Ken Thorne

Lassiter Ken Thorne

Tom Selleck plays Nick Lassiter, a handsome jewel thief operating in London in the late 1930's, as the second World War approaches. Arrested while breaking into a mansion, Lassiter is blackmailed by Scotland Yard. The offer: Break into the German embassy and steal 10 million dollars in Nazi diamonds before they can be used to finance Hitler's military buildup. Refuse and he's off to prison. To provide music for LASSITER, the producers hired veteran composer Ken Thorne. As the film is a period piece, Thorne wrote a score drawn from elements of 1930s jazz music and also adapted popular tunes of the period to be used in the fabric of the score. A small orchestra made up of trumpet, clarinet, alto sax, trombone, tuba, banjo, drums, and piano would be used to perform the period elements of the score. Strings, French horns and extra percussion would augment the orchestra for some of the action scenes. Ken Thorne was born in England in 1924. During the 1940's, he had a successful career as a big band pianist and later decided to take music studies seriously, studying composition at Cambridge. His film work began in earnest in the early 1960's, scoring comedies and crime dramas. In 1965, Thorne reunited with director Richard Lester on an early film starring the Beatles, HELP! For this assignment, Thorne was asked to adapt the popular songs of the band and incorporate them into the underscore of the film. HELP! Was a great success for everyone involved, including Thorne and he became Richard Lester's composer of choice for many years, collaborating on films such as HOW I WON THE WAR, A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE FORUM, JUGGERNAUT, ROYAL FLASH and SUPERMAN II & III. For his work on A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE FORUM, he received an Academy Award