Clint Eastwood donning a black Stetson with a cigarette half flailing out of his mouth. Scorching Western sunset, guns drawn, and that twanging slow-drawl of a whistling guitar riff.
It’s a sound that’s synonymous with cowboy flicks and the spaghetti western genre throughout filmic history, and Oscar-winning composer Ennio Morricone’s infamous themes for The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly, For A Few Dollars More, and more have been referenced many a time at improptu guitar jams or whilstled haplessly at the slightest reference of a bad-ass Eastwood stand-off.
But what if Morricone didn’t actually pen those iconic guitar riffs and scorching solos at all?
Those resonating riffs, stinging guitar tones, and infamous solo lines are in fact the product of the imagination of one man. Pino Rucher, a jazz guitarist that worked closely with Ennio Morricone throughout his film career, is responsible for that evocative guitar tone so closely tied with the genre.
But a member closest to Rucher is claiming that he hasn’t been given the credit he deserves for soundtracking those desert landscapes and dusty gunfights.
As The Hollywood Reporter notes, the daughter of Pino Rucher has made allegations of possible copyright infringement and royalty negligences against Morricone, with Maria Rucher claiming that the film composer denied her now deceased father the proper credit for his guitar work on three classic spaghetti western scores.
Claiming Morricon unrightfully took the credit for the guitar lines from Mr. Rucher for not only The Good The Bad and The Ugly, but also for the soundtracks of A Fistful of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More.
Maria Rucher is seeking compensation for the apparent lack of credit and subsequent copyright violations that have resulted from the alleged riff rip-offs; looking to acquire royalty benefits and compensatory pay-outs of up to €800,000 ($1.1 million).
In the film credits for the aforementioned Sergio Leone-directed film, Pino Rucher is equally credited for the pieces in the movies in line with fellow composing cohorts Enrico Ciacci (the brother of well-known Italian singer Little Tony), Alessandro Alessandroni, and Bruno Battisti D’Amario.
Mr. Rucher is noted as being the first jazz guitarist and composer to play the electric guitar on the film soundtrack for a cowboy film and frequently collaborated with Morricone, Leone, and other prominent movie industry figures throughout his entire career, and his daughter is now seeking the compensation owed for his cultural contribution.
Why Ms. Rucher is only now seeking to claim damages 17 years after the death of her father, and almost 50 years since the first screenining of A Fistful Of Dollars – the first of the trilogy – in 1961, is unclear but it is thought that the restrictions imposed on film by modern intellectual property laws would have had something to do with it. In short, it’s easier these days to sue someone for stealing your work than it was 40 years ago in 1960s Europe.
Morricone, who has earned five Academy Award Nominations among composing scores for more than 500 films since 1959 – including the classic scores for The Mission, The Untouchables, and Days Of Heaven – has yet to issue a response to the allegations.
But, to quote Clint Eastwood’s ‘Blondie’ in The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly, “in this world there’s two kinds of people, my friend: Those with loaded guns, and those who dig.” And we’re fairly sure that Ms. Rucher is well and truly digging.
