From the “Great Minds Think Alike” File

Although it’s not sold commercially on DVD (and may never be), I’ve recently had the opportunity to see once more the dozen episodes of Anthony Yerkovich’s 1987 period crime drama, Private Eye, starring Michael Woods and a young Josh Brolin. And it just hit me, how much Joe Jackson’s atmospheric theme from that TV series sounds like Henry Mancini’s main theme from Orson Welles’ 1958 cult noir thriller, Touch of Evil, both of them a bit Latinized, both heavy on the bongos and brassy trumpet riffs.

Well, it cost me more than a little bit of time and frustration this morning, surfing the Web. But I finally located the two musical segments. So now you can compare them yourself. Here, first, is the restored opening segment of Welles’ film, dominated by Mancini’s hummable theme:



And here’s the Private Eye main title sequence, which I found packaged on YouTube with a bunch of other 1987 TV show openings:



Am I just imagining things, or did Jackson have Mancini’s theme in mind when he sat down to compose the music for Private Eye?

READ MORE: “Overlooked Films: Touch of Evil (1958),” by Evan Lewis (Davy Crockett’s Almanack of Mystery, Adventure, and the Wild West).