REVOLVER (REISSUE)

Quartet Records, in collaboration with EMI General Music Publishing, presents a remastered reissue of Ennio Morricone’s iconic poliziesco score for Sergio Sollima’s REVOLVER (1973), a violent Italian-French thriller starring Oliver Reed and Fabio Testi. In the film, a prison warden is forced to exchange a French criminal for his kidnapped wife, but they soon find themselves on the trail of a larger conspiracy.

For REVOLVER, Morricone created the original song “Un Amico,” performed by Daniel Beretta, which is possibly one of the most beautiful melodies written by the Roman maestro (it was included by Tarantino in a key sequence of INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS). Morricone also provides a wistful and playful love theme (“Anna”) and several background source cues in his inimitable style.

Another major ingredient of the score is a cue titled “Revolver” or “Inseguimento e Fuga” (Chase and Escape). Morricone composed a 12-minute version of this dynamic piece as well as other varied arrangements to fit different moments in the film. “Revolver” is a driving, staccato piece of music for piano and orchestra that repeats and builds, creating a dark, propulsive atmosphere in the style that became Morricone’s shorthand for crime and gangster action. He took very similar approaches in the American gangster films STATE OF GRACE, THE UNTOUCHABLES and BUGSY.

The original LP of REVOLVER was released in 1973 by General Music in Italy and reissued in 1977 in Japan. Subsequently, the same program was reissued on CD several times, in Germany (Allhambra), Italy (Dagored), and Japan (Seven Seas). An expanded edition with virtually all the music recorded by Morricone for the film was releaased by GDM in 2006 and quickly sold out. This is a reissue of that edition, supervised by Dániel Winkler and Claudio Fuiano, and completely remastered by Chris Malone from the original master tapes. The package includes in-depth liner notes by film music writer Jeff Bond.