The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974) Original Motion Picture Soundtrack CD Music by David Shire

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The Taking of Pelham One Two Three is a superb urban thriller: four men, dressed alike in trenchcoats and calling each other Mr. Blue, Mr. Green, etc., take a subway car hostage and demand $1 million in ransom. Walter Matthau stars as the transit cop assigned to the case; Robert Shaw (Quint in Jaws) is the leader of the terrorists. It’s a brilliant ’70s hostage movie with biting New York humor.

For the score, David Shire—then going through a brilliant stretch of work which included The Conversation, Farewell, My Lovely, The Hindenburg, and All the President’s Men—came up with a stroke of genius. He wanted to do some kind of funk/jazz/big band, but wanted a way of making it dissonant and powerful—not too light, but not too random. So for his melodic materials he utilized the 12-tone method of composition, a technique devised by Arnold Schoenberg in the early 20th century in which you make a theme by using all 12 pitches in a specific order, and then create other themes by playing that “row” backwards, upside-down, backwards and upside-down, or transposed. Shire ended up with a monster two-note bass line with these 12-tone themes running on top.

For our CD, the first-ever release of this music, producers have utilized the complete score, including around 15 minutes of music not included in the film. The 12-page booklet includes movie stills, composer photos, and track-by-track notes by Doug Adams.

The photos pf the product outside of the packaging are stock photos for reference only. This is a brand new and sealed item.

Special Features

• Includes extensive liner notes with rare photos from the movie.

Playlists

• Main Title
  2:18
• The Taking
  3:10
• Dolowitz Takes a Look/Dolowitz Gets Killed
  2:21
• Blue and Green Talk
  2:03
• Money Montage
  3:13
• Fifty Seconds/The Money Express
  3:55
• Conductor Killed/The Money Bag
  1:46
• The Pelham's-Moving-Again Blues
  3:12
• I'm a Police Officer/Renewing Disguises/Goodbye Green, Hello Garber, Goodbye Hippie/Smoking More, Enjoying It Less
  2:59
• Mini-Manhunt
  1:56
• End Title
  3:01

Specifications

• Number of Discs:
  1
• Runtime:
  30:55