Actually Filmed in the Dark Corners

reer: In 1950 he began arranging and con - ducting for Capitol Records. He wrote his first “ACTUALLY “HOW MUCH film score in 1953 for the sailing travelogue Tanga Tika , but it was his series of hit record - FILMED IN THE SHOCK CAN YOU ings with his own orchestra that put him on the map – the song from “Ruby,” “The Poor DARK CORNERS STAND? People of Paris,” and his classic cover of Alex ” North and Hy Zaret’s “Unchained Melody.” “The Poor People of Paris” alone sold over a OF THIS SICK million copies and was Baxter’s first Gold That’s what the lurid ads screamed, along with Record. He also did a series of concept al - WORLD!” other great bits of hyperbolic tag lines – “Every bums featuring his own compositions, with conceivable, brutal TORTURE known to man such titles as Ritual of the Savage, The Pas - civilized or savage…” “A catalog of cruelty” sions, Tamboo , and Ports of Pleasure – these n 1962, one of the greatest years in film “SEE the rack – thumb screw – iron maiden – all did very well and are now considered clas - history, a year that gave us To Kill a Mock - torture drugs that make men slaves – bizarre sics of what has become known as Exotica. ingbird, Lawrence of Arabia, The I human sacrifices – today!” – well, you get the All throughout the 1950s Baxter regularly did Manchurian Candidate, Dr. No, Lolita, What - idea. film scores, including Untamed Youth, Jungle ever Happened to Baby Jane, The Man Who Heat, The Invisible Boy, The Lone Ranger and Shot Liberty Valance, How The West Was the Lost City of Gold, The Fiend Who Walked Won, The Miracle Worker, The Music Man, the West, Macabre , and many others. In Ride the High Country, Birdman of Alcatraz “POSITIVELY FO R 1959, Baxter joined up with AIP and began and many, many others, one of those funny turning out score after score, some for their quirks of movie fate happened – a documen - ADULTS ONLY? own productions, and some for the US re - ” leases of things they picked up elsewhere – a tary called Mondo Cane was unleashed on small sampling includes Goliath and the Bar - the world and became a box-office sensation. barians, Master of the World, Reptilicus, Who could have predicted that this shock doc And then there are the headlines of the “press Mario Bava’s Black Sunday and Black Sab - would take the film world by storm, and that it stories” created for newspapers to run: “MEN bath, House of Usher, Pit and the Pendulum, would also produce a hit song (“More”) and AND WOMEN IMMERSED IN MULTI-COL - The Comedy of Terrors, Tales of Terror, The be nominated for an Academy Award (for the ORED PAINT IN CEREMONY RESEMBLING Raven, Panic in Year Zero, Beach Party, Pa - aforementioned “More”)? It’s a classic exam - PSYCHEDELIC RITE” “WILD AND PRIMI - jama Party, Beach Blanket Bingo, The Dun - ple of what screenwriter and novelist William TIVE CEREMONIES IN A HIGH LY SCIEN - wich Horror, Cry of the Banshee – according TIFIC WORLD SEEN IN NEW SHOCKER, Goldman posits about the film industry – no to Baxter, he never turned anything down and ‘SADISMO’” “WEIRD AND EXOTIC CUS - one knows anything. The film was such a he was one of the busiest film composers TOMS TABOO TO THE OUTSIDE WORLD” throughout the 1960s. huge success that it spawned its own genre – “GAY NIGHTCLUBS FOR WOMEN ONLY the mondo film, and soon everyone was rush - SEEN IN SHOCKER ‘SADISMO’” “SHOCKING Baxter’s score for Sadismo is Baxter in full ing out their own mondo shock docs – Mondo FERTILITY RITES ARE FILMED FOR Exotica mode, and he truly puts the mondo in Cane 2, Malamondo, Women of the World, ‘SADISMO’” and on and on, each more lurid the music – which means you get Yma Africa Addio, Addio Zio Tom , and some really than the last. Sumac-like wordless vocals, you get xylo - low-budget knockoffs like Mondo Bizarro and phones and fluttering flutes, weird and won - Mondo Hollywood . A latecomer to the game Amongst the handful of credits listed in the derful orchestral colors (no strings), exotic was 1967’s Sadismo (alternate title, of pressbook, the narration for the US version and tantalizing themes, and even some bossa course, was Mondo Sadismo), a shock doc was spoken by Burt Topper and Terry Telli. nova, honky-tonk, and blues. If you want an about torture and cruelty and things taboo The film was produced by Salvatore Billit - eclectic soundtrack, look no further. We feel teri.The music supervisor was Al Simms. The and exotic practices from around the world. this is a monumental release if only for the US version was written by Phil Mark, and the The film was released by American Interna - fact that it’s the first CD called Sadismo . The editors were Fred Feitshans and producer Billit - source material used for this release was the tional. While it would be fun to write about teri (who presumably edited the original foreign the film in detail, the fact is that it would be 15ips two-track mono music tapes housed in version, with Feitshans re-cutting for the US). the MGM vaults. near impossible to do so, since the film has The distribution was handled by the AIP sub - never been available on home video and most sidiary Trans American Films. So, get out your rack, your thumb screw, and likely would not have received any television your iron maiden and prepare to enter the airings due to its extreme subject matter. As was its practice back then, American Inter - dark corners of this sick world courtesy of the Even the IMDb listing has almost no informa - national had the US release scored by Les great Les Baxter. You’ll be glad you came. tion. But, a perusal of the film’s pressbook Baxter. Baxter had rescored any number of gives a pretty good idea of what audiences AIP pickups from other countries, and for — Bruce Kimmel were in for. Sadismo he came up with a score that one can only imagine suited the film to a “T” (for Torture, of course). By the time of Sadismo , Baxter, who was born in 1922, had already achieved some major successes in his ca -.

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