Franco Pops

Franco Micalizzi - Stridulum Theme

Stridulum AKA The Visitor OST, 1979

Forget what the cinephiles watching it ironically say, Giulio Paradisi's sci-fi horror The Visitor (1979) is dreadful. Despite the A-list cast, it's a train wreck cursed with a nonsensical plot (and not in the Lucio Fulci fever dream kind of way) that takes obvious inspiration from The Omen (1976) and Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) and still manages to be a perplexing bore. Not even an uncredited Franco Nero as Space Jesus can save it.

Fortunately, it does have one redeeming feature: its soundtrack. Franco Micalizzi blessed the film with a score way better than it deserved. The tracks themselves serve as a great time capsule of Bork jazz funk and traditional orchestral sounds that mimicked American composers in the Seventies.

Pick of the bunch for your host is Stridulum Theme. Sounds like the perfect musical accompaniment to an over-the-hill, pudgy boxer walking towards the ring. More importantly, it's an absolute head nodder. Genuinely surprised it hasn't been sampled that much.

Izzy Wizzy, lets go Micalizzi! Other soundtrack gems from the composer:

Trinity (Main Title) / They Call Me Trinity (1970)

Suspicion (Opening Titles) / The Two Faces of Fear (1972)

Without Fear / You're Unlucky Friend, You Met Sacramento (1972)

Bargain with the Devil / Beyond the Door (1974)

Seq. 14 / Syndicate Sadists (1975)

Manile / Laure (1976)

Seq. 6 / Rome Armed to the Teeth AKA The Tough Ones (1976)

The No-Peace Pursuit / Italy at Gunpoint AKA A Special Cop in Action (1976)

Breathlessness / The Cynic, the Rat and the Fist (1977)

Main Title / Brothers Till We Die (1977)

Running Away from Jerzy / Stridulum AKA The Visitor (1979)

This Budd’s for You

Roy Budd - Jazz It Up (MC/M4)

The Marseille Contract AKA The Destructors soundtrack, 1974

 

Roy Budd · Jazz It Up (MC/M4)

Utter the words "jazz funk" to me, and I'm mentally picturing Jamiroqui playing to a bunch of poncey chin-strokers on Later with Jools Holland, or some other corporate backslapping programme. Regardless of which, it's the ninth circle of Hell for this humble blogger. Fortunately, the late Roy Budd produced some angelic gems like Jazz It Up (MC/M4) whenever he tried his hand at producing film soundtracks.

Ironically, some of Budd's soundtrack choons sound closer to being spawned in a recording studio in the South Side of Chicago rather than South London; like a complete vice versa with the legendary Quincy Jones. The man had the Midas touch and even laced Celebrity Big Brother twister Leo Sayer a cool guitar riff when they worked together.

Choice picks:

Carter Takes a Train (from Get Carter, 1971)

The Stone Killer (Main Titles) (from The Stone Killer, 1973)

Jazz It Up (MC/M4) (from The Marseille Contract, 1974)

The Thief  (from Diamonds, 1975)

Mister Funker (M15 - FB) (from Foxbat, 1977)

Who Dares Wins (from Who Dares Wins AKA The Final Option, 1982)

Nineties Brit pop heads might have first learnt about Roy Budd thanks to the renewed interest in Get Carter at the time, but for yours truly, it was when I first caught Who Dares Wins on TV while channel surfing, and witnessed that testosterone fuelled scene where an uzi toting Lewis Collins and his SAS boys ran down that US embassy hallway to neutralise an eighties precursor to Greta Thunberg.

Who Dares Wins (US Embassy Assault scene)

Ian Sharp, 1982