15 December, 2009

RECYCLING BRUNO NICOLAI

LISTEN to the music on this US version of Paul Naschy's first werewolf epic...






And you'll hear cues from this magnificent score...











Two recent discoveries:
Bruno Nicolai's excellent score for the 1969
Italian war movie LA BATTAGLIA DEL DESERTO can be
heard in Jess Franco's 1972 LOS AMANTES DE LA ISLA
DEL DIABLO aka DEVIL'S ISLAND LOVERS (main theme & cues)

His legendary score for EUGENIE...THE STORY OF HER JOURNEY
INTO PERVERSION (1970), perhaps his masterwork, has some
of its most recognizable cues integrated into the replacement
track for FRANKENSTEIN'S BLOODY TERROR, the
Sam Sherman-INDEPENDENT INTERNATIONAL US version of Paul
Naschy's first Waldemar Daninsky film, LA MARCA DEL HOMBRE LOBO (1968).
Watching this in the wake of Paul Naschy's passing
was an especially poignant experience.

Maestro Nicolai's cues were often recycled and they tend to work well
wherever they are integrated.





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4 comments:

Eric Cotenas said...

the EUGENIE cues were integrated into the export version of FRANKENSTEIN'S BLOODY TERROR titled HELL'S CREATURES before it went to Independent International. the export version was edited in Italy (supervised by Romeo Ciatti). perhaps the original tracks were unavailable or someone decided to replace it with other cues.

Robert Monell said...

Thanks for the additional info and clarification. I think the music for the animated prologue was added by II, since it's unique to this version. I guess they kept the other replacement music because it was less expensive than to do an entire rescoring. I do like the original Angel Arteaga score better. That score is on another export version I have, VAMPIRE DER DR. DRACULA, the German altenate. I haven't seen HELL'S CREATURES. But VAMPIRE... has more footage from EL MARCA... that isn't in the main feature of the SS disc [but is presented in the extras]. So this version is closer visually and in terms of music to the original Sp version.

Eric Cotenas said...

HELL'S CREATURES is the Shriek Show release. II lopped off the opening reel for their FRANKENSTEIN version. For the DVD, Sherman just added the animated prologue to the HELL'S CREATURE version so the export version's credits are in the extras now.

Stephen said...

Thanks for the interesting information. I didn't new where the music from "Quartier des femmes" is from. I always wanted to do a list of Nicolai's Franco related compositions.

Just from the top of my head:
1967
Lucky el intrepido (original score - available on CD)
1968
99 Women (original score - available on CD)
Justine (original score - available on CD)
1969
Venus in Furs (uncredited - using cues from "99 Women")
De Sade 70 / Eugenie (original score - available on CD)
The Bloody Judge (original score - available on CD)
1970
Count Dracula (original score - available on CD)
Les chauchemars naissent la nuit (original score - available on CD)
Sex Charade (???)
Eugenie (using cues from "De Sade 70" and ???)
1971
Sie tötete in Ekstase (uncredited - using cues from ???)
X 312 - Flug zur Hölle (uncredited - using cues from ???)
Une vierge chez les morts vivants (original score - available on CD)
1972
Quartier des femmes (using cues from "La battaglio del deserto")
Dracula prisonnier de Frankenstein (using cues from "Justine" & "Count Dracula")
Une capitaine de quinze ans (???)