Hear Paul McCartney’s Forgotten 1967 Movie Soundtrack, Arranged by George Martin

In 1967, a young Roger Ebert drew up a top-ten-films-of-the-year list includ­ing Bon­nie and Clyde, Blow-Up, The Grad­u­ate, A Man for All Sea­sons, and Cool Hand Luke. Lat­er, he added a few more pic­tures from this cin­e­mat­ic bumper crop that he remem­bered fond­ly, the first of which was The Fam­i­ly Way. Though sel­dom ref­er­enced today, it was a big hit in Britain — one of sev­er­al, in fact, for the twin-broth­er film­mak­ers John and Roy Boult­ing. Respon­si­ble for such nine­teen-fifties come­dies as Lucky Jim and I’m All Right Jack, the two attained in their home­land not only auteur sta­tus, but also the curi­ous posi­tion of estab­lish­ment satirists, val­i­dat­ing the insti­tu­tions of mid-cen­tu­ry Eng­lish life even as they ridiculed them.

Adapt­ed from a stage play by Alfie author Bill Naughton, The Fam­i­ly Way finds its mate­r­i­al in the tri­als of a pair of north­ern new­ly­weds who, hav­ing been fleeced by a crooked trav­el agent, end up hav­ing to spend their hon­ey­moon at home. What’s worse, giv­en their impe­cu­nious­ness, “home” meant a room in the house of the groom’s par­ents.

That 1967 was a dif­fer­ent time is also sig­naled by a scene in which the father-in-law bel­lows for his cham­ber pot, which his wife had hoped to keep hid­den from her new daugh­ter-in-law’s sen­si­tive eyes. In that role is the acclaimed per­former of Eng­lish every­man John Mills, appear­ing onscreen for the first time with his daugh­ter Hay­ley, who plays the bride. It marked her first real adult part, a kind of grad­u­a­tion from her child-actress career in pic­tures like The Par­ent Trap and That Darn Cat!

The pic­ture also boast­ed a score by Paul McCart­ney, or at any rate by Bea­t­les pro­duc­er George Mar­tin, who built upon what themes he could suc­cess­ful­ly impor­tune the seem­ing­ly writer’s-blocked Bea­t­le to bang out. Tak­ing into account that this was hap­pen­ing between Revolver and Sgt. Pep­per, it’s per­haps under­stand­able that McCart­ney would feel his cre­ative ener­gies drained by oth­er projects, but the Boult­ing broth­ers had offered a first, irre­sistible oppor­tu­ni­ty to com­pose offi­cial­ly out­side the Lennon-McCart­ney dyad. Though not with­out the charms of Mar­t­in’s orches­tral work (more of which would be heard in Yel­low Sub­ma­rine in 1969), The Fam­i­ly Way’s brief sound­track bears few obvi­ous marks of the McCart­ney musi­cal sen­si­bil­i­ty. Present on the Bea­t­les’ albums, of course, that sen­si­bil­i­ty has con­tin­ued to devel­op through­out a solo career that has out­lived the band by 56 years — and count­ing.

via Boing­Bo­ing

Relat­ed Con­tent:

How George Mar­tin Defined the Sound of the Bea­t­les: From String Quar­tets to Back­wards Gui­tar Solos

The Genius of Paul McCartney’s Bass Play­ing in 7 Iso­lat­ed Tracks

Paul McCart­ney Breaks Down His Most Famous Songs and Answers Most-Asked Fan Ques­tions in Two New Videos

Paul McCart­ney Explains How Bach Influ­enced “Black­bird”

Hear The Bea­t­les’ Abbey Road with Only Paul McCartney’s Bass: You Won’t Believe How Good It Sounds

A 17-Hour Chrono­log­i­cal Playlist of Bea­t­les Songs: 338 Tracks Let You Hear the Musi­cal Evo­lu­tion of the Icon­ic Band

Based in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. He’s the author of the newslet­ter Books on Cities as well as the books 한국 요약 금지 (No Sum­ma­riz­ing Korea) and Kore­an Newtro. Fol­low him on the social net­work for­mer­ly known as Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.