Starring Donald Sutherland and Stephane Audran. A France/Canada production.
The composer writes: 'In March 1978 I had just finished arranging and recording period dance music and acting as Musical Director on the film 'Agatha' and was waiting for 2 weeks for the final cut to be ready for scoring. I was down at Shepperton and happened to meet Peter Collinson, famous for directing 'The Italian Job'. He asked if I would have time to write 'a few cues' for a film by Claude Chabrol called 'Blood Relatives'. I said I thought that Chabrol always had his own composer to score for him, Pierre Jansen, but Peter explained that he and Michael Klinger had acquired the English-language film rights outright and they thought with a new score the film might succeed in the USA/UK market. I had some qualms about this and whether I had the time, but was talked into it and wrote a score within the 2 weeks, recording it at CTS Wembley on April 5th with Sid Sax's 'National Philharmonic Orchestra' and my favourite engineer John Richards. I used a very dark scoring for the horrifying opening with 4 bass flutes, Bass Clarinet, 2 bassoons, Contra-bassoon, 4 Horns, 3 trombones, harp, celesta, 2 percussion and 2 double basses. Later when Sutherland meets the apparently-innocent young girl out at her parents in the country I introduced a string orchestra. The composed music added up to about 20 minutes in all. I have no idea whether Claude Chabrol ever heard it. If he did I hope he wasn't too upset since I was a great fan of his films from 'Le Beau Serge' and 'Les Cousins' onwards.'
4th October 2013 | As part of the festival and 75th birthday celebrations, Howard Blake introduces (in German) a programme of projected film excerpts featuring his film scores, Filmkunsttheater Metropol, Dusseldorf 7.30pm Die Filmmusik von Howard Blake Vortrag von und mit Howard Blake in deutscher Sprache mit Filmausschnitten |
5th April 1978 | The National Philharmonic Orchestra, CTS April 5th 1978, engineer John Richards, Recording at CTS Studios Wembley |
Howard Blake's music score has an emotional sting to its cues that simply linger, and director Claude Chabrol's capable handling (well for most part) has a strong stylistic and tight manner
lost-in-limbo, imdb.com, 30/9/2007
The music score used in the English version (the dubbed French version has a completely different soundtrack) is great, bouncy in bits and almost always adding to the action. Chabrol also sets up some great shots, and there are a few chilling moments to be had
sol, imdb.com, 4/10/2005