Director Curtis Hanson, according to his own words, was the responsible for the selection of the songs that are included in his superb film version of the superb novel of James Ellroy, following a criterion beyond purely incidental and attempting to find on them certain portrait of the various personages involved in the complex plot. Inevitably he was in need of help from a composer of status whom would be capable of giving a final coherence to the soundtrack, and his election could not be more successful. In our review of the disk which collected the songs we already commented the adscription of Goldsmith's cues to certain urban style, employed with previous success in Chinatown (1974) as well as in City Hall (1995); in this stela is incorporated this CD, that collects Goldsmith's original score (with the exception of one of the two themes included in the other disk, Badge of Honor a very short cue, since the other one L.A.Confidential appears here as The Victor), and that demonstrates a magnificent dramatic and orchestral sense, with a balance between what is symphonic and what is electronic more equillibrated than what was lately common in his works. Themes as the inaugural Bloody Christmas or Shootout are examples of the best Goldsmith, with an ever-present trumpet whose romantic drawing in Susan Lefferts can be considered as new reference of the gender. And it has been the success of the film what has permitted the issue of this disk, with what all have win something. A.L.

/ VARESE SARABANDE VSD-5885 / 30'