Agent Triple P rarely buys a cd these days as he prefers to download from iTunes. But if you want something unfashionable then iTunes is pretty useless.
So today we were very pleased by the arrival of the double soundtrack cd for In Like Flint and Our Man Flint. These two 1966 and 1967 James Bond spoofs starred James Coburn and although very dated and engagingly sexist the music by Oscar winning composer Jerry Goldsmith are perfect for my sixties soundtracks playlist on my iPod. Incidentally, I was talking to a girl today (the lovely A who I totally failed to seduce on a trip to Zurich once- which was a shame as she had the best legs of any girl I have ever met) and she asked me what my iPod was called. Hers was called Nietzsche as she bought it on the way to see Superman. Good grief! Mine doesn't have a name other than The Pod. Girls.
The one thing the Flint films had going for them were a lot more pretty girls than the Bond ones. Dozens of them on screen at a time sometimes. This is Gila Golan. The score itself is one of those prototypical sixties ones where you would recognise the music even if you didn't know the film. Other sixties favourites in this playlist include:
John Barry's The Ipcress File. Probably a bit more serious than the other ones but, like Our Man Flint it basically takes a good tune and replays it in a number of different arrangements. This was an early Barry score when he was more jazz than big orchestral.
Next we have The Italian Job by Quincy Jones. How a black American composer could produce such a Swinging London sountrack is a mystery and it is an odd mixture of loveable cockney harmonica nonsense and more lyrical Burt Bacharach style stuff (complete with Matt Monroe). Very sixties though.
Talking of Bacharach we have his wonderful score for the original Casino Royale, one of those cases where the soundtrack is much better than the film. The Look of Love, with Dusty Springfield on vocals and Herb Alpert on trumpet is still stunning. Lots of sixties wackiness as well, though.
Finally, we have my favourite. Henry Mancini's Pink Panther. The title track is of course the most famous but Agent Triple P prefers some of the cocktail tracks like Champagne and Quail and Royal Blue much more. If you can't get a girlie with these playing in the background and a bottle of Veuve Clicquot on ice you might as well give up.
So what sixties favourites are missing? The Bond ones I keep seperately but the score I would really like but which, sadly, has never been released, is Neal Hefti's How to Murder your Wife. Just about as sixties as you can get. But then he did write the theme tune to the TV series Batman.
