I once read an Esquire magazine interview with a famous actress who said, “When women are on a 1st date they should watch how the guy eats. If he takes his time and savors the meal then he’s probably a good lover.”
The 1996 film Big Night, written and co-directed by Stanley Tucci and hailed by Roger Ebert as “one of the great food movies”, is much like a great meal. You have to slow down and really take it in.
In the film, there is an incredible usage of the public domain song “Tic Ti, Tic Ta” performed by Claudio Villa at the height of the big night around which our storyline revolves. The owners of a struggling Italian restaurant in the 1950’s have staked everything on a single party to which famous singer Louis Prima has been invited. Their hope is that the pop star will love the meal, spread the word and save their business.
Reportedly, Stanley Tucci began working on Big Night while working on a film project he hated. I’m thinking craft services may have been one of the issues.
Big Night really is a movie where food is a character in the story. Those amazing dinner entrees are not just plates of food, but rather a symbol of two brothers trying to live the dream. The wonderfully wordless scene at the end of the movie is not just Tucci’s character making an omelet. It’s him extending an olive branch to his brother after a fistfight.
This isn’t artsy abstraction, fellas. This is a movie that could make you a better lover.
Hats off to Stanley Tucci and co-director Campbell Scott and singer Claudio Villa for an outstanding music synchronization. Here’s a royalty-free mambo track that could also work for media producers who want to achieve this same festive mood, but have voice over on top.
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Mike Bielenberg is a professional musician and co-founder of http://www.musicrevolution.com, a production music marketplace with over 18,000 tracks online where media producers, video producers, filmmakers, game developers, businesses and other music buyers can license high-quality, affordable royalty-free music from an online community of musicians mbielenberg@musicrevolution.com. 
