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End of August Saimel in Spain will release two great war film scores by Carlo Rustichelli on one CD: UN GIORNO DA LEONI from 1961 and LA BATTAGLIA DI EL ALAMEIN (THE BATTLE OF EL ALAMEIN) from 1968. Both scores will get their world premiere release on this CD.
UN GIORNO DA LEONI by director Nanni Loy takes place in September 1943 and is a very moving and engaging picture which contains an incisive psychological and moral analysis of its characters nevertheless often interspersed with some ironic overtones. The main protagonists are three ordinary young Italian men, more or less anti-heroes, who at first just want to save their own skin without taking any particular position or having any patriotic ideals, but who are then forced by the circumstances of the war and by the German oppressors to take over responsibility and to carry out an heroic act. The film boasts an illustrious array of fine Italian actors of the era who are all perfectly cast. Besides the then still young Tomas Milian in one of his earliest performances, the list comprises Nino Castelnuovo, Renato Salvatori, Leopoldo Trieste and Romolo Valli, not to forget the women like Carla Gravina and Anna Maria Ferrero.
Carlo Rustichelli, who had an immense musical gift and whose music always sounded characteristically Italian, wrote a lovely, haunting and highly emotional score dedicated to the spirit of the partisan soldiers of which only the “Tema partigiani” has been available before on a CAM CD compilation. The main theme which recours throughout the score in different variations has that typical Rustichelli touch with its melodic beauty and its discrete elegance and is is one of those memorable themes which goes straight to the heart.
In addition to UN GIORNO DA LEONI our CD also contains as a bonus the first ever release of the rather short score – with a duration of about 20 minutes – which Rustichelli wrote for the 1968 war movie LA BATTAGLIA DI EL ALAMEIN. Directed by Giorgio Ferroni (under the English pseudonym of Calvin Jackson Paget), the movie which dealt with the 1942 battle between Rommel and Montgomery in North Africa from an Italian point of view had a quite interesting international cast of Italian, French and British actors starring Robert Hossein (as Field Marshal Rommel), Michael Rennie (as General Montgomery), Frederick Stafford (as Italian Lieutenant Borri), George Hilton (as British Lieutenant Graham) and Enrico Maria Salerno (as Major Borri).
Almost from the outset a mood of despair and hopelessness is established which is also underlined by Rustichelli’s ominous and suspenseful music with its string tremoli and threatening chords. Rustichelli has written a superb tragic march with male choir which has all those typical melodic imprints of his symphonic style and also a poignant dirge for solo trumpet and organ which for example accompanies the death of the chivalrous and sympathetic Lieutenant Graham.
In the case of UN GIORNO DA LEONI we had access to the mono master tapes from the Sugar music archives whilst those for LA BATTAGLIA DI EL ALAMEIN had been recorded and preserved in stereo. We are pleased to present both complete original soundtracks on this CD – two quite different scores for anti-war films which bear testimony to the mastery of Carlo Rustichelli.
You can find the track listing of the CD on Saimel's website:
http://www.saimelrecords.com/SAGIORNIDALEONI.HTM
And my complete liner notes for the CD here:
http://www.saimelrecords.com/1GIORNIDALEONI.HTM
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