Danger Diabolik

AMG Review of Danger Diabolik

Richie Unterberger
All Music Guide

One of Ennio Morricone's more obscure soundtracks was done for the 1968 movie Danger Diabolik. Even many Morricone fans have never heard it, and it wasn't even all that easy to find as a CD that was issued more than three decades later. That's unfortunate, as it's an impressive work, not to mention one of his most maniacal. Many of the Morricone trademarks are here: lush European sweeping orchestration, sunny romp-in-the-fields easy listening vocals, ghostly female singing, vicious twanging surf-spy movie guitar, atonal jazzy shrieks, and so on. Rarely, however, did he throw so many of his identifiers together in such a concentrated dose, or jump-cut between them so quickly and unnervingly. To the list above, you can add some hot'n'heavy wordless sexual moaning, quasi-psychedelic horror movie touches, near-Eastern drones, and berserk organ playing that sounds like super-amplified popcorn popping. The insertion of lo-fi (and cheesy) dialogue (in English) between many of the cuts, however, might add to the complete documentation of the soundtrack, but does impede both the flow of things and make for a less listenable overall experience. It sounds as if the music could have been taken from a better source, too. But despite these drawbacks, it's heartily recommended to Morricone fans, as well as general admirers of the unfathomably strange.