Crime and Romance - Melodies for Valentine's Day

Forgotten Books will be back next week, but I thought it would be fun to mark Valentine's Day with a few words about some of the finest romantic songs that have been written for..crime and thriller movies. This idea came to me the other day when I was watching a televised concert of James Bond music, conducted by Carl Davis. One of the singers, Mary Carewe, gave an excellent performance of what is possibly the most under-rated of all Bond themes, Moonraker.was at one time going to be sung by either Frank Sinatra or Johnny Mathis but at the last minute Shirley Bassey was brought in to record it. I felt Mary Carewe's version was actually better than Bassey's. (My plan, by the way, was to link to Youtube versions of the songs in question, but here, I'm afraid my techno-incompetence has let me down - for reasons that escape me, none of the links seem to work. Perhaps those who are wiser than me can advise what I'm doing wrong, please? Anyway, all the songs are easy to find on Youtube, and are well worth it.)

The same concert included a much more famous song, performed by Lance Ellington, the classic from On Her Majesty's Secret Service that was originally recorded by Louis Armstrong, shortly before he died. This is We Have all the Time in the World, one of the very best love songs ever written. The music for both those Bond songs was composed by the great John Barry. His many brilliant soundtracks included a notable score for Deadfall, and the striking (if little known) song sung by Shirley Bassey over the credits. This is the memorable My Love Has Two Faces, a song that has grown on me the more I've listened to it..

Returning to Bond, some of the other great songs from the series include The Spy Who Loved Me and Skyfall, but even better is the soundtrack from the spoof movie Casino Royale, and the highlight is Dusty Springfield's The Look of Love. The lyric was written by the late, great Hal David, who also wrote Moonraker and We Have All the Time in the World, and whose gift for expressing romance in a lyric was matchless.

David also collaborated briefly with Michel Legrand, but Legrand's best songs mostly had lyrics by Alan and Marilyn Bergman. The finest, perhaps, is the original version of The Windmills of Your Mind by Noel Harrison, who died not long ago. It appeared in The Thomas Crown Affair, an enjoyable film full of Sixties touches and starring Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway. And finally, memories of a brilliant comedy thriller, The Italian Job, with a great song that opened the film,,;On Days Like These, by Quincy Jones and Don Black. The romantic words and melody contrast very cleverly with the murderous finale to that opening scene..

Desmond Cory

I’ve written previously on this blog about Desmond Cory, an extremely interesting crime novelist of the recent past. He wrote, among other things, that most unusual novel Bennett and Deadfall, which was filmed with Michael Caine, and a great John Barry score.

Cory is one of those writers in whom interest is reviving, I’m glad to say. (Another of roughly similar vintage is Andrew Garve, and I’ll talk more about him in the future.) Those excellent print on demand publishers Ostara have reissued Undertow, which is one of their series of “Top Notch Thrillers”, and this is yet another illustration of the way p.o.d., as well as digital publishing is making good books widely available again after too long a gap.

Cory’s real name was Shaun MacCarthy, and through writing about him, I’ve come into contact with his son Richard, who is doing sterling work in preserving his father’s literary legacy. He tells me, by the way, that Cory wasn’t a fan of the film made of Deadfall, but I hope he did at least like the music!

Richard kindly drew to my attention  to On the Gulf, now available for download on Amazon Kindle. This is a thriller set in the imaginary – but entirely credible – Middle Eastern state of Fariq. As is often the case with Cory’s work, the focus is not just on action, but also on psychological insight into the characters. Definitely worth a look.

I’m pleased to see that Cory’s early work is also becoming available for download. An example – which I have not read as yet, but intend to – is his second book, Begin, Murderer! in which private eye Lindsey Grey investigates a series of murders. There’s something a bit different about Cory, a quirkiness as well as an interest in people under pressure – often in exotic places – which marked him out from the crowd and makes his work well worth discovering, or rediscovering.

Deadfall - review

I wrote here a while ago about Desmond Cory’s obscure but intriguing book Bennett, and I’ve now watched a film based on one of his other novels. This is Deadfall, directed in the Swinging Sixties by Bryan Forbes, and starring Michael Caine.

Caine is a jaded jewel thief who is persuaded by an attractive Spanish woman called Fe Moreau (played by Giovanna Ralli) to undertake another heist. He becomes involved with Fe, and her rather unpleasant husband Richard (Eric Portman, who sadly died in 1969, just a year after the film was made). The robbery that he and Richard undertake is brilliantly interwoven by scenes at a concert attended by the people they are stealing from.

My enjoyment of those scenes was enhanced by the fact that the concert featured John Barry, who composed “Romance for Guitar and Orchestra” for that part of the movie - the concert performance is integrated into the script, and takes place while a robbery is underway. The soundtrack really has stood the test of time, and even though “My Love Has Two Faces”, the song over the main titles, sung by Shirley Bassey, doesn’t quite compare with Barry’s best songs for the Bond franchise, it’s still pretty good. Another bonus was an all too brief appearance by Leonard Rossiter, one of my favourite comic actors, but in a straight role here.

I felt that the later stages of the film were not as gripping as the first half, but overall it’s a good and original story; I suspect this is true of much of Cory’s work, though I don’t know whether the movie was faithful to his book. Cory lived in Spain for a number of years, and the Spanish scenes in the movie add to its glamorous quality. I gather he wasn't totally bowled over by the film version of the book, but all in all, it is well worth a look – not least for that marvellous music as well as Caine’s typically assured performance.