• Thunderball

• John Barry
• Studio Orchestra
• EMI
• 1965

I must admit to never having been a great fan of Thunderball as a film. I can't quite put my finger on what doesn't measure up, although the confusing underwater finale is outstandingly unspectacular. Barry's score starts with a very typical Bond song, full of harsh brass and a belting performance by Tom Jones. The Don Black lyrics are also typically obtuse, a suggestive, but curiously meaningless ego feed for 007, but you'd expect nothing less.

Barry's underscore is remarkably restrained for the most part; Chateau Flight has a short brassy outburst, but otherwise it's tension building strings and bass flutes - one of Barry's favourite instruments, certainly for Bond. Only during The Bomb does the pace pick up with swirling strings and denser orchestrations. However, the low key meandering takes over again for the latter part of the cue and moves from the realm of subtle to just being a little on the tedious side. Cape (or Café - see track list) Martinique is a typically sophisticated loungey effort that is one of the most enjoyable of Barry's source instrumentals. In fact it marks a distinct turning point and the album starts to kick into gear a little. A nice instrumental of the title song is followed by the surprisingly perky Death of Fiona. The album is rounded out with a slightly iffy performance of 007 then Mr Kiss Kiss Bang Bang which I believe is the Japanese name for Bond and here is a none too inspiring song instrumental.

The amount of actual underscore during the early Bonds was actually fairly low, but Thunderball actually had somewhat more than many of the others, but the EMI album does seem to contain the best part of the underscore. I'm still not entirely sure what to make of this one. It has all of Barry's typical Bond trademarks, but I find it curiously uninvolving. Although Barry professed that his Bond music was just very expensive mickey mouse music, the level of restraint (at least) here is quite remarkable. Perhaps I'm just too used to action scores that are wall to wall orchestral hystrionics, but then again, many of Barry's other early Bond efforts I enjoy a great deal. Perhaps Barry was as unimpressed with the film as I was, even though his music was perfectly effective during the movie itself. The sound and packaging could also be better, so the result is what I'd consider one of Barry's less satisfying albums.

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