more Kirk Douglas than Stanley Kubrick

Rating: 7/10 (4 January 2011)

Never mind the supposed parallels between the slave rebellion led by Kirk Douglas against the Roman Empire and the embryonic civil rights movement; the real virtue of this pre-biblical epic today is the nostalgia it holds for the Golden Age of wide-screen entertainment. The film looks fabulous but, rose-colored memories aside, it never was much of a classic. Instead of following the gloriously trashy example set by Cecil B. DeMille, it tries (too hard) to give the sand-and-sandal genre a token measure of highbrow prestige, not an easy task with a cast dressed in togas. But the script is far too dull (to say the least) and except for some lively battle scenes the film moves at a snail's pace. Thank goodness for Peter Ustinov, who alone among the cast of thousands seemed to have enough wisdom not to take it all too seriously. When it was re-released in 1991 the film included a previously cut scene of patrician/pederast Laurence Olivier bathing with body servant Tony Curtis, and also restored the original pre-credit orchestral overture, which added nothing to the film except length, the one feature it already has plenty of.