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Great Movie
Sounds of
John Barry (CBS/ 1966)
I picked up this and about seven or eight James Bond original film soundtracks
from a junk shop on Stoke Newington High Street in the mid-Nineties. They
were just piled outside the shop on top of an old sideboard and were all
in excellent condition. But when I asked the shop-owner what he wanted
for them, he just laughed and asked what a guy like me wanted with a bunch
of old LPs, before charging me a pound-a-pop.
Of course, what I couldn't tell him, was that I wanted them to sell on
my book stall in Camden (see The Red Shoes by Anthony Adverse),
where they sold for between £10 and £20 each. But it wasn't
solely an act motivated by profit, as I was also looking to add a little
John Barry to my collection and so kept hold of this one and From
Russia With Love (which you'll eventually find under 'F').
Oddly perhaps, given that I've always really loved those classic old Bond
theme tunes scored by Barry and sung by the likes of Shirley Bassey, Nancy
Sinatra and Matt Monroe, I've never been a huge fan of the movies themselves.
Generally, I’ve always preferred my spies and secret agents to be
a little less flashy, and to express their aspirational modernity through
buying tinned champignons at the supermarket as opposed to driving fast
cars and drinking martinis 'shaken not stirred'.
Consequently, the far more believable – and distinctly working class
– Harry Palmer (as played by Michael Caine in The Ipcress File
and Billion Dollar Brain) always had it for me over Bond. Having
said that, I have to admit that both the Bond films and their attendant
theme tunes were for my generation, something that we grew up with: a
common cultural currency that seems to have devalued markedly in recent
years.
Of course, growing up in the Seventies, Roger Moore was my James Bond
in much the same way that John Pertwee was my Dr Who. However, without
doubt Sean Connery was far and away the best Bond (though I have to 'fess
up to never having seen any of the Dalton or Brosnan films), and I love
the mis-en-scene (pretentious, moi?) of those early movies. In
particular, I love Bond's sharp three-button Italian-cut suits as well
as the Pringle casual wear he sports on the golf course in You Only
Live Twice. Oh, and let's not forget the modernist designer furniture
in the same movie. But overall, I love the way Sean Connery as Bond serves
to epitomise a palpable sense of British optimism and cool. And likewise,
this is something which John Barry seemingly effortlessly succeeds in
encapsulating in his measured and comparatively minimalistic (i.e not
swamped by excess strings, ala Henry Mancini) arrangements.
This instrumental album contains Bond theme-tunes such as Thunderball,
Goldfinger and From Russia With Love and well as the
brilliant Bond signature tune on side one, and non-Bond material on side
two. I prefer this second side because the music benefits from being less
familiar, less strident and far more expansive than the Bond stuff.
Highlights include, The Chase, which succeeds in being
both plaintive and heroic sounding by turns. Also, call me a trainspotter
if you will, but to my ears the melancholic sounding harmonica at the
start echoes that on the theme to Midnight Cowboy, which
Barry was to score just a few years later. The Knack
(strange film that!) meanwhile, sounds warm and jazzy with its double
bass and fluid ride cymbals and then there's the wonderfully ominous and
doomy sounding The Ipcress File. On the other
hand, I could happily live without the slightly saccharine Born
Free, which closes the album, but that's a minor caveat.
Copyright: Poke-in-the-Eye Publishing 2005