Sometimes your signature accomplishment can override a lifetime of great work. Such is the case with composer Lalo Schifrin—most associate Schifrin with his exhilarating theme to Mission Impossible, which is understandable, but reductive. Schifrin has made extraordinary music for sixty years.
Schifrin was a unique composer for film and TV. While his scores were wide and varied, his greatest strength was creating the sound of suspense. With well over two hundred credits to his name, it’s challenging to focus on his most significant works and impossible to cover all of his music without writing a book.
What can be done is to pull out a handful of highlights that reflect the skill and distinctiveness of Schifrin’s work on screen. Schifrin’s peak years covered a glorious stretch that lasted over twenty years (1962-1984). Over those two-plus decades, Schifrin scored six Oscar nominations, four Emmy nods, three Golden Globe noms, and thirteen Grammy nominations (winning four).
While Schifrin was already an accomplished composer before 1966, when his theme to Mission Impossible put him on the map and made him an instant legend–the percussive, swirling sound of his MI theme which culminates in a wall of sound blast of horns, strings, and whatever else the maestro was working with is thrilling beyond words. At a time when most composers were still creating jazz-based scores, Schifrin came up with something that felt like rock and roll. Mission Impossible was a giant leap in the history of scoring for the screen, pointing to a new way forward. I’d argue that only John Barry’s deathless Bond theme rivals Schifrin’s most famous score.
If the Mission Impossible theme had been Schifrin’s only major score, it would have been enough, but the Argentinian-born pianist, conductor, and composer was much more than his most fabled theme. His score for Bullitt received no love from award-givers, but it may be his second-best-remembered work. Listening to Bullitt recently, I was caught by the insistent bass, that signature swirling sound, and Schifrin’s ability to insinuate his music into scenes both quietly and with authority.
It may be a lesson to many that Schifrin composed the music for Bruce Lee’s martial arts classic Enter the Dragon. His trademark sound is in full effect, but this time he mixed in touches of Hong Kong and sound effects without sounding trite or like an appropriator. Imagining Enter the Dragon without Schifrin’s score is, well, not possible.
One of my favorite Schifrin film scores is for the George Segal film, Rollercoaster, a serial killer thriller by amusement park ride piece of pulp. However silly the film may be (it’s very silly), Schifrin’s bass-driven, funky compositions are groove-heavy and suspenseful.
Likewise, Schifrin’s iconic score for Cool Hand Luke was dexterous and varied, while being completely authentic. Mixing in touches of gentle rural folk throughout, but then turning up the volume during the tar sequence in a way that sounds like a vigorous game of “hide and seek.” There was simply nothing Schifrin could do.
Listening to Schifrin’s score for Dirty Harry, I was particularly taken with “Scorpio’s theme. Creating music to reflect villainy meant crafting a sinister jazz base and a stop-start percussion that was both unnerving and exciting.
The most notable accomplishment among his six Oscar-nominated scores is how often he elevated modest (or worse) material. I don’t know who remembers The Fox, Voyage of the Damned, or (god help us all) The Sting II and The Amityville Horror fondly, but the Academy took note, and it’s not hard to understand why. Schifrin lifted The Fox and Voyage in ways that the staid productions may not have deserved. Schifrin demonstrated great versatility in composing for The Sting II by incorporating ragtime-era sounds, and was equally proficient in the horror genre with The Amityville Horror. The Sting II is a particularly dreadful sequel to the Redford/Newman classic caper film (without Redford or Newman), and it stands as a testament to just how great Schifrin was to have earned a nomination for such a critical and commercial disaster.
The long-forgotten classical musician drama The Competition (starring Richard Dreyfuss and Amy Irving) found Schifrin receiving another Oscar nomination for best song. The lovely (if very of its ‘70s soft rock time) “People Alone” proved that Schifrin could be successful writing a pop song.
Of course, Schifrin’s real stock and trade was in making us feel the anxiety of the characters on screen and in embedding suspense into their most fraught moments. No one was better at doing so than Schifrin.
Still, it’s notable how many times Schifrin was recognized by the Oscars, the Emmys, and the Golden Globes without ever winning a statue (Schifrin did receive an honorary Oscar in 2018). No matter, awards are like a political poll, just a snapshot in time, but the sound of Schifrin will last until the next ice age calls us to account.
