Music Composed by John Barry
Rating: ****

The Chase is a film that I know little about, aside from that it was a dark star-studded character drama of which there seemed to be no short supply of in the 1960s. Barry was still fairly early in his film scoring career at the time and had yet to break into the typecasting he seems to have stuck himself in for the past decade, so having him score a dark drama like this probably seemed nowhere near as remarkable then as it does now. Barry has certainly scored his share of character scores throughout his career, but most of his efforts in the genre for the past 20 years have used the same basic approach - romantic and sentimental with just a touch of melancholy with a big theme to repeat whenever possible. I love these scores and the approach is especially appreciated now that he seems to be one of the few still using it, but it is refreshing to look back at these older works to remember that there was a time when the composer was still exploring different ways of scoring a film. Barry’s score for The Chase is about as far from the weepy romance of his later scores as you can get. Cold, edgy, intense, and frequently angst-ridden, Barry uses shades darker here than I’ve ever seen in any of his other scores (and he has written quite a few of them in the past 4 and a half decades). Unlike a great many of his works, The Chase is not a score comprised of any big highlights, but rather seems to be composed with the idea that every cue is important into itself and should flow into a bigger picture. Though frequently subtle, there is a consistently impressive level of depth and detail in the composition that really is remarkable for such small-scale dialogue-driven film.

John Barry

But though subtle, this is still very much a thematically driven score. Barry bases nearly every cue around a theme that is harsh, cold, somber, and just about everything that his more famous romantic work isn’t. It may not be his most memorable, but its reserved stoicism has a malleable quality that allows Barry to use the melody frequently without wearing it thin. Sometimes it rises with violent intensity (”The Junkyard”), sometimes it lurks with suspense (similar here to some of the later James Bond scores, but with a touch more energy and ingenuity), and a precious few times it even takes on a more emotionally vulnerable sense of anguish (”What did I do Wrong?” – strong influence from Alex North’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? here). But more often then not the theme remains a grim unmoving anchor to ground a sense of tragic inevitability.

That said, this is not an unbearably dark listening experience. Breaking up the somber proceedings and scattered throughout the album, we have a handful of killer jazz source cues that are just as fun to listen to as the rest of the score is to appreciate. While some are more of the light (but still classy) cocktail lounge variety, pieces like “Saturday Night Philosopher” have a vicious hip and hard edge that remind us why Barry was the man trusted with the James Bond franchise. Here in particular the music seems to reverberate with a sense of vicious energy that has been missing from Barry’s music for a very long time.

Rounding off the album are two alternative takes on the main theme that Barry ostensibly did for concerts and compilations (though I have yet to see them turn up on any of the countless Barry compilation albums). It’s not a bad way to close the album, though the second alternative arrangement seems perplexingly more appropriate for a cowboy movie (complete with galloping acoustic guitar and harmonica) than it does a character drama.

Overall, this is not a score that everyone is likely to get into, but it should be a gem to anyone who enjoys the subtler and richer character pieces that Alex North used to excel at and Barry fans who want to see a different side of the composer. There is a consistently high level of energy and ingenuity throughout that should widen the eyes of anyone who assumed that there wasn’t any more to the composer than flashy action and starry-eyed romance. Through rarely mentioned, this really is a significant entry in Barry’s early career and deserves to be regarded as such. (Originally posted July 9, 2004).

Music Composed and Conducted by John Barry; Mixing Engineer: Jen Wyler; Produced by Didier C. Deutsch and Darcy M. Proper; Availability: In print; Label (Catalogue): Columbia / Legacy, (CK 89265); Release Date: May 18, 2004

01. Main Title: The Chase (2:43)
02. The Chase is On (4:40)
03. Saturday Night Philosopher (4:43)
04. What Did I Do Wrong? (2:37)
05. Call That Dancin’? (3:37)
06. Stop Talking Foolish - Stop Talking Anything (3:32)
07. Look Around (2:00)
08. The Beating (3:23)
09. And You’ve Got One! (2:39)
10. I Came to the End of Me! (2:51)
11. Blues for Bubber (4:04)
12. The Junkyard (5:27)
13. I’ll Drink to That (2:43)
14. The Killing - Next Morning (5:17)
15. Main Title (Alt. Version) (3:15)
16. The Chase (1:57)