Roberto Pregadio and Romano Mussolini. 1966, Beat Records (CD, Re-issue). Buy it from Movie Grooves.

Since we just reviewed the movie Kriminal, I thought now would be a wonderful time to review the recently released (in Europe, anyway) soundtrack to the movie. The soundtrack was composed by the team of Roberto Pregadio and Romano Mussolini. Although his name isn't bandied about nearly as much as the heavy hitters of Italian movie music (Morricone, Bacalov, Umiliani, Piccioni, Ortolani -- you know the usual suspects, and if you don't, you will learn them quickly), but thanks to this CD and some tracks I've recently stumbled across on a variety of compilations, I'm discovering he's quite the under-appreciated gem of a composer. His work on this soundtrack faces the somewhat unenviable task of being well suited for a movie about a good looking guy who dresses up in a skeleton costume to fulfill his duties as the world's greatest thief when he's not busy hitting on swingin' 60s chicks. The good news, of course, is that any soundtrack capable of actually capturing that concept is going to be ultra swanky, and Pregadio and Mussolini prove to be up to the task.

The opening theme is a superb example of the sort of swinging cocktail jazz number a movie like this -- or any of the colorful Eurospy and fumetti-inspired movies from the same era -- really need to properly set the tone. Big band swing mixed with continental jazz and funky Hammond organs -- not to mention more than a little influence from John Barry's work on the James Bond movies. Suffice it to say that if you were a guy in a skeleton costume and you wanted to have a proper introduction, this theme would do the trick.

The remainder of the twenty-eight tracks follow suit, a mix of groovy jazz and instrumentals that are, depending on what you need them for, perfect for escaping from the police, shooting it out with the police, sneaking into a mansion, romancing a scantily clad bombshell, or just kicking back poolside as you wear your silk scarf and scope out the bikini-clad bottoms parading past you. It's a very playful soundtrack, obviously, more so than Ennio Morricone's score to Danger: Diabolik -- which I mention here since the comic book (fumetti) character of Diabolik was the main reason anyone thought to create the ghoulish Kriminal, who is basically Diabolik but with a skeleton on his costume and a less swanky lair.

The soundtrack CD comes to us as an import courtesy of Beat Records, who also released the soundtrack to Satanik, a movie based on another character created by the guy who created Kriminal (incidentally, that's a spectacular soundtrack and a crappy movie). Unlike some obscure soundtracks to crazy European movies, this is an actual soundtrack recording, and not something someone just pulled from the movie and taped together as best they could. Sound quality is exceptional, and the Cd is well worth adding to your collection even if you aren't prone to dressing up in a skeleton suit and crawling through the windows of beautiful women after you've just successfully escaped execution by hanging for trying to steal the Crown Jewels of England.

Labels: Soundtracks, Swingin'