RAY MASTER l'INAFFERRABILE - "Diamonds Are A Man's Best Friend" (1966)

This week's Saturday Night Special is like a lukewarm bath, it still feels good, but not great. The IMDB entry starts off with "Amazing Italian movie..." but again, not half bad, but no way near amazing!

 

This Italian film was made in 1966, and is called "Ray Master l'inafferrabile," and released in English as "Diamonds Are A Man's Best Friend."

Not that many years ago, I searched out this film, and finally found a copy on a website now deceased, but these days you lucky people can watch it by just clicking on this link, and I hate to say it, but it's even a better looking copy than the one I have. There's just one little thing, it's not in English!

 

"Bright Lights, Big City!"

The star of "Ray Master l'inafferrabile," is Félix (Elevator To The Gallows) Marten as a very suave and tricky thief named John Martin.

The object of his affection is a crown jewel called "The Mountain Of Light!"

The jewel is worth a million dollars, and it seems like John Martin and his team spend about two million trying to steal it.

The crowd is in awe of the jewel's beauty!

John Martin stalls out the elevator, rides on top of the adjacent one, steps over and reaches in, and he's got it! But if it was that simple, the movie would only be ten minutes long, in fact, that's not even the real jewel.

John realizes he's being tailed, so he takes a picture of the guy, and then hands it to him, so he realizes that they are onto him!

I was really hoping this cool looking band was going to play some good music, but to my despair, they don't, and instead we get more oobie doobie vocals from Maestro "Mah Nà Mah Nà," Piero Umiliani.

This fancy miniature spy-type radio is hidden in a book about the size of "The People's Almanac."

Here you can see how thick the book is. I would think reading a book that thick while you are at the pool would be more suspicious that the little radio inside. The woman in the pool is John's gal-pal-enemy-lover Veronica Turner as played by Liana (The Devil In Love) Orfei.

 

The jewel is super protected by guards and video cameras, but John and his crew are able to replace the video footage, so when they're stealing the diamond, it still looks like it is safely where it belongs.

It's all too scientific for me, but somehow they are able to levitate John, so he doesn't step on the floor and set off the alarms.

This time he got the real thing!

Veronica is not treated very nicely by anyone on either side, and is slapped, pushed around, and tied up a couple of times before the movie is over.

To avoid getting caught with the jewel in customs, John's buddy has a pair of binoculars that also act like a high-powered blowgun, so before he boards the plane, he stops for a second, and his pal shoots it into his briefcase in a special container.

Another gang that wants the diamond threatens to make John permanently blind, but for some reason, they don't follow through, and just throw him in a locked room instead!

I think I could have easily just shown you all the various outfits Veronica wears over the course of the movie, and it would have been just as interesting!

The bad guys finally get the jewel, and put it in this Hotel's safe. John then shows up, and says he needs to store some expensive electronic e quipment for the night. Once the safe's door is locked, John's box opens up, and a midget gets out and reclaims the jewel!

The final switcheroo finds the jewel stashed inside the butt of John's umbrella.

John and Veronica have a good laugh in the end, but it's really not very funny!

MUSIC BY THE MAESTRO BRUNO NICOLAI YOU CAN ACTUALLY OWN!

 

With everything that's going on in 2020, it seems like it's stacked up to be one of the worst years ever, but there is still at least one good thing about 2020, and that is that in this day and age, if a person wants to, you can learn about almost anything, and in this case, actually listen to it.

It's an extra special Weird Wednesday with a cherry on top!

Welcome to just some of the recorded work of renowned composer Bruno Nicolai that is available!

 

Many of the movies that Maestro Bruno Nicolai wrote the music for can be found on Discogs or Amazon in the format of CD or vinyl, and the 1975 film "Eyeball" or "Gatti Rossi In Un Labirinto Di Vetro" as it is also known, is good place to start! 

The blood splattered vinyl is too cool.

Along with Ennio Morricone, Piero Umiliani, and Riz Ortoloni, Bruno Nicolai was a brilliant Italian composer, and many times like on this LP, he worked closely with Maestro Morricone.

 This album was from the James Bond spoof "OK Connery," that starred Sean Connery's real life younger brother Neil Connery!

 

All four of those amazing composers are no longer with us. Nicolai passed away in 1991,

Umiliani died in 2001, Ortoloni left in 2014, and we just lost Morricone a couple of months ago.
On 1964's "Il Pelo Nel Mondo" or "Mondo Inferno," Bruno shared writing credits with Nino Oliviero.

This album, like some of the other ones I'm going to show you, can be bought on Discogs. Some are very reasonably priced like this LP for $9.99, and some of them are hundreds of dollars! 

Bruno also composed the music for a ton of films that weren't Giallo, and one of the coolest and free things you can do is check out this link on Discogs to the music of Bruno Nicolai, and it will take you to a page where you can magically listen to four hours and freakin' ten minutes of Bruno's music taken from various records of his! It's what I'm listening to right now!

 

I promise if you buy all these records, you would have one of the coolest collections in town!

It would be "Fenomenal!"

 

Not long ago, you couldn't find this movie anywhere, but now you can even buy the soundtrack for as low as $4.99, you inscrutable lucky dog!

 

There's only one of these Italian CD's for the soundtrack of "A Virgin Among The Living Dead" on Discogs, and somebody is asking $58.82 for it, but follow the link and you can listen to it for nothing!

The 1971 soundtrack from "The Night Evelyn Came Out Of The Grave,"

is also available but will cost you around $45.00. 

 

The soundtrack from "99 Women,"  a Jesus Franco film from 1969 about a woman's prison run by a sadistic superintendent, is less popular, and can be had for about eight bucks!

The soundtrack for Argento's "The Bird With The Crystal Plumage" was written by Maestro Morricone in 1970, and Bruno Nicolai was the conductor!!

 

Also from 1970 and starring Sir Christopher Lee was "The Bloody Judge," or "Il Trono Di Fuoco," and it can be found on a German CD starting at $9.41.  

If it's bloody soundtracks you like, then look no further than 1972's "The Case Of The Bloody Iris!"

Not one of my favorite movies, so I'm not likely to shell out $63.33 for a 10" UK record! 

 

And while we're on the subject of cases, here's the album cover from the soundtrack of the 1971 film, "The Case Of The Scorpion's Tail."

 

This 1966 film titled "Upperseven, The Man To Kill," is the most expensive one I found. They're asking $383.10 for this Japanese CD, and unfortunately, it's one of the few there are no musical links to.

 

This 1970 Jesus Franco sex romp called "Eugenie De Sade 70," commands about $45.00 for a CD and up to $193.00 for a vinyl album. 

The bummer is most of these LPs and CDs are in Europe, so you're looking at maybe at least another $20.00 in postage on top of the prices I've told you about.

 

"Il Conte Dracula" or "Count Dracula" if you prefer, came out in 1970, and was directed by Jesus Franco and starred Chris Lee as The Count! This one is a bit pricey for my meager tastes too!

"The Red Queen Kills Seven Times" came out in 1972 and is another album that commands a fairly high price of  $105.88 for a CD but you can hear two tracks right here!

 

But if none of that interests you, and you just want to have a good time, then grab yourself a copy of this 2015 transparent red record titled "Mondo A Go-Go!" It's full of good garage rock and even includes a couple of covers composed by Bruno Nicolai!

"In Go-Go We Trust!"

 

Now it's on to THE COUNTDOWN!

SOME NEAT ALBUM COVERS FROM MOVIES & TV SHOWS (1956 - 1987)

The original concept of this blog was to be 'music from the monster movies,' so I think it's about time I showed you some of the record soundtrack album covers to go along with some of those movies! Welcome to The Dungeon! Up first from 1956, is the wild electronic soundtrack by Louis and Bebe Barron for one of the best movies of all time, "Forbidden Planet." As cool and ahead of it's time as this music was, it's still hard for me to imagine anybody taking this record home and listening to it over and over. It was perfect for the movie, but it's just not that kind of music!

I was going to strictly do records from movies we've written about here, but I'm making the exception for these two "Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer" records, just because it's Mickey Spillane we're talking about here, not some ordinary chump!!

 "The 7th Voyage Of Sinbad" from 1958 had a magnificent score by Bernard Herrmann!

"I Married A Monster From Outer Space" came out in 1958, but this 'soundtrack' CD wasn't released until 2012. I still included it here since it's one of our favourite movies!

This LP was a 1964 release of music from the TV series "Burke's Law." The double entendre here is that the composer's name was Herschel Burke Gilbert. Tricky, right?

Piero Umiliani was a gifted composer we have featured here many times, and I'm sure this 1965 album for the movie "Operazione Poker" is a swingin' affair! Five aces in the deck, you gotta love it!

"The Satan Bug" came out in 1965, but this hard to find CD by Jerry Goldsmith wasn't released until 2007.

This fantastic record of music by Peter Thomas for the German Space Patrol, "Raumpatrouille" was released in 1966. I'm pretty sure that autographed CD's can still be purchased from BSC Music for a very reasonable price.

This seven inch 45 from 1966 by Nelson Riddle featured the "Batman Theme" written by Neal Hefti from the "Batman" TV series, and the flip side was another composer play on words, called "Nelson's Riddler!"

In 1967 "Bedazzled" came out, and this soundtrack LP came out the following year. Most of the music for the movie was composed by Dudley Moore himself. What a talented guy he was!

This is the cover for a 2016 vinyl LP they released of the 1967 film "Mad Monster Party" featuring music composed by Maury Lewis and Jules Bass, with some spoken word from Boris Karloff, and the title song sung by Ethel Ennis as can be heard right here!

This 1968 soundtrack from "Danger: Diabolik" is composed by Maestro Ennio Morricone and features the awesome song "Deep Down."

The prolific Bruno Nicolai is another Italian composer we've featured on these pages a number of times! This 1972 LP featured the music from the film "All The Colors Of The Dark!"

This CD for the 1973 film "The Satanic Rites Of Dracula" composed by John Cacavas, came back from the dead in 2011.

Sun Ra and his amazing Intergalactic Solar Arkestra came out with this movie and record called "Space Is The Place" in 1974, and is a must-see for any true fan of music!

"Suspiria" from 1977 is a Dario Argento movie we haven't got around to yet, but I wanted to include this cover just because I like the "Creepers" band called Goblin!

"The Monster Club" came out in 1981, with this very fun and listenable soundtrack featuring B.A. Robertson, The Viewers, Night, UB-40, Expressos. The Pretty Things, John Williams with the Douglas Gamely Orchestra, John Georgiadis, and Alan Hawkshaw!

Last but not least comes "Evil Dead II" from 1987, and music from Joseph Lo Duca!

Pretty Crazy, huh?