Customer Reviews

Dirty Harry Anthology - Original Soundtracks

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This digitally remastered collection of tracks from Schifrin's first three Dirty Harry scores is only marginally better than the 1983 vinyl release 'Sudden Impact and the best of Dirty Harry', an album that included music from 'Dirty Harry', 'Magnum Force', 'The Enforcer' (some excellent work from the late Jerry Fielding) with the fistful of 'Sudden Impact' tracks. While it was a nice enough overview of the composer's contributions to the films, nonetheless, cues were left out, leaving the true collector disappointed and hungry for more.

Like the above mentioned release, Dirty Harry Anthology seems to be lacking some tracks to make it feel truly complete. Examples? Dirty Harry's Creed is still missing a piano solo and I guess... issues kept the somewhat painful Roberta Flack end title song from Sudden Impact off of this release (although the track San Francisco After Dark is an instrumental cover of that tune). The melancholy electric piano solos that played on the closing credits of 'Dirty Harry' and 'Magnum Force' are not included, but the composition can still be heard on the track 'The Mayor'. Also Schifrin does not bother to include any of his fine work for the (to date) final Dirty Harry movie 'The Dead Pool'.

Quibbles aside, this is the most complete collection of some of the greatest cop movie music ever composed and it still sounds fresh and invigorating almost thirty years later. Any serious soundtrack collector should be happy to have it, just don't be too quick to throw out that 1983 vinyl release. You'll still need it. Highly recommended, regardless.

This very long-awaited collection is an inconsistent, albeit comprehensive, look at what must rank among Lalo's darkest scores in his thirty year plus film career. While not being as complete (and pleasant!) a listening experience as his work on Bullitt, there are some outstanding examples of why this man is so influential on many of today's forms of music, both popular and in film. Most are very short and it is obvious why the films did not have separate soundtracks released previously. The highlights are all from the first two films, 'Dirty Harry' and 'Magnum Force', and are as funky and representative of the '70s as anything I can think of. I have had a few moments, however, where I have been showing off this CD to friends when I have been forced to suddenly leap to my feet and change tracks. The weedy electro and Kenny G attempts from 'Sudden Impact' are best left well alone and it is sad that he did not stick to the ideas that he initially used for the series. The vast majority of the 19 pieces, however, are a fantastic example of how music should be written for film. Don't sample it as you will only embarrass yourself!!

Lalo Schifrin is a top shelf composer.I have enjoyed his work since my teens.There is one song missing on this collection which was on the vinyl album.It's the closing theme to "Sudden Impact".It's called "THIS SIDE OF FOREVER"by a fabulous lady named Roberta Flack.No "Dirty Harry" theme collection would be complete without it.I'm a huge Clint Eastwood fan since his days on the western series "RAWHIDE".How would one find that song?Nonetheless,this album is a must have for any theme collection buff.Buy it!

Electronic-jazz-groove hybrid in the first two Harries (ignore the tackier "Sudden Impact"; Schifrin half-did) is surely about the most electrifying funk ever, even before it was brilliantly synchronized with Don Siegel's in particular images. Menace has never sounded so spine-crawling and sexy in the most amazingly heavy buzz guitar I've ever heard, vertigo-inducing synth, military stop-start drumming and ghostly voices in the Scorpio themes. The entire band sound like amazing musicians: can anyone name them? On what else have they played as brilliantly?

Starts incredibly with the first two tracks but the Sudden Impact and Magnum Force themes are in my opinion not even from the films....I'm sure they are just cover versions and not very good either. There are a couple of other good tracks, Palancio standing out but this is really just a cop out, pardon the pun. I'm sure they have omitted some of the funkier stuff from the first two films and why I ask. Some of it sounds terribly eighties and yes that is a critisism. I don't think the publishers understand their targetted audience. We are still waiting for the definitive Dirty Harry album.

This album explains one of the reasons why the Dirty Harry series was so popular. Lalo's arrangements are exquisite and intriging. The Sudden Impact songs maybe dated but they are interesting to listen to after all these years.

You will not be disapointed with this purchase. True as some have pointed out that some of the scores are "abbreviated" compared to the LP-version. And some tracks from the movies are missing but this is still a great collection with all the great main themes from Dirty Harry, Magnum Force and Sudden Impact. This album is a must for every fan!

A lot of thought has gone into producing a superb set of music. It really is a mixed bag of funk, rock and pure weirdness!

The music is technical, with thunderous bass lines, great guitar and drums. I think Dirty Harry has the best music, in particular Scorpio's music. Track 8 'Another Victim', brilliantly epitomises Scorpio's quest for carnage as he sets out to plunder the fruits of the bottle shop and its owner!

My brother and I have a c.d. buying policy-don't buy it until you know that there are at least 2 tracks you really like on it. This soundtrack compilation has more than enough to recommended it-and plenty of tracks to make it worth picking up. The selections from 'Dirty Harry' are reason enough for me-cool, 70's jazz-funk composed by a master film scorer. 'Magnum Force' comes in second place-good but not as good.The other selections merely pad out the disc as far as I'm concerned. If you love the first (and best) film in the series, and you love it's score, pick this up.

Though admittedly not his best scores (that being Bullitt), Lalo Schifrin's Dirty Harry scores remain strong and as much a source of the movie series' appeal as the performances of Clint Eastwood and company.

Dirty Harry's score at points is an extention of Bullitt, but from the movie's opening theme it becomes clear that this is a totally different animal. The theme itself has a mildly spastic quality as it follows Harry from the penthouse apartment to the top of the building where Scorpio fired the fatal shot and left his warning note to the Mayor.

This spastic quality continues at the scene outside the church just before the first shootout between Harry and Scorpio, and then downshifts to gut-reaching somberness when the girl victim is unearthed, and later when Harry, having finally succeeded in stopping Scorpio, disgustedly throws away his own badge.

Schifrin then changes to tenser action cues in Magnum Force, beginning with the movie's boffo theme song and proceeding with such cues as the one from when Harry and Early (Felton Perry) first tail hood boss Frank Palancio across the Golden Gate Bridge. Tenderness is then reached with the scene where Harry is Sonny's "first cop."

Schifrin did not score The Enforcer but came back with a bang in Sudden Impact, beginning with another instantly-gratifying high-tech theme song that included reallife police radio chatter to good effect. The scores's tougher texture comes through best in the scene when Harry is chased by Uzi-armed henchmen and barely succeeds in blasting them. Also standing out is the cue from when Horace (Albert Popwell, a grossly underused actor who appeared in all the DH films except The Dead Pool) comes up to Harry at his forest firing range.

Listening to the evolution of Schifrin's scores is a revealing look at movies over thirty plus years.