= MANCINI SURROUND =

Mostly Monsters, Murders and Mysteries                                                          < Prev   

London was the setting for Without a Clue (1987), in which Michael Caine played Sherlock Holmes in a guise never before seen-as a fake. In this gentle spoof Holmes is an actor hired by Dr. Watson to front for Watson's own sleuthing. This music deftly underlined the satire on the Great Detective and his bumbling adventures. For this one the composer needed his tongue firmly placed in his cheek.

Sunset (1987) was the 25th Blake Edwards movie to have a Henry Mancini score, thereby continuing the association they began in 1958 with the TV series Peter Gunn. In this one Edwards fantasized about the legendary western star Tom Mix (Bruce Willis) teaming up with the legendary lawman Wyatt Earp (James Gamer) to solve a murder mystery in the Hollywood of the late Twenties. For "Cowboys" Mancini deliberately wrote some sprightly old-fashioned western movie music, and for his main theme he evoked the era with a melody scored for trumpet and piano in the style of another legendary character, trumpeter Bix Beiderbecke.

For Cheryl (Mariel Hemingway), the girl involved in the mystery, Mancini wrote a love theme for piano, and in this version the composer is at the keyboard. 

All of these films from the earliest, It Came From Outer Space (1953), to the most recent, Fear (1990), provide different perspectives on one of the most remarkable film composers of our time, someone who can meet the challenge of writing movie music with no barriers as to setting, style or genre. In this collection, Mostly Murders, Murder and Mystery we are able to hear why Henry Mancini continues to have a vast measure of scores in the business of writing music for movies.

- TONY THOMAS

Photograph: Without a Clue  (ITC Productions, Inc.)