These two reissues are a timely reminder of an era when producers showed more imagination than now in commissioning scores from composers with reputations made outside the studio sound stage. Legendary bandleader Johnny Mandel was recommended by Andre Previn to Robert Wise, who was about to direct I Want to Live (1959), an X-rated film about the life of Barbara Graham, a convicted murderess executed in 1955. Conscious or not, Wise’s decision was apt in that Graham herself was a fan of jazz saxophonist Gerry Mulligan who appeared in the film’s opening sequence and is heard in six selections that were released on a jazz companion album played by a seven-piece group. These have long been regarded as among Mulligan’s and Mandel’s best work; as presented here they make a refreshing coda to the larger 26-piece ensemble on the film soundtrack. For the film itself Mandel avoids the melodramatic pitfalls he might have been tempted to underline, save for one dramatic moment when a contra-bassoon looms up like Fafner’s dragon in ‘Nightmare sequence’; instead, he opts for contrast by using familiar instruments in unusual registers, notably a diverse group of percussion on ‘Stakeout’.
Billy May employs a similar approach in Johnny Cool (1963), a rarely screened thriller starring Sammy Davis Jnr. When a member of the ‘rat-pack’ sang, the songwriting team of Cahn and Van Heusen invariably followed with the virtually obligatory title-song demanded by the period. Davis also sings a cheerful ditty, ‘Bee boom’, over the final credits, but make no mistake, this is May’s soundtrack, a score imprinted with his own larger-than-life personality, recorded in wide-screen sound, brilliantly remastered and played by a bunch of his regular musicians with a sleekness and elegance to be treasured. AE