Remembering Carlo Rustichelli

Carlo Rustichelli was born on December 24, 1916 in Carpi, Modena, Italy. He became one of the most prolific film composers in Italy from the end of the 1930s until the mid-'90s, his work was represented in more than 250 movies. Carlo studied piano and composition at the Academia Filarmonica in Bologna, and later at the Academy of Santa Cecilia in Rome. He began his career in music as a composer in the fields of opera and theater music, and began writing film music in 1939. He worked in movies intermittently during the early '40s, though Rustichelli wasn't closely involved in motion pictures on a steady basis for another nine years. It was his work for director Pietro Germi, on such movies as “In Nome Della Legge” (1949) and “Il Cammino Della Speranza” (1950) that altered the course of Rustichelli's career. They were both so pleased with the results of their early collaborations that Germi insisted on engaging Rustichelli for further projects, and the composer soon discovered that he could be astonishingly prolific. Over the next 50 years, he scored hundreds of movies, ranging from Sword and Sandal, Action Adventure, Spaghetti Westerns and serious subjects from Dramas to Saucy Comedies. Carlo scored 19 Euro-westerns from “Buffalo Bill in the Far West” (1965) to “Red Coat” (1975). Rustichelli is the father of actress Alida Chelli [1943- ]. Carlo died on November 13, 2004 in Rome. Today we remember Carlo Rustichelli on what would have been his 95^th birthday.