I have always been a sucker for a Morricone score (or frankly any composer) where my first reaction is this really Morricone? The dour plucking banjo in AUTOSTOP ROSSO SANGUE seemed new to my ears on the Cometa LP in 1977 as did the whole score. Eventually I did find an antecedent of sorts in SONNY & JED so with the artwork on AUTOSTOP I assumed this was a modern Bonnie & Clyde story. Not so. Why this film is sleazy (as most of even the good reviews concur) and how Morricone took it begins with an Oscar nominated screenwriter Pasquale Festa Campanile whose credits include THE LEOPARD, ROCCO AND HIS BROTHERS, THE CONJUGAL BED and THE FOUR DAYS OF NAPLES. When he started to direct he was serviceable but not half as good as some of his previous screenplay writing. He wanted to keep directing and noticed when he included a beautiful star undressed in his films the box office went up so it became a mainstay. The four films Morricone collaborated on with him were THE GIRL AND THE GENERAL (with Rod Steiger and Virna Lisi), WHEN WOMEN HAD TAILS, HITCH HIKE and THE GOOD THIEF. All of them have a through line, money is the root of all evil, but Campanile’s direction doesn’t always make this clear. But it is plain in a conversation about a book and movie our villain proposes about this whole event.
HITCH HIKE (The Italian Autostop Rosso Sangue/ Blood Red Hitchhike seems more accurate) is basically a couple (Franco Nero and Corinne Clery) coming back from a camping trip in Northern California (Italy convincingly substituting) and picking up a hitch-hiker (David Hess) who is both a mental patient and bank robber with two million dollars in tow. Tortuous cat and mouse mayhem ensues. What makes this sleaze is not necessarily that our lady is almost constantly naked throughout but that the males are not (making her pure eye candy) AND she is abused again and again for being so attractive. Also she is the only character to root for and hence your point of identification is demeaned. This is key because even in the giallos Morricone had scored there is always someone who provides a moral center to the mayhem. There is a controversial rape sequence where Corinne responds with pleasure. The idea is repugnant because it feeds into the idea that rapees are asking for it. BUT in this circumstance it is meant to point out the “rapist” is actually more sensitive to her needs than her husband was in a previous scene, so it comes off less harsh than other sequences in the film. Not a pleasant watch by any means.
But Morricone takes a cue from 1972’s DELIVERANCE that used the banjo to accompany lowlife backwoods behavior. His main title works on many levels. It is revved up for the rape sequence with Edda Del’orso eroticism and twanged up BONNIE AND CLYDE style for the car chases:
But trying to insert humanity in such a nihilistic tale may be daunting. There is a night time camping scene at the beginning of the movie where our couple stare at the fire and the camaraderie of the campers that has gathered around it . It seems a million miles away from the life they are living. A hippy group of youths start singing a song that sounds familiar. It seems to be of its time. Yeah, Morricone wrote it:
Never heard of this one but always great to discover a score by the Maestro that we were not aware of. Thanks Henry for digging this one up and presenting it here. Cheers!
Odd that this one has not been released on CD. I see that one track on the old LP (the last one, Altri Tempi) had been re-used from Bluebeard, and one original track was weirdly included on the end of the "Un Genio, Due Compari, Un Pollo" CD on Hexacord as well as a couple of compilations.
Does anyone know if the masters were lost or something?
