Here is a selection of movie soundtrack vinyls I collected back in the 70s.

I usually had not seen the movies at the time I bought the soundtracks, so my choice was largely based on the highly scientific approach of whether or not I liked the sleeve artwork!

This also meant I hedged my bets with compilation soundtracks, grouped by genre. These were quite a thing in this period – the best themes on one record re-recorded by an orchestra.  I remember particularly liking the War Movie themes, of which my favourites were the tunes for 633 Squadron and Where Eagles Dare (which also became one my favourite movies).  

The second photo is a grouping of a very random selection of soundtracks that I bought around this time.

The Towering Inferno featured the song “We May Never Love Like This Again”, which won the 1974 Oscar for Best Original Song. Gold’s title song began “Dyin’ every day for gold” and would not have been out of place on a James Bond soundtrack.  As the film itself starred Roger Moore mid-Bond that was probably entirely intentional. Shaft In Africa (which I don’t remember ever seeing) has the song “Are you man enough” by the Four Tops, which whilst maybe not quite as iconic as Isaac Hayes’ original Shaft theme song, is a very decent tune.

The theme to Enter the Dragon I remember had a synth riff which tried to approximate Bruce Lee’s fighting yell and went something like “Rip rip roaaaHHH”. I know a lot of people love this film, but it was never my thing. (I actually preferred the long and somewhat filthy parody of it in Kentucky Fried Movie, if anyone remembers that very hit-and-miss film).

Rollerball sticks out as an outlier, and I am really not sure why I bought this record. Bar a couple of funky interludes it is all classical music, by various composers, conducted by Andre Previn.  Classical is not really my thing, but Bach’s Toccata certainly gives it an epic grandeur that the film itself perhaps did not deserve.

Lawrence of Arabia is, well, a classic, and so is the score, by Maurice Jarre. Listen to it, and instantly feel like you are transported to the desert….