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    Home»Movies»Movies by Decade»Movies - 1960s
    Movies - 1960s Movies - S 3 Mins Read

    Spartacus (1960)

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    It took $12 million, two years of intensive planning and 8,000 Spanish extras to complete this epic costume drama starring (and produced by) Kirk Douglas.

    The end results justified the enormous expense, and the movie was widely praised for its ambitious battle sequences – although if you look closely you can see Roman soldiers wearing wristwatches and tennis shoes.

    Less than two weeks after shooting began in Death Valley, California, Kirk Douglas fired Anthony Mann as director – although some early scenes he shot in the desert remain in the final film – and replaced him with Stanley Kubrick, who had directed Douglas in the brilliant anti-war movie Paths Of Glory (1957).

    Directing a cast of heavyweight names such as Laurence Olivier (as the sadistic patrician general Crassus), Jean Simmons (as slave girl Varinia), Charles Laughton, Peter Ustinov and Tony Curtis, Stanley Kubrick (then aged only 31) brought as much visual sweep and dramatic emphasis to his epic subject as the Technorama 70 screen could comfortably contain, as well as some excessively violent scenes which it could not – such as Crassus’ callous puncturing of a gladiator’s neck and the severing of a warrior’s arm in a battle between Roman legions and slaves.

    spartacus2

    For most of its fairly extensive running time, however, Kubrick wisely concentrated on the development of the personal relationships described in both the novel and in Dalton Trumbo’s literate screenplay.

    Spartacus tells the (embellished) real-life story of a slave from Thrace (a vast tribal region comprising parts of modern-day Bulgaria, Greece, and Turkey) who, in the first century BC led a motley army of rebels – mostly escaped slaves – against the mighty Roman Republic.

    While the revolt failed, Spartacus entered legend as the unlikeliest of heroes: a man who rose from bondage to battle tyranny, and failed – but ignited a dream of liberty in his followers’ hearts.

    “Are you afraid to die?” slave Antoninus (Curtis) asks Spartacus at one stage in the film. “No more than I was to be born”, replies the slave leader. Hopefully, this made his subsequent crucifixion easier to bear.

    Spartacus was filmed partially on location outside Madrid (where Spanish soldiers doubled as Roman legionnaires) and in Hollywood.

    The film netted a massive $14,600,000 and has been exalted, imitated, honoured, derided, dissected and parodied – but after all these years it still achieves what three-hour-long big-budget movies rarely get right. It’s entertaining as all hell.

    Spartacus
    Kirk Douglas
    Marcus Licinius Crassus
    Laurence Olivier
    Varinia
    Jean Simmons
    Sempronius Gracchus
    Charles Laughton
    Lentulus Batiatus
    Peter Ustinov
    Antoninus
    Tony Curtis
    Caius Julius Caesar
    John Gavin
    Tigranes Levantus
    Herbert Lom
    Crixus
    John Ireland
    Marcus Publius Glabrus
    John Dall
    Draba
    Woody Strode
    Helena
    Nina Foch
    Claudia
    Joanna Barnes
    Marcellus
    Charles Mcgraw
    David
    Harold J. Stone
    Ramon
    Peter Brocco
    Gannicus
    Paul Lambert
    Captain of the Guard
    Robert J. Wilke
    Dionysius
    Nick Dennis
    Caiaus
    John Hoyt
    Laelius
    Frederic Worlock
    Symmachus
    Dayton Lummis
    Julia
    Jill Jarmyn
    Otho
    James Griffith
    Marius
    Joe Haworth
    Metallius
    Vinton Hayworth
    Narrator 
    Vic Perrin

    Director
    Stanley Kubrick

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