night I couldn't sleep and a really old Charles Bronson movie popped into my head. It's called Break Heart Pass and it came out in 1975. I saw it in theaters as a five year old and loved it enough to watch a few years later on TV and then somehow have it pop into my head a few nights ago. As I recall, it was one of those older movies that move slow but build suspense so gradually that it makes a nice payoff for watching the whole thing. I don't think today's audiences have the attention span for those anymore.

Anyway, the theme song popped into my head even though I probably haven't heard it in thirty years. It seemed catchy, so I looked it up. I wondered who the composer was. The thing I was looking at said it was Jerry Goldsmith.

A little while later, the theme song from Patton (1970) popped into my head. I looked it up to see who the composer was. It turns out it was Jerry Goldsmith. The theme song blends brass instruments with snare drums to give a military feel that also has haunting echos. Almost as if you were standing on the site of a battlefield from decades ago and suddenly you had a vision of being surrounded by the action.

While I don't consider myself a music score afficionado, I would have thought I'd have heard of Jerry Goldsmith because of his body of work. And his name didn't ring a bell. I've obviously heard of John Williams, Hans Zimmer, Ennio Morriconne, Danny Elfman (I knew him as the lead guy from Oingo Boingo before I knew him as a movie music composer - he also did the Simpson's theme), and Henry Mancini. Somehow I had never heard of Goldsmith even though his name ranks right up there with those I listed.