Piero Piccioni:
"La Decima Vittima (The 10th Victim)"
| RATE: | ++++ very good! |
| REVIEW: |
Original soundtrack to a 1965 movie that was directed by Elio Petri, and produced by Joseph E. Levine, based upon a SF book by Robert Sheckley. According to the liner notes, the story is a bizare, black comedy set in the 21st century, where the 2 stars, Mastroiani and Ursula Andress, are licensed killers in a murder-minded society, seeking to kill each other. Piccioni described his score as "futuristic jazz", but has a surprisingly light & fresh "pop" feel; I mean, there's no pretentious, high-brow experimentation goin' on, and the whole score is kept quite sober. Actually, I wished the modern jazz of today sounded more like this "futuristic" music of the past. Surprisingly though, no special electronic effects or instruments were used.
The CD opens with a great vocal (English) version of the "Spiral waltz" theme by Mina, backed by a "John Barry does Bond" style of big band. This song is catchy, in a odd way, with melody fragments that playfully jump up and down the scale. The second track opens with the sound of crickets, followed by several gun shots, and then we hear the same "Spiral waltz" theme, which -- as in so many soundtracks -- is repeated several times in this soundtrack; here it is done as a scatt version by the same Mina, this time accompanied by a nervous organ, which injects the melody with some dissonants here and there; nothing scary, just enough to make it sound "futuristic" I guess, to discern it from simple cocktail jazz. The same organ jumps to a higher gear for "The chase", with more dissonants, accentuating the suspense, yet still following some kind of melody, backed by what sounds like a very nervous and shaky bossa nova percussion set. "The rendezvous" slows everything down again, to an intimate and romantic cool jazz sound. But not for long: "Keep running" is classic crime jazz. After a rather boring piano solo tune, we're back to the main theme, played softly by... I don't know what kind of string instrument: a harpsichord? a spinet? -- accompanied only by bass. "The trap" is a dark, slow & moody organ & piano suspense tune (one of the only dark pieces on this soundtrack), followed by "Quiet interlude", where soft organ and harp create a sad atmosphere. "A place to hide" is the same title theme again, played as a nice cocktail jazz with an undercurrent of tension, danger, and again with that unusual spinet sound (or whatever instrument it is). The cachy "Ursula shake" twist leads to a series of no less than 8 repetitions, slight variations, or continuations of previous tracks -- people who dislike this kind of "filler" be warned. From these, I guess "A place to hide - take 2" is the most "futuristic" jazz tune, with freestyling saxes jumping around the melody, very different from the first take of it. At track 20, we finally get a new tune, "Love theme", which is very nice, soft EZ jazz, with a warm sax sound. This CD closes with 2 versions of the "Spiral waltz" theme: an Italian sung version by Mina, and an instrumental/wordless choir one. If there's 1 weak point in this soundtrack, then it could be that endles theme repetition; but it does make the CD clock in at 68+ minutes, and gives you 6 tracks not found on the original 1965 Mainstream LP version. A tech note for sound perfectionists: the original masters contained tape drops on a few tracks, a fact that is mentioned on the back of the CD. As a great bonus, the booklet unfolds as a cool A3 size repro of the original futuristic cartoon style film poster. |
| DETAILS: |
artist: Piero Piccioni
title: "La Decima Vittima (The 10th Victim)" label info: CD/Double LP, Right Tempo/Easy Tempo ET 923, Italy, 1998 |
| AVAILABLE FROM: |
Right Tempo is distributed quite well world-wide, so you should be able to get it from lots of local stores & internet sites, including: |