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Tarantino's eclectic music choices in the Kill Bill Vol. 1 soundtrack enhance the energy and excitement of the action-packed set pieces. Uma Thurman's thrilling sword fights as the Bride become more exhilarating with the perfect songs playing in the background. The Kill Bill Vol. 1 soundtrack, filled with classic songs and original compositions, adds depth and emotion to the martial arts epic storyline.

The Kill Bill soundtrack remains one of Quentin Tarantino’s most eclectic and enjoyable releases. Ever since Mr. Blonde tortured a police officer to the tune of “Stuck in the Middle with You” in Reservoir Dogs, Tarantino has been known for his movie's needle drops. His music choices are as integral to his signature filmmaking style as his snappy dialogue and graphic violence. Music isn’t usually a priority for action movies, but Tarantino proved with Kill Bill that the right song can enhance the...

This debut feature of muscleman favorite Reg Park is one of the better sword ‘n’ sandal epics; it has good action and a terrific villainess in Fay Spain. The okay story is Benoit’s L’Atlantide, re-shaped to fit the fad for all things Hercules. The Film Detective’s disc is the Woolner Bros.’ American release, trimmed by half a reel and given an entirely new audio mix. It’s still an impressive show.

Hercules and the Captive Women

Blu-ray

The Film Detective

1961/ 1963 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 95, 101 min. / Street Date April 13, 2021 / Ercole alla conquista di Atlantide, Hercules Conquers Atlantis / 24.99

Starring: Reg Park, Fay Spain, Ettore Manni, Luciano Marin, Laura Efrikian, Enrico Maria Salerno, Ivo Garrani, Gian Maria Volontè, Mario Petri, Salvatore Furnari, Maurizio Coffarelli, Nicola Sperli.

Cinematography: Carlo Carlini

Film Editor: Maurizio Lucidi

Original Music: Gino Marinuzzi Jr., Armando Trovajoli

Written by Vittorio Cottafavi, Sandro Continenza, Duccio Tessari, Nicolò Ferrari using a...

When “Curb Your Enthusiasm” returns for its much-anticipated 10th season it does so with it a musical theme that’s a prime example of recognizable sonic branding and has become synonymous with comedy in our complicated times: “Frolic” by composer Luciano Michelini.

But surprisingly, this comic march for tuba, mandolin and piano wasn’t specifically written for the series. Rather, it was composed as a throwaway piece for an obscure Italian film, wound up in a music library and was accidentally discovered by comedian-writer Larry David.

In a previous recounting, David spoke of hearing it in a bank commercial. “I love that, where’d they get that from?” he thought at the time. “The commercial ran for a week and I never saw it again. Then I had my assistant research it — it became this whole ordeal to get the name of the bank and the music, and finally she tracked it down.

Italian horror from the early 1960s covers a wide range of quality, from eerie hauntings to tacky vampire romps. For one of his first major credits, ace giallo scribe Ernesto Gastaldi cooks up Lycanthropus, a murder mystery in which the savage slashing is committed by a drooling maniac with a hairy face, wild eyes and saber-toothed fangs. You saw the poster out front, kid — do you think it might be … a werewolf? Director Paolo Heusch’s thriller is no classic, but neither is it stupid — and the original Italian language option on this disc reveals good work by a spirited cast. Dreamy Polish starlet Barbara Lass is a much more assertive, independent female than what we expect from conventional Italo horror fare.

Werewolf in a Girls’ Dormitory

(Lycanthropus)

Blu-ray

Severin Films

1961 / B&w / 1:66 widescreen / 85 min. / Street Date November 12, 2019 / 34.98

Starring: Barbara Lass (Kwiatkowska), Carl Schell, Curt Lowens, Maurice Marsac, Luciano Pigozzi,...

Mario Bava excelled with at least five super sword ‘n’ sandal pictures — shooting two Hercules classics and directing two viking sagas in addition to this eye-popping mix of mythology and horror. Forget warring armies and casts of thousands. Bava places Reg Park, Christopher Lee, and several beautiful Italo actresses within his weird visual world of and hallucinatory imagery: swirling mists, intensely physical actors and retina-burning color. Kino’s disc carries three discrete versions on two discs, and a gotta-hear commentary by Tim Lucas. On your next trip to The Underworld, remember Not to trust what you see! Trust instead, uh, trust your … oh, just use the Force!

Hercules in the Haunted World

Blu-ray

Kino Classics

1961 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / Hercules in the Center of the Earth, Hercules in the Haunted World, Vampire gegen Herakles (Germany/Italy 86 minutes) / Ercole al centro della Terra / Street Date October 8, 2019 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Reg Park,...

Charles Bronson plays a real-life Mafiosi in a period picture with a fine script, some good performances and a production so sloppy that the whole thing could be called The Anachronism Papers. Joseph Wiseman and Lino Ventura bring additional tough-guy star-power, and Bronson actually commits himself to the role — quite a change of pace for one of his later pictures.

The Valachi Papers

Blu-ray

Twilight Time

1972 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 125 min. / Street Date June 13, 2017 / Available from the Twilight Time Movies Store 29.95

Starring: Charles Bronson, Lino Ventura, Jill Ireland, Walter Chiari, Joseph Wiseman, Gerald S. O’Loughlin, Amedeo Nazzari, Fausto Tozzi, Pupella Maggio, Angelo Infanti, Guido Leontini.

Cinematography: Aldo Tonti

Film Editor: Johnny Dwyre, Monica Finzi

Original Music: Riz Ortolani, Armando Trovajoli

Written by Stephen Geller from the novel by Peter Maas

Produced by Dino De Laurentiis, Roger Duchet

Directed by Terence Young

In 2001 I received the plum assignment of editing a...

Seddok, l’erede di Satana (Atom Age Vampire)

Region 2 Pal DVD

Terminal Video Italia Srl

1960 / B&W / 1:66 flat letterbox / 103 min. / Street Date June 12, 2011 / available through Amazon.it / Eur 6,64

Starring: Alberto Lupo, Ivo Garrani, Susanne Loret, Sergio Fantoni, Rina Franchetti, Franca Parisi, Roberto Bertea.

Cinematography: Aldo Giordani

Film Editor: Gabrielle Varriale

Makeup Effects: Euclide Santoli

Original Music: Armando Trovajoli

Written by: Gino De Santis, Alberto Bevilacqua, Anton Giulio Majano; story by Piero Monviso

Produced by: Elio Ippolito Mellino (as Mario Fava)

Directed by Anton Giulio Majano

Let me herewith take a break from new discs to review an Italian release from six years ago, a movie that for years we knew only as Atom Age Vampire. Until sporadic late- night TV showings appeared, it existed for us ’60s kids as one or two interesting photos in Famous Monsters magazine. Forry Ackerman steered away from adult films, with the effect that...

Forget the proletarian messages, this Italian Neorealist classic is really an exploitation film about ogling brazen, buxom babes in short-shorts, up to their knees in a rice paddy. Hollywood actress Doris Dowling is the nominal star but new discovery Silvana Mangano became the knockout dream of every Italian male suffering from postwar shortages (cough). Giuseppe De Santis delivered the perfect combo -- an art film that pulled in every lonely guy nella cittá. Bitter Rice Blu-ray The Criterion Collection 792 1949 / B&W / 1:33 flat full frame / 109 min. / Riso amaro / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date January 12, 2016 / 29.95 Starring Vittorio Gassman, Doris Dowling, Silvana Mangano, Raf Vallone. Cinematography Otello Martelli Film Editor Gabriele Varriale Original Music Goffredo Petrassi Written by Corrado Alvaro, Giuseppe De Santis, Carlo Lizzani, Franco Monicelli, Carlo Musso, Ivo Perilli, Gianni Puccini Produced by Dino De Laurentiis Directed by Giuseppe De Santis

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Way back in...

Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni star in a serious drama about two outsiders in Mussolini's Rome of 1938, an ordinary housewife and a political undesirable. They have a lot in common, as it turns out. Writer-director Ettore Scola condemnation of an oppressive authoritarian state, addresses the most basic human rights violations. A Special Day Blu-ray The Criterion Collection 778 1977 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 107 min. / Una giornata particolare / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date October 13, 2015 / 39.95 Starring Sophia Loren, Marcello Mastroianni, John Vernon, Françoise Berd. Cinematography Pasqualino De Santis Film Editor Raimondo Crociani Original Music Armando Trovajoli Written by Ettore Scola, Ruggero Maccari, Maurizio Costanzo Produced by Carlo Ponti Directed by Ettore Scola  

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Veteran Italian screenwriter and director Ettore Scola's best-known movie in the U.S. is 1974's We All Loved Each Other So Much, but my instant favorite is this 1977 drama. Movies about life under Fascism usually gravitate toward extreme,...

Italian composer of film scores and musicals

Armando Trovajoli, who has died aged 95, was a prolific composer for Italian films and stage musicals. He worked with many of Italy's leading directors, including Mario Monicelli, Dino Risi, Ettore Scola and Vittorio De Sica, for whom he composed music for La Ciociara (Two Women, 1960) and Matrimonio all'Italiana (Marriage Italian Style, 1964), both of which starred Sophia Loren, who became a friend. When Loren was going to Hollywood for the first time in the mid-1950s, Trovajoli composed and recorded with his orchestra a song in Neapolitan for her, Che M'è Mparato a Ffà (What Did You Teach Me to Do?), which did much to launch her in the Us.

Trovajoli was born into an upper-middle-class family in Rome. He learned to play the violin as a boy and, in the 1930s, studied piano at the Santa Cecilia conservatory. By 1939 he was playing with a leading jazz band.

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By David P. King

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What would happen if Travis Bickle’s cringe-inducing date from “Taxi Driver” was stretched out over an entire weekend in the North of Italy? Thanks to “The Visitor” (“La Visita”, 1963), we have our answer.

Pina (Sandra Milo) is an independent businesswoman living in rural Italy. But she’s unwed and approaching 40-years-old, and longing for a change in her life. She places a personal ad in the newspaper (readers under 40: think Match.com, but with ink, paper and more desperation) stating her desire to find a man and marry. Of the potential suitors who reply, Adolfo di Palma (François Périer), an older bookseller in Rome, seems the most promising. The story begins as he arrives in northern Italy to meet Pina in person.

Many have witnessed those godawful first dates in...

Armando Trovajoli, known for his work on many Sophia Loren films and more recently, the theme music to Curb Your Enthusiasm, passed away last week at the age of 95.

Trovajoli’s contribution to the horror genre can be heard in Bava’s supremely weird sword and sandal epic Hercules in the Haunted World, the Bava-produced Atom Age Vampire, and Paolo Heusch’s Werewolf in a Girls' Dormitory.

Watch the trailer for 1963's Atom Age Vampire, about a doctor who “sacrifices his soul to the cunning gods of evil” in order to restore beauty to the woman he loves. Not much has changed since 1963.

via Variety...

London, March 4: Legendary Italian composer and pianist Armando Trovajoli is no more. He was 95.

His widow Maria Paola Trovajoli announced the news of his death, but she refused to give the exact date and time of when he breathed his last, reports femalefirst.co.uk.

During his career, Trovajoli penned the music for more than 300 films.

His most popular composition was Roma Nun Fa' la Stupida Stasera. Trovajoli began his musical career as a pianist, and appeared alongside great musicians like Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong and Chet Baker.

"The voice of Rome has been extinguished," said Mayor.

Rome — Armando Trovajoli, an Italian who composed music for some 300 films and whose lush and playful serenade to Rome is a much-requested romantic standby for tourists, has died at age 95.

The city's mayor, Gianni Alemanno, mourned Trovajoli's passing, saying in a statement that `'the voice of Rome has been extinguished." The Italian news agency Ansa said widow Maria Paola Trovajoli announced the death Saturday, saying her husband had died a few days before in Rome but declining to give the exact date.

Roman by birth, Trovajoli began his musical career as a pianist, playing jazz and dance music. He appeared with many jazz stars, among them Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, Chet Baker, Louis Armstrong, Stephane Grappelli and Django Reinhardt.

In the 1950s, his prolific relationship with the film world took flight. Travojoli composed for many of Italy's hit movies of the next decades, especially comedies.

He wrote the music for...

Not even Moneyball could beat The Lion King 3D at the box office this weekend, as Anthony D'Alessandro reports, but it's for Moneyball that we've got a roundup rolling on and on beyond all reason. IndieWIRE's Peter Knegt notes that "the specialty box office had a clear winner in Weekend," and we've got a roundup on that one as well.

"Wholly unrelated to the 1975 Sam Peckinpah film of the same name, Killer Elite is distinguished by one no-mercy, eye-gouging, testicle-punching brawl, and one whoppingly indifferent screenplay," writes Nick Pinkerton in the Voice. A quick sketch from Time Out Chicago's AA Dowd: Jason Statham "plays an ex-special-ops agent yanked out of retirement when someone kidnaps his mentor (Robert De Niro, in the Liam Neeson role). The guilty party, a deposed dictator with a chip on his shoulder, wants our erstwhile Transporter to knock off a trio of British mercenaries. 'I'm done with killing,...

Venice -- Politics reared its head on the opening days of the Venice Film Festival, with a buzz surrounding Thursday's in-competition screening of Julian Schabel's "Miral," which examines the Palestinian conflict through the eyes of a girl raised in an orphanage, and the news that Iranian director Jafar Panahi was denied the right to exit his country for the screening of his short film "The Accordion."

Earlier, on Wednesday, Italian politicals played a cameo role when the Secretary to the Italian government's Council of Ministers, Gianni Letta, was reportedly booed loudly by the crowd as he entered the opening ceremony of the 67th edition of the festival. Letta is a key figure in the ruling government coalition in Italy currently embroiled in controversy.

Letta later presented a special medal to Italian composer Armando Trovajoli, who turned 93 Thursday. That move was greeted with applause.

Panahi, who was jailed in Iran earlier...

Venice -- The 67th edition of the Venice Film Festival got under way Wednesday with a gala ceremony that included two career honors for Italian composer Armando Trovajoli and the world premiere of Darren Aronofsky's thriller "Black Swan."

"Swan," which stars Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis as rivals in a ballet company, was the evening's highlight. Aronofsky, Portman and co-star Vincent Cassel were on hand for the premiere before a packed and enthusiastic Palazzo del Cinema crowd.

During the opening ceremony, the festival honored Trovajoli -- the composer behind about 300 films and television programs -- with an award for "cultural excellence," and Gianni Letta, a high-ranking member of the Italian government, gave him a medal for what he called the "triumph of the Italian melody."

Trovajoli, who turns 93 today, said the honors were a highlight of his career.

  Letta wasn't the only key government figure in attendance. Italy president...