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This is another entry in my Complete Score Breakdown Series, focusing on the complete scores to films that have had abbreviated previous releases or have gone unreleased.
Today we are looking at Stealing Sinatra (2003) by John Powell.
2003 was an interesting year for John Powell, a composer whose work I really enjoy aside from his animated fare, which doesn’t really do much for me. That year saw the release of works as diverse as Paycheck, Gigli, The Italian Job, Agent Cody Banks, and Stealing Sinatra. The first 3 of those scores were released by Varese Sarabande, but both Agent Cody Banks and Stealing Sinatra were worthwhile scores that year as well that definitely deserve a second look. Agent Cody Banks was gloriously just released by Intrada in a a deluxe presentation; hopefully one day Stealing Sinatra will see the light of day.
Stealing Sinatra has no traditional orchestra and very light synth; it is primarily jazz-based with prominent xylophone and marimba. It’s an infectiously delightful and airy score, lots of fun, a really breezy easy listen. Sort of a more stripped-down Ocean’s 11 without all the trippy effects that David Holmes employed. As Stealing Sinatra rolls on, it begins to develop a theme towards the end of its runtime and Powell’s distinctive voice starts to shine through. Most of the score is innocuous and but enjoyable jazz-flavored score, but there are several cues in the score (“Roadblock”, “Escape Attempt”, “The Pickup”, "Frank Jr.’s Free”) that feature more thoughtful synth pads along with slower jazz proceedings that allow Powell to be a little bit more personally expressive.
A lot of Powell’s work has been released over the years, thankfully, but I’m such a fan of his work and I wanted to bring him into the CSB Club. I wanted to do a CSB on a score of his of that met the following criteria: 1) wasn’t an animated film; 2) hasn’t already been released in some form; 3) doesn’t already have complete score info existing via a web search (a ton of his scores do); and 4) was something obscure and that I thought could be cool. Stealing Sinatra seemed to be a good fit, and it was. I do hope it’s released one day, it is a fun score that shows the jazzier side of Powell but still allows a bit of his dramatic voice to shine through here and there. The amount of unreleased/complete score runs 40 minutes (if you include the end credits; I’m unsure if it is a suite of film cues, but I included it as an original cue anyway).
UNRELEASED SCORE RUNTIME: 40min 00sec
Complete Score Cue Titles and Cue Times (unreleased cues named by me for the sake of identification):
1. Main Titles (1:15)
2. An Opportunity (1:40)
3. Barry Drives (0:30)
4. Mr. Irwin (1:25)
5. Third Party (1:50)
6. Mr. Irwin’s Concern (1:30)
7. Motel Check-In (0:36)
8. Kidnap Schedule (0:45)
9. Overslept (0:28)
10. Mr. Irwin’s Out (0:42)
11. Domestic Troubles (0:30)
12. Motel Arrival (0:54)
13. Kidnapping Sinatra Jr. (2:44)
14. Roadblock (5:11)
15. Mr. or Mrs. Sinatra (0:43)
16. Sinatra Senior (1:38)
17. BLT and a Chat (1:20)
18. Press Conference (0:50)
19. Escape Attempt (1:07)
20. Phone Booth (1:37)
21. The Drop (1:04)
22. The Pickup (2:28)
23. Joe Comes Home (0:57)
24. Frank Jr.’s Free (1:33)
25. Frank and Frank Reunited (0:28)
26. Mr. Irwin Hauled Away (1:21)
27. End Credits (4:40)
Thanks for reading, see you next time!
Deputy Riley
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