Reconstituted Pork Content

Time and time again I’m asked the same question, and quite frankly I’ll vomit sausagemeat if I’m asked it again, so I shall attempt to answer it here in the hope that when the next person to ask has wiped regurgitated reconstituted pork “content” from their shirt I can direct them to this post.

So: Who is The Incredible Suit’s favourite Conti? Is it:

a) Actor Tom Conti, from Shirley Valentine and whatnot
b) Composer Bill Conti, creator of musical scores and that, or
c) Crazy Legs Conti, “star” of Zen and the Art of Competitive Eating?

Well, let’s take each of these legends of the silver screen in turn:

Tom Conti is best remembered (by me) as Costas the Greek in Shirley Valentine, which I had to see when I was a sulky teenager because my Mum wanted to see it and it was payback, I suspect, for me making her watch Licence To Kill, which she complained was “very loud”. Although I remember Shirley Valentine being quite good, we both suffered in the end because there was a noisy sex scene in it which you really shouldn’t be made to sit through with your Mum, or with your teenage son for that matter.

So Tom Conti wins points for being a comedy Greek lothario in the one film I remember seeing him in, but loses points for the mentally scarring sex scene.

Bill Conti is probably best known for his music for the Rocky films, and quite rightly. It’s ace. However I know him best for his score for For Your Eyes Only, Roger Moore’s second-least-worst Bond film. It was 1981 and Conti wrote a bonkers score which kept all the wah-wah guitar and funky bass of the ‘70s but shoveled skipfuls of brass in as well, making it painfully unlistenable for some but somehow fresh and exciting for other, deafer types, like me.

So Bill Conti wins points for Rocky and For Your Eyes Only, but loses points for the fact that he composed something like 136 scores and I only know two of them.

Crazy Legs Conti is, according to his website, “an eccentric New York window washer, nude model and sperm donor, and huge fan of the annual July 4th hot dog eating competition.” Evidently he’s made a film about stuffing his face with food. I know little else about him but based on this evidence he appears to be a knob.

So Crazy Legs Conti wins no points for anything and loses points for everything.

Therefore I think I can safely put this matter to rest and avoid any further semi-digested meat expulsions by declaring my favourite Conti to be Bill, the fella what did that music that time. Now please stop asking.

This here videclip is not how Bill Conti scored For Your Eyes Only, but it would have been if Roger Moore had his way. I imagine.
Thanks to green14m for the video!

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