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 Posted:   Nov 9, 2020 - 2:46 AM   
 By:   Hurdy Gurdy   (Member)

"On first hearing, the song kind of went by me, but it's actually pretty catchy"
---------------------------------
I actually think the song is one of Goldsmith's best. It's certainly one of his catchiest. I can't get the melody out of my head.
In general, apart from a few (It's A Long Road, Peace In Our Life, Nights Are Forever), I usually think JG's songs are really cheesy and really bad (The Omen, Boys From Brazil, Cassandra Crossing).
And although this one from The Don Is Dead is laden with cheese, I find it far more likeable than his other ones.
It reminds me of those dreamy, lovely (cheesy) Pino Donaggio songs for the Prom sequences in Carrie.

Still loving this score.
I never would have believed, from my old tape dub and pre-conceptions, how different the CD score release would be and how much more interesting the music is.

 
 Posted:   Nov 9, 2020 - 8:13 AM   
 By:   Riddick   (Member)

Just finished my first spin through the entire CD yesterday. Very gritty and dark score, but with some very beautiful tracks also. Definitely second spin very soon. Sound quality was pretty good.

 
 
 Posted:   Nov 18, 2020 - 11:13 AM   
 By:   LRobHubbard   (Member)

Kino-Lorber blu-ray next year - March 9:

The Don is Dead (1973)
• NEW Audio Commentary by Film Historian and Critic Sergio Mims
• Theatrical Trailer
• Dual-Layered BD50 Disc
• Optional English Subtitles
Color 115 Minutes 1.85:1 Rated R
From Richard Fleischer, the outstanding director of The Narrow Margin, Compulsion, The Boston Strangler and Mr. Majestyk, comes this action-packed mob classic starring screen legend Anthony Quinn (Across 110th Street). Power Built an Empire… Passion Destroyed It! When the reigning Don dies, a bloody, all-out power struggle ensues to determine who will be the next Capo. Don Angelo (Quinn), a notorious crime czar, is poised to take control of the Syndicate. But when he discovers that an ambitious lieutenant (Robert Forster, Jackie Brown) from his own family has become a rival for the love of his beautiful mistress, the Don vows to turn the streets red with the blood of the traitor, triggering an internal mob war of wills and weapons in this hard-hitting tale of betrayal, ambition and revenge. Based on a novel by Marvin H. Albert (Duel at Diablo) and co-starring Frederic Forrest (Hammett), Al Lettieri (The Getaway), Joe Santos (TV’s The Rockford Files), Abe Vigoda (Newman’s Law), Victor Argo (Taxi Driver), Sid Haig (Busting) and Vic Tayback (Special Delivery).

 
 Posted:   Nov 4, 2021 - 8:07 AM   
 By:   Sehnsuchtshafen   (Member)

[unanswered questions reposted below]

 
 
 Posted:   Nov 4, 2021 - 2:38 PM   
 By:   riotengine   (Member)

Kino-Lorber blu-ray next year - March 9:

The Don is Dead (1973)
• NEW Audio Commentary by Film Historian and Critic Sergio Mims
• Theatrical Trailer
• Dual-Layered BD50 Disc
• Optional English Subtitles
Color 115 Minutes 1.85:1 Rated R
From Richard Fleischer, the outstanding director of The Narrow Margin, Compulsion, The Boston Strangler and Mr. Majestyk, comes this action-packed mob classic starring screen legend Anthony Quinn (Across 110th Street). Power Built an Empire… Passion Destroyed It! When the reigning Don dies, a bloody, all-out power struggle ensues to determine who will be the next Capo. Don Angelo (Quinn), a notorious crime czar, is poised to take control of the Syndicate. But when he discovers that an ambitious lieutenant (Robert Forster, Jackie Brown) from his own family has become a rival for the love of his beautiful mistress, the Don vows to turn the streets red with the blood of the traitor, triggering an internal mob war of wills and weapons in this hard-hitting tale of betrayal, ambition and revenge. Based on a novel by Marvin H. Albert (Duel at Diablo) and co-starring Frederic Forrest (Hammett), Al Lettieri (The Getaway), Joe Santos (TV’s The Rockford Files), Abe Vigoda (Newman’s Law), Victor Argo (Taxi Driver), Sid Haig (Busting) and Vic Tayback (Special Delivery).


I viewed the DVD of The Don Is Dead.

Here is my review of the film.

https://www.facebook.com/greg.espinoza.9/posts/4802161056469394

Greg Espinoza

 
 Posted:   Nov 5, 2021 - 3:52 AM   
 By:   Sehnsuchtshafen   (Member)

Two questions:

Was this music really used in the film?
Those tracks are not on the CD.

What's the story behind these three?


Strangers In The Night (From the Motion Picture "A Man Could Get Killed")
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqPfg1ukDh4

Airport Love Theme (From the Motion Picture "Airport")
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8s5u2OoSPHU

The Eyes Of Love (From the Motion Picture "Banning")
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G74CvhZ4Qtg

 
 Posted:   Feb 17, 2022 - 5:12 AM   
 By:   Bill Carson, Earl of Poncey   (Member)

So can someone please confirm who sang the song Our Last Night on this score? It says co writer lyrics Carol Heather (Goldsmith), but cant find singer name anywhere? Ive heard her before i think.

 
 Posted:   Feb 19, 2022 - 3:26 AM   
 By:   Bill Carson, Earl of Poncey   (Member)

Does nobody know the answer?

 
 
 Posted:   Feb 19, 2022 - 4:29 AM   
 By:   Hurdy Gurdy   (Member)

I'd have to dig the CD out, Bill, although I vaguely recall that the answer is not given within the booklet or credits?

 
 Posted:   Feb 19, 2022 - 9:03 AM   
 By:   Bill Carson, Earl of Poncey   (Member)

Cheers kev.

 
 
 Posted:   Feb 19, 2022 - 10:00 AM   
 By:   Bob DiMucci   (Member)

Two questions:

Was this music really used in the film?
Those tracks are not on the CD.

What's the story behind these three?


Strangers In The Night (From the Motion Picture "A Man Could Get Killed")
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqPfg1ukDh4

Airport Love Theme (From the Motion Picture "Airport")
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8s5u2OoSPHU

The Eyes Of Love (From the Motion Picture "Banning")
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G74CvhZ4Qtg



I don't know about the other two, but in THE DON IS DEAD, there's a scene in a restaurant. In the background, the restaurant's muzak is playing Alfred Newman's Love Theme from AIRPORT (1970). It wasn't the version heard in that film, however. It was re-orchestrated, perhaps by Goldsmith. Since both films were from Universal, I guess they had the rights. I note that A MAN COULD GET KILLED and BANNING were also Universal films.

 
 
 Posted:   Feb 19, 2022 - 1:51 PM   
 By:   Hurdy Gurdy   (Member)

Yes, as I recalled, nowhere in the notes or credits does it actually state who sang the song, but the fact that the lyrics were written by Carol Goldsmith (Heather), with music by Jerry Goldsmith, would make one assume that she sang it.
Especially as she would go on to perform many other similar styled songs, featured in Goldsmith scored films.
Although this one is probably the best of the lot in their collaborations together, certainly for me at least.
You gave me an excuse to play the CD again, Bill, and it's bloody great, despite my previous/initial reservations, due to not being that keen on the film and my old tape dub of music from it.

 
 Posted:   Feb 19, 2022 - 2:04 PM   
 By:   Bill Carson, Earl of Poncey   (Member)

Thanks kev.
Yeah that tension theme is a style he used previously in Satan Bug, among others.

 
 
 Posted:   Jan 19, 2024 - 12:53 PM   
 By:   Hurdy Gurdy   (Member)

To Graham, who is anticipating the death of the Don.
You're gonna love this CD mate.
It's chock full of that gnarly aggressive 70s scoring from Goldsmith.
Things like Satan Bug, Illustrated Man, Escape from POTA and his TV Movie suspense scoring will immediately spring to mind.
And don't switch off during the lovely Lee Holdridge style song with extra syrup... even that has a gorgeous orchestral interlude that will make you swoon.
See you back here right soon.

 
 
 Posted:   Jan 21, 2024 - 5:31 AM   
 By:   Graham Watt   (Member)

I listened to the Odyssey. Very good half hour with Yavar, Doug Fake and Roger Fiegelson. Looking forward to getting this CD towards the end of the week.

I'm sure I'll get used to that chitter-chatter synth - I was almost beginning to like it during the podcast. And the other material is prime JG, from the period when he could do (for me) very little wrong.

The song's melody is quite pretty, but Jeez-o! Those lyrics! I think if I were Anthony Quinn handling the aspiring songress' demo tape, I'd have handed it back saying, "Nice tune, but change those awful words!"

All in all I'm expecting this to be a great listen.

 
 
 Posted:   Feb 10, 2024 - 10:34 AM   
 By:   Graham Watt   (Member)

To Graham, who is anticipating the death of the Don.
You're gonna love this CD mate.
It's chock full of that gnarly aggressive 70s scoring from Goldsmith.
Things like Satan Bug, Illustrated Man, Escape from POTA and his TV Movie suspense scoring will immediately spring to mind.
And don't switch off during the lovely Lee Holdridge style song with extra syrup... even that has a gorgeous orchestral interlude that will make you swoon.
See you back here right soon.


_____________________________________________________________________________________________

Well, here we are three weeks later and, as Hurdy McG predicted, "I'm lovin' it". But I did take my time in warming to it. Perhaps the biggest stumbling block was the hoppin' jumpin' electric cockroach sound which was at first quite aggravating throughout. But I found a way to embrace it. It became a kind of Tell-Tale Heart under the floorboards, and as it was I who had murdered the milky-eyed old man, the beating of his infernal heart was driving me to confess my horrid act to the policemen to whom I had just offered salami sandwiches. So the ticking and bleating and squelching turned into a very real protagonist of the listening experience, not one I welcomed immediately, but one which I learned to live with. An even better strategy was to imagine that in the film it was actually a bug, a surveillance bug planted somewhere in a house, and the characters were being driven to despair in their efforts to locate it. In fact, it may even have been a "Satan" bug, certainly a bicho of the same family. It gave the already edgy atmosphere of those tracks an extra bite and reason to be there.

The "Old World" theme seems to have little connection to the rest of the score, but it's interesting in that it sounds like it could have been written more than a decade earlier for "Thriller". I was imagining that theme as the End Credits to a creepy episode set somewhere on the Mediterranean coast... or in Mexico.

The song really is an embarrassment though. Sometimes I wish I didn't understand English so goodly, but I blush every time I hear those lyrics, and nobody's even watching me. The melody is quite pretty, but it's also verging on pap.

Still, the bulk of the score is tight and intense '70s Jerry Goldsmith, and showcases just how staggeringly inventive he was in those days. I watched the film for the second time not long before I got the CD, but the music is much more interesting as a standalone listen than as heard in the movie. The sound quality here is also pretty spectacular. Packaging, notes etc are stellar, so...

Bravo Intrada! (And Jerry Goldsmith)

 
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