The Film Forum, an artsy movie house in Greenwich Village, has been having a spaghetti western festival. I spent most of Sunday with my son, watching the "Man With No Name" trilogy. That's after spending Friday with him watching thee other movies -- Hellbenders, Face to Face and Death Rides a Horse. This was kind of a followup to our taking a cinema history course at a local community college. The class, which ended a couple months ago, concentrated on spaghetti westerns.
Through this, I've been getting into the music from Spaghetti Westerns. Of course, there's the classic of the genre, Ennio Morricone's theme from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Give a listen:
That's a strangely copmpelling melody that combines latin elements with Duane Eddy-style twangy guitar. And the harmonica. But it's instrumental, which for me is a strike against it. In a sense it's more mood music than song. But interestingly it does build on the theme music from its predecessors, A Fistful of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More.
In terms of real songs, I was drawn to the theme from Django, a film starring Franco Nero. The professor showed us a scene from that movie, which was enough for me to seek it out on YouTube. Really good movie. But my point in mentioning it here is that I love the theme song. Listen here:
In the theatre, between films, they were playing a ctachy song that I didn't recognize. I did, however, make a point of remembering the line, "There's just kind of man that you can trust. That's a dead man. Or a Gringo like me." When I got home I was able (with the help of the intertubes) identify it as a song from Gunfight at Red Sands:
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