A Fistful Of Dollars: An Original Soundtrack Recording
Ennio Morricone had been writing film scores for just three years when director Sergio Leone tapped him in 1964 to score a low-budget, European-produced Western remake of Kurosawa'sYojimbostarring an American TV actor named Clint Eastwood. The film's worldwide success would make all three men international stars. For his part, Morricone ratcheted his work (which until then had been largely pedestrian) up several notches, virtually inventing a new set of Western film-music clichés in the process. Though Leone's film is cold and often brutal, the coloration of Morricone's music is ironically warm and human. "Titoli" displays the whistling prowess of early Morricone collaborator Allessandro Allesandroni set against an insistent Spanish guitar riff, while other elements of what would soon become one of Morricone's many scoring formulas fall into place: oddball percussion and bells, a Ventures-esque electric guitar, and the gruff chants of the Cantori Moderni. "Theme from 'A Fistful of Dollars'" also displays Morricone's magnificent writing for trumpet, his favorite instrument. The composer has said he was trying to evoke European as well as American folk influences in this work, setting primitive flutes and drums against square-dance fiddles, stately solo oboe, and trumpet alongside a plaintive harmonica--did Morricone invent world music? Though the score proper comprises just seven cues (the film's low-budget dictum forcing the composer to opt for quality over quantity), this reissue of RCA's original vinyl soundtrack features "A Fistful of Dollars Suite," a surprisingly successful re-edit of the score's most important pieces. The phrase is overused, but this is truly a seminal film score.--Jerry McCulley