A great, funky soundtrack rediscovered…
If you were thinking of films from Hammer’s back catalogue deserving of a 4k restoration and collector’s edition, I very much doubt 1974’s Shatter would be in the top 20. One of two co-productions with Hong Kong’s illustrious Shaw Brothers Studio, the troubled film saw its original director Monte Hellman fired less than two weeks in and featured a miscast Stuart Whitman as the eponymous lead. At least their other co-production, The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires, aka The 7 Brothers Meet Dracula, had Hammer’s iconic villain, if not played by Christopher Lee. (It did, however, see Peter Cushing returning to his role as Van Helsing.) The Shaw Brothers were desperate to emulate the success of rival Hong Kong studio Golden Harvest’s co-production Enter the Dragon and the kung fu craze. For fans of Shaw Brothers, or John Woo’s later A Better Tomorrow series, it’s a chance to see Chang Cheh regular Ti Lung in a rare English-speaking role. It also serves as a fascinating insight, with Hellman and replacement director, Hammer producer Michael Carreras, putting a different lens on contemporary 1970s Hong Kong to that of local directors. It’s easy to see how this unambitious action thriller had been forgotten for so long.
But the real revelation was the exceptional soundtrack by David Lindup.
Lindup understood the synergy between Hong Kong martial art and Blaxploitation films, ultimately better than the filmmakers it turned out. A fascination for Black audiences that unsurprisingly drew them to films with non-white protagonists. It went far beyond the proto-disco novelty of Carl Douglas’s Kung Fu Fighting and Pete Belotte/Giorgio Moroder composition/production for Roberta Kelly, Kung Fu’s Back Again. (Which gained extra kudos a couple of years later when rerecorded by Hong Kong’s own Paula Tsui.) Noted Philadelphia producer and singer Bunny Sigler would create his own Theme For “Five Fingers of Death”, the American title of Shaw Brothers 1972 classic that started it all, King Boxer. Curtis Mayfield’s soft, plaintive lyrics to 1974 Sweet Exorcist album track Kung Fu explicitly tie it back to the ghetto of his Superfly soundtrack, but as a means to find the self-respect to escape.
Hammer music director Philip Martell called in Lindup to save the film from an original score that he is said to have found “absolutely appalling”. Right from the opening theme, Lindup dials up the Blaxploitation references, as a female chorus sing the name ‘Shatter’ with urgency, echoing into the distance. The riff on Isaac Hayes Shaft is hardly lost, but the song quickly charts its own path from Hammond organ stabs and an insistent buzzing electronic sound noise beneath, before brass sections and the rhythmic wah wah guitar cuts in. It’s perhaps a few more steps away from the source than, say, Bixio, Frizzi & Tempera’s riffing on various cues from Marvin Gaye’s Trouble Man on their score for Vai Gorilla. It is a shame then that the protagonist it’s theming is Whitman, not Richard Roundtree, or even Ti Lung given the lead role, not sidekick.
Lindup had a solid background in arranging big band jazz and orchestral scores, creating incidental music for programmes as diverse as The Persuaders! and The Muppet Show. He also contributed extensively to music library like KPM Music and Bruton Music. Similarly, the suggestion here is he recorded sessions for the soundtrack, rather than score the film directly, to be cut up and used later. It reminds me of Larry Cohen’s complaint about James Brown’s compositions for Black Caesar, returning with funk tracks that were way too long.
Here they are presented as ‘Suite 1’ and ‘2’ across side A and B of the record. Though that doesn’t represent the recording accurately, as there are distinct songs, fast fades, as well as extended atmospheric builds. The advertising promise they are ‘presented as originally intended’ is a little misleading, the subtitling as ‘Original Soundtrack Selections’ is a bit more honest. It’s doubtful anyone would have wanted the soundtrack to be released like this — and that’s even before we get to soundtracks that have very little to do with how the music actually sounded on screen. (Perhaps due to the materials, the release feels a bit like the bootleg release of Dennis Coffey and Luchi DeJesus’s soundtrack to Black Belt Jones.)
That of course means there’s no official titles, or even cues names to refer to the work by. A vocal song, which we’ll call Say You Love Me for now, is sung a bit too angelically for its own good, sounding more like something you’d hear on a BBC variety show of the era. But the second half frees up the groove nicely. Lindup’s compositions deftly shift the tone, from tension building pieces to funky workouts with frenzied Hammond organ riding high, often returning to the main theme. Undoubtedly, there’s nearly 34 minutes of great, funky music that stands alongside the scores of Hayes, Mayfield, etc—not to mention other work like David Grusin’s The Friends Of Eddie Coyle—with ease.
Ironically, considering Lindup’s background, Shaw Brothers would go on to use cues from music libraries, mainly from the OG, De Wolfe Music. Creating an unexpected overlap between their films and George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead. If Lindup’s name sounds familiar, you’re probably thinking of his son, Mike Lindup, member of Level 42, who provides liner notes on this release.
At time of writing, only the digital version of the soundtrack was made available, the limitations of the mono materials are already apparent. So it’ll be interesting to hear the final record and what, if any, mastering has been applied. While it’s great to see an undiscovered soundtrack like this get the release it always deserved, this is a new product range for the revived Hammer label since being acquired by the John Gore Organisation, with previous connected releases being by managed Silva Screen Records (itself not always known for quality) and breakaway group Tadlow Music. There’s a danger here it could be more of a step into the collectable market than a chance to properly restore and release these soundtracks (unlike the 4K remastering of the film itself). Arrow Video’s step into this arena, for instance, was ultimately short lived. This isn’t to want to sound too much like an audiophile snob, but there is more to putting music on vinyl than simply copying from an audio source.
Whatever the results, this is one funky soundtrack you should not miss out on!