Albert e l'uomo nero

Digitmovies continues to travel through the classics of Italian television by issuing for the very first time on CD the complete OST by Franco Micalizzi from the cult TV mini-series “Albert e l’uomo nero” (aka “Albert and the boogie man”) which had been broadcasted in three episodes by Italian Television in 1976. The series was directed by Dino B. Partesano and starred Claudio Cinquepalmi, Nando Gazzolo, Maria Grazia Grassini, Franco Graziosi, Susanna Martinkova, Carlo Simoni, Cristina Gajoni, Ivana Monti. While running in the country around a big villa close to Ravenna where he lives with his dad (Gazzolo) and his aunt Teresa (Grassini), little Albert (Cinquepalmi), a kid only ten years old, finds the corpse of his father’s second wife near a canal. Albert is a child with a big imagination who through his fantasy and through games succeeds to fill all of the arid affective void around him and at the same to react to such a scary discovery. His real and recurrent nightmare is represented by the boogie man, a menacing figure whose face is covered with a ski mask and who by night smuggles into Albert’s house. Only commissioner Gandini (Simoni), who investigates into the murder of his stepmother, believes the kid who thanks to his details will let the policeman discover an unbelievable truth. In 1976 RCA had issued a 45 rpm single with two tracks in full stereo (RCA TBBO 1188) by Franco Micalizzi. For this CD we have now used the original single stereo master tape and the complete mono master tapes vaulted in the RCA archives with all the music score written and recorded for the TV mini-series with the approval of the author himself. M° Micalizzi succeeded in creating the perfect musical atmosphere of the little protagonist by composing an OST with modern sounds (represented through the Moog keyboard performed by the author) with colours between Pop and Progressive, at the same time fascinating and macabre. The OST is based on two main themes which the composer reprises with continuous variations: “Albert e l’uomo nero”, with the typical Giallo Sound (Tr.1,Tr.3,Tr.9,Tr.10,Tr.15), as background music for the investigations about the mystery. And “Tema di Albert” , a sweet and nostalgic motif for the little protagonist with a lullaby flavour (Tr.2,Tr.5,Tr.13,Tr.20). Micalizzi has written suspense music where the strings are featured to describe all the macabre psychological darkness that surrounds the child (Tr.3, Tr.7,Tr.8,Tr.12,Tr.16,Tr.18), and also in pure police movie style (Tr.14, Tr.19). Besides the recent DVD which has given the chance to the youngest generation to discover this very good TV program, our CD sincerely wants to pay tribute to the excellent music score by Franco Micalizzi, finally rescued and preserved through this complete release.