Riz Ortolani

Riz Ortolani

Birth : 1926-03-25, Pesaro, Marche, Italy

Death : 2014-01-23

History

Riziero "Riz" Ortolani (25 March 1926 – 23 January 2014) was an Italian film composer. Ortolani scored over 300 films working mostly within the Italian genres of Mondo, Giallo, and the Spaghetti Western. Ortolani also scored many Hollywood films and has had some of his compositions reused in films like Drive and Django Unchained. Ortolani's most famous composition is More, which he wrote for the infamous film Mondo Cane. It won the 1964 Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Theme and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song at the 36th Academy Awards. The song was later covered by Frank Sinatra, Kai Winding, Andy Williams, Roy Orbison, and others. Ortolani was born on 25 March 1926 in Pesaro, Italy. He was the youngest of six children. Ortolani's father, a postal worker, gave his son a violin at age 4. Ortolani later switched to flute after injuring his elbow in a car accident. He studied at the Conservatorio Statale di Musica "Gioachino Rossini" in his hometown of Pesaro before moving to Rome in 1948 and finding work with the RAI orchestra. Though the chronology is unclear, he also likely served as a musician in the Italian Air Force orchestra, formed a Jazz ensemble, and came to the United States as a Jazz musician in Hollywood, all before scoring his first film. Ortolani married Katyna Ranieri in 1956. In the early 1950s, Ortolani was founder and member of a well-known Italian jazz band. One of his early film scores was for Paolo Cavara and Gualtiero Jacopetti's 1962 pseudo-documentary Mondo Cane, whose main title-song More earned him a Grammy and was also nominated for an Oscar as Best Song. The success of the soundtrack of Mondo Cane led Ortolani to score films in England and the United States such as The Yellow Rolls-Royce (1964), The Spy with a Cold Nose (1966), The Biggest Bundle of Them All (1968) and Buona Sera, Mrs. Campbell (1968). He also scored the 1972 film The Valachi Papers, directed by Terence Young and starring Charles Bronson. Ortolani scored all or parts of over 200 films, including German westerns like Old Shatterhand (1964) and a long series of Italian giallos, Spaghetti Westerns, Eurospy films, Exploitation films and mondo films. These include Il Sorpasso (1962), Castle of Blood (1964), Africa Addio (1966), Day of Anger (1967), Anzio (1968), The McKenzie Break (1970), The Hunting Party (1971), A Reason to Live, a Reason to Die (1972), Seven Blood-Stained Orchids (1972), The Fifth Musketeer (1979), From Hell to Victory (1979), the controversial Ruggero Deodato films Cannibal Holocaust (1980) and The House on the Edge of the Park (1980), and the first series of La piovra (1984). In later years he scored many films for Italian director Pupi Avati. His music was used on soundtracks for Grand Theft Auto: London 1969 (1999), Kill Bill: Volume 1 (2003), Kill Bill: Volume 2 (2004), Drive (2011) and Django Unchained (2012). In 2013, he was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award from the World Soundtrack Academy. Ortolani died on 23 January 2014 in Rome, aged 87. Source: Article "Riz Ortolani" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.

Profile

Riz Ortolani
Riz Ortolani

Movies

A Second Childhood
Original Music Composer
Lino and Chicca are an aging, childless middle-class couple whose life is disrupted after he's diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease.
Il figlio più piccolo
Music
Unscrupulous businessman Luciano reconnects with his estranged family from a previous marriage, only to use their youngest son, awkward and starry-eyed Baldo, as the fall guy for his failing holding company.
Giovanna's Father
Music
Michele Casali is a middle-class professor in Fascist Italy who teaches at the same high school attended by his only daughter, Giovanna. A shy and sensitive girl, her insecurities are only magnified by Michele's overprotectiveness—reaching a point of no return.
Paura: Lucio Fulci Remembered - Volume 1
Self
This documentary examines the life and legacy of controversial Italian filmmaker Lucio Fulci through interviews with his colleagues, each of whom answers the question, "What is your fondest memory of Lucio Fulci?". The responses are as varied as the people who knew the late writer-director, providing a nuanced look at the man behind such gory grindhouse classics as City of the Living Dead and The House by the Cemetery.
Il nascondiglio
Original Music Composer
A mystery-thriller about an Italian woman who moves to Davenport to open a restaurant. After her husband commits suicide, she spends fifteen years recovering at a Minnesota mental hospital. When she builds herself up enough to begin another restaurant, she discovers that a murder took place there fifty years earlier. She decides to investigate and finds a secret plot.
A Dinner for Them to Meet
Original Music Composer
Actor Sandro Lanza is experiencing the most painful moment of his existence. After a suicide attempt, his three daughters, scattered throughout Europe, each with a different mother, come to his side. The sisters meet to decide what to do with their father, establishing a genuine tie for the very first time.
The Second Wedding Night
Original Music Composer
When his destituite widowed sister-in-law—whom he had never stopped harbouring feelings for—and her ne'er-do-well son come to live with him after World War II, a mentally-ill farmer who spends all his time destroying unexploded ordnance scattered across the countryside finds a new purpose in his lonely life.
Ma quando arrivano le ragazze?
Music
The Godfathers of Mondo
A look at the careers of Gualtiero Jacopetti and Franco Prosperi who invented the mondo genre with MONDO CANE in 1962. It follows their career until their split in following the making of GOODBYE UNCLE TOM in 1971.
In the Jungle: The Making Of Cannibal Holocaust
Himself
An Italian documentary that gives an inside look at the making of Ruggero Deodato's controversial horror film "Cannibal Holocaust".
In the Jungle: The Making Of Cannibal Holocaust
Original Music Composer
An Italian documentary that gives an inside look at the making of Ruggero Deodato's controversial horror film "Cannibal Holocaust".
Incantato
Original Music Composer
Rome, 1929. The Pope's tailor sends his only son, 35-year-old virgin Nello, to more liberal Bologna hoping he will find a wife. His head full of ideas on romantic love instilled by classical poetry, Nello hopelessly falls for Angela, a beautiful blind woman who indulges him only to win back her fiancé.
Grandes ocasiones
Music
The Best Man
Music
Incredibly, the bride at the altar falls in love with the best man on first sight, and even though he makes efforts to avoid her infatuation with him, she is determined to annul her marriage and marry the best man. And although she is able to dissolve her marriage, because she has never consummated it, the best man leaves... only to return to her many months later.
The Voyeur
Music
At a college in Rome, a professor, nicknamed "Dodo" is in a deep depression. His stunningly beautiful wife has just left him for another man. Dodo wants her back very badly and has erotic daydreams about her. A beautiful young student in his class asks him for a ride home and seduces the lucky man, but still he wonders about his wife and her lover.
Magnificat
Original Music Composer
During the Middle Ages, a traveling executioner hires an apprentice to learn the finer points of torture and execution, and a young girl is given by her parents to a Catholic convent.
L'angelo con la pistola
Music
The revenge of a young woman who sees her family brutally shot to death. I was in the film.. I am 1 of 2 brothers who was killed.
A Season of Giants
Original Music Composer
Paprika
Original Music Composer
A young country girl comes to town and works in a brothel in order to help her fiance get the money to start his own business. "Paprika" is the name given to her by the madam.
Killer Crocodile 2
Original Music Composer
The Caribbean swamps which is to be made into a holiday resort is terrorized again by a second monstrous crocodile which is killing off anyone unfortunate to be on the water.
Una fredda mattina di maggio
Music
The Dark Sun
Music
After the death of his mother a man returns to his hometown Palermo in southern Italy in order to get hold of the legacy. Once there he is forced to participate in various crimes commited by the mafia.
Killer Crocodile
Original Music Composer
A group of environmentalists arrives at a faraway tropical delta where toxic waste is being dumped. However the water also hides a giant crocodile. The corrupt local officials don't help much either.
Gioco al massacro
Music
Film makers Clem Da Silva (Tomas Milian) and Theo Steiner (Elliott Gould) are childhood friends, although now estranged. While both are gifted and equally passionate about cinema, their destinies couldn’t have been any different – multiple Oscar winner Theo is successful and admired around the world, whereas few have ever heard of Clem, because he often gets to work only for television. Clem has accused Theo of plagiarising his ideas that, to add insult to injury, went on to win awards.
The Story of Boys and Girls
Music
At a farmhouse, a large family cooks mountains of food for the next day's engagement party for Silvia and her city fiancé, Angelo. Her parents feud about infidelity; an aging salesman who rents a cottage from them arrives with a young French woman; in Bologna, Angelo's mother frets that her son is marrying beneath him; his sisters are less critical. Early the next morning, the four of them go by train to the farmhouse, joined by Angelo's married, unpregnant sister. The day-long dinner is riotous, couples display affection and impatience, children chase angels. Angelo's family stays the night, and his sister Linda has a visitor. A silver elephant makes the perfect gift.
Brothers in Blood
Music
War is Hell... especially NAM. A group of battle weary soldiers in Vietnam are trapped behind enemy lines. There is no way back. No help on the way. It's only a matter of time and these guys intend to "Die Fighting". Bo Svenson and Peter Hooten together again (Inglorious Bastards) join the Late, great Werner Porchat (as a part-time drag queen commando) in this explosive Italian commando film.
L'Inchiesta
Original Music Composer
A Roman agent is sent to Palestine to investigate rumors of the resurrection of an executed criminal.
Christmas Present
Music
A group of former friends meets again after a very long time, in a Christmas night, with the intent of ripping off a rich industrialist in a game of Poker. Old hatreds and mistrusts conflict with the nostalgia for the lost friendships.
The Corruption
Music
The film takes place in Vicenza in 1956. Anna, a beautiful lawyer's wife, feels abandoned by her husband and grows closer to their maid, Angela. The maid convinces Anna to try increasingly daring erotic games.
Miranda
Music
Miranda is a sensual tavern owner with a taste for men of all types. Over a year's time, Miranda copes with the death of her husband by enjoying the talents of a different lover for each of the four seasons. All the men are delightful, but which one is the best lover, and who will make a suitable husband?
Graduation Party
Music
The endearing efforts of a divorced, simple baker to capture the attentions of a bourgeois society woman.
Impiegati
Original Music Composer
Friendship and competion among the clerks of a bank.
Noi tre
Music
The adolescence of Mozart is chronicled in this Italian biopic. Here, young Wolfgang is seen as a prodigy who aspires to a normal life. He is studying music in Bologna when he falls in love with a local girl and makes friends with a boy his own age. Mozart is so elated that he fails a music exam on purpose so he can stay a little longer. Unfortunately, a priest rigs his test and the young composer is forced to move on.
Tuareg: Desert Warrior
Conductor
In a desolate section of the Sahara once ruled by the French, two thirsty men stumble into the camp of a Tuareg warrior where they're given water and shelter. Soldiers from the new Arab government now arrive by Jeep and demand the two men be turned over to them. The warrior refuses, citing the sacred laws of hospitality. The soldiers shoot dead one of the men and carry off the other - a political foe of the new government. The warrior mounts his camel and rides off to rescue his kidnapped guest.
Tuareg: Desert Warrior
Original Music Composer
In a desolate section of the Sahara once ruled by the French, two thirsty men stumble into the camp of a Tuareg warrior where they're given water and shelter. Soldiers from the new Arab government now arrive by Jeep and demand the two men be turned over to them. The warrior refuses, citing the sacred laws of hospitality. The soldiers shoot dead one of the men and carry off the other - a political foe of the new government. The warrior mounts his camel and rides off to rescue his kidnapped guest.
Warriors of the Year 2072
Music
In the future, two television networks compete for ratings by producing violent game shows. One network produces a modern day version of the Roman gladiators, only on motorcycles instead of chariots, and uses convicted murderers as the participants, The network decides it needs a champion for this sport, so they frame a constant winner from another game for murder, and place him on the show.
Zeder
Original Music Composer
A young journalist buys a used typewriter and notices some text still legible on the ribbon; he reconstructs the story of a scientist who discovered that some types of terrain have the power to revive the dead.
The Girl from Trieste
Music
A middle-aged artist (Ben Gazarra) sketching on the beach witnesses a young woman (Ornella Muti) being rescued from drowning. He loans her a blanket. Later she returns the blanket and they have sex several times, but she always leaves right afterward, leaving the man to wonder who she is and where she goes. Things become more complicated as he begins to fall in love with her, and after his regular girlfriend (Mimsy Farmer), with whom he has a curiously open relationship, returns. He eventually begins to realize his mysterious new lover may be very much insane.
Porca vacca
Original Music Composer
When a stage artist is send to fight he met a lovely girl.
I camionisti
Music
Ofelia, the handsome operator of a service station, attracts the attentions of several admirers, including her former lover Rocky, a truck driver, and the noble Sir Archibald.
Più bello di così si muore
Original Music Composer
In Rome a man needing money become a transvestite prostitute.
Honey
Original Music Composer
A surreal erotic fantasy about a young woman who checks into a bizarre, labyrinthine hotel.
Ghost of Love
Original Music Composer
Over two decades after their affair ended, a married man is haunted by the presence of his former lover.
Aiutami a sognare
Original Music Composer
In 1943, during the war, Francesca, widowed, moves with her three daughters to her country house, to get away from the bombing of Bologna. In the villa she finds her childhood friends and her old love Guido, who has not forgotten her. Francesca has a passion for everything that comes from America, like music and cinema. She even tells her daughters that her husband who died in the war would actually leave for the USA, where he would live.
Madhouse
Original Music Composer
A woman is pursued by her murderous, psychopathic twin sister in the days leading up to their birthday.
House on the Edge of the Park
Original Music Composer
Alex is a darkly sinister thug driving around New York City at night when he spots a young woman driving alongside him. He follows the woman to a nearby park where he cuts her off, gets out of his car, and runs into hers where he throws her into the back seat and proceeds to savagely rape her before strangling her to death. He takes her locket as a trophy to another one of his many killings.
The Warning
Original Music Composer
It is a law police officials obey out of fear. A rule chilling in its simplicity. Accept corruption...or die! They have sealed an unholy alliance. The great banks of Europe. And the blackhearted underworld empire. Together, with their matchless wealth, there is no stopping their almighty, corrosive power. Even the police force's investigation into the diabolical link has been polluted by corruption and terror! When key police officials of the inquiry are viciously assassinated, only two honest men remain--a commissioner and police chief--to carry out the suicidal investigation. And they must fight a deepening mistrust of each other. For they too, know the only rule of the game. They too, have been warned!
Cannibal Holocaust
Original Music Composer
A New York University professor returns from a rescue mission to the Amazon rainforest with the footage shot by a lost team of documentarians who were making a film about the area's local cannibal tribes.
Il corpo della ragassa
Original Music Composer
Ulderico Quario hires as servant a very beautiful young woman Teresa. Ulderico decides to proceed like a new Pygmalion and he sets about teaching her the art of seductions. But Teresa together with Cecchina start using these newfound skills to persuade Ulderico to marry her in order to claim his inheritance.
Mimi
Original Music Composer
Guido is an international journalist with an unusually difficult relationship with his daughter, Mimi. He hasn't seen her for several years and has just taken her away from the boarding school she was immured in. She is now 15, and for some reason is doing everything in her power to get him to have sex with her. She even brings herself to orgasm while lying in the bed next to him. He goes nearly apoplectic trying to avoid her advances. Eventually, her school chum Therese comes to visit them, and Guido at last has a semi-suitable object for his by now quite overheated passions. The story is loosely based on a novel by Guido Morselli.
Gegè Bellavita
Original Music Composer
Pregnant with their 10th child, Agata discovers that her lazy husband Gennaro betrays her cheerfully.
Atrocious Tales of Love and Death
Original Music Composer
Naples: Raffaele, a cafe musician, is cajoled into performing a night-time serenade outside an apartment block. However, his mandolin playing is rudely interrupted by gunshots and a falling Jamaican man, who plummets from a window above. A camp character is also ejected from a window and Raffaele is compelled to conduct his own investigation. It transpires that a celebrated maestro, Victor Navarro is being blackmailed. Lucia, Navarro's attractive daughter-in-law, was present at each murder. The amateur detective is drawn to her and becomes embroiled in a mystery involving death threats and a macabre secret...
The Fifth Musketeer
Original Music Composer
King Louis XIV has without his knowledge a twin brother, Philippe, but when he is told, he immediately locks up his brother in the Bastille. The king wants to increase his popularity and stages an assassination against himself where Philippe is dressed as king Louis. But Philippe manages to escape the assassination and everybody believes him to be the real king...
The Burning Years
Original Music Composer
Tigers in Lipstick
Original Music Composer
8 comic sketches set in Italy, with 4 of the most famous European sex symbols of the 70's playing 2 roles each.
From Hell to Victory
Original Music Composer
In 1939, at a Paris café, six friends of various nationalities vow to meet again at the same spot after the end of WW2.
First Love
Original Music Composer
Ugo is an old actor who feels too young to be in an "old actor's house". He just can't stand the rules of the other old people so he escapes with a young girl.
Brutes and Savages
Original Music Composer
Fascinated by forbidden rituals and ceremonies, world explorer Arthur Davis takes a crew with hidden cameras to Africa and South America to secretly record the beauty and horror of the "law of the jungle". BRUTES AND SAVAGES is the filmed document of his death-defying adventures. Shocking, brutal and repulsive, this film mixes bizarre authentic footage with incredibly exploitive (and often hilarious) "re-enactments" of his findings. Animal sacrifices, bizarre tribal ceremonies, mating rituals and even brain surgery.
Le braghe del padrone
Music
The young Vittorio Pieroni throws himself from a railway overpass when a train is passing by; escaped suicide and rescued by an ambulance, remembers the circumstances that led him to commit that gesture
Rings of Fear
Original Music Composer
Angelo Russo, a sixteen year-old girl, is found dead in a river, having been fatally violated with a large blunt instrument. Inspector Di Salvo is assigned to the case and focuses his investigations on St. Theresa's, the exclusive school where Angelo boarded. Three of the murdered girl's classmates, Franca, Paola and Virgina (who call themselves "The Inseparables"), receive threatening poems from an individual using the name "Nemesis". Bizarre "accidents" start to befall the girls: Franca is injured when someone causes her horse to bolt and Virgina nearly breaks her neck on marbles left at the top of a staircase. But Di Salvo is determined to find the killer, even if it means using unorthodox methods. He is aided by Angelo Russo's little sister Emily, whose helpful clues lead to a boutique owned by a dubious character and a vice ring where "rich influential men pay well for teenage favours" ...
Cyclone
Music
An airplane goes down in the ocean during a storm and a few survivors find refuge on a small tour boat. Swept out to sea, these people slowly starve to death in the hot sun with barely any food or clean water. With no place to turn, the boat survivors resort to cannibalism to stay alive...that is ..until the rescue planes come to pick them up and the man eating sharks decide its time to eat as well.
The Pyjama Girl Case
Music
Two seemingly separate stories in New South Wales: a burned, murdered body of a young woman is found on the beach, and a retired inspector makes inquiries; also, Linda, a waitress and ferry attendant, has several lovers and marries one, but continues seeing the others. The police have a suspect in the murder, but the retired inspector is convinced they're wrong; he continues a methodical investigation. Linda and her husband separate, and there are complications. Will the stories cross or are they already twisted together?
Double Murder
Original Music Composer
A police commissioner and a political activist join to investigate the suspicious death of a playboy Prince.
Double Murder
Conductor
A police commissioner and a political activist join to investigate the suspicious death of a playboy Prince.
I Am Afraid
Original Music Composer
During a wave of political violence in Italy, a policeman who's already survived an assassination is assigned to act as a bodyguard to a morally upright judge. He feels increasingly fearful as the links of the upper echelons of police and government to the violence become clear.
Sahara Cross
Original Music Composer
Jean Bellard and Carl Mank, two Western engineers supported by Hamid are in search of a terrorist group that murdered their colleague in the Tunisian desert.
Casanova & Co.
Original Music Composer
While hiding from the royal authorities, Giacomo Casanova, the famous romancer, encounters his look-alike: Giacomino, a fugitive petty con man. Meanwhile, the Arabian Caliph and his wife are arriving in Venice for a state visit, and she insists on a night with the legendary lover. Through a series of erotic encounters and mistaken-identity comedies, Giacomo and Giacomino make their way back to Venice for their appointment with the Caliph's wife.
Death Steps in the Dark
Original Music Composer
An Italian reporter is travelling on the Instabul-Athens train. A woman is murdered with the reporter's letter-opener so that makes him the main suspect. With the help of his Swedish girlfriend he starts investigating in order to prove his innocence.
Mimì Bluette... Flower of My Garden
Music
Mimi Bluette, daughter of a prostitute, lives in Paris where she is idolized by men of all kinds and class, is about to settle with a rich man when, in a bar, she meets a stranger.
Submission
Original Music Composer
In wartime France, Pharmacist Eliane (Lisa Gastoni) begins a torrid affair with her shop assistant Armand (Franco Nero), but she soon becomes dominated by him. He demands more and more from her, humiliating her and putting her family at risk.
Natale in casa d'appuntamento
Original Music Composer
Madame is running a high class escort (and prostitution) service. She wants to quit the business as soon as she makes enough money to make her dreams come true. However, the relationship with her girls is deteriorating.
Maria - Nur die Nacht war ihr Zeuge
Original Music Composer
Lucia, a young German married to Paolo, a Neapolitan emigrant, is raped. She tells a lie to her husband, but the day he discovers the truth a tragedy begins for the woman, leading her to suicide. Paul is destroyed: he seeks revenge. He takes his diving gun and enters the room where the man who raped his woman is having a toast with his friends.
Blonde in Black Leather
Original Music Composer
Two racy women decide to chuck their mundane lives and go on a wild adventure.
Paolo Barca, maestro elementare, praticamente nudista
Music
The Milanese nudist professor Paolo Barca moved to the province of Catania; there he will succeed in changing something both in the school and in his character.
Mondo Candido
Original Music Composer
Voltaire, a 16th century author was furious that learned members of a "civilized" society could claim that the apparent senseless violence and mayhem wrought by disasters, war, disease, man's cruelty, etc. was actually only a part of some 'greater good'. After all, God (being perfect) could not 'logically' have created anything but the 'best of all possible' universes.
How to Kill a Judge
Original Music Composer
The latest success by film-maker Giacomo Solaris is a crime thriller about a judge who gets too friendly with the Mafia and is murdered. A resentful Sicilian magistrate orders the film seized, but then he winds up dead, in a fashion just like that in Solaris's movie. Solaris realizes that corrupt political forces are pulling strings, for his friends begin to die in grisly ways. Will he learn the truth about the murder of the judge in time?
Vieni, vieni amore mio
Music
There Is No 13
Music
In this wartime drama, a young soldier spends much of stint in Vietnam remembering his life and his 12 love affairs. The story ends before he can have a 13th.
The Amazons
Original Music Composer
Alena Johnston is Antione, the War Goddess of the Amazons, who must mate with the Greek king Theseus to propogate her race. Traditionally this is done only out of duty, but this time she falls in love with her "boy toy"... a definite no-no for an Amazon queen. Helmed by James Bond director Terence Young and based on a story co-authored by Robert Graves, this sexy and spectacular entry in the sword-and-sandal genre features an incredible bevy of Euro-cult starlets including Rosanna Yanni, Helga Line and Luciana Paluzzi, plus a lyrical score by Academy Award-winner Riz Ortolani.
Mean Frank and Crazy Tony
Original Music Composer
There's trouble in Frankie Diomede's criminal empire in Genoa. A French gangster has moved into his territory, so he flies home to take care of business. He promptly has himself arrested so that he'll have the perfect alibi when the bodies start piling up. But it turns out his enemies have enough juice to keep him in prison, his associates start dying and the attempts on his life start. Cue Tony Breda, a wannabe wiseguy, who has a plan to spring Frankie from jail.
Teresa the Thief
Original Music Composer
Teresa gets her first taste of crime -- and its consequences -- when, during World War II, she is nabbed for robbing an apartment. But being poor and perpetually starving, the pretty petty thief doesn't give up her quest for ill-gotten gains and soon turns to pick-pocketing. Despite her questionable thieving skills, the bumbling crook tries scheme after scheme, pilfering from strangers and dodging the law as she searches for a way to fund an adequate meal.
Fury
Music
One Way
Original Music Composer
Italian crime drama
Counselor at Crime
Original Music Composer
When the godson of San Francisco's crime lord asks permission to leave "the business," Don Antonio agrees, but reluctantly. Such behavior by either one is a violation of the code, and a bloody mob war breaks out. It is only through the strong support of his family connections in Sicily that Don Antonio is able to survive the mêlée and come out on top. Aghast at the situation he has caused, the godson becomes his leader's "consigliere," or Counselor at Crime.
The African Deal
Original Music Composer
An inter-racial affair against a background of corrupt businessmen attempting to manipulate the national resources of an emerging nation that bears a distinct resemblance to Ghana.
Hospitals: The White Mafia
Music
This Italian film is a searing indictment of the greed and ambition which warp the medical profession. It focuses especially on surgeons in the persons of Professor Valiotti (Gabriele Ferzetti) and Dr. Giordani (Enrico Maria Salerno). Many of the scenes are based on Italian news stories of the period ('70s) which recount the suffering and high costs of unnecessary or overly aggressive treatment motivated by academic ambitions or simple greed.
No, the Case Is Happily Resolved
Original Music Composer
When the eyewitness to a brutal murder decides not to testify, the actual murderer chooses to finger him as the murderer and claim eyewitness status for himself.
Seven Deaths in the Cat's Eye
Original Music Composer
In a small Scottish village, horribly murdered bodies keep turning up. Suspicion falls upon the residents of a nearby castle that is haunted by a curse involving a killer cat.
Mafia Junction
Original Music Composer
Cliff works as a narcotics investigator for the police and infiltrate a mafia gang. Soon it turns out that Cliff has bigger plans than just to bust bad guys.
Dear Parents
Music
An Italian woman who has not heard from her daughter for a while travels to London, where the daughter is living, and is shocked to be confronted with the young woman's world. During the brief days they spend together, the women come to acknowledge the insurmountable differences that exist between them despite the love they share.
A Reason to Live, a Reason to Die
Music
A dishonored Union Army officer (James Coburn) leads a group of convicts to retake Fort Holman from the Confederate Army.
Don't Torture a Duckling
Conductor
A reporter and a promiscuous young woman try to solve a series of child killings in a remote southern Italian town rife with superstition and a distrust of outsiders.
Don't Torture a Duckling
Original Music Composer
A reporter and a promiscuous young woman try to solve a series of child killings in a remote southern Italian town rife with superstition and a distrust of outsiders.
Girolimoni, the Monster of Rome
Original Music Composer
In Mussolini's Rome a murderer is targeting young girls. The movie explores how the fascist mind works, how it plays its values off the sentiment of the masses and explores the role of the press in creating a unified narrative.
Jus primae noctis
Music
The Dead Are Alive
Original Music Composer
A photographer on an archaeological expedition digging up Etruscan ruins in Italy begins to suspect that not all the Etruscans buried there are actually dead.
Shadows Unseen
Music
When a journalist is murdered Inspector Micheli begins to investigate. Although someone comes forward to confess to the crime, Micheli doesn't believe he acted alone and keeps investigating despite coming under pressure to close the case.
Seven Blood-Stained Orchids
Conductor
A woman is fatally stabbed in bed, a prostitute is battered into oblivion and a female painter is strangled with a telephone cord. Another woman, Giulia, who is on her honeymoon, is attacked in a train carriage but the killer flees when her husband Mario comes to the rescue. In spite of his protestations to the police, Mario is accused of being the murderer. He sets out to prove his innocence by conducting his own enquiries. In the meanwhile, a woman in an insane asylum is drowned in a bath and another female victim is power-drilled to death...
Seven Blood-Stained Orchids
Original Music Composer
A woman is fatally stabbed in bed, a prostitute is battered into oblivion and a female painter is strangled with a telephone cord. Another woman, Giulia, who is on her honeymoon, is attacked in a train carriage but the killer flees when her husband Mario comes to the rescue. In spite of his protestations to the police, Mario is accused of being the murderer. He sets out to prove his innocence by conducting his own enquiries. In the meanwhile, a woman in an insane asylum is drowned in a bath and another female victim is power-drilled to death...
The Valachi Papers
Original Music Composer
When Joe Valachi has a price put on his head by Don Vito Genovese, he must take desperate steps to protect himself while in prison. An unsuccessful attempt to slit his throat puts him over the edge to break the sacred code of silence.
Where the Bullets Fly
Original Music Composer
Young adventurer Gipo owns one fifth of a rock illustrating the location of a rich gold mine. Risking his life more than once and with the help of the beautiful hooker, Lulu Belle, our hero sets out to recover the missing pieces.
Goodbye Uncle Tom
Original Music Composer
Two documentary filmmakers go back in time to the pre-Civil War American South, to film the slave trade.
Secret Fantasy
Original Music Composer
Niccolò Vivaldi is a cello player and he plays in Arena di Verona Orchestra. But he is not the first and neither the second cello. He is frustrated. Nobody can remember his face, nor his name. Niccolò is married to Costanza, who is really beautiful and he takes some pictures of her naked. Later he shows the pictures to a friend and so he feels better. He starts to write a comic opera called "Il merlo maschio" only to discover later he had written Rossini's "La gazza ladra". To maintain his self-esteem he can only show his wife...
Non commettere atti impuri
Original Music Composer
Web of the Spider
Original Music Composer
Alan Foster, a professional American journalist, travels to London to meet with Edgar Allen Poe for an interview. While in London, Alan soon finds himself in the company of Lord Blackwood, and Alan accepts a bet to spend a night in his castle
The Hunting Party
Music
A ruthless rancher, and his gang, use extremely long range rifles to kill the men who kidnapped his wife.
Confessions of a Police Captain
Original Music Composer
A police captain arranges the release of a criminally insane prisoner, who soon winds up dead. When the District Attorney takes on the case, he uncovers corruption in the department and vows to take down the man who's responsible.
The Statue
Original Music Composer
Bolt, a British linguist, develops a universal language, so he's a sudden sensation and receives a Nobel prize. An ambitious diplomat, capitalizing on Bolt's celebrity, arranges for the U.S. to commission a statue for a London square to honor Bolt's achievement. Bolt's Italian wife, a renowned artist, sculpts an 18-foot nude of Bolt. In a pique, because he's neglected her for years to do his work, she gives the statue a spectacular phallus, telling Bolt that he wasn't its model. Thinking he's a cuckold, Bolt goes on a jealous search for a man matching the statue. The diplomat, too, wants changes in the statue to protect his conservative image. Can art and love reconcile?
Say Hello to Yesterday
Music
Approaching middle-age and stuck in an unfulfilled marriage, a suburban British housewife allows herself a sexual fling with a brash young hunk she meets on a commuter train.
The Lovemakers
Original Music Composer
Madron
Original Music Composer
A nun, the only survivor of an Indian massacre of a wagon train, is taken in by a cantankerous old gunfighter.
A Girl Called Jules
Music
After his Western triumphs, Valerii stepped out of the shadow of Sergio Leone with this distinctly Bergmanesque sexual melodrama.Dionisio is perfect in the title role and this remains her best film, Valerii turns up along the way too. Just when the film hits a period of auto pilot John Steiner turns up in the final reel for a climax that is quite unforgettable. A bit difficult to trace but well worth the effort.
Disperatamente l'estate scorsa
Music
Lisa, a widow on vacation with her son, meets Alessandro and falls in love. The man is actually a former agent of the communist Germany who escaped from Berlin and is pursued by some former colleagues.
The Unholy Four
Original Music Composer
A young man who has lost his memory, escapes from prison with three other convicts. The other men help him find back bits of his past, until they arrive at a village where two warring families recognize him. Apparently he has a reputation for being a fast gun, and he has been paid to kill a man - who says he is his father. His younger brother is jealous of the attention the prodigal son receives, and things come to a dramatic end.
The Dove Must Not Fly
Original Music Composer
An undercover Nazi in Libya aims to steal fuel and deliver it to a specific location in the desert where an Italian bomber would refuel on its way to Allied target.
Un caso di coscienza
Original Music Composer
Discovering that a woman from their small town in Sicily cheated on her husband, a group of upper class men investigate and try to identify her.
Andrea Doria -74
Original Music Composer
Underwater documentary exploring the shipwreck of SS Andrea Doria, an Italian ocean liner which sunk in 1956.
The Magnificent Bandits
Original Music Composer
Brazil, the 1920s. The sadistic colonel Minas massacres the hometown of a famous cangaceiro (a kind of revolutionary bandit). The only survivor is a young farmer called Espedito; he is nursed back to health by a (crazy?) hermit who thinks he has been sent (= espedito) by God and therefore baptizes him the Redeemer. Espedito/The Redeemer forms his own gang of cangaceiros but doesn’t really understand what he’s doing until he befriends the proverbial European intellectual, a Dutch Oil prospector, who introduces him to important people. Espedito is hired (and of course double-crossed) by the Dutchman and a corrupt local governor, but then the Dutchman changes sides …
Night of the Serpent
Original Music Composer
Hernandez, the sheriff of a small Mexican village, joins a group of townsmen with the intention of killing young orphan Manuel and robbing him of his inheritance. Killer Luke, now an alcoholic for having murdered his own son by mistake, who is chosen for the task, instead decides to take the defence of the poor child.
The Ravine
Original Music Composer
In the winter of 1943, deep in the frozen waste of German occupied Yugoslavia, a lone parachute drifts from the snowy skies, falling ever closer to earth and a waiting German patrol car. Suddenly shots ring out from a hidden sniper, the Germans are killed, and the parachutist scurries away into the forest. The sniper is a woman, the number one partisan terrorist on the German hit list, and her adversary is the German number one exterminator sent direct from berlin to eliminate her. The battle is on, orders from high command - capture her… alive. Both are professional, but now the hunter becomes the hunted.
So Sweet... So Perverse
Music
Industrialist Jean is living a jet set life in late sixties Paris. He comes to the aid of a frightened young woman (Nicole) who is under the domineering control of her abusive boyfriend, Klaus. Although married, Jean develops a romantic relationship with Nicole. However, he may have gotten himself involved in more than he bargained for.
One on Top of the Other
Original Music Composer
A San Francisco doctor encounters a prostitute who bears a striking resemblance to his late wife.
Salt in the Wound
Original Music Composer
A twist of fate leads a recent Westpoint grad into being responsible for the execution of two fellow American GIs. The young lieutenant comes of age, and the two battle hardened veterans achieve a state of grace through acts of sacrifice.
Cinque figli di cane
Music
A group of gangsters escape from prison and attempt to destroy a rival organisation holed up in a convent in Mexico.
The Fight for Rome II - The Betrayal
Original Music Composer
The devious general Cethegus plays the Byzantine and Gothic forces against each other for his own gain.
The Fight for Rome
Original Music Composer
A Roman noble, Cethegus, tries to start a war, setting the Ostrogoths and their Queen, Amalasuntha, against the Byzantine Emperor Justinian; Cethegus wants to swoop in after they have destroyed each other and create a new Roman Empire from their combined kingdoms; however, he does not factor into his plans the vagaries of love and the personal integrity of the people in both kingdoms.
Emma Hamilton
Original Music Composer
The Making of a Lady: The Story of Lady Hamilton is a 1968 historical drama film directed by Christian-Jaque and starring Michèle Mercier, Richard Johnson and John Mills.[1] It was based on the novel La San-Felice by Alexandre Dumas and depicts the love affair between Emma Hamilton and Horatio Nelson. It was a co-production between Italy, West Germany, France and the United States.
Buona Sera, Mrs. Campbell
Music
After the end of WWII, an Italian woman receives child support payments from three former US soldiers who all believe themselves to be the father of her daughter, Gia.
The Girl Who Couldn't Say No
Original Music Composer
Childhood friends Franco and Jolanda accidentally meet again after 15 years and both know it is love. This comedy traces their troubled relationship.
The Bliss of Mrs. Blossom
Conductor
Harriet Blossom is married to Robert Blossom, a businessman who'd rather spend the night at his bra factory than at home with her. One day, Harriet's sewing machine breaks, so Robert sends a repairman, Ambrose, to fix it. It's lust at first sight for Harriet, who convinces Ambrose to hide out in the attic for a tryst. When her new beau shows no desire to leave, the pair begin a years-long love affair right under Robert's nose.
The Bliss of Mrs. Blossom
Original Music Composer
Harriet Blossom is married to Robert Blossom, a businessman who'd rather spend the night at his bra factory than at home with her. One day, Harriet's sewing machine breaks, so Robert sends a repairman, Ambrose, to fix it. It's lust at first sight for Harriet, who convinces Ambrose to hide out in the attic for a tryst. When her new beau shows no desire to leave, the pair begin a years-long love affair right under Robert's nose.
Anzio
Music
Allied forces land at Anzio unopposed but instead of moving straight inland their commanding officer decides to dig in. A battle-hardened war correspondent borrows a jeep and drives to Rome and back without meeting any German forces, but his report on this absence of the enemy is discounted. By the time it is finally decided to make a move the Germans have arrived in strength and a prolonged ...
Beyond the Law
Original Music Composer
A thief takes the job as a town sheriff in order to rob a silver shipment before his ex-partner can grab it.
The Violent Four
Original Music Composer
A detective is assigned to head a manhunt for four violent bank robbers.
Sardinia Kidnapped
Original Music Composer
Christina Fisher arrives in Sardinia to spend a holiday with her university friend, Francesco. As they are touring the island, they are trapped by mountain terrorists. Francesco is kidnapped, but Christina is permitted to leave. She is determined to contact the police, but is persuaded not to by Francesco's best friend, Gambino. Together they try to find the kidnappers, but she becomes suspicious of everyone including Gambino. Confused and paranoid, she sets out alone to contact the police.
The Biggest Bundle of Them All
Original Music Composer
A kidnapped mobster (Vittorio De Sica) persuades his captors to help him rob platinum ingots from a train.
Day of Anger
Original Music Composer
Lee Van Cleef stars as Talby, a sadistic gunfighter who rides into town and takes on a young outcast as his apprentice.
On My Way to the Crusades, I Met a Girl Who...
Music
A chastity belt provides an endless amount of grief for a woman whose jealous husband has gone off to the Crusades.
Woman Times Seven
Conductor
Seven mini-stories of adultery: "Funeral Possession," a wayward widow at her husband's funeral; "Amateur Night," angry wife becomes streetwalker out of revenge; "Two Against One," seemingly prudish girl turns out otherwise; "Super Simone," wife vainly attempts to divert her over-engrossed writer husband; "At the Opera," a battle over a supposedly exclusive dress; "Suicides," a death pact; "Snow," would-be suitor is actually a private detective hired by jealous husband.
Woman Times Seven
Original Music Composer
Seven mini-stories of adultery: "Funeral Possession," a wayward widow at her husband's funeral; "Amateur Night," angry wife becomes streetwalker out of revenge; "Two Against One," seemingly prudish girl turns out otherwise; "Super Simone," wife vainly attempts to divert her over-engrossed writer husband; "At the Opera," a battle over a supposedly exclusive dress; "Suicides," a death pact; "Snow," would-be suitor is actually a private detective hired by jealous husband.
Tiffany Memorandum
Original Music Composer
A journalist and secretary get involved in espionage.
Soldier's Girl
Original Music Composer
Anita, a free Emilian girl falls in love with Salvatore, a Neapolitan bersagliere. The two would like to get married, but he drowns while bathing in the river. From that moment the woman is unable to love anyone else because, at the most beautiful, the ghost of her fiancé appears to her who, in the end, will be able to be followed in the other world.
Kill and Pray
Original Music Composer
A Mexican community is slaughtered by Confederate troops; the lone survivor, a boy, is taken in by a preacher. Years later, the boy is now a soft-spoken, devout young man with perfect shooting skills (despite being a pacifist). On his journey to help his half-sister out of a complicated situation, he crosses paths with the men who killed his family, unbeknownst to him.
Non faccio la guerra, faccio l'amore
Music
The Spy with a Cold Nose
Music
A dog with a spying device under its skin is sent to the Russian government as a present. When the Russians send the dog to a veterinary, British intelligence must get to the dog first and retrieve the spying device.
Lightning Bolt
Original Music Composer
A U.S. agent goes undercover as a rich playboy to stop a madman from destroying a NASA moon project.
Africa Addio
Original Music Composer
A documentary about the end of the colonial era in Africa, portraying acts of animal poaching, violence, executions, and tribal slaughter.
Cifrato speciale
Music
Spy in Your Eye
Music
A secret agent is assigned ot rescue the daughter of a deceased East German scienist, who discovered a valuable formula.
Red Dragon
Original Music Composer
An FBI agent goes to Hong Kong to short-circuit a smuggler of electrical parts to the communists.
The Glory Guys
Original Music Composer
Though a fictionalized Western based on George Armstrong Custer's 7th Cavalry Regiment at the Battle of the Little Big Horn, the film is almost a generic war story covering the enlistment, training, and operational deployment of a group of recruits that could take place in any time period.
The Devil Also Cries
Original Music Composer
The Car That Became a Star
Music
This promotional film showcases the automobile whose adventures are chronicled in The Yellow Rolls-Royce (1964). After the car is filmed in various European shooting locations, it becomes the star attraction in an international automobile show in New York City. We even see a fashion show whose colors and styles are based on the 1930 model vehicle.
The Yellow Rolls-Royce
Conductor
One Rolls-Royce belongs to three vastly different owners, starting with Lord Charles, who buys the car for his wife as an anniversary present. The next owner is Paolo Maltese, a mafioso who purchases the car during a trip to Italy and leaves it with his girlfriend while he returns to Chicago. Finally, the car is owned by American widow Gerda, who joins the Yugoslavian resistance against the invading Nazis.
The Yellow Rolls-Royce
Original Music Composer
One Rolls-Royce belongs to three vastly different owners, starting with Lord Charles, who buys the car for his wife as an anniversary present. The next owner is Paolo Maltese, a mafioso who purchases the car during a trip to Italy and leaves it with his girlfriend while he returns to Chicago. Finally, the car is owned by American widow Gerda, who joins the Yugoslavian resistance against the invading Nazis.
Hour of Death
Music
When Bob Carey is released from prison after a long sentence for murder, begins the search for Mary, his former girlfriend. But soon he finds out that during his absence, she has married Clifford, a wealthy landowner. The happiness of that marriage is only apparent, Mary, in fact, is seriously ill, suffering from a brain tumor whose pains she attributes to an imaginary pregnancy. It becomes necessary to bring to the city of Laredo for an operation, so Clifford sells all his possessions and begins the long journey towards hope. Soon others will join the expedition: a former army scout named Rogers, a nice Chinese cook, Lin-Chu, and a mestizo that responds to the name of "Bets".
The 7th Dawn
Music
Political and personal intrigues surround a group of characters in Malaya, after the close of the Second World War.
Le ore nude
Compositor
In this sex-charged character study, a woman's husband persuades her to share in his predilection for group sex. Later, she meets a student and has a one-day affair with him.
Ride and Kill
Original Music Composer
A small town in Arizona is oppressed by the tyranny of a powerful rancher. The owner of a farm, fed up with constant abuse, decides to hire a former gunslinger, as the town sheriff is recognized powerless to stand against the tyrant.
Old Shatterhand
Music
Renegades trying to get the army to abandon their fort get the Indians addicted to whiskey, then convince them to attack and drive out the soldiers.
Castle of Blood
Original Music Composer
A writer accepts a wager that he cannot spend the night alone in a haunted castle on All Soul's Eve. Once night falls at the castle, several who had been murdered therein return to life, reliving their deaths and seeking to kill the writer for his blood in a vain attempt to stay alive beyond that one night.
Il mondo di notte numero 3
Original Music Composer
A documentary highlighting some of the oddest, strangest and more grotesque examples of human behavior. Included are a tour of the Grand Guignol theater in Paris, a man who sticks long needles through his body, reindeer being castrated, and footage of lesbians and strippers.
The Fall of Rome
Original Music Composer
After the death of Emperor Constantine in Rome, the persecutions of the Christians threaten the centurion Marco forced to become a gladiator.
Women of the World
Original Music Composer
A mondo doc detailing the wild and weird world of women... around the world.
Flying Clipper - Dream Voyage under White Sails
Music
A 1962 West German documentary film directed by Hermann Leitner and Rudolf Nussgruber.
Il Sorpasso
Original Music Composer
Roberto, a shy law student in Rome, meets Bruno, a forty-year-old exuberant, capricious man, who takes him for a drive through the Roman and Tuscany countries in the summer. When their journey starts to blend into their daily lives though, the pair’s newfound friendship is tested.
Mondo Cane
Music
A documentary consisting of a series of travelogue vignettes providing glimpses into cultural practices throughout the world intended to shock or surprise, including an insect banquet and a memorable look at a practicing South Pacific cargo cult.
Ursus in the Valley of the Lions
Original Music Composer
Bodybuilder Ed Fury stars as the legendary Ursus in this above-average sword-and-sandal adventure from veteran director Carlo Campogalliani. The plot concerns Ursus' attempts to rescue his kidnapped fiancee, aided by a pretty blind slave girl. Now an evil queen, Ursus' former love throws him into a gladiatorial arena with a bull, which manages to smack the slave girl in the head and restore her eyesight before Ursus defeats it and his enemies. The bullfight is particularly well-staged, and this exciting spectacle may be the highlight of Fury's erratic screen career. ~ Robert Firsching, Rovi
Música de Siempre
Producer, director and projectionist watch an assortment of musical numbers and brainstorm about framing narrative that could contain them all.
Terrore sulla città
Music
Le vacanze del Sor Clemente
Music
Sor Clemente tries to avoid an underwater fishing trip together with his authoritarian wife's friends and pretends to be ill. Left alone in the villa he's left in the company of a friend and a butler.
Con rispetto parlando
Music