99 44/100% DEAD Composed and Conducted by HENRY MANCINI
INTRADA Special Collection Volume 133
For Intrada's latest release from the 20th Century Fox archives comes Henry Mancini's 99 44/100% Dead, a crazy satire that needed a spirited score to go with it. Mancini leaps into the fray with a potent, muscular “Main Title,” with its driving, buzzing guitar and dark brass. It sets the tone for everything else to come. In full satiric mode, comes “Hangin’ Out” -- a cheery little ditty, complete with player piano and virtuoso whistling—and a sign that the composer’s skills as a change-up artist are going to be on full display. It’s followed by the film’s theme song, “Easy Baby,” a soulful number with lyrics by the esteemed team of Alan and Marilyn Bergman. Mancini’s serious side is evident in a pair of full-fledged suspense cues: “New Shoes” and “The Kid and the Pro,” both eerie synth compositions, their telegraphic opening notes taken up by weirdly fuzzy keyboards, spare and spooky. And there's a whole lot more. In the case of 99 44/100% Dead, Mancini over and over, for scene after scene, set the tone—and along the way, moment by moment, crafted music that, for pure pleasure, can proudly stand on its own.
The film takes place in a strange, vaguely futuristic world, in which hoods do their dirty deeds decked out in dapper suit-and-tie ensembles; gang leaders with names like Uncle Frank (Edmond O’Brien) and Big Eddie (Bradford Dillman) commandeer soldiers who tote their weapons in instrument cases; women are either schoolteachers by day/exotic dancers by night or full-time hookers; and weirdly, wildly opposing hit-men square off: a strong, silent, faintly intellectual type (Richard Harris) versus a big brute (Chuck Connors) whose mechanical hand features a zany array of snap-on attachments.This is the surreal universe of 99 44/100% Dead, with a score that musically captures all of this insansity.
Back then, the film, released as "Ninty Nine And Forty Four One Hundreths Percent Dead", bombed so badly the first week that Fox panicked and hurriedly prepared a new campaign renaming the film THE HOOD. (It didn't help.)
That main title remains a unique creation in the Mancini canon.
That main title remains a unique creation in the Mancini canon.
It has that insistent PETER GUNN-like ostinato combined with an exotic/mysterious quality in the melody line that is very much reminiscent of his theme for ARABESQUE.
Back then, the film, released as "Ninty Nine And Forty Four One Hundreths Percent Dead", bombed so badly the first week that Fox panicked and hurriedly prepared a new campaign renaming the film THE HOOD. (It didn't help.)
I don't suppose renaming it to 36/100% ALIVE (Thirty Six One Hundreths Percent Alive) to capture a more positive spin on the title would have worked either.
I've never heard of this one and I thought I knew a lot of Mancini score. It's so nice to listen to something absolutely "new" from one of my favourite composers soon. This is such a great time for soundtracks
I've never heard of this one and I thought I knew a lot of Mancini score. Main title was available on some Mancini compilation called "Hangin' Out" (RCA Records CPL1-0672).
I've never heard of this one and I thought I knew a lot of Mancini score. Main title was available on some Mancini compilation called "Hangin' Out" (RCA Records CPL1-0672).
I have that lp somewhere....sometimes you don't even know what you have yourself
