Current accusations about Hollywood dumbing down are all entirely justified; but it isn't as recent a phenomenon as is usually suggested.  In 1978, the distributor decided that calling a film The Prince and the Pauper wouldn't attract audiences; and that saying it was adapted from a Mark Twain novel would drive them away.  And so, we got a film called Crossed Swords instead (which is, indeed, adapted from the Mark Twain novel The Prince and the Pauper).  The film itself isn't all that dumbed down, but then it isn't all that sensible either.  It was produced by Alexander and Ilya Salkind, who had achieved recent success with their productions of Richard Lester's two Three Musketeers movies and it was those whose atmosphere they wanted to recreate, hiring veteran director Richard Fleischer in the process; the success didn't materialise this time though.

Fleischer worked with many great film composers in his career, and added Maurice Jarre to the list here.  His score is prototypical Jarre, with big sweeping themes, the typical fluid melodies and dynamic orchestration.  The main title theme is robust and dynamic, but doesn't seem to take itself particularly seriously; it's a lovely piece which I'm surprised hasn't cropped up on more Jarre compilations (I'm not sure it has appeared on any).  The score as a whole is a rather mixed affair, chopping about all over the place, from the gentle source music of "Royal Divertissement" to the strong action of "Canty's Fight" (which is wonderful) and "Ruffler's Men" (which sounds distractingly similar to Gerald Fried's classic Star Trek fight music) to the subtle romance of "Hendon Hall" and more sweeping variety of "Here Comes the King".  Speaking of sweep, things don't come much more sweeping than the grand, delightful "The Prince and the Pauper".  There's even some choral pomp in "Coronation".

Crossed Swords is really a fine score, great fun, with some grand, old-fashioned action/adventure stylings, marred only by the fact that it sometimes seems just a bit (unintentionally) silly, for a reason I'm unable to explain - the peculiar whistling effect that opens and closes the first and last tracks being one example.  The album from Film Score Monthly is a straight reissue of the old LP, marking the score's debut on CD.  The sound quality is fine and the notes, by Paul Andrew Maclean, interesting and informative.