It was my understanding that the first rule of comedy scoring, in most circumstances, is not to make the music itself funny, but to play it straight rather than highlight the onscreen comedy with music. Evidently, this is more of a Hollywood rule since Ennio Morricone has written quite possibly the most hilarious score I've ever heard. Translated as When Women Had Tails, the film is evidently an hilarious comedy set in the stone age about men who discover the existance of women. Or something like that. Given the music, my mind boggles as to what the film was like.
One doesn't immediately associate Morricone with comedy, but evidently he has a sense of music humour. The opening cue is what might be deemed the main theme of the score. Assembled from a low farting (synth) bass line, various little vocal ideas (one sounding like the female vocal from Horner's more recent score to Sneakers and another being kind of cave man grunt, a motif which appears elsewhere in the score) and finally a flute to carry the quite catchy main theme. The entire thing comes off as some psychodelic comedy version of the theme from The Great Escape, just as you'd expect. The other most notable moments, if you can call the that, are during the tracks associated with "Filly" who or whatever ever "Filly" is or are. The best way to describe it would be as a comedy, cheesy 60's or 70's pop instrumental with a female backing chorus. I can't be any more specific than that, like the main title, you have to hear it to believe it. The intervening tracks use similar instrumentations, low tuba and farting synth bass appear quite often, various disturbingly inspired vocal sections, a little march in Marcetta Dei Sette and even a brief, but charming violin solo in I Civettoni.
Based on the reviews I read of When Women Had Tails and it's classic sequel When Women Lost Their Tails, it appears that the sequel was even better than the first. Surely not? It extends the premise of the first as stone age man discovers capitalism and while I can see that being quite an interesting, albeit off beat premise, it still makes me burn to see either film for sheer novelty value. The sequel was scored by Morricone's long time colleague and friend Bruno Nicolai (who has conducted several Morricone scores, including When Women Had Tails). Unfortunately, after the loopy silliness of the first score, Nicolai takes a somewhat more subdued approach that is somewhat less fun and memorable than Morricone's. After a very enjoyable opening track, things get a little less interesting all in all. There are in fact only three tracks, the second three are alternates of the first three. Some of Morricone's inspired orchestration returns, but the material Nicolai comes up with isn't nearly so interesting and his section just rather fades without trace, unfortunately.
The sound quality is superb, every little detail of the orchestration can be heard and being as it is, so offbeat, this is a great blessing, especially since so many of Morricone's scores come with pretty poor sound. If you don't know what to expect (as I didn't), it is something of a shock to the senses, but eventually you realise another demonstration that from even the most unlikely film premise in the world, Morricone is and has always been one of the most inspired film composers around. No-one in Hollywood would have dreamed up anything so absurd, yet barmily (is that a word?) delightful.
Rating ~ 
Total Time ~ 45:20