Henry Mancini:
Quartet Records
From Quartet
Records: "Quartet Records proudly presents Curse of the Pink Panther,
the only film in the Pink Panther series that had never seen an
official soundtrack album release. Not a single piece from Curse of the
Pink Panther has ever been released, even though it’s a huge and
carefully crafted score. Perhaps in the expectation that the film could
mark a new departure in the series and give way to further sequels,
Mancini wrote a new and slick theme for Clifton Sleigh’s character: a
playful melody for solo clarinet with orchestration reminiscent of
Victor/Victoria. There were also a few dramatic themes used to
underline the Mafia attacks as well as some amusing experiments with
synthesizers to illustrate the world of computers. However, the
funniest idea of all was to have some pasodobles and flamenco themes
added to the series to underscore the episode that took place in
Valencia. Discovering this film score has been a great and pleasant
surprise. The tapes with the original sound mix made at CTS studios in
London are completely lost. Therefore, we have had to go back to the
24-multi track courtesy of the MGM archives to try to create a new and
fresh sound mix based on the original notes found in the composer’s and
the sound engineer’s cue-sheets as well as referencing the film. Every
single piece of music written by Henry Mancini for this film has been
included in this soundtrack album. We have also added a few alternate
takes of some of the themes such as the one used for the main titles,
where Clifton Sleigh’s theme is preceded by some James Bond-style
arrangements… perhaps in anticipation of the fact that Clouseau had now
become Roger Moore! In a word, this score is pure Mancini: charm and
elegance from one of the most indispensable film music composers, and a
lost chapter in a saga has now achieved cult status."