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..

Forgotten Music - Ask Yoursefl Why

My choice this month for Scott Parker’s Forgotten Music series is a film song that I fell in love with in my teens. It’s written by the brilliant French composer Michel Legrand, with lyrics by the accomplished duo Marilyn and Alan Bergman (whose more famous songs include ‘The Windmills of Your Mind’ and ‘You Don’t Bring Me Flowers’.)

This song was written for a movie called La Piscine, about which unfortunately I know nothing. The vocals were done by Sally Stevens, and although Barbra Streisand performed a version of this song, I think Sally’s version stands up extremely well in comparison.

I’ve known the name of Sally Stevens for many years, since she featured on a couple of excellent, if regrettably obscure, albums that Burt Bacharach turned out in the 70s, Futures and Woman. She co-wrote a song on the latter album, ‘There is Time’, and was a featured singer in a concert with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra that I first saw almost 35 years ago. In that concert, she performed a song called ‘Charlie’ which has a quite superb melody – although a schmaltzy lyric. The only recorded version of it that I know is by Bobby Vinton, but that’s another song that should not be forgotten.

In recent times, thanks to the wonders of online social networking, I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know Sally Stevens slightly, and have discovered that she has been working on new songs, and a possible new album. It will be worth listening to, of that I am sure, on the evidence of a couple of tracks that I’ve heard and much enjoyed. Sally tells me that she spent about ten years singing in concerts and on records fort Bacharach; there are few more driven perfectionists in the music business than him, and he certainly knows a fine singer when he hears one. Sally has been a terrific singer for a good many years, and I much look forward to listening to more of her work. In the meantime, Ask Yourself Why sees her in excellent form.

The Thomas Crown Affair

I’ve watched again the original (1968) version of The Thomas Crown Affair, and found that it remains enjoyable, even though it is very much a film of its time. The split screens and photographic trickery don’t entirely compensate for the thinness of the plot, but the success of the film derives mainly from the chemistry between the two leads, Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway.

McQueen is the eponymous Crown, a millionaire whose boredom leads him to organise a bank heist. Dunaway is an insurance investigator who is torn between fancying him and wanting to bring him to justice. This very charismatic couple make even playing a chess game seem like an exercise in seduction. And you can’t be sure whether Crown will get away with it, or not – or whether Dunaway will choose him rather than her career.

The film gains a great deal from the score written by the brilliant Michel Legrand. ‘His Eyes, Her Eyes’ is the theme for the chess game, and a good piece of music, but of course the highlight is the Oscar-winning ‘The Windmills of Your Mind’.

My friend Davide Bonori, whose tastes in music are very similar to my own, recently sent me a wonderful CD performed by Alan Bergman, who (with his wife Marilyn) wrote the lyric to the song. Bergman is in his 80s, but his version of ‘The Windmills of Your Mind’ is quite superb, I think. A great lyric, and a performance I recommend. Listening to the song prompted me to revisit the movie, and I’m glad I did.