Childhood movie-going usually falls into two categories: Movies you want to see and do, and movies you REALLY want to see but are forbidden to.  Along with Equus and The Exorcist, Alan Parker‘s Midnight Express, for me, fell into that later category.  Drugs, Turkish prisons, male-on-male rape?  No way was I gonna talk my preteen self into that one.  That isn’t to say, though, that I couldn’t get my hands on the Giorgio Moroder soundtrack—something I played obsessively, and still hear faintly whenever I’m (not infrequently) trying to jump a wall. 

Moroder went on, of course, to even greater fame with Blondie, Donna Summer, even Japan.  The 70s synth icon turns 70 (!) next Spring, and still lives in Italy, where he scored most recently of all things the soundtrack to Leni Riefenstahl‘s last film, the marine documentary, Impressionen Unter Wasser.  You can find an excellent assortment of Moroder-related videos, here.  Or simply play the below video a few times and find a wall or two.