A local rep house here in Toronto runs vintage prints of Kung Fu movies once a month. The series is curated by the Toronto International Film Festival's genre expert, Colin Geddes. These are 35mm prints, a bit faded and battered, from the film's original run.
They also come with neat surprises.
One classic of the genre, MARS VILLA, contains large sections of John Barry's original score to THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN. And tonight's film, SNAKE DEADLY ACT, was tracked almost entirely with Jerry Goldsmith's HOUR OF THE GUN (save for the first few bars of the Main Title from PLANET OF THE APES.)
Goldsmith would probably have been happy to learn that SNAKE DEADLY ACT spotted his music quite well; sequences were obviously cut to it, and worked.
Hundreds of examples of this. Regularly morricone stuff turns up. Recently i saw a kung fu film tracked almost entirely with the incidental music from Hefti's Duel at diablo. Its quite eerie sensation hearing something in an unrelated film then trying to place it, like watching a tarantino film! Kung fu action and all the fun of a mucrim quiz rolled into one!
Memorably, Morricone's The Man with the harmonica turns up in Bruce Lee's Way of the Dragon
So does snippets of King Rat and Diamonds Are Forever! ninja in the dragons den has a long section from raiders desert chase in the finale.the movie is incredibly entertaining btw
I watched one on a late Friday night, probably called Enter The Way Of The Game Of Death III or something like that, which was even scored with Star Wars. Cos nobody would notice that, amirite?
I also remember watching one many years ago that used bits from the scoring of the final battle in the first Star Wars several times. And another that had bits from Marnie!
I can't always work out if they actually just take the music and splice it in, or if they re-record it, but it often sounds terrible!
