Greetings! ScoreKeeper here making your day with a .44 caliber statement concerning the new CD release of the entire original score for SUDDEN IMPACT (1983) composed by the legendary Lalo Schifrin.

Released on Aleph Records, the album just hit the market last week and is currently available on CD and on iTunes (and at $7.99, it’s a bargain!).

The penultimate film of the Dirty Harry quintilogy, SUDDEN IMPACT fuses the aural characteristics of 1970’s urban crime dramas while trailblazing sounds that will later help define the 80’s. When you traverse this superb disc (which represents many intact cues that were abbreviated in the film) you won’t hear two alike cues. The musical vocabulary will astonish you. Even when you see the film you don’t realize the varying degree of range expressed by the music. A veritable Swiss Army knife of composers, Schifrin delivers strains of darkened film noir, funkadelic grooves, aleatoric string passages, scratchin’ record riffs, electronic soundscapes, sweetly pastoral melodies, and a psychotic circus cue that screams with delight.

They just don’t make ‘em like this anymore.

Here is the track listing for this supremely cool album clocking in at just under an hour.

1). Main Title
2). Murder by the Sea
3). Too Much Sugar
4). Frisco Night
5). Target Practice
6). The Road to San Paolo
7). Remembering Terror
8). Cocktails of Fire
9). Robbery Suspect
10). Ginley’s Bar
11). Another Victim
12). You’ve Come a Long Way
13). Darkness
14). Crazy
15). Hot Shot Cop
16). Alby and Lester Boy
17). The Automag
18). Unicorn’s Head
19). A Ray of Light
20). Stairway to Hell
21). San Francisco After Dark (End Titles)
22). Main Title (Alternate)

When you look beyond the traits which date the material, you’ll discover SUDDEN IMPACT is more than nostalgic novelty. It’s a crafty score that’s as clever as they come. One functional aspect of the music that is worth noting is how it constantly toys with the seemingly ubiquitous danger surrounding Inspector Callahan. While assuaging the tension during key moments, the music helps express the fearless, larger-than-life character of “Dirty” Harry Callahan while paradoxically adding to the tension in the surrounding narrative. It’s an interesting trick that can only come from a skilled composer.

To date, Aleph Records has released four of the five Dirty Harry films: DIRTY HARRY (1971) and MAGNUM FORCE (1973) by Lalo Schifrin and THE ENFORCER (1976) by Jerry Fielding (read about that HERE). One can only conclude that with the release of SUDDEN IMPACT last week, a score release for the final Dirty Harry film, THE DEAD POOL (1988), is just around the corner. You can visit http://www.schifrin.com for more information.

I can’t wait until the quintilogy is complete.

Go ahead…Make my day!

ScoreKeeper!!!