7 Black Notes

Arrivederci, Amici

2007-01-20T13:44:00.000-08:00

Well, the deletion terrorism is getting to be too obnoxious to deal with, and since the blog has ceased to be any fun to maintain now, it's time to call it a day. Thanks to all who made this a great sharing experience, and I'm sure I'll resurface again when the smoke clears. In the meantime, enjoy the files that remain; I'll keep the blog up for a while, or whatever remains of it, anyway. Best wishes to you all, and may your lives be filled with music.

Gonna Have a Good Time

2007-01-19T10:05:00.000-08:00

Better known to Something Weird viewers as Jennie: Wife/Child, the 1968 drive-in oddity Albert Peckingpaw's Revenge offers a bizarre take on the hillbilly sex comedies popular at the time, as a cuckolded husband decides to take revenge on his nymphet bride and her lover by, uh, threatening to bury them alive. Future award-winning cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond (Deliverance) and director James Landis made this after their earlier partnerships on The Sadist, Deadwood '76 and Rat Fink, while the score and songs were written by Harley Hatcher, who went on to Satan's Sadists, A Bullet for Pretty Boy and Soul Hustler, among others. Some of the hottest numbers are performed by Davie Allen and the Arrows, with most of the vocal duties are handled by actor/singer Don Epperson. Some of the more choice ditties include "Gonna Have a Good Time," "Tender Grass," and the future Catanooga Cats bubblegum tune, "My Birthday Suit."

Soap Gets In Your Ears: Part 5

2007-01-17T11:07:00.000-08:00

Now back to paperback sleaze king Harold Robbins again; in 1970, Paramount released a mammoth version of his sleazy South American jet set novel, The Adventurers, with a bizarre cast including Candice Bergen, Olivia de Havilland, Rossano Brazzi, John Ireland, and lots of other bewildered stars. The end result featured enough nasty sex and violence to earn a hard R rating but failed to turn a profit, so Paramount replaced it with a gutted PG version that remained the only viable viewing option for decades (but thankfully the DVD is uncut). Brazilian bossa and jazz maestro Antonio Carlos Jobim (who penned "The Girl from Ipanema") offers a nice and sunny score with some great loungy moments (especially "Rome Montage"); his work was later adapted into the more easily obtained (and better-selling) Music from The Adventurers by Quincy Jones and the Ray Brown Orchestra, but here's the original for comparison.

Jackie-a-Go-Go

2007-01-15T18:54:00.000-08:00

One of those deliriously great "with it" mod movies, 1970's The Grasshopper stars Jacqueline Bisset as a globetrotting free spirit who beds her way from one man to the next when she's not busy skywriting obscenities. Jim Brown and Joseph Cotten co-star, but perhaps most interestingly, it was directed by Jerry Paris, better known as the next-door-neighbor on The Dick Van Dyke Show! Extremely underrated '70s TV composer Billy Goldenberg (Columbo, Night Gallery, Duel) chips in with a silky-smooth score ranging from light psychedelic rock to lilting pop, with a handful of vocal variations, too.

The Music Behind The Mask

2007-01-10T17:22:00.000-08:00

An enjoyable if extremely fictionalized biopic of silent screen legend Lon Chaney, 1957's Man of a Thousand Faces stars James Cagney in the main role as the man who became famous as The Phantom of the Opera and The Hunchback of Notre Dame, among others. Of course, this being the '50s, you also get a lot of sentimal schmaltz thrown in for good measure. The solid, old-fashioned Hollywood score comes from composer Frank Skinner, who certainly knew his way around a monster or two thanks to his work in the '40s on films like Son of Frankenstein, Man Made Monster and Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, though the warmer style here is also similar to the work he was doing for Douglas Sirk around the same time on films like Imitation of Life and Magnificent Obsession.

Jerry's Turn

2007-01-08T10:49:00.000-08:00

Movie prequels are rarely a good idea, and one of the weirdest was definitely 1972's The Nightcomers, an attempt by director Michael Winner (Death Wish) to show the events leading up to the events of Henry James' famous ghost story, The Turn of the Screw. In this case, the explanation involves lots of S&M with Marlon Brando and Stephanie Beacham. Not good, really, but certainly interesting. Easily the best thing about the film is the score by the late and highly underrated Jerry Fielding, who's better known for his dissonant work with directors like Sam Peckinpah (The Wild Bunch) and Clint Eastwood (The Outlaw Josey Wales). The music here is very lyrical and melodic, one of his strongest and most unusual achievements.

Sorry, link removed - an expanded CD is now commercially available.

Hold Your Breath

2007-01-03T11:50:00.000-08:00

The first English-language film from director Luc Besson (La Femme Nikita), 1988's The Big Blue, had a notoriously troubled release history around the world. Intended as an eye-popping ode to the ocean as seen through the eyes of two "free divers" who push each other to dangerous extremes, it was released in the U.S. in a drastically edited, PG-rated version with a happy ending and a new score by Bill Conti, replacing the original one by Eric Serra. Eventually the original cut surfaced in theaters and on DVD, while Serra's score has been issued countless times in numerous variations on CD. However, the beautiful Conti score is actually one of his very best (with an unforgettable main theme) but sadly never got a commercial release anywhere; a few samples have turned up on compilations, but here's the whole thing for listening pleasure. Dive in...

Smile on Your Brother

2006-12-29T11:13:00.000-08:00

One of the goofier "hip" counterculture films from Europe, Cometogether (1971) was the first and only directorial effort for oily action star Tony Anthony, who appeared in Blindman the same year and went on to infamy by kicking off the '80s 3-D craze with Comin' at Ya! and Treasure of the Four Crowns. In this film (produced by Ringo Starr!), he appears as a smarmy tourist who hooks up with two hot, groovy chicks (Thunderball's Luciana Paluzzi and Eurosleaze regular Rosemary Dexter) for a swinging time in Italy during the summer. If you find this one, don't miss the priceless "shock" ending that tries to ape Easy Rider but will most likely have you on the floor in hysterics. The catchy, pop-inspired score by Stelvio Cipriani (who was also kicking off his relationship with Mario Bava around the same time) is a lot of fun and comes sprinkled with covers of a few hit songs from the time, with enough versions of "Love Is Blue" (both instrumental and vocal) to put you off that tune for life. Don't miss the choice and (unintentionally?) hilarious dialogue passages, too.

Ho, Ho, Ho!

2006-12-21T21:29:00.000-08:00

For the last pre-Christmas post, here's the peppy Henry Mancini score for the biggest Christmas flop of all time, 1985's Santa Claus: The Movie. Producer Richard Salkind (Superman) thought he had a perennial hit on his hand thanks to a lavish budget and a cast featuring Dudley Moore (as an elf) and John Lithgow, but alas, 'twas not meant to be. The movie's kind of fun in the right frame of mind, though, and Mancini's score hits all the right notes while incorporating a few carolling standards into the mix. Of course, this being the mid-'80s, Sheena Easton even pops up for a singing cameo, too. Happy holidays, one and all!

Santa Claus: The Movie
1. Main Title: Every Christmas Eve and Santa's Theme
2. Arrival Of The Elves
3. Making Toys
4. Christmas Rhapsody
5. It's Christmas Again
6. March Of The Elves
7. Patch, Natch!
8. It's Christmas (All Over The World) (with Sheena Easton)
9. Shouldn't Do That
10. Sleigh Ride Over Manhattan
11. Sad Patch
12. Patch Versus Santa
13. Thank You, Santa

Sandy Sounds

2006-12-15T14:49:00.000-08:00

One of the most underrated composers out there, Mike Batt is best known for some his pop song work including the theme from Watership Down ("Bright Eyes") and some fascinating concept albums including the sci-fi/new wave masterpiece, Zero Zero. One of his best straight-up film scores is for 1978's Carvans, one of those all-star exotic epics that were so in vogue at the time. Despite a cast including Anthony Quin, Christopher Lee, Michael Sarrazin, Joseph Cotten and Jennifer O'Neill, most viewers stayed away from the sandy, Iran-based action film, the second directorial effort for frequent Clint Eastwood director James Fargo (The Enforcer). However, the knockout music is absolutely worthy of rediscovery, with a beautiful main theme that gets a solid workout (and a surprisingly great pop rendition in the last track).

Caravans
1. Caravans On The Move
2. Main Title
3. Russian Dance
4. Inside Sardar Khan's Palace
5. Journey To Badek
6. The Camp At Qualir
7. The Desolate Valley
8. Caravan Song
9. Qualir at Night
10. Storm In The Desert
11. Becky's Waltz
12. Kochi Dancer
13. The Aftermath
14. Theme from Caravans

Yug Yug

2006-12-13T14:21:00.000-08:00

Here's one for all you kids of the '80s. During the early part of that decade, movie-theme-disco-maestro Meco was still cranking out albums offering his own dancefloor-friendly interpretations of the biggest box office hits, and let's just say that if disco hadn't died already, this 1983 album surely would have singlehandedly killed it off. Once again he returns to Star Wars territory courtesy of two, err, "vocal" numbers from Return of the Jedi (both completely omitted from George Lucas' dunderheaded "Special Edition" version years later). First up is "Ewok Celebration," a jaw-dropping dance version of the climactic Ewok song complete with, yes, a Star Wars rap. I really couldn't make this up. Then you get a pop version of that Jabba the Hut number, "Lapti Nek." But wait, there's more! Aiming for every demographic possible, the album also includes a cover of Michael Sembello's "Maniac" (from Flashdance), another extended Star Wars suite, and... well... just look at the tracklist for the rest, and prepare to be amazed.

Bless You

2006-12-06T15:07:00.000-08:00

Following their groovy score for 1970's forgotten R.P.M., Barry DeVorzon (future composer of The Warriors and Dillinger) and Perry Botkin, Jr. got the plum scoring assigment for Bless the Beasts & Children, Stanley Kramer's impassioned statement about animal killing that's probably the closest American cinema has ever come to an Italian mondo film (for the whole family, natch). The film stars Billy Mumy from The Twilight Zone in this tale about a bunch of boys who run away from summer camp and wind up wrangling with a bunch of buffalo killers, complete with a theme song by The Carpenters. Perhaps more famously, the melodic track "Cotton's Dream" was appropriated two years later as the famous theme song for the TV soap opera, The Young and the Restless.

Soap Gets in Your Ears: Part 4

2006-12-01T10:37:00.000-08:00

The indisputable queen of literary trash, Jackie Collins (sister of Joan) ruled the '70s with string of "steamy, yummy bestsellers" (in the words of French & Saunders) with titles like The Bitch and The Stud. Fortunately the movie adaptations are just as OTT and hilarious, and one of the most overripe of the bunch is 1979's The World Is Full of Married Men. Almost a musical, this full-strength wallow in glitzy excess features many on-screen dance performers including a young Bonnie Tyler (who sings the title track, later issued in a different version on CD), Paul Nicholas (still fresh off his turns as Cousin Kevin in Ken Russell's Tommy and Wagner in Lisztomania), and even space-disco Brit-group Hot Gossip, whose one-time lead singer, future stage and vocal chart star Sarah Brightman, also contributes a song (the ultra-rare horror disco ditty, "Madame Hyde"). The "normal" actors in the film include an obviously fearless Anthony Franciosa (pre-Tenebrae), Caroll Baker, and even Story of O's Anthony Steel. The UK-issued double-LP soundtrack ("As Seen on TV!") was released by Ronco, best known for hawking chintzy kitchen utensils on television, who apparently decided to compete with K-Tel in the late '70s and lost. The album quickly disappeared and has become quite a curiosity item thanks to a dizzying roster of songs, most of them pleasingly weird and obscure (just skip past the occasional overworn chestnut like "Copacabana").

The World Is Full of Married Men - Part 1
1. The World Is Full Of Married Men (Bonnie Tyler)
2. Get Down (Gene Chandler)
3. Shame (Evelyn "Champagne" King)
4. Weekend (Mick Jackson)
5. Love Clone (Hot Gossip)
6. We Don't Make Each Other Laugh Anymore (Gladys Knight)
7. Copacabana (Barry Manilow)
8. Woman In Love (The Three Degrees)
9. Boogie Town (F.L.B.)
10. Take That To The Bank (Shalamar)
11. Boogie Oogie Oogie (Taste Of Honey)
12. Makin' It (Paul Nicholas)
13. Snakes Alive (Nona Hendricks)
14. Disco Nights (G.Q.)
The World Is Full of Married Men - Part II
15. Now That We've Found Love (Third World)
16. Contact (Edwin Starr)
17. Lovely Day (Bill Withers)
18. Right Back Where We Started From (Maxine Nightingale)
19. Crazy (The Glass Family)
20. Madame Hyde (Sarah Brightman)
21. Best Of My Love (The Emotions)
22. Mind Blowing Decisions (Heatwave)
23. Every Woman In The World (Billy Ocean)
24. You make Me Feel Mighty Real (Sylvester)
25. Heaven Must Be Missing An Angel (Tavares)
26. Disco Concerto (Jasmin)
27. Loveline (Paul Nicholas)
28. The World Is Full Of Married Men (Mick Jackson)

Copper Romp

2006-11-29T10:36:00.000-08:00

Director Robert Aldrich probably had the best intentions when he tried to make a film of Joseph Wambaugh's raw cop saga The Choirboys in 1977, but the result -- apparently a deeply misguided attempt to replicate his success with The Dirty Dozen -- didn't seem to please anyone, most of all Universal Pictures, who found themselves with one of the most offensive, non-PC releases of the decade. The rampant dirty jokes, flat sitcom-style filming, S&M and orgy setpieces, racism, gay-bashing, and misogyny probably had something to do with it, and Wambaugh swore off Hollywood after its release. It's certainly different, though; you might want to keep an eye out for it on TV mainly due to the weird cast including Charle Durning, James Woods, Burt Young, Louis Gossett Jr., Perry King, Randy Quaid, Tim McIntire, Don Stroud, and Vic Tayback. The wild soundtrack is by regular Aldrich composer Frank De Vol (still most famous for his theme from The Brady Bunch), who mixes up funk, march music, dance pop, and straight-up orchestral work for a one-of-a-kind listening experience.

Sex Thief

2006-11-27T15:15:00.000-08:00

One of the earliest and most interesting installments in the wave of big studio "erotic thrillers" that eventually swallowed up most of the '90s, 1984's Thief of Hearts doesn't get mentioned too often these days in the wake of bigger, more sensationalistic titles like Fatal Attraction and Basic Instinct; it's definitely a better film though and is, believe it or not, genuinely sexy. (It's also one of the very few Jerry Bruckheimer productions that won't induce migraines.) The story follows a bored married socialite who winds up having an affair with a swarthy cat burglar who, it just happens, is the same guy who breaks into her house and reads her diaries. Oops. The effective and wonderfully '80s score by German composer Harold Faltermeyer was his first big American gig and landed him some bigger future assignments including Beverly Hills Cop and Fletch. The soundtrack is also peppered with a few pop tunes including the semi-hit single (whose steamy music video got it shoved to late night play on MTV) and even an appearance from actress/singer Elizabeth "E.G." Daily (Better Off Dead).

Don't Panic!

2006-11-20T15:57:00.000-08:00

Here's another obscure musical goodie from the AIP vaults, this time with Les Baxter's hoppin' score for the post-nuke drive-in favorite, Panic in Year Zero, a rare directorial feature for star Ray Milland. Jean Hagen (Lina Lamont from Singin' in the Rain) and Frankie Avalon co-star in this grim look at the havoc unleashed on a Los Angeles family forced to run for the hills when the bomb drops, with utter social degradation soon following among the survivors. Les' score is mostly source cues (i.e., instrumental jukebox-style rock 'n' roll and jazz music) and robust dramatic cues, taken here from the complete isolated music and effects track (which means no dialogue, but you'll hear an occasional gunshot or screeching tire).

Link removed - score now commercially available.

Newley's Folly

2006-11-17T11:12:00.000-08:00

After the success of his stage hit, Stop the World, I Want to Get Off, some studio executives had the bright idea to greenlight an entire movie devoted to the personality of tunesmith Anthony Newley. Of course, with the relaxing censorship standards of the time, it was only natural to let him run wild in... an X-rated sex comedy? Sure, why not? After Dr. Strangelove, long, self-indulgent titles were all the rage, so poor theater marquee owners were thus stuck trying to spell Can Hieronymous Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe and Find True Happiness? above theaters around the world. This 1969 commercial flop from Universal stars Newley as Hieronymous in a Fellini-inspired tale about a young man who pines for his true love while being led by "Goodtime Eddie Filth" (Milton Berle) through a string of women including Polyester Poontang, played by Joan Collins, of course. Very difficult to see now for obvious reasons; keep an eye out for late night cable screenings.

Saucy Jack

2006-11-15T14:15:00.000-08:00

One of the more notorious horror films of the late '50s, the Baker & Berman version of Jack the Ripper presents a vicious take on the infamous Whitechapel killings with a style foreshadowing the imminent giallo craze, including a color insert climax in an elevator shaft that no viewer ever forgets. Joseph E. Levine released this one in the U.S. and decided to chuck out the British score by Stanley Black (currently available on CD), replacing it with the odd team of jazz composer Pete Rugolo (Thriller, Sanford and Son) and old school musical veteran Jimmy McHugh ("I'm in the Mood for Love"). As you might expect, the results are pretty fascinating...

Jack the Ripper (U.S. score)
1. Main Title (Jack The Ripper Theme)
2. Love Theme (Lowry Dates Ann)
3. Killed In The Elevator
4. Ann Is Chased
5. Ripper Kills Gateman
6. Mary Clarke Theme
7. To the Operating Room (And End Title)
8. Ripper Gets Mary Clarke
9. Ann And Mary
10. Chase The Hunchback
11. Barmaid Starts Home (And Can-Can Scene)
12. Ann Is Trapped
13. Kitty
14. Blood On My Hands (and End Cast)

The Mighty Pino

2006-11-13T15:18:00.000-08:00

It's hard to believe Cannon Films managed to theatrically release this jawdropping 1983 version of Hercules, an Italian production from Luigi Cozzi featuring Lou Ferrigno, Brad Harris, Gianni Garko, lots of fighting tinker toys in the sky, and the always spectacular Sybil Danning, whose revealing outfits push the PG rating about as far as it can go. However, the rousing score by Pino Donaggio is pretty great, with a stirring main theme and some truly beautiful passages (especially the awesome "Baby Hercules") that rank among his finest.

[link removed - score now commercially available]

Charge!

2006-11-09T16:03:00.000-08:00

Generally regarded as one of the best cinematic treatments of its subject, 1968's The Charge of the Light Brigade from director Tony Richardson features a fascinating cast (David Hemmings, John Gielgud, Vanessa Redgrave, Trevor Howard) and a beautiful, effective score by John Addison (Sleuth, Torn Curtain) that's never really been given its due. Perhaps of most interest to readers here is the theme song, an eerie, haunting, semi-psychedelic rendition of the famous poem performed by none other than Manfred Mann!

Link removed - commercial CD now available.

The Charge of the Light Brigade
1. The Charge Of The Light Brigade (Manfred Mann)
2. Main Title
3. The Six Hundred
4. Nolan's Theme
5. Waiting For The Charge
6. Go Gently
7. Sebastapol
8. War Fever
9. Across The Seas
10. Valley Of Death
11. First Kiss
12. Lady Scarlett's Ball
13. March On The Alma
14. After The Battle
15. Anger & Reflection
16. End Title

Basil Poledouris, R.I.P. You will be missed.

Imaginary Friends

2006-11-07T14:31:00.000-08:00

The closest thing to a horror film by director Robert Altman, Images did a quick nosedive at the box office in 1972 and remains one of his most obscure and challenging films. This Repulsion-style trip-out stars Susannah York as a married writer plagued by terrifying hallucinations and murderous scenarios which may or may not be real, all underscored by John Williams' scary, experimental, and sometimes beautiful score. Williams and Altman reteamed the next year for the excellent and only marginally more mainstream The Long Goodbye.

Summer Dreams

2006-11-03T11:08:00.000-08:00

And now back to Mr. Carlo Savina again for some more Italian library goodness, this time with a catchy 1979 collection called Summer Dreams. This limited LP contains several tracks he wrote for films and TV shows during that decade, including the first release of his theme for Mario Bava's Lisa and the Devil (here entitled "Theme for You").

Music Scene

2006-11-01T14:35:00.000-08:00

Here's another obscure, super-rare Italian library collection, this time courtesy of sword-and-sandal composer Franco Ferrara. It's a bit of a grab bag of styles and moods, as the cover obviously indicates, ranging from scary to peppy. Heck, it's got a track called "Giallo in Oriente," so how can you go wrong?

Music Scene
1. Mattino Nel Bosco
2. In Modo Pastorale
3. Danza Arcaica
4. Idillo Verde
5. La Conquista
6. Presgio Di Nubi
7. Dopo La Paura
8. Crescendo Ansioso
9. Fiesta Grande
10. Chita-Habanera
11. Paura Nella Casbah
12. Siesta Sueno
13. Fiaba Bolero
14. A Passo Doppio
15. Giallo In Oriente
16. Mare Hawajano

2006-10-31T10:05:00.000-08:00

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Music from the Vaults

2006-10-30T11:55:00.000-08:00

Here's one that should please all you library music junkies out there. Though not as well-known as the legendary British lines like KPM, Italy kept many of its composers busy churning out lots of all-purpose compositions ranging from the lyrical to the downright creepy. Here's a fun demo set dating from the early '70s by Carlo Savina, a versatile composer best known in cult circles for his work on Lisa and the Devil and Terror in the Crypt. Watch for more Italian library titles this week!

The Last Music on Earth

2006-10-27T10:16:00.000-07:00

Richard Matheson's classic apocalyptic sci-fi/vampire novel I Am Legend has been adapted for film twice so far, first with Vincent Price as the 1964 Italian-American AIP production, The Last Man on Earth. The film suffered a bad reputation for many years due to awful public domain prints and chopped-up TV screenings, all of which demolished its careful pacing and scope photography; however, in recent years (primarly thanks to DVD and laserdisc) it's finally being appreciated as a chilling, potent visualization of one of Matheson's strongest works. Incidentally, the second adaptation was 1971's cult classic The Omega Man with Charlton Heston, featuring a dynamite score by Ron Grainer (available elsewhere if you check around a bit). A third version is currently in the works, but don't get your hopes up since it already has three huge strikes against it thanks to the star (Will Smith), screenwriter (Akiva Goldsman), and music video-based director (Francis Lawrence). The moody and often striking score for the original film is by Paul Sawtell and Bert Shefter, a pair who, in various combinations, also underscored Vincent Price in The Fly series.

Something Is Sexy In The State Of Denmark

2006-10-25T11:03:00.000-07:00

More '60s sexploitation, this time with one of the earliest and most popular Danish sex comedies, 1965's Sytten, released in the U.S. in 1967 as Eric Soya's 17. (Novelist Soya is best known for his book Jenny and the Soldier, incidentally.) The plot is the usual coming-of-age fodder about a turn-of-the-century youth arriving from Copenhagen to a small town where he loses his virginity, and lots of women run around giggling, showing off their lingerie, and luring men into their bedrooms. After this film and I Am Curious (Yellow), Denmark and Sweden basically started a competition to see who could turn out the dirtiest "mainstream" films, which lasted well into the late 1970s. The score by sex-com veteran Ole Høyer is light and elegant, with an emphasis on period flavor and romantic love themes.

Psychopathia Musicalis

2006-10-24T10:33:00.000-07:00

In the 1960s, the popularity of psychotherapy revived a number of influential books including Richard von Krafft-Ebing's Psychopathia Sexualis, an 1886 study of aberrant sexual behavior. Swiping the title and little else, exploitation veteran Albert Zugsmith (Sex Kittens Go to College, Dog Eat Dog), who's far better known now for producing Touch of Evil and High School Confidential, decided to write and direct a 1966 "case study" involving the history of a nutball whose shooting spree on a highway is linked back by his girlfriend's testimony to a strange floral fetish. Due to copyright considerations, the film's title was changed to On Her Bed of Roses in many territories and remains its name on the soundtrack, a wild beat-influenced concoction by composer/songwriter Joe Green ("And Her Tears Flowed like Wine") that also reveals occasional hints of the approaching psychedelic music wave.

Gold Rush

2006-10-20T10:49:00.000-07:00

Here's a rip-roaring action/funk score from Elmer Bernstein, sadly neglected since not many people bothered to see the movie. Roger Moore took a break from his series of James Bond films for this yarn about intrigue and backstabbing in the South African gold industry; for some reason the film was never properly copyrighted and has appeared on various public domain editions over the years. Bernstein jazzes things up with a mix of 007-style brass (right down to the Don Black-penned songs) and blaxploitation-era grooves. Great stuff!
(Link removed - commercial CD now available.)

Also, it looks like I can finally strike a few titles off those Italian Blend compilations; the always excellent Digitmovies is answering a lot of prayers on October 31 with three spectacular new releases: Klaus Kinski Horror Trilogy (featuring Death Smiled at Murder, Slaughter Hotel and The Hand that Feeds the Dead), an expanded release of Morricone's 'Tis Pity She's a Whore (with 8 unreleased tracks -- but "Tassilo" from the old vinyl release won't be carried over), and, believe it or not, Bruno Nicolai's complete A Virgin among the Living Dead!

Be Positive

2006-10-19T16:30:00.000-07:00

Arguably the last masterpiece of theatrical adult filmmaking, 1982's Café Flesh became a full-fledged midnight cult hit thanks to its striking blend of sci-fi, social satire, and, of course, sex, usually with people dressed up as rats or pencils. (Really.) The story follows the unfortunate souls in the audience and onstage at Café Flesh, a post-apocalyptic club where the few remaining humans with functioning libidos are forced by law to perform for everyone else. Dark humor and numerous plot twists ensue. Scream queen Michelle Bauer stars under the name "Pia Snow," though reports differ on whether she used a body double during some of the big finale. The mad genius behind this one is Stephen Sayadian (under the name "Rinse Dream"), who had already made the almost-as-good Nightdreams and went on to semi-mainstream cultdom with 1990's Dr. Caligari. The outstanding new wave instrumental score comes from the eclectic Mitchell Froom (ex-husband of Suzanne Vega), who went on to fame with acts like Crowded House. (Too bad he'll always bear a certain badge of shame for inflicting the worst James Bond theme ever upon the world, Sheryl Crow's "Tomorrow Never Dies.") Here's the full score (long out of print under the title The Key of Cool), sequenced to play in the original film order and expanded to include some of the more memorable monologues and dialogue exchanges from the film.

Café Flesh
1. Thrill Factor
2. Welcome To Café Flesh
3. Fruto Prohibito
4. Strangle A Girl With Love
5. We Don't Dream
6. Pleasure Is A Widow Maker
7. Face Down
8. The Skull in The Cage
9. Miami Priests
10. Moms
11. Blue Lips
12. Be Positive
13. The Key Of Cool
14. Press The Panic Button
15. Jungle Of Cities
16. Patio
17. The End Of The Line
18. Zip Code
19. Thrill Factor (Reprise)

See No Evil

2006-10-17T10:39:00.000-07:00

Okay, let's talk about Nico Mastorakis. Greece's premiere master of exploitation, he shocked audiences with his 1975 debut film, Island of Death, and finally went almost-mainstream in 1984 with Blind Date, featuring his first "name" cast. Joseph Bottoms stars as a recently blinded man outfitted with a fancy computer "seeing" machine who goes up against a serial killer, but the sci-fi crowd tends to ignore the plot thanks to the fact that two Star Trek actresses, Kirstie Alley and Marina Sirtis, get naked. (And check out the DVD for an even more gratuitous "love scene" outtake reel.) This film marked Mastorakis' first collaboration with composer Stanley Myers; they later reteamed for such diverse films as The Zero Boys, The Wind, Nightmare at Noon, and The Time Traveller. The score is pretty typical '80s Myers (you can definitely see how much he influenced frequent musical partner Hans Zimmer), which means it's often catchy and atmospheric, though the occasional maudlin songs by John Kongos may have '80s-intolerant listeners fleeing the room. Synths were performed by composer Richard Harvey, who already worked with Myers on The Martian Chronicles. A big thanks to ISBUM for providing the original vinyl for this transfer!

Also, on the video news front, fans of wild late-'60s cinema might be interested to know that, without any fanfare at all, Fox is releasing two very rare, perverse Michael Caine films, Deadfall (featuring a fine John Barry score) and The Magus, on DVD today. Grab 'em while you can!

The Prime of Rod McKuen

2006-10-16T10:25:00.000-07:00

Probably the closest thing we'll ever have to a rock-star poet, Rod McKuen sold out amphitheaters in the '60s and '70s with his groundbreaking poetry readings and translated many successful European songs into English, including the songs of Jacques Brel and, of course, the most downbeat pop standard ever, "Seasons in the Sun." While working on the musical A Boy Named Charlie Brown, McKuen decided to branch off into film scoring with 1968's Joanna, the first feature by actor-turned-director Michael Sarne (who later combusted spectacularly with Myra Breckinridge). Sort of a mod dramatic musical packed with weird fantasies and narrative tangents, the film follows squeaky-voiced Genevieve Waite through a series of misadventures culminating in a big song-and-dance number at a train station.

Apparently Fox was pleased enough with McKuen's songs and score to recruit him the next year for their big award-courting film, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, starring Maggie Smith in an Oscar-winning turn as the socially and sexually groundbreaking instructor at a prim girls' school. McKuen's theme song, "Jean," was nominated for an Oscar as well, and he also wrote a new overture for the film when it was screened for Queen Elizabeth II. (The daring nudity by co-star Pamela Franklin probably own over a few viewers, too.) Despite the warm reception and the film's continued popularity, the score has never seen the light of CD, and McKuen never scored another feature.

Joanna
1. Joanna (Vocal)
2. I'll Catch The Sun (Vocal)
3. Run To Me, Fly To Me (Waltz For Joanna)
4. I'm Only Me (Two Girls Bathing)
5. When Am I Ever Going Home
6. Ain't You Glad You're Living Joe (Vocal)
7. Till We're Together Again (Cass's Theme)
8. Joanna And Clyde
9. Peter's Theme (Before I Die)
10. Joanna Hits Town
11. Saturday Night In Knightsbridge
12. Morocco
13. Some August Day
14. Hello Heartaches
15. Harpsichord Concerto (4th Movement)
16. Twenty Four Rue St. Benoit
17. I'll Catch The Sun (Reprise)
18. Joanna (Reprise)

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
1. Jean (Vocal)
2. Winter Like My Life Is Passing
3. Flanders Field
4. Bend Down And Touch Me (Vocal)
5. Athletic Supporters
6. The Other Tango
7. A Red, Red Rose (Vocal)
8. Edinburgh Morning & Jean (Vocal)
9. The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie Overture
10. The Ivy That Clings To The Wall
11. Lloyd's Room (Petula In Green Waters)
12. The Favourite Sweet Of Little Princess Margaret Rose
13. Flanders Field (Reprise)
14. Goodbye Jenny (Bend Down And Touch Me)
15. Jean (End Title)

Gypsies and Tramps

2006-10-13T14:31:00.000-07:00

At the height of the sexual revolution, moviegoers were going crazy for movies based on scandalous English literature (Ulysses, The Fox, etc.), a trend that reached its peak with Ken Russell's film of D.H. Lawrence's Women in Love in 1969. One year later, Lawrence's novella, The Virgin and the Gypsy, was turned into a film with Franco Nero starring as a swarthy wanderer who awakens funny new feelings in a prim English country girl. In typically subtle Lawrence fashion, it all climaxes (ahem) with her being deflowered while her house is consumed by a flooding river. The film was mostly forgotten soon after and has been maddeningly difficult to see ever since, but it's worth checking out on one of its rare TV showings. The soundtrack by future British TV staple Patrick Gowers is spare but haunting, with a great main theme and a few dashes of period tunes for additional flavor.

Around the World on a Night Train

2006-10-11T16:27:00.000-07:00

Same theme, two very different movies! In 1974, Raymond Peynet's whimsical book Il giro del mondo degli innamorati di Peynet (or "Peynet's Loves around the World") was adapted as a seldom-seen animated feature. Though the film runs less than an hour and a half, its soundtrack features a huge amount of music with full scores written by both Ennio Morricone and his frequent collaborator (and choir leader), Alessandro Alessandroni (the whistling guy on many Morricone spaghetti westerns). Morricone's pieces are numbered variations on "Forse Basta," with the first a particular standout. Its memorable vocal version, "A Flower's All You Need," is performed in the film by Egyptian-born crooner Demis Roussos, who's still a big international favorite. The score by Alessandroni (who did The Devil's Nightmare around the same time) is equally good, with the stunning "San Pietro" especially worthwhile.

Well, since nobody bothered to see the movie, Morricone was fond enough of the Roussos theme to use it again one year later when he was brought on board for Night Train Murders, a particularly savage and effective Italian riff on Last House on the Left by director Aldo Lado. This time the song plays out over the opening credits, with two ruffians mugging Santa Claus! The other two score cues are eerie stuff, with a harmonica used to particularly chilling effect.

Ennio Morricone
Night Train Murders
1. L'Ultimo Treno Della Notte
2. Coincidenze
3. A Flower's All You Need (Vocal: Demis Roussos)
Il giro del mondo degli innamorati di Peynet
4. Forse Basta 1
5. Forse Basta 2
6. Forse Basta 3
7. Forse Basta (Original Main Titles)
8. Forse Basta 4
9. Forse Basta 5
10. Forse Basta 6
11. Forse Basta 7
12. Forse Basta 8
13. Forse Basta 9
14. Forse Basta 10

Alessandro Alessandroni
Il giro del mondo degli innamorati di Peynet
1. Amore E Birra
2. Sirtaki Die Colonelli
3. I Pattinatori Di Bruegel
4. Invito A Corte
5. I Baronetti
6. Marinara
7. Fiori Gialli
8. Dal Tirolo Con Affetto
9. Deserto Di Elam
10. Serata Al Bolscioi
11. Tramonto Romano
12. Montmartre
13. Bethlem
14. Latino Americana
15. Venerd Santo A Siviglia
16. Chi Vuol Esser Lieto Sia
17. Made In USA
18. San Pietro
19. Piazza Rossa
20. Deserto Di Elam (Movie Version)
21. Sirtaki Dei Coloneli
22. Invito Al Corte (Alternate Version)
23. Bethlem (Alternate Version)
24. Fiori Gialli (alternate version)
25. Made in USA (alternate version - Spaghetti Western)
26. Made In USA (Alternate Version)
27. Made in USA (alternate version)
28. I Pattinatori Di Bruegel (Short Version)
29. Made in USA (alternate version) 2
30. I Baronetti (Alternate Version)

The Idol

2006-10-10T10:56:00.000-07:00

In this mod '60s relic you don't see mentioned too often, Jennifer Jones (filling in at the last minute for a departed Kim Stanley) and Michael Parks star in the oh-so-edgy tale of a beautiful matron who starts having an affair with one of her son's best friends (a plot later rehashed in the '80s as Class). The ultra-smooth score comes from library music favorite John Dankworth, who was busy at the time scoring lots of Joseph Losey films (The Servant, Modesty Blaise, etc.) as well as bits of studio fluff like Fathom. His wife, vocalist Cleo Laine, gets to sing two songs, and the whole score has a fun Mancini-style vibe perfect for a lazy weekend. (Note: sorry for the occasional distortion in some of the early tracks, but this was taken from the rare stereo LP pressing and sounds as good as I could make it.)

The Idol
1. Empty Hands And Empty Heart (Vocal: Cleo Laine)
2. The Idol (Vocal)
3. The Seducer
4. The Party
5. Empty Arms And Empty Heart (Instrumental)
6. Title Music
7. Won't You Believe Me
8. There's A Fight Outside
9. The Houseboat Set
10. The Idol
11. End Title Music

Rise and Shine

2006-10-09T10:15:00.000-07:00

One of the more high-profile studio horror films in 1980, The Awakening quickly ticked off a lot of mummy fans with its poster image of a cloth-wrapped fiend emerging from a pyramid. However, this adaptation of Bram Stoker's The Jewel of Seven Stars (previously filmed by Hammer as Blood from the Mummy's Tomb) -- meant to cash in on the still-active public interest in King Tut -- skimps on the mummy mayhem, instead focusing on a series of bloody deaths and possessions unleashed after Charlton Heston opens an Egyptian princess' sacreb tomb. This was the feature directorial debut of Mike Newell, who went on to a series of high-profile British dramas and comedies before eventually returning to fantastic cinema with Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. One of The Awakening's strongest assets is its fine, lyrical score by jazz favorite Claude Bolling, who turns in a rich orchestral work with a beautiful, shimmering main theme.

The Awakening
1. Main Title
2. She Has A Name
3. Night Drive
4. The Big Revelation & Descent
5. Kara Takes Control
6. The Eclipse
7. Margaret's Decision / The Mirror
8. Corbeck's Party
9. Inside Kara's Tomb
10. Canopic Jars
11. Jane's Discovery / Jane's Betrayal
12. The Big Drop
13. The Ceremony
14. Queen Kara

Stick 'Em Up!

2006-10-06T11:27:00.000-07:00

Now back to more gangster fun from AIP, this time with the first solo score from Barry De Vorzon, who went on to do some outstanding work for Walter Hill (The Warriors, Hard Times) as well as that guilty pleasure favorite, Looker. (And if anyone out there has that scarce promo LP, please share it!) This violent, entertaining gangster biopic was also the directorial debut of John Milius, arguably the most macho writer/filmmaker on the planet, whose subsequent work ranges from the sublime (The Wind and the Lion, Conan the Barbarian) to the ridiculous (Red Dawn). And check out that cast: Warren Oates, Ben Johnson, Harry Dean Stanton, John P. Ryan, Cloris Leachman, Richard Dreyfuss... Crank it up the next time you visit your local bank.

Dillinger
1. We're In The Money
2. Just One More Chance
3. Honey
4. Square Dance Medley
5. Homecoming
6. Happy Days Are Here Again
7. Honey
8. Theme From Dillinger
9. It's Easy To Remember
10. Hoe Down
11. Honey
12. Beyond The Blue Horizon
13. Super Gang Blues
14. One Last Time
15. Honey (End Title)

Who Was That Masked Man?

2006-10-05T11:00:00.000-07:00

And so this week's John Barry trilogy comes to a close... One of the biggest box office duds of its decade, The Legend of the Lone Ranger was intended as a big prestige summer release to appeal to the action crowd in 1981; unfortunately, a different kind of nostalgia piece called Raiders of the Lost Ark quickly trounced it. Many laid the blame on newcomer lead Klinton Spilsbury, a football player whose performance had to be redubbed in post by James Keach; however, it did earn some loyalty among afternoon HBO viewers thanks to constant screenings for years afterwards. Always willing to give his all even when the movie's a flop (see: The Scarlet Letter, Mercury Rising, etc.), John Barry cooks up a series of rousing action cues with a pleasant western feel, kind of a dry run for his later work on Dances with Wolves. The occasional spoken bits by Merle Haggard are jarring but kind of work in the actual film.

The Legend of the Lone Ranger
1. The Man In The Mask (Main Title) (Vocal: Merle Haggard)
2. The Legend Begins
3. John And Amy Meet
4. The Valley Chase
5. Brothers
6. The Cavandish Gang Strikes
7. The Man In The Mask (Instrumental)
8. The Breaking Of Silver
9. Ambush
10. Dynamite
11. The Final Attack
12. William Tell Overture
13. The Man In The Mask (End Title)

Hollywood or Bust

2006-10-04T10:33:00.000-07:00

One of the best films from the erratic but often brilliant John Schlesinger, The Day of the Locust shocked a lot of viewers in '75 with its vision of the early days of Hollywood as a breeding ground for corruption, depravity, and despair, with a finale that veers straight into horror territory. Paramount probably didn't make much money from it despite the impressive cast (Karen Black, Donald Sutherland, Geraldine Page, etc.), but it's well worth seeking out and features stunning photography by the late Conrad Hall. However, one of its strongest attributes is the haunting, restrained score by John Barry, who had just come off his reunion with James Bond for The Man with the Golden Gun. A mixture of elegiac instrumentals and quirky period song adaptations, it still holds up as a solid soundtrack; and if you've seen the film, track 12 will definitely make you shudder.

The Day of the Locust
1. Jeepers Creepers
2. The Storyteller / Garden Of The Locust
3. Isn't It Romantic (Vocal: Michael Dees)
4. The Flying Carpet
5. A Picture Of Love
6. I Wished On A Moon (Vocal: Nick Lucas)
7. Soft Shoe Salesman
8. Fire And Passion
9. Hot Voodoo (Vocal: Paul Jabara)
10. Fashion And Fantasy
11. Sing You Sinners (Vocal: Pamela Myers)
12. The Day Of The Locust
13. Finale

Barry Go Boom!

2006-10-03T11:14:00.000-07:00

Here's the first in a triple-post salute to one of the all-time great film composers, John Barry. This classy, subtle score was written for the not-so-classy, not-subtle-at-all 1968 Joseph Losey film, Boom!, a wildly excessive adaptation of Tennesse Williams' play, The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore. A scenery-devouring Elizabeth Taylor stars as "Sissy" Goforth, an ailing drama queen whose life is turned upside down by the arrival of mysterious poet Richard Burton at her remote island estate. One of John Waters' favorite movies (watch for the prominent poster in Pink Flamingos), it's screaming out for a widescreen DVD release. Get on it, Universal!

Boom!
1. Boom
2. Urgentissimo - Like Everything This Summer
3. Of A Year Unknown
4. Pain Gone Til Tomorrow
5. Have I Changed Very Much Since You Last Saw Me?
6. You've Got More Things Going for You than Teeth, Baby
7. Mister Death Angel Flanders
8. Through Caverns Measureless to Man
9. Capito
10. Which Way Is The Sun?
11. A Mobile Called "Boom"
12. The Shock Of Each Moment Of Still Being Alive
13. Hideaway (Georgie Fame)

Feminist Fear

2006-10-02T10:09:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, Mr. Freud, a drill is just a drill... Lots of critics have spilled ink over the years trying to find clever gender-related messages in 1982's indie slasher hit, The Slumber Party Massacre, which was written and directed by two women, namely noted feminist writer Rita Mae Brown (Rubyfruit Jungle) and Amy Jones (future writer of Indecent Proposal and Beethoven -- yes, the dog movie). The movie's packed with the usual gore, T&A, and awful acting, but it's fast-paced and full of retro goodness; for any deeper meaning than that, well, you're on your own. The nutty electronic music score is loaded with pseudo-organ riffs that would be more at home in a William Castle movie, and there's even a seven-minute droning freakout piece ("Meditation on the Mind of Russ Thorn"-- that's the killer, natch). It was composed by Ralph Jones, presumably related to the director somehow (brother? husband?), who went to score her Love Letters for Roger Corman as well. Attentive viewers may also note that the actual movie comes sprinkled with a bit of Pino Donaggio's Piranha score for some reason, too. It later inspired two unrelated sequels, both of them completely insane.

The Slumber Party Massacre
1. Main Title
2. Stalking The High School
3. Confrontation In The Gymnasium
4. Russ Dreams
5. Snail Hunt
6. Valerie Does Battle
7. Uninvtied Guest
8. Meditation Of The Mind Of Russ Thorn
9. End Titles

From Innocence - To Fear - To Rage!

2006-09-29T11:29:00.000-07:00

"Two Academy Award Winning Stars," Tatum O'Neal and Irene Cara, teamed up in 1985 for Certain Fury, a trashy female take on The Defiant Ones (or, if you prefer, a thinly-disguised remake of Black Mama, White Mama), directed by Stephen Gyllenhaal (Jake and Maggie's dad). As with several other '80s action scores (see Raw Deal), the music is the handiwork of three composers -- in this case, Bill Payne, George Massenburg, and Russ Kunkel, who all returned again for Smooth Talk and not much else. The main theme ("Fire in Her Eyes") is the most memorable feature, though the rest is also a bit more layered and interesting than the usual synth-action stuff you might expect.

Certain Fury
1. Theme From Certain Fury / Scarlet And Tracy's Song
2. Tracy Into Tears / Scarlet's Theme / Crystal's Hit
3. The Cab Ride
4. The Drowning
5. Escape To Nowhere
6. Final Donfrontation / Fire In Her Eyes
7. Lost And In Trouble
8. Tracy's Childhood
9. Going Down For Air
10. Scarlet Saves Tracy From Fire
11. Spire-Freeman Theme
12. They Think We're Dead
13. Sniffer's World
14. Scarlet And Loverboy Talk / How Do You Erase All Of This
15. Sniffer You're A Freak / Take One Step And I'll Kill You
16. Welcome To The City / Fire In Her Eyes

Funky Sonny

2006-09-28T10:41:00.000-07:00

<Don't let the Sonny and Cher connection fool you; this is a prime 1969 AIP freak-out soundtrack similar to Billy Strange's De Sade and Les Baxter's The Dunwich Horror. (Not surprisingly, all three films also feature wild, very similar "trippy" animated opening sequences.) After starring together in Good Times, Sonny and Cher took on this unorthodox mixture of juvenile delinquent sleaze and arty pretension, with Cher starring as a young runaway who hops from one bad relationship to another while hitching her way across the country. Sonny produced the film and wrote the score, whose "Band of Thieves" theme song (sung by Cher) is the only normal pop concession on the album. And yes, their gay-rights-activist daughter was named after this movie. Composer Ken Thorne did the arranging and conducting hot off his work on the amazing The Touchables, and the psychedelic influence definitely shows.

Cipriani in '78

2006-09-26T11:22:00.000-07:00

One of the busiest Italian composers in the '70s, Stelvio Cipriani wound up on the map thanks to his catchy work on Mario Bava's Twitch of the Death Nerve and the above-average Love Story rip-off, The Anonymous Venetian. This LP I dug up at a little record shop in Rome compiles three standout scores from the busy year of 1978, none of which have seen the light of CD to date. Enfantasme is a rarely-seen Italian/French ghost story with a beautiful, haunting main theme that gets a solid workout through the whole score (and nope, before anyone asks, there is no "Enfantasme Two" on the soundtrack -- I have no idea why). Papaya dei Carabai is a particularly perverse Joe D'Amato sex/horror film (sometimes shown with hardcore-ish inserts) with a wonderfully ghoulish climax; it's the first part of his tropical-sex "Papaya" series that continued for the next year or two. Finally, Sono stato un agente C.I.A. (known to U.S. viewers as Covert Action) features a wild cast including Maurizio Merli, David Janssen, Arthur Kennedy, and Corinne Clery. The delirious funk-and-dance score is not to be missed.

New FLAC lossless Download:
Enfantasme
1. Enfantasme
2. Painful Memories
3. Nino
4. Mountain Cottage
5. Enfantasme Three
6. Enfantasme Four
7. Concluding
Papaya Dei Carabai
8. Papaya Island
9. Papaya Dream
10. Papaya Dream 2
11. Papaya Song
Sono Stato Un Agente CIA
12. Relax
13. Relax 2
14. Un Uomo Programmato
15. Agente CIA

Music for Muffy

2006-09-25T11:10:00.000-07:00

Okay, it's not even close to April right now, but to get folks into the Halloween spirit a little early, here's Charles Bernstein's excellent, diverse little score for one of the most underrated '80s horror films, April Fools' Day (which is usually classified as a slasher film, even though it's not at all). Nice direction by the much-missed Fred Walton (When a Stranger Calls), a dream '80s cast including Amy Steel and Deborah Foreman, and that cool twist ending make this highly recommended. Later ripped off shamelessly in 2005 by the painfully stupid Cry_Wolf; stick with the original.

Ma Barker's Killer Tunes

2006-09-22T16:04:00.000-07:00

By 1970, American-International Pictures was veering away from the drug-oriented and horror films that had become its major drive-in staples. One of their wildest inaugural films for the new decade was Roger Corman's Bloody Mama, a violent saga adapted from the real-life Ma Barker and her bank-robbing sons. Shelley Winters devours the scenery as usual, along with a colorful supporting cast including Bruce Dern, Robert De Niro, Don Stroud, and Pat Hingle, among many others. First-time composer Don Randi (who went on to do Stacey and Up in the Cellar) alternates a traditional score with some amusing bits of source music, but the obvious highlight here is the all-too-catchy theme song, performed by "Bigfoot."

Bloody Mama
1. Bloody Mama
2. M-M-Mona (Part 1)
3. Mama Marches On
4. Rembrandt
5. Robbery Rag
6. Ma Barker & The Boys
7. Interlude
8. Vacation For Fiddles
9. M-M-Mona (Part 2)
10. Mother's Fudge
11. Drowning
12. Poor Lloyd
13. Miami Bound
14. There's No One Like A Mother
15. Ma's Boys In Prison
16. Bloody Mama Reprise

Tiki Terror

2006-09-21T18:18:00.001-07:00

Now here's a weird one for exotica fans; one of the shadier budget LP lables, Viking, gained a reputation for repackaging their titles in countless different permutations over the years. This release by "Ugella and the Viking Pops Orchestra," Theme from Mondo Cane and Other Horror Music, features a strange marching-band version of Riz Ortolani's Oscar-winning theme ("More") and lots of tropical tunes passed off with ghoulish titles, all of which appeared earlier in a different sequence (with different names) on another LP, Chaino's Jungle Echoes. Capitalism at its finest! Calling this "horror music" is pretty dubious (unless hearing the name "Martin Denny" makes you run shrieking in terror), but it's one heckuva bizarre Halloween record-- and check out that cover!

Theme from Mondo Cane and Other Horror Music
1. Theme From Mondo Cane
2. Mau Mau Call
3. Scalping Ceremony
4. Sacrifice Of The Virgin
5. Burning At The Stake
6. Lament Of The Vestal
7. Exodus From Suffering
8. Theme Of The Torture Chamber
9. Murder To The Rock

Leopardskin Fassbinder

2006-09-20T15:27:00.000-07:00

At the height of Tangerine Dream's popularity in the early 1980s, founding member Edgar Froese went off in '82 for a rare solo film score, Kamikaze 1989. This bizarre sci-fi crime thriller is most famous for starring legendary director Rainer Werner Fassbinder (who died later the same year from a drug overdose) as the outrageously-clad Inspector Jansen, who's investigating a series of brutal bombings across Germany. Froese's score could easily fit with the rest of his group's discography, as it's packed with hypnotic, catchy, electronic waves of sound, especially the standout "Blue Panther."

Soap Gets in Your Ears: Part 3

2006-09-19T15:49:00.000-07:00

Sidney Sheldon was never anyone's idea of a great novelist, but his lurid, heavy-breathing potboilers used to sell by the ton back in the '70s. One of his most popular titles was The Other Side of Midnight, which Fox mounted as their big prestige film for 1977. Of course, the fact that they had no major stars and were using the director (Charles Jarrott) from the disastrous Lost Horizon musical should have been big warning signs, but execs were still shocked when the film landed on screens nationwide with a resounding thud and was quickly eclipsed by another little Fox movie they had completely ignored... Star Wars. It's still incredibly entertaining on a camp level, though, thanks to its improper use of erotic ice cubes, self-administered abortions, gauzy romantic walks in the rain, and, uh, a young Susan Sarandon. That master of romantic melodies, Michel Legrand, does his best to save the film by going crazy with the pianos and strings; it's one of his lushest efforts on its own terms and certainly more successful than the film it accompanies.

Norman, Is That You?

2006-09-18T10:36:00.000-07:00

A lot of people were surprised when 1982's dreaded "who asked for it?" sequel, Psycho II, turned out to be pretty decent and a modest box-office success. Naturally, Universal sensed the potential for a new franchise (a term they still slap on almost every DVD they release) and allowed star Anthony Perkins to hop into the director's chair for the next installment, 1986's Psycho III. The result was a beautiful, perverse study of dangerous psychology (despite some studio-imposed slasher additions), with an emotionally-scarred nun (Diana Scarwid) winding up at the Bates Motel and turning Norman's homicidal tendencies upside down. Closer to the Italian gothics than Hitchcock, it's a twisted treat worthy of rediscovery. The equally haunting music comes from Carter Burwell (his second score after Blood Simple), who hit the big time as the Cohen Brothers' regular composer (Fargo, Miller's Crossing, etc.) along with other excellent work like Being John Malkovich, Fear, and Rob Roy. The main theme here ("Maureen in the Desert") is powerful stuff and will stick in your head for days; it's been sampled a surprising number of times in electronica and chill-out pieces the past few years, though the soundtrack itself never hit CD and remains strangely obscure.

Psycho III
1. Maureen in the Desert
2. Before And After Shower
3. Warm As A Cry For Help
4. Sisters / Catherine Mary
5. Mother?
6. Bad Boys And Body Bags
7. Revenge Of A Thankless Child
8. Electroshock Waiting Room
9. Dirty Street
10. Scream of Love

Ka-Boom!

2006-09-14T14:47:00.000-07:00

If you ever wondered what a mash-up between Wild in the Streets and Two Thousand Maniacs might sound like, look no further than this 1970 "issues" movie from director Ralph Nelson (Once a Thief) about a small Southern town ripped apart when it gets a black sheriff. (Insert your favorite Blazing Saddles quip here.) The cast is a great slice of early '70s personalities including Jim Brown, George Kennedy, Fredric March, Lynn Carlin, Don Stroud, Bernie Casey, Clifton James, Dub Taylor and much more; keep your eyes open for occasional TV screenings. Songwriter Jerry Styner (The Cycle Savages, Mitchell) chipped on on the unique soundtrack, which is credted to "Tompall and the Glaser Brothers," or to give their full names, "outlaw singer" Tompall Glaser and his brothers, Chuck and Jim. A mixture of new material and some established Glaser standards (i.e., the often-played "Woman, Woman"), this album came near the end of their contract with MGM, which was headed at the time by composer/songwriter Mike Curb (wow, his name pops up around here a lot), who also penned the liner notes. A catchy mixture of folk, country and rock, this is usually overlooked in the discographies of everyone involved but is definitely worth a spin.

...tick...tick...tick...
1. Theme from Tick...Tick...Tick... (Set Yourself Free)
2. California Girl (And The Tennessee Square)
3. Why Do You Do Me Like You Do
4. All That Keeps Ya Going
5. Where Has All The Love Gone?
6. Woman, Woman
7. What Does It Take
8. Home's Where The Hurt Is
9. Walk Unashamed
10. Gentle On My Mind

Also, here are two excellent reader submissions courtesy of "Joe." First up is Ryuichi Sakamoto's great, Ravel-inspired score for Brian De Palma's Femme Fatale. Then there's the excellent alt-music soundtrack for the modern cult favorite demonlover, a fascinating, mostly improvished work by Sonic Youth. Strangely enough, neither of these were ever released on CD in the U.S.; click on the covers below to hear 'em.

Decadent De Masi

2006-09-12T23:31:00.000-07:00

In 1977, Italian exploitation cinema was in the grip of numerous peculiar obsessions -- namely, nunsploitation and Nazisploitation, among others. One of the classier entries in the latter category was Mario Caiano's La Svastica nel ventre ("The Swastika in the Stomach"), the story of a Jewish girl (Sirpa Lane) and Aryan boy (Giancarlo Sisti) whose love affair is torn apart at the beginning of World War II. In some English-speaking markets it was called Living Nightmare, but of course more people know it under the more commerical but utterly ridiculous retitling of Nazi Love Camp 27. The melodic score is by the prolific Francesco De Masi, best known at the time for a number of spaghetti westerns; he later went on to groove his way into the hearts of horror fans everywhere with the immortal New York Ripper. The score was briefly released on vinyl in Italy paired up with De Masi's score for La battaglia d'Inghilterra (Eagles over London), which was later issued as an expanded CD while its less reputable album-mate fell by the wayside. The poster art (seen on the cover) was later reused many, many times for other Nazi-sex titles well into the 1980s.

You'll Dig Dagger

2006-09-11T11:32:00.000-07:00

Another would-be spy franchise made in the wake of James Bond and The Man from U.N.C.L.E., this surprisingly sick espionage tale from 1967 was the third film for wonderfully insane director Richard Rush, who went on to Psych-Out, Freebie and the Bean, The Stunt Man, and of course, Color of Night. The story follows a wheelchair-bound megalomaniac's plans to revive the Third Reich, funded by his human-meat-packing business. The score is the only one ever credited to songwriter/TV personality Steve Allen, complete with a shameless faux-007 theme song crooned by Maureen Arthur; however, judging from the sound of the music, it's likely the credited "arranger," the great and underrated Ronald Stein (The Haunted Palace, Demenia-13), had more than the usual hand in the final product.

The Power of Chris Compels You

2006-09-08T11:37:00.000-07:00

One of the best and busiest current American score composers, Christopher Young has churned out an amazing body of work for films such as Hellraiser, The Grudge, Species, and Flowers in the Attic. However, he got his start with two low-budget genre films for Stephen Carpenter and Jeffrey Obrow, 1982's The Dorm that Dripped Blood (a.k.a. Pranks) and 1984's The Power; while the former has subsequently appeared on CD, The Power has remained out of reach for most listeners. It's very strong for a second score, from the melodic opening water music theme to the driving suspense cues at the end. Note that Track 16 also offers an early example of Young's fondness for goofy puns in his track titles. The film itself, basically a more violent remake of that Brady Bunch Hawaiian episode, follows the mayhem caused by an evil Aztec doll that controls its owners. Tough to find on video now, it's an interesting artifact from the days of homegrown theatrical horror films.

The Power
1. Theme From The Power
2. Main Title
3. Desert Twilight
4. Transformation
5. A Secret Revealed
6. Quest For The Idol
7. Innocent Obsession
8. Evil Passage
9. The Possessed
10. Destacatyl
11. Desperate Search
12. Julie's Magic
13. Night Magic
14. Midnight Excursion
15. Tombstones And Talismans
16. Jerry's Gold Myth
17. The Power

Italian Blend

2006-09-06T11:53:00.000-07:00

Here's a little project I've been tinkering with for a while, and it's a bit different than past posts. Given the huge amount of great film music never commerically released in any format, I decided to cut together a series of suites of some outstanding titles that deserved some notice; here the spotlight turns on some of the great (well, in most cases) Italian composers whose work has often never gotten the credit it deserves. Taken from a variety of sources (video, M&E tracks, or whatever's handy), these have been tweaked to sound as good as I can make 'em; hopefully you'll discover a few new gems in this three-part collection, entitled Italian Blend. Running times have also been included to give you an idea of how much music to expect. Any comments on this one would be especially welcome -- thoughts on any particular likes (or dislikes), composers you'd like to hear more, etc.

NEW LINKS:

Italian Blend: Vol. 1
1. The Witches (Piero Piccioni) (10:41)
2. Images In A Convent (Nico Fidenco) (9:04)
3. Baba Yaga (Piero Umiliani) (2:16)
4. A Virgin Among The Living Dead (Bruno Nicolai) (12:42)
5. Queens Of Evil (Angelo Francesco Lavagnino) (9:34)
6. Knife Of Ice (Marcello Giombini) (2:56)
7. Burial Ground (Elsio Macuso & Burt Rexon) (3:00)
8. Death Smiles At Murder (Berto Pisano) (7:02)
9. A Blade In The Dark (Guido & Maurizio De Angelis) (5:26)
10. Beast With A Gun (Umberto Saila) (4:15)
11. Plot Of Fear (Daniele Patucchi) (2:59)
12. The Great Alligator (Stelvio Cipriani) (4:11)
13. Do You Like Hitchcock? (Pino Donaggio) (3:26)

Italian Blend: Volume Two
1. Eugenie De Sade (Bruno Nicolai) (8:27)
2. Footprints (Nicola Piovani) (8:51)
3. 2019: After The Fall Of New York (Guido & Maurizio De Angelis) (3:55)
4. A Whisper In The Dark (Pino Donaggio) (13:41)
5. Yellow Emanuelle (Nico Fidenco) (8:30)
6. Waves Of Lust (Marcello Giombini) (2:05)
7. Orgasmo Nero (Stelvio Cipriani) (15:42)
8. Caligula: The Untold Story (Claudio Maria Cordio) (2:08)
9. Patrick Still Lives (Berto Pisano) (2:37)
10. The Man From Deep River (Daniele Patucchi) (5:35)
11. Zeder (Riz Ortolani) (1:30)
12. Body Count (Claudio Simonetti) (1:57)

Italian Blend: Volume Three
1. Suspected Death Of A Minor (Luciano Michellini) (8:30)
2. House On The Edge Of The Park (Riz Ortolani) (4:06)
3. Strip Nude For Your Killer (Berto Pisano) (6:04)
4. The Pyjama Girl Case (Riz Ortolani) (7:18)
5. Nightmares Come At Night (Bruno Nicolai) (9:35)
6. The Lickerish Quartet (Stelvio Cipriani) (11:45)
7. Porno Holocaust (Nico Fidenco) (22:13)
8. Porno Shop On 7th Street (Bruno Biriaco) (9:27)
9. The Big Racket (Guido & Maurizio De Angelis) (6:11)

Pass the Waffles

2006-09-05T14:23:00.000-07:00

Two years before they unleashed one of the greatest "family" films ever with Willy Wonkia and the Chocolate Factory, director Mel Stuart and composer Walter Scharf teamed up for If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium, a slight and sunny comedy about the havoc caused by a boorish busload of American tourists across Europe with an oddball cast of character actors including Suzanne Pleshette, Ian McShane (decades before Deadwood), Norman Fell, Murray Hamilton, Michael Constantine, and much more. The soundtrack ranges from the memorable theme song penned by Donovan and sung by J.P. Rags (doing his best Donovan impression) to a fun psych-out piece ("Rockhouse") and lots of pleasant, romantic instrumentals depicting the various locales.

Get Out Your Handkerchiefs

2006-09-02T10:42:00.000-07:00

It's safe to say Hollywood will never again make a movie like Cruising, the infamous 1980 William Friedkin thriller that kicked off a storm of controversy and nearly killed off the career of Al Pacino, who plays a New York cop posing as a leather bar regular to catch a vicious serial killer. Seen today it's a bizarre, fascinating, incredibly skewed depiction of a subculture soon to be threatened with extinction, and the pulsating soundtrack is an equally compelling mixture of early punk, funk, and flat-out weirdness. Included here is the full original song soundtrack (including the immortal "Lump"), plus additional tracks by the Germs recorded for the film but not used in the final cut and a suite of Jack Nitzsche's nerve-jangling score. For extra fun, a few choice dialogue samples (some of them a little raunchy, so be warned) have been added to recapture the distinctive, er, flavor of the film. Friedkin's original cut of this often-mangled curio supposedly runs nearly three hours and now languishes somewhere in the Warner vaults; somebody save it, please!

Vampyros Disco

2006-08-31T14:28:00.000-07:00

1979 was a huge years for bloodsuckers, including the Frank Langella Dracula, Herzog's Nosferatu, Salem's Lot, and, uh, Nightwing, among others. Weirdest of all, audiences got two vampire disco comedies, though only one broke through and became a hit (one of AIP's biggest, in fact). Love at First Bite managed to revive the career of George Hamilton and kicked off a new wave of monster comedies throughout the following half-decade or so. The soundtrack is goofy horror fun, an early effort from Charles Bernstein featuring lots of tongue-in-cheek violin music and one monster of an extended gothic dance track, the 12-minute "Fly by Night." Note that the original theatrical version (and TV airings) contain Alicia Bridges' "I Love the Nightlife" during the famous disco dancing scene, but the filmmakers neglected to clear it for other use and so the tune is missing from all extant video versions. It was never included on the soundtrack, but you can easily find the song on plenty of bargain-priced compilations and soundtracks.

The success of Hamilton's Dracula easily overshadowed the nearly simultaneous appearance of Nocturna, Compass International's head-scratching follow-up to the successful Halloween. Dancer Nai Bonet had already been trying to break through as a star for over a decade, but this intended star vehicle proved to be the last nail in the coffin for her career as she proved beyond any doubt that she absolutely could not act. At all. Not even a tiny bit. However, she spends most of her time onscreen either rolling around naked in slow motion or disco dancing, so that's not much of a problem. John Carradine and Yvonne De Carlo pop up in glorified cameos as her vampire relatives, and the late Anthony Hamilton made his big-screen debut here before taking over after the death of actor Jon-Erik Hexum on the bizarre CBS show Cover Up. The Nocturna soundtrack received a big push upon its release but quickly wound up in cut-out bins before being forgotten entirely; a shame, really, as it does have some solid tracks including a great 7-minute main theme, "Love Is Just a Heartbeat Away," from Gloria Gaynor (the same year she released "I Will Survive"). Trivia: Nocturna was one of the earliest titles released on VHS, courtesy of Meda Home Entertainment (quickly renamed Media shortly thereafter), but it's been incredibly hard to find ever since.

Love At First Bite
1. Transylvania Moon
2. Fly By Night
3. Castle Interlude
4. Manhattan
5. Dancin' Through The Night
6. Love Theme (Disco Version)
7. Transylvania Moon (Reprise)

Nocturna
1. Nocturna (Chopin's Nocturne, Opus 55 #1)
2. Love Is Just A Heartbeat Away (Gloria Gaynor)
3. Why Do Lovers Come Together (Jay Siegel)
4. I'm Hopelessly In Love With You (Moment Of Truth)
5. Bitten By The Love Bug (Heaven 'N' Hell)
6. Love At First Sight (Heaven 'N' Hell)
7. Whatcha Gonna Do (Heaven 'N' Hell)
8. Nighttime Fantasy (Vickie Sue Robinson)

And on a completely unrelated note, the always excellent DigitMovies has officially announced the September release for the number one Italian film score on my most-wanted list, Lucio Fulci's Sette Notte in Nero (a.k.a. The Psychic) from the incredible Frizzi-Bixio-Tempera. Heck, it inspired the name of this blog, so that should tell you something. Also coming the same day is Trans Europa Express' awesome prog-rock soundtrack to Il gatto dagli occhi di giada, a.k.a. Watch Me When I Kill. Be sure to buy 'em both!

The Costandinos Beat

2006-08-30T10:44:00.000-07:00

Though his name doesn't ring too many bells today, Egyptian-born composer/producer Alec R. Costandinos hit it big on the charts in '78 with his high-concept disco opus, Romeo & Juliet on Casablanca Records, performed with his "Syncophonic Orchestra." Along with masterminding a few semi-successful pop groups (Sphinx, Love & Kisses), he made a name for himself in the clubs in Paris, where he got a gig writing the epic disco score for Trocadéro Bleu Citron, a delirious skating musical revolving around a bunch of Parisian kids. It's all upbeat, catchy stuff, highlighted by the massive, 15+ minute "Trocadero Suite."

As if that wasn't enough to fill out a busy '78, at the end of the year he also released a very unusual concept album, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, a discofied adaptation of the Victor Hugo novel. Yep, it's a dark, gothic, romantic danceathon, and though it technically isn't a soundtrack, the approach is very cinematic throughout. Not surprisingly, the gypsy Esmeralda gets a sassy, Latin-flavored theme that's highly reminiscent of fellow disco-ers Santa Esmeralda (heard most famously in Kill Bill Vol. 1), but the rest is equally fascinating.

A Different Kind of Animal

2006-08-29T10:41:00.000-07:00

And the beat goes on... Near the end of the disco era, dancefloor sensation Meco (real name: Meco Monardo) was still riding high on his funked-up versions of music from Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and a wild concept album based on The Wizard of Oz. Meanwhile John Landis was set to release his first all-out horror film in 1981, An American Werewolf in London, whose soundtrack consisted of some tongue-in-cheek "moon" rock standards along with about five minutes of incidental music by Elmer Bernstein. Faster than you can say "A naked American man stole my balloons," Landis and the execs at Polygram resolved the problem of releasing a soundtrack by bringing in Meco to pad the whole thing out, tweaking the songs with a few werewolf sound effects, tossing in some extra rock tracks, and adding two original "power dance rock" werewolf songs at the end. The result is a solid contender for the weirdest horror soundtrack ever released.

An American Werewolf in London
1. Blue Moon
2. You Gotta Hurt Me
3. Moon Dance
4. The Boys
5. Bad Moon Rising
6. No More Mr. Nice Guy
7. Werewolf (Loose in London)
8. Werewolf Serenade

Lipstick

2006-08-28T12:22:00.000-07:00

Guess what I've got this week? Disco fever! First up, critics had a field day ripping apart Lipstick (or "I Spit on Your Grave with Stars"), a 1976 rape-revenge sickie from Paramount about a fashion model (the late Margeaux Hemingway) who, along with her preteen sister (Mariel), becomes the target of a wacko music teacher (Chris Sarandon) and fails to find justice in the courtroom. Featuring a finale that puts most male-driven vigilante movies to shame, this is way more effective as drive-in trash than as a serious social statement. The music from French pop figure Michel Polnareff is truly schizo, starting off with a dance-driven main theme and a long disco-style score medley; then everything switches as we get two heavy (12+ minutes!) doses of Sarandon's berserk electronic experimental music, best described as Tangerine Dream on crack.

Led Zeppelin Goes Slasher

2006-08-25T09:39:00.000-07:00

Between his two notorious Death Wish sequels, director Michael Winner decided for some reason to tackle Scream for Help, a 1984 indie horror-thriller that sat on the shelf for a while before going to home video. The script by Tom Holland (Fright Night) predates the superior The Stepfather by a few years in its story of a teenage girl who can't get anyone to believe her mom's new husband is a psycho, but Winner sleazes things up to a ridiculous degree with loads of sex, gore, and gratuitous profanity. Check it out if you can still find a copy. The soundtrack album hit shelves long before the movie, probably because it was composed by Led Zeppelin's John Paul Jones (with some assistance from Yes' Jon Anderson and, fresh from Death Wish II, fellow Zeppelin member Jimmy Page). You'd be hard-pressed to peg this as a horror soundtrack, but it's still a lot of synth-slathered fun.

Jazz for Junkies

2006-08-23T10:55:00.000-07:00

One of the earlier films to deal frankly with the plight of recovering addicts after the taboo-breaking The Man with the Golden Arm, the mostly-forgotten Synanon takes place at California's real Synanon House, "where dope fiends fight their way back!" Check out the fascinating cast, though: Chuck Connors, Stella Stevens, Eartha Kitt, Edmond O'Brien, Alex Cord, Barbara Luna, Richard Conte, and Alex Cord, just for starters. Though he's best known for upbeat pop culture milestones like Batman and The Odd Couple, jazz composer Neal Hefti goes much darker here with an incredible, organ-fueled main theme and a wide variety of incidental tracks. Also, note that amusing, huge black censorship box placed on the album cover to cover up an offending needle.

Synanon
1. Zankie (Main Titles)
2. The Perfect Begninning
3. Main Street
4. Blues For Hopper
5. Hope
6. Tonight's The Night
7. Zankie / Put Your Little Foot
8. Open House
9. Put Your Little Foot
10. Zankie
11. The Whiffenpoof Song

Fun with Roger and Jane

2006-08-22T10:25:00.000-07:00

It's debatable whether controversial director Roger Vadim (And God Created Woman) is more famous for his films or his astounding string of female conquests he married, dated or bedded. One of his most fruitful partnerships was his marriage to Jane Fonda, leading to Barbarella and one-third of Spirits of the Dead. However, their first film together was 1964's La Ronde, a remake of the Max Ophuls classic better known to English-speaking viewers as Circle of Love. The plot is that old sexy chestnut about a string of lovers all connected by the wily coincidences of l'amour, with French-speaking Jane as an unfaithful wife who apparently doesn't have much use for clothes. Busy composer Michel Magne contributes the score, a string of romantic melodies appropriate to the period Parisian setting.

After getting married, Roger and Jane returned again in '66 with The Game Is Over, an updated, sexed-up adaptation of Emile Zola's La Curée. Jane plays an unfaithful wife (again) given to scantily-clad aerobics who dallies with her stepson, only to unleash some nasty psychological punishment from her husband. The highlight (both musically and cinematically) is easily the finale in which a nutty, sopping-wet Jane crashes the family's "Green Ball" party. The oh-so-mod, sitar-tinged music comes courtesy of Jean Bouchéty and Jean-Pierre Bourtayre, who also deliver some funky songs mixing psych and soul ("Baby You Know What You're Doing," "Don't Tell Me").

Circle of Love
1. La Ronde
2. Retour De Guerre
3. Bal Champêtre (Valse)
4. Le Soldat Et La Soubrette (Polka)
5. La Soubrette Et L'Étudiant
6. L'Étudiant Et La Femme Du Monde
7. Sophie, "À Coeur Ouvert"
8. Tendresse Bourgeoise
9. Maxim's Grande Époque
10. Salon Particulier
11. Pygmalion Et Galatée
12. Le Tzigane Mène La Ronde
13. Le Tango Des Folies Douces
14. Rêveries Orientales
15. Générique

The Game Is Over
1. Générique Debut
2. Un Certain Regard
3. Scène d'Amour
4. Renée
5. La Serre
6. Scène Du Lac
7. Attente
8. Avant Toi
9. Baby You Know What You're Doing
10. Don't Tell Me
11. Départ De Renée
12. Bal Vert
13. Générique Fin

Six Million Tons Of Icy Terror!

2006-08-21T10:24:00.000-07:00

At the height of the disaster movie craze in '78, the notoriously frugal Roger Corman decided to throw his hat into the ring with one of the genre's funniest entries, Avalanche. Rock Hudson, Mia Farrow, and Robert Forster head a decidedly downscale cast of vacationers at a storm-plagued ski resort, while TV action director Corey Allen tries to keep things moving fast enough for viewers not to notice the styrofoam ice blocks. Modern classical composer and USC faculty member William Kraft contributes the music score, which is actually quite solid; the most memorable track is "Bruce and Annette (Jazz)," a great bit that could have wandered in from a prime Piero Piccioni album.

They Know Who You Are

2006-08-18T11:07:00.000-07:00

One of the more interesting non-slasher '80s horror films, John Schlesinger's The Believers was promoted as the next great modern urban horror film in the tradition of The Exorcist. Unfortunately some much-discussed last minute edits blunted the story (and ticked off a lot of Santeria practitioners in the process), but the end result is still effective and creepy if you go along with it. Martin Sheen stars as a recently widowed Manhattanite who becomes the target of a malicious cult, with sweaty cop Jimmy Smits warning him of impending danger. Helen Shaver also stars and has a scene involving her complexion no viewer ever forgets. The powerful, very scary score is by J. Peter Robinson, a talented and still-busy composer who had just finished The Wraith and The Gate. Don't listen to it alone!

The Believers
1. Jogging / Cal's Theme / Safety
2. Sacrifice (Main Title)
3. Discovery In Central Park
4. Jessica / Hospital / Cal And Jessica
5. Toyland
6. Cal Remembers Lisa
7. Theatre
8. Sanctuary
9. Cal Drives To McTaggart's / McTaggart's Death
10. Boils / Spiders
11. Retribution And End Title

Master Baxter

2006-08-17T10:45:00.000-07:00

At the height of his frantic gig writing scores for American-International Pictures, Les Baxter was mostly busy rescoring European import and doing Roger Corman's great Poe series. However, 1961's Master of the World is a bit of a change of pace, obviously designed to cash in on the recent success of Around the World in 80 Days (which is mentioned no less than twice on the back sleeve notes). Vincent Price and Charles Bronson star in the tale of a megalomaniac determined to enforce world peace, even if it means dragging a bunch of people across the sky in an airship and bombing everyone into submission. This was one of AIP's earliest multi-channel releases (in four-channel "StereoSonic Sound!"), so ol' Les really gets to cut loose with the right-left channel separation here. The music is really lush and grand with a nice old Hollywood feel, crammed with soaring themes and tons of crescendoes.

Schifrin's Voyage

2006-08-16T10:46:00.000-07:00

By request, here's another Lalo Schifrin from the dusty vaults -- 1976's Voyage of the Damned, a somber, all-star period piece featuring Orson Welles, Faye Dunaway, Malcolm McDowell, Lee Grant, Katharine Ross, and tons of other folks who weren't busy working on an Airport movie at the time. Excerpts from this score have turned up on various compilations over the years, but here's the whole thing from a promo-only vinyl edition circulated by Schifrin's reps in '76 to encourage an Academy Award nomination. (It worked.) The subject matter (based on the true ordreal of a cruise ship filled with German Jews sent on a fake propaganda voyage to Cuba) dictates a serious score, so Schifrin alternates darker orchestral music with a few upbeat source music cues (notably "Hotel Nacionale") to vary the mood.

The Musical World of Menahem Golan

2006-08-15T11:14:00.000-07:00

Okay, back to Cannon Films for a minute. One of the two founders, Menahem Golan, was a producer/director who got his start directing films in Isreal, as well as the 1969 British sexploitation film What's Good for the Goose during his directorial training in England. Upon returning to his homeland, he decided to mount a big-scale musical in the tradition of Fiddler on the Roof; the result was 1974's Kazablan, which was shot in both Hebrew and English versions and was picked up by MGM for international distribution. Future Cannon composer Dov Seltzer (The Ambassador) wrote the music, and while the vocal numbers are pretty standard musical fare (upbeat and moderately catchy), the real standout is three funktastic intstrumentals: "Chassidic Rock," "Getting Dressed Ballet," and especially "Construction Rock Ballet," which could have easily come from a top-rung black action or Bollywood film from the period.

After officially buying Cannon Films from its British founders in 1979, Golan stepped behind the camera again for another colorful, widescreen musical spectacular, this time shot in Germany with a bizarre international cast including newbie Catherine Mary Stewart (Night of the Comet), future BBC staple Grace Kennedy, Joss Ackland (Lethal Weapon 2), and the wonderfully hammy Vladek Sheybal (From Russia with Love) as Mr. Boogalow, a satanic record producer who controls the world of pop culture in the futuristic year of 1994. The end result, The Apple, appalled audiences worldwide with its glam-rock fusion of biblical symbolism, dirty disco, and dieties descending from the sky in pimpmobiles, though it has more recently become a perpetual revival house and midnight movie favorite. The, uh, unique songs are the brainchild of Israeli popster Coby Recht and American composer George S. Clinton (who also appears onscreen as a mind-controlled reporter), later known for much bigger titles like Austin Powers, Wild Things and Mortal Kombat. Xanadu ain't got nothin' on this one, baby.

Kazablan
1. Overture
2. Men Of Respect
3. We Are All Jews
4. Chassidic Rock
5. There's A Place
6. Democracy
7. Construction Rock Ballet
8. Jaffa
9. Hey, What's Up!
10. Rosa, Rosa
11. Kazablan (Get Off My Back)
12. Getting Dressed Ballet
13. Brith Milah Pageant

The Apple
1. BIM
2. Universal Melody
3. Made For Me
4. Showbizness
5. The Apple
6. How To Be A Master
7. Speed
8. Where Has Love Gone
9. Cry For Me
10. Coming
11. I Found Love
12. Child Of Love
13. Creation

Schifrin's Thief

2006-08-14T11:10:00.000-07:00

For his first big American film score, Argentinian-born Lalo Schifrin scored a direct hit with his smoking hot jazz-action score for 1965's Once a Thief, a stylish B&W heist yarn whose colorful cast includes Ann-Margret, Alain Delon, Van Heflin, Jack Palance, and Tony Mustante. The director, Ralph Nelson, got his start in TV but struck it big in '64 with Lilies of the Field; unfortunately, the relative obscurity of this film and other future projects (including the notorious Soldier Blue) kept him off the A-list. For some reason Schifrin's score has been buried for decades apart from an occasional rerecording of the main theme popping up on compilations. Here's the original '65 release version in beautiful stereo; the entire score is a bit short, so it's rounded out with a bonus track from Joy House ("The Cat") and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. ("Roulette Rhumba" and "The Man from Thrush"). If you're a regular viewer of Turner Classic Movies, they occasionally show a great vintage 10-minute short about the creation of this score, so keep an eye out for it. Sit back and enjoy, hep-cats!

Basketball with BB

2006-08-11T11:13:00.000-07:00

A number of folks have been requesting music from the underrated Charles Bernstein, so here's the first one to make you happy. Way back in 1986, Bernstein and director Wes Craven were fresh off the iconic A Nightmare on Elm Street and teamed up again for Craven's first real studio film, Deadly Friend. The story follows the attempts of a tormented teen scientist (Matthew Laborteaux) to revive the pretty dead girl next door (future skating celeb/gossip favorite Kristy Swanson) by implanting a chip from his pet robot, BB. Not surprisingly, things go very badly afterwards. Unfortunately Warner Brothers wasn't too keen on this tragic, mildly creepy teen love story and insisted on a number of ridiculous changes, including a junky, nonsensical ending. The final result has its share of tampering issues (heck, what '80s Craven movie doesn't?) but still has its good points, namely Bernstein's appropriately electronic-heavy score and a classic gore gag involving cranky Anne Ramsay and a very powerful basketball. For some reason a good chunk of music (including the opening titles!) never made it onto the soundtrack, so if that much-promised CD release ever comes to pass, let's hope it's an expanded special edition. In the meantime, enjoy this tasty dose of '80s synth-horror... and brace yourself for "BB's Song." (Oh yeah, and I was dismayed to just discover my LP of Bernstein's excellent Gator score is in less-than-prime condition; if anyone has a clean rip handy, please share!)

Deadly Friend
1. BB's Theme
2. BB's Song
3. Love Waves
4. Halloween
5. BB's Funeral
6. Hot Head In Bed
7. Back Porch Romance
8. Elvira, Mad Again
9. Nutcracker Street
10. Daddy Dearest
11. Slam Dunk
12. BB Gunned
13. Goodnight Kiss
14. Change of Minds
15. Just Choking
16. Born Again
17. Spotting Pop
18. Body Snatchers

Two Evil Cats

2006-08-09T10:31:00.000-07:00

Meow! Here's a strange anomaly in film score history -- an Italian composer who scored the same horror story twice within a decade. It all started when Pino Donaggio (taking a break from his stampede of Brian De Palma films) was hired by the very busy Lucio Fulci in 1981 to score his "freely adapted" version of Edgar Allan Poe's short story, "The Black Cat." Patrick Magee stars as a grizzled old coot who records ambient noises in graveyards and owns a malicious pussycat capable of instigating gory deaths in a small Scottish village. Enter nosy reporter Mimsy Farmer and detective David Warbeck, who try to put a stop to all the feline antics before they're next. It all ends with some impromptu masonry and a yowling kitty, of course. The string-heavy score is highlighted by a terrific main title theme that nicely evokes the Scottish setting and features some of Donaggio's strongest suspense work. Though it was never released, the complete score is presented here from the original recording sessions; sound quality is a bit erratic here and there, but hey, where else are you gonna hear it?

Fast forward to 1990, as Dawn of the Dead producer Dario Argento decided to reunite with George Romero for a two-part Poe anthology film, Two Evil Eyes. While most viewers agree that Romero's "The Facts in the Cast of M. Valdemar" is a sluggish mess, Argento's version of "The Black Cat" succeeds thanks to an avalanche of wild Poe references and a solid performance by Harvey Keitel. Not surprisingly, Donaggio's score is divided into two halves with the much stronger Argento segment coming first. Highlights include the main kid's choir theme ("Dreaming Dreams"), a spooky medieval piece ("Adust Sponsus"), and even a swirling cue inspired by Philip Glass ("The Gothic Town"). Argento must have been pleased with the results, as he used Donaggio again for Trauma and Do You Like Hitchcock? Incidentally, at least one other Italian composer has performed the same twice-in-a-decade feat with one horror story; can you name him?

Laura

2006-08-08T10:20:00.000-07:00

Back to the Eurosexy again, this time with controversial British photographer-turned-director David Hamilton, creator of such nymphet classics as Bilitis and Tender Cousins. One of his better films, 1979's Laura, follows the efforts of aging sculptor James Mitchell to woo his old flame, Maud Adams, into letting him do a sculpture of her teen-ballerina daughter, Laura (future New World starlet Dawn Dunlap). French softcore music was all the rage at the time thanks to pop star Pierre Bachelet's work on Story of O and Emmanuelle, so Swiss-born disco star Patrick Juvet decided to take a crack at it with this film and turned out a memorable, lyrical score; in particular, "La Theme de la Statue" ranks with the best of the period. Unfortunately the hard-partying rock lifestyle took its toll on Juvet soon after, sending him into a tailspan until his eventual comeback in the 1990s.

Download (New Link- lossless/FLAC)

Cannon's Warriors

2006-08-07T11:23:00.000-07:00

After paying tribute to the much-missed Empire Pictures, it's now time to turn to the undisputed kings of '80s drive-in insanity, Cannon Films. Begun in the 1970s by Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, Cannon really hit its stride with a string of action films featuring ninjas, vigilantes, and of course, Chuck Norris and Charles Bronson. One of their weirder outings was the 1983 revenge flick Young Warriors, starring James Van Patten, Ernest Borgnine, Richard Roundtree, Lynda Day George, and a young Linnea Quigley. Best of all, it was directed by the amazing Lawrence D. Foldes, who brought you the cannibal caveman classic Don't Go Near the Park and the Linda Blair actioner Nightforce. The score by Rob Walsh (Revenge of the Ninja) is pretty much perfect '80s action music, with a rousing A-Team-style main theme ("American Youth") guaranteed to make you grin like an idiot and even a sinister version of "The Star-Spangled Banner" thrown in for good measure.

Scream Amen, Somebody

2006-08-03T10:47:00.000-07:00

Here's another super-rare goodie from the AIP vaults -- the unreleased jazz-horror score for 1969's Scream and Scream Again, the bizarre Gordon Hessler cult horror/sci-fi favorite featuring mad scientists, enforced limb removals, a mad vampiric serial killer, and much, much more. Vincent Price, Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing are all featured (but never together) along with an odd supporting cast including Uta Levka (Carmen, Baby) and Yutte Stensgaard (Lust for a Vampire). The wild music (which was inexplicably dropped on the first few video releases back in the VHS days) is an early effort from David Whitaker, who would go on to provide Hammer Films with two of its best '70s scores (Vampire Circus and Dr. Jekyll & Sister Hyde), not to mention that enduring fan favorite, The Sword and the Sorcerer. As with Pit and the Pendulum, this is taken from a music-and-effects track, which means you'll hear an occasional sound effect in the mix which hopefully won't detract from your enjoyment.

Harrad Sounds

2006-08-02T10:56:00.000-07:00

A perfect example of a movie that could never be made today, The Harrad Experiment arrived in 1973 from director Ted Post (who also did Magnum Force and The Baby the same year -- talk about diversity!). The story takes place at an experimental coed college where the students and teachers engage in naked yoga and skinnydipping to free their inhibitions. Luckily there's a bizarre cast around to keep things interesting including Tippi Hedren, Stuart Whitman, and a bunch of usually-naked future stars including Eight Is Enough's Laurie Walters and a pre-Miami Vice Don Johnson-- who met his future wife, Melanie Griffith (Tippi's daughter), on the set of this film. Lucky Don also gets to croon two songs on the soundtrack (way before his Heart Beat days); don't miss the riotous spoken word interlude on "Wait for Me." The instrumental score from Artie Butler (The Love Machine) fares better, ranging from smooth '70s instru-pop to uptempo dance grooves.
Of course, the film's success demanded a sequel, so one year later audiences got Harrad Summer, with Walters returning in the story of four more experimental college kids cutting loose and getting ready for another year at sex school. This time music duties were handed to busy TV composer Pat Williams (The Mary Tyler Moore Show), who had just finished SSSSSSS ("Don't say it, hiss it!"). The approach is fairly similar to the first one, mixing a pop sensibility with some hipster-funk ("Tonight We Swing") to stir things up. Play both of these at your next fondue party.

The Harrad Experiment
1. I Hope I'll Have Your Love (Vocal: Lori Lieberman)
2. Low Fat Yoga
3. Harry And Beth And Stanley And Sheila 4. First Love
5. Wait For Me (Vocal: Don Johnson)
6. It's Not Over (Vocal: Don Johnson)
7. A Bird In The Hand
8. Stanley's Thing
9. You're An Absolute Miracle
10. Go Gently

Harrad Summer
1. Living At Peace With Myself (Main Title) 2. Tonight We Swing
3. Double Wedding
4. Welcome Home Harry
5. The Eyes Have It
6. Let The Love Begin (Vocal: Gene Redding)
7. A Precious Love
8. Let The Love Begin (Instrumental)
9. Continental Breakfast
10. Poopsie
11. I Think I Love You
12. Living At Peace With Myself / Let The Love Begin (End Title)

More Woman Than You Can Handle

2006-08-01T12:06:00.000-07:00

1965's I, a Woman kicked off the whole sexy Swedish craze thanks to canny promotion from Radley Metzger's Audubon Films. Soon the world was flooded with skin-laced art films in which young Swedish nymphets underwent sexual awakenings to the strains of groovy music. Three years later, director Mac Ahlberg and composer Sven Gyldmark returned to the well with I, a Woman - Part II, starring sexploitation vet Gio Petré in the continuinig adventures of hot-to-trot Siv. Distributed by Chevron Pictures(!), it made enough money to spawn a third and final installment, I, a Woman 3: The Daughter. This score for the second film mixes the usual romantic cues with some unexpected exotica and psychedelic touches, another fine installment for your sexy cinema music collection.

No Way To Treat A Lady

2006-07-31T10:54:00.000-07:00

William Goldman's oddball horror/comic novel No Way to Treat a Lady was made into an even odder 1968 cult film, starring Rod Steiger as a psycho strangler who goes after New York women in a variety of disguises (even in drag) while taunting Jewish cop George Segal. The wonderful score is one of the earlier efforts from the late and underrated Stanley Myers (The Deer Hunter, The Martian Chronicles), mixing some spooky whistling, a lilting main theme, some fun "swinging" bits, a great psychedelic track ("St. Matthew Fashion"), and even a goofy tribute to the Tijuana Brass entitled "Alpert Memorial."

I'll Never Forget What's 'Isname

2006-07-28T10:01:00.000-07:00

Before he turned into Charles Bronson's go-to man, British director Michael Winner was considered one of the more promising directors around with a string of acclaimed films like 1967's taboo-bashing I'll Never Forget What's 'Isname, which entered the history books for the first utterance of the "f-bomb" on-camera (by Marianne Faithfull) as well as the first depiction of oral sex. More memorable now is the opening sequence, which finds harried worker drone Oliver Reed taking an axe to his desk and charging out of the office to find a simpler life. It doesn't quite work out, of course. Amazingly, composer Francis Lai had only been in the game for one year and was enjoying the success of his first score, A Man and a Woman. His work here is quite strong, starting off with a gentle easy-listening vibe before plunging into swinging "mod London" tracks (as if the psychedelic album cover wasn't a clue already).

I'll Never Forget What's 'Isname
1. Cambridge (One Day Soon)
2. Andrew Dreaming
3. Boutique Music
4. School Reunion
5. Visiting Louise
6. Party Music - Show Out!
7. Chamber Music
8. Main Title
9. The Commercial
10. Keep It Cool
11. Radio Music
12. Meeting Susannah
13. Party Music
14. Cambridge (One Day Soon) (Instrumental)

Burn, Baby, Burn

2006-07-26T11:58:00.000-07:00

Prog rock legend and former Yes-man Rick Wakeman startled a lot of people when he scored The Burning, a berserk 1981 slasher film most notable for its often-censored Tom Savini gore effects and early appearances by actors like Holly Hunter, Jason Alexander and Fisher Stevens. (Trivia note: it was also the first official Miramax release.) The electronic score is pretty wild and a far cry from the Halloween knock-off you might expect; there's even a narrated track relating the spooky backstory of Cropsy, the disfigured gardener running amuck with a pair of gardening shears.

However, Wakeman had already dabbled a bit in the soundtrack arena six years earlier with Lisztomania, arguably the wildest Ken Russell movie ever. In this amped-up successor to Tommy, Roger Daltrey stars as the popular composer whose bedroom conquests and long-running feud with Richard Wagner turn into opulent setpieces involving vampirism, a fascist Frankenstein monster stomping around with a machine gun, Ringo Starr as the Pope, and an organ-powered rocketship filled with scantily-clad women. Your average biopic this ain't. The soundtrack adapts several famous Liszt themes and climaxes with the rousing "Peace at Last," presented here in both its album and extended movie versions. Russell and Wakeman later reteamed in the mid-'80s for another classically-influenced score, Crimes of Passion, which is far more readily available.

The Burning
1. Campfire Story
2. The Burning
3. The Fire
4. Doin' It
5. Devil's Creek Breakdown
6. The Chase
7. Shear Terror
8. Theme From The Burning
9. The Chase Continues (Po's Plane)
10. Variations On The Fire
11. Shear Terror And More

Lisztomania
1. Rienzi (Chopsticks Fantasia)
2. Love's Dream
3. Dante Period
4. Orpheus Song
5. Hell
6. Hibernation
7. Excelsior Song
8. Master Race
9. Rape, Pillage & Clap
10. Funerailles
11. Free Song
12. Peace At Last
13. Peace At Last (Movie Version)

'Tis Pity She's a Whore

2006-07-25T10:21:00.000-07:00

'Tis pity indeed that one of Ennio Morricone's most powerful, heartbreaking scores has become so obscure. John Ford's scandalous, gory melodrama of incest and mass murder seemed a natural for the big screen in 1971, given the recent success of glossy Shakespeare films. However, the heavy doses of sex and violence didn't do much for audiences, despite the fact that the film is beautiful to watch thanks to underrated director Giuseppe Patroni Griffi (Metti, una sera a cena). Charlotte Rampling stars as Annabella, a noblewoman torn between a lustful relationship with her tortured brother (The Stud's Oliver Tobias) and a haughty suitor (Fabio Testi). Of course, it all ends badly with the bloodiest third act this side of Tenebrae. The music is pure romantic Morricone, with a haunting main theme ("Giovanni & Annabella") and a creepy, chanted finale ("Inter Mortuos Liber") that really packs a punch.

'Tis Pity She's a Whore1. Giovanni & Annabella
2. Wandering Brother
3. House Of Dreams
4. Au Fond Du Puits
5. Soranzo
6. Our Wonderful World
7. Love Me Or Kill Me, Sister
8. Tassilo
9. Inter Mortuos Liber (Dies Irae)

For Further Listening...

2006-07-24T14:36:00.000-07:00

If you're hungering for more soundtrack oddness, you may want to browse through the iTunes store which has quietly been posting some mind-bending Italian titles lately. Among them are a stunning remastered version of Franco Micalizzi's Beyond the Door (Chi Sei?) (with sound quality that blows away the long out-of-print Japanese CD) and two excellent Stelvio Cipriani "Alleluja" scores that have never been released anywhere, ever: Il West ti va Stretto, Amico... E' Arrivato Alleluja and Testa t'Ammazzo, Croce... Sei Morto Mi Chiamo Alleluja. Some of the limited edition Digitmovies releases are up there as well including Twitch of the Death Nerve, Blood and Black Lace, Death Walks in High Heels, The Red Queen Kills Seven Times and much more.

Hopefully you regular visitors have taken the time to browse through some of the links to the right and find some more musical goodness. If you haven't, here are a few suggestions for some top-notch rarities to try out: Murderers' Row, De Sade, The Dunwich Horror, Candy and Maryjane at ScoreBaby; Sissignore and Codice d'Amore Orientale at Soundsational; The Landlord, Lialeh, In Cold Blood and Hell's Belles at Dust to Dust; tons of pop TV bliss at Mondo Daddykin; Daniel J. White library music at Monone's; Chariots of the Gods at A Closet of Curiosities; They Came to Rob Las Vegas and Willie Dynamite at You Don't Have to Visit This Blog; and... well, that's just barely scratching the surface. Happy hunting!

And most importantly, a special shout-out and thank you to Tim Lucas' Video WatchBlog and Dan Taylor's Exploitation Restrospect for mentioning 7 Black Notes in their columns; bookmark both and visit them often!

Grace Jones and the Corn Kids

2006-07-24T10:57:00.000-07:00

New World Pictures got a lot of mileage out of composer Jonathan Elias, who collaborated with Yes on the ill-received Union and, apparently, now makes a good living scoring TV commercials. He started off strongly in 1984 with the multi-sequeled Stephen King adaptation, Children of the Corn, offering a catchy, creepy musical tapestry much stronger than the film for which it was written; the eerie main theme feels a bit like an amped-up version of The Amityville Horror. After scoring the '80s teen favorite Tuff Turf, he returned to horror with the cult favorite Vamp in 1986, writing a more abstract, darkly ambient score suited to the film's nocturnal terrors and Grace Jones bloodsucking. (And if you're looking for that Grace Jones song played during her stage act in the movie, it's "Seduction Surrender" from Bulletproof Heart.) Elias' subsequent credits include Parents,Two Moon Junction, and Leprechaun 2, a sure sign of diversity if there ever was one.

Music To Make You Go Berserk!

2006-07-21T11:51:00.000-07:00

One of the more unlikely box office heroes of the early '70s, Billy Jack first appeared onscreen in 1967's Born Losers but really took off in his self-titled 1971 feature, the directorial brainchild of star Tom Laughlin and his wife/co-star, Delores Taylor. The karate-chopping, Indian-defending, ex-Green Beret
became an instant star, returning in 1974's The Trial of Billy Jack and 1977's Billy Jack Goes to Washington (which never got to theaters). Jazz guitarist Mundell Lowe (Satan in High Heels) provides the score for the first film and offers some nice groovy flourishes here and there, though the highlight for many listeners will be the catchy hit theme song, "One Tin Soldier." Trial has a more traditional orchestral score by Elmer Bernstein, though you do get some weird touches like a Dies Irae death march, a choral version of "Give Peace a Chance," and the funky "Karate Fight." Read more about Billy Jack by visiting the official site.

Soap Gets In Your Ears: Part 2

2006-07-20T11:08:00.000-07:00

The ultra-trashy novels of Harold Robbins have provided some entertaining, glossy sleaze over the years (see The Carpetbaggers, The Betsy and The Adventurers, for starters), but sitting at the top of the trash heap is The Lonely Lady. This side-splitting1983 soaper stars Pia Zadora as a wide-eyed aspiring screenwriter who gets raped with a garden hose (by Ray Liotta) and decides to sleep her way to the top of the Hollywood elite, thanks to her brilliant writing prowess and ability to copulate on pool tables. Featuring one of the funniest mental breakdown sequences ever filmed, this gem from once-talented Hammer director Peter Sasdy (Countess Dracula, Hands of the Ripper) won a boatload of Razzies and is still screaming out for a DVD release. The soundtrack is a wonderfully ripe chunk of '80s pop excess, including an over-the-top theme song (by "Ellis Hall, Jr.") and, best of all, a zippy cover of the Belle Stars' "The Clapping Song" enhanced by the vocal stylings of Ms. Zadora herself.

Feeeed Me!

2006-07-18T12:38:00.000-07:00

Roger Corman's quickie 1960 horror-comedy has since gone on to become the stuff of legend, mainly for being shot in two days (kind of), featuring a young Jack Nicholson as a masochistic dental patient, and kicking off the careers of legendary Disney songwriting team Alan Menken and Howard Ashman with their hit musical adaptation and the subsequent movie version. The original tale about a downtrodden floral shop employee who nutures a blood-slurping plant, Audrey Jr., into a population-threatening monstrosity still holds up as a model of black comedy on an impoverished budget, still popping up time and time again on home video. The wild score comes courtesy of Fred Katz, who had just dabbled in beat jazz with the previous year's A Bucket of Blood and was busy doing other simultaneous Corman films like The Wasp Woman. Naturally this soundtrack comes with a handful of choice Audrey Jr. audio clips, perfect for playing at the dinner table.

Haunted

2006-07-17T14:13:00.000-07:00

You'd have to look far and wide to find a horror soundtrack more overwrought than 1977's Haunted, a regional drive-in obscurity from Arizona that disappeared from video shelves years ago. The film stars Aldo Ray, Virginia Mayo and Virgin Witch's Ann Michelle in yet another one of those "ticked-off dead supernatural woman comes back from the grave to get revenge centuries later" stories, this time with an Indian tribeswoman killed off during the Civil War doing the honors. Or does she? The music score by Lor Crane (who?) comprises half the album and is pretty standard late-'70s stuff (mostly sounding like Hardy Boys outtakes). On the other hand, the songs on here are incredible, kicking off with the jaw-dropping "Indian Woman"-- a 3-minute howler that manages to encapsulate the entire backstory of the film... badly: "Revenge is her only friend / Indian woooman! / Loving, hating, coming back to clear her name. / Indian woman! / They took her life for gold, now she's searching, tracking down the ones to blame. Indian woman!" Prepare to be amazed.

Home Movies

2006-07-17T11:03:00.000-07:00

Not many people bothered to see Home Movies, an oddball comedic experiment with Sarah Lawrence film students by Brian De Palma (sandwiched between The Fury and Dressed to Kill). Starring Keith Gordon, Kirk Douglas, and a scene-stealing Gerrit Graham (as a deranged scout leader who only eats organic), it's actually quite funny if you're in the right frame of mind. (And where else can you see Nancy Allen as a reformed sex performer who worked with a fuzzy, possessed rabbit puppet?) Pino Donaggio contributes one of his wildest and most melodic scores here, mashing in everything imaginable: rock, classical, disco funk, romantic instrumentals and much, much more. For some reason one of the strongest musical moments, a pop version of Kristina's theme played over the epilogue, was left off the soundtrack album; it's included here as a bonus pulled from the film version.

Privilege

2006-07-13T18:27:00.000-07:00

The best '60s British film no one seems to remember, Privilege is a wild rock and roll/political statement from uncompromising director Peter Watkins (The War Game) in his only major studio film. One of the film's stars, Mark London (To Sir with Love), chipped in on the songs with composer Mike Leander ("Do You Wanna Touch Me"), while star Paul Jones (from Manfred Mann) offers great vocals as a charismatic singer manipulated by the government into luring the youth in a variety of disturbing directions. Catchy, haunting, and definitely gutsy (check out "Onward Christian Soldiers" and "Jerusalem"), it's ripe for rediscovery. For some insane reason, Universal has never bothered to release the film on home video in any format. However, anyone in the Los Angeles area can catch it on the big screen on Saturday, July 15 at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood, as part of the incredible, annual Mods & Rockers Festival (on a double bill with the equally hard-to-see Stardust); click here for more information.

The Swedish Fanny Hill

2006-07-12T17:51:00.000-07:00

The scandalous novel of an English girl's sexy misadventures went super-mod in 1968 courtesy of Swedish director Mac Ahlberg, who went on to become the cinematographer on Hell Night and pretty much every Stuart Gordon and Full Moon title. The original Swedish version featured a score by Pippi Longstocking composer Georg Riedel, but American distributor Cinemation opted for something a bit groovier and brought on composer Clay Pitts (who would do the incredible Female Animal two years later). Much of the soundtrack consists of Pitt-composed pop and rock numbers performed by "Oven," with a whopping 16-minute number, "Please Touch Me," closing it out. The bubblegum charms of "Sail a Boat" are hard to resist, too.

18 Feet of Gut-Crunching, Musical Terror!

2006-07-11T10:51:00.000-07:00

One of the most beloved '70s drive-in nature-amok outings, Grizzly proved to be a big hit for late director William Girdler, the cracked genius who also gave the world The Manitou and Day of the Animals. Along with stalwarts Christopher George, Andrew Prine and Richard Jaeckel running around in the woods firing bazookas at man-eating wildlife, the film features a melodic score by composer Robert O. Ragland, who had already done The Thing with Two Heads and Girdler's Abby. The soundtrack is pure '70s nature-disaster music movie heaven, with a poppy theme song ("What Makes a Man a Man?"), a tender love theme, and lots of creepy, sinister music whenever the bear (or its furry stand-in) appears.

Soap Gets In Your Ears: Part I

2006-07-10T16:39:00.000-07:00

Showgirls and Wild Things notwithstanding, Hollywood has been really slacking off in its delivery of lurid, overwrought soap opera trash on the big screen for the past decade. Just take a look back the '60s and '70s, which were filled with glossy, howlingly trashy adaptations of books by writers like Harold Robbins, Sidney Sheldon, and that tragic queen to rule over them all, Jacqueline Susann. She'll always be remembered for that catfighting classic, Valley of the Dolls, but the screen was also blessed with other Susann stories as well -- namely 1975's Once Is Not Enough and 1971's sadly neglected The Love Machine. Diabolik himself, John Phillip Law, stars as the titular "love machine," a local TV news anchor (they were once considered celebrities, believe it or not) who decides to sleep his way to the top and winds up tangling pyromaniac exec spouse Dyan Cannon and outrageously "flamboyant" photographer David Hemmings. Sony's really overdue with a DVD of this one. Composing duties here are handled by first-timer Artie Butler, a songwriter who went on to score The Harrad Experiment and The Rescuers. His work here has a surprisingly groovy edge, especially the two-part "House Party" cues, but most folks remember this for the two songs by Dionne Warwick (or "Warwicke" according to the album cover), "He's Moving On" and "Amanda."

Girl Bombs Away!

2006-07-10T12:11:00.000-07:00

Universally regarded as the worst film Mario Bava ever made, Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs was the less-than-spectacular follow-up to Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine with Fabian stepping in for an absent Frankie Avalon and Vincent Price still running around trying to cause world chaos. As usual with Bava's AIP titles, the film was drastically altered for its American release and, in its final version, appears to have been edited in a blender. Designed as a vehicle for would-be comedians Franco and Ciccio, the Italian version isn't much better but at least boasts a more coherent storyline; however, its teeth-grating music score by Lallo Gori (featuring Franco performing "vocal" duties) makes AIP's decision to scrap the entire soundtrack quite understandable. Taken on its own terms, the American LP is a great "with-it" pop collection alternating songs with instrumentals by the "Mad Doctors" (though Les Baxter is credited with the score on the actual film). Oh yeah, and musical direction comes courtesy of Mike Curb (see The Big Bounce below). As a bonus, you'll also find a homemade 6-minute suite of music from the Italian version; don't expect to listen to it more than once, but at least you'll get an idea of how very different the film's two incarnations really are.

The Big Bounce

2006-07-10T11:36:00.000-07:00

Elmore Leonard's classic crime novel The Big Bounce has been botched twice on the big screen so far, though the first version from 1969 has some enjoyable exploitation elements (including a lot of skin for a 1969 studio film) and a very catchy pop score by Mike Curb, who scored plenty of drive-in favorites likeThe Wild Angels before taking over MGM Records, firing the Velvet Underground, inflicting Donny and Marie Osmond on the world, and becoming a failed, right-wing politician. Anyway, this score has a nice, summery feel to it, with the first eight tracks covering the instrumental score and breezy vocal adaptations filling out the rest. No vocals are credited, but it's very much in the same vein as the Mike Curb Congregation albums coming out around the same time. Perfect listening for your next trip to the beach.

Yor's World

2006-07-06T10:19:00.000-07:00

No fan of spectacularly deranged filmmaking can afford to miss Yor, the Hunter from the Future, a stupefying cable TV favorite from director Antonio Margheriti (Castle of Blood) about a buff, blond caveman who tangles with dinosaurs, aliens, and a cavegirl played by Story of O's Corinne Clery. Pretty difficult to see now, it's worth hunting for if you feel so inclined. Anyway, the feature was released in English by Columbia Pictures(!), drastically condensed from a four-hour Italian TV miniseries with a score by the fantastic Guido and Maurizio De Angelis-- who also gave you the insanely catchy Torso and Keoma and sing under the name "Oliver Onions." While their instrumental score is entertaining enough, it's the theme song, "Yor's World" (performed by - yep - Oliver Onions), that really claws its way into your brain, bursting from the soundtrack at wildly inopportune moments. Columbia decided their re-edit needed some extra music, so they brought on composer/library music maestro John Scott (before he hit the big time with Greystoke) to write some incidental cues here and there. Only 4 of his comparatively bland tracks made it to the soundtrack LP with the De Angelis Bros. still making up the majority (12 tracks), but the poor Italians still got shafted with an "Additional Music by..." credit on the front cover. Later an Australian CD was released, but it only contained Scott's music; so, to correct that oversight, we now proudly present the De Angelis-ized version of Yor, so sing along to your heart's content: "Lost in the world of past / In the echo of ancient dust / There is a man from future, a man of mystery..."

The Empire Pictures Sound

2006-07-05T15:11:00.000-07:00

Before starting Full Moon Entertainment, Charles Band and company spent most of the '80s releasing horror and sci-fi titles under the banner of Empire Pictures. Most people remember them for Stuart Gordon classics like Re-Animator and From Beyond, but the rest of their fare is pretty unusual as well. Here we celebrate two lesser-known, very different scores from the golden Empire year of 1986, Richard Band's Troll (the one where Seinfeld's Julia Louis-Dreyfus becomes a wood nymph and Sonny Bono turns into a tree) and Pino Donaggio's Crawlspace (with Klaus Kinski as a crazy ex-Nazi who stalks women in his boarding house).

The Band score is an atmospheric, choir-heavy piece divided into five parts -- or as the cover label puts it, "Utilizing elements of avant garde Euro-progressive rock and haunting musical themes, Richard Band's evocative electronic and orchstral score for Troll is superb. Accented by otherworldly choral sections, the overall work takes on the ambiance of the classic Fantasia. At times serene and poignant and at other times simply unsettling, this is a work for fans of Tangerine Dream, Magma, Il Balleto di Bronzo and the like." Got that? [NOTE: link now removed as this has been commercially released.]

On the other hand, the Donaggio score is pure horror all the way, with a heavy emphasis on synths and a haunting main theme that really comes to fruition in the standout final track, "Martha's Lament / End Titles" (whose Hebrew lyrics are a memory of the horrors at Auschwitz). Incidentally, this was the second of Donaggio's three collaborations with David Schmoeller, also including Tourist Trap and Catacombs.

Apocalypse Tomorrow

2006-06-29T14:33:00.000-07:00

Fantastically funky music from the 1980 Italian action/horror opus Apocalypse Domani (a.ka. Cannibal Apocalypse, Invasion of the Flesh Hunters, and about 10 other titles) by drive-in legend Antonio Margheriti. The movie follows a trio of Vietnam vets who terrorize the streets (and sewers) of Atlanta after suffering the delayed effects of a virus that drives its victims to take a bite out of other people. Though composer Alessandro Blonksteiner contribued five cues to Walter Rizzati's amazing score for House by the Cemetery, this remains his only full, solo film score; a pity, as it's lots of fun. From sweet and jazzy Morricone-inspired melodies ("Jane," "Impossible Love") to early '80s jazz/soul mash-ups ("Apocalypse," "Station Service"), the score is never boring and has a similar vibe to other Italian horror favorites from the same period. Nice use of bongos, too. Break out the munchies and enjoy...

The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea

2006-06-28T12:00:00.000-07:00

Jazz legend Johnny Mandel scored a big soundtrack hit with The Sandpiper (and its theme song, "The Shadow of Your Smile"), and eventually he returned to the seaside again in '76 for this much darker story, adapted from the controversial Yukio Mishima novel and featuring notorious love scenes with Sarah Miles and Kris Kristofferson (who also helped out with music duties). The music has a smooth and dreamy atmosphere in keeping with the story and period, taken here from the Japanese vinyl pressing.

The Boogey Man

2006-06-28T10:14:00.000-07:00

Spooky synth music for the 1980 horror hit, the most successful film by indie director/former Fassbinder colleague Uli Lommel. The score was concocted by three California-based sound consultants under the name "Synthe-Sound-Trax" and sounds a bit like a cross between John Carpenter's Halloween and Colin Towns' Full Circle (which isn't surprising, since the opening of the movie apes the Carpenter film pretty closely). The film itself is a bizarre twist on the slasher formula with a possessed mirror shard compelling people to die in imaginative accidents, with one especially funny bit involving a car door. The score was independently released by the composer in a limited (1,000-unit) vinyl pressing shortly following the film's release (this comes from #867, for anyone who's counting) and remains an interesting example of early electronic horror music.

New Download Link (FLAC/lossless)

Look for a Star

2006-06-27T15:01:00.000-07:00

One more AIP title, this time the influential 1960 British film, Circus of Horrors, about a plastic surgeon on the run from the law who decides to operate a circus and kill lots of sexy women 'cause the plot tells him to. The musical highlight is definitely the theme song, Garry Mills' "Look for a Star," one of those melodies that burrows its way into your head and refuses to leave for days. (Check out Jeepers Creepers: Songs from Horror Films for an amusing cover version by "Guy Haines.) The rest of the album is a straight-up music score from Muir Mathieson (best known for working with Bernard Herrmann on Vertigo) and Franz Reizenstein (Hammer's The Mummy), alternating bombastic circus music and "scary" stuff.

[link removed - soundtrack now officially available]