The original TV soundtrack to 1979 TV movie S.O.S. Titanic is finally available to buy through Silva Screen Records. The album includes Howard Blake’s symphonic score and a tapestry of historically-correct music that was played on the ship in the last hours...

Premiered by ABC on 23 September 1979, S.O.S Titanic ran for three hours and was the costliest television film ever made. A huge star cast included David Janssen, Helen Mirren, Ian Holm, David Warner, Harry Andrews and Cloris Leachman and the script by James Costigan was based on a first-hand account by passenger-survivor Lawrence Beesley.

It would appear that Howard Blake's score alone isn't long enough to pad this out to a full album, as there are also tracks that are of the period - whether these also featured in the movie isn't clear.

I can see what the album producers have tried to do, and if it wasn't for the fact that 2012's 100 year anniversary of the Titanic disaster hadn't produced a number of similar albums (most notably Titanic Collector’s Anniversary Edition which includes both period music as well as music that was on the repertoire of the Titanic's band) then this would have been interesting.

Blake's score alone is of interest, but I really wasn't so keen on some of the historical band pieces. Still, it's an interesting enough score. The album contains 30 tracks and lasts for 56 min, 58 sec.

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Darren Rea