Stelvio Cipriani

A tough, funky ‘70s instrumental score that perfectly fits the insane violence of this seldom-seen Lee Van Cleef hitman film! Quel Pomeriggio Maledetto (aka The Perfect Killer) is one of the wildest, sleaziest Eurocrime movies ever made; it ultimately got made with Lee Van Cleef as the star and featuring such sexualized violence as a female getting shot in her nether regions, a straight-razor fight with trans women and some rapes that make you feel more uneasy than do most. But no rundown of the "stars" of this film could be complete without mentioning Stelvio Cipriani's funk score. Mind you, the '70s was already a funky decade of music, just as the Eurocrime genre was already a violent and sexual movement of cinema. But both Cipriani's score and the film pushed together to find new extremes of funkiness and raunchiness. Normally if someone hears playing '70s instrumental funk says, "What is this? It sounds like porno music!" ... well, that's grounds for departing from his or her presence, perhaps not to return. It's terribly limited thinking to associate all instrumental funk from the decade with smut movies. And yet, I must confess there's a certain sleaziness (and I use that word lovingly) in Cipriani's Maledetto title track that perfectly evokes the on-screen tawdriness to come. The wah guitar. The prominent electric bass. The slithering, laid-back horns. It's an ingenious groove and yet dripping with sleaze.
And even though there's a laconic mid-tempo quality to the title theme, there's also something that drives it steadily forward. And that perfectly captures the doggedness and determination of Van Cleef's hitman character, who constantly pushes forward in his quest, even after he's been betrayed by his former partner, his new criminal organization and his woman. (In fact, it was Quel Pomeriggio Maledetto that crystalized in my mind how well the Eurocrime genre worked when operating within these "one man against the world" stories.) In any case, let all nerdy trivia questions fade away as you get lost in some magnificent, sleazy funk by maestro Cipriani. And we'll "see you in Hell, kitten.”