While pianist, composer, arranger and conductor Lalo Schifrin got his start in jazz, he was best known for his extensive work in film and TV. Indeed, the composer scored over 100 films and TV programs, and countless episodes in his half-century Hollywood career.
Schifrin, who passed away on June 26, 2025, at the age of 93, was, of course, the composer of the iconic theme to “Mission: Impossible.” Like one of jazz’s best-known hits, Paul Desmond’s “Take Five” (as memorialized by the Dave Brubeck Quartet) it, too, was crafted in the waltz time of 5/4 – and in exactly the same way that Schifrin retooled Jerry Goldsmith’s original 4/4 theme to “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” (1964-68) for that show’s second season.
I previously proposed a list of The 10 Best Lalo Schifrin Albums, a collection of what I feel are the pianist, arranger and composer’s ten best jazz outings, either on his own or with others. This is where I first grew to love Schifrin’s work. Even as a kid, although I was vaguely aware that “Mission: Impossible” and “Mannix” were Schifrin themes, my first exposure to his music was the jazz on Schifrin CTI albums Black Widow (1976) and Towering Toccata (1977).
But, subjective as the process may be, choosing Schifrin’s best jazz recordings seems a far less daunting and debatable task than selecting the film and TV composer’s best soundtrack releases. It forces one to consider, not only whether anyone will agree with these choices on this (or any) list, but also if any two listeners could possibly agree on a top-10 Schifrin soundtrack list.
I came to Lalo Schifrin’s soundtracks, many years later, in the early nineties. At the time, it was fashionable to go “crate digging” for sampling, or just to dig in on old music from a particular period. This is when I discovered much of the Schifrin music that renewed my appreciation – and love – of so much of Schifrin’s work. Indeed, I ended up writing an essay at the time about my journey to discovering and appreciating the kaleidoscopic dimensions of Lalo Schifrin’s output.
Not surprisingly, my tastes bent – and still bend – more toward Schifrin’s jazz-oriented soundtracks. Many of these were issued much earlier in the years of his Hollywood career.
By about the early to mid seventies, Schifrin began moving away from jazz in his movie work – not to mention his gradual departure from episodic TV – into more orchestral scores. It was around this time, too, that soundtracks began retreating from score music to pop music, due to the popularity (and sales) of such soundtracks as Easy Rider and Saturday Night Fever.
Schifrin’s scores became increasingly orchestral, yet fewer of his soundtracks were issued on disc – particularly in the eighties and nineties – despite the success of John Williams’s orchestral scores to Star Wars, Close Encounters of the Third Kind (both 1977), Superman (1978) and Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981).
Handpicking only ten soundtracks from Schifrin’s vast filmography of more than 100 films, shorts and TV programs, is no simple task. I took more than a few hours to consider my choices, changed my mind a couple of times and sought out some guidance from a trusted friend (thank you, John McCombe).
Several personal favorites – T.H.E. Cat (1965, never issued), The President’s Analyst (1967), Sol Madrid (1968), St. Ives (1976, never issued), Black Moon Rising (1986, never issued) and The Fourth Protocol (1987) – just could not fit in a ten-best list. And there are any number of other films that have one or two especially Schifrin-esque themes worth savoring.
These include the previous six titles as well as The Venetian Affair (1967), Coogan’s Bluff (1968), Pretty Maids All in a Row (1971), Harry in Your Pocket (1973), Voyage of the Damned (1976), Battle Creek Brawl (1980), Caveman (1981), The Beverley Hillbillies (1993, never issued), Tango (1996), Bringing Down the House (2003, never issued) and After the Sunset (2004).
Please note, the following is in release-date order, and not listed by any special preference. I welcome any comments to the choices I’ve made here and whether others would choose similarly to me or differently. After many years of writing about Lalo Schifrin’s music, it’s always instructive to hear others’ thoughts. Now, cue the music…
- Les Félins (1964)
Les Félins (a.k.a. Joy House) (1964): “If you compare my career to a house,” Lalo Schifrin told interviewer Stéphane Lerouge in 2004, “Les Félins would be its foundations. The score contains the seeds of Bullitt, Dirty Harry or Enter the Dragon…You can hear discordant sounds, swing, orchestras and smaller groups.”
Les Félins, directed by the legendary French director René Clément (1913-96), was one of the earliest films Lalo Schifrin ever scored. This poetic and underrated French noir, better known as Joy House, featured American beauties Jane Fonda and “Peter Gunn” star Lola Albright as well as the outrageously handsome French beauty Alain Delon (Schifrin would later score the Delon films Once a Thief [1965] and The Concorde – Airport ’79 [1979]).
For many years, the only way listeners could experience anything from this soundtrack was by checking out jazz organ great Jimmy Smith’s superb 1964 album The Cat, featuring the Schifrin-arranged songs “Theme From ‘Joy House'” (a.k.a. “Les Félins Main Title”) and the Grammy Award-winning “The Cat” (the jazzy part of the soundtrack’s “Searching and Detecting”).
Schifrin’s arrangement of “The Cat” for Jimmy Smith, however, sensibly ramps up the tempo of the cue heard in the film. For the film, the music is intended to seduce. For the Smith record, the point was to get butts on the dance floor (Schifrin himself recorded a version of “The Cat” in a similar tempo on his 1965 album Music From the Motion Picture “Once a Thief” and Other Themes).
Peggy Lee also contributed lyrics to the “Theme From ‘Joy House’,” for a song called “Just Call Me Love Bird,” a Schifrin-arranged track from her In the Name of Love (1964) album, which also includes the Schifrin-arranged Schifrin-Gene Lees song “The Right to Love.”
Remarkably, none of the original soundtrack was issued on LP or as part of any single. Les Félins first appeared on CD exactly forty years later in a superb French edition, featuring ten tracks from the film’s soundtrack as well as the two Jimmy Smith covers and a 1981 vocal version of “Le Chat” by French singer Claude Nougaro (1929-2004), who contributed his own French lyrics to the song.
Schifrin himself issued the soundtrack – as Les Félins – domestically on his own Aleph label the following year. Only the ten tracks from the soundtrack are featured there. Both sets, though, include the Stéphane Lerouge interview.
The Smith, Schifrin and Nougaro versions of “The Cat” – and a spunky take of the song by Jeff Goldblum (who factored briefly in the Schifrin-scored St. Ives) – as well as Smith’s version of “Theme from Joy House” and a vocal version called “Just Call Me Love Bird” by Peggy Lee all appear on the 16-disc box set The Sound of Lalo Schifrin (2024).
2. The Cincinnati Kid (1965)
Befitting its New Orleans location, there are some especially nice Schifrin-esque moments here. The composer crafted a bluesy score that beautifully taps into the roots of New Orleans, widely considered to be the birthplace of jazz.
The Cincinnati Kid (1965) was directed by Norman Jewison (1926-2024), and starred Steve McQueen (1930-80), in one of his first important leads, as an up-and-coming gambler in 1930s New Orleans.
It’s a sort of Western without guns, but the music far outlives the film. (The film was initially handled by director Sam Peckinpah [1925-84], but he was fired during the first week of shooting. Schifrin would ultimately score Peckinpah’s final feature, The Osterman Weekend [1983], featured below.)
Schifrin wrote a bluesy score, centering on a theme for harmonica, sung (with lyrics by Dorcas Cochran) over the end titles by Ray Charles. The Ray Charles single became a minor chart sensation at the time, hitting number 115 on the Billboard charts, but becoming a number19 easy-listening hit, even so.
It didn’t fare as well as Charles’s “In the Heat of the Night,” from the following year, the theme to a film also directed by Jewison, which landed at number 33 on the pop charts.
Among this soundtrack’s highlights, however, are the themes named for the film’s characters: first and foremost, there’s the brooding “The Man,” for Edward G. Robinson’s character Lancey Howard; the sassy swinger, “Shooter,” for Karl Malden’s character; and the sensuous “Melba” (with Stan Kenton veteran Bill Holman on sax and Schifrin’s gorgeous swath of strings), for Ann-Margaret’s character.
Oddly, Schifrin’s theme for Tuesday Weld’s character, Christian, did not make it on to the original soundtrack. Schifrin did, however, include it on his 2002 re-recording.
Of these, the theme for “The Man” is the most beguiling, and finds the composer at his craftiest best. Setting an eerie tone, with just a slow-walking bass and chimes, the melody is helmed by a bass flute, and countered by Schifrin’s nervously unsettling strings. It’s a magnificent piece of musical magic, investing Howard with the mystery and menace of the unknown – or, most appropriately, as a worthy foe.
Additional themes worth noting here include the lovely “So Many Times, “Dialogue in the Rain” and “At the Farm.”
But, perhaps, the most notable of all the other themes is “New Orleans Procession.” This theme actually opens the film, introducing us to the Cincinnati Kid himself, but it stuck with Schifrin. The composer used this particular motif to inform such later works as “Dialogues for Jazz Quintet and Orchestra” (1970) and “La Nouvelle Orleans for Woodwind Quintet” (1987), among others along the way.
The stand-alone Cincinnati Kid soundtrack (with original artwork) has been issued only once on CD: in Japan, all the way back in 1988. It was, however, paired with Kelly’s Heroes for a CD release in 2000. But the soundtrack – and the film’s score and unused cues – was included on the massively worthwhile five-disc box set titled The Cincinnati Kid – Lalo Schifrin Film Scores Vol. 1 (1964-1968).
This set also includes the soundtrack and score recordings for Schifrin’s first American movie score, Rhino! (1964), Once a Thief (1965), The Venetian Affair (1967), and Sol Madrid (1968), as well as a variety of other Schifrin goodies.
Schifrin himself re-recorded the soundtrack album in 2002 for his own Aleph label, covering all the soundtrack’s major themes, some of them extended. He also included previously unissued cues and a suite of the various gaming themes. The composer insisted, however, upon including Ray Charles’ original recording of the main theme from 1965, because, as he himself put it, Charles’ performance was “truly irreplaceable.”
The maestro himself invited me to provide the liner notes to this set, and I was glad – and grateful – to oblige.
It’s worth noting that the original The Cincinnati Kid soundtrack was included in full (13 tracks) on the five-disc box set The Sound of Lalo Schifrin (2016), while four songs from the soundtrack and a French-language version of the theme by singer Lucky Blondo were featured on the 16-disc box set, also titled The Sound of Lalo Schifrin (2024).
3. Murderer’s Row (1966)
A terrific early soundtrack with great, catchy tunes throughout. The camp-factor is a bit higher here than on, say, The Liquidator, but Schifrin never lets it degrade the integrity of the music.
In only 26 (!) minutes, Schifrin effectively mixes (mid 60s) rock and jazz, spoofs the spy soundtrack and still maintains a clever, though breezy score.
Schifrin’s compositional gifts are quite apparent here – because this music is fun to listen to and, to this day, retains an element of intellectual depth. A score like Murderers’ Row can reveal just how sensitive and intuitive a composer like Schifrin can be when scoring action and emotion. Fans of Schifrin’s Mission: Impossible music will find much to like here, as well.
Highlights include the “Main Title” (and its variant “Solaris”), “The Pin,” “Suzie’s Theme” (similar to “Cinnamon” from “Mission: Impossible”), the go-going “The Pendulum,” the bossa nova “Double Feature” and two instrumental takes on the glorious “I’m Not the Marrying Kind.”
Sadly missing here – but likely due to contractual obligations – is the superbly suave Dean Martin beautifully crooning and swinging the hell out of “I’m Not the Marrying Kind.” It’s one of his best. Check it out on YouTube or as part of Martin’s 1967 Reprise album Happiness is Dean Martin. It is a joy to behold.
(It’s interesting to note that lyricist Howard Greenfield, who also penned “Breaking Up is Hard to Do” and “Love Will Keep Us Together,” was, himself, openly “not the marrying kind.”)
The Murderer’s Row soundtrack has never had an independent release on CD, but it made its first appearance on CD as part of the 16-disc box set from 2024, titled The Sound of Lalo Schifrin.
4. Music from Mission: Impossible (1967) & More Mission: Impossible (1969)
These aren’t “soundtracks” so much as they are “tie-ins” or “cash ins.” But what beauties they are. At the time, it was pretty common to find “soundtracks” to popular TV shows like “Peter Gunn” and “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” in record stores. Many of the tunes from these albums and “Mission: Impossible” would later form the sub-genre (and derogatory critical slap-down) known as “crime jazz.”
Music from Mission: Impossible was issued in December 1967, during the show’s second season, while More Mission: Impossible came out in March 1969 (around the same time as the Mannix “soundtrack” below), during the third of the original show’s seven seasons. Schifrin scored several episodes in each season of the original show. But very little of that music is heard on these two discs. Only the show’s two well-known main themes, “Mission: Impossible” and “The Plot,” are readily heard in any given episode.
These two tracks went on to animate not only the briefly-aired 1988 reboot (with original series star Peter Graves), but all eight of the Tom Cruise films lensed between 1996 and this year’s Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning.
In addition to the popular and oft-covered theme, you’ll also hear the origin of Portishead’s “Sour Times” (“Danube Incident”) and a variety of cues producer Bruce Geller reused for his collaboration with Schifrin on Mannix (“Cinnamon,” “Mission Blues” and “Midnight Courier”).
Highlights abound on this multi-varied collection of exciting, even thoughtful action cues. Often copied, but never matched, Schifrin’s two Mission: Impossible discs are among the best the composer has ever recorded. Highly recommended.
Music from Mission: Impossible and More Mission: Impossible were combined in 1994 to form the perfect collection of this music, Mission: Anthology. The disc adds the totally appropriate “Secret Code” from Schifrin’s 1968 album There’s a Whole Lalo Schifrin Goin’ On as well. Both albums were also included in the five-disc box set from 2016 and the 16-disc box set from 2024, both titled The Sound of Lalo Schifrin.
5. Bullitt (1968)
Bullitt is not only one of Lalo Schifrin’s finest film scores, but one of the best and most memorable soundtrack albums of the 1960s. Period. But, oddly, there is very little “score” for a film overflowing with such outstanding music.
The film stars Steve McQueen, at his ultimate, coolest best, as San Francisco police detective Frank Bullitt, caught up with protecting a Chicago mobster from vengeful Mafia hit-men while dealing with an ambitious politician, portrayed by Robert Vaughn to steely, but oily perfection (much like his Ryland in the Schifrin-scored Black Moon Rising).
With its riveting story, realistic settings, taut screenplay and quasi-documentary cinematography, it brought a new depth to McQueen’s portrayal of tough characters (this one, on the right side of the law).
An essential part of the film’s success was its economical, nervous jazz score; the Argentinean-born, classically trained Schifrin was then at the height of the fame generated by his iconic “Mission: Impossible” television theme. The film is judiciously spotted, with relatively little “action” music (the famous car chase is altogether unscored) but several atmospheric and evocative source cues season the film with aplomb.
Schifrin himself described it as “very simple” and “completely based on the blues.”
Shortly after recording the film soundtrack, Schifrin led a separate recording for a Warner Bros. album featuring jazz greats Bud Shank (flute), Ray Brown (bass), Howard Roberts (guitar) and Larry Bunker (drums). The 1968 LP has been issued several times on CD (once in Japan and once in Europe) and Schifrin himself re-recorded the music with the renowned WDR Big Band in 2000 for his own Aleph label.
But it wasn’t until late 2009, when the film’s original soundtrack album was first issued in the US, combined with the film’s never-before issued score. Film Score Monthly (FSM) issued the truly definitive edition of the music to Bullitt, combining all 12 tracks from the original album (beautifully re-mastered from the original 1″ eight-track master tape) with all 19 of the film score’s original cues – including the film’s magnificent main title theme (which is taken a little slower than the album version).
Indeed, the music that accompanies the striking opening titles sequence in Bullitt ranks with Dirty Harry as among the very best Schifrin ever conceived (and which, prior to this release, could only be properly appreciated on Schifrin’s 1990 re-recording heard on the masterful Hitchcock – Master of Mayhem). It doesn’t hurt that the visuals are just as compelling as the music.
While some score passages and cues are virtually identical to the record album, many of the film soundtrack’s softer, moodier cues were not chosen for the LP—or had certain passages rewritten. And some were dropped from the film itself, so have never been heard before.
Several tracks, such as the acid rock-ish “Hotel Daniels,” the big-band swing of “Room 26” and the reflective samba of “The Aftermath of Love,” are particularly attractive revelations, even for those familiar with the film, and ultimately superior to their album counterparts.
The Film Score Monthly disc reproduces the original LP’s terrific pop-art cover and designer Joe Sikoryak provides a superb layout that effectively utilizes the original’s jazzy Warhol-esque design. The FSM booklet also includes a perceptive, in-depth essay on the film and its score by astute film music specialist John Bender and detailed track-by-track commentary by Alexander Kaplan.
Unfortunately, space did not allow for the inclusion of a vocal version of the Bullitt theme called “The Great Divide” sung by Joanie Sommers and only issued on an extremely rare Japanese-only 45-rpm record. But the good folks at Film Score Monthly have done an otherwise typically beautiful job assembling and presenting this essential and finally-available music. Most highly recommended.
While the oft-cited “Bullitt” is featured on many compilation discs, the 12 tracks from the original Bullitt soundtrack were also included in the 16-disc box set from 2024, titled The Sound of Lalo Schifrin. Also included on that massive set is (Jazz) Crusaders saxist/bassist Wilton Felder’s hard-to-find cover of “Bullitt,” the title track to his 1969 solo debut.
6. Mannix (1969)
This “soundtrack” album ranks among Lalo Schifrin’s best-ever recorded music. Like Schifrin’s Mission: Impossible discs, Mannix – which was released in March 1969, during the second of the series’ eight seasons – is not exactly a soundtrack, but a collection of songs inspired by the program.
Whereas another Bruce Geller creation, Mission: Impossible, had a “soundtrack” that featured songs named after the show’s characters, the Mannix album had songs named after the series’ episodes. Invariably, these songs had nothing to do with the episodes and, indeed, few of the songs on this marvelous record were actually used for the show.
Schifrin only scored about eight of the show’s episodes and astute listeners will hear only “The End of the Rainbow”, “Warning: Live Blueberries” and an edited version of “Hunt Down” in some of the episodes. Such Mission: Impossible songs as “Cinnamon”, “Mission Blues” and Richard Hazard’s “Foul Play” were also used in the series.
But however accurate a soundtrack this album may be, it makes for some fantastic music. The ¾-time waltz of the main theme is one of TV’s best-known melodies and gets a beautiful performance here (Schifrin modified the show’s main theme for each of the show’s eight seasons).
There are some wonderful songs here, including the wonderful “The Shadow,” “The Edge Of Night”, “Hunt Down”, “Warning: Live Blueberries” and “End Game”. The rest of the album is just plain fun to listen to and, all together, it holds up extremely well many years later.
Many of LA’s best studio musicians also give some truly tremendous – and uncredited – performances here (Bud Shank, Plas Johnson, Howard Roberts, Carol Kaye, Emil Richards, among others). Schifrin, repeatedly foiled at reissuing the original album on his own, re-recorded the music quite nicely with the WDR Big Band in Germany in 1999 for his own Aleph label.
But somehow the folks at Collectors’ Choice Records finally reissued this album on CD in the summer of 2008, timed almost perfectly to the DVD debut of the complete first season of Mannix. The complete series was issued as a DVD box set in 2020.
The Mannix soundtrack album was also included as part of the five-disc box set from 2016 and the 16-disc box set from 2024, both titled The Sound of Lalo Schifrin.
7. Dirty Harry (1971)
Dirty Harry was the third of five films Schifrin scored for director Don Siegel (Coogan’s Bluff, The Beguiled, Charley Varrick and Telefon are the others) and the first – and definitive – of the four Schifrin-scored films in the series (Jerry Fielding, hand-picked by star Clint Eastwood, scored the only other one, the 1976 film The Enforcer, as Schifrin was unavailable).
This one, however, may be one of the more divisive films in Schifrin’s otherwise anodyne filmography – with the possible exception of the perverse oddities of Roger Vadim’s Pretty Maids All in a Row, from the same year.
Many objected, at the time, to a vigilante cop, taking the law into his own hands when “justice” seemingly (to some) favored the criminal over the victims. But the criminal here, code named “Scorpio” (and played to outrageous extremes by Andrew Robinson, but fashioned very much in a mold of the then-relevant real-life Zodiac killer), is such a cartoon super-villain that New Yorker critic Pauline Kael memorably knocked the movie down more than one or two pegs.
Yet, despite whatever you might make of the movie, and its initiation of pop-cultural catchphrases – “…you’ve gotta ask yourself one question: ‘Do I feel lucky?’ Well, do ya, punk?” – there are certain scenes of pure filmic, editing and musical prowess in Dirty Harry.
Chief among these is the main-titles sequence. Like Bullitt before, the opening five minutes of Dirty Harry is cinema of the first order. The way this sequence is filmed, edited and scored (or spotted), is among the most satisfying in movie history – and my personal favorite movie-going experience (although I did not see this film until some two decades after its initial theatrical run). Bullitt‘s main titles second that. It is collaborative artistry at its very best.
Of the eight Clint Eastwood films scored by Lalo Schifrin, Dirty Harry is, by far, the most notable. Surprisingly, though, an official soundtrack of Dirty Harry was not released until many years later. This might have been due to Schifrin’s contract with MGM/Verve at the time – or, possibly, Eastwood’s ownership of the rights to the music.
Indeed, a single was issued by Verve (credited only to “Lalo”) titled “Dirty Harry,” but this was a re-recording that mashed together the melodies of the film’s two main themes, “Dirty Harry’s Creed” (a.k.a. “Main Title”) and “Scorpio’s Theme” (a.k.a. “Scorpio’s View”).
The original versions of those two themes were the highlight of both the compilations Sudden Impact and the Best of Dirty Harry (1983) and Dirty Harry Anthology (1998 – duplicated in full on the 2001 disc Dirty Harry [Music from the Motion Pictures], with Clint Eastwood as Dirty Harry pictured on the cover).
The full, original score to Dirty Harry finally appeared, over four decades later, in 2004. Subsequently, Schifrin would issue CDs of all the other scores he contributed to the Dirty Harry franchise. Eight of the Dirty Harry tracks from the 2004 CD were also featured on the 16-disc box set from 2024, titled The Sound of Lalo Schifrin.
This is music that should be seen, as well as heard, to be properly appreciated.
8. Enter the Dragon (1973)
Action films always brought out the best in Schifrin. Enter the Dragon, the first of six martial-arts classics Schifrin scored, is no exception. Using Oriental scales in a familiar ‘Blaxploitation’ context, Schifrin concocts a powerful, hypnotic score, a dynamic theme and provocative variations. The title theme, “Sampans” and “The Human Fly” are Schifrin at his best and offer quite memorable cool movie-music moments.
Schifrin had been intrigued by the fusion of jazz with the music of the Far East as far back as 1963, when he arranged vibraphonist Cal Tjader’s elegant record Several Shades of Jade. While it sounds offbeat and eclectic, the results were positively ethereal and entrancing. Indeed, Several Shades of Jade serves as a blueprint for Enter the Dragon, with several shades of early 70s R&B thrown into the mix for good measure.
Jade also had some influence on Schifrin’s surf-rock soundtrack to Gone with the Wave (1964).
The original ten-track soundtrack of Enter the Dragon was reissued several times on CD in Europe and Japan since the early nineties, but remained elusive in the United States. An extended version of the soundtrack (with 17 tracks) first appeared in the US as part of Warner Video’s fancy 1998 Enter the Dragon “25th Anniversary” box set – featuring a deluxe, remastered version of the video, Bruce Lee documentary, full-color book of the film and production stills.
Several CD and vinyl issues of the ten-track soundtrack have since appeared, while Schifrin himself issued an “Extended Edition” of the soundtrack with 18 tracks (all 17 of the tracks from the Warner Video package plus “Theme from Enter the Dragon”) on CD in 2014.
The original ten-track Enter the Dragon soundtrack is also included in the 16-disc box set from 2024, titled The Sound of Lalo Schifrin, with selected tracks from Schifrin’s five other martial-arts film scores. Also included on that massive box set is a cover of “Enter the Dragon” by Ray Davies and the Button Down Brass as well as Portishead’s “Sour Times,” which famously samples “The Human Fly.”
Enter the Dragon producer Fred Weintraub and director Robert Clouse would go on to helm the martial-arts epics Golden Needles (1974) and The Big Brawl (1980), the latter starring a young Jackie Chan, who has a small uncredited role in Dragon. All three films were, of course, scored by Lalo Schifrin.
Dragon also provided the inspiration (and at least one cue, “Lee Arrives in L.A.”) to Brett Ratner’s terrific 1998 Schifrin-scored Rush Hour, another film starring Jackie Chan. Schifrin would also score Rush Hour‘s two sequels, as well.
9. The Four Musketeers (1974)
Schifrin scored this sequel to Richard Lester’s swashbuckling epic The Three Musketeers (1973) in 1974, but a soundtrack was not immediately released. Even Michel Legrand’s soundtrack for the first film was strangely denied a domestic release for nearly a year.
Schifrin’s score for the sequel was recorded in London in 1974, featuring an orchestra consisting of first-chair musicians from five London symphony orchestras. The composer turned over the original tapes to producer John Lasher (a.k.a. J.S.R. Lasher) in 1975 for a soundtrack release, but none appeared until 1978.
That release, titled Great Adventure Film Scores (on the British Entr’acte label), featured eight tracks from The Four Musketeers score as well as six tracks from Schifrin’s score to The Eagle Has Landed (1976).
In 1987, Lasher’s Label “X” issued a CD, ostensibly titled The Four Musketeers, this time featuring ten tracks from the disc’s title score as well as the six tracks featured on the Entr’acte record from The Eagle Has Landed (which Schifrin himself released in full on CD in 1999) and seven tracks from Schifrin’s 1976 score to Voyage of the Damned (featuring the marvelously infectious Cuban dance number “Hotel Nacionale”).
Lasher later learned of additional tapes from Schifrin’s Musketeers score and proceeded to issue a 17-track CD in 2008, also titled The Four Musketeers (without any material from other film scores).
The Four Musketeers is an especially deft blend of the Baroque formality of Bach and Handel and a light-hearted whimsy that perfectly complements Richard Lester’s action-adventure romance. “The Four Musketeers (Main Theme)” (a.k.a. “Overture”), “Athos’s Theme” (a.k.a. “Athos’ Story”), and “Milady’s Theme” are the stand-out tracks, and perfectly reminiscent of Schifrin’s 1966 go-for-baroque jazz album, Marquis de Sade (a.k.a. Schifrin/Sade).
The familiar and oft-compiled “The Chase to the Convent” employs one of those “nightly news” motifs – musically miming the sound of a newsroom full of reporters busy at their typewriters – that Schifrin was so fond of using over the years. Such themes often amped up the tension in more serious action scenes. (Indeed, “Tar Sequence,” from Schifrin’s 1967 soundtrack to Cool Hand Luke, discussed below, was used for many years as the theme to ABC Eyewitness News.)
Schifrin seems to be absolutely in his element here, crafting a score that toys with his love of the classics in a way that totally suits the film at hand. Schifrin would later re-orchestrate some of his Musketeers themes in to the “Allegro moderato e maestoso,” the first movement of his Concerto for Guitar and Orchestra (1984 – recorded by guitarists Angel Romero, who commissioned the piece, in 1984, and Juan Carlos Lagune in 1996).
Three songs – all named here – from The Four Musketeers soundtrack are also featured on the 16-disc box set from 2024, titled The Sound of Lalo Schifrin.
10. The Amityville Horror (1979)
Lalo Schifrin had already scored director Stuart Rosenberg’s Cool Hand Luke (1967), WUSA (1970), Voyage of the Damned (1976), and Love and Bullets (1979) before this magnificent score for The Amityville Horror. He would also go on to score one more Rosenberg film, Brubaker (1980), a very different prison drama than the Cool Hand Luke (discussed below).
But, to these ears, The Amityville Horror is the best of Rosenberg’s scores and among the very best of the orchestral scores Schifrin had ever conceived. It should be noted that Schifrin scored relatively few horror films in his lengthy career. Yet if he had scored nothing else, this one would surely stand out.
For years, many believed Schifrin merely recycled his rejected score from The Exorcist (1973) for Amityville. But as a lone CD – only included in Warner Home Video’s 25th Anniversary box set release of The Exorcist in 1998, featuring a bonus suite of themes from Schifrin’s rejected score – proves, that is not at all the case.
While that rumor was eventually dispelled, it’s not too difficult to hear how ideally the Amityville music could have suited William Friedkin’s classic, as well.
The Amityville Horror, unlike the b-film it accompanies, is a genuine musical masterpiece. This is a haunting, lyrical suite, obviously indebted to Bernard Herrmann – an early Schifrin influence, and, later, a friend. There are definite, but not-so obvious, nods to Psycho (1960) throughout. But, thankfully, those interjections are made in inspired, intelligent, and exploratory ways.
The sing-song theme of this cheeky 1979 thriller, sung with the gentle gasps and childish la-las of a female voice, is insanely memorable. Admittedly, it possesses you. An unpredictable storm of strings and percussion bring the chills home. It is absolutely worth hearing The Amityville Horror on a home sound system: it’s an unnerving and rattling experience.
A worthy disco version of the main film’s theme, titled “Amityville Frenzy,” kicked off the original soundtrack in high fashion – but the song was never heard in the film. Indeed, Lalo Schifrin had little, if anything to do with it. The Giorgio Moroder-esque groove, which is amusingly credited to “Disco Boogie Consultant: [and historic jazz producer] Alan Douglas” (1931-2014), makes for great disco even so.
The original Amityville soundtrack, which featured 10 tracks from the film plus a Bach concerto and “Amityville Frenzy,” was never reissued on CD. But the full Amityville score – plus many bonuses – was issued on CD in 2015. The impressive package features a whopping 59 tracks over two discs, totaling more than two hours of music (the film itself was just under two hours, at one hour and 57 minutes).
Schifrin himself re-recorded the score in 2002 for his own Aleph label. That set, which presents a number of stills from the 1979 film, features 17 tracks and a little over one hour’s worth of music.
The Amityville Horror is one of the few horror film scores during that period ever to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Music, Original Score. Even with such notable competition as Jerry Goldsmith’s score for Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Amityville lost to George Delerue’s score for A Little Romance.
Amityville was the fourth and final of Schifrin’s nominations for Best Score; the others were for Cool Hand Luke (1967), The Fox (1968) and Voyage of the Damned (1976). The composer was eventually awarded an honorary Oscar in 2018 for his lifetime achievement in film scoring. He was only the third composer to earn such an award. The other two were Alex North in 1985 and Ennio Morricone in 2006.
Four songs from The Amityville Horror soundtrack are featured on the 16-disc box set The Sound of Lalo Schifrin (2024).
While Rosenberg did not return to direct the first sequel, Amityville II: The Possession (1982) – or any of the many other sequels that stretch in to the present day – Schifrin did return to score the second film in the series, but to much less memorable effect.
Among Schifrin’s most notable work in this genre is the later Abominable (2006), an all-too little-known film, co-written and directed – in his directorial debut – by the composer’s own son, Ryan. It’s a very worthy – and unappreciated – score, issued on the composer’s label, Aleph, at the time of the film’s blink-and-you’ll-miss-it release.
Honorable Mentions:
The Liquidator (1965): One of the many James Bond spoof films that began appearing in the mid-60s, The Liquidator is a better film than its reputation would have you believe. Directed by Jack Cardiff – a cinematographer who directed Sons and Lovers (1960), as well as the cult-ish The Girl on a Motorcycle (1968), and returned to cinematography in the eighties for such hits as Conan the Destroyer (1984) and Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985) – made a film that cleverly combines James Bond with Alfred Hitchcock (most notably North by Northwest), with all the appeals that go with both.
The film was based on the first of eight “Boysie Oakes” novels written by John Gardner, who, himself, would helm the James Bond series for a set of 16 Bond novels, written between 1981 and 1996. The only other Gardner novel ever adapted for the screen was the terrific Charles Bronson-starrer The Stone Killer (1973), which itself boasts a superb score by Roy Budd.
Interestingly, there are a number of items in Cardiff’s film that would either inspire or influence many later Bond movies, such as the casting of future Bond girl Jill St. John and the black-and-white pre-title sequence replicated in Casino Royale (2006). Additionally, the cheeky animated main-title sequence was contributed by Richard Williams, who would animate the main-title sequence in the 1967 Bond spoof, also titled Casino Royale.
The Liquidator has a purposely over-the-top main theme that boasts the unique talents of Goldfinger belter Shirley Bassey. The song itself, which became a hit, is just plain goofy. But Bassey delivers it with such a charming tongue in cheek, and natural talent, that it doesn’t matter. It works.
The rest of the soundtrack, however, contains some substantial Schifrin music in a variety of jazz idioms. Recorded in London (where the movie was lensed) in March 1965, The Liquidator features a who’s who of British jazz royalty, with Ronnie Scott on sax, Tubby Hayes on flute, and Tony Crombie on drums.
The little-remembered film may be a spoof, but Schifrin delivers the goods on the score. Sure, it’s light-hearted. But there are some first-rate Schifrin themes here. Nothing comes close to mimicking (or mocking) John Barry’s Bond music either. Schifrin was too interesting a composer himself to bother copying someone else.
What’s most memorable are the seductive flute-and-percussion themes of the killer “The Killer, “Bikini Waltz” “Carry On” (the instrumental version of the film’s theme) and “Boysie’s Bossa.” The flute-and-percussion motif, first exploited in his season-two rendition of “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” theme, has since become something of a recognizable Schifrin trademark.
Interestingly, “Riviera Chase” even sounds like an U.N.C.L.E. outtake. The album’s ballads, including “Iris,” with Schifrin at the piano, are schmaltzy, yet with the strength of their themes could be rendered more successfully with a bit more muscle.
Other notable tracks include “The Bird” (named for the cafe where this track is heard) and the big-bandish “Tilt” (which differs substantially from the score’s cue titled “Tilt”).
The Liquidator wasn’t released until late 1966, and since the film didn’t do terribly well, the soundtrack album came and went without much notice, too. But it’s first-class Schifrin movie jazz even so. Film Score Monthly issued The Liquidator on CD in 2006, uniquely interspersing the soundtrack cuts (mostly sourced from vinyl) with the complete score cues (from the original tape source). It’s a HELLUVA ride.
Four songs from The Liquidator soundtrack are also featured on the 16-disc box set The Sound of Lalo Schifrin (2024).
Cool Hand Luke (1967): This is the first of Lalo Schifrin’s four Academy Award-nominated scores. Amazingly, he lost that year to Elmer Bernstein, for that notable composer’s totally unmemorable score to the little-remembered Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967).
Schifrin’s score is especially highlighted by one of his better-known themes, titled for all the world to know as “Down Here on the Ground” – although it’s not named as such anywhere on the original record – but serves here as the “Main Title.”
The main theme turned in to “Down Here on the Ground,” when Gale Garnett (b. 1942), who had a 1964 hit with “We’ll Sing in the Sunshine,” added lyrics to Schifrin’s main theme to Cool Hand Luke. Garnett’s lovely, wistful lyrics perfectly suited the story of an incarcerated man who refuses to conform to authority.
Guitarist Wes Montgomery was among the first to make hay out of the Schifrin-Garnett theme as an instrumental (it was the title track to his 1968 Creed Taylor-produced album), with versions following by Gerald Wilson, Grant Green, Oscar Peterson and Jimmy Ponder.
Notable vocal versions of the theme include those by Lou Rawls (1968) and George Benson (1978). The following year, Benson would sing the Schifrin-Garnett ballad “Street Tattoo,” the main theme from the Schifrin-scored Boulevard Nights.
The tremendous score to Cool Hand Luke, though, was a little more upbeat than the well-respected film it very successfully accompanies. Mixing bluegrass, jazz, blues and country with an orchestra was a challenge Schifrin accepted with aplomb. The non-credited musicians: Ray Brown, on bass, Howard Roberts and Tommy Tedesco on guitars and Tom Morgan, on harmonica, all contributed to the score’s success.
Many will recognize “Tar Sequence” from its use on TV news programs (i.e.: ABC-TV). The real gem, though, is “Egg Eating Contest,” which accompanies one of the film’s most notorious scenes. Like “Sampans,” from Enter the Dragon, Schifrin shows how he can create a memorable medley for the vividness of a single moment.
Other tracks worth note: the jazz-blues of “Just a Closer Walk With Thee,” “Arletta Blues” and the cinematic pleasures of “Bean Time” and “The Chase.”
The composer himself reissued the soundtrack for his own Aleph label in 2001, adding five previously unreleased cues and later symphonic variations of “Cool Hand Luke” (originally featured on the 1992 Schifrin disc Romancing the Film) and “Down Here on the Ground” (from Schifrin’s 1994 release More Jazz Meets the Symphony).
The original 13 tracks from the Cool Hand Luke soundtrack album were also included in 16-disc box set The Sound of Lalo Schifrin (2024).
Che! (1969): Schifrin’s score for one of the most reviled and long-forgotten epics of the late 60s is a brilliant, varied collection of Latin themes. Featuring nearly a dozen world-famous percussionists, including Mongo Santamaria and Armando Peraza, and a deft blend of strings and horns, the Che! score, unlike the film it enhances, seems imbued with the dignity of the folk music it explores.
Schifrin has always excelled with Latin themes – up to and including his masterful Latin Jazz Suite (1999) – and such exciting pieces as “La Columna” and “Recuerdos” illustrate his talent for providing a provocative canvas on which talented artists – even studio musicians – create some of their most dynamic, evocative music.
Originally released as a 1969 LP on Bill Cosby’s short-lived Tetragrammaton label, Che! was first issued on CD in 1998 on Schifrin’s Aleph label. The CD enhanced the original program with six new tracks (five featuring the stunning guitar work of Juanjo Dominguez), but strangely left off two tracks (“Tiempo Pasado” and “Ché (Solo Guitar Version)”) from the original LP. Of the new tracks, standouts include the guitar solo, “Tango,” the orchestral “Los Andes” and the piano/guitar duet version of the “Che!” theme.
While two songs from the Che! soundtrack are featured on the 16-disc box The Sound of Lalo Schifrin (2024), the full soundtrack album was reissued on CD – with original cover art and modified typography – in May 2025.
Altogether, Che! is an exceptional reference to Lalo Schifrin’s Latin heritage and contains much that is enjoyable and, ultimately, quite memorable.
Kelly’s Heroes (1970): A popular, yet critically-disliked film, Kelly’s Heroes benefits by one of Schifrin’s most interesting scores. The film, like Robert Altman’s M.A.S.H. (released the same year) is a loud, messy and anachronistic view of World War II that exploits the country’s discomfort with the embarrassments of the prolonged Vietnam War.
Schifrin’s music here, much of which is quite good, is highly anachronistic as well; mixing odd and disparate styles of folk, country, rock and military marches. The theme, “Kelly’s Heroes,” ranks as one of Schifrin’s most beguiling themes (along with “Mission: Impossible” and “Bullitt”) and sets the film’s sardonic tone.
“Burning Bridges,” in both instrumental and vocal versions sounds very much like an early 70s peace anthem, though the lyric suggests a hippy-like resignation from society.
For the sarcastic “Battle Hymn of the Republic” – which Schifrin would later reprise more reverently on his own Jazz Meets the Symphony and Jazz Mass discs – Schifrin employs a kazoo, fuzz guitar and garish brass. Hank William’s country-pop “All For The Love Of Sunshine” was a hit. But, overall, the disparate elements blend in one of Schifrin’s surprisingly strong pop-oriented soundtracks.
While the Kelly’s Heroes soundtrack was first paired with Schifrin’s The Cincinnati Kid soundtrack for a CD release on Chapter III in 2000, the complete LP soundtrack was issued in 2005, along with the film’s score and unused cues in a beautiful packaged CD by Film Score Monthly.
Four songs from the Kelly’s Heroes soundtrack were also included on the 16-disc box set The Sound of Lalo Schifrin (2024).
The Dirty Harry Sequels (1973-1988): In addition to the iconic music Lalo Schifrin provided for Dirty Harry (1971), the composer also scored no less than three of the four sequels in this popular series of films, Magnum Force (1973), Sudden Impact (1983) and The Dead Pool (1988). Jerry Fielding was brought in to score The Enforcer (1976), as Schifrin was unavailable at the time.
The series (thankfully) never picked up the numbering system of sequels prevalent in the later Rocky or Rambo franchises (among so many others), but it also never repeated scores or cues out of whole cloth for the follow-up films. Likewise, Schifrin’s scores were unique and wholly-new inventions, worthy of their own discussion.
Like the two “Mission: Impossible” themes informing the eighties TV reboot and the later Tom Cruise film series, the two main Dirty Harry themes briefly, and subtly, inform the subsequent films in this film series. The originals are not the point.
Schifrin provides new and interesting scores to all three of his visits back to Dirty Harry, as much as the films themselves investigate and re-evaluate varying themes of vigilantism in society.
The Magnum Force score offers what is, perhaps, the series’ second-best main theme: a somewhat-martial percussion line, in tandem with a full-brass melody (get it?). The other notable tracks here include “The Pimp,” “Palancio” and “Last Dance in Sausalito.”
Sudden Impact features a blaring theme, notable for its early-eighties scratching, funky slap bass and even bolder brass. Tracks like “Murder by the Sea,” “Cocktails of Fire,” “Robbery Suspect,” “Another Victim,” and “Crazy” also stand out.
The Dead Pool, which, as released, mixes cues together in mini-suites – much like the woeful 2005 CD release of Schifrin’s score to Caveman – and features a more subtle main theme, the Enter the Dragon-esque “High and Dry,” as well as “The Last Autograph.”
Dirty Harry star Clint Eastwood eventually licensed material to Schifrin for the composer’s Aleph label, culminating in the CD release of Dirty Harry Anthology (1998), featuring select tracks from each of Schifrin’s four soundtracks for the series.
Ultimately, Schifrin’s Aleph label issued the full soundtracks to Magnum Force in 2005, Sudden Impact in 2008, and The Dead Pool in 2009, as well as Jerry Fielding’s jazz-inflected score for The Enforcer – informed, at times, by hints of Herbie Hancock’s “Chameleon” and James Brown’s “Sex Machine” – in 2007.
The Big Brawl (1980): Schifrin’s theme to this film stands as one of his most memorable ever. This soundtrack, originally released in Japan only, contains much that is reminiscent of Schifrin’s big-band Verve dates from the mid 60s. Although the personnel remains unknown, some excellent jazz players are clearly involved.
Too many variations of the main theme prevent it from being one of the great Schifrin soundtracks…wonderful as it is, even so. Reissued on CD in 2017. Three songs from The Big Brawl soundtrack are also featured on the 16-disc box set The Sound of Lalo Schifrin (2024).
The Osterman Weekend (1983): This worthy pop-jazz collection will appeal as easily to Schifrin’s late 70s jazz listeners as his Hollywood fans. The nicely-varied score also suits Sam Peckinpah’s last film ideally, mixing suburban easy-listening jazz with appropriately electronic action and conspiracy cues.
The 1999 Aleph CD retains the excellent cover art from the 1983 Varese LP and adds six titles (“Water Games,” “The Face of Death,” “Love Theme,” “Conspiracy Waltz,” The Conspirators,” “Jesus Loves Me”) to the LP’s original ten. The dominant themes (“Osterman Weekend,” “Face of Love”) are strong, melodic and typically memorable. But the best tracks are “Status Symbol,” “The Face of Death” and “Omega.”
Rush Hour (1998): Rush Hour marks Schifrin’s second collaboration with director Brett Ratner (Money Talks, also with Rush Hour star Chris Tucker), who specifically asked Schifrin to fashion something similar to the composer’s Enter the Dragon score for this sophisticated-East-meets-the-ugly-West action-comedy. Rush Hour also marks Schifrin’s first collaboration with Jackie Chan since 1980’s The Big Brawl (Chan also had a small, uncredited role in Enter the Dragon).
Schifrin’s soundtrack, one of the first of his film soundtracks to be available on CD, works extremely well. The composer devised one of his sure-fire main themes. Plus, he’s also pleasingly revisited the trademark “cool” action style that he popularized during the 1970s, notably in the Dirty Harry series.
Most significantly, he manages to work in his vast knowledge of Asian themes in a comical, yet not derogatory way and tops it all off with his magnificent, animated orchestral style. All 23 tracks here are brief and maintain an excellent sense of pacing.
Although nothing here is as memorable as Schifrin is known to be, there are quite a few worthwhile moments: “Lee Arrives In L.A.” (an interesting twist on the Dragon theme), “Jumping the Bus,” “Restaurant Poison,” “Battle at Junato’s” and “Chasing Sang.” There’s also an interesting Vertigo (Bernard Herrmann) influence during, among a few others, “High Tension” and “Carter Chases Clive.”
Schifrin’s main theme was a 1999 Grammy Award-nominee and was reprised for both of the film’s two sequels in 2001 and 2007. Three songs from the Rush Hour soundtrack are also featured on the 16-disc box set The Sound of Lalo Schifrin (2024).