Broxton Comment-MB-008-82

SENZA SAPERE NIENTE DI LEI (1969)

Senza Sapere Niente di Lei – also known as Unknown Woman – is an Italian giallo thriller, directed by Luigi Comencini, starring Philippe Leroy and Paola Pitagora. Leroy plays Nanni, an insurance lawyer who launches an investigation into the mysterious death of an elderly lady who died two hours before her life insurance expired. As he digs deeper into the circumstances of her death, Nanni meets and quickly becomes the lover of the old lady’s beautiful daughter Cinzia (Pitagora). Of course, as is always the case, things quickly turn dangerous for Nanni, as there is clearly more to Cinzia than meets the eye.

The opening cue, “Senza Sapere Niente di Lei (Titoli),” is a nice piece of laid back jazz – conventional, but pretty – and this style of writing continues through subsequent cues such as “Una Strana Ragazza,” “L’Avvocato e la Ragazza,” all of which combine keyboards and subtle guitars with strings, pianos and brushed snares, charming and appealing. “Frammenti d’Estasi” and “Sospetti e Tenerezze” are lush and dream-like, with cascading chimes and harp glissandi, and occasional interpolations of the main theme. Meanwhile, cues like “Identikit di un Delitto” and “Ricordo” are a little more sinister and introspective, capturing the film noir aspects of the score with darkly-hued writing for string, piano, and harpsichord, which allows the duplicitous nature of Cinzia to come to the fore.

Interestingly, “Stato Confusionale,” “In Un Ricordo,” “In Un Ricordo #2,” “Lui Per Lei,” were originally written for a film called Lui Per Lei, which was shot but never released, and so Morricone re-purposed some of the music he wrote for it in this score. These cues are much more abstract and challenging than the rest of the score – the almost 9-minute “Stato Confusionale” being a prime example of this as it blends an off-kilter music box idea with haunting vocals, frenzied pianos, and electronic white noise, in a manner that is actually quite unpleasant – although “Lui Per Lei,” is a little hipper and funkier, with a toe-tapping rhythmic core, wah-wah electric guitars, and prototypical choral vocals.

Overall Senza Sapere Niente di Lei is a fairly minor Morricone work, notable only for its breezy and jazzy main theme. The only release of the full score is the one from Digitmovies, released in 2006, but frankly I would invest in other more iconic titles before venturing down this road.

Track Listing: 1. Senza Sapere Niente di Lei (Titoli) (2:03), 2. Una Strana Ragazza (2:59), 3. Identikit di un Delitto (2:56), 4. Stato Confusionale (8:53), 5. Senza Sapere Niente di Lei (3:26), 6. Frammenti d’Estasi (3:06), 7. In Un Ricordo (3:25), 8. L’Avvocato e la Ragazza (4:10), 9. Identikit di un Delitto #2 (2:26), 10. In Un Ricordo #2 (3:26), 11. Sospetti e Tenerezze (4:24), 12. Ricordo (3:00), 13. Lui Per Lei (3:08), 14. Senza Sapere Niente di Lei (Finale) (2:55). Digitmovies CDDM-050, 50 minutes 17 seconds.

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