Belle Ma Povere (Piero Piccioni)

Alternative Titel:
Pretty But Poor (Australia)
Pobres Porém Formosas (Brazil)
Guapas, pero pobres (Spain)
Beaux mais pauvres (France)
Ma soeur et moi (France)
Belle ma povere (UK)
Puppe mit Pfiff (West Germany)
Poor Girl, Pretty Girl (World-wide) (English title)

Digitmovies presents, for the first time on CD, a complete edition of the OST Piero Piccioni (who in the opening credits of the film used the pseudonym Piero Morgan), from the film "Belle, ma povere" (aka "Pretty, but poor"), the official sequel to the huge box office success "Poveri ma belli" in 1956 (music by Giorgio Fabor available on CD Digitmovies DPDM012). "Belle, ma povere" in 1957 was directed by Dino Risi and starred Marisa Allasio, Maurizio Arena, Renato Salvatori, Lorella De Luca, Alessandra Panaro, Riccardo Garrone, Carlo Giuffré, Gildo Bocci, Lina Ferri, Sergio Cardinaletti, Memmo Carotenuto, Roy Ciccolini, Giancarlo Zarfati, Ughetto Bertucci, Mario Meniconi, Giorgio Gandos, Nino Vingelli, Maurizio Monticelli, Marisa Castellani. Romolo (Arena) and Salvatore (Salvatori) are two young Romans, who really want to have fun, but with little desire to work, they live by their wits and uncertain hopes Romolo is engaged to Anna Maria (Panaro), sister of Salvatore, who is promised to Marisa (De Luca), sister of Romolo. The two girls would like to get married, but their fiances are in no hurry to get married, because their precarious financial conditions make marriage unthinkable. The two young men decide to enroll in evening classes, but while Romolo studies radio engineering with good results, Salvatore abandons his studies. Marisa finds a job as cashier in a shoe shop. The love life of the two courting couples is disturbed when the two boys meet Giovanna (Allasio), who in the past was engaged first to one then to the other. Now the girl is engaged to Franco, a wealthy young man who, thanks to the efforts of Giovanna, lends to Romolo the amount required to open a small radio-engineering shop. Giovanna does not mind reviving again the interest of the two old boyfriends, especially of Romolo, but only in order to arouse the jealousy of Franco. Meanwhile Salvatore, for fear of being abandoned for good by Marisa, decides to get some money at any cost and contacts a burglar. Fortunately Marisa and Anna Maria manage in time to dissuade him from every dishonest initiative. In the end love triumphs all along the line. Romolo, rejected by Giovanna, goes back to Anna Maria, while Salvatore and Marisa are reconciled and the story ends with a triple marriage, since Franco also takes the plunge and decides to marry Giovanna. For our CD (total length 50:19 minutes) we were able to access the mono master tapes of the recording session which allowed us to use all the music at the time recorded with the expert direction of the orchestra conductor Carlo Savina. Maestro Piccioni wrote a pleasant main folk tune for the young players, introduced in the title track (Tr.1). Their sentimental misadventures are described by a pleasant orchestral background, between funny and romantic (Tr.2, Tr.6, Tr.9, Tr.17, Tr.20, Tr.24) that are interspersed with dance music of a Latin American flavour (Tr.4, Tr.12, Tr.14) and light marches (Tr.3, Tr.11). To make it more unique, we have added an alternative title track (Tr.26) with the guitar mixed lower than the one used in the movie. This CD wishes to pay homage to the great Italian Cinema represented by these immortal movie of Dino Risi and Musical Art of the great Piero Piccioni.


- Digitmovies