Murphy's War

1971

CD: The Film Music of Ken Thorne, Vol 2

The Movie

I never cared much for this thing—I thought it was plodding and slow and poorly done. Peter Yates directed Bullitt, which I thought was great. But other movies of his that I've seen, like Mother, Juggs & Speed or The Hot Rock just don't quite work. You can see all the elements there—they just don't come together. I don't know why, but they just don't.

In this one, Peter O'Toole is a wounded flier in Africa. There's a German sub that's stuck in a river, and O'Toole is bent on destroying it no matter what. Should have been entertaining. Should have been.

The Music

At the peak of his scoring career, from the late 60's through the mid 80's, Barry had a ton of assignments. Usually he scored the whole film, but sometimes he would write a main theme and that was it—someone else would do the rest. This happened with Dana Kaproff on The Golden Seal, and it happened with Ken Thorne twice—with this film and with They Might Be Giants. In this case, Barry wrote the main theme only.

Release Notes

There was no original soundtrack released with the movie. Ken Thorne scored the film and used Barry's title theme. His music is collected on the recent CD Murphy's War: The Music of Ken Thorne Vol 2.