Spartacus (1960)

This film tells the story of Spartacus. It is sort of based on actual events, but there are numerous historical inaccuracies so this film is probably only somewhat based on a true story. It tells the story of a slave named Spartacus and how he tries to lead a slave revolt. The plot was a little bit confusing at time, but I was halfway tired while watching it. After carefully rereading the plot summary and comparing it to what may have missed, this is actually a pretty good plot. A lot happens and it's sort of like The Godfather in the sense one viewing won't quite do it.

The film has Kirk Douglas, Laurence Olivier, Tony Curtis, Peter Ustinov, and a few others. Ustinov won best supporting actor for this film but I didn't rally think he was all that memorable. This film had a ton of characters and it was almost like an ensemble cast so it's hard to really rate one actor. Douglas stands out as a lead and pretty much everyone else is in a supporting role. Douglas does a good job here, but the focus isn't really on the acting. This film isn't typical of Kubrick's later work, but Kubrick's films never really focused on acting. Peter Ustinov is the only actor ever to win an Academy Award for acting in one of Kubrick's films and this was only for a supporting role.

As I alluded to a moment ago, this is an early Kubrick film. I've only seen three other ones so far (2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange, and The Shining) but this one is quite different and doesn't really have a Kubrick feel in the same sense that Mr. and Mrs. Smith didn't feel like Hitchcock last night. Hitchcock didn't have full control over this film and it's not nearly as bizarre as the previous films I've seen. I don't want to say that this is simple or anything like that, it's just not strange.

This is a good movie, although one viewing doesn't give the impression that it's great. It had its moments and after a reasonably slow first half it really does pick up. This film was Kirk Douglas' response to Ben-Hur which he did not get the role of Ben-Hur. I just saw Ben-Hur a couple days ago and after one viewing of each I would rank Ben-Hur as the better film.

74/100
C

UP NEXT: In the Heat of the Night

Don't forget there is an uncut version of the potential sexual tension scene between Laurence Olivier and Tony Curtis. It never made it to the final product.

The one I saw is supposedly as close to uncut as you'll get. It restored the 24 minutes they originally cut and added another 14 minutes. Total running time was 196 minutes.

The 1960 version of "300"