Soap Gets In Your Ears: Part 5

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.

Jerry's Turn

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.

Smile on Your Brother

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.

Sandy Sounds

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

Bless You

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

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

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.

Newley's Folly

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.

Imaginary Friends

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

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 from the Vaults

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!

Gold Rush

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!

Gypsies and Tramps

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

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)

Stick 'Em Up!

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)

Hollywood or Bust

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

Cipriani in '78

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

Ma Barker's Killer Tunes

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

Soap Gets in Your Ears: Part 3

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.

Ka-Boom!

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.