On the Town with David F., Plus Two Spy Soundtracks from the 60s

Our friend David Federman has come up with another imaginative compilation, called "The Great Escape: Days & Nights on the Town," with the setting being Manhattan. Today I am presenting his collection along with my own offering - two more of the soundtrack records I transferred many years ago and recently found lurking on an old backup drive. Previously I posted two Bob Hope soundtracks from the 50s. Today we have the scores from two of the lesser spy movies that were so popular in the 1960s.

The Great Escape: Days & Nights on the Town

As usual David has skillfully mix-mastered 30-some songs from the last century into something more than the sum of its parts. The selections date back to 1930, and include many favorites - the Boswell Sisters, Mabel Mercer and Blossom Dearie - along with newer artists such as Meredith d'Ambrosio and unexpected delights such as the Washboard Rhythm Kings.

Says David, "I took my trusty time machine for some bumpy rides into the recent and distant musical past for a great escape to New York City. I steered my contraption toward times and places my parents would have fled to - mostly Manhattan, Broadway and Harlem, but with some familiar side steps and stops to lower Manhattan, Central Park and Fifty Second Street."

Wonderful stuff!

The Spy with a Cold Nose

The Spy with a Cold Nose (its name is a take-off on John le Carré's seminal 1963 novel The Spy Who Came in from the Cold) was a 1966 British comedy with a dog as a principal character, thus the title.

The producers brought in prolific film composer Riz Ortolani to provide a score that could not be more 60s-sounding. One of Ortolani's specialties was spaghetti westerns, so you should know what to expect, although this material is lighter in tone. Ortolani's biggest hit was "More" from the cult film Mondo Cane (another dog reference, I guess). That was a few years before this movie came out.

Riz Ortolani

The Spy with a Cold Nose is an enjoyable score, if, as usual with such records, you don't mind the same few themes reappearing dressed in different sonic outfits. The sound is typical 60s; so is the pressing.

A Man Called Dagger

Next we have the low-budget spy film A Man Called Dagger, dating from 1968. As far as I can discern, this one is not a comedy, although you could not tell that from the cover, which manages to depict the bad guy firing his wheelchair-mounted machine gun at our hero, who is bound to a bikini-clad accomplice and is casually lighting a smoke. They all seem to be suspended in mid-air. The cover may be more entertaining than the movie.

Steve Allen

The soundtrack is notable as the only film score composed by comic-pianist-composer-author-etc. Steve Allen. Here he seems to have had the help of Ronald Stein, credited as adapting and arranging the material as well as conducting it. Stein was an immensely prolific film composer, not least during his time with low-brow American-International Pictures.

The music is probably better than the film deserves. Stein takes care to insert references to the James Bond scores; for the vocal version of the film theme, he has Maureen Arthur do her best Shirley Bassey imitation.

In case you are wondering, the male actors depicted on the cover are Nazi bad-guy Jan Murray (who made his name as a Borscht Belt comedian) and hero Paul Mantee (a prolific television actor). I am not sure about the woman's identity, although she may be Eileen O'Neill.

This one came out in stereo, but my copy is mono.