Looking forward to a rare showing of Sinful Davey on TCM on June 3rd. Score by Ken Thorne. As far as I can see, there hasn't been a soundtrack release from this 1969 film directed by John Huston. It stars John Hurt as a Scottish highwayman and thief. There's a terrific Main Title vocal by Esther Ofarim up on YouTube. Lyrics by Don Black to Thorne's theme. Hopefully, we'll get to hear a lot of Thorne's score throughout
I saw this film at the BFI in London in 2006. Here's a review I did at the time. (Apologies for a few spelling and grammatical errors) ------------------------- I saw `Sinful Davey' the other night at the National Film Theatre. This is a 1969 United Artists release staring John Hurt,, Pamela Franklin, Nigel Davenport and Robert Morley. The director was John Huston.The films souce is the diary of a young Scotsman named David Haggart who resolves to honour the memory of his father, who was hanged as a thief, by surpassing his crimes . Huston tried to make a film that was a romp, but more importantly for Huston he was able to film it in his beloved Ireland and this consideration seems to have been more important than a script, which is woeful by any standards.
The film is uninvolving, unfunny and even at 95 minutes it seemed very long. John Barry was hired by Huston to score it but Executive Producer, Walter Mirisch rejected his music and brought in Ken Thorne. He also re-edited the movie and Huston blames him for the final mess that the film is.
I'm not sure why Barry got involved with this project but suspect that he wanted to work with Huston, just as he signed for `Howard the Duck' to work with George Lucas in the 80s.
The film has a title song with lyrics by Don Black which feature the two main themes that Thorne composed, one a jaunty, militaristic march type theme for Davy, which is OK , not really my taste, but works in the film. However this dissolves into a a glorious, beautiful yearning melody for Pamela Franklin's character, Annie, a role for which Linda Thorson auditioned. The song is sung by Israeli singer Esther Ofarim who with her brother Abi had some chart success in the 60s. Annies theme is heard instrumentally every time she appears on screen and Ester's vocal is played in it's entirety over the opening credits credits and, with just the Annie melody, over the closing credits. This melody makes the film almaost bearable but sadly no score could save ithis disaster of a film
The score features the march music and the yearning love theme. The song and score are fine for the movie and I have a lot of respect for Ken Thorne's scores, `Hannie Caulder' being one that I particularly like.
But what did Barry come up with?. Huston liked his `The Knack' score and maybe it had some of the elements of The Knack without the jazzy bits. Sadly we'll never know as it's likely that the tapes are lost following a flood in a storage facility near CTS studios
The film is not available on VHS or DVD and no soundtrack album has ever been released. ` The film is almost worth seeking out on TV for the glorious Annie' theme but not much else. ------------------------------
Listening to the song again on youtube confirms what a great job Ken Thorne did on this film. Nice lyrics by Don Black, as well.
The film is also out on DVD now, which it wasn't when I wrote my piece:
I guess that as a United Artists release the original tapes are lost and as there was no LP in 1968 the chances of a CD release are zero. Sad as Ken Thorne's score was the best part of the movie (as I said above).
Sorry to hear that, what you are saying then, any film UA made or release that didn't get a lp done back then, has no chance of ever being put on CD or other formats?
Sorry to hear that, what you are saying then, any film UA made or release that didn't get a lp done back then, has no chance of ever being put on CD or other formats?
Original score material continues to be found in the UA/MGM vaults, so unless one of the labels has looked and has specifically said that no materials exist, there is always a possibility. Just last month, Quartet issued the score from "Harry In Your Pocket," a UA film from 1973.
Original score material continues to be found in the UA/MGM vaults, so unless one of the labels has looked and has specifically said that no materials exist, there is always a possibility. Just last month, Quartet issued the score from "Harry In Your Pocket," a UA film from 1973. --
Thanks for that clarification, Bob. Nice to know that there's always hope.
It could be worth enquiries being made by specialist labels. The rejected Barry score is, with Mister Moses' one of the leading Barry grails.
I would say they ARE the leading Barry grails. Lost scores like WALKABOUT and RAISE THE TITANIC have at least been re-recorded in almost complete form. All said, I still have hopes MISTER MOSES will be re-recorded one day. But SINFUL DAVEY is most likely gone forever.