Film Noir

"Noir" to me conjures images of lonely rain slicked streets, sultry blondes veiled in a haze of cigarette smoke and snub nosed 38's. Some of this atmosphere is compromised when the accompanying music is played with the finesse of a high school marching band.

If you're like me and you have a hankering for "film noir music," you're probably thinking of a lonely sax playing an urban, 3 AM melodic line, backed by some bluesy chords from a small jazz ensemble. Like John Barry's excellent theme from "Body Heat," for example, or something like Jerry Goldsmith's theme for "Chinatown."Never mind the fact that the great majority of films noir from the classic period (1941-1955) didn't have jazzy background music like that at all, but was usually scored with quasi-classical romantic string music (with a solo violin) or bombastic, brass-heavy instrumentals.Anyway, this CD isn't the 3 AM sax stuff.Not to say that there isn't some of that on here. You might like "Godfather" (not, however, the theme you're thinking of from the Francis Ford Coppola Godfather films), or "Blues for Guylaine," or even the bluesy passages from Bernard Herrmann's "Taxi Driver" suite.But there's some odd stuff on here that causes me to wonder how, precisely, it qualifies as "film noir."For instance, the dreamy carnival music from "The Elephant Man," or the angular string music in "Buckets of Blood" (from "Carrie," not the Roger Corman film). Seems like a reach. The first cut, "Turning Pages" had me unpleasantly surprised, and triggered my I've been ripped-off alarm. And "Chop Shop" has a wah guitar that sounds a lot more like a 70's blaxsploitation film than film noir.The inclusion of Angelo Badalamenti helps redeem the collection; his music for "Twin Peaks," "Fire, Walk With Me" and "Mulholland Drive" redefines what a noir theme should sound like.This CD is odd, no doubt about it. "Godfather," which sounds decidedly noirish, is from a comedy/drama film about a man who's paid to impregnate lesbians. "The Wrong Man" music is relentlessly perky but comes from a bona fide noir. (Okay, a Hitchcock noir, not quite the same thing.)The key here, I guess, is to enlarge the scope of what you think noir film music ought to be... But perhaps a better title for this collection of music might have been "Neo-Noir!"Still, credit must be given to liner notes writer Eddie Muller and his Film Noir Foundation for at least directing the current noir wave. His book "Dark City" turned me - and probably many others - to noir. Long may his tribe increase!Summary: If you're looking for classic/sterotypical, 3 AM wet-pavements-in-the-Dark-City noirish stuff, try John Barry's "Body Heat," which I enthusiastically recommend. Barry practically *owns* that silky/sexy slow sax genre.

WARNING - the French LP pictured here (B&W image of heavy set man in trenchcoat) does NOT feature the music referred to in the reviews below.This LP features 16 delectable tracks from French noir films of the 50s and 60s. The only composers well known to North Americans are from 3 tracks by Miles Davis, Jimmy Smith and Art Blakey.There is an OOP cd of the same title, which is the one the other reviews refer to. Its cover features several terror struck characters in a suitably garish color image.I have said before that Amazon should thank customers like me who try to straighten out seriously inaccurate listings. :)

A collection of musical cues from various film noir scores, but imaginatively assembled to constitute a new score for a nonexistent movie. Cleverly done, choosing from excellent sources, and not going for the easy or the obvious. It's exciting to hear someone making a connection between Bernard Herrmann and Angelo Badalamenti.

Fans of Film Noir this one is a must I listen to it often, as the sound track of my life

Outstanding music!!!

Excellent excellent

The team William T. Stromberg & John W. Morgan, now famous in the classic film score reconstruction world for their outstanding cds in the Marco Polo/Naxos and later Tribute Film Classics labels, reconstructed and recorded the music of this hard to find cd in 1996, with the Brandenburg Philharmonic Orchestra.All the music has been recorded for the first time (the original soundtrack sessions seem to be not available or lost).Adolph Deutsch (1897-1980) is represented with the "The Maltese Falcon" and "All Through The Night" scores: use of music through the movie is quite economical: short cues, skillfully orchestrated. The "Maltes Falcon" suite has been extended with additional tracks and re-recorded by Stromberg with the Moscow Symphony Orchestra in the later Marco Polo cd dedicated to Deutsch (titled "The Maltese Falcon" and other Classic Film Scores by Adolph Deutsch), but I find this one more satisfactory."For "All Through The Night", Arthur Schwartz and Johnny Mercer provided a title song, which Deutsch masterly interpolated and arranged in various cues.In "The Verdict", composer Frederick Hollander (1896-1976) supplies the suitably ominous orchestral swirls and chordal punctuations to make the film seem as creepy and chilling as possible.Franz Waxman's (1906-1967) score for "Dark Passage" has a beautiful love theme that ends the movie happily, after dark orchestral tones. The suite includes a cue written by Steiner, in addition to the never-before-heard music originally composed by Waxman (deleted due to editing changes in the film).Finally, opened by the famous Warner Bros. Fanfare (1937), we listen to the challenging music for the last great gangster film of the '40s: Max Steiner's (1888-1971) "White Heat", starring James Cagney.This score was the most difficult task to reconstruct in this project, because most of the music was recycled for the 1961 film "Portrait of a Mobster" with a drastically reduced orchestration. The original one was for a very large ensemble, including 2 pianos, organ, novachord, celeste and saxophones.The music is imposing and inesorable: Steiner makes frequent use of dissonances to portrait Cagney's mental insanity, giving prominence to the brass and percussions. There is no rest until the tragic end of the film.34 pages booklet, full of pictures from the movies and notes about music.Strongly recommended.