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•	1993 Album

•	2022 Album

•	1993 Album

Rózsa adapts the main theme more deceptively in the second half of Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid, affording it some overdue romanticism in "The Swede" and lacing "A Meal Ticket" with its disturbed fragments. After the idea recurs more forcefully in the middle of "Alias Sam Novak," it turns sultry with great results in the light jazz and blues of "One-Sided Passion" and once again explores its softer, more resolute form in "Peace Offering." Shifting back to sneaking pulses in "The Hoods" and "False Pretenses," the theme opens the rejected "A Beautiful Corpse," punctuates "Prison Break," and tickles around the edges of the sinister "The Visit." It's more forcefully deconstructed in "The Big Fish" and at the start of "Final Instructions" before blasting forth at the start of "End Credits From Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid," in which the Rózsa repeats its "Prelude" position against the love theme later in the cue. An alternate version of the arrangement is a bit more aggressive in its conclusion. Meanwhile, the love theme is a swooning string identity of pure yesteryear with notable bass counterpoint lines and an elongated secondary sequence that affords its presence some extended melodrama. After washing out of the main theme at 0:29 into "Prelude From Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid," the idea extends from the main theme's stewing at 3:06 into "Stormy Meeting" with lush romance and closes the cue on a short preview of swaying violin solos later to define its appeal. Woodwinds layer the love theme briefly at the start of "The Exterminator" before a darker version of the main theme, and it's sparsely reduced in "Memories." A short, dedicated reprise of the opening performance follows in "Love Theme From Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid" while the solo violin's inevitable role is expanded nicely in "Confessions" and continues similarly in "Trust." The love theme surpasses the suspense for unashamed romanticism in "Embracing Hands," becomes more nervous early in "A Meal Ticket," and overshadows the main theme again at the end of "The Hoods." It emerges in familiar refrains on strings in "Love at Last" for a longer rendition, struggles a bit more in "Delusions/Carlotta," where it is hampered by theremin, and takes an almost Latin, source-like sense of flair in "Carlotta Cafe."

Never far from the spotlight, the composer's love theme is twisted darkly in "The Visit" against fragments of the main theme and evolves nicely at the conclusion of the tale, a cello briefly joining the solo violin in the flighty "Finale From Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid" for another dimension to the performance. The theme reasserts its status following the main theme in "End Credits From Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid" and receives even more extended treatment for a momentous closing. While an orchestral demo of "Love Theme From Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid" changes the colors to brass for an abandoned song variation, multiple traditional takes of "Finale From Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid" rearrange the pieces into mostly the same result. Aside from these primary identities, two lesser motifs exist in the work as well. A suspense and investigation motif is built from the secondary phrasing of the main theme and meant to churn in repetitive motion. Debuting for Alan Ladd, ironically, at 0:52 into "The Exterminator" on muted trumpets over a matching, descending bass string motif, this idea gains momentum throughout the middle of the cue and returns at the end. Nicely extended in "First Clue," with notable low woodwind presence, this stern motif is restrained to its chords in more fluid form in "Looking for Hastings." Powerfully obstructive at the beginning of "The Brooch," it eventually overtakes the love theme with foreboding in "Marlowe Appears," stomps lightly with a slight militaristic tilt from snare in "The Railroad Car," and opens "The Keys" several times with worry. Later, it quietly marches through "The Last Cruise," offers more dramatic shades to the unused "Mistaken Identity," and achieves a more muscular pose late in "Final Instructions." Finally, a fear motif uses swirling, descending phrases that distort the love theme to denote bitter failure, emerging at 0:16 into "The First Bullet" with heightened fright. Rózsa tosses his vintage theremin into the equation in the almost manic "Cleaning Woman No. 1." This mode is reprised wholesale in "Cleaning Woman No. 2" and "Final Cleaning Woman" as the composer uses this music to represent psychological trigger language in the story. The fear motif then punctuates the middle of "The Hoods" with pounding, full-ensemble horror and retreats to a bit more restrained posture in "False Pretenses."

These themes are almost omnipresent in Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid, though there are diversions, led by the unique "Transformation" cue went unused and represents Rózsa's only cartoonish moment. Among the multitudes of source pieces, the guitar-led "Dead Man's Bolero" is likely the most vital, some of the others not attributable to the Rózsa himself since they were likely conjured as improvisations during the sessions, a few at the direction of Holdridge as required by Reiner. Neither song conceived for the film is on the album, the first's vocals not recorded and the second one missing because no attribution could be found for the singer. These source pieces are important to the film's narrative but won't be of much interest to collectors of the composer seeking one last foray into his 1940's sound with unashamed scope. The summarizing finale of the score has been released countless times through the years on compilations, but the most prevalent album of the fuller score was a 47-minute 1993 album from Prometheus Records called "Miklós Rózsa: Film Music Vol. 2" that included nothing else in its ranks. Its core presentation was supplemented by the demo instrumental for the aborted song. In 2022, Intrada Records expanded a proper arrangement of the score to a fuller 62 minutes and included an extra 25 minutes of additional alternates and source pieces on a second CD. The latter CD won't be of as much interest given its wild changes in styles, but it does offer some engaging alternates for the finale and end credits cues at its conclusion. The main score presentation has a few of the source-like portions mixed in, especially those that play up the Latin element, but they don't significantly detract from the otherwise very consistent demeanor of Rózsa's straight-laced score. The sound quality is decent for the early 1980's but not as vibrant as one might hope. While some listeners may assume that a 1982 recording would provide the composer's original music in a more dynamic spread than what audiences became accustomed to in the 1940's and 1950's, the truth is that the improvement in sound isn't as drastic as logic might suggest. The Intrada album, also released digitally, may be overkill for some casual listeners seeking just the melodramatic opening and closing tracks, but it's an outstanding treatment of the final, lovingly nostalgic score by a Hollywood legend.  ****   @Amazon.com: CD or Download