La-La Land Records to release a Goldsmith rarity

Brian Keith in the main title of an episode of the 1975 series Archer

La-La Land Records this month is bringing out Jerry Goldsmith music to a mostly forgotten 1975 TV show, Archer.

The title Archer is best known for the satiric 2009 cartoon series featuring a spy. The short-lived 1975 Archer was about Lew Archer, the private detective created by Ross Macdonald in a series of books from 1949 to 1976.

Macdonald’s The Moving Target was the basis of the 1966 film Harper with Paul Newman. By the late 1960s and early 1970s, the novels had become popular and critical successes.

Paramount moved to get a Lew Archer TV series going. It made a TV movie of The Underground Man in 1974 with Peter Graves as Archer that aired on NBC. It included a score by Marvin Hamlisch.

Things were retooled and work began on a weekly series with Brian Keith in the role. NBC canceled the long-running Ironside and replaced it with Archer in January 1975.

It didn’t take hold. The network canceled the show and only six episodes aired. Jerry Goldsmith scored one of the episodes and did the show’s theme.

Decades later, La-La Land is releasing a CD set of Goldsmith’s music from Archer along with the film Warning Shot. It will become available on Feb. 19, according to a post on Twitter by the music company.

The Rap Sheet blog several years ago posted a copy of an Archer main title with the Goldsmith theme on YouTube. It’s from a beaten up print of an episode dubbed into Spanish. More recently, the entire episode (the show’s finale, in fact) has surfaced.