Spartacus Review
by Frank MALONEY (frankm AT microsoft DOT UUCP)May 15th, 1991
SPARTACUS
A film review by Frank Maloney
Copyright 1991 Frank Maloney
SPARTACUS is Stanley Kubrick's classic epic about a slave rebellion in republican Rome. It was originally released in, I think, 1960, to tepid reviews and packed houses. Of the *major* Academy awards (best picture, director, actor, actress) it was nominated only for best picture; in all it won four Oscars, including Best Supporting Actor for Peter Ustinov. Despite its cold reception from the Academy, it was the biggest money maker of its release year.
On May 3 a restored SPARTACUS was released in several U.S. cities, including Seattle. I played hookey from work and Lyndol and I spent three-and-a-half happy hours on a glorious spring day in the dark of one of Seattle's largest houses watching a SPARTACUS that was even more wonderful than it was when I saw it first-run at the age of 15 or 16. I hope you get a chance to see this, the second greatest epic Hollywood ever made (LAWRENCE OF ARABIA being the greatest by most, and my,
accounting).
One of the reasons it is better this time around is it includes a now-famous scene where Crassus (Lawrence Olivier) makes a pass at his body-slave Antoninus (Tony Curtis). The story is that Olivier insisted that the scene be filmed even though Kubrick and the others knew that the scene was unreleasable, so the soundtrack was never recorded. For the restoration, the scene was found in tact in the three-color separations used to reconstruct the negative (the original negative having long since been allowed to disintegrate); Curtis dubbed his dialog by pitching his voice higher and Anthony Hopkins dubbed Olivier's dialog seamlessly. The scene is fascinating in its delicacy and indirection, its talk of having appetites for oysters or snails or both, as an historical footnote on the presentation of homosexuality in the films. More importantly, in terms of the overall film, it goes a long ways toward filling out Curtis's character as well as his sudden appearance among the volunteers joining Spartacus and the other escaped gladiators on slopes of Mt. Vesuvius; I never really understood Antoninus before.
Another reason why SPARTACUS is better the second time around is that I am older and I understand the subtext now. As a teenager, I reacted merely to the spectacle. As an old fart, I now react to the theme of personal freedom that informs the entire movie. The script was written Dalton Trumbo, the great film writer who was blacklisted during the Red Scare of the late Forties. He had survived for years by selling scripts through fronts and by using noms de plume; I understand he actually was given a writing Oscar under an alias. He could not enter any studio in Hollywood. Meetings had to be held in private homes. Stanley Kubrick to his everlasting credit got tired of the hyprocrisy, issued Trumbo a gatepass one day, and used Trumbo's real name on the screen credits. I tell you it gave me a catch in the throat to see the credit, to see "Dalton Trumbo" proudly, defiantly displayed in those huge 70-mm letters.
Just as the theme is human liberty, so the background of the film itself recapitulates the theme. Trumbo said he knew the studio wouldn't go for the obvious stuff like the scene mentioned previously and choked on the slight nudity and sex (Jean Simmons has two coy nude scenes that were highly controversial in their day with the Legion of Decency and other bluenoses), but he knew the studio execs weren't astute enough to understand the really controversial aspect of the film, its theme. This theme is just as resonant today as it was then when SPARTACUS marked the "official" end of the McCarthy Era.
A third reason for liking SPARTACUS even more today is that no one makes these wonderful sweeping 70-mm epics today. Thirty years ago the budget originally called for $12 million; you could not bring it in for under $200 million today. Hollywood made a terrible choice when it turned its greedy back on 70-mm; the brilliant clarity of the medium brings tears to the eyes of a movie lover, the tears of pain and regret.
And these epic stars are no longer available either. Look at the cast: Kirk Douglas (Spartacus), Laurence Olivier (Crassus), Jean Simmons (Varinnia), Charles Laughton (Gracchus), Peter Ustinov (Batiacus), John Gavin (Julius Caesar), Tony Curtis (Antoninus), and literally a cast of thousands. Actors like Douglas and Olivier are more than equal to the challenge of the epic medium. Gavin was the weakest of the principals, but gosh he was handsome--what happened to him, old farts want to know. Jean Simmons was a marvel of strength and delicacy, a stronger version of Audrey Hepburn, who didn't find real strength until she became middle-aged. But the absolute treats are Laughton and Ustinov, who have two scenes together that ought to be required viewing for all interested in acting for the screen.
SPARTACUS was restored by the same team that restored LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, the restoration that sparked the current wave of restored classics.
This is more than recommended, this is required viewing.
--
Frank Richard Aloysius Jude Maloney
And now a note from the Moderator:
=======*=======*=======*=======*=======*=======*=======*=======*=======*======= [The following information regarding Dalton Trumbo and the blacklist was published in a set of articles for Jewish Heritage Month and may be of some interest:
"Breaking the Hollywood Blacklist: The darkest chapter of the American entertainment industry was the years of the Hollywood blacklist. People accused of disloyalty to the government could not confront their accusers, but would suddenly find that nobody would hire them. Careers were destroyed by innuendo. One blacklisted writer was Dalton Trumbo. Before the years of the blacklist he was a successful screenwriters, but when his name appeared on the blacklist he could submit only very few scripts and then only under a pseudonym. Then in 1960 two major films were released with screen credit given to Trumbo under his own name. On both films the directors and the lead actors risked being blacklisted themselves by insisting to their studios that Trumbo's name appear in the credits in type no smaller than their own. When there was no fuss from the public, it was generally acknowledged that the blacklist was dead. The films were EXODUS and SPARTACUS. The directors were Otto Preminger and Stanley Kubrick; the stars were Paul Newman and Kirk
Douglas."
And why Jewish Heritage Month? Well, Preminger, Kubrick, Newman, and Douglas were all Jewish. --Moderator]
Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.
