Digitmovies is glad to release for the very
first time on CD the complete OST in full stereo by Luciano
Michelini for the movie La Città Gioca D'Azzardo which,
shot in 1975 by Sergio Martino, is marginally part of the
Italian police genre.
Luc Merenda starred in the role of the nice protagonist with
supporting players Dayle Haddon, Corrado Pani and Enrico Maria
Salerno.
The plot sees Merenda as Luca Altieri, a gambler who is engaged
in a club.
The owner (Maria Salerno) is the boss of a large ring of gambling
houses.
Love for a woman (Haddon) torn between Luca and the son of
the boss (Pani) will cause a rivalry which leads up to the
beating up of Luca and the killing of the owner by the hands
of his own son.
After having escaped to Nice with the girl, Luca will challenge
the cynical killer in a tragic finale.
The movie by Martino mixes action with comedy and dramatic
genres, in fact this movie is more a noir than a real police
movie.
This motion picture shot in Milan and Nice can be considered
the central part of a hypothetical trilogy about the socio-political
facts of the Italy of the '70s that Sergio Martino started
with the police movie Milano Trema La Polizia Vuole Giustizia,
continued with the noir La Città Gioca D'Azzardo and
finished with the political La Polizia Accusa Il Servizio
Segreto Uccide.
Luciano Michelini has composed a main theme with a burlesque
flavour, a little bit retro in a cabaret style which puts
well in evidence the Casino ambience and gets reprised with
delicious variations (Tr. 1, Tr. 3, Tr. 4, Tr. 5, Tr. 7, Tr.
11, Tr. 17, Tr. 19, Tr. 20).
This recurrent motif is alternated with exciting action themes
with the Lalo Schifrin sound of Dirty Harry concerning chases
and shootings (Tr. 6, Tr. 8, Tr. 9, Tr. 12, Tr. 16, Tr. 21,
Tr. 22) and with a fabulous duet of piano and sax with an
urban flavour in Tr. 14.
The author has written a romantic love theme for the two main
protagonists, introduced by piano and the voice of Nora Orlandi
in Tr. 2, and then reprised by the orchestra in Tr. 10, Tr.
14, Tr. 15, Tr. 18, Tr. 23 and in the conclusive version of
the End Titles (Tr. 24).
For this CD we have used the stereo master tapes of the original
recording session preserved in very good condition in the
RCA archives. |
