FOREIGN INTRIGUE
Foreign is a relative term depending on where you are, but Europe was certainly the place to be in the 60's if you were a secret agent. The number of spy films from that period is staggering, but unfortunately the soundtracks are harder to find (here in the U.S. anyway). Luckily, quite a few have surfaced on CD in the last few years and hopefully, readers will get in touch with info about what's missing.
"Operation Kid Brother" (1967) aka "O. K. Connery", composed by Ennio Morricone and Bruno Nicolai, was released on CD by Digitmovies. A great over the top Bond-esque score, long believed lost, to a film starring Sean's little brother, Neil with Daniela Bianchi, Bernard Lee, Lois Maxwell, and Adolfo Celi in an Italian spy spoof that's more fun than most of the Bond flicks after 1969.
"Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang" (1967), is on CD, by Bruno Nicolai who also scored.....
"Agente Speciale LK" (1967) a sort of cult classic directed by Jess Franco starring Ray Danton. Oddly enough, not long after a first CD was released, this second one appeared on the Dagored label with an added suite of shorter music cues making it the one to get.
(These three images provided courtesy of our friends at www.italiansoundtracks.com)
Apparently the Cam label released soundtrack LPs in fairly limited quantities in the 60s making them extremely hard to find. Three examples of full length LPs would be:
"Serenade for Two Spies" (1965) by Francesco De Masi,
"Secret Agent Super Dragon" (1966) by Benedetto Ghiglia, (starring Ray Danton again) and...
"Balearic Caper" (1966). Scored by Ghiglia again, but get this. It starred Daniella Bianchi and Harold "Oddjob" Sakata! There are also 7 inch versions out there with one or two cuts from the albums that might be easier to find.
Daniella Bianchi was a busy little spy after From From Russia With Love. As well as "Balearic Caper", "Operation Kid Brother" and "Operation Lady Chaplin", she co-starred with Stuart Granger in "Requiem For A Secret Agent" (1967), with a groovy score by Piero Umiliani and appeared in...
"Slalom" (1965), with a score by Ennio Morricone on the Dagored label (both on CD). Slalom has also been released on a pricey Japanese CD. It seems to have more tracks, but this may only be because the Dagored release ran several pieces of music together on each of the 6 tracks. If anyone has compared the two, let me know. Daniella was also in...
"Troppo Per Vivre" (1967) with a great Francesco De Masi score on the Cam label and...
"OPERATION LADY CHAPLIN" (1966) by Bruno Nicolai on the Digitmovies label. This is the score only because as usual, the title theme (performed by Bobby Solo) is lost or destroyed. While Daniella held her own, this was actually a Ken (Attack Of The Giant Leeches) Clark film. He starred in several euro-spy flicks, often as Dick Maloy, agent 077. Some others are...
. "Agente 077 Dall'Oriente Con Furore" (1965) by Piero Piccioni paired with his score to "Missione Morte Molo 83" (1965) (not a Clark flick) on this CD of the same name.
"The Tiffany Memorandum" (1967), Nine tracks of which are included on this CD of Riz Ortolani scores which also has music from Una Sull'altra and Teresa La Ladra and...
"The Fuller Report" (1969) from BEAT Records with a great score by Armando Trovaioli. AND...
"FX-18 Secret Agent" (1964), by Frank Alamo. An EP from one in a series of five or six FX-18 films. Others were scored by Georges Van Parys and Michel Magne. (Anyone heard these?).
"Upperseven" (1965) has a nice Bruno Nicolai score with an interesting footnote. The recording of the vocal theme had been lost (of course) so it wasn't included on the soundtrack. However, a great cover version was created using the original instrumental tracks with singer Sabina Montes recreating the vocals. This version is available on the "Our Man In R.O.M.E." Collection which includes music from several of the Italian spy flicks on this page as well as some Italian crime films.
Mario Nascimbene's score to "Kiss The Girls And Make Them Die" (1966) on the Avanz label is a tough one to find. The film has Mike Connors playing spy in Rio de Janiero accompanied by lots of bossa nova versions of the film's theme.
"Dick Smart 2.007" (1967) on the Hexacord label has more bongos and bossa novas by Nascimbene. Just what being an Italian spy is all about.
One of the Cinecitta series of CDs, "Jazz In The Movies" has the theme to "Mark Donen Agente Zeta 7" (1966), "Baleari Operazione Oro" (1966), "Intrigo A Los Angeles" (1964), and"F.B.I. Operazione Vipera Gialla" (1966) and possibly some other spy flicks, but my Italian isn't very good. A great collection in any event.
A loungy little jazz theme from Berlino - "Appuntamento Per Le Spie" (1965) (aka Spy In Your Eye) is tucked away on the Salon: Retro Chic CD from Rambling Records.
The George Delerue collection, "Le Polar Selon Georges Delerue" on the Universal label has three tracks from "Pleins Feux Sur Stanislas" (1965) (known as "Killer Spy" in the U.S.)
George Nader starred as FBI agent, Jerry Cotton in a series of German flicks and the Peter Thomas music can be found on this 2-CD set, "100% Cotton". Great stuff!
"That Man In Istanbul" (1965) had Horst Bucholst playing spy with a nice score by George Garvarentz. On CD on the Harkit label. An alternate version of the love song and one other track are available on this CD collection of Garvarentz film music.
Here are some hard to find French EPs from the OSS 117 films. "OSS 117" (1963), "OSS 117 Mission For A Killer" (1965), and "OSS 117 Terror In Tokyo" (1966) (American Titles) There were about seven films in this series and most of them were composed by Michel Magne. Each EP has 4 or 5 tracks from the film.
All the music from these EPs (and a little more) plus Panic in Bangkok (1964) can be found on this great collection of Magne's music for the OSS 117 series put out by Universal in France.
This 2 CD set of Magne's music has the theme to each of the films mentioned above plus music from "The Deadly Decoy" (1962), "The Great Spy Chase" (1964), and the Fantomas (kind of a blue faced Blofeld) films along with many other films he scored.
"Alphaville" (1965), aka "Dick Tracy On Mars" and "Tarzan Vs. IBM" was an odd film. It had Eddie Constantine as sometimes detective, sometimes spy Lemmy Caution visiting another planet. There are five tracks on this Paul Misraki collection which I believe are the same as the original French EP. There is also a collectors CD out there for fans with the full title sequence on CD rom, which you can play in your computer plus a reproduction of the movie poster.
Ennio Morricone scored "Matchless" (1966) with Patrick O'Neal as a spy who could turn invisible. (Why not?) On LP and a limited edition CD on the Avanz label.
A nice 8 minute suite of his music from "Si J'etais Un Espion" (1967) can be found on this box set of Serge Gainsbourg music.
Scacco internazionale (1968) stars Tab Hunter (and Daniella Bianchi again) as a journalist with good spies and bad spies on his tail. The score by Carlo Rustichelli can only be found on a very rare and pricey LP.
Colpo Maestro Al Servizio Di Sua Maesta Britannica (aka Masterstroke) (1967) which is really a caper film with spies thrown in has a great Francesco De Masi score.
Haven't actually heard this one, but this 7 inch from La Spia Che Viene Dal Mare (1966) has music by Berto Pisano and Nora Orlandi with a vocal by Ella Gaby in Italian.
Franco and Ciccio were in a number of Italian spy parodies including one of the Dr. Goldfoot films and this one, "Due Mafiosi Contro Goldginger"(1965) (Not a misprint. Someone was probably trying to avoid a lawsuit) by Piero Umiliani.