderecki himself would enjoy.
The funky cue mentioned by SwashBuckler is "Rooftop Chase." What a great bass line (using both a Fender electric bass and an acoustic double-bass). Awesome. For the guitar, it sounds like a Gibson playing the main line, and a Fender playing those fills. It sounds like Tommy Tedesco does the Gibson line on the "Rooftop Chase" cue, but I have no way of knowing. Ray Brown, J Porcaro, Tommy Tedesco were all players on "The Enforcer." You'll hear some cool Fender Rhodes playing throughout too!
Someone mentioned Death Wish, and the scores for those films are generally not my cup of tea. But the original DW was scored by Herbie Hancock, using what I believe to be the exact players of his HeadHunters band. So, DW becomes the fourth piece of the 1970 jazz-funk-fusion puzzle that is HeadHunters (HH, Thrust, Flood, DW).
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If you invest time looking at the first films, Sudden Impact and The Dead Pool are still worth a look and are entertaining enough. I watched The Dead Pool again this week after acquiring the CD, and it's a quirky little thriller, held down by an older, gruffer Eastwood. (One day, when I'm a director, I think I'll pattern my behaviour on Liam Neeson's character, just to annoy people)
Also, thinking back, I remembered that when I was 11, I saw it on it's UK TV premiere and I remembered how instantly the main title music grabbed me - I think it might actually have been one of the first times a score jumped out and me and I started to appreciate film music, so I'd recommend it.
The Sudden Impact score is great, though I'd put the film below the rest. There's always a faint sleaziness to it, which is odd as Eastwood directed it himself. That said, the finale is one of those punch the air moments that are just plain fun.
I hope you enjoy all of the movies you watch - Dirty Harry itself is one of my all-time favourites.
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Hmm, I take the opportunity to ask if anyone knows why the song from Sudden Impact, "This side of forever" doesn´t appear on the Aleph CD? As a matter of fact, I can´t find it on any Roberta Flack CD either.
The instrumental "San Francisco by night" is great stuff, but the song is really good...
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