Spartacus (1960)

The slave Spartacus leads a violent revolt against the decadent Roman Republic.

Director:

Stanley Kubrick

Writers:

Dalton Trumbo (screenplay), Howard Fast (based on the novel by),

Stars:

Kirk Douglas, Laurence Olivier, Jean Simmons

Won 4 Oscars. Another 5 wins & 9 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Kirk Douglas	...	Spartacus
Laurence Olivier	...	Crassus
Jean Simmons	...	Varinia
Charles Laughton	...	Gracchus
Peter Ustinov	...	Batiatus
John Gavin	...	Julius Caesar
Nina Foch	...	Helena Glabrus
John Ireland	...	Crixus
Herbert Lom	...	Tigranes Levantus
John Dall	...	Marcus Publius Glabrus
Charles McGraw	...	Marcellus
Joanna Barnes	...	Claudia Marius
Harold J. Stone	...	David
Woody Strode	...	Draba
Peter Brocco	...	Ramon

Storyline

In 73 BCE, a Thracian slave leads a revolt at a gladiatorial school run by Lentulus Batiatus. The uprising soon spreads across Italy involving thousand of slaves. The plan is to acquire sufficient funds to hire ships from Silesian pirates who could the transport them to other lands from Brandisium in the south of Italy. The Roman Senator Gracchus schemes to have Marcus Publius Glabrus, Commander of the garrison of Rome, lead an army against the slaves who are living on Vesuvius. When Glabrus is defeated his mentor, Senator and General Marcus Licinius Crassus is greatly embarrassed and leads his own army against the slaves. Spartacus and the thousands of freed slaves successfully make their way to Brandisium only to find that the Silesians have abandoned them. They then turn north and must face the might of Rome.

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Plot Keywords:

Slave | Spartacus | Senator | Freedom | Italy | 

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Taglines:

They trained him to kill for their pleasure. . .but they trained him a little too well. . .

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Genres:

Action | Adventure | Biography | Drama | History

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Certificate:

Approved

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

7 October 1960 (USA)

Also Known As:

Spartacus: Rebel Against Rome

Filming Locations:

Alcalá de Henares, Madrid, Spain

Box Office

Budget:

$12,000,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Bryna Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

197 min 184 min (premiere) 187 min (1968 re-release) 161 min (1967 re-release) 197 min (1991 restored) 184 min (theatrical)

Sound Mix:

70 mm 6-Track (70 mm prints) Mono (Westrex Recording System) (35 mm prints, original release)

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.20 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Contrary to what the book and film portray, the historical Spartacus was born free in Thrace (a region nowadays divided among modern-day Greece, Bulgaria and Turkey) and may have served in the Thracian army or even the Roman army in Macedonia (Rome often impressed soldiers of armies it had defeated into its own army). It is thought that he was either captured in battle or deserted the army and later captured (depends on what side he fought on) and then sold into slavery.

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Goofs

In the main battle scene toward the end, there is a soldier lying "dead" on the ground that clearly repositions himself as others fight around him so that he isn't stepped on.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Narrator: In the last century before the birth of the new faith called Christianity, which was destined to overthrow the pagan tyranny of Rome and bring about a new society, the Roman Republic stood at the very center of the civilized world. "Of all things fairest," sang the poet, "first among cities and home of the gods is golden Rome." Yet, even at the zenith of her pride and power, the Republic lay fatally stricken with a disease called human slavery. The age of the dictator was at hand, ...

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Crazy Credits

The opening titles appear in a montage of silhouetted Roman sculptures and tablets, which according to title designer Saul Bass is meant to evoke the strength and power of the Roman Empire. The montage ends with a zoom into the eye of a crumbling Roman bust, which hints at the Empire's coming decline and fall.

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Connections

Spoofed in My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: Too Many Pinkie Pies (2012)
The Pinkies' yelling "I'm the real Pinkie!" spoofs the famous "I am Spartacus" scene

User Reviews

A Great Movie Due To Its Romantic Ideals

Did you know that Karl Marx hero was Spartacus ? There's something deeply ironic about this because the film version of SPARTACUS has so many Marxist ideals it could have been subtitled " THE STORY OF AN ENLIGHTENED PROLETERIAN HERO " As film buffs may know the screenwriter of SPARTACUS Dalton Trumbo was blacklisted by the Hollywood studio system because of alleged communist sympathies and it's impossible not to notice that Trumbo has done a sort of leftist inversion of John Ford's " Always make the legend " mantra . As a history lesson SPARTACUS is rather poor , if you look up the goofs on this page you'll notice that no one has really bothered to their home work as to the history , politics and machinations of ancient Rome with perhaps the most striking piece of speculation is the myth that Spartacus was from a Greek province sold into slavery when it's far more likely he was a Roman legionnaire who was sent to gladiator school but I guess the being sold into slavery makes for a better story

But this very simplistic black and white view of history can be forgiven because it's what makes SPARTACUS a great movie , we know who the bad guys are and why they're bad guys ( They're rich and cruel ) and we know who the good guys are and why they're good guys ( They're poor but noble ) and therefore the audience know instantly whose side they're on SPARTACUS is also a film famous because its director Stanley Kubrick supposedly hated it mainly down to the fact that he didn't have any involvement in the screenplay . What ? A director dislikes a movie of this standard ? I'm certain Spielberg or Scorsese would have killed to make a movie this good . It contains fine performances from all the cast but the stand outs are Douglas , Simmons , Laughton ( Someone else alleged to have had leftist sympathies ) Olivier and Ustinov , so many fine actors in one movie and you don't notice how many different accents used until it's pointed out to you . Check out those battle scenes at the end and remember this was long before CGI so these were real people making up the slave and Roman armies but for me the greatest scene of the film and one of the most haunting scenes I have ever seen is where Woody Strode and Kirk Douglas sit facing each other waiting to go into the arena . What makes it even more spellbinding is that there's no dialogue at all , we only hear the sounds of the previous contestants fighting to the death

Without doubt a movie that deserves to be in the IMDb Top 250 Movies list and possibly Kubrick's best film , he certainly didn't make anything as good as this ever again . But it's a movie that was ignored for most of the major awards at that years Oscar nominations . I guess that because the Oscars are a celebration of American film making talent they didn't want to give awards to movies celebrating communist heroes