Broxton Comment-MB-004-40

LA CUCCAGNA [A GIRL AND A MILLION] (1962)

La Cuccagna, also known as A Girl And A Million, is a comedy-drama written and directed by Luciano Salce, one of Morricone’s earliest filmmaking friends and collaborators. The film stars Donatella Turri as Rossella, a beautiful young girl from a working class family, who finds out that – despite her good looks and charm – searching for a job is a difficult business. It’s a film which uses 1960s Italian ‘dolce vita’ sensibilities to tell a harsh story about the social and economic issues that plagued Italy in the 1960s, but it’s almost forgotten today. La Cuccagna was the fifth or sixth score in Morricone’s career, written when he was just 33.

The only two pieces of music ever released from La Cuccagna are “Il Cortile” and “Il Ritorno a Casa,” both of which could be found on a now long-out-of-print 45RPM vinyl EP released by RCA Records Europe. The first, “Il Cortile,” is a sprightly, childish little piece for stand-up piano, shrill woodwinds, and lithe strings, that captures a sense of innocent urban idyll. The second, “Il Ritorno a Casa,” is initially a little more introspective, with darkly-hued strings and an occasional harmonica creating a sense of tension. Eventually an acoustic guitar joins the mix, and it slowly becomes a more traditionally orchestral, a warm but bittersweet melody that has an underlying sense of tragedy. Some of the orchestral phrasings remind me of Nino Rota’s writing for traditional writing for Fellini, and by the end it is quite lovely.

In the absence of any sort of fuller score release, the only place these cues are available to listen to is on YouTube, but unfortunately the first piece is disrupted by dialogue tracks and sound effects from the film, including women singing, assorted kitchen noises, children laughing, and an amateur vocal choir. However the second piece is well worth listening to; it’s a trivial, unimportant work by Morricone standards, but it’s still fascinating from a historical perspective to see where it all began.

Track Listing: 1. Il Cortile (3:04), 2. Il Ritorno a Casa (2:23). RCA Records PM45 3129, 05 minutes 27 seconds.