Gatti Rossi (Alternate Take) — Bruno Nicolai
#365Songs: January 22
The #365Songs trio has a side chat going. In that chat we make sure Smitty is going to finish his posts, coordinate writing days, and generally complain about the state of all this shit [waves arms around].
I started another post for today, but then Smitty joked that I was finishing up my three-years-in-the-making post about Celine Dion. While I can’t exactly pull the bait and switch in a post that leads with the title of the track I’m celebrating, I can knee-jerk my reaction to the thought of actually trying to sell Celine Dion in #365Songs. I can put my prior song on hold and take that fork in the road.
I mean you no disrespect, Celine, but I can’t. But it did get me thinking about film scores and the yin to the yang of “My Heart Will Go On” and James Horner — who, of course, wrote the Titanic score.
And that composer is obviously the great and proflific Bruno Nicolai. Who’s Bruno Nicolai? Well, if you shine your iPhone flashlight into the gargantuan shadow cast by Ennio Morricone, you’ll notice Bruno conducting Ennio’s scores with his left arm — and writing at least two others with his right.
Bruno Nicolai collaborated with Ennio on most every score the latter wrote until 1974. Composing. Conducting. They were the dream team of Italian genre composers.
I thought of Nicolai because he’s my favorite composer for the Italian giallo films and I’ve been building a small collection of Nicolai scores on vinyl. Why Bruno? Well, I’m so glad you asked. His best scores are not all that available. They’re not available on Spotify. They’ve been released hither and thither on different media over the years, but because of the niche vinyl market being what it is — many have been released by boutique and prestige labels over the last ten to fifteen years.
My personal favorite — his score for the Eurospy “classic” Special Mission Lady Chaplin (1966) — which certainly derives tonal qualities from John Barry’s James Bond scores. Nicolai arguably puts his guitars to better use throughout the composition. It’s more swinging, more loose and ready, a quality that only benefits the chiseled, winking, and punchable visage of Ken Clark as Agent 077, wearer of snazzy cardigans.
On the horror/giallo side, the opening title sequence of The Case of the Scorpion’s Tail (1971) sets a mood better than any single element Sergio Martino could have included in the film. The guitar and bass playing nice and friendly and eerie until the electronic distortion undermines with the unseen sinister lurking just out of earshot. Later tracks turn the motif on its head with lighthearted, classical piano over jazz rhythms. It’s beautiful, layered music — buoying one of the most deliberate and by-the-numbers Martino giallo outings. Just listen.
But I couldn’t pick either. They’re not available on Spotify. They’re barely available on YouTube, popping in and out as rights holders nip and tuck wayward properties.
Instead I’m riding with his title theme for 1975’s Gatti rossi in un labirinto di vetro (aka Eyeball), directed by Umberto Lenzi. In every way that Martino’s Scorpion’s Tail is a restrained and routine deployment of the giallo tropes, Lenzi was never known for moderation. Eyeball comes later in the giallo cycle, the genre’s limited tropes used up and regurgitated a dozen times over. Lenzi’s film sidles up to parody, but never tips. The characters test hyperbole and the killer’s eyeball fetish results in a series of trashy, gory setpieces that may not be the finest filmmaking, but make for a memorable experience.
This helps set the scene for Nicolai’s period-specific score, which could have easily supported the opening to a romantic comedy, a pleasant drive through the countryside, a shopping excursion through Milan. It’s a utilitarian score, but one’s that wielded ironically, minor chords haunting the jaunty foreground. Even the composer’s overt horror cues could be mistaken for a Burt Bacharach B-Side.
Gatti rossi might not be up to the standards of Nicolai’s finest score, but it’s a pleasant cross-section of the composer’s work in a specific part of the Italian film industry that produced hordes of genre films to capitalize on global filmmaking trends. Sex comedy. Spaghetti westerns. Crime films. The giallo, however, cuts its own swath.
The uniquely Italian genre celebrates style over substance, innovation within repetition and familiarity. It nudged the American slasher into existence, which ultimately picked giallo’s clean for inspiration. Friday the 13th Part II (1981), for example, lifts a kill verbatim from Mario Bava’s Bay of Blood (1971).
It’s a shame that the American copies failed to employ musicians of the caliber of Bruno Nicolai and Morricone and their Italian contemporaries Fabio Frizzi, Riz Ortolani, Roberto Nicolosi, Goblin. They lacked the visual panache, certainly, but most importantly the scores couldn’t give the films extratextual irony, or the eccentric, mad genius they needed to be more than kill counts. They just were exercises in gore, and there’s something visceral and useful about that, but it’s also limited and diminishing.
Sort of like another godforsaken spin of Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On” or a viewing of Titanic. Limited and diminishing.
See how I brought it all back?
Bruno Nicolai’s final scores supported the out-of-competition Cannes entry Cammina, cammina (1982) and Tinto Brass’ Caligula (1979). A maestro for all flavors. He retired at the age of 56, having carved out a career that deserves its own celebration — rather than just a footnote on Morricone’s wiki page.
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