I found the music abrasive

Rating: Null/10 (8 November 2008)

I found the accompanying musical score to be offensive at many points.
In the many scenes with large numbers of people moving across the countryside, the composer used too much brass. Brass instruments tire the ear very quickly.
His use of syncopation seemed repetitive as the movie went along, like he was working according to tired, very predictable formulas.
After a while, my thought was, "Oh, no. Not another scene shot from a distance of people moving across the countryside, with this grating, intrusive, too noticeable brass instrumentation and trite, too obvious use of syncopation." Worst of all was the composer's inability to write longer melodic lines. Everything was made of short (one measure or less) motives, which he then repeated endlessly to fill out a group of four or eight bars.
As for the movie, Ustinov and Laughton were great. As was Woody Strode. Probably the most effective acting in the entire movie was Strode sitting in the pen before he and Spartacus went out to fight.
One thing I did not understand was when Spartacus' men took the Roman camp in the first battle. Was my copy missing something? I saw them approaching the camp, then the next thing was their burning the camp and dragging out the Roman commander. But I saw no fighting with the Romans there. Could that have been cut because of the very oppressive censors of the time? Jean Simmons is a very good actress. She had two scenes that stood out: 1-with Spartacus the first time, and 2--her scene with Olivier in his home near the end.
I was glad to see John Ireland get a mildly prominent role.
Some of the dialogue was embarrassingly bad. Specifically, scenes in the middle of the movie where Douglas repeats the same words or short sentences for no effect except to make me wonder why they had him say the same thing three times, four times.
Meanwhile the dialogue involving Ustinov, Olivier and Laughton was top level.
The starting section of the movie done by director Mann was excellent.
All in all a top level movie, despite my having to turn down the sound repeatedly to avoid the abrasive, interminable brass.