Walter Hill's THE DRIVER and Michael Mann's THIEF - prototypes for DRIVE

 

What would Drive look like, made in the 70s and 80s?

I loved Nicolas Winding Refn's Drive (2011) but am unconcerned how much of it is original or homage (or whatever). It's an exciting, beautifully crafted thriller which I'm already looking forward to seeing again. But in my mind, I can't keep it in total isolation from older films I've seen, and it's fun to explore what Drive echoes. Maybe even compare how different decades have treated similar stories and characters. Many others have already been cited as influences, but these two are leading the pack...

THE DRIVER

(1978, USA)

The Driver (Ryan O'Neal) waits for two masked men to rob a casino, then burns rubber to get them away from a squad of police cars. It doesn't go completely smoothly - a witness (Isabelle Adjani) catches a clear look at him and smells money. The Detective (Bruce Dern) can't make the case stick and hatches an elaborate plan to catch The Driver red-handed.

I thought Ryan Gosling's impossibly cool character was a fresh take, until I saw Ryan O'Neal behind the wheel of a car, clean-shaven, sandy-coloured hair, blank expression, a man of few words... O'Neal's character also has strict rules for every job he takes on, can't be taken lightly, and quietly enjoys music.

Whereas Drive concentrates on various players in the underworld, The Driver uses a more  traditional cat-and-mouse structure of police trying to crack his case. That isn't to say the story is at all straightforward and full of surprises. Walter Hill (scriptwriter as well as director) adds one of his regular 'strong women' as The Connection (Ronee Blakley of A Nightmare on Elm Street) in this the year before Alien landed (for which Hill was a writer and co-producer).

The location is Los Angeles and much of the action takes place at night, though watching this DVD it's hard to judge the quality of the cinematography. The Driver is far less image-conscious than Drive, but adds far more tyre-squealing car chases and police cars. More isn't necessarily better, and some of the action is spoilt by jump-cuts and random continuity.

When there isn't action, the pace often flatlines, with not even Bruce Dern bringing it to life. O'Neal is good at playing against type, but his serious stares are only a shade away from his 'slow burn' from What's Up Doc?.Besides style, The Driver also lacks a driving soundtrack. The fun is all in the unravelling story and it's tough attitude. It's a huge contrast to the car chase comedies that were all the rage at the time, like the freewheeling Smokey and the Bandit franchise.

Walter Hill would next direct The Warriors, beginning an impressive winning streak of cult thrillers including Southern Comfort, Streets of Fire and 48 Hours.


Trivia: note how the above UK quad poster refers to the films simply as "Driver".

I watched the UK DVD from Optimum. The grainy print and night-time scenes gave the image compression quite a few problems in some scenes. But this is a recent anamorphic-widescreen release and I very much doubt there's a better version out there.

THIEF
(1981, USA, original title: Violent Streets)

Frank (James Caan) is a specialist in high-tech safe-cracking. His price is high yet he doesn't work for just anyone who can pay. Fiercely independent, he doesn't work as part of any mobs and hasn't even any regular family life. All that's about to change and his next job will be the toughest of his career.

Thief isn't about a driver, and James Caan is far less calm and collected than Ryan Gosling, but the story structure and dilemmas of his character's independence have strong parallels.

Frank is a professional, one of the best in the business, allowing him to pick and choose his clients even if they can afford his asking price. His goals in life are simple and he'll do absolutely anything to achieve or protect them.

As in Drive, there's a contrasty 'look' and a synth-heavy soundtrack. Night-for-night shooting in Thief accents car headlights and streetlighting, though it all isn't as overly style-conscious as Mann's later 80s thrillers. This works in favour of Thief's realism, a look at how mobsters blend into society and how any safe can be dismantled with the right scientific application... The electronic soundtrack by Tangerine Dream is not what you'd expect from a film that co-stars Willie Nelson.

Like The Driver, this an impressive early work from the director, being Michael Mann's first feature. For his next film he "wanted to get away from the streets" and plunged into an effects-laden, supernatural, Nazi horror film... before returning to a life of crime stories.

Trivia-wise, this is also an early production credit for Jerry Bruckheimer.

I watched the Optimum DVD from the UK. It's rare to see Michael Mann not shooting in his beloved 2.35 widescreen - this is presented anamorphic 16:9. Optimum are usually the label that releases films that major studios don't think are going to make money any more. Likewise with The Driver. Their loss.


A longer case for the merits of Thief.


More Thief info at this Michael Mann fan website.

My look at the musical influences on Drive's soundtrack.

THE CABINET OF DR CALIGARI (1920) - fundamental horror

THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI

(1920, Germany, Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari)

A man in black with murder in his eyes creeps into a beautiful woman's bedroom at night. A mad doctor uses his expertise for his own evil ends. A serial killer has a town in panic.

These are all regular elements of horror films, but in 1920 feature-length horror films were rare (I can only think of The Student of Prague, 1913, before it). The Cabinet of Dr Caligari heralded the start of a wave of horror films made in Germany for the next few years, including The Golem, Nosferatu and The Hands of Orlac. While they continued on from themes and characters in horror literature and the production designs of stage plays, these were among the very first to present sustained supernatural terror on film.

The influence of these silent movies inspired and influenced much of the far more famous 'golden age of horror' of early 1930s Hollywood, and predate most of the American silent horrors. Many of the key creative talents, actors, directors and production designers, soon moved to America where their ideas and style fed into that pre-code horror boom. Much like today, if something was a success abroad, Hollywood were happy to invite in the talent responsible.

Basically, these are very rewarding films for fans of horror, seeing the genre being born and taking shape. Despite their age, they're also unique nightmares, wildly creative and beautifully crafted. The make-up for the creatures in Nosferatu and The Golem is hugely effective. The set designs for The Cabinet of Dr Caligari are wildly surreal, and bravely presented for almost the whole length of the story. The question is, are these warped surroundings also part of the story...

A murder in a small village coincides with the arrival of a new attraction at the local carnival  - Dr Caligari and his mysterious assistant, who sleeps all day and night in a coffin-like cabinet. The murdered man's friend is determined to track down the killer, spurring the police (who spend most of their time at their desks) to make an arrest before it happens again...

While many of the first horror films were based on classic stories, this has an original script, inspired by a real murder and fuelled by public desperation at the end of the Great War. It has a social message, critical of mental health institutions. The surreal presentation may have disguised their sentiments, but the metaphors were all too clear. A late rewrite (which I thought I had been enforced on them) changed the story's message by means of an added prologue and epilogue.

This isn't just a story of murder and madness, everything about it looks psychotic. The whole film takes place on angular expressionistic sets. Like above, instead of a rooftop, the set merely suggests a rooftop - the only recognisable shapes here are two rough windows and a surreal chimney stack.

Besides the wild scenery, the acting is also exaggerated. To watch this without seeing other silent films of the time will give the impression that they're acting is wild, but they're trying to convey 'expressionism' in their performances. (For example, compare it to Paul Wegener's naturalistic acting in The Student of Prague, 1913). The benchmark of this style is Dr Caligari himself. Werner Krauss is brilliant - menacing, unhinged, random. In comparison, I could only tink of the head of the family in the dinner scene in David Lynch's Eraserhead - with his unpredictable, extreme emotions.

Conrad Veidt is the iconic 'monster' - tall, stealthy, with the ability to look demonic. An excellent and versatile actor, he's an early horror star, with leading roles in Waxworks, The Hands of Orlac, The Man Who Laughed and a remake of The Student of Prague (1926) again opposite Werner Krauss. He then made a fairly smooth transition to roles in 'talkies', appearing in Michael Powell's The Spy In Black and The Thief of Baghdad (as Jaffar!) with one of his last roles being in Michael Curtiz' Casablanca.

For years it was very hard to see these early films on anything but very scratchy prints (often with truncated or missing shots). Bootlegs, videotapes, public domain DVDs and YouTube compression have compounded the film faults making these movies very hard to appreciate. But now that some have been carefully restored and released on DVD, I've finally been able to understand their 'classic' status.

I think the best versions are currently the Kino International restoration on DVD in the US, and in the UK, an earlier restoration from Eureka, which is commended for it's orchestral score and subtle colour tinting.

While the Eureka DVD is the best quality I've ever seen, many scenes are spoilt by a dark horizontal 'join' running across the top of frame, often through the actors' faces. The Kino International DVD apparently doesn't have this fault, though the first five minutes are said to be of inferior quality to the Eureka version. The choice is yours. More details in the following link...


DVD Beaver compares the Kino version to the 1996 restoration used by Eureka (illustrated with screengrabs)...

Also, don't get this silent movie confused with the 1962 American remake with a very similar name, The Cabinet of Caligari. This rather straightforward version of one of the subplots amps up the sexual element of Freudian psychiatry (as much as was possible at the time - i.e. not very much). It's always a joy to see and hear Glynis Johns (Vault of Horror, Mary Poppins, Miranda), but this more closely resembles a William Castle film without the gimmicks, than a German expressionistic nightmare.

THE ISLAND AT THE TOP OF THE WORLD (1974) - high adventure

THE ISLAND AT THE TOP OF THE WORLD

(1974, USA)

A lost world adventure written by Joss Whedon's grandad!

A British adventurer (Donald Sinden) sets off in search of his son, lost on an Arctic expedition. He enlists the help of an American expert in ancient civilisations (David Hartman) and a French pilot (Jacques Marin) who can quickly take them over the frozen wasteland in a huge airship. They're expecting a dangerous trip, but not a lost civilisation living above the Arctic circle...

This is adapted from the novel 'The Lost Ones', written by Ian Cameron. Wikipedia reveals that this is a pen name for Donald G. Payne, who also wrote as James Vance Marshall. His novel 'The Children' was filmed by Nicolas Roeg as Walkabout (1971), starring Jenny Agutter. As Ian Cameron he also wrote a sequel to 'The Lost Ones' called 'The Mountains At The Bottom of the World'.

The script for Island at the Top of the World is credited to John Whedon. The name looked suspiciously familiar and, sure enough, it's Joss Whedon's grandad. Currently basking in the success of Cabin in the Woods and Avengers Assemble, I hadn't realised that Joss Whedon's dad and grandad were both screenwriters...

UK teaser art

As a child in the 1960s and a young teenager in the early 1970s, I soon decided that Walt Disney's animated films were too immature for me. I was already enjoying the violent, flashy adult fantasies of the Sean Connery James Bond movies by the age of ten. Back then, Disney's publicity was aimed squarely at young children with friendly, unthreatening, simplified poster art which severely undersold their classic animated re-releases.

I'd still go and see the live-action Disney films if it was a slow week, like The World's Greatest Athlete or The Love Bug, as long as the cast hadn't any annoying children in the cast (when's the last time you saw a children's film with only adult characters?). But when The Island at the Top of the World arrived, it was a must-see for me, promising spectacular adventure with some lengthy, action-packed clips on a couple of episodes of Disney Time.

UK quad poster

In the early 1970s, there was a continued enthusiasm for 'lost world' adventures, set around 100 years ago, where adventure was found in unlikely places around the world, or under its surface. Ray Harryhausen's films had dominated this genre with Sinbad's adventures, Mysterious Island and many others, but Britain's Amicus studios had started adapting Edgar Rice Burroughs novels with unconvincing men-in-rubber suit dinosaurs (which I still wanted to see!). But here, Disney threw a hefty budget and superior visual effects at this Jules Verne-inspired variant, which was less far-fetched than most, but more spectacular.

While I baulk at recommending The Land That Time Forgot (though I may yet attempt to), Island stands up far better today. Indeed it compares favourably to two other airship dramas of that decade - The Hindenburg (1975) and Zeppelin (1971), which offer little besides a trip in an inflammable balloon.

Some of the visual effects have obviously dated, particularly the blue-screen compositing of live-action with model work. But the large-scale miniatures, huge functional sets (extended by many beautiful matte paintings) stand up pretty well. The briefly-glimpsed full-size animatronic killer whales are still superb, (just) predating good old 'Bruce' from Jaws, who surfaced the following year. But these look more realistic because of the shiny skins of their real-life counterparts. I honestly thought they were real at the time I saw this on first release (in the UK in January 1975).

David Hartman, Donald Sinden and David Gwillim

Besides the engaging storyline, whose research into ancient societies and animal behaviour still stands up well today, the cast are just as much fun. There's all-purpose Asian Mako (the voice of Aku for Samurai Jack), a Japanese actor portraying an Eskimo. David Hartman, another likable American actor, is convincingly stoic and knowledgeable. I've not seen him in anything else but understand he was something on US television. Great voice! My favourite though is Donald Sinden, a well-known British actor, mainly known for his sitcom work, but here proving his worth as an eccentric adventurer, fearless, fallible and indignant that the rest of the world doesn't speak decent English. He's great fun throughout and I'm at a loss why he didn't get more leading roles, if only in Disney comedies.

I've loved the rich soundtrack ever since first hearing it, composed by no less than Maurice Jarre (Lawrence of Arabia). The recent debut of the score on CD (that I thought would never happen) prompted me to revisit the film. The music is quite superb with a variety of themes, some of which I'd forgotten. Until now, the only album release was on vinyl, with the music smothered by dialogue, sound effects and a 'storybook' narration. It's a gem, mixing in ancient instrumentation with a classic orchestral soundtrack.

I watched the UK DVD (above) which is presented in 1.85 widescreen anamorphic. It's good enough, but I'd still like to see a project of this scale treated with a Blu-ray.

Amazon list a few extras on the US DVD that aren't on the UK release.

 



The beautifully-designed airship 'Hyperion' from the film has actually been recreated in quite a large-scale as the centrepiece restaurant of Discoveryland in Disneyland Paris. I was surprised to see it when visiting the park when it first opened as EuroDisney in Easter, 1992, and I trust it's still there.

VOICE: WHISPERING CORRIDORS 4 (2005) - a bloody, ghostly mystery

VOICE (WHISPERING CORRIDORS 4)
(2005, South Korea, Yeogo gwae-dam 4: Moksori)

Fourth in the Whispering Corridors series, Voice has the most lavish budget so far and delivers a stylish, bloody ghost story. All five films are linked by similar themes rather than ongoing characters. Each is set in a girls’ high school ‘with a history’, the stories involving suicides, lesbian relationships, and hauntings. 

Whispering Corridors (1998) got the series off to a shaky start. But Memento Mori (1999) has become a favourite of South Korean cinema, as an excellent drama, with convincing naturalistic performances depicting school life. The arrival of a ghost character almost spoils the film by returning it to a more predictable story. It’s a good film, but not an essential horror. Then Wishing Stairs (2003) fell back on Ring for horror ideas and also failed as drama because of the lower standard of acting. Other Korean films, like Bunshinsaba, use similar story ideas to greater effect, if horror is what you’re hoping for.

Then there's Voice, another high point in the series, with fresh new ideas for scares, ghosts and twists. The close friendship of two schoolgirls is shattered when one of them disappears from the music room. The ongoing mystery is why and how...

There’s a bigger budget here for some unique visual FX flourishes. The cinematography is stylish and beautiful, adding saturated colours to some scenes, that defy the glassy cold look of the school. The cast are all excellent and the characters almost all women. The depiction of school life isn’t as realistic as Memento Mori, but Voice succeeds admirably as a ghost story, a mystery, and almost a slasher... with the added slant of having the ghost take centre stage.

There are some startling death scenes and extensive FX to depict the various complications of being dead, for instance a ghost being confined to the school building. These are ambitious and imaginatively done, but look more scientific than spiritual, as if the afterlife were a natural phenomenon.

It all makes for a very different and eventful ghost story, the modern design of the school building reinforcing that this has nothing to do with gothic. If you're after horror, this is the best in the series so far.

The back cover of the US DVD release promises a 5.1 mix, but there's only stereo on the disc, at the expense of the subtle but intricate sound design. Otherwise, this is a well-produced DVD, presented 1.85 anamorphic with great picture quality and well-translated English subtitles, though they're overlarge. I'd hoped for 5.1 audio, but also upgraded to the US DVD because my Thai disc had been censored, not for violence, but scenes of schoolgirls smoking!

The downside to the US DVD is the cover art (above) which is pretty stupid. If you're expecting the extreme horror depicted, it's not in the film and nothing to do with the story. 

There's also a four-movie boxset of the Whispering Corridors series released by Tartan in the UK, under the title Ghost School Horror, and the fourth film is unfortunately retitled The Voice.

The soundtrack of Voice is available on this Korean CD.

Here's an interview with one of the lead actresses and the director of Voice over on KoreanFilm.Org 



Here are my reviews of the first three in the series:

Whispering Corridors (1998)

Memento Mori (1999)

Wishing Stairs (2003)

Soon I'll review the fifth film Blood Pledge.



(This is an update of my review of Voice from April 2006.)

The soundtrack to DRIVE (2011) - possible 80s routes

The Drive soundtrack is "80s-inspired", but which bands exactly?

From the opening track, Drive (2011) took me back to the synthesizer soundtracks of the early 1980s. Throughout the film, most of the music has an electronic element, using old synthesizer voices and early, simple rhythm machines. I couldn't wait to hear it again.

I've always been strongly drawn to electronic music. Electro-pop, rock, soundtracks - anything with synthesizers in - and especially the bands that went the whole way, using keyboards instead of guitars, drum machines instead of drums. Having collected this music since the 70s, with much of it from the 80s, I thought that identifying the possible influences on the Drive soundtrack might be easy...

Drive, the movie, is hugely impressive. The crystal-clear cinematography of nighttime L.A., the dark surprises, the precise characters, the extreme violence, all made it unforgettable. I'd deliberately delayed listening to the soundtrack until after I watched the movie, which certainly increased its impact.

But listening to the album, it was initially hard to pinpoint any precise musical references. So I began rifling through my playlists of 80s electro pop, Eurodisco, post-punk, and movie soundtracks for anything that sounded similar. At the very least, you'll have some suggestions for further listening.

Googling interviews and reviews only yielded the phrase "80s-influenced" and the only trustworthy interview I've seen was director Nicolas Winding Refn's amusing lengthy chat on the UK Blu-ray. He vaguely mentions 80s Eurodisco as a musical influence, which wasn't quite what I was expecting and proved to be completely unhelpful (though I feel easier about suggesting the song by Berlin).

The album starts with several existing songs by various bands. Then, bridged by an instrumental from The Chromatics, settles into Cliff Martinez's original background score.

A couple of sound-alike songs I picked out could possibly be described as "eurodisco", but they're bleaker, slower, downbeat. Far more like early 80s post-punk, where the bands rejected drumkits and guitars for a totally electronic sound apart from voices. Interestingly, none of the guest tracks were written specifically for the film. The songs are all very recent tracks, with the exception of 'Oh My Love'. Luckily for Refn, there's been a resurgence in early-80s electro completely suited to his needs. 

I've attempted to match the pace, synth sounds, or aural atmosphere of each track, or even just sections of them. Numbers in brackets (1'12) refer to moments that are minutes and seconds into a track. To illustrate, I've embedded YouTube clips purely for their musical content (please try and ignore the visuals). I avoided film clips or pop videos because we're only talking music here. In the interest of simplicity, I've not included any YouTube clips from Drive, because you already have the soundtrack, don't you?

'Nightcall' by Kavinsky & Lovefoxxx (2010)

This opening number hit me with a huge 80s stick, a decaying twangy synth sound, plodding drumbeat, a scarily processed male vocal with a downbeat counter-vocal, and a sweet female chorus. But this was the hardest track to match with an 80s counterpart.

Berlin's 'Take My Breath Away' (1986) has similar drums, electro sounds and sad female vocals, but I could not find an example of that main keyboard sound.

Kavinsky's scary vocals sound like a Vocoder, an electronic effect orignally used for novelty 'sweetening', for example Herbie Hancock's 'Tell Everybody' and 'You Bet Your Love' (both 1978) and of course the Electric Light Orchestra's 'Mr Blue Sky' (at 2'21) from 1977. But closer to Drive, I remembered the especially scary Vocoder voice (at 4'45 below) in Godley & Creme's 'Wind' off their 'Consequences' album, also from 1977. This track was used in a famously expensive Benson and Hedges advert, where a mysterious helicopter glides over the desert to drop it's cargo into a swimming pool.

'Under Your Spell' by Desire (2009)

Synth drum beats, electro rhythms and keyboards with a downbeat female vocal, further distinguished by looped echoing guitars.

Yes, this all sounds very 80s, but more specifically the first few years of the decade when post-punk and gothic bands were trying out newly-affordable synthesizers and similar gadgets. The first Cocteau Twins album 'Garlands' (1982) used drum-machines and guitar loops to similar effect as this Drive track, with Elizabeth Frazer's vocals soaring sadly over it all. I picked 'Shallow Then Halo' from the album 'Garlands' for the similar tempo and structure.

'A Real Hero' by College featuring Electric Youth (2009)

A sweet and impassioned voice floating over a stomping bassy synth. But dare I say the lyrics are too obvious at underlining the action. 

The intro with the lone keyboard is a closely matched by 'Summer Spies' (1985), a single by Fatal Charm, which also has a heart-rending female vocal. Incidentally, they were the first band I ever saw live, as a support act for Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark.

'Oh My Love' by Riz Ortolani and Katyna Ranieri (1971)

This is the Joan Baez song in the pack (I'm thinking of the end of Silent Running) with simplistic lyrics about the beauty of nature. The track also jars against the rest of the album by being devoid of synths. But the lush orchestration is growing on me, providing a similarly beautiful everything-stands-still moment as 'Llorando', sung by Rebekah Del Rio in David Lynch's Mulholland Drive. If only 'Oh My Love' had been sung in Spanish, the lyrics wouldn't have been so distracting...

'Oh My Love' was originally used in a controversial film... find out more here in this great Drive article on A Fistful of Soundtracks.

'Tick of the Clock' by The Chromatics (2007)

The album goes completely instrumental at this point, but before Cliff Martinez' original score takes over, there's this great mechanical track from The Chromatics. It sounds like a very early rhythm machine with a sparse drum machine pared down to a light metal chink.

If the track had been built up into a song, it might have sounded like John Foxx's 'Burning Car' (1980). Foxx was the original lead singer for Ultravox before Midge Ure took over. He had several hits at this time when his synth sound was ahead of the game.

Also from the early 80s is this more laidback track from Pink Industry - suitably sparse, but with a female vocal befitting the Drive vibe. The emphasis is again on a simple drum machine. 'Pain of Pride' is listed as hitting vinyl in 1985, but had been recorded years earlier in BBC sessions for John Peel's radio shows, maybe as early as 1982.

The core of Cliff Martinez's score, which makes up the rest of the album, is actually very modern. Roughly half of it is ambient - daunting atmospheric sound that refuses to betray what instrumentation is being used, often devoid of drumbeats. Some tracks are like single notes stretched and held until they transform into the next, reminiscent of the ethereal music made by rubbing wineglass rims. The overall vibe is similar to the albums of Jon Hopkins, who provided a gorgeous, melancholy soundtrack to Monsters (2010). 

Several tracks give way midway to synthesizers that recall the sound of specific 80s soundtracks. Drive's thematic parallels with Michael Mann's Thief (UK title Violent Streets, 1981) leads us logically to the work of Tangerine Dream, among others from the early to mid 80s.

'Rubber Head'
(all the remaining tracks are by Cliff Martinez, 2011)

This begins with ambience and then, after a minute, brings in a rolling electronic rhythm. 'Love On A Real Train' by Tangerine Dream from the Risky Business (1983) soundtrack roughly matches the rhythm, but 'No Future' from the same album would be more apt for the dark tone of Drive. If memory serves, this is playing over the scene where Tom Cruise, um, pleasures himself...

'I Drive', 'He Had A Good Time', 'Wrong Floor'
 

Completely ambient tracks with mournful chords that occasionally offer hope, and a subtly celestial backing. I'd offer 'Olancha Farewell' from Harold Budd's album 'Lovely Thunder' (1986) in comparison. Harold Budd was a collaborator with the Cocteau Twins and continued to work with Robin Guthrie from the band, most notably on the beautiful soundtrack to Greg Araki's Mysterious Skin (2005).

'They Broke His Pelvis' 

Similar to 'Rubber Head', but with a slightly lighter mood. 'Love On A Real Train' by Tangerine Dream, also from Risky Business (1983), has a similar rhythm. But Klaus Schulze's 'Lecter's Cell' from Michael Mann's Manhunter (1986) is similar in tone.

'Kick Your Teeth'

Again the ambience gives way to a strong driving rhythm (at 0'44) and then a gently rolling guitar (1'45), reminiscent of U2's 'Where the Streets Have No Name' (1987).

'Where's the Deluxe Version?'

Starts with ambience but builds into the defining 'driving' music of Drive, with the bubbling rhythm that kicks in (at 2'30) and what sounds like passing trains. The rolling synth seems to echo the guitar from 'Where the Streets Have No Name'. But the kings of dark 'driving in L.A.' music are again Tangerine Dream. Try 'Diamond Diary' from their soundtrack to Thief (especially at 2'15).

'See You in Four'

Ambient, but incredibly dark. An echoing murk with (at 1'04, 1'24, 2'08) the sound of a scary clanging feedback. This drifts from note to note like this track 'Spores' from Jon Hopkins' score for Monsters (2010).

'After the Chase'

An electro foghorn opening and then spooky jangling keys. At (3'08) a rolling synth in a dark mood, a little like Tangerine Dream's 'Betrayal' from their soundtrack to William Friedkin's Sorcerer (UK title Wages of Fear, 1977).

'Hammer'

This ramps up with a gentle snare drum at (1'21) and then a wonderful bubbling rhythm at (1'39). There's a scary blasting (at 2'24) which again sounds like the punctuations in Tangerine Dream's 'Diamond Diary', from Thief (1981) at (2'50). 'Diamond Diary' is already embedded further up the page.

'Skull Crushing'

A murky, industrial sound, with bassy bursts at (1'12, 1'44) reminiscent of the skull-crushing scene in Blade Runner...

'My Name on a Car', 'On the Beach'

Ethereal, cold downbeat tones and an echoing rushing sound. 'On the Beach' has an unnerving metallic tone that gives way to a very downbeat murk, eventually relieved by more hopeful chords at (5'03). Here I'll offer another track off the 1986 'Lovely Thunder' album, Harold Budd's 'Ice Floes In Eden'.

'Bride of Deluxe'

The last track on the album starts off like 'Wrong Floor', with those 'wine glasses' vibes, then (at 0'47) guitars come in and build until (at 1'30) the electro rhythm kicks in brilliantly. A close electro-match would be the intro to Freddie Mercury's 'Love Kills', which he recorded with Giorgio Moroder for the soundtrack to Metropolis (1984), an early restoration of Fritz Lang's 1927 sci-fi epic.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Before I started listening to the Drive soundtrack more intently, this 1985 instrumental track from the Cocteau Twins was an early contender. It has always suggested to me moving through a darkened L.A. sometime in the near future. It might work with the cityscapes of Blade Runner, but it could easily complement the nighttime scenes in Drive. So finally, why don't you also try 'Ribbed and Veined'...