Gutbrain Records

Monday, 23 June 2008

Saturday, June 21st, was Lalo Schifrin's 76th birthday. He will always be famous as the composer of the Mission: Impossible theme — his autobiography, coming in July from Scarecrow Press, is called Mission Impossible: My Life in Music — but he composed a great deal more, including our fourteenth Soundtrack of the Week, Kelly's Heroes.

This is yet another great release from Film Score Monthly. The CD has both the original album version of the score as well as the music in the film, including unreleased cues. Total time = 79:02.

It's an exciting mixture of stuff: marches, lounge, funk, pop, middle eastern, fuzz guitar, country (Hank Williams, Jr., is on here). You can hear some samples here. My favorite cue is "Quick Draw Kelly", Schifrin's tribute to Ennio Morricone's famous music for Sergio Leone's spaghetti westerns. (Clint Eastwood plays Kelly, so this makes sense while it amuses.)

I watched Kelly's Heroes a few months ago. It's a good Sunday-afternoon movie, the kind I hope to find when I'm bored and switching channels. It's not art or anything, but its cast is impressive: Clint Eastwood, Telly Savalas, Don Rickles, Carroll O'Connor, Donald Sutherland, Gavin MacLeod and Harry Dean Stanton! (No women in this movie. George Savalas shows up, though, which won't surprise Telly Savalas fans.)