Bloodline - Expanded

Quartet Records and Paramount Pictures present an expanded and remastered 2-CD edition of 1979 Ennio Morricone's classy thriller-drama score for Terence Young's Bloodline.

Based on a best-selling novel by Sidney Sheldon, Bloodline mixes bizarre stories of family inheritance, control over a failing international pharmaceutical company, family business, betrayal, infidelity, murder and snuff movies! It features a cast of international stars including Audrey Hepburn, Ben Gazzara, James Mason, Romy Schneider, Omar Sharif, Irene Papas, Maurice Ronet and Gert Fröbe.

Ennio Morricone was no stranger to Terence Young (with whom he had previously worked on L'avventuriero) and the studio, having just received his first Academy-Award nomination for Days of Heaven. Morricone offers one of his best efforts for a Hollywood film, with an unforgettable love theme performed by Edda Dell'Orso, tension cues, dramatic and violent music. The score is mainly dark and fatalistic, in a style that the Italian maestro would continue in other Hollywood adventures such as The Thing, State of Grace and Bugsy.

A 47-minute soundtrack album of Bloodline was released in 1980 by Varèse Sarabande. The same program was later reissued in their limited CD Club in 2012. Unfortunately, the film suffered several changes in the final cut, which moved some cues from their original places and omitted several important passages. Disc 1 includes the score as it was conceived by Morricone with music never heard before, plus some delightful source pieces for party and casino sequences that appear here for the first time. Disc 2 includes the newly remixed original soundtrack album as well as numerous alternate versions and extras.

The entire collection has been mixed and mastered by Chris Malone from the 16-track masters preserved in mint condition and courtesy of Paramount Pictures. The package includes a 16-page booklet with in-depth liner notes by film music writer John Takis.