Recently had the chance to talk to Ray Harryhausen while he was in California, and here what he said about the score to Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger:


Q: No doubt, the least successful score for one of your movies was Roy Budd's music for Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger. It was very lackluster, particularly coming after Miklos Rozsa's superlative music for The Golden Voyage of Sinbad.

RAY HARRYHAUSEN: I know it. That score really shouldn't have been used in the picture. Our pictures really require a certain type of score, which some composers can't do. They always used to criticize Max Steiner for doing so-called Mickey Mouse scores, but that kind of score, in many cases, enhances the visual image. It's not very effective if somebody composes music as just a blank statement that has no relationship to what you're looking at on the screen. I learned that from Max Steiner's great score for King Kong.