Taking of Pelham 1-2-3

David Shire | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (May 26, 1998)
• Label: Retrograde Records
• ASIN: B00000E76R
• Also Available in: Audio CD
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #569,393 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Main Title

2. The Taking

3. Dolowitz Takes A Look/Dolowitz Gets Killed

4. Blue & Green Talk

5. Money Montage

6. Fifty Seconds/The Money Express

7. Conductor Killed/The Money Bag

8. The Pelham's Moving Again Blues

9. I'm A Police Officer/Renewing Disguises/Goodbye Green Hello...

10. Mini-Manhunt

11. End Title

Editorial Reviews

About the Artist

David Shire is an Academy Award-winning film composer who has composed the scores to such memorable films as The Conversation, The Hindenburg, Farewell My Lovely, Norma Rae, 2010, Monkey Shines, and All the President's Men. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Description

CD debut of David Shire's score to director Joseph Sargent's 1974 crime thriller starring Robert Shaw, Walter Matthau, Martin Balsam, Hector Elizondo and Earl Hindman. The premise of the bad guys in the film naming themselves after colors was an influence --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Kickin!, November 23, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (Audio CD)

If you're into funky, thumping, jazz oriented 70's stuff, then this is the CD you've been dreaming of. It's intense, chaotic, and yet suprisingly structured, too. Lots of brass, heavy bass, drums, and spacey marimba. I listen to it over and over and over - it's hypnotic and high energy. I wish it were longer - that's my only gripe. This goes great with the soundtrack to The Omega Man, if you can find it!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Reviving A Great Thriller Film Score From 1974, February 19, 2006

By 

Erik North (San Gabriel, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (Audio CD)

By any stretch of the imagination, the 1974 subway hijacking thriller THE TAKING OF PELHAM ONE-TWO-THREE is an exciting and suspenseful ride, with plenty of fine performances, salty dialogue, and more than a little jet black humor. And a lot of the film's success with critics and audiences is owed to the propulsive score that David Shire composed for it.

With the film's setting being the urban jungle of the Big Apple, it is only fitting that Shire should compose a score that is extremely urban and jazz-influenced, and, as a reviewer has said, fairly influenced by the twelve-tone methodology of Arnold Schoenberg, transposed into a Hollywood film score setting. Shire's writing for the brass sections in certain places is not only jazz-influenced, but also resembles in some small ways the iron-clad and lowering brass chorales of Bruckner, as well as the jazz-rock fusion that was so popular during the mid-1970s. The whole score in general serves the film extremely well, and is a high point in thriller music writing that one rarely hears anymore in ultra-high-budget Hollywood spectaculars anymore.

Although he did not achieve the huge superstardom accorded fellow film music composers John Williams or Jerry Goldsmith, Shire nevertheless carved out a niche in the ensuing years, with his scores for ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN, portions of SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER, and 2010. The score he composed for PELHAM was what helped establish his reputation, and its arrival on CD is something that a lot of people have been waiting on for ages. One listen to it is enough to convince.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A living, breathing character...., February 18, 2004

By 

Daly Mavorneen "Brimstone" (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (Audio CD)

After the collected horror-film scores of Italian composers, Goblin, the best SINGLE film score of all time has got to be David Shire's "The Taking of Pelham One Two Three."

The urgency of the drums, scratchers and trumpets will make you sweat with nervousness (like the hostages on the subway train)!

If you like thumping 70's funk, acid jazz, or even classical twelve-tone composition (!) you will be in heaven listening to this soundtack, which is, unbelievably, an utterly unique amalgam of all three!

Shire's score is a living, breathing, menacing character in the film, and one that you will not soon forget. I first saw the film when I was 12 or 13 and have never been able to get the sinister melody-line out of my head. And now it's FINALLY available on CD!

Want the recipe for one awesome aural cocktail? Put "The Goblin Collection 1975-1989," "The Taking of Pelham One Two Three" and the Beastie Boys' "Ill Communication" (for their bass-heavy, funk-jazz samples) into the CD player and press "shuffle" or "random"---then Lose Yourself!