Quartet Records, in collaboration with Virgin Records/Universal Music Special Markets, presents the long-awaited remastered reissue of one of Ennio Morricone’s best scores of the eighties, comparable in many ways to his masterpiece, The Mission.
A Time of Destiny was a 1988 film directed by Gregory Nava and starring William Hurt, Timothy Hutton, Melissa Theo, Stockard Channing and Francisco Rabal. The story was based on Giuseppe Verdi’s La forza del destino. For this operatic story about war, love, revenge and family, Morricone wrote a radiant, passionate score for orchestra and chorus, featuring one of his most unforgettable love themes (“Love and Dreams”).
Because the film master tapes could not be located, Quartet offers a remastered reissue (with much improved sound) of the original album program released by Virgin Records in 1989, conceived and produced by Morricone with his usual good taste. Fortunately, every major cue is represented on this CD, and only a small number of short cues and variations have been lost. The package includes a 12-page full-color booklet with liner notes by Tim Greiving.”
Watch the film trailer:
Film trailer
Read the film review from this site’s favourite critic, RogerEbert:
“The colorful life of gangster Al Capone has captured the imagination of the American public for decades. He was the notorious crime boss of Chicago during the prohibition era in the late 1920s and early 1930s, and was beloved, despised, and feared in equal measure – many in Chicago’s working class neighborhoods saw him as a Robin Hood figure, helping the downtrodden of the city. Attitudes towards him changed in the aftermath of the brutal St. Valentine’s Day Massacre in 1929, after which law enforcement officials became more intent on bringing him to justice. Brian De Palma’s 1987 film The Untouchables tells a dramatic version of this largely true story, as dogged federal agent Elliot Ness forms a team of equally determined investigators in an attempt to end Capone’s criminal activity once and for all. The film starred Kevin Costner as Ness, Robert De Niro as Capone, and Sean Connery as Ness’s world-weary ex-cop partner Jimmy Malone, a role which won him an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.
De Palma (bottom r) with his cast and producer (bottom r)Side 1
The score for The Untouchables is by the Italian maestro EnnioMorricone, and was the first of the three collaborations between DePalma and Morricone, the others being Casualties of War in 1989 and Mission to Mars in 2000. Having received an Oscar nomination for TheMission the previous year, Morricone was at the height of his mainstream American studio popularity in 1987, enjoying one of the most fruitful periods even within his long and distinguished career, and The Untouchables is one of the most outstanding works to emerge from that period. Fully orchestral, overflowing with themes, powerful and passionate, and at times ridiculously audacious, The Untouchables can be seen as a distillation of what makes Morricone such an astonishing composer. His juxtaposition of aggressive, modernistic action and suspense music against gorgeous romantic writing, period-appropriate jazz, and rousing triumphalism is a masterpiece on every level.
De Palma and De NiroSide 2
The original 1987 soundtrack album, on A&M Records, is a superb piece of music, but is structured incredibly oddly, with no narrative flow, and seemingly random track placement, so instead of trying to make sense of it in terms of dramatic development, I’ll simply talk about the music and how wonderful it is. The opening cue is actually the last one, “The Untouchables (End Title),” a glorious piece of rousing, fully-orchestral Americana that builds and builds over the course of it’s three minutes, until the finale leaves you in raptures. The brass fanfares, the dancing strings, and the elegant woodwind accents are all magnificent; stylistically, parts of it remind me of the music he wrote for the 1999/2000 trio The Legend of 1900, Canone Inverso, and Mission to Mars, where the flamboyant pageantry is interspersed with the tiniest inflections of jazz from the flutes. It’s just glorious, and its reprises in the mid-album cues “Victorious” and “The Untouchables” are similarly crowd-pleasing.
Costner (l) and his director, De Palma (r)Reverse album cover
Ironically, Morricone didn’t like these pieces at all; in a 2001 interview with Adam Sweeting of The Guardian he recalled that De Palma asked him to write “a triumphal piece for the police,” but that he was initially reluctant to do so. He went on to say that he “wrote nine different pieces in total,” but urged De Palma not to choose “the seventh, because it was the worst”. Of course, the seventh one is the one in the film and, on this occasion, I agree with De Palma’s taste over Morricone’s.
Connery counsels Costner
However, probably the most recognizable piece of music is “The Strength of the Righteous (Main Title),” an absolute showstopper which shows up as the eighth track on the album. Just from an orchestration point of view the cue should be a mess: solo harmonica, staccato piano, muted brass, strings, synths, and a modern rock/pop percussion section. Who writes music for that sort of ensemble? Well, Ennio Morricone does, and against all conventional wisdom it works like gangbusters, just like all his seemingly bizarre instrumental combinations have always done. The intense, unstoppable propulsive core speaks to the persistent doggedness of Ness and his cohorts, while the unpredictable rhythmic beats illustrates their willingness to bend the rules to get the job done. The harmonica, which Morricone has used brilliantly in dozens of scores dating back to his 1960s spaghetti westerns, has often been associated with loneliness and single-mindedness, and the same can be said here. Whether this is referring to Ness or Capone is left open to interpretation – it has often been said they were two sides of the same coin.
The Untouchables
Speaking of Scarface, “Al Capone” himself has a theme, a purposefully old-fashioned melody that has hints of Scott Joplin ragtime in the pianos and classical Italianate phrasing in the brass; old world Europe meeting new world America. The wah-wah brasses and light pop beats that crop up in the second half are vintage Morricone, the sort of thing he would have written for a 1970s Euro-thriller. As a musical identity for one of the most feared crime bosses in American history, it shouldn’t work, but it absolutely does, the personification of self-aggrandizing swagger and bravado.
The beauty comes through two pieces of simple, gorgeous melodic writing. The first, the “Death Theme,” revisits some of the jazz ideas heard in Al Capone’s theme but makes them softer, smoother, and more intimate, with a beautiful saxophone line underpinned by a bed of elegant strings. The second, as heard in “Ness and His Family,” is a prototypical Morricone romance piece, a lush, long-lined, slightly bittersweet melody for strings and solo flute that recalls some of his best efforts of that type: Cinema Paradiso, La Tenda Rossa, La Califfa.
The action, tension, and suspense music, in cues like “Waiting at the Border” and “The Man With the Matches,” is dark and intense, with frantic woodwind figures joining the stark bass guitar pulses, the piano chords, the harmonica tones, and the percussion hits that reference the Strength of the Righteous theme. “On the Rooftops,” which underscores the film’s central action sequence, is another variation on the Strength of the Righteous theme, taking the same orchestrations, same melody, and same rhythmic core, but expanding it out with some avant-garde string writing which shifts around between violins, violas, and cellos, to illustrate the danger that Ness, Malone, and the other Untouchables face. “False Alarm” is a brief, intense piece of string and woodwind dissonance, while in the “Machine Gun Lullaby” piece that closes the album, Morricone blends many of these same ideas with a child-like music box melody – again, a creative choice that sounds ridiculous, but which somehow creates an unnerving mood through the juxtaposition between innocent beauty and stark suspense.
Morricone received his second Academy Award nomination in two years for The Untouchables, but ultimately lost the award to Ryuichi Sakamoto, David Byrne, and Cong Su’s all conquering score for The Last Emperor. However, the score did win both a BAFTA and a Grammy Award, and over time the score has come to be rightly regarded as one of the best, and most important, works Morricone ever wrote for an American film.
In 2012, to recognize the 25th anniversary of the film, La-La Land Records and producers Dan Goldwasser and Neil S. Bulk released a special 2-CD set of the score for The Untouchables. The first disc contains the complete score as heard in the film, expanded to 55 minutes, re-mastered, and re-sequenced to make more dramatic sense, with the iconic main title at the beginning, and the celebratory end title at the end. The second disc contains a re-mastered version of the original A&M soundtrack, along with a number of bonus tracks and source music pieces, including a song demo – “Love Theme from The Untouchables” – performed by none other than Randy Edelman. The La-La Land album, which was limited to 3,500 copies, has been out of print for some time, but the original A&M album is still very much available; whether you go for the more concise version, or whether you are able to track down the more luxurious deluxe edition, The Untouchables is an essential purchase for anyone who wants to understand what makes Ennio Morricone a genius.”
A young Kevin Costner leads a terrific supporting cast including SeanConnery, AndyGarcia, CharlesMartinSmith, BillyDrago, and Robert De Niro.
De PalmaMametMorricone
Directed by Brian DePalma and written by David Mamet, this 1987 policier does away with historical accuracy to tell a rousing tale of good cops hunting very bad gangsters, all to the thrilling, pounding score from the Maestro, Ennio Morricone.
This site’s favourite critic, Mr. Roger Ebert
Read Roger Ebert’s review below. Dissapointingly, Ebert only awarded the picture 2 1/2 stars out of 4.
The complete scoreFilm posterThe MaestroScreen creditsAt The Movies pressing
From QuartetRecords:
“Quartet Records, in collaboration with GDM and Universal Music Publishing Italia, presents a revised, remastered reissue of famous giallo score composed by Ennio Morricone in 1971 for COSA AVETE FATTO A SOLANGE?, directed by Massimo Dallamano and starring Fabio Testi, Joachim Fuchsberger, Cristina Galbó and Camille Keaton.
Album cover sticker
Morricone’s thriller scores remain some of his most distinctive and original works. As demonstrated in his scores for Dario Argento’s efforts in the genre, Morricone’s uncanny ability to combine lyricism, unbridled avant-garde experimentation and stylish elegance was his most significant contribution to the category. COSA AVETE FATTO A SOLANGE? shows Morricone once again embracing the sophisticated avant-garde sound while beginning his score with a haunting tune performed by Edda Dell’Orso heard over the film’s main titles. The lullaby-like theme has a timeless quality, providing a disturbing and disarming melody for the film.
Side A detailSide A with inner sleeve
As with many of his giallos, and despite the success of the movie on its release, no album of Ennio Morricone’s score for COSA AVETE FATTO A SOLANGE? was released—not even a 45-rpm single with the main title. It was not until 1986 that the Intermezzo label in Italy released an LP with a selection of 14 cues personally chosen by the composer. This selection was released on CD in 1997, along with Morricone’s unreleased score for the 1974 thriller SPASMO. The first edition of the complete score was released in 2006 on the Digitmovies label. That edition sold out quickly.
Side B detailSide B with inner sleeve
This new Quartet release has been completely remastered by Chris Malone from original master tapes, giving a new generation of avid collectors the chance to hear this score by the Roman maestro.
The film is a co-production between Italian production companies Italian International Films S.r.l., Clodio Cinematografica and West German studio Rialto Film. It was released in Germany as Das Geheimnis der grünen Stecknadel (“The Clue of the New Pin“), where it was promoted an Edgar Wallace krimi film.[1]
While in a boat making out with her Italian college professor, Enrico Rosseni, Elizabeth Seccles witnesses a man with a knife stabbing another woman in the woods on the nearby shore. Rosseni convinces Elizabeth to keep silent about what she saw, especially after it turns out that the dead victim was one of her classmates and was killed by having a long knife pushed deep into her vagina. Another girl, a student at the same college, is killed later by the same attacker.
Shortly afterwards, Elizabeth is murdered in her bathroom. Police suspect Rosseni, who admits his affair to his sexually repressed wife Herta in hopes of getting her assistance in order to clear his name. Rosseni is cleared when a common denominator is determined by the later killings. The victims all had seen a local priest and were friends with a young woman named Solange, who began attending the school the previous semester but had mysteriously vanished.
Rosseni’s investigation ultimately leads to the existence of a hedonistic secret club of college girls that Elizabeth and the other murder victims had belonged to. The police further learn that the priest that several of the victims had spoken to was not a real priest, but was instead Solange’s father Professor Bascombe, a wealthy tenured teacher at the same school.
Ruth Holden (aka “Tata”) is the elderly maid of Brenda, one of Solange’s classmates who was also involved in the sex parties. Ruth is found alongside her dog, viciously murdered by having a sickle rammed into her vagina. Rosseni, Herta, and the police confront the father, who at first denies any wrongdoing until his daughter Solange appears. Mute and appearing emotionally disturbed, she leads Herta to the place where the final sex club member was kidnapped.
Bascombe then confesses to why he murdered his victims. His daughter Solange had befriended the members of the sex club and was granted membership. However, after her first orgy, she became pregnant. The other girls insisted Solange take care of the situation by meeting with Ruth Holden, who also functions as a back-alley abortionist. This event traumatized Solange physically, mentally and emotionally. She is henceforth in a very dull mental state where she functions as a baby would, is no longer able to speak and unable to become pregnant.
After confessing to the murders, Bascombe then takes his own life by shooting himself at his desk. At some point, he realized that an abortion was what led to Solange becoming an invalid and symbolically performed a similar deed on the girls once they’d given him details of what trauma really befell Solange.
What Have You Done to Solange?was an Italian and West German co-production, and credits itself as being based on The Clue of the New Pin by Edgar Wallace.[1][2]The film bears very little relationship to the novel, with authors and film historians Kim Newman and Michael Mackenzie believing that it was marketed this way to sell the film to a German audience as part of the krimi film genre.[2] The relationship to the genre is enhanced by the appearance of cast members Joachim Fuchsberger and Karin Baal who appeared in several Edgar Wallace adaptations produced by Rialto Film in the 1960s.[3] American actress Camille Keaton was cast in the film—her debut role—as Solange. Keaton had originally sent in photos for a casting call for a Franco Zeffirelli film. She was not cast in his film, but received a call from director Massimo Dallamanolater to invite her in for the role. Keaton described working with Dallamano as challenging as she was only learning to speak Italian and he spoke very little English. For her role, Dallamano told her that she was looking for someone who looked frail and ordered her not to tan while filming.[4]
What Have You Done to Solange?was released in both Italy and West Germany on March 9, 1972.[1][5]Fulvio Lucisano stated that the film was the first giallo film to be shown at the Adriano Theaterin Rome, which normally did not show films of the genre.[6] The film was one of the highest grossing gialli in the 1971-1972 season, grossing 846 million Italian lire.[7]
In West Germany, it was released under the title Das Geheimnis der grünen Stecknadel where it was distributed by Constantin.[1][8] The film has been released under various English-language titles, including The Secret of the Green Pin, The School That Couldn’t Scream, and Who’s Next?. It is most commonly known under the title What Have You Done to Solange?.[9] In 2005, the Venice Film Festival had a day in honour of Fulvio Lucisano Day as part of its “Secret History of Italian Cinema” screenings, which included a screening of a restored version of What Have You Done to Solange?.[6]
What Have You Done to Solange?was first released on DVD by Shriek Show on July 30, 2002.[10]It was released by Arrow Video on Blu-ray and DVD in the United Kingdom on December 14, 2015 and in the United States on December 15, 2015.[11]Film Comment placed Arrow Video’s release of What Have You Done to Solange? at 15th on their list of top Blu-ray releases of 2015.[12]
In contemporary reviews, the German newspaper Hamburger Abendblatt found the film to be “too broad” but stated that quality acting from Karin Baal, Fabio Testi, Joachim Fuchsberger and Günther Stoll enhance the film.[13]Italian newspaper La Stampapraised the acting of Fabio Testi, Joachim Fuchsberger and Karin Baal while stating the director developed the mystery in the story well.[14]
From retrospective reviews, Robert Firsching of AllMovie called the film a “first-rate thriller,” a “creepy mystery”, and noted “Massimo Dallamano’s direction is assured.”[15]Video Librarian stated that the film is “considered a classic of the Italian horror genre known as giallo” but “For all the characteristic sloppiness of the screenplay, this film remains unusual and surprising, with some well-directed murder scenes and startling imagery.” and it was “shamelessly salacious in its exploitation of girls as sexual objects and unsavory in that these minors are assaulted in a vicious, sadistic, and hateful manner” and that ultimately “the extreme violence against young women makes it hard to enjoy”.[16] Danny Shipka, author of a book on European exploitation films found the film to be “One of the most satisfying gialli of its day” and that it had “the right amount of sleaze and story to carry the audience through all the twists and turns with an emotionally satisfying ending.”[17] The review commented that Dallamano took a “serious approach to the subgenre, creating situations that will stay long after you’ve finished the film.”[17]The Herald proclimed the film as “a prime example of “giallo”” and that the film was “better than it sounds” and described it as an influence on Peter Strickand‘s film The Duke of Burgundy (2014).[18]
Aftermath and influence:
What Have You Done to Solange?is the first entry in a loosely linked series of film called the Schoolgirls in Peril trilogy, a series of films based on the sexual exploits of young girls and their reaction to the adults.[19] By 1974, audiences began to grow tired of the giallo genre and began having interest in other European genres such as the poliziotteschi, urban cop thrillers that were influenced by American films such as Dirty Harry(1971) and The French Connection (1971).[20]Dallamano’s next film in the Schoolgirls in Peril trilogy was What Have They Done to Your Daughters? (1974), a film with similar themes to What Have You Done to Solange?.[21] The final part of the series was Red Rings of Fear (1978). Dallamano is credited as a screenwriter on the film. He had intended to direct it, but died before the film began production.[22]
“Director Nicolas Winding Refnannounced in 2016 that he was seeking a director and screenwriter for a remake of What Have You Done to Solange?. The film will be produced by Refn’s Space Rocket Nation banner along with producer Fulvio Lucisano.[23]”
An adaptation of the comics was originally envisioned by producer Tonino Cervi, who set up an international co-production deal in 1965 and hired Seth Holt to direct the film with a cast that included Jean Sorel, Elsa Martinelli and Gilbert Roland. Appalled with Holt’s footage, distributor Dino De Laurentiis assumed control of the film’s production, electing to restart the project from scratch with a new screenplay and Bava as director. De Laurentiis produced the film in tandem with another comic book adaptation, Barbarella, with the two projects receiving financial support from Paramount Pictures and sharing several cast and crew members. Catherine Deneuve was initially cast as Eva, but her incompatibility with Law and disagreements with Bava led to the part being recast with Mell. Working under more financial and creative pressure than he was familiar with, Bava delivered Danger: Diabolik considerably below its assigned budget by utilizing many of the inexpensive visual effects techniques that he had used in his earlier films. It would prove to be the only film that he would direct for a major Hollywood studio.
Upon its theatrical release, Danger: Diabolik performed below De Laurentiis’ expectations at the box office, and received negative reviews from The New York Timesand Variety. With the re-evaluation of Bava’s filmography, retrospective reception of the film has been more positive, with its visuals, the performances of Law and Mell, and the score by Ennio Morricone receiving praise. In studies of the film, critics and historians have focused on Bava’s use of mise-en-scène to replicate the imagery and stylization of comic books, and the film’s reflection of the socio-political upheavals of the 1960s in its characterization and narratology. Having garnered a cult following, Danger: Diabolik was chosen by Empire magazine as one of “The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time” in 2008. The first in a trilogy of new Diabolik films directed by the Manetti Bros. was released in 2021.
De Laurentiis felt that the only way to save the film was to restart production with a new script and director.[12] The other production companies were not content with De Laurentiis stopping production, which led Les Films Marceau-Cocinor to terminate its contract with Italy Film.[12] A.S. Film Produccion confiscated the footage and took cameras, costumes, and weapons that had been rented by Italy Film, which nearly bankrupted the company.[12] During the interim, De Laurentiis capitalized on his newfound rights to the fumetti by including Diabolik, among several comic book characters, in “An Evening Like the Others”, Vittorio De Sica‘s segment of the anthology film The Witchesstarring Silvana Mangano and Clint Eastwood; here, Diabolik was portrayed by actor Gianni Gori.[15]Director Umberto Lenziunsuccessfully attempted to buy the rights to Diabolik from De Laurentiis, prompting him to instead make Kriminal, based on Magnus and Max Bunker‘s fumetti neriof the same name.[16]
Deciding to make the film as an ancillary project complimenting his upcoming production of Barbarella—which was also an adaptation of a comic series—De Laurentiis restarted production with financial backing for both projects from Paramount Pictures, set up a two-film co-production deal with French producer Henri Michaud of Marianne Productions, and hired Mario Bava as director.[12][17][18]Bava was reportedly suggested to De Laurentiis and the Giussanis by Farina, who was a fan of the director’s giallo films, and informed the producer of Bava’s popularity with cinephiles and intellectuals.[19] Bava was also deemed by De Laurentiis to be a financially viable director, as Le spie vengono dal semifreddo (the Italian version of Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs) had been a commercial success.[20]
The initial treatment for Danger: Diabolik was written by Adriano Baracco, which was then adapted into a full screenplay by Dino Maiuri, who had previously scripted the Eurospy comedy Kiss the Girls and Make Them Die for De Laurentiis.[21][22] The script was later revised by the British writing team of Brian Degas and Tudor Gates, who were hired by Bava due to their positive collaboration on the aborted gialloproject Cry Nightmare (later filmed by Antonio Margheriti as The Young, the Evil and the Savage).[19] The final screenplay, which is credited to Maiuri, Degas, Gates and Bava in the English version of the film, and only to Maiuri and Bava in the Italian version,[23] was based on three separate Diabolik stories: Sepolto vivo! (transl. Buried Alive!) from August 1963, Lotta disperata(Hopeless Battle) from March 1964, and L’ombra nella notte(The Shadows of Night) from May 1965.[24][25] Degas and Gates’ script bore the working title of Goldstrike! for Paramount to consider as an alternative title for the film’s international release due to the fumetti being little known outside Italy;[26] the film’s English title was announced by Paramount’s publicist Chuck Painter to be Danger: Diabolik on 29 November 1967.[27] De Lautentiis was so enthusiastic towards Degas and Gates’ work that he hired them to provide additional material for Barbarella.[25]
Bava was permitted by De Laurentiis to utilize many of the key crew members of several of his most recent films (namely Planet of the Vampires and Kill, Baby, Kill), such as his son and assistant director Lamberto Bava, editor Romana Fortini, cinematographer Antonio Rinaldi, and script supervisor Rosalba Scavia.[7][30] The film’s art direction was led by Flavio Mogherini and two-time Academy Award winner Piero Gherardi: Mogherini, who had last worked with Bava on The Wonders of Aladdin, was also responsible for the film’s scale model effects, while Gherardi, who had designed sets for films that Bava had shot early in both men’s careers, also assisted Luciana Marinucci with the film’s costume designs.[30][31]Other crew members would also become future Oscar winners: Carlo Rambaldi, who had previously provided special effects for Planet of the Vampires and created Diabolik’s form-fitting mask,[32] would be recognized for his work on E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, as would composer Ennio Morricone for The Hateful Eight.[33][34]
Catherine Denouve.
Catherine Deneuve (pictured) was originally cast in the role of Eva Kant, but left the film after a week of shooting and was replaced by Marisa Mell.
John Phillip Law was invited to audition for Diabolik as a favor by De Laurentiis after production on Barbarella, which Law had been cast in as Pygar, was delayed due to technical difficulties, allowing director Roger Vadim and his wife and star, Jane Fonda, to make the “Metzengerstein” segment of Spirits of the Dead.[12][35] An avid comic book fan since childhood, Law was initially unfamiliar with the characters in Diabolik, and read several of the comics to understand his character, as he had done when preparing for Barbarella.[36] Due to most of the character’s face being hidden by a black or white skin-tight mask, Law noted that the most prominent aspect of Diabolik’s appearance was his eyebrows; he prepared for the role by applying mascara to his own, and taught himself to convey a wide array of expressions with them. Upon meeting with De Laurentiis and Bava, the director exclaimed “Ah, questo Diabolik!” (“This is Diabolik!”), indicating to Law that he had won the role.[37]
Budgetary changes led to established actors being cast in smaller roles, including Michel Piccoli—who was recommended to De Laurentiis by Vadim—as Ginko, Adolfo Celi as Valmont and Terry-Thomas as the Minister of the Interior (later the Minister of Finance).[12][38] Because of his busy schedule, which precluded his ability to dub his own performance (in the typical manner of production for Italian films), Terry-Thomas’ scenes were shot in a single day and his dialogue was recorded as live sound.[39][40] Several minor members of the film’s cast had appeared in Bava’s earlier films, including Federico Boido (Planet of the Vampires), Francesco Mulè(Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs) and Walter Williams (The Girl Who Knew Too Much).[30]Renzo Palmer, whose character Mr. Hammond usurps Terry-Thomas in the Minister of the Interior role, was also an experienced dubbing actor who had provided voice work for Planet of the Vampiresand Knives of the Avenger; for the Italian version of the film, he looped not only his own lines, but those of Terry-Thomas’.[41]
Casting Eva Kant proved particularly troublesome. The role was originally going to be played by an unidentified American model who was cast at the behest of her friend, Gulf and Western (the then-parent company of Paramount) President Charles Bluhdorn. Law noted that the model was “gorgeous, but couldn’t say ‘Hello’ on film”, and was eventually fired a week into filming.[36][37] Vadim then suggested to De Laurentiis that he cast his ex-fiancée Catherine Deneuve as Eva.[36] Law believed that Bava was against this idea, and felt personally that Deneuve was wrong for the role: “There was no chemistry between us. She was very sweet, and a very good actress, but she was simply not right for the part”;[36] he also stated that “Catherine may not have been ready for the part. She had not yet done Belle de Jour. I think if she had done Diabolik after Belle de Jour, she might have been more relaxed, and things might have worked out a little differently.”[31] After examining production photographs of Law and Deneuve, Lucas corroborated Law’s assessment by noting that the actress was “unable to subdue her own persona to inhabit the character of Eva Kant. Standing beside her clearly enamored co-star in her white vinyl boots and mini-dress, she looks like an Ice Princess to be worshiped—which was not the interpersonal dynamic required between Eva and Diabolik. […] Her casting would have badly weakened Diabolik’s all-important authority and thrown the film completely off-balance.”[42] When asked about her involvement in the film in the 1980s, Deneuve revealed that Bava took his frustrations with the film’s production and her lack of chemistry with Law out on her, saying, “He didn’t seem to find anything about me agreeable, not even the way I walked”.[42] After a week of shooting with Deneuve, Bava and De Laurentiis decided that she should be replaced;[36]having objected to the nudity required for the role, she was fired after she refused to perform the scene in which Diabolik and Eva have sex on top of the $10 million they have stolen.[31]
Bava was given the opportunity to recast Eva and selected Marilù Tolo, who he would later cast in Roy Colt & Winchester Jack.[43]De Laurentiis, who had previously cast the actress in Kiss the Girls and Make Them Die and The Witches, disliked Tolo and instead hired Bava’s secondary choice, Marisa Mell.[36][44] Law recalled that upon meeting Mell, “we knew everything was going to work out. We fell into each other’s arms on the first day, and had a really great relationship on—and off-screen, after a while.”[45] For the duration of the film’s production, the two leads lived together, and adopted a stray black kitten, which they christened “Diabolik”.[38] With Mell in place as Eva, Law found Bava to be a cooperative, amiable director who allowed them to express vulnerability and create “magic moments” throughout the film.[37] Stylistically, Eva’s portrayal in the film notably differs from her fumetti counterpart: in the comics, Eva typically styles her hair in a bun (usually a chignon) and wears trenchcoats or black catsuits similar to those worn by Diabolik;[46][47] while her film counterpart keeps her hair long (Mell, a brunette, wore a wig to portray the character as a blonde) and undergoes a multitude of retrofuturistic costume changes.[26][45][48][b] Following the film’s completion, Mell was cast alongside Sorel and Martinelli in Lucio Fulci‘s gialloOne on Top of the Other.[49]
“The career of British director Roland Joffé is one of the oddest ones in recent cinema; after cutting his teeth making gritty UK TV dramas he gained international critical acclaim and Oscar recognition in 1984 for his film The Killing Fields, about the brutal Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia in the 1970s, and followed that with what is probably his most famous film, The Mission, in 1986. However, after making several consecutive flops in the late 1980s and 1990s, including things like Fat Man and Little Boy, The Scarlet Letter, and Goodbye Lover, he was eventually reduced to making low-budget ‘torture porn’ horror movies like Captivity, and now hasn’t made a major movie in more than 15 years. Possibly the last good movie Joffé made was this one: City of Joy, from 1992. It stars Patrick Swayze as an American doctor who travels to India in search of ‘spiritual enlightenment’ after a career crisis, and finds himself becoming deeply involved with helping people who live in the slums of Calcutta. The film co-stars Pauline Collins and Om Puri, and was a minor critical success, but is largely forgotten today.
Side 1
Despite the director’s own spiraling career, one of the best legacies of Roland Joffé’s work is that his films inspired Ennio Morricone to write some of his greatest film music. Joffé and Morricone worked on four films together: The Mission, Fat Man and Little Boy, this one, and Vatel in 2000, and although The Mission is rightly lauded as one of the greatest scores in the history of cinema, the others should not be overlooked either. City of Joy could probably be accurately described as ‘The Mission in India’ – it’s a score that contains several lovely recurring themes, which are presented amid a whole host of traditional instrumental textures from the Indian subcontinent, including such familiar sounds as a sitar, tabla drums, a tambura, and a bansuri flute, along with a standard symphony orchestra and vocalists. It was recorded in both Italy and London and opens with the superb title theme “City of Joy,” an upbeat and rousing piece for orchestra and a staccato, barking chorus with a buoyant recurring melody backed by the unusual-sounding piccolo trumpet. This theme mostly represents Swayze’s character Max Lowe, and his genuinely good-hearted and altruistic nature, caring for the poor of Calcutta.
With inner sleeve
The second recurring theme, introduced in “The Family of the Poor,” is the theme for Om Puri’s character Hazari Pal, a farmer from a rural part of India who moves to Calcutta with his family in search of a better life but who, as a result of numerous hardships and instances of ill-fortune, ends up living in the slums, and eventually crosses paths with Lowe. This theme is gorgeous, heartbreakingly beautiful in places, but with a sense of inner conviction and fortitude that perfectly encapsulates Hazari’s nature, and his desire to overcome whatever obstacles life throws at him for the benefit of his family, with dignity and resolve. The theme is a showcase for woodwinds – the melody melts dreamily between a piccolo clarinet, a recorder, a flute, and back again – and will appeal to anyone who has ever loved Morricone’s lush, romantic side. It’s not as immediately rapturous as anything in The Mission -what is? – but it has its moments of delicate beauty.
Side 2
The third recurring theme is the theme for Joan, the kind-hearted Irish nurse who runs the Calcutta clinic within which much of the film takes place, and it gets its most prominent performances in the two cues called “One Night, By Chance.” The theme is soft, intimate, but also a little melancholy, a beautiful duet for strings and breathy woodwinds with the merest hint of a piano, and which speaks to Joan’s character: solid, dependable, non-nonsense but driven by the need to care for others, and with a slightly wistful quality that acknowledges the fact that she cannot save everyone who comes to her ‘city of joy’ – from death, from disease, from poverty, from corruption. This tenderness combined with world-weary realism is excellent, and at times quite moving.
Rear album cover
As is often the case with Morricone scores, these themes form the backbone of the score, and receive several reprises and variations as it progresses. For example, in “Hope,” the theme for Max is arranged for a small orchestra of sub-continental instruments alongside the standard ensemble and some rather unusual-sounding keyboards, in a Morricone-style approximation of Indian classical music. This blending of styles from vastly different ethnic backgrounds is fascinating, and the way Morricone allows his melody to remain central to the piece while adorning it with all the unusual tones and textures is very impressive. Elsewhere, in “Monsoon,” the theme is accompanied by sparkling, shimmering metallic textures that sound like the cleansing tones of raindrops, rippling and dancing into the Hooghly river. There are also two additional significant reprises of Hazari’s theme in two further cues, both also called “The Family of the Poor,” the first of which features a superb choral variation that is vintage Morricone.
One or two standalone pieces also impress. The second half of “For a Daughter’s Dowry” features an unexpectedly excellent performance by a solo boy soprano whose vocal timbre combines with idiosyncratic-sounding keyboard textures, while “The Birth” is just sublime, gentle and peaceful and with a lush, elegant sweep to the strings.
Then, on the flip side of the tenderness and beauty, the harshness and brutalism of life in Calcutta is conveyed with several extended sequences of suspense and action music, some of which gets quite dissonant. “Crack Down” eases you in slowly with some moody woodwind writing that actually reminds me a little of 1960s John Barry, but then later cues like “In the Labyrinth,” “A Surgeon in Despair,” the shrill and insistent “Godfather of the Bustee,” the sometimes quite intense “Calcutta,” and the 15-minute sequence comprising “The Worm Turns,” “The Labyrinth,” and “To Calcutta” are much darker, using nervous-sounding rattling percussion ideas, stark orchestral passages, and other dissonant textures, to convey some of the unsavory aspects of the story involving thieves, unscrupulous landlords, organized criminals, and more.
The final reprise of the main theme in “For Roland” is lovely, and provides a nice coda for what is one of Ennio Morricone’s most overlooked and underrated scores of the 1990s. Look, when you have the type of career that Ennio Morricone had, with so many iconic themes and all-time great scores under your belt, it’s inevitable that so much work ends up flying under the radar. This goes double for something like City of Joy, whose closeness in time and style and collaborative content to The Mission would make any score pale in comparison – and, yes, it does. There’s no getting around that fact. But despite that, City of Joy is still well worth exploring if you’re a fan of Morricone’s work; the main themes are genuinely lovely, some of the action and suspense music is interesting, and the film’s geographic setting gave the composer to explore some instruments and sounds that didn’t often feature in his work, and that alone makes it a score of note.
Music composed and conducted by Ennio Morricone. Orchestrations by Ennio Morricone. Recorded and mixed by Franco Patrignani and Dick Lewzey. Edited by Joe Illing. Album produced by Ennio Morriconeand Enrico de Melis.
“One day a surgeon named Max Lowe walks away from the operating theater and Houston and everything his life stands for. He’s dropping out, and maybe in some kind of leftover ’60s reflex he decides to travel to Calcutta. He hopes to disappear into the sea of humanity, I guess, and find himself, or peace, or tranquility – he’s not quite sure.
Calcutta has other ideas for him. Within a few hours of his arrival he is thrust into the maelstrom of a city where thousands live in the streets, where he is a highly visible rich man, where his medical training is desperately needed. “City of Joy” intercuts his story with the story of another new arrival in Calcutta, a man named Hasari, who comes to the city with his wife and family, seeking work, and is swindled out of all of his money with brutal efficiency.
Director Roland Joffe (r) with Swayze (c) and Puri (l).
The stories of the two men cross in Roland Joffe’s “City of Joy,” based on the novel by Dominique Lapierre. One of their common points of contact is an Irish woman, named Joan Bethel and played by Pauline Collins, who runs a clinic which ministers to the sick and homeless. When she discovers that Max is a surgeon, she exerts quiet but unrelenting pressure on him to help at the clinic.
Max resists at first. He’s played by Patrick Swayze, who may seem an odd choice at first for the role, but is convincing as a drifting hedonist who would rather do anything than make a commitment. Although Max’s story is the window through which Joffe approaches Calcutta (he apparently thinks we need an American to identify with), the story of Hasari is actually much more interesting, and it is his world that makes the movie worth seeing.
Om Puri
Hasari, played by Om Puri in a performance of great resilience and some humor, is a man who will do anything to support his family. Through a stroke of luck and some judicious ground-kissing he eventually wins a job as a rickshaw driver. The rickshaw is owned by the wealthy man who runs the district, and whose son is a hatchet-faced thief. And when Hasari eventually loses his rickshaw, and with it his hope of economic survival, we’re reminded of Enzo Staiola’s great performance in the title role of “The Bicycle Thief.” The film does several things right. It shows us convincing locations in Calcutta. It pays due attention to the Om Puri performance. It avoids the temptation to somehow concoct a formula romance between Swayze and Collins. But it does several things wrong, too, including an ending which is a standard battle between good and evil of a sort we’ve seen over and over again. And its view of Calcutta, however convincing in the background, is marred by a foreground cast of colorful characters who seem borrowed more from Dickens than from India.
Pauline Collins (l) and Om Puri (r)
I can think of two better recent films shot on the streets of desperate Third World cities: “Pixote,” the story of a homeless orphan in Brazil, and “Salaam Bombay!,” also about a homeless boy, in India. Both of them allowed their stories to develop organically out of the characters and situation. “City of Joy” seems a little too “written,” too conformed to the rituals of Hollywood screenplays.
There’s so much interesting stuff in the movie we are prepared to forgive that, but still, thinking back on the film, it wouldn’t have suffered if the entire plot involving Swayze and Collins had been dropped, and Joffe had simply told the story of the rickshaw man. He, and his dilemma, will be there in Calcutta long after visiting surgeons and dedicated nurses have been absorbed into the city’s relentless flow.”
From Wikipedia:
City of Joy was released in France and the United Kingdom on 30 September and 2 October 1992 respectively; it was first released in the United States on 17 April 1992. In the Philippines, the film was released as Raging Inferno by First Films on 22 July 1993, with one local poster showing Swayze holding a gun.[2]
“L’assolutonaturale‘ is a 1969 film based on the eponymous novel by Goffredo Parise and directed by Mauro Bolognini, whose many movies have been scored by Ennio Morricone.
Side 1 with inner sleeveSide 2
The two leading actors are Sylva Koscina and Laurence Harvey. The film falls in the bourgeois sentimental drama category, which was very popular in those years – lead by the well known ‘Metti, una sera a cena‘.
Side 1
It’s a soundtrack that blends classical, jazz, pop and lounge music in various reworks of the main theme, in the typical ‘Morriconian‘ trademark.
Reverse album cover
Among the orchestrations directed by Bruno Nicolai, the track “Assalito dalle rondini” stands out, an abstract composition for strings characterized by tension-laden dissonances and dramatic orchestrations.
Assalitodallerodini
Originally released in 1969 and reissued in a few subsequent editions, the soundtrack of ‘L’assolutonaturale‘ has been missing a vinyl version for 40 years: this new one, with remastered audio and a new graphic layout, finally delivers this excellent soundtrack again to it’s ideal dimension.
Quartet Records edition
From Quartet Records:
“One of the most memorable scores by Ennio Morricone in the late sixties is back in its definitive edition!
Quartet Records edition
Although best known for his collaborations with other directors (Sergio Leone, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Giuseppe Tornatore, Brian de Palma), the name of Ennio Morricone was asociated with Mauro Bolognini in a total of fifteen films over more than three decades, including some of his most famous and melodic works (Metello, L’Eredita Ferramonti, La Villa Dei Venerdi, Fatti di Gente Perbene, etc).
L’Assoluto Naturale is one of his most celebrated collaborations, with a main theme that became immediately an absolute classic. The album was released on LP by Cinevox in 1969, and reissued on CD several times in Italy and USA Japan. We are very proud to release the score in complete form for the first time, with a very improved sound mastered by Claudio Fuiano and Dániel Winkler from the first generation master tapes, courtesy of Cinevox.”
The plot focuses on a mysterious romance involving an uninhibited woman (Koscina) and a dour photographer (Harvey), shot in strange modernist interiors and abstract “sports car on a highway to nowhere” exteriors.
Lawrence Harvey (r)
The work of cinematographer Ennio Guarnieri in this film has been referred to as “one of the cornerstones of Italian photography in the sixties”.[1]
“In 1968 the Maestro Morricone was at the height of his career scoring Sergio Leone‘s classic “Once Upon a Time in the West“. For the soundtrack of Roberto Faenza‘s cult debut movie “Escalation“, set in swinging London, 1968, Morricone teams up with fellow composer Bruno Nicolai and the vocalizations of Alessandro Alessandroni’s “CantoriModerni“, making this one of his least minimal soundtracks. Containing the legendary tune DIES IRAE PSICHEDELICO, this is one of the most essential Morricone soundtracks of all-time. Transparent Yellow Vinyl – Limited Edition 500 Copies.”
The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: “Dealing as it does with the development of a peace-loving egalitarian into an impassive murderer and ruthless businessman, it seems likely that Escalation was intended as L’Enfance d’un Chef – Italian style.
But the comparison with Sartreproves as hollow as the more obvious one with Antonioni (for the scene changes not so much from London to Milan as from the swinging world of Blow-Up [1966] to the sterile wasteland of The Red Desert [1964]).
And although the artistic and philosophical pretensions of Roberto Faenza’s first feature film seem to demand serious analysis, the disparity between intention and achievement is great enough to warrant a rather curt dismissal.
Scenes like the final funeral procession display a real talent for visual composition, but Faenza seems constantly more concerned with lending a symbolic weight to his material than with what it actually signifies.
Lino Capolicchio’s interpretation of the generational hero as a blabbering moron further undermines the film’s claims to seriousness. Perhaps Italian audiences are more attuned to this type of buffoon humour, but the idiom makes it hard for Anglo-Saxons to determine whether he’s supposed to be like Hamlet or just Harpo Marx.”[3]
References:
“Escalation”. British Film Institute Collections Search. Retrieved 15 April 2024.
“In 1973 Aldo Lado directs the movie “La cosa buffa”, inspired by the eponymous book by Giuseppe Berto and starring GianniMorandi and OttaviaPiccolo. The soundtrack is composed by EnnioMorricone, who uses EddaDell’Orso’s marvellous voice to create an unforgettable theme, both sweet and sensual. The soundtrack was originally released on vinyl and included nine tracks. More than 20 tracks, mostly alternative versions of the main theme, were recovered during the digitization of Cinevox master tapes.”
Album review from Movie Wave:
“A 1972 romantic drama directed by Aldo Lado, La Cosa Buffa is about two young people who fall in love but who see that love challenged by their different social statuses. Ottavia Piccolo and Gianni Morandi star, and he is eventually offered a fortune by her parents to just go away. According to the liner notes, he also has a sexual liaison with a Hungarian.
Ennio Morricone’s score is blessed with one of his amazing themes (one of thousands). Edda dell’Orso’s sensual vocal is brilliant – somewhat in the style of the way Morricone used her voice sometimes in his giallo scores, although there’s no other similarity. Romantic strings accompany it along with a gentle pop sound – it’s instantly memorable, stylish and you just want to listen to it over and over again. Well, I do. And in the case of this album, that’s a good thing because it’s heard in virtually every track.
The theme takes on a completely different feel in the next track, “Pensando a Maria” – taken up first by “Chi Mai”-style echoing strings, then a secondary theme (for solo piano) alternates with it, along with bass guitar and drums – and finally Edda again.
“Indecisione con Maria” is a more laid-back, jazzier version of the theme; then the echoing strings are back in “Escerizio con Marika” (not a typo), a glassy, really minimalist piece; then “Strani pensieri” gets close to the original arrangement, albeit slightly more uplifting and summery.
“Ritorno a casa” is something different, with an accordion playing a very different version of the now very familiar theme; then in “Come Guilietta e Romeo” Morricone goes to more traditional romantic territory, with swooning strings playing a gorgeous offshoot of the theme (with some genuinely fresh melody). “Gocce di pioggia” returns to more typical ground for this score with another variant on the opening piece, before the ten-minute “Catalogo incompleto” adds I Cantori Moderni di Alessandroni to Edda’s vocals – it’s a mellow, soothing way to close things out.
Cinevox’s extended album adds 16 tracks to the original album’s 9 – given it’s an almost completely monothematic score, I’m not sure how many people will sit through all of it. If you don’t like that theme, well, you’re a bit unfortunate if you attempt to listen to any version of the album; since I do, I enjoy hearing the different moods Morricone extracts from it (it is monothematic but not monochromatic) and find the 35-minute length of that original selection of tracks passes like a breeze, even though perhaps just downloading the theme might satisfy most needs.
Rating: *** 1/2“
The Film:
Italian print adFirst edition of GuiseppeBerto’s novel.
The music was composed by Ennio Morricone, and the main theme “Chi Mai” became an instrumental hit and subsequent classic.
Jean-Paul Belmondo initially planned to work on Barracuda, directed by Yves Boisset, a film partly inspired by the Françoise Claustre hostage affair in Chadfrom 1974 to 1977. However, differences arose due to what Boisset described as “incompatible conditions regarding the project”. Boisset wanted to include references to the Claustre affair, while Belmondo preferred it to be an adventure film.[8]Alexandre Mnouchkine, Belmondo’s producer, was not interested in Barracuda and suggested adapting Death of a Thin-Skinned Animal by British author Patrick Alexander, published in 1978 in the Série noire collection.[9][8]
When Boisset declined, Belmondo, impressed by the book, decided to proceed with the film adaptation. Georges Lautner, available at the time, was chosen as the director, marking his third collaboration with Belmondo after Flic ou voyou(1978) and Le Guignolo (1979).[8]Michel Audiard was tasked with adapting the novel and writing the screenplay. The story, originally set in England, was relocated to France to suit the production. However, the first draft, which retained some of the novel’s dialogues, did not impress Lautner, Belmondo, or Mnouchkine.[8][9]Audiard was reportedly more focused on writing Garde à vue, leading to the involvement of Francis Veber as a script doctor to refine the screenplay.[10][11]Audiard’s lack of interest led to his son, Jacques Audiard, being credited for the screenplay.[9]
DVD cover art
The film’s title change was influenced by Belmondo and his publicist René Chateau, despite initial resistance from Mnouchkine, Lautner, and Audiard.[9]
The story and political context of Le Professionnel were inspired by France’s complex diplomatic relations with its former African colonies during the Françafriqueera under Jacques Foccart.[9]
Filming
With a budget of 20 million francs, Le Professionnel was filmed from 5 May to 13 July 1981.[12] The African prison scenes were shot in the Camargue, with Montpellieruniversity students hired as extras.[8]Georges Lautner noted logistical challenges, including the need to shoot the opening scene with a telephoto lens due to issues with the set.
Subsequent scenes were filmed in Paris, including the car chase between Beaumont and Rosen, choreographed by Rémy Julienneand shot near the Trocadéro.[8]Paul Belmondo, Jean-Paul’s father, helped secure filming permissions. Interior scenes were shot at the Studios d’Épinay.[8]
Because of the film’s subject matter and the improving relations between France and the Communist Bloc at the time, the film had received a limited release in the Soviet Union and several other Soviet-aligned states like Poland, and received immense popularity, having become a household name there.”
“Un sacco bello marks the first collaboration between Ennio Morricone and Carlo Verdone.
Side 1
The result in a very pleasant score that accompanies the situations of each episode. A rhythmic funky piece opens both the film and our LP, but the bulk of the soundtrack is based on variations of theme for Marisol, the Spanish girl that Ennio Morricone describes with different styles and arrangements:
Side 2
…rhythmic and vivacious, slow and nostalgic for flute and guitar, romantic and dreamy performed by the orchestra, and a slow, rhythmic passage with moog.
Side 2 with inner sleeve
A samba for trumpet with mute, percussion and moog describes the atmosphere of a bourgeois living room.
Reverse cover
The finale of the film features the unmistakable whistle of Alessandro Alessandroni and the flugelhorn of Oscar Valdambrini accompanied by the orchestra.
CD cover art
At the time, Cinevox Records released a 45 rpm single (MDF 127) with the themes “Un Sacco Bello (Titoli di coda)” and “Un salotto borghese.” Then, we had to wait until 2002, when Cinevox Records released a CD (MDF 352) entitled BIANCO ROSSO E MORRICONE, featuring selections from “Un Sacco Bello” and “Bianco Rosso e Verdone”.
Lobby card
For this new LP edition with a duration of 40:14, we were able to access the first generation stereo master tapes of the recording sessions, which allowed us to discover three unreleased tracks: an alternate version of “Un salotto borghese” and two beautiful versions of the love theme vocalized by Nora Orlandi, who carries the motif through the end credits.
Title shot
A fitting homage to the art of Ennio Morricone and Carlo Verdone.”
