# Carlo Franci's "The Invincible Gladiator"



## Prodromides

Carlo Franci was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina [as was Lalo Schifrin (5 years later)] in 1927.
He's still with us.
Franci was a student of Goffredo Petrassi and Franco Ferrara, who no doubt helped Franci get film scoring assignments in Italy during the late-1950s and early-1960s.
He did not write prolifically for cinema (music for about 25 films), but amazingly had none of his soundtracks released onto any media throughout the decades until 2016 - when the Digitmovies label issued his 1961 *Il Gladiatore Invincibile* on CD around 6 months ago (55 years after the movie was made).

So ... here's an image of the first ever Carlo Franci soundtrack ... debuting after its composer attained age 89!










This soundtrack is full-throttle/straight-ahead symphonic music.
It should appeal to people who love orchestral film music from any decade ... from any country.
The album program is uninterrupted by any source-music type of cue (such as marches, parades, processionals, dances, religious chorus, or ethnic/world music, etc.) and lasts over an hour in duration.

Collectors of vintage classical music recordings should not be unreceptive toward the monaural archival sound and likewise be receptive toward this music score's rather dense/somewhat neo-classical pungent vernacular which Franci doubtlessly learned from Petrassi and which also eschews sentimental romanticism.

Speaking for myself, *Il Gladiatore Invincibile* is a very pleasant surprise from a blind-buy (never saw the flick nor heard of Franci's music before) and comes recommended - highly enough for me to create a thread specifically for it in order to alert potential enthusiasts.


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## Pugg

I like you raving review, however the price of that DVD is beyond me on the moment.


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## geralmar

Pugg said:


> I like you raving review, however the price of that DVD is beyond me on the moment.


YouTube to the rescue:


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## Pugg

geralmar said:


> YouTube to the rescue:


So kind of you, thank you very much.


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