dedeurs — 10 years ago(November 22, 2015 06:35 PM)

People have been defending OTKW for almost 40 years now. It's great! A classic! Better than Jaws!
It tried to be, but it isn't. Richard Harris performed reasonably, but Charlotte Rampling's wardrobe in the final scene is so ridiculously
Vogue
that her interpretation of a strong willed marine expert died just there and then.
What's left are a lot of beautiful orca scenes, and the main orca star certainly has more soul than the killing machine in Spielberg's Jaws. So Orca The Killer Whale also has a better story than Jaws.
And there's the score. Oh, that score.
The sound quality in the copy I recently saw was awful - I don't remember if it was any better in the 1977 cinema copy - but the theme, sometimes solely instrumental, sometimes enriched with Edda Dell'Orso's angelic vocalism, is absolutely breathtaking. Legend goes that Ennio Morricone never cared much for it, it was a 'routine job' at the time. Well, for many film music lovers it's one of the most majestic film themes ever composed (Morricone has always excelled in themes related to nature; the sea, the desert, the jungle).
Unfortunately in the film and at the end of the original soundtrack record the heavenly music is thorn apart when a Ms Carol Conners pipes in, and she may have been a good singer at the time, but she horribly clashed with her material.
Brilliant music was wasted in a silly movie, and the maestro subsequently kicked the score out of his concert agendas. Such a pity.