'Death Wish 2' lol. Charles Bronson was a hero of mine from his performances (if that's the right word...) in these, wasting criminals with increasing absurdity in every film. I still love these films for the pure reckless abandon alone, and Page's score is ace, I agree. Notably, the same score, more or less, was rehashed for the 3rd film in the series- that was the most notorious of them all, with Bronson exterminating hundreds of biker punks with a WW2 machine gun, old folks running out of their houses hitting villains with brooms and mops, oh and some booby traps with nails attached to incapacitate criminals' teeth. Top, 100% OTT stuff!!!
The first film in the series has a top score too- by Herbie Hancock.
Sticking with Bronson, the 'Once Upon A Time In The West' score is unbelievably moving and perfect for the film. It's attached to it as every scene is added to immensely by the swirling, operatic and occasionally hypnotic. 'Harmonica Theme' is an unbelivably good piece of music- heavy, chiming fuzz guitars and swirling strings.
'The Stone Killer', a lesser piece of Dirty Harry-hokum which is nonetheless enjoyable. It has a great jazz rock score by Roy Budd, whose best work was for the Brit gangster classic, 'Get Carter'.
Much my favourite composers are Ennio Morricone and John Barry. Morricone's twin peaks are OUATIC and of course, 'The Good The Bad and The Ugly', which is another extremely moving piece- one scene in particular stands out for the music, where prisoners of war are forced to play a heartbreaking melody to drown out the torture of their fellow soldiers. And of course, the astonishing shoot out at the end which relies almost entirely upon the music for its tension.
Another Morricone favourite is 'For A Few Dollars More', 'Once Upon A Time In America', and one of his more underrated ones, 'A Fistful Of Dynamite'. The film is a bit hit and miss but the score is superb- the Irish parts of the film particularly.
John Barry contributed to most of the best Bond films- none better than 'On Her Majesty's Secret Service', his best score and best Bond film ever for me (best action scenes, best Bond girl ever, best in terms of acting and genuine emotion...). Lots of Moog heavy workouts and the lovely 'We Have All The Time In The World'.
Other faves of mine he's done are 'The Ipcress File', 'Quiller Memorandum', and his most underrated one, 'Game Of Death'. The film is an exploitative piece that used heavy and bad doubling to complete Bruce Lee's unfinished movie, but the score is superb. His theme for 'The Persuaders', one of my fave TV shows, is very good too.
Though he didn't do many films I know of, Laurie Johnson soundtracked some of my favourite TV shows. I like the quirkiness of 'The Avengers', the funkiness of 'The New Avengers' and 'The Professionals' and the various incidental themes he came up with for all of these.
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favorite movie soundtracks
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