Still haunting after all these years.

Rating: 9/10 (2 December 2017)

It was a bank holiday. I was ten, and watching Spartacus for the first time. This was before we got a video, so I would basically watch any movie that came on TV. Spartacus was a real shock to me. It was the first film I saw where the good guy doesn't win. in. I had seen Ben- Hur a few weeks before, with it's happy ending - y'know, reunited with his family, miraculously cured of leprosy, everyone lives happily ever after. Spartacus ends with him dying on a cross, having already lost to the Romans. It really affected me. I just didn't know a movie could end like that.
I still loved it. Watching it now, I have tried to break down what it so effective, and why this movie stands up so well. Firstly, let me say - Laurence Olivier. Casting him as Roman General Crassus was a smart move, but a risky one. It could have back fired. He is so good he threatens to steal the whole movie. He doesn't, but as much as this movie is Douglas's it's also Olivier's. There's no denying Ustnov is good, but the Oscar really should have gone to Laurence.
Another great performance is Tony Curtis as Antoninus, Crassus' personal slave, who quickly joins the revolt. He is no fighter, but a singer, though not much of one! I don't remember the 'snails and oysters' scene from my first viewing. It would have gone clean over my head anyway. It's a very touching scene. You feel that if it was done now, in the Game Of Thrones era, it would be considerably more explicit.
And don't tell me Gladiator didn't borrow from this movie! One thing that Gladiator got wrong was the friendship forging between the fighters. When Spartacus asks another slave his name, the guy tells him 'You don't want to know my name. I don't want to know yours. One day we may end up having to kill each other.' It made more sense than Maximus and Juba going on about their wives and children.
Ultimately though, it's that ending that still haunts me many years later. Spartacus, having been forced to kill Antoninus, on a cross, Varinia showing him his son, and begging him to die... I think it actually works because Spartacus doesn't say a word, no last monologue. Man, I'm getting goosebumps just thinking about it.
Stanley Kubrick famously disowned the film, given that he didn't have complete creative control, but Spartacus is still better than practically all the sword and sandal epics being made then, or even now - Troy, anyone? It is acknowledged as a a classic, and deservedly so.