L’uomo Puma (The Pumaman) – music by Renato Serio
Known to the English-speaking world as the infamously cheesy, MST3K-mocked movie Puma Man, L’uomo Puma boasts a score that, heard in isolation, outclasses its accompanying movie in nearly every inportant way. Well, for the most part.
Let’s quantify the outclassing being done by the score here: this isn’t “the first Star Trek movie was okay, but Jerry Goldsmith’s groundbreaking score made it even better” territory. Instead, the orchestral portions of L’uomo Puma‘s score class up the adventures of Tony (the hapless nerd who receives “the powers of a puma”) and Vadinho just enough to give the perhaps mistaken impression that money was spent on the movie as a whole (spoiler: it really wasn’t).
This long, long overdue CD release – this score’s first release on any format – was issued by Italy’s Beat Records in late 2017 in a ridiculously small pressing of 500 units, and to be quite honest, its track titles are opaque and unhelpful at best, managing to completely obscure where that track falls in the movie unless you’re a Puma Man scholar who has memorized the movie (a status which your reviewer is slightly embarrassed to admit he may be approaching).
There are three primary themes in the Puma Man score: a noble-but-mysterious theme for the alien visitors who conferred “the powers of a puma” upon a selected member of the human race, an ominously menacing theme for the machinations of the character played by Donald Pleasence (whose sole instruction from the movie’s director must have been “that’s nice, but can you do it more like Blofeld?”), and of course, the goofily late-’70s-supermarket-commercial-jingle feel of Puma Man’s theme.
The former two categories of music are where the most praise is deserved; they’re nicely composed, marvelously played, and well-engineered. The hollow echo treatment on the cellos lend them more menace than usual. Composer Renato Serio, known primarily to Italian audiences, wasn’t fooling around here; this music outclasses the movie it’s in easily.
If you’re even slightly enamoured of late ’70s scoring that tries to force an orchestra to play to a disco beat, then you’ll be a sucker for the Puma Man theme, a cheery recurring theme that seems oblivious to 
the fact that its hero seems to have stumbled upon his superpowers and doesn’t really know how to use them. There’s something hilariously compelling about it – you’ll find yourself humming or whistling it for days afterward.
Earlier, the small pressing of 500 copies of L’uomo Puma was described as ridiculously small; maybe it is. Or maybe it’s just right, given how far underground this movie’s cult following must be. But for those who enjoy this slab of finest Italian-made cheese, it’s almost certain to earn a place of honor on the soundtrack shelf.
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- L’Uomo Puma – Seq. 1 (2:14)
- L’Uomo Puma – Seq. 2 (2:13)
- Puma Man #1 (2:03)
- L’Uomo Puma – Seq. 3 (2:38)
- Puma Man #2 (2:07)
- Puma Man #3 (3:13)
- Puma Man #4 (1:43)
- L’Uomo Puma – Seq. 4 (2:04)
- Puma Man #5 (2:26)
- L’Uomo Puma – Seq. 5 (2:36)
- Puma Man #6 (2:28)
- L’Uomo Puma – Seq. 6 (2:07)
- Puma Man #7 (2:26)
- L’Uomo Puma – Seq. 7 (2:40)
- L’Uomo Puma – Seq. 8 (2:24)
- L’Uomo Puma – Seq. 9 (1:42)
- Puma Man #8 (1:57)
- L’Uomo Puma – Seq. 10 (2:15)
- L’Uomo Puma – Seq. 11 (2:22)
- L’Uomo Puma – Seq. 12 (2:14)
- L’Uomo Puma – Seq. 13 (1:35)
- L’Uomo Puma – Seq. 14 (2:03)
- Puma Man #9 (2:38)
- Puma Man #10 (1:49)
- L’Uomo Puma – Seq. 15 (2:46)
- Puma Man #11 (2:13)
- L’Uomo Puma – Seq. 16 (2:08)
- L’Uomo Puma – Seq. 17 (2:38)
- L’Uomo Puma – Seq. 18 (1:54)
- L’Uomo Puma – Seq. 19 (2:04)
- Puma Man #12 (3:14)
- Puma Man #13 (2:45)
Released by: Beat Records
Release date: October 20, 2017
Total running time: 75:12
but it’s not out of place there – the composers had a vision for the sequencing of the album, and it works just fine.
Look up “SF television scoring of the past 20 years” and you might as well look up Mark Snow, who first brought himself to genre audiences’ attention as the sole musical maestro of every episode of The X-Files. What’s more, during much of the ’90s, he was concurrently working on several other Fox genre shows, also created by The X-Files’ Chris Carter, and more often than not those shows were X-Files spin-offs. This doesn’t even count other genre fare (i.e. UPN’s Nowhere Man). These days, Snow is ensconsed in his own musical fortress of solitude, scoring teen-Superman kinda-sorta-prequel Smallville, but he’s also handed the keys to that fortress to La-La Land Records, who has a number of Snow titles available now or coming soon.
Thank goodness Lost found its way. After an occasionally painful-to-watch third season that filled us in on the backstory of the Others and the Dharma Initiative (not always the same entity, coincidentally), the decision was made by the show’s own producers and writers to shorten the three remaining seasons to something only slightly longer than a UK television season, setting a finite end point in the process. And yet somehow, with that limitation set, the show’s storytelling has become anything but finite, as it messes around with time and space with reckless abandon. The fourth season was an eye-opener that made good use of the renewed focus that was made necessary by the shorter season length; the fifth season then proceeded to be a jaw-dropper.
As with the TV series it accompanied, the music of Lost really ramps up the stakes in season two. Where it’s scary, it’s much more boisterous and scary than season 1, and where it’s mysterious, it’s much more mysterious. There are quieter moments too, including the piano piece from what still stands as my favorite episode to date, Everybody Hates Hugo.
In the liner notes to the CD of the Lost soundtrack, series co-creator J.J. Abrams mentions that the pilot episode was originally tracked with the works of some of the biggest names in film music, and that it took some salesmanship to convince ABC that the show would lose none of its impact when rescored by Abrams’ Alias co-conspirator, composer Michael Giacchino. The irony of that comment is that, for anyone who’s been watching Lost for any amount of time, it’s hard to imagine any of its scenes scored by someone other than Giacchino.
I’ve been ambivalent about the new film version of C.S. Lewis’ classic tale on many levels; for one, despite enjoying some of the past attempts that have been, to put it charitably, steeped in cheese, I’m just not sure this is something that can be accurately committed to the big screen. (Oddly enough, I have the same feeling about Dune – I’ve enjoyed various attempts to put it on film, but I’ve also been more than ready to say “okay, enough” at the next attempt.) This big-budget, big-screen, CGI-filled, Disney-backed version looks like it may actually convey the story satisfyingly. And if the soundtrack, released before the movie’s opening, is any indication, we may actually luck out this time.
There are four songs included on the tail end of the CD; Alanis Morissette fans will enjoy her track, “Wunderkind”, and I was stunned beyond belief to see Tim Finn turn in a new tune, “Winter Dream” (especially since I’m a fan of his work and hadn’t heard a peep about his participation). (I don’t know who worked the deal to get Tim on this soundtrack or how they did it, but hopefully he benefits from the exposure.) Imogen Heap contributes “Can’t Take It In”, while Lisbeth Scott, the vocalist who can be heard at several points in the score itself, gets a song to herself (“Where”). There’s also a nicely packaged two-disc “special edition” release; the contents of the soundtrack CD are identical, but the package also includes a DVD with interviews with composer Gregson-Williams, concept art galleries and trailers from the movie, and a few other promotional pieces.
