Il Baco da seta
The Silkworm

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Mario Bertolazzi composed a main score in music-hall style for Smeralda, the failed singer in the film, which is repeated with instrumental variations and also a vocal French version. The leitmotif is alternated with high-tension music typical of giallo films, electronic atmospheres, lounge songs you might hear at a cocktail party, and a danceable shake that seems to tastefully wink at famous American colleagues like Quincy Jones, Lalo Schifrin and Henry Mancini. This excellent OST has been released in its complete version on CD for the first time ever, using the master tapes in full stereo from the original recording session.

Smeralda Amadier is a former French singer who lives in Italy in Castiglioncello. She has serious economic problems and is not able to pay her creditors, who threaten to accuse her of fraudulent bankruptcy. One morning she discovers her jewels, which were her last hope to pay her debts, were stolen out of the safe where she was keeping them. Police commissioner Guarneri arrives at the scene and scrupulously starts his investigation. Among the suspects are Smeralda’s sister Ivonne, Smeralda’s lawyer and administrator Planger, the secretary Marcelle, former lover and leech Didier, and in particular Kostas, a young student from Greece who has a habit of making beautiful women take care of him and who had been at Smeralda’s house the night before. In reality, the Greek student was just a pawn in Smeralda’s plan to get the money from the insurance. So when Kostas comes back to get his part of the money, Smeralda kills him and convinces an obliging Guarneri that she had to do it in self-defense.