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Despite being a huge financial success for Kubrick, Spartacus gave audiences and critcs a view not of the directors meticulate skills, but rather the film, or indeed the coming about of the film, revealed more about the feisty, do or die attitude of its main star, Kirk Douglas. Spartacus came about primarily because of a part Douglas did not get to play, that of the main character in Ben Hur. The part was stripped from him by Charlton Heston, and although Douglas was offered the part of the evil Messala in the monster epic, he refused it and decided to show the movie world what he himself could do - he chose to make his very own Roman epic.
Spartacus was the most original film of its kind, the main reason for this being it had absolutely no religious overtones or influences, usually a primary factor in all biblical epics. Based on Howard Fast's 1952 novel, the rights for which Douglas bought himself, Spartacus focuses on the rebellion of early Roman slaves. To adapt the novel to the screen, Douglas hired perhaps the most controversial screenwriter of the decade, Dalton Trumbo, who had only recently spent time in jail. Such was the uproar over Trumbo's hiring that the Los Angeles premiere was picketed by the American Legion. Yet, in an act of cheekiness by Douglas, he went on to hire Trumbo for his next two films.
The second big name movie man of the time to be hired by Douglas was no more than Kubrick himself, who had directed Douglas' production of Paths of Glory only two years earlier. Kubrick actually replaced director Anthony Mann as director when he was sacked after filming had begun, and the aspiring 31 year old Kubrick worked very well with the high powered cast. Douglas turned out a brilliant performance as the noble Spartacus, bringing a new-found emotional charge to the character's violent tirades. Even more vitality was brought to the film by three British actors: Laurence Olivier, Charles Laughton and Peter Ustinov, each of whom play characters far more evil than Spartacus. Together they manage to portray the pure vulgarity of the Roman political system, and Ustinov scored an academy award for his troubles, playing the cowardly slave Batiatus. This goes without saying that he is closely matched by Olivier, playing Crassus, and Laughton as Gracchus, the Republican Senator.
But while Kubrick succeeds in getting the most out of his actors, he still has time to show the world his very own filmmaking expertise. The numerous gladiatorial bouts are as memorable as they are violent, and the climatic battle scene between the slaves and Roman legions must be ranked as one of the most breathtaking scenes in film history, with some 10,000 extras filling the screen. Such sequences won the film three more Oscars, for cinematography, costumes, and art direction.
Spartacus was fully restored in 1991, retrieving some 10 minutes of shockingly graphic violence, and a suggestive homosexual scene during which Crassus is bathed by a slave. It is a clear hint at Catholic sexual tastes and one that the censors were quick to scrap when the film was released in 1960. This and several other scenes made Spartacus known well by critics as having restored some adult sensibility to a normally bland and idealistic genre, and at the same opening the door for later biblical masterpieces such as Lawrence of Arabia.
Spartacus at the Internet Movie Database
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All information Copyright 1997 William Fox