Les pianos mécaniques. Georges Delerue

Vincent (Hardy Krüger), a young man from Paris, arrives at the small Spanish village of Caldeya. where his has been loaned a home by his friend, Reginald (Maurice Teynac). He meets Pascal Regnier (James Mason), a novelist engaged in pursuits of drinking and love affairs, who spends his summers in Caldeya with his son, Daniel (Didier Haudepin). Regnier introduces Vincent to Jenny (Melina Mercouri), local nightclub owner, who has already received a wire from Reginald asking her to look after his friend. Vincent and Jenny fall in love and plan a trip to Barcelona together, a trip they take in spite of Reginald's arrival. However, the shadow of Reginald comes between them and they accept the fact that their love is doomed to failure. The name of Georges Delerue has become a highly reputed trademark in film music. More than 300 film scores confirm him as one of the most important and original composers in history of cinema. In his prolific filmography, the film “Les pianos mécaniques” (1965) is a piece as atypical as interesting. Delerue wrote for that film an intimate and delicate score which illustrated the repressed feelings of the film’s characters, but in the case of “Les pianos mécaniques” another kind of musical approach was required. The milieu described in the film implies a very different side of 60’s Spain: Caldeya, a small coastal town inhabited by tourist and foreigners, a short shining oasis in the grim reality of the period. The luxurious ambiences and residences in which live the lazy, idle and desidious characters of this film called for a wide range of frivolous source music. In providing this kind of material, Delerue shows his skills as a gifted composer of jazz pieces and lounge music. But besides this entertaining and richful catalogue of light music, we can also find in Delerue’s score marvelous incidental themes in his most sensitive vein. The main theme was sung by Mari Trini.