L'Arbitro

Digitmovies presents for the very first time on CD the complete OST in full stereo by the legendary brothers Guido & Maurizio De Angelis for the movie “L’arbitro” (aka “Football Crazy”) directed in 1974 by Luigi Filippo D’Amico and starring Lando Buzzanca, Joan Collins, Gabriella Pallotta, Massimo Mollica, Marisa Solinas, Nello Pazzafini, Ignazio Leone, Dino Curcio, Daniele Vargas, Umberto D’Orsi, Gianfranco Barra, Giovanni Rosselli, Alvaro Vitali. The Sicilian football referee Carmelo Lo Cascio (Buzzanca) lives with his wife and son in Acireale (a character inspired by Concetto Lo Bello), where he wants to achieve success and to become an international referee. But he must also satisfy the sexual appetites of his wife (Pallotta) and of Elena (Collins), a very demanding lover. To improve his professional performances, Lo Cascio  begins to take amphetamines in a more and more massive way, to the point of going crazy: During an international football match (the final scene of the film) he refuses to whistle the end of the match and he is taken away by the police. At the time, RCA released a 45 rpm single (TBBO 1017) with the themes “Miss Elena” and “(I’m) Football Crazy” (played by Giorgio Chinaglia), but in the RCA archives, in addition to the stereo master tapes of the original recording session, we have made a great discovery: an album mock-up with ten selections (35:04) that never saw the light of day in 1974, and moreover we also found about 25:47 of alternate material that carries our CD to the total duration of 60:51. The De Angelis brothers have written, arranged and conducted a really nice OST that opens with the love theme “Miss Elena” in a pastoral version (Tr. 1), which gets reprised  in a pop version (Tr.8), then alternated with funny music in a Sicilian mood(Tr.2), lounge music as in a night club (Tr. 3), an African rock fast (Tr. 5) and slow version (Tr.18) and a Bossa Nova (Tr.7). The song “(I ‘m) Football Crazy “ is the main theme song of the OST: we get an instrumental take(Tr.4), a vocal take film version(Tr.9), a vocal take with different ending (Tr.11), a vocal take mixed for the 45 rpm single (Tr. 16) and the karaoke version (2:27).