Squallor
Arrapaho

The "Arrapaho" project by Quattro dell'Apocalisse, dated 1983, involves a dual product consisting of an album and a film, an experimental work that would be reprised a few years later with "Uccelli d'Italia," equally split, during a period of fertility that was sparked by the unexpected successes of previous hits like "Pompa" from '77 and "Tromba" from '80.
According to the happy yet obvious critique from Morandini, who calls the film Arrapaho "the worst movie in the history of Italian cinema," there's a need for introspection to understand if there's any savability in all that's trash; no matter how much we rack our brains, in the end, the censorship of good taste will kill all good intentions, exposing the raw truth: "Arrapaho" is truly awful. And it's not just the horror impudicitiae that dictates such a judgment, but the simple fact that through this film, incredibly hard to believe and say, justice is not served to Squallor.

Let's get this straight: the Squallor act in this movie, especially the lyricist Daniele Pace - while Totò Savio and Bigazzi make cameo appearances and Cerruti serves as the narrator -, but due to Ippolito's direction, a particular Squallor-related disaffection towards film, and some pitiful acting by actors who were not the four members themselves, everything that tries to be Squallor in the film is not, except in rare cases.
This is not to say that what is Squallor-esque is by definition of good quality, however, what's worth pointing out is that the film product does not have the same inspiration as the musical works of the Neapolitan quartet, whether we are talking about previous works or the eponymous album.
Thus, the half-hearted version of an improbable "Berta" among condominium balconies and seasoned housewives contradicts the hilarious image Cerruti provided in the '77 piece, while a too-suggestive Pierpaolo strikes at the heart of that slightly infantile icon that only the effect of the microphone could wonderfully capture in "Famiglia Cristiana" and following, so in the end, the only successful performances are those indirectly featuring the presence of Squallor, like "Avida" and "O tiempo se ne va" where the respective voices of Alfredo Cerruti and Totò Savio accompany a decent stage representation. These two pieces, together with the title track, are the main hits of the Arrapaho album of '83: they exemplify Cerruti's typical histrionics on one hand, and Savio's good musical taste on the other, they are pieces that, besides entertaining, leave a glimmer of reflection: "O tiempo se ne va /dimane nun se sa/si 'a mazza me s'arrizza/si nun te care 'a zizza nun se sa/la vita è un varieté/e 'o cazz è cumm 'o rré/e io ca so' guaglione/t'o ronco 'stu bastone sott' 'a luna puttana comm'a ttè"; Savio's reflection is, unbelievably, tragically true in its obscene crudeness.
Worthy of note, with good comedic effect, are "La Guerra del Vino," "El Toro," and "Pierpaolo a Dusseldorf Bau," which reuses the old trick of the Squallor cover: inspired by a track by the "Trio" from '82, it reprises the mentioned "Avida," clearly borrowed from "Private Investigations" by Dire Straits.

Honest the album, irritating the movie. Squallor, comparative study on visual and musical language.