Link: DigitMovies

The Bava soundtrack anthology from DigitMovies continues in January with this peplum score by Armando Trovajoli. This is the only Mario Bava film before THE WHIP AND THE BODY that wasn't scored by Roberto Nicolosi. In my opinion a lot more sparks fly from Trovajoli's score than those of Nicolosi. I find it interesting that the last film Nicolosi scored for Mario Bava was I TRE VOLTI DELLA PAURA, the one where Bava fully found his style. WHIP and BLOOD & BLACK LACE would be unthinkable with Nicolosi's cold and distant orchestral sound, which is suitably dark for horror, but lacking compared with the decidedly more evocative, eye of the storm type of sound of Carlo Rustichelli. In this sense, I find Trovajoli's score to be closer to the latter.

A movie like HATCHET FOR THE HONEYMOON would be equally unthinkable with a Nicolosi score. Perhaps the total absence of humor is why Nicolosi doesn't click with me.

I never picked up the BLACK SUNDAY/THE EVIL EYE CD from DigitMovies. I have listened to the sound clips at Moviegrooves.com and the romantic piano theme from BLACK SUNDAY seems to be missing from the CD. That's the one Nicolosi cue that stands out in my mind, along with the jazzy "Rosy e Mary" from "Il Telefono" of I TRE VOLTI DELLA PAURA.

Checking the IMDb.com, I see that Nicolosi also scored other films on which Bava worked, like ESTHER AND THE KING and LAST OF THE VIKINGS. I haven't seen any of those. I have the I VAMPIRI/CALTIKI, THE IMMORTAL MONSTER CD, though, and the latter score (by Nicolosi) sounds quite different from the early 60s scores.

Nicolosi also scored GIANT OF MARATHON, one of my very favorite scores and one that has never appeared on LP or CD.