Il Grande Racket

Music by Guido & Maurizio De Angelis

L´Uomo Della Strada Fa Giustizia

Music by Bruno Nicolai

La Mano Spietata Della Legge

Music by Stelvio Cipriani

 

 

Guido De Angelis (flute) and Maurizio De Angelis (guitar) had a productive career in the Italian popular production of the 70´s, composing for many genres and especially for Terence Hill and Bud Spencer films.

On that trajectory had a chance to diversify his work doing music for thrillers and police movies. The incomparable soundtrack of Il Grande Rackett (1975) is possibly the highlight of brothers De Angelis experimental adventures. Strongly influenced by 70´s rock (somewhere between progressive rock and jazz-rock), Il Grande Racket music is a remarkable exercise in instrumental experimentation. It is also one of the most suffocating soundtracks of the genre. Directed by Enzo Castellari (La Polizia Incrimina), the film is one of the most abusive violent polizzioteschi ever. The music, circular and claustrophobic, is present as early as opening sequence with the destruction of windows and interiors of shops by the criminal gang. The rhythmic intensity of Il Grande Rackett and Caccia All'Uomo, abstract themes as Visione and Fugue Disperata (suffocating bass notes, flutes in echo and many improvisations) and the cacophony of Seconda Allucinazione, thikens the density of the film. No room for the police hero cliché here, no swings soul, romantic interlude or the jazz tradition. The music relentlessly assaults the listener in one of the most original and strenuous work of the Euro-police movies. Il Grande Rackett is available in a triple anniversary edition (it's the 100th release) of Digitmovies label that also includes music of Stelvio Cipriani for La Mano Spietata Della Legge (1973) and Bruno Nicolai for L'Uomo Della Strada Fa Giustizia (1975).

 

At the height of the Italian police cinema, 1975, Bruno Nicolai´s music for L'Uomo Della Strada Fa Giustizia (1975) was characterized by its intensity. The sound weight achieved in the careful recording of the instruments is noticeable as a major characteristic of the soundtrack. The main theme (almost a "hard-jazz") is present and intense as in a western. Its piano base line will serve for the majority of variations. Strong electric bass lines (essential to the genre) and piano bases set the sound, bold and intense. The musical-box-like delicacy of Un Uomo Innamorato contrasts the whole work. On the following years of genre decadence, this L'Uomo Della Strada Fa Giustizia stood as one of the good examples of polizzioteschi because of firm direction by Umberto Lenzi and incisive soundtrack by Bruno Nicolai. 

 

Productive in dramas and thrillers, Stelvio Cipriani also had an important passage in the Italian police movies of the 70´s. His music for La Mano Spietata Della Legge (1973) is more tragic than the usual action oriented scores. It includes dynamic passages (Caccia Urbana) and distraction pop (Con Sentimento), but the melancholy of main theme is the tone for the whole work. In the versions of the theme (as usual in Cipriani soundtracks) there is a beauty passage for acoustic guitar (Amore Per Lei), and a bossa nova version (Relax at Swimming Pool). In the monothematic sequence, is of note the track Violenza – with bass, flute, and guitar with Cry Baby – a suspense theme that could be in some of many giallos the composer made in the period.