New John Dankworth Compilation

by Kimberly Lindbergs | August 12, 2009

Categories | News, Soundtracks, Composers, British Cinema, Dirk Bogarde, Joseph Losey

Laurence Harvey, Julie Christie & Dirk Bogarde in Darling (1965)

During the recent Dirk Bogarde movie marathon on TCM I ended up watching John Schlesinger’s Darling (1965) again which stars Dirk Bogarde along with the wonderful Julie Christie and jaw-droppingly gorgeous Laurence Harvey. I’ve seen the film many times before but I love all three of the film’s stars so I never get tired of watching it. Besides the actors and Schlesinger’s impressive direction, another reason that I find Darling incredibly watchable is the film’s great score by British composer John (aka Johnny) Dankworth. Dankworth was an amazing talent and he’s responsible for composing the soundtracks for some of my favorite British films of the ’60s. He also created music for terrific television shows like the original Avengers.

After watching Darling again I decided to try and hunt down a copy of the film’s soundtrack online. Unfortunately I had no luck, but I did discover that a new John Dankworth compliation CD has just been released called Let’s Slip Away - Film and TV 1960-1973.

Let’s Slip Away is the first CD compilation of John Danworth’s scores so if you’re a fan of his music you’ll definitely want to get yourself a copy. This impressive 2 CD set from Eclipse in the UK features over 40 music tracks and includes theme music from Darling as well as Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (Karel Reisz; 1960), The Servant (Joseph Losey; 1963), Morgan: A Suitable Case For Treatment (Karel Reisz; 1966), Modesty Blaise (Joseph Losey; 1966) and Accident (Jospeh Losey; 1967). The collection also includes extensive notes by Workers Playtime DJ Martin Green.

The official Eclipse site calls Let’s Slip Away “Beautifully cool jazz-pop from the days before Johnny started calling himself John and getting all serious on your ass.”

Sounds good to me!

The CD collection was released earlier this month and you can currently find new copies at Amazon selling for about $18.75, but there seems to be a glaring error on the website that also lists the CD for $170. Ignore that ridiculous price! If you can’t get new copies of the CD at Amazon I highly recommend picking up a copy at my favorite online soundtrack shop Movie Grooves.