Morricone’s hidden soundtrack

It has arrived too the last train of the night, Almost half a century late. The 1975 high-violence film laced with the music of Ennio Morricone that has now been released for the first time on vinyl with all the tracks finally out there. A true gem, for Morricones and not, this long play resurfaces from the dust of the past just as the maestro’s memory is more than ever on the big screen thanks to the fantastic documentary. inodes Giuseppe Turnator. Directed by Aldo Lado, one of the deadliest films ever made in Italy, the old action thriller still features great-caliber actors Flavio Pucci, Enrico Maria Salerno and Franco Fabrizi, as well as first American actress Irene Miracle and then starring in Hell By Dario Argento and Gloden Globe Winner for midnight escape by Alan Parker.

if in The night of the short glass dolls, Aldo Lado’s first directed film in 1971, Morricone used the sound of a heartbeat to emphasize the rigid state of a protagonist who is believed to have died in the mortuary. The last train of the night The rumble of the train is heard urgently to symbolize the violence perpetrated by young criminals on the train. In keeping with the director’s intentions, who wishes to attack bourgeois society and the violence of power, Morricone also uses a pacifist pop song A flower is all you need, Performed by Demis Roussos, at the time it was only printed on a rare Japanese song and now featured on unreleased vinyl.

But Morricone’s “Secret” hides many other rare or unknown treasures, such as some of the films he set for music under a pseudonym, a trick used, however, for some Westerners only. starting from the first, Duel in Texas (1963) which is also the first-ever Italian Western film, directed by Spaniard Ricardo Blasco. Here Morricone signs music under the pseudonym Dan Savio. He also participated in the Italian photography Mario Caiano, director of the second Italian-Western branch the following year, Guns do not argue. And this time Moricon signs the music to his name, which he won’t do right after for the next music For a few dollars, A popular film that marks the beginning of a partnership with director friend Sergio Leone.

A puzzle, strange or simple intertwined with individual circumstances? “Guns don’t argue And the For a few dollars They were both produced by Jolly Film, to allow Leon to make his debut in the Western genre while reducing production costs, the Spanish set and the same costumes were used. Guns don’t argue» Milano musician and composer Claudio Balletti, a deep expert on Morricone’s work and the author of, among other things, the soundtrack for the epidemiological documentary, explains Milan 2020 It aired last May in prime time by Rete 4. The main movie is apparently Caiano, so Leon and Morricone (Dan Savio) signed pseudonyms, even to pass it on as an American movie. But only at the beginning.

Rca has been waiting for the soundtrack to be released for For a few dollars, Which was the title of the work wonderful stranger – Balletti says -. Meanwhile, someone from the production changed the title and in theaters the movie was completely released For a few dollars. However, Rca didn’t know, so the record came out later but at that point, given the success at the box office, with the correct credits on the record and in the opening and closing credits of the film, Morricone Music and directed by Leon.

But Dan Savio wasn’t the only alias Morricone used. The Romanian composer also turned to Leo Nichols several times. It happened to river of dollars In 1966, the first Western film directed by Carlo Lisani who signed himself under the pseudonym Lee W. Beaver. In this case, Morricone had no specific reason to hide his name in the film’s credits, but did so only to go along with the choice of Lisani who preferred not to make such an interference with the genre attributed to him in which he first appeared immediately thereafter. Shooting two films that are both challenging and of completely different value like Verona trial And the Bitter life. Same year and more music for Leo Nichols for the western movie Navajo Joe by Sergio Corbucci.

Of course, depending on the choice to use pseudonyms, there was also the fact of taking some distance, ideally, from the type and activity of the film soundtrack composer (and before that from the light of the arranger to Rca), hated by the academic environment from which he came. After all, Morricone was the favorite disciple of Goffredo Petrassi who felt partly betrayed by that talent who preferred the popular genre to avant-garde music and literate composition. For Morricone, this was the cause of great inner suffering, as was well emphasized in the documentary Enyo.

So there are also some films that the maestro never liked to talk about, he probably thought he lent himself with his music to create an artistic product that was not up to par. Among those there are disgusting shame (1969) by Mauro Severino with Lino Capolicchio. It takes place in Milan, and talks about the murder and extortion of three young men. Morricone’s music rises and hits heights of beauty accompanied by its charming “girotondo,” a haunting melody based on a Phrygian scale (used frequently in jazz), scenes of a sort of goose game. Relationships with directors were not always idyllic even for someone like Morricone, who usually found the right mix of his ideas and those of filmmakers.

Today as today, the composer of the soundtrack is given sequence time to be set to the music, so that he can compose a custom phrase in both the duration and the sound to be associated with the image. But in the past, it was possible, even in important movies, for the music to start in a certain sequence and then be suddenly silenced. Editing was sometimes done regardless of the soundtrack and there were directors who were fine with anything. Example? One of the most beautiful pieces that Morricone wrote for his lyrical muse, Ida DeLorso, In a dream a dream It is in the movie invisible woman (1969) directed by Paolo Spinola. The piece begins quietly, under dialogue, then develops and grows but suddenly is brutally cut down. Dell’Orso is considered one of the best songs ever sung, at the level descendant descendant to head already.

“Nothing can be done against a certain mistreatment of musical art in cinema,” says Balletti. Certain crimes were discovered when editing had already been completed. When that happened, Morricone obviously avoided collaborating with these directors again.” Among these, the Taviani brothers, with whom he closed after composing music Alonsanvan ( 1974) and the lawn (1978): The two directors have interfered a lot in reality, even interfering with the desirability or lack of certain music tracks and affecting their creativity.

But there is one film in particular that the maestro did not like to talk about, diabolic, Released in 1968, directed by Mario Bava. “From that Diabolik there is no official soundtrack on the disc, the tapes may have been lost – says Balletti -. To hear the music, you must go and review the film, of which a poor copy was taken, with poor, muffled monophonic. Ennio was not passionate about this work, But the main theme is very beautiful. It was sung by Christie, one of the voices of the Cantori Moderne di Alessandroni.” The subject of that is far Diabolic He was about to return to last year’s edition of Manetti Bros. Composers Pivio and De Scalzi wanted to find their own soundtrack, but in the end nothing was done because it didn’t work well enough.