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Spartacus (1960)
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Writers: Dalton Trumbo(screenplay), Howard Fast(novel)
Cast: Kirk Douglas, Laurence Olivier, Jean Simmons, Peter Ustinov
Genre: Adventure, Drama
Length: 3h 17min
Spartacus (1960)
Writers: Dalton Trumbo(screenplay), Howard Fast(novel)
Cast: Kirk Douglas, Laurence Olivier, Jean Simmons, Peter Ustinov
Genre: Adventure, Drama
Length: 3h 17min
A rebellious slave Spartacus is trained to be a gladiator. During a fight to the death match with his best friend he escapes and leads a slave army against the Roman Empire.
Standard Sword & Sandal movie with Kirk Douglas as Spartacus and Jean Simmons as the slave girl he loves. Directed by one of the greats: Stanley Kubrick you would expect this movie to be head and soldiers over the other big budget Sword & Sandal movies....but it fails miserably. Even Kubrick disowned the film, mainly because unlike his other movies he did not maintain complete filming control. Despite that it still won four Academy Awards.
The problems stem from too many chiefs for the soup. The film was produced by Kirk Douglas production company giving him and not Kubrick control. The writer, Dalton Trumbo who had been previously black listed wanted to make the film an allegory for the cold war. However Kirk Douglas wanted the film to parallel the plight of the Jewish people. Douglas had the first director fired but couldn't stand working with Kubrick either. At one point he got so mad he threw a chair at Kubrick. The cinematographer quit because he was use to call his own shots and Kubrick would have none of that.
The beginning of the film is exciting. However after that it becomes repetitive as we see an hour of marching and little us. The scenery is awesome and a humongus number of extras were used over 10,000! So the film looks great but the character of Spartacus is one dimensional.
The problems stem from too many chiefs for the soup. The film was produced by Kirk Douglas production company giving him and not Kubrick control. The writer, Dalton Trumbo who had been previously black listed wanted to make the film an allegory for the cold war. However Kirk Douglas wanted the film to parallel the plight of the Jewish people. Douglas had the first director fired but couldn't stand working with Kubrick either. At one point he got so mad he threw a chair at Kubrick. The cinematographer quit because he was use to call his own shots and Kubrick would have none of that.
The beginning of the film is exciting. However after that it becomes repetitive as we see an hour of marching and little us. The scenery is awesome and a humongus number of extras were used over 10,000! So the film looks great but the character of Spartacus is one dimensional.
"Kubrick complained that the character of Spartacus had no faults or quirks, and he later distanced himself from the film."
Peter Ustinov and Charles Laughton are colorful characters and worth their weight in gold whenever they're on the screen. And Sir Laurence Olivier gives the film an air of quality. But this isn't enough to save it.
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Peter Ustinov and Charles Laughton are colorful characters and worth their weight in gold whenever they're on the screen. And Sir Laurence Olivier gives the film an air of quality. But this isn't enough to save it.
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