loading...
Spartacus
1960
Spartacus (Kirk Douglas) is a rebellious slave purchased by Lentulus Batiatus (Peter Ustinov), owner of a school for gladiators. For the entertainment of corrupt Roman senator Marcus Licinius Crassus (Laurence Olivier), Batiatus' gladiators are to stage a fight to the death. On the night before the event, the enslaved trainees .. Read more
| Starring | Kirk Douglas, Laurence Olivier, Jean Simmons, Peter Ustinov |
|---|---|
| Director | Stanley Kubrick |
| Genres | Action/Adventure |
loading...
Spartacus
Spartacus (Kirk Douglas) is a rebellious slave purchased by Lentulus Batiatus (Peter Ustinov), owner of a school for gladiators. For the entertainment of corrupt Roman senator Marcus Licinius Crassus (Laurence Olivier), Batiatus' gladiators are to stage a fight to the death. On the night before the event, the enslaved trainees are rewarded with female companionship. Spartacus' companion for the evening is Varinia (Jean Simmons), a slave from Brittania. When Spartacus later learns that Varinia has been sold to Crassus, he leads 78 fellow gladiators in revolt. Word of the rebellion spreads like wildfire, and soon Spartacus' army numbers in the hundreds. Escaping to join his cause is Varinia, who has fallen in love with Spartacus, and another of Crassus' house slaves, the sensitive Antoninus (Tony Curtis). The revolt becomes the principal cog in the wheel of a political struggle between Crassus and a more temperate senator named Gracchus (Charles Laughton). Anthony Mann was the original director of Spartacus, eventually replaced by Stanley Kubrick, who'd previously guided Douglas through Paths of Glory. The film received 4 Academy Awards, including Best Supporting Actor for Ustinov. A crucial scene between Olivier and Curtis, removed from the 1967 reissue because of its subtle homosexual implications, was restored in 1991, with a newly recorded soundtrack featuring Curtis as his younger self and Anthony Hopkins standing in for the deceased Olivier.~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
| Starring | Kirk Douglas, Laurence Olivier, Jean Simmons, Peter Ustinov, Tony Curtis, Charles Laughton, John Gavin, Nina Foch |
|---|---|
| Director | Stanley Kubrick |
| Studio | SONY PICTURES HOME ENTERTAINMENT |
| Run time | DVD: 3 hrs 6 mins HD DVD: 3 hrs 6 mins |
| Certificate | |
| Genres | Action/Adventure |
| Language | DVD: English HD DVD: English |
| Dubbed | French, German, Italian, Spanish |
| Subtitles | DVD: Bulgarian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Hungarian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Swedish, Turkish |
| Released | DVD: 27 Nov 2000 HD DVD: 05 Nov 2007 Production year: 1960 |
| Format | DVD |
-
Critics' reviews (3)
View all -
The restored version of this Roman epic about the famous slave revolt has additional blood, more lingering death agonies of Kirk Douglas on the cross and a risible bath scene with Laurence Olivier and Tony Curtis, which was originally cut because of its alleged homosexual innuendo. Despite the film's length and overemphasis in the latter half on wordy speeches from Douglas (the film's executive producer), the action leading up to the revolt of the gladiators is brilliantly re-created, with Peter Ustinov, Charles Laughton and Olivier (as the Romans) addictively greedy scene-stealers. The early sequences, set in the Libyan desert, were directed by Anthony Mann, who was fired by Douglas and replaced by the 31-year-old Stanley Kubrick. Sadly, Kubrick later disowned the picture because he regarded himself as a hired hand. For several years Spartacus held the record as the most expensive picture ever made in America; it also made history as one of two films which finally broke the Hollywood communist blacklist by giving Dalton Trumbo credit as the screenwriter.
-
Long, well-made, downbeat epic with deeper than usual characterization and several bravura sequences.
-
Most helpful member's review
View all -
8 out of 9 people found this review helpful
A true classic
A great movie! Features a bravura performance by Kirk Douglas as the eponymous leader of a slave revolt on Imperial Rome that came close to toppling Rome and destroyed several legions along the way. Great support comes from lover Jean Simmons, nemesis Laurence Olivier, hero worshipping Tony Curtis, senator Charles Laughton and slave trader Peter Ustinov (even better than Oliver Reed!).
If you are not a fan of Kubrick, don't be put off. This is the least Kubrick film of his work. And Dalton Trumbo (blacklisted screenwriter) came up with a cracking script.
Gladiator couldn't have been made without it.
Oh, and I'm Sparticus and so's my wife! -
Most recent members' review
View all -
2 out of 3 people found this review helpful
The classic tale of rebellion against hopeles odds. The slave Spartacus was selected for Galdiator training but he was a surly sort, unwilling to become a plaything for the jaded Romans.
<p>When his captors force him to separate from the woman he has fallen for, Sprtacus reckons that it's time he got his own back and soon he finds himself the leader of an army that threatened the security of Rome itself. There are some nice roles here, especially Peter Ustinov as a Slave Trader always looking for the main chance. Kirk Douglas makes a good Spartacus too, especially as the leader of men. Tony Curtis is rather amusing as the poet/singer with a pure Bronx accent [another in the Sean Connery School of Accents :-)]. -
News and features
View all
Red Cliff
- 15 Jun 2009
A mere slip of an epic at 146 minutes (you think I’m kidding, but I watched the original two-part, five-hour Asian-market version), John Woo’s first Chinese film in nearly two decades is both a triumphant homecoming and too much of a good thing. When Woo went to Hollywood in the run up to the handover of Hong Kong in the early 90s he was riding the crest of a wave: hyper romantic urban thrillers like The Killers, A Better Tomorrow and Hard Boiled had earned him a reputation as the... Read more
-
More like this
View all
Related user collection
Exceptional Films (203)
81.2% from 25 members
Buy from the LOVEFiLM shop
-
-
-
Spartacus - HD DVD Version
SPARTACUS, based on Howard Fast's popular novel, is Stanley Kubrick's glorious masterpiece about a slave uprising in Rome in 70 BC. Kirk Douglas, who also served as executive producer, stars as the title character, a man born of a slave woman and a slave master who has known nothing but chains for ...
-
-
-
-
Spartacus
Spartacus (Kirk Douglas) is a rebellious slave purchased by Lentulus Batiatus (Peter Ustinov), owner of a school for gladiators. For the entertainment of corrupt Roman senator Marcus Licinius Crassus (Laurence Olivier), Batiatus' gladiators are to stage a fight to the death. On the night before the ...
-