Isaac Hayes'soundtrack for "Shaft," Curtis Mayfield's "Superfly," and, morerecently, even David Holmes' soundtracks for "Ocean's Eleven" and "OutOf Sight" were fairly independent from the film, even though thesoundtracks did contain snippets of dialogue from the film interspersedthroughout. A great soundtrack doesn't need the film in front of you tobe an enjoyable experience. Piero Piccioni, "Italian soundtrackmaestro" according to the back of the CD, scored many films in thesixties and seventies, many of which never had a soundtrack releaseduntil years later. "Puppet On A Chain" is such a soundtrack, seeing thelight of day finally in 2001. Having not seen the whole film—the boatchase is legendary, but the rest is utterly forgettable—I must saylistening to the soundtrack did nothing for me. Especially since themajority of the tracks have the same part played again and again: thesame bassline, Hammond organ chords, and phat drum beat, withoccasional augmentation with guitar, horns, or both. The man who playedwith Ennio Morricone on "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly" has realscoring talent, mind you, but I have no real interest in seeing thisfilm after hearing the soundtrack, even though I'm quite certain thatit would work much better with the film than on its own. But, asseventies film soundtracks go, this fits the mold: most tracks areunder two and a half minutes, the track titles are named after whichscene in the movie they are used ("Night Club," "Chase," and"Mystery/The Discotheque," for example), and, as is pointed out in "I'mGonna Git You Sucka," the hero does have his theme music, as thisrelease plays out repeatedly. As I said, I don't think it stands on itsown, but it probably fits the film just fine.
samples:
Read More
