British agent Joseph Rearden (Paul Newman) is recruited by spymaster Mackintosh (Harry Andrews) to impersonate an Australian criminal and infiltrate a mysterious spy ring in an operation so covert that no one but Mackintosh and his secretary, Mrs. Smith (Dominique Sanda), know the truth. Reardon robs a postman of a diamond shipment and allows himself to be caught and sentenced to 20 years in Chelmsford Prison, where he becomes acquainted with Slade (Ian Bannen), a notorious traitor serving a life term. Recruited by an organization that arranges escapes for high profile prisoners in exchange for half of their hidden loot, Rearden, along with Slade, soon finds himself out of jail and in a safe house in Ireland.
Maurice Jarre’s soundtrack score, reminiscent though it is of the music to a number of other films, exhibits all his vigor and dynamism and provides a distinctive and memorable main theme reminiscent of his then-recent score to another international espionage thriller filled with moral ambiguity, Alfred Hitchcock’s Topaz. The theme has a strongly European flavor befitting the setting, with prominent use of the cimbalom, a zither-like instrument whose unique sound has been a memorable part of the soundscape of such spy films as The Ipcress File. For the first part of the film, the music glides along dispassionately, but once Paul Newman's hero Joseph Rearden's mission goes south, Jarre drops the detached approach and lets his music reflect the hero’s state, providing eerie, unsettling variations on his main theme.
Негізгі бет Музыка The MacKintosh man. Maurice Jarre
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