Ennio Morricone - Maddalena

Facts Directed by Jerzy Kawalerowicz in 1971, MADDALENA is a one-off venture of the Polish director into the territory of Italian cinema. Starring Lisa Gastoni as the title character and Eric Woofe as the priest whose faith she tests, the movie is an erotic drama focused on poetic sex scenes, psychedelic flashbacks and deviant erotic games all mixed into a beautiful fever dream. MADDALENA is a relatively obscure entry in the Morricone filmography despite the importance of launching “Chi mai," one of the composer best-known cues and famous worldwide a decade later when it was re-used in the film LE PROFESSIONEL. While the score itself is more psychedelic with lots of percussion, vocalization and experimentation, the self-contained “Chi mai" turned out to be an overnight success that was eventually turned into a song as well—eventually recorded in multiple languages.