Italian soundtrack maestro Piero Piccioni’s score for Puppet on a Chain is released through Silva Screen Records. This blistering Hammond-heavy score anticipates the blaxploitaiton era with funky and angular action scenes, symphonic clashes and big band sound. A masterpiece of suspense, Puppet on a Chain was adapted from Alistair Maclean’s 1969 novel and released in 1971. Directed by Geoffrey Reeve and starring a granite-jawed Sven-Bertil Taube, the film’s signature boat chase (lasting eight minutes!) along the canals of Amsterdam was rumoured to be the inspiration for the similar sequence in Bond’s Live and Let Die...

If '70s kitsch scores are your thing, then you're going to fall in love with Piero Piccioni’s soundtrack for Puppet on a Chain. It's very much a product of its time and every now and then you can hear elements that will remind you ever so slightly of John Barry's early Bond scores. In addition, 'Love Theme' had a distinct Bernard Herrmann flavour (most notably his work on Cape Fear).

Big band and Jazz are the order of the day here and while it's not necessarily the sort of album I'd want to listen to very often, I did find it an interesting distraction and a novel, action packed score. It contains 18 tracks (34 min, 15 sec).

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Darren Rea