Screen Action Jazz

Riding on the momentum of his two performances as Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe — in 1975’s Farewell, My Lovely, and 1978’s The Big Sleep — well-seasoned Robert Mitchum was a logical choice to play the similarly world-weary former-cop-turned-reluctant…

Aside from jazz-oriented film and television soundtracks, I’m also constantly on the prowl for previously undiscovered compilation albums that focus on this vibrant genre.

I enjoyed this film.

Big-screen jazz scores clearly have become an endangered species, but good grief; I’ve not been able to showcase a new film release since Confess, Fletch came out in October 2022.

As I discussed in this blog’s previous post, Dragon’s Domain finally rewarded the patience of those who enjoyed Showtime’s film noir anthology series, Fallen Angels, by releasing the full scores for the initial 1993 season’s six episodes.

I covered Showtime’s marvelous film noir series, Fallen Angels, in my second volume.

I was a fan of Robert B.

This droll 1962 British item is a 69-minute music video disguised as a film.

Film music journalist/historian Jon Burlingame has been an invaluable resource over the years; he’s also a thoroughly entertaining writer.

Despite a varied and extremely busy film scoring career that stretched from 1941’s Under Fiesta Stars to 1972’s The Cremators, Albert Glasser (1916-98) is best known these days for the bombastic scores he delivered for low-rent 1950s “creature features” s…

Thanks to the ongoing efforts of labels that specialize in soundtracks — and the fans who purchase their products, thereby maintaining the pipeline — quite a few scores have received enhanced treatment since my two books came out in April 2020.

Michael Caine was born to star in spy thrillers, which became obvious during his career-making portrayal of Len Deighton’s Harry Palmer, in The Ipcress File.

I’m willing to bet that no other film has turned a jazz trumpet player into an amateur sleuth.

Director Michael Winner’s melancholy noir entry quietly smolders amid an atmosphere of casual debauchery enhanced by Otto Heller’s gorgeous monochromatic cinematography.

The British were decades ahead of us, with films that thoughtfully explored race relations; 1959’s Sapphire is an excellent example.

Plenty of television pilots failed to attract network interest, over the years — for which we can be grateful, in many cases — but this probably is the only one that was bumped off.

The television component of my two-volume series focuses on shows that successfully landed on network schedules … if only for a month or two, in some cases.

Talk about being lucky enough to hit the ground running: Composer Gerald Fried’s first three big-screen assignments were for Stanley Kubrick’s first three features: Fear and Desire (1953), Killer’s Kiss (1955) and The Killing (1956).

One would assume, given a soundtrack album laden with iconic classics by Horace Silver, Chet Baker, Dexter Gordon and many others, that this film score is saturated with jazz.

This film is a total hoot, and Daniel Pemberton’s fizzy score has much to do with the merriment.

On the very early morning of August 21, 1961, somebody broke into London’s National Gallery and stole Francisco Goya’s painting, “Portrait of the Duke of Wellington.”

This was a tough call.

Whether by personal choice or director Helmuth Ashley’s insistence, Peter Thomas’ approach to this fourth Jerry Cotton adventure differs from the way he scored its predecessors.

Jerry Cotton’s third adventure is a corker, despite the lamentably excessive use of stock footage and rear projection (always a distraction in this series, but much worse here). 1966’s Um Null Uhr schnappt die Falle zu — released in English-speaking terri…

Lalo Schifrin’s jazzy and occasional cheeky score kept this film on the list during several editing iterations, but ultimately I had to admit that — although the bonkers script spends a lot of time feeling like a low-rent crime and/or spy flick — the reso…