Ennio Morricone Danger: Diabolik!

Iconic film composer Ennio Morricone made an incredible contribution to popular music. Coming to prominence through his scoring of Sergio Leone’s Westerns, there followed work for directing legends such as Bernardo Bertolucci, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Roland Joffè, Brian De Palma and many more, since Morricone was responsible for more than 400 film scores in his lifetime. The 1968 oddity Danger: Diabolik! is one of his rarest, since the score was lost in a fire, and one of his most celebrated, since Quentin Tarantino used its ‘The Bed’ in Once Upon A Time...In Hollywood. This warped action/crime film directed by Mario Brava, is based on an Italian comic series about a criminal doctor who enacts lavish heists for his girlfriend; the psychedelic music has a wall of sound feeling with raging guitars and a twanging sitar, as well as its irresistible repeated refrain of ‘Deep Down,’ sung by Cristina Brancucci- the stuff of dreams for the devious doctor and his hapless patients. With atonal keyboards, choral breaks, garage rock and organ freakouts, this is the kind of heady, outrageous mix of classical and modern that only Morricone can pull off.