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The Taking of Pelham One Two Three [Soundtrack][Import]

David Shire
5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews) | More about this product

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Music

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Biography

David Shire is one of the more prolific American composers who has written music for stage, screen, and television. Though he continues to occasionally compose for films, he was most prolific during the '70s and early '80s. In 1979 he won an Oscar for his song "It Goes Like It Goes" from the film Norma Rae. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Music Guide

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Product Details

  • Audio CD (November 1, 2002)
  • Original Release Date: June 1, 1996
  • Number of Discs: 1
  • Format: Soundtrack, Import
  • Label: Film Score Monthly
  • ASIN: B00007FON1
  • Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.com Sales Rank: #152,557 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

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1. Main Title
2. The Taking
3. Dolowitz Takes a Look/Dolowitz Gets Killed
4. Blue and 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 Garber, Goodbye Hippie/Smoking More, Enjoying It Less
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.

Product Description

The Taking of Pelham One Two Three is a superb urban thriller: four men, dressed alike in trenchcoats and calling each other Mr. Blue, Mr. Green, etc., take a subway car hostage and demand $1 million in ransom. Walter Matthau stars as the transit cop assigned to the case; Robert Shaw is the leader of the terrorists. It's a brilliant '70s hostage movie with biting New York humor. For the score, David Shire came up with a stroke of genius. He wanted to do some kind of funk/jazz/big band, but wanted a way of making it dissonant and powerful -- not too light, but not too random. So for his melodic materials he utilized the 12-tone method of composition, a technique devised by Arnold Schoenberg in the early 20th century in which you make a theme by using all 12 pitches in a specific order, and then create other themes by playing that "row" backwards, upside-down, backwards and upside-down, or transposed. Shire ended up with a monster two-note bass line with these 12-tone themes running on top. For our CD, the first-ever release of this music, we have utilized the complete score, including around 15 minutes of music not included in the film. The 12-page booklet includes movie stills, composer photos, and track-by-track notes by Doug Adams.
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Customer Reviews

6 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
5.0 out of 5 stars (6 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Kickin!, November 23, 2002
By A Customer
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!
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars One of the all-time best soundtracks, January 11, 2008
A soundtrack can make or break a movie. Some movies were MADE by a brilliant soundtrack they didn't deserve (Conan the Barbarian, On Her Majesty's Secret Service); whereas many contemporary films are all but ruined by their abysmal score. I never realized the tremendous impact a soundtrack has on the overall quality of a film until I saw a documentary that showed the same clip repeatedly, each time accompanied by different music. It was very eye-opening. People used to go to silent movies repeatedly because the musician playing music to accompany the film would play different music different times. The Taking of Pelham, One, Two, Three has one of the most effective soundtracks for a thriller I have ever heard in my life. The fact that the film itself is also damn good makes for a real treat. The driving force of the music is almost unparalleled. By the way, pop in the DVD of Pelham and listen to the opening music. Then pop in Payback starring Mel Gibson and listen. That's right, they ripped the score off! (Do the same with Conan the Barbarian and Total Recall.)
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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)   
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.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars New York Sound
Great soundtrack that gives you the sound of New York hustle and bustle. Hard-edged, and gritty like the NYC of the 70s; really missed a score that captured the City in the remake.
Published 28 days ago by Dolores V. Sisco

5.0 out of 5 stars Random spider brass funk
This is great fun. It's also very odd, and not quite the kind of 1970s police film soundtrack you might be expecting; although a couple of tracks sound like Dirty Harry ("Blue and... Read more
Published on April 8, 2006 by Mr. A. Pomeroy

5.0 out of 5 stars A living, breathing character....
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... Read more
Published on February 18, 2004 by Daly Mavorneen

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The Taking of Pelham One Two Three
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The Taking of Pelham One Two Three 5.0 out of 5 stars (6)
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The Taking of Pelham 123 (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) 3.4 out of 5 stars (5)
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