Seven Days in May is a interesting blend of thriller, procedural, detective story and chess game, as the Joint Chiefs of Staff conspire to take over the United States government by way of a military coup they've been secretly and carefully planning.

Goldsmith's music is suitably tense and unsettliny, creating atmospheres of dread and making liberal use of snare drums and other percussion to evoke the machinations of the conspirators.

(A piece of source music, a juke box dance number, isn't included on the CD as it's a remnant of the original score by David Amram, whose work was replaced by Goldsmith's. I wonder if we'll ever get to hear the rest of what Amram did for this movie.)

The Mackintosh Man has Paul Newman going undercover to bust a spy ring or something like that. It's been a while since I saw it but I remember it as being good.

The music is great, that's for sure, with the haunting main theme played on accordion and cymbalom. This piece of music does most of the work, recurring in various arrangements throughout. (And my soundtrack band covered it!)

Not only is it one of Jarre's most memorable melodies but it seems to have left an impression. The score for the recent miniseriesThe Night Manager, which has a similar plot, seemed to pay tribute to the music from The Mackintosh Man, particularly in its main title theme.