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...the score is not one of my favorites and the film stinks to high heaven.


I agree with the latter part of your statement, but I think Rozsa wanted to score this film, if only because it afforded him a rare opportunity to write an "Old Testament" score, and I think that this score has quite a distinctive quality from his other epic scores. I had the advantage of first hearing the stereo LP decades before viewing the film, and so I formed an appreciation of it completely apart from the visuals. I was immediately drawn into another world with the opening notes of the "Overture." John asked me to write an analysis for PMS relating the score to the film, similar to that which I had done earlier in PMS with KING OF KINGS, but I turned him down simply because, unlike KING OF KINGS, I don't "see" the film visuals when I listen to this Rozsa score. It's as if Rozsa was writing the score to an idealized version of the film in his mind's eye.