Ordeal by Innocence

In the 1970s and 1980s, there were several big-screen all-star adaptations of Agatha Christie’s books, starting with the huge success of Murder On The Orient Express, followed by Death On The Nile, The Mirror Crack’d, and Evil Under The Sun. 1985s Ordeal By Innocence was at the tail end of that particular cycle and was based on Christie’s 1958 book, one of her darker tales – it was also one of her favorites of that period. The film version, made by Cannon, assembled a top-notch cast including Donald Sutherland, Faye Dunaway, Christopher Plummer, Sarah Miles, Ian McShane, and Diana Quick. In the director’s chair was Desmond Davis, who’d made the quirky 1960s films, Girl With Green Eyes and Smashing Time, as well as the 1981 version of Clash Of The Titans. Engaged to write the score was the wonderful Italian composer,Pino Donaggio, who by that time had made a huge name for himself turning out superior scores for such films as Don’t Look Now, Carrie, Dressed To Kill, The Fan, Blow Out, Body Double, and many others. 

Donaggio provided his usual lush, beautiful, suspenseful music, the kind he was so adept at, and his score was fantastic. All should have been well in Christieland, but after Donaggio turned in his score, the film went through major revisions, with a lot of re-editing and some new footage. At that point, the film required rescoring, but Donaggio was already working on another project and was not available. To replace the score, they turned not to a well-known film composer or even a not-well-known film composer – they turned to jazz legend Dave Brubeck. Using existing Brubeck music, newly recorded for the film. Brubeck’s music is terrific on its own – classic Brubeck all the way. Unfortunately, it isn’t movie music and it’s mostly at odds with the visuals and mood of the film. 

One can take the position that the film might have had a different fate with the Donaggio score. Or not. It’s really hard to know. What we do know is that the score is top-of-the-line Donaggio. At times reminiscent of his work for De Palma (especially Dressed To Kill), it’s all swirling strings and lush melodies and tension-filled passages, all very symphonic. No one did or does this sort of thing better than Donaggio. There was a short seventeen-minute suite used on a Pino Donaggio compilation, but this is the world premiere release of the entire score – every note written for the film, along with a suite of alternate cues. For anyone who loves Donaggio or who loves classic film scoring, this CD will, I hope, be very pleasing. 

This CD was assembled and mastered from the first generation two-track mixed music masters direct from Italy and the sound is phenomenal.