Mark’s Vinyl Corner – “Matalo”

 

Matalo!

(1970)

 

Composer: Mario Migliardi

Country: Italy

Label: Four Flies Records

Tracks: 19

Listening time: 63:47

Available September 27, 2024

 

Matalo! is a 1970 ‘western crépusculaire’ by Milanese director Cesare Canevari, known for his visually striking genre films, starring Swedish enfant terrible Lou Castel and Italian theatre actor Corrado Pani. Canevari adopts an experimental, atmospheric approach, relying heavily on out-of-focus effects and framing his shots unconventionally. This gives a dark and atmospheric turn to the western genre, with the typical dusty plains transformed into a windswept ghost town, while action sequences replace dialogues almost entirely, leaving actors with very little to say – and, therefore, putting the music center stage.

Composer Mario Migliardi – who was also a conductor, pianist, and Hammond organist – throws out the rulebook for Italian Westerns. Prepare for a wild ride of psych-rock textures, swirling electronic filters, haunting reverbs, and concrete sounds – a sonic tapestry that seamlessly blends influences ranging from Jimi Hendrix to Luciano Berio.

Migliardi masterfully combines traditional folk instruments like acoustic guitars and percussion with non-canonical electronic processing, creating an electro-acoustic alchemy that feels both fresh and timeless today, probably way more than it did in the 1970s. In particular, the Leslie filter, a hallmark in the Hammond organs popular at the time, is applied to the entire soundtrack, resulting in a very distinctive and dynamic phaser effect.

The soundtrack’s highlight is probably the rock song featuring vocals from Giano Ton, aka Giacomo Tosti, the only track to have found its way on vinyl prior to this LP (it was the B-side of a forty-five released by RCA Italy at the time). Its 9-minute extended version, previously unavailable on vinyl, is a fantastic hard-blues-rock jam à la Hendrix.

This limited-edition double vinyl LP comes in a stunning gatefold jacket with artwork by Eric Adrien Lee, who drew inspiration from the film’s original posters and promo material

Definitely a must-have for collectors of unique soundtracks and adventurous music!

Track listing:

1.Matalo! (Theme Song) Feat. Giano Ton 09:53

2.Matalo! (Main Titles - Stereo) 04:23

3.Matalo! (Mirage) 01:52

4.Matalo! (Old Town) 04:51

5.Matalo! (Chase) 04:18

6.Matalo! (Long Shadows) 04:25

7.Matalo! (Chase Pt.2) 02:42

8.Matalo! (Theme Song - Instrumental) 04:47

9.Matalo! (Chase Pt.3) 02:30

10.Matalo! (Old Town Pt.2) 03:27

11.Matalo! (Cantina) 02:16

12.Matalo! (Ballata Dei Vestiti) 01:41

13.Matalo! (Under The Sun) 02:23

14.Matalo! (Theme Song - Single Version) 03:15

15.Matalo! (Solitude) 00:56

16.Matalo! (Main Titles - Ila Colonna) 04:24

17.Matalo! (Fischio) 01:36

18.Matalo! (Ghosts) 03:06

19.Matalo! (Hey Gente) Feat. Corrado Pani 04:02

New German Blu-ray release “Django 2”

 

“Django 2”

(Django Strikes Again)

(1987)

 

Director: Nello Rossati

Starring: Franco Nero, Christopher Connelly, Licinia Lentini, Donald Pleasance

 

Country: Germany

Label: WME Film Klassiker

Discs: 1

Aspect Ratio: 16:9 - 1.78:1

Languages: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0), German, English

Running time: 96 minutes

ASIN: B0DCZ1MPNY

Available: September 26, 2024

Everything you (maybe) don't know about Sergio Leone's "spaghetti westerns"

"Sixty years ago, A Fistful of Dollars was released in Italian cinemas. What is spaghetti westerns? Here are some curiosities from Sergio Leone's sets.

Focus

September 12, 2024

[Clint Eastwood on the set of A Fistful of Dollars, directed by Sergio Leone in 1964.]

 In 1964 A Fistful of Dollars was released in Italian cinemas, let's find out the background of Sergio Leone's first western through the article "Spaghetti western" taken from the archives of Focus Storia.

Why a western? A Fistful of Dollars is Sergio Leone's first western film; No one, then, would have bet on such a resounding success. Perhaps not even Leone himself, who had a limited budget and a script that took up a film about the samurai by the Japanese Kurosawa (which also had a judicial aftermath). But why choose the western, a typically American genre?

The decline of the blockbusters. Cristina Bragaglia, professor of film history at the University of Bologna, explains: "The "peplum" trend, the costumed blockbusters with a Roman or mythological setting, such as The Last Days of Pompeii or Quo Vadis, shot at Cinecittà and which had kept the economic fortunes of Italian cinema high (albeit in the hands of American directors), had entered a crisis. We needed to find new subjects." It was Amadeo Tessari, alias Duccio Tessari, who focused on the western. But Italian producers could not hope to hire American actors who specialize in the genre. Little-known faces were chosen, such as that of the young Californian Clint Eastwood. Leone was not looking for a hero's face. His characters were cynical, never idealistic.

Alongside Eastwood, for the films of the "Dollar Trilogy" (in addition to A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More of 1965, The Good, the Bad of 1966), ended up Lee van Cleef and Eli Wallach. They too were very little "John Wayne". Because? "There was a desire to reinterpret the genre in an ironic way, as evidenced by the sparse dialogues, sometimes surreal to the point of humorous," says the historian. For the same reason, next to these protagonists, there was no room for strong female roles. The only exception is Claudia Cardinale, in Once Upon a Time in the West (1968).

Texas in Spain. The low budget prevented it from filming in the United States. Spain was chosen as an alternative, then under the Franco dictatorship. Not only were the costs there very low, but there were also, between Castile and Andalusia, corners that seemed to have been thrown there from Texas or Arizona. In Andalusia, the area around Tabernas was chosen, today a village of 4 thousand inhabitants in the middle of 280 km2 of semi-dertic landscape, where you can still visit some sets. In Castile, the West was instead in Sala de Los Infantes, 60 km from Burgos.

The Franco government welcomed the Italians with open arms: it granted authorizations and lent a hand with logistics. It was the Spanish soldiers who built the fake cemetery of 8 thousand graves at the end of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. And it was the Spanish military genius who built the bridge that, in the same film, is blown up in a spectacular sequence.

Historical study. Beyond the cinematographic result (which became a cult within a generation), the "spaghetti westerns", as the Americans called them with contempt, were not approximate. Indeed. "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, a recognized masterpiece of the Trilogy, well represents the very harsh American Civil War," explains Bragaglia. Leone documented himself in the United States and managed to restore, more than the Americans, the violence of that conflict. And the director explained that, when he was studying how to make a scene with a Northern prison camp, the Nazi death camps crossed his mind. The violence of Italian-style westerns was not, therefore, as some said at the time, an end in itself. After all, it was the violence of history.

Special Birthdays

Martine Beswick (actress) is 75 today.

Little Known Spaghetti Western Actors ~ Mario Capuccio

[These daily posts will cover little known actors or people that have appeared in more recent films and TV series. Various degrees of information that I was able to find will be given and anything that you can add would be appreciated.]

Mario Cappuccio is/was an Italian character actor. He appeared in only four films between 1967 and 1986 and one TV series appearance. Three of those films were Spaghetti westerns: “...e vennero in quattro per uccidere Sartana!” (They Came to Kill Sartana) 1969 (fight promoter), “Inginocchiati straniero… i cadaveri non fanno ombra!” (Dead Men Don’t Make Shadows) 1970, “Arrivano Django e Sartana… è la fine” (Django and Sartana are Coming… It’s the End) 1970.

Simone Blondell responded to my inquiry on Mario. "Hi, his name was Mario Ciccarelli...he died many years ago... he wasn't an actor, he only did it for Demofilo. He was a jack of all trades, he did everything in Demofilo's films and also worked outside the cinema for him...big kiss."

CAPUCCIO, Mario (aka Mario Cappuccio, Mario Ceccarella) (Mario Ciccarelli) [19??, Italy - deceased.] – film, TV actor.

They Came to Kill Sartana – 1969 (fight promoter)

Dead Men Don’t Make Shadows – 1970

Django and Sartana are Coming… It’s the End – 1970

“Slightly Red Handed

 

Slightly Red Handed – English title

 

A 2021 British short film [Hastings Infinity Films (London)]

Producer:

Director: James Hastings

Story: James Hastings

Screenplay: James Hstings

Cinematography: Amber Tunstall [color]

Music: Auduo Network

     Song: “Wild West Honey”, “Wisdom in the Sky” sungby Jame Burgon

Running time:

 

Cast:

Dorothy Pile – Katrie McKenna

Carson Avery – Wayne Reid

Jericho Pile – Adam Tucker

Out in the Wild West, a retired magician is confronted one stormy night by an anxious priest in search of a miracle, but once a confession is made, tensions surface.

Film link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBy-jeVieu0

Who Are Those Guys? ~ Larry Dolgin

 

Lawrence Maurice Dolgin was born in Toledo, Ohio on December 7, 1931. His film debut appears to have been a small part in 1957’s “Hot Rod Rumble”, a low-budget teen drama about drag racing that was shot at Hollywood Studios in two weeks. Larry then embarked on a music career, and during the late 1950s and early 1960s, he was second tenor in The Cables, a successful vocal and instrumental group based in San Francisco, California. In 1961, they released the songs "Choo-Choo" and "Midnight Roses" as a two-sided single on the RCA Victor label and toured successfully for several years.

Larry eventually left The Cables to begin a solo career, and in 1964, he served as emcee for an all-girl revue named Moulin Rouge. Somehow, he ended up in Rome - presumably in search of acting work. The earliest Italian films he's known to have appeared in are both from 1968: the western “Black Jack” and the crime movie “Quella carogna dell'ispettore Sterling”. In both movies he had fairly large, credited roles, but he didn't land any further significant on-screen roles after that. Instead, he seems to have shifted all of his efforts to working as a dubber on the English-language versions of Italian films - possibly because he found more steady work in that area, with native English speakers being in constant demand for dubbing jobs. As a dubber, Larry lent his voice to countless Italian films dubbed in Rome, but he also worked steadily as a dubbing actor and director for film sales company Atlas International Film, which was based in Munich, Germany.

In the 1980s, Larry acting career picked up he appeared in more on-screen roles, primarily small roles in American productions shot in Rome, but he also had reasonably large roles in some Italian movies such as “Ciao nemico and Caligola” and “La storia mai raccontata” (both 1982), and had  a particularly substantial roles in TV mini-series such as ‘L'ombra nera del Vesuvio’ (1986) and ‘Il principe del deserto’ (1991). Other roles, however, were typically small, and several were uncredited, too.

Larry came into a nice inheritance in the 1990s and retired to a villa in Sardinia with his girlfriend, an English dancer/choreographer named Daphne. Indeed, Larry's final known film appearance was in “Ancient Warriors”, an American action movie shot on location in Sardinia in 2001.

Larry and Daphne were married and had three children.

Larry Dolgin died in Ittiri, Sassari, Sardinia, Italy. He was 84 years old.

Dolgin appeared in two Spaghetti westerns: “Black Jack” in 1968 As Reb the outlaw who kissed Robert Woods and as a narrator in “Stay Away from Trinity When He Comes to Eldorado” in 1972.

DOLGIN, Larry (aka Lerry Dolchin, Larry Dolgen, Larry Maurice Dolgin) (Lawrence Maurice Dolgin) [12/7/1931, Toledo, Ohio, U.S.A. – 4/5/2016, Ittiri, Sassari, Sardinia, Italy] – model, director, assistant director, writer, film editor, film, TV, voice actor, dancer, singer, married to Daphne Dolgin father of three children, member of ‘The Cables’ singing group.

Black Jack – 1968 (Reb)

A Cry of Death! – 1971 [English voice of Giuseppe Cardillo]

Stay Away from Trinity When He Comes to Eldorado – 1972 [narrator]

A Bounty Killer in Trinity - 1972 [English voice of Antonio Cantafora]

Red Coats – 1975 [English voice of Guido Mannari]

Thunder Warrior – 1983 [English voice of Raimund Harmstorf]

Scalps – 1987 [English voice of Vassili Karis]