Rosmunda e Alboino

Digitmovies, with collaboration of Gruppo Sugar, continues to explore the territory of the Italian Peplum by releasing, as Volume XXIV, for the first time on CD, the complete OST in mono, by Carlo Rustichelli for the movie “Rosmunda e Alboino” (aka “Sword of the Conqueror”) The movie was directed in 1961 by Carlo Campogalliani and starred Jack Palance, Eleonora Rossi Drago, Guy Madison, Carlo D’Angelo, Edy Vessel, Andrea Bosic, Ivan Palance, Vittorio Sanipoli, Olga Romanelli, Nicola Solari, Giovanni Vari, Vittorio Vaser, Vladimiro Tuicovich, Vladimiro Picciafuochi, Aldo Pini, Renato Mori, Spartaco Nale, Barbara Nardi, Amina Pirani Maggi, Cesare Polacco. The Gepid Amalchi (Madison), who is guilty of not having avoided the disastrous defeat against the Lombards, is accused of high treason by his king Cunimondo (Bosic) and removed from his position. However, Alboin (Palance), the king of the Lombards, who is happy about his victory, has other intentions and wants to ally with the Gepids to attack Rome. As a pledge of the new covenant, Alboin asks for Rosmunda (Drago) to become his bride. Despite being Amalchi’s wife and the mother of his child, she accepts the proposal for the good of their people. The brother of Alboin, however, is killed in the tournament which takes place before the wedding. The Lombard, who ignores the fact that the killing was schemed by a counselor of Cunimondo who operates secret negotiations with Byzantium, creates a bloodbath among the Gepids and forces Rosmunda to marry him anyway. But Amalchi, who has gathered the scattered tribes of his people, suddenly attacks the palace of the Lombards and kills Alboin. For the realization of this CD we could use the mono master tapes of the original session that allowed us to release every recorded note (62:15) under the the masterful conducting of Carlo Savina. Maestro Rustichelli has composed an orchestral OST with an ancient flavour, featuring vigorous passages for strings, brass and percussion for battle scenes which get alternated with a delicate love theme. This OST is a must-have addition to each archive dedicated to soundtracks of high artistic quality. A proper rescue and preservation of the Italian Silver Age and a sincere tribute to the musical art of M° Carlo Rustichelli.