PAUL WILLIAMS
BUGSY MALONE
(Film Soundtrack)
FILM DIRECTOR: ALAN PARKER
1976

I first had the idea of a gangster musical film with no adults in the cast, just kids, as far back as Christmas 1973. As most people thought I was a looney I didn't exactly get down to writ-ing the script of Bugsy Malone until a year later.

By March 1975 the finished draft was ready and we were racking our brains for someone to do the score. It wasn't easy. We thought film musicals had moved on a bit since the hands-across-the-table bursting-into-song days and no composer suggested seemed quite right.

In desperation the Producer turned to me and said, "Well, who do you like ?"

"My personal favourite is Paul Williams", I said, "but would he do it?" So we asked him, and he liked the idea and said he would. A week later I was on a plane to Las Vegas to talk to Paul who was performing in cabaret at The Sands.

Our first meetings were in between his twice-nightly shows and we just talked about the story and characters. "Talk" is not quite the right word as Paul would croak in a low whisper to save his voice for the late show. Needless to say for two nights we didn't get very far. By the third day we decided to have lunch and thrash it out. We drove down the main Las Vegas strip and went into a drugstore-come-restaurant called 'Fox's Deli.'

For four hours, in between Paul signing autographs and the waitress spilling coffee on my script, we went through the story, line by line, character by character, song by song.

Paul has a remarkable facility for humming a melody the moment you mention a phrase or a situation. Each tune seemed marvellous and I was terrified he would forget them, but he seems blessed with a tape recorder locked away up inside his head somewhere.

Four beef spitfires, two banana boozles, two salami specials and a lot of Coors beer later, we had the structure for the basic score. Six weeks later, Paul had written and recorded the basic tracks and we were rehearsing to music on Pine-wood Studios 'H' Stage.

If you've seen the film you will know how beautifully Paul's songs fit the story. If you haven't seen Bugsy Malone just enjoy the music . . and make sure you catch the movie as soon as you can. After all, it's not every day they get a musical written at 'Fox's Deli.'