The Kid Stays In the Picture (Original Score Soundtrack)

The eclectic and wide-ranging soundtrack to The Kid Stays in the Picture is as much a trip through the highs and lows of producer Robert Evans' life and career as it is a trip through late-20th century music history. Consequently, even those who haven't seen Brett Morgen and Nanette Burstein's fascinating feature — or read the colorful 1994 autobiography on which it was based — are sure to find something to enjoy (although the film really should be seen by anyone with even the slightest interest in American cinema). Over half the tracks are instrumental pieces composed by Jeff Danna (0, Green Dragon) that capture significant events, like the castanet-laden "The Sun Also Rises," a reference to the 1957 Hemingway adaptation in which Evans played a matador — against the wishes of everyone except Darryl F. Zanuck, who famously exclaimed, "The kid stays in the picture!" — and the ominous "Cocaine/Murder," a reference to the period in the 1980s when it all fell apart for the handsome, debonair gentleman who seemingly had it all during the previous decade (money, power — Ali MacGraw). The rest of the 25-track selection includes evocative numbers like Irving Berlin's tender "What'll I Do," Michel Legrand's kicky "Di-Gue-Ding-Ding," which captures the Swinging Sixties in an appropriately Day-Glo fashion, and Francis Lai's lush "Theme from Love Story," which should be instantly familiar to the tearstained millions who made this Evans production one of the biggest box office hits of the 1970s. A bonus track, "Love Theme from The Godfather," features Guns N' Roses guitarist Slash adding some heavy metal thunder to Nino Rota's instrumental classic. ~ Kathleen C. Fennessy, Rovi