Bruciatelo vivo (Land Riders)

Digitmovies continues its adventurous journey through the Western genre by proudly issuing on CD the definitive version of the OST by Bruno Nicolai for the 1969 movie “Bruciatelo vivo!” (aka “Land Raiders”) directed by Nathan H. Juran , produced by Charles H. Schneer for Columbia Pictures and starring Telly Savalas, George Maharis, Arlene Dahl, Janet Landgard, Fernando Rey. After having moved to Forge River, a town in the United States, the Mexican Vincente Jardenas (Savlaas) changes his name to Vincent Carden. The man has become a very rich land owner and fierce enemy of the Indians who is willing to pay ten dollars for every scalp of them. His brother Pablo (Maharis) enters the scene, considered guilty for having killed his girlfriend Luisa. At the end, the Apaches take their revenge, destroy the town and also kill Vincent. Sheriff Mainefield, together with his daughter Kate the only survivor of the massacre, just before dying will confess to Pablo that in fact Vincent was the true culprit of the seduction and death of the ill-fated Luisa. In 1969 in the USA a 45 rpm single (BH 45-9343) with two tracks and a 33 rpm album (BHS 21) with twelve selections and a duration of 29’ was issued on the Beverly Hills label, but this OST was released for the first time on CD (PCD 128) by the Belgian Prometheus label who then re-issued it in 1993 with fourteen tracks and an expanded duration of 42:33.Both the vinyl records and the CD feature a weird sound, a hybrid between a mono and fake stereo, but in fact the stereophonic master tapes do not exist at all. Our own CD was possible thanks to the big help of the Nicolai estate which till today has preciously kept the original mono master tapes of the 1969 recording session. This gave us the chance to release the definitive version of a fabulous OST with twenty-two tracks and a total time of 62:20. Bruno Nicolai has written one of his best OST's for the Western genre with an absolutely unique and recognizable style where an epic main theme - introduced in Titoli di testa (Tr.1) - for orchestra, the choir of Cantori Moderni di Alessandroni and the harmonica of Franco De Gemini triumphs. The main theme is reprised in Tr.10 and in the conclusive Tr.22. A sad love theme appears as memory of Luisa, the girl who has been mysteriously killed, and behind her death a terrible truth is hidden (Tr.4). It gets alternated with several violent and dramatic tracks which form the background to ambushes, attacks and bloody battles between cowboys and Indians (Tr.6,Tr.8,Tr.14,Tr.15). As bonus tracks we have enclosed two rarities: the main theme with the film version without choir during the Apache attack (Tr.21) and the stereophonic version (Tr.22) thanks to the discovery of two tracks with orchestra and choir which had been recorded separately. Even if somebody can remember this movie or not, this CD wants to pay tribute to the big music genius of Bruno Nicolai, an author who is and always will be in the hearts of us aficionados.