Don't Panic!

Here's another obscure musical goodie from the AIP vaults, this time with Les Baxter's hoppin' score for the post-nuke drive-in favorite, Panic in Year Zero, a rare directorial feature for star Ray Milland. Jean Hagen (Lina Lamont from Singin' in the Rain) and Frankie Avalon co-star in this grim look at the havoc unleashed on a Los Angeles family forced to run for the hills when the bomb drops, with utter social degradation soon following among the survivors. Les' score is mostly source cues (i.e., instrumental jukebox-style rock 'n' roll and jazz music) and robust dramatic cues, taken here from the complete isolated music and effects track (which means no dialogue, but you'll hear an occasional gunshot or screeching tire).

Link removed - score now commercially available.

The Last Music on Earth

Richard Matheson's classic apocalyptic sci-fi/vampire novel I Am Legend has been adapted for film twice so far, first with Vincent Price as the 1964 Italian-American AIP production, The Last Man on Earth. The film suffered a bad reputation for many years due to awful public domain prints and chopped-up TV screenings, all of which demolished its careful pacing and scope photography; however, in recent years (primarly thanks to DVD and laserdisc) it's finally being appreciated as a chilling, potent visualization of one of Matheson's strongest works. Incidentally, the second adaptation was 1971's cult classic The Omega Man with Charlton Heston, featuring a dynamite score by Ron Grainer (available elsewhere if you check around a bit). A third version is currently in the works, but don't get your hopes up since it already has three huge strikes against it thanks to the star (Will Smith), screenwriter (Akiva Goldsman), and music video-based director (Francis Lawrence). The moody and often striking score for the original film is by Paul Sawtell and Bert Shefter, a pair who, in various combinations, also underscored Vincent Price in The Fly series.

Stick 'Em Up!

Now back to more gangster fun from AIP, this time with the first solo score from Barry De Vorzon, who went on to do some outstanding work for Walter Hill (The Warriors, Hard Times) as well as that guilty pleasure favorite, Looker. (And if anyone out there has that scarce promo LP, please share it!) This violent, entertaining gangster biopic was also the directorial debut of John Milius, arguably the most macho writer/filmmaker on the planet, whose subsequent work ranges from the sublime (The Wind and the Lion, Conan the Barbarian) to the ridiculous (Red Dawn). And check out that cast: Warren Oates, Ben Johnson, Harry Dean Stanton, John P. Ryan, Cloris Leachman, Richard Dreyfuss... Crank it up the next time you visit your local bank.

Dillinger
1. We're In The Money
2. Just One More Chance
3. Honey
4. Square Dance Medley
5. Homecoming
6. Happy Days Are Here Again
7. Honey
8. Theme From Dillinger
9. It's Easy To Remember
10. Hoe Down
11. Honey
12. Beyond The Blue Horizon
13. Super Gang Blues
14. One Last Time
15. Honey (End Title)

Funky Sonny

<Don't let the Sonny and Cher connection fool you; this is a prime 1969 AIP freak-out soundtrack similar to Billy Strange's De Sade and Les Baxter's The Dunwich Horror. (Not surprisingly, all three films also feature wild, very similar "trippy" animated opening sequences.) After starring together in Good Times, Sonny and Cher took on this unorthodox mixture of juvenile delinquent sleaze and arty pretension, with Cher starring as a young runaway who hops from one bad relationship to another while hitching her way across the country. Sonny produced the film and wrote the score, whose "Band of Thieves" theme song (sung by Cher) is the only normal pop concession on the album. And yes, their gay-rights-activist daughter was named after this movie. Composer Ken Thorne did the arranging and conducting hot off his work on the amazing The Touchables, and the psychedelic influence definitely shows.

Ma Barker's Killer Tunes

By 1970, American-International Pictures was veering away from the drug-oriented and horror films that had become its major drive-in staples. One of their wildest inaugural films for the new decade was Roger Corman's Bloody Mama, a violent saga adapted from the real-life Ma Barker and her bank-robbing sons. Shelley Winters devours the scenery as usual, along with a colorful supporting cast including Bruce Dern, Robert De Niro, Don Stroud, and Pat Hingle, among many others. First-time composer Don Randi (who went on to do Stacey and Up in the Cellar) alternates a traditional score with some amusing bits of source music, but the obvious highlight here is the all-too-catchy theme song, performed by "Bigfoot."

Bloody Mama
1. Bloody Mama
2. M-M-Mona (Part 1)
3. Mama Marches On
4. Rembrandt
5. Robbery Rag
6. Ma Barker & The Boys
7. Interlude
8. Vacation For Fiddles
9. M-M-Mona (Part 2)
10. Mother's Fudge
11. Drowning
12. Poor Lloyd
13. Miami Bound
14. There's No One Like A Mother
15. Ma's Boys In Prison
16. Bloody Mama Reprise

Master Baxter

At the height of his frantic gig writing scores for American-International Pictures, Les Baxter was mostly busy rescoring European import and doing Roger Corman's great Poe series. However, 1961's Master of the World is a bit of a change of pace, obviously designed to cash in on the recent success of Around the World in 80 Days (which is mentioned no less than twice on the back sleeve notes). Vincent Price and Charles Bronson star in the tale of a megalomaniac determined to enforce world peace, even if it means dragging a bunch of people across the sky in an airship and bombing everyone into submission. This was one of AIP's earliest multi-channel releases (in four-channel "StereoSonic Sound!"), so ol' Les really gets to cut loose with the right-left channel separation here. The music is really lush and grand with a nice old Hollywood feel, crammed with soaring themes and tons of crescendoes.

Scream Amen, Somebody

Here's another super-rare goodie from the AIP vaults -- the unreleased jazz-horror score for 1969's Scream and Scream Again, the bizarre Gordon Hessler cult horror/sci-fi favorite featuring mad scientists, enforced limb removals, a mad vampiric serial killer, and much, much more. Vincent Price, Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing are all featured (but never together) along with an odd supporting cast including Uta Levka (Carmen, Baby) and Yutte Stensgaard (Lust for a Vampire). The wild music (which was inexplicably dropped on the first few video releases back in the VHS days) is an early effort from David Whitaker, who would go on to provide Hammer Films with two of its best '70s scores (Vampire Circus and Dr. Jekyll & Sister Hyde), not to mention that enduring fan favorite, The Sword and the Sorcerer. As with Pit and the Pendulum, this is taken from a music-and-effects track, which means you'll hear an occasional sound effect in the mix which hopefully won't detract from your enjoyment.

Feeeed Me!

Roger Corman's quickie 1960 horror-comedy has since gone on to become the stuff of legend, mainly for being shot in two days (kind of), featuring a young Jack Nicholson as a masochistic dental patient, and kicking off the careers of legendary Disney songwriting team Alan Menken and Howard Ashman with their hit musical adaptation and the subsequent movie version. The original tale about a downtrodden floral shop employee who nutures a blood-slurping plant, Audrey Jr., into a population-threatening monstrosity still holds up as a model of black comedy on an impoverished budget, still popping up time and time again on home video. The wild score comes courtesy of Fred Katz, who had just dabbled in beat jazz with the previous year's A Bucket of Blood and was busy doing other simultaneous Corman films like The Wasp Woman. Naturally this soundtrack comes with a handful of choice Audrey Jr. audio clips, perfect for playing at the dinner table.

Angel, Angel, Down We Go

Exactly why this berserk horror/musical/satire about the cult lifestyle in Hollywood never caught on like Wild in the Streets or Beyond the Valley of the Dolls is anybody's guess. Jennifer Jones stars as an aging porn star whose closeted husband and loopy, overweight debutante daughter (folk singer Holly Near) are thrown into turmoil at a party one evening with the arrival of a charismatic rock singer (Jordan Christopher) and his band, including a tripped-out Roddy McDowall(!) and Lou Rawls(!!). Husband-and-wife songwriting team Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil ("We Gotta Get Out of This Place") supply the unforgettable songs including the great title tune, "Lady, Lady," "Mother Lover," and of course, "The Fat Song," plus an instrumental score by Fred Karger. AIP released this shortly after the Manson murders and tastefully retitled it Cult of the Damned (the title still used on some TV screenings). Oh, and it's the only directorial effort for the great Robert Thom, the mad screenwriter who brought you Wild in the Streets, The Witch Who Came from the Sea, Death Race 2000, and the incredible Legend of Lylah Clare. Watch for it!

New FLAC (lossless) Download

Wuthering Heights - Michel Legrand

A switch from the normal drive-in fare for American International Pictures, this glossy 1970 version of the Emily Bronte novel was directed by Robert Fuest (The Abominable Dr. Phibes) and starred Timothy Dalton and Anna Calder-Marshall. Unfortunately its roadshow prestige intentions fell by the wayside, and the film is barely remembered now. Likewise, the haunting Michel Legrand score has also fallen into oblivion and deserves rediscovery. The vinyl release from AIR (American International Records) also includes a vocal version of the main theme ("I Was Born in Love with You") by the Mike Curb Congregation not featured in the actual film.

Les Baxter Swings

A while back some rare isolated music and effects (M&E) tracks for a handful of AIP and Filmways titles fell into my hands; here's the first of those forbidden fruits for your listening pleasure: Les Baxter's freaky, atonal score for Roger Corman's Pit and the Pendulum (1961), one of the best (and scariest) Vincent Price/Edgar Allan Poe outings. Here's every note (53 minutes' worth) of Baxter's original score off the isolated track; you'll hear an odd sound effect here and there (creaking feet, closing doors), but hopefully that will just add to the ambience. Track titles are my own, assigned to give you some idea of the music's chronology.