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“MY NAME IS JUGGERNAUT”
Kritzerland is proud to present a new limited edition soundtrack CD – two great scores for two great Richard Lester films, on one CD:
JUGGERNAUT and THE BED SITTING ROOM
Music Composed and Conducted by Ken Thorne
By the time of 1974’s Juggernaut, Richard Lester was known for his two wonderful Beatles’ films, A Hard Day’s Night and Help!, the film version of the Broadway show A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, as well as The Knack, The Bed Sitting Room, and How I Won the War, all of which were suffused with Lester’s visual style and humor. He’d also made the drama, Petulia, which was a whole different kind of film for Lester, and just prior to Juggernaut, he’d made a boisterous and wonderful film of The Three Musketeers. But nothing Lester had done really could have prepared audiences for the tension-filled, excruciating suspense of Juggernaut. While it’s sometimes spoken of as a disaster film, it’s not really in the Irwin Allen mold at all. The set-up comes quickly – a man identifying himself only as “Juggernaut” calls the owner of a shipping line and says there are seven barrels of amatol (explosives) on board the luxury-liner the Brittanic. They are set to explode by dawn of the next day. Any attempt to defuse them will cause them to detonate. If a ransom of 500,000 pounds is paid, Juggernaut will then send instructions on how to defuse the bombs. Juggernaut then gives a little demonstration by triggering a few small explosions. All this happens during the film’s terrific opening sequence.
From there on out it’s a game of edge-of-your-seat cat and mouse scenes between RichardHarris as Fallon, a bomb expert, and Juggernaut. Everything about the film works beautifully, and it has a great cast – Richard Harris and David Hemmings (as his number one man) are superb, as are Omar Sharif, Shirley Knight, Ian Holm, Lester regular Roy Kinnear, a young Anthony Hopkins, and especially Freddie Jones.
Five years earlier, Lester directed a film version of John Antrobus and Spike Milligan’s post-apocalyptic comedy, The Bed Sitting Room. Lester brought his unique comic visual style to this very weird comedy, which features an amazing cast (listed in the credits not alphabetically, but by height) – Ralph Richardson, Michael Hordern, Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Marty Feldman, Mona Washbourne, Roy Kinnear, Arthur Lowe, and fellow Goon Show members, Spike Milligan and Harry Secombe.
The scores for both films were written by Lester’s frequent musical collaborator, Ken Thorne. Thorne’s score for Juggernaut is very brief but very effective – it is filled with tension, has some great action scoring when the bomb squad is parachuting aboard the Brittanic, and his music heightens every scene in which it’s used. There’s also a very pretty theme to accompany scenes with Shirley Knight and Omar Sharif, but mostly his music plays the same cat and mouse game that the characters play. Thorne’s score for The Bed Sitting Room is the polar opposite of Juggernaut – whimsical, jaunty, rueful, and filled with one great melody after another. Thorne was really adept at writing comedy scores, in a way that few composers are. And he especially had an affinity for complimenting Lester’s visuals.
The source material for both scores came from Mr. Thorne’s personal tapes. For Juggernaut, those tapes had the entire brief score, save for one cue, the end titles. We were able to take most of that from the DVD (there is a tiny bit of sound effects – ocean noise – for the first few seconds). The Bed Sitting Room is quite a long score, but Mr. Thorne only had highlights from it on a reel, and we’ve included everything he had, as no tapes from either film were in the MGM vault.
This release is limited to 1000 copies only. The price is $19.98 plus shipping
CD will ship by the end of August – however, preorders placed directly through Kritzerland usually ship one to five weeks earlier (we’ve been averaging four weeks early). To place an order, see the cover, or hear audio samples, just visit www.kritzerland.com.
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Great music and great cover artwork! Thank you very much!
Are both scores presented in their complete form here?
Juggernaut is complete and includes two source cues that weren't used in the film. As noted in the release above, MGM had no tapes on Bed Sitting Room and Mr. Thorne only had highlights, which we're presenting here. It's a pretty good representation of the score, but obviously is not complete. We used everything he had.
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I love Richard Lester's work, his take on things. 'Bedsitting Room' is such a great flick, but I confess I don't remember what the music is like.
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You can't beat vintage diaster films from the seventies.
You wouldn't say that if you had had to watch 'em at the time!
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I love Richard Lester's work, his take on things. 'Bedsitting Room' is such a great flick, but I confess I don't remember what the music is like.
Well, you can visit Kritzerland and listen to four samples to refresh your memory.
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"The source material for both scores came from Mr. Thorne’s personal tapes. For Juggernaut, those tapes had the entire brief score, save for one cue, the end titles. We were able to take most of that from the DVD (there is a tiny bit of sound effects – ocean noise – for the first few seconds). The Bed Sitting Room is quite a long score, but Mr. Thorne only had highlights from it on a reel, and we’ve included everything he had, as no tapes from either film were in the MGM vault."
HA!!!
I should start reading the score-descriptions! Thank ya!
I was asking because I was suprised that I didn't read "Main Title" for THE BED SITTING ROOM with that trumpet solo (it was a trumpet, wasn't it?)
The track Desolation is the main title.
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Argh!!! Ordered in a heartbeat, thank you!
Juggernaut is one of my grails, but I knew it was brief so if it ever showed up it would be paired with something else, and I'm glad it turned out to be The Bed Sitting Room.
Juggernaut is one of my all-time favourite movies - I must have seen it nearly 20 times, but I *still* get tense at the end. So many great performances and lines. Thank you so so much for this! It's a shame about the end titles, but some of that material shows up earlier in the movie in various ways, so I'm sure that will make up for it.
I haven't seen The Bed Sitting Room yet, but the BFI released a stunning blu-ray of it last year which on my list to buy, so I'll make it a priority now.
Brilliant release all told, thank you!
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The samples were enough to convince me to order a copy despite not being familiar with either title. Thanks again, Bruce, for providing another "discovery!"
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“MY NAME IS JUGGERNAUT”
Kritzerland is proud to present a new limited edition soundtrack CD – two great scores for two great Richard Lester films, on one CD:
JUGGERNAUT and THE BED SITTING ROOM
Music Composed and Conducted by Ken Thorne
By the time of 1974’s Juggernaut, Richard Lester was known for his two wonderful Beatles’ films, A Hard Day’s Night and Help!, the film version of the Broadway show A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, as well as The Knack, The Bed Sitting Room, and How I Won the War, all of which were suffused with Lester’s visual style and humor. He’d also made the drama, Petulia, which was a whole different kind of film for Lester, and just prior to Juggernaut, he’d made a boisterous and wonderful film of The Three Musketeers. But nothing Lester had done really could have prepared audiences for the tension-filled, excruciating suspense of Juggernaut. While it’s sometimes spoken of as a disaster film, it’s not really in the Irwin Allen mold at all. The set-up comes quickly – a man identifying himself only as “Juggernaut” calls the owner of a shipping line and says there are seven barrels of amatol (explosives) on board the luxury-liner the Brittanic. They are set to explode by dawn of the next day. Any attempt to defuse them will cause them to detonate. If a ransom of 500,000 pounds is paid, Juggernaut will then send instructions on how to defuse the bombs. Juggernaut then gives a little demonstration by triggering a few small explosions. All this happens during the film’s terrific opening sequence.
From there on out it’s a game of edge-of-your-seat cat and mouse scenes between RichardHarris as Fallon, a bomb expert, and Juggernaut. Everything about the film works beautifully, and it has a great cast – Richard Harris and David Hemmings (as his number one man) are superb, as are Omar Sharif, Shirley Knight, Ian Holm, Lester regular Roy Kinnear, a young Anthony Hopkins, and especially Freddie Jones.
Five years earlier, Lester directed a film version of John Antrobus and Spike Milligan’s post-apocalyptic comedy, The Bed Sitting Room. Lester brought his unique comic visual style to this very weird comedy, which features an amazing cast (listed in the credits not alphabetically, but by height) – Ralph Richardson, Michael Hordern, Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Marty Feldman, Mona Washbourne, Roy Kinnear, Arthur Lowe, and fellow Goon Show members, Spike Milligan and Harry Secombe.
The scores for both films were written by Lester’s frequent musical collaborator, Ken Thorne. Thorne’s score for Juggernaut is very brief but very effective – it is filled with tension, has some great action scoring when the bomb squad is parachuting aboard the Brittanic, and his music heightens every scene in which it’s used. There’s also a very pretty theme to accompany scenes with Shirley Knight and Omar Sharif, but mostly his music plays the same cat and mouse game that the characters play. Thorne’s score for The Bed Sitting Room is the polar opposite of Juggernaut – whimsical, jaunty, rueful, and filled with one great melody after another. Thorne was really adept at writing comedy scores, in a way that few composers are. And he especially had an affinity for complimenting Lester’s visuals.
The source material for both scores came from Mr. Thorne’s personal tapes. For Juggernaut, those tapes had the entire brief score, save for one cue, the end titles. We were able to take most of that from the DVD (there is a tiny bit of sound effects – ocean noise – for the first few seconds). The Bed Sitting Room is quite a long score, but Mr. Thorne only had highlights from it on a reel, and we’ve included everything he had, as no tapes from either film were in the MGM vault.
This release is limited to 1000 copies only. The price is $19.98 plus shipping
CD will ship by the end of August – however, preorders placed directly through Kritzerland usually ship one to five weeks earlier (we’ve been averaging four weeks early). To place an order, see the cover, or hear audio samples, just visit www.kritzerland.com.
Wow! - another superb release from this great label - thanks a million!
I know it's been said before, but once again I must say I find the Kritzerland cover artwork THE best out there bar NONE! ~with the cover for JUGGERNAUT being perhaps the best yet!~
(with respect still to those following close "behind" - i.e. Intrada, LaLaLand and FSM of course).
Top stuff. This one will be ordered for sure in due course.
Cheers,
John.
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...
Juggernaut is one of my all-time favourite movies - I must have seen it nearly 20 times, but I *still* get tense at the end. So many great performances and lines.
...
I can't help but smile at this statement. I enjoyed the film, too, originally at the cinema (I think there were a few other patrons) and once or twice on TV.
At the time of the film's release the BBC's Cinema review programme (pre-dating FilmXX with Barry Norman), the reviewer commented, (something like): ".... in this ocean-going disaster film in which the big question is: will Richard Harris save the ship ... or will Richard Harris save the ship?"
And, on the following week's programme the reviewer stated that the film distribution company was withholding clips from all of its releases as retribution for such a review.
As for the music, I recall liking the end play-out music but little else rings bells.
The music for The Bed-Sitting Room has been available for many years (on the Prometheus label): see: http://www.screenarchives.com/title_detail.cfm/ID/1022/THE-FILM-MUSIC-OF-KEN-THORNE-VOL-2-MURPHYS-WAR-HELP!-BED-SITTING-ROOM/
A nice score ... I have no idea if this is the same material - anyone know?
The Prometheus release was a composer promo of some sort. It's the same material, remastered and the order is closer to the film order. Happily, all the major themes are represented in this grouping and the music is just wonderful.
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You can't beat vintage diaster films from the seventies.
Well done kritzerland.
I concur! Only crime thrillers could beat them, musically. But only by a small margin ;-) Well done indeed, big thanks!
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