The 907th Soundtrack of the
Week is the score for Jaguar Lives! by
Robert O. Ragland.
The main title is very post-Bond "spy music", with swinging horns and strings
and a majestic adventure feel to it. The melody is somewhere in between "Thunderball"
and "Green Dolphin Street". The filmmakers were working a Bond connection with the cast, too: Christopher Lee,
Donald Pleasance, Barbara Bach, Joseph Wiseman and John Huston were all in
Bond movies. Capucine from The Pink Panther is also in there. "Sunset in Istanbul" is a short and low-key variation on the main theme
while "Never Die Jaguar" starts with an reiteration of the theme
before moving into action music, accompanied here by the FX and speech
tracks from the movie. Solo acoustic guitar and someone either stamping their foot or using their hand percussively
on the guitar bring us to "Spanish Town", a nice, typically Spanish guitar-sounding
piece. Another short adventure/suspense cue, "Secret Galley", comes next, followed by "Jonathan
Cross", the name of the main character, whose music starts out angular and staccato before
swinging into the main theme again. Of course there has to be a love theme and "Wiles of Love" is a very pretty solo piano
piece. Ominous low tones from the horn section combine with acoustic guitar and flutes to give
us "Murder Trap" and then we get the main theme again, slower and with wah-wah guitar,
in "Beyond the Border". "Terry" is another tender, pretty, wistful tune, this time for the full orchestra. Then it's time for two minutes of military drums for "General Villanova" and then another
tense action/suspense cue for "Getting Away". This continues in "Battle at the Castle", the longest track here, a mini-suite of
mostly action music but with sweeter more melodic bits thrown in. The end credits reprise the main theme again. Not having a vocal version is one way they avoided
imitating Bond movies, I guess, though this particular piece doesn't seem like it would
lend itself well to lyrics.
2026 May 01 • Friday
It turns out that Michael Crichton wrote some novels under the name John Lange
when he was still in medical school. I came across one called Odds On, saw that
it was about a heist and predictably failed to resist it.
Steven Jencks is a high school dropout and Korean War vet who came up with a system to beat
the house at casinos and did so, amassing a fair amount of money. His interest in odds led him
to an interest in statistics and then he puts together a really tight plan to rob a luxury hotel
of all the guests' money and jewelry. To account for as many possible scenarios, random events and deviations
from the plan as he can he does a lot of crunching with a computer. Crichton takes his time bringing his cast of characters to the hotel, which is in Spain. Jencks's small
team is a good one, each member having his act together and bringing specialized skills to the situation. The plan is ambitious but solid. Also at the hotel are a young college couple who are engaged but unhappy, a sex-crazed former exotic dancer and an older
woman with a chauffeur and a secret. Odds On is like a Men's Adventure Magazine story expanded to the length of a novel. In between
the explaining of the plan and preparation for the robbery, we bounce between the characters
and their various backstories and current developments, as well as numerous sex scenes, some involving
marijuana, treated here as an insanely powerful drug. The sex scenes are about as explicit as a mainstream book could be at the time, 1966, and
presumably would have appealed to the prurient interests of many readers. Naturally you expect the unexpected to derail the plans—Jencks himself used the computer
to come up with as many responses to such things as possible—but what ends up happening is
a genuine surprise and revealed only after a lot of suspense is generated. The characters are all distinct and fleshed out beyond the requirements of the genre
and it was pleasant to read. You already know if you like this sort of thing and if you
do you'll like this one okay. The first line is "The dynamite, neatly bundled in 'Happy Birthday' wrapping paper, lay
casually on the back seat".
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