Monica Vitti (born Maria Luisa Ceciarelli; 3 November 1931 – 2 February 2022) was an Italian actress who starred in several award-winning films directed by Michelangelo Antonioni during the 1960s. She appeared with Marcello Mastroianni, Alain Delon, Richard Harris, Terence Stamp, and Dirk Bogarde. On her death, Italian culture minister Dario Franceschini called her “the Queen of Italian cinema”. Vitti won five David di Donatello Awards for Best Actress, seven Italian Golden Globes for Best Actress, the Career Golden Globe, and the Venice Film Festival Career Golden Lion Award.
Monica Vitti, she was on Modesty Blaise on her first English-speaking film. There has been songs, even a band named after this movie. But I was quite surprised when I discovered a song dedicated to her, by a little known band called Catty Smell.
I would think a catty smell is not a good smell for sure, so I wonder why this band called themselves like that. What I can understand is why they named their only released song “Monica Vitti’s Dark Eyes”, they must have been totally taken by them.
The song appeared on the legendary “Heol Daou” cassette compilation released by Katiho (catalog number 02) in France. This compilation have been mentioned a few times on the blog, when I’ve written about more known bands like The Besotted, Die Blinzelbeeren, Non-Stop Kazoo Organization, Stephen’s Library or Des Garçons Ordinaires, all of whom contributed songs to this tape.
Catty Smell appears at the end of side A, as the 11th song out of 12.
Sadly there is no information about the band anywhere. I’ve googled quite a lot about them. The name doesn’t help much. I could guess that the band might have been French, as the compilation tape, but I might be wrong.
Who would know? I’d love to learn more, and find out if there were more songs of course. If you recorded one track, you probably recorded more. But again, all of this is a mystery to me. Any help would be great!
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
