Odds and Evens

In an earlier post (All the Way, Boys!) I already wrote enthusiastically about how completely the films of Bud Spencer and Terence Hill captivated me as a child. Only recently did I realise that, alongside the obvious jokes, their films are full of subtle absurdities that viewers may or may not notice. I belonged to the latter group, but since discovering this aspect of them, I look at their films with slightly different eyes as well – or rather, I watch their films again would watch their films again if I had the time. Everyone obviously notices that in almost every film they eat beans – or, if not beans, then something else, and plenty of it – together or separately, with greater or lesser success and regardless of whether they happen to be in the Wild West or in a modern setting. One evergreen scene is the conversation about beans with onions and fish with potatoes in the film Odds and Evens. In case anyone does not remember it:

I spent a little time thinking about this scene. It is a perfect example of the absurd humour I mentioned above. What do I mean? Watch where this sequence of less than a minute begins and where it ends. Terence is furious because he failed to win the race after somebody tampered with his boat's engine, and he is angrily looking for the culprit. His frustration is perfectly understandable: he has lost a race and now wants to find out what happened. Yet a few seconds later he notices the appetising pot of beans with onions bubbling away, and despite Bud's completely impassive and dismissive responses he starts trying to “negotiate” – or gamble – for the food. It completely knocks the film off the track on which Terence was pursuing the person who sabotaged him. It is as though the storyline has simply been cut in two and suddenly we are talking about something entirely different. For a moment the viewer does not even understand what is happening... at least the viewer seeing it for the first time – are there any left? Why are these two discussing food when Terence is supposed to be dealing with something much more important? Nevertheless, they become increasingly absorbed in their food-related conversation. We not only learn that Bud is eating fish with potatoes, but Terence clearly wants some of it. Then, just as unexpectedly as this little detour began, it ends, and we drop straight back into the original plot when the mechanic appears.

The crowning touch is that after the fight arising from the conflict, nobody gets the beans with onions. These longer and shorter humorous, unforgettable and slightly absurd scenes – the ice-cream-and-pistachio scene is another example – contribute enormously, in my opinion, to making these films so lovable even after countless viewings. The main plot would still make perfect sense without them; if these scenes had ended up on the cutting-room floor, the films would still be complete stories. Fortunately, and to everyone's great delight, each film is enriched by plenty of these small moments. I am sure that when they shot the pistachio scene and it eventually reached the screen, the filmmakers had no idea how profoundly they were going to influence the lives of ice-cream sellers around the world. I occasionally ask at an ice-cream shop how many times a day customers make the pistachio joke . Once I received the disappointed reply: “Only three times this week so far.” .

Of course, I do not want to turn this into a film-analysis blog – I do not know enough about the subject anyway. I simply wanted to share the thoughts above, as well as the following ones, although I already wrote about this in detail in my postAll the Way, Boys!: these films would not be half as enjoyable or atmospheric without their perfectly composed music. Odds and Evens, released in 1978, is no exception. The moment I hear the music below, I immediately picture the jumping dogs, the horses, jai alai, roulette and everything else in the opening credits:

An instrumental version of the song plays under the opening credits, with the vocal melody replaced by a synthetic sound, but I deliberately embedded the version here in which Brotherly Love is actually sung. The song was written by Guido & Maurizio De Angelis, and with only a little exaggeration I could call it a masterpiece. It contains all the hallmarks of disco tracks from the second half of the 1970s. What caught me most is the melody and the chord movement: they are so distinctive and inventive that I am convinced they were not copied from anywhere, and if somebody tried to copy them, the plagiarism would be instantly recognisable. I love the bass line, and the trumpets answer beautifully and fill the spaces between the vocal lines. Structurally the song is excellent too: it has an energetic introduction, then the verse begins over almost the same chords, followed by a slightly longer bridge that leads into the chorus, which is built on a genuinely distinctive chord progression. At the end there is a brief moment to “take a breath”, and then the whole cycle begins again: verse, bridge, chorus. After a short drum break, the song modulates up by a semitone, giving fresh momentum to its final minute as the first verse returns. The song is put together so well that your ear is always hungrily waiting for the next turn.

I had an idea, searched the internet for the chords to Brotherly Love and downloaded lyrics with the chords added. I then uploaded them to the Downloads section; click hereto view them (opens in a new window). As you can see, the chords are not too frightening, and the song sounds very good on ukulele. Then I had another idea – because apparently I did not want to make life too easy for myself – and decided to do the song “properly”: to arrange it so that I play the melody as well, rather than merely strumming the chords.

I will not pretend there are no small mistakes in it; please forgive me for those. I decided that if I could get it into a presentable state, I would make a video so that you could at least see the basic idea and, once you have learned it, play it far better than I do in the video. The introduction and verse are fairly easy to play. The complications begin in the bridge, where B major can give you quite a battle, and the chorus is not easy either. I also made a “how to play it” video, which I will publish in a later post. Until then you can try the simple strummed,chord-only version; it is not difficult, and beginners will enjoy it too!

I also dedicate this post to the memory of Bud Spencer, and with affection recommend it to theHungarian Bud Spencer and Terence Hill fan community, the Spencerpolo.hu blogand the Krumplishal blog.