I've had this driving rhthym going through my brain since I went out last night to buy that other bottle of the finest red. What the hell is that great music? It's almost like THE SIX BUCK MAN, deffo Ollie Nelson... then it came to me - it was from a film I'd taped off the TV more than forty years ago and which, through the powers of hallucinatory red wine, had resurfaced in my brain.
SKULLDUGGERY didn't seem to be a very successful film. I remember when I saw it that its odd mix of adventure, romance, comedy and even SF didn't jellify. But it had a great Main Titles, which is what had been galloping through my head all night.
And so, as one does, I went onto "the computer", and the film's up in four parts. Pretty unwatchable condition, but skimming the uploads gives us an idea of how great the whole score is. Just listen to the way the music builds up momentum after the opening twenty seconds of what sounds like traditional African music adapted by Nelson. Those Main Titles are freakin' awesome man! Quite a lot of the score is based around those African rhythms (I wonder if they appeared in a previous Nelson jazz album), but then there's the lighter music for the queasily comic scenes, and some gorgeous silky string writing for the romance. And it always returns to that great Main Title theme, be it in propulsive form or more plodding. Thinking about it, on the whole the score reminds me more of ZIGZAG than The Six Buck Man, but it's all Oliver Nelson and it's all great.
Our resident YouTube Fish Man From the Black Lagoon has put up a suite of the score. It's only 10 minutes long, but since he doesn't include dialogue scenes, this is only a few well-chosen portions of the score. I think quite a lot is scored behind dialogue, but I can only guess at how long the full score is.
I'd buy a release of any Oliver Nelson score. It's probably a bit under the radar compared to The 6 Buck Man, but any Oliver Nelson is worth championing. Now that LLL seems to be releasing Universal titles, I wonder if this might be on THEIR radar. Anybody else interested?
I just checked some details on the "Afrique" album and it appears to have actually come out after the release of SKULLDUGGERY. Not long after, but it would still mean that Nelson rearranged the music he'd written for SKULLDUGGERY so as to accommodate Basie. I had just assumed that the theme had originated before the film and was adapted for it, but the opposite seems true.
Any more details on this from our jazz experts? Maybe I'm getting something wrong...
As a jazzbo from the STL I'll add that Oliver Nelson composed one of THE great jazz classic standards, "Stolen Moments," heard on his amazing Impusle album, Blues and the Abstract Truth, as well as being covered by everybody from Ahmad Jamal to Frank Zappa.
No, not available. It's one of those movies that seemed to go direct from theaters to syndicated TV airings in the Seventies, then oblivion by the Eighties.
No, not available. It's one of those movies that seemed to go direct from theaters to syndicated TV airings in the Seventies, then oblivion by the Eighties.
SKULLDUGGERY is on Arthur Grant's list of most wanted films on DVD/Blu-ray. The 1970 film was based upon a 1952 novel, “Les animaux denatures,” by Vercors. The novel’s title is variously translated as “You Shall Know Them,” “Borderline,” and “The Murder of the Missing Link.” The author’s name, Vercors, was a pseudonym. While some believe the author to be Pierre Boulle, author of “Planet of the Apes,” Vercors is most likely Jean Marcel Bruller (1902 – 1991), a French writer and illustrator who, during the World War II occupation of northern France, joined the Resistance and published texts under the pseudonym Vercors.
During the late 1960s, producer Saul David had a string of successes at 20th Century Fox, with the James Coburn FLINT films, VON RYAN’S EXPRESS, and FANTASTIC VOYAGE. SKULLDUGGERY was his first film for Universal. Nelson Gidding (THE HAUNTING, 1963; LOST COMMAND, 1966) was hired to script the film, and Richard Wilson (INVITATION TO A GUNFIGHTER, 1964; 3 IN THE ATTIC, 1968) was brought on to direct. But one week into production, Wilson was replaced by Gordon Douglas, who had directed IN LIKE FLINT for Saul David. Oliver Nelson composed the music for the film, the second of only three features that he scored.
SKULLDUGGERY follows an adventurer looking for phosphorous deposits, played by Burt Reynolds, and an archeologist, played by Susan Clark, as they explore New Guinea. The group discovers an ape-man tribe, which they name the Tropis. They feel they must take action, however, when the financier of the expedition decides to breed the Tropis and sell them as slaves. Location scenes for SKULLDUGGERY were filmed in New Guinea and Jamaica.
Burt Reynolds had been in four pictures in 1969, only one of which, the action hit 100 RIFLES, had made any impression at the box office. The others (SAM WHISKEY, IMPASSE, SHARK) had quickly disappeared. Susan Clark, a Universal contract player, had been in some high profile 1968 films by director Don Siegel (MADIGAN, COOGAN’S BLUFF), and had last appeared in 1969’s TELL THEM WILLIE BOY IS HERE, Abraham Polonsky’s directorial comeback film after having been blacklisted.
SKULLDUGGERY opened in New York on 11 March 1970, whereupon Roger Greenspun of the New York Times blasted the film as consisting of “stock footage so venerable it seems to light a hundred memories of jungle adventure, grade C. In manner and feeling, it recalls the febrile luxury of the 3 P.M. movie on Saturday television, while everybody else is out ruining his mind with team sports, fresh air and sunshine.” Further, Greenspun declared that when the “utterly unimportant plot” began addressing “man's misuse of man from the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution until last week,” “what had been acceptably awful becomes unacceptably awful, as SKULLDUGGERY stumbles up to the histrionics of Hollywood humanism.”
Greenspun acknowledged, however, that “From time to time the dialogue produces a gleam of wit unearned by Gordon Douglas's dull direction. Susan Clark has an elegant manner and a pleasing face that suggests she could actually hold the Ph.D. her roles seem always to credit her with.”
Time Out magazine was a little more forgiving of SKULLDUGGERY, seeing it as an “engagingly ramshackle adventure” with a “rousingly melodramatic courtroom finale.” “Naïve, uncertain in tone,” said Time Out, “but despite all faults, an appealing curiosity.” Leonard Maltin, however, probably represents the consensus on the film, giving it one and a half stars and calling it “unusual but unsuccessful.” Maltin also claims that the “author had his name removed from the credits,” but his name appears on the one-sheet below.
SKULLDUGGERY was broadcast on ABC’s Monday Night Movie in 1974, but has rarely been seen since. There are mentions of VHS releases in Germany and the U.S., but I haven’t been able to confirm any release on any format. Universal still controls the rights to the film.
SKULLDUGGERY was the final film for actor Rhys Williams, who played a judge in the film. Williams had made his film debut as a Welsh miner in John Ford's 1941 classic HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY. Screenwriter Nelson Gidding would go from this film to scripting the very successful THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN the next year. Producer Saul David’s next project would be 1976’s LOGAN’S RUN.
I just checked some details on the "Afrique" album and it appears to have actually come out after the release of SKULLDUGGERY. Not long after, but it would still mean that Nelson rearranged the music he'd written for SKULLDUGGERY so as to accommodate Basie. I had just assumed that the theme had originated before the film and was adapted for it, but the opposite seems true.
Any more details on this from our jazz experts? Maybe I'm getting something wrong...
I do so love quoting myself. Here I go again. Any further observations on the above?
SKULLDUGGERY does seem to be an obscure oddity, but the bits of music I've heard are splendid. I like Brad Will's idea of it being issued as one of LLL's Universal Heritage series. I hope it would sell more than three copies. Anyone want to watch the whole film in four parts on YouTube and total up the amount of music in it?
Any more details on this from our jazz experts? Maybe I'm getting something wrong...
I do so love quoting myself. Here I go again. Any further observations on the above?
SKULLDUGGERY does seem to be an obscure oddity, but the bits of music I've heard are splendid. I like Brad Will's idea of it being issued as one of LLL's Universal Heritage series. I hope it would sell more than three copies. Anyone want to watch the whole film in four parts on YouTube and total up the amount of music in it?
I'm afraid I've no further information, it may remain a mystery along with how the hell did Oliver Nelson end up recording with Chas & Dave in 1974!
"Nelson plays well and there are some good moments (particularly on Jobim's "Meditation") but most of the backup musicians sound quite anonymous and little of significance occurs" Sounds about right
Illustrator - If this were a words-relation game, "Chas n' Dave" would never in a million years have appeared in my head after the name "Oliver Nelson". It's quite a shock really.
Onya - Yeah, strangely (or not), "Skull Session" is what came to my mind (unlike Chas n' Dave) when I heard SKULLDUGGERY, but I'm sure it was just a matter of semantics. I can't be sure offhand, but I don't think any of the score found its way into those Skull Sessions.
(Member) - Any particualar parts you hear in the score that were "re-purposed" for The 6 Buck Man? I find a Steve Austin rhythm behind the Main Titles, but nothing specific.
MD - That's a beaut of an LP, from really early on ('60/'61?) - Funny that despite its title it seems to have less of a direct connection with SKULLDUGGERY and the then-contemporary album he did with Basie (which used the opening African percussion and phraseology from the film) as with - say - Hugo Montenegro's HURRY SUNDOWN melodies... which are quite beautiful by the way. Otherwise the album looks ahead to, again, film scores which would appear a decade or so later. ZIGZAG once more - Listen to the opening downward spiral at the start of Track 2 "Jungleaire", and the drum solo towards the end of the track. As you say, quite "filmic". That cello at the start of the final track is wonderful. In fact the whole LP is, and Nelson as soloist is absolutely amazing.
