VIA PRESS RELEASE | Varèse Sarabande and Craft Recordings are excited to announce the first-ever vinyl release for Dave Grusin’s score to Neil Simon’s whodunit comedy Murder by Death.
The original 22-track program will be released on a Translucent Clear pressing, its jacket featuring artwork by iconic cartoonist Charles Addams, sourced from the artist’s original illustration. Set for release on March 22nd, and available for pre-order now, the album will also be available in a Varèse Sarabande Vinyl Club variant (pressed on Diamond Yellow marble vinyl and limited to 500 copies) exclusively at VareseSarabande.com.
Murder by Death (1976) was legendary playwright Neil Simon’s send-up of the murder mystery genre, with take-offs of famous detectives invited to undertake an archetypal country-mansion whodunit. The all-star cast of the film includes Alec Guinness, David Niven, Peter Sellers, Maggie Smith, Peter Falk, and Truman Capote, playing parodies of well-known fictional sleuths, including Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple, Charlie Chan, Nick and Nora Charles, and Sam Spade.
The film revolves around a group of five renowned detectives, each accompanied by a relative or associate, being invited to “dinner and a murder” by the mysterious Lionel Twain. Having lured his guests to his mansion, he presses a button which seals off the house and announces that he is the greatest criminologist in the world. To prove his claim, he challenges the guests to solve a murder that will occur at midnight; and promises a reward of one million dollars to the winner.
Scoring Murder by Death was the Academy Award®-nominated composer Dave Grusin (The Goonies, The Firm, Havana), who approached the comedic affair relatively straight—albeit with a light touch. “It was supposed to be a comedy…but that didn’t mean that it ought to be funny music,” Grusin told Tim Greiving in a new interview for the liner notes. “The intent was to try to score it as if it were a serious period piece, in terms of that kind of story.”
Thematic, delightful, and full of charm, Grusin found the exact right tone in his score for Murder by Death—paying homage to the traditional, British murder-mystery roots while pushing the envelope of its eclectic references. “It was like nothing was out of bounds,” he recalls with fondness.
