For the first time ever on any Format the Original Soundtrack from the 1958 French ItalianTechnicolor Technirama Epic Spectacular directed by Alberto Lattuada, starring Van Heflin, Silvana Mangano, Geoffrey Horne, Viveca Lindfords, Vittorio Gassman, Agnes Moorehead.
Seldom, if ever, has a movie demonstrated an attack upon a fort to equal the attack upon Fort Bjelogorsk that is staged in this massive film. Thousands upon thousands of extras representing the wild Cossack troops and loyal tribesmen of the rebel leader, Pugachev, sweep across a barren plain, ford and swim a wide river and violently storm the wooden walls of the turreted fortress, which bristles with the cannon and muskets of the Empress' men. And thousands upon thousands of extras appear to have been slaughtered or maimed before the smoke and the dust of the battle settle and Pugachev sits victorious inside. Or the cavalry charge whereby the forces of Czarist General Subarov eventually rout the mob of the rebel-where has its equal been seen, outside the charge of the Knights in Laurence Olivier's magnificent ""Henry V" Or the scenes of Cossack carousing-who has staged such bacchanalian bouts, replete with barbecued steers and terrified females, this side of Cecil B. De Mille.
Piero Piccioni, renowned for his previous Jazz Soundtracks, for the first time faces a big Symphonic Score, in the very same way Elmer Bernstein faced THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. |
