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Spartacus
on DVD (1960)
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| 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: |
186 mins |
| Certificate: |
 |
| User collections: |
My Film Collection, Our favourite films, Adj's Best Films, retro gold, A top ten of sorts, all time great's, All time Favourites, You will laugh, cry, scream, and thrill!, Best Films over 3 hours, Top Action Films |
| Genres: |
Drama |
| Languages: |
English |
| Dubbed: |
French, German, Italian, Spanish |
| Subtitles: |
Bulgarian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Hungarian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Swedish, Turkish |
| Released: |
27/11/2000
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| Also Available on: |
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Brief synopsis of Spartacus
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 his entire life. After being forced to put on a gladiator show--that almost leads to his death--for wealthy Romans (including a marvellously conniving Laurence Olivier as the power-hungry Crassus), Spartacus leads a slave revolt across Italy that soon has thousands marching on Rome. Meanwhile, he has fallen in love with the beautiful Varinia (an effervescent Jean Simmons), pledging his life to her.
Douglas assembled a fabulous all-star cast for the film; in addition to himself, Simmons, and Olivier, terrific performances are turned in by Charles Laughton as the curmudgeonly senator Gracchus, John Gavin (PSYCHO) as the young Julius Caesar, Tony Curtis as Antoninus (a singer of songs, with all lines delivered in a beautifully thick New York accent), and especially Peter Ustinov, an Oscar winner for his portrayal of the businessman Batiatus, who always wants to know what's in it for him. Blacklisted writer Dalton Trumbo's melodramatic script and Alex North's thrilling, soaring score add a majesty that helps make SPARTACUS one of the finest costume epics to ever come out of Hollywood.
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Related
Critics Reviews
Radio Times
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.
Halliwell's Film Guide
Long, well-made, downbeat epic with deeper than usual characterization and several bravura sequences.
USA Today
"...Amazing depth-of-field....Terrific performances..."
See all 3 Critics Reviews »
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