In "Captain Haddock Takes the Oars," a cue from composer John Williams' score for director Steven Spielberg's The Adventures of Tintin, a low horn plays a light mystery theme reminiscent of the music for the television series Alfred Hitchcock Presents. The TV music was based on Charles Gounod's "Funeral March of a Marionette," and Gounod gets an acknowledged credit later in Williams' score when "Presenting Bianca Castafiore" finds opera singer Ren?e Fleming performing excerpts from his "Je Veux Vivre" from Rom?o et Juliette as well as some of "Rosina's Cavatina" from The Barber of Seville by Gioachino Rossini. Such classical touchstones offer suggestions of Williams' influences in background music that places strong emphasis on the word "adventures" in the title. Occasionally, as in "Introducing the Thompsons and Snowy's Chase" and "The Milanese Nightingale," Williams brings in an accordion for a French style that recalls his contemporary Michel Legrand. "The Adventures of Tintin" itself has a jazzy feel, almost bebop in nature. But much of the score consists of program music intended to underlie action and suspense while simultaneously reassuring the listener/viewer that all will be well in the end. Williams does not exaggerate the effects for comic purposes as he does, for example, in his Indiana Jones scores. Rather, this is ear candy for a movie that is equally sweet. ~ William Ruhlmann

• Genre: Stage & Screen
• Format: Vinyl
• Released: 5/24/2018