DVD Reviews

Spartacus (50th Anniversary Edition) – Blu-ray Review

By Frankie Dees Jun 1, 2010, 15:13 GMT

Spartacus, the genre-defining epic from director Stanley Kubrick, is the legendary tale of a bold gladiator (Kirk Douglas) who led a triumphant Roman slave revolt. Filmed in glorious Technicolor, the action-packed spectacle won four Academy Awards including Best Cinematography and Best Art Direction. Featuring a cast of screen legends such as Laurence Olivier, Charles Laughton, Peter Ustinov, Jean Simmons, John Gavin and Tony Curtis, this uncut and fully restored masterpiece ...more

‘Spartacus’ remains great entertainment and even though it’s more well known now as the least ‘Kubrickian’ of all of Stanley Kubrick’s films. It still impresses as a massive epic scale production with a strong cast surrounded by thousands of extras. So how does it hold up in high-def for its Blu-ray debut?

Starting life as a left-leaning Howard Fast novel, Kirk Douglas was looking for his own ‘Ben-Hur’ but always liked to push the envelope a bit i.e. with Kubrick’s own ‘Paths of Glory.’ He hired the blacklisted Dalton Trumbo to adapt Fast’s novel and pose parallels to the Jewish people along with the current politics of the time.

Enlisting James Stewart and Gary Cooper fave Anthony Mann to direct, Douglas and Mann got just past the mine sequence before Mann dropped out due to ‘creative differences’. 

So Douglas brought in Stanley Kubrick as basically a director for hire (who knows why Kubrick wasn’t chosen in the first place?) and Kubrick competently assembled the film yet the pic doesn’t bear much resemblance to his later works of genius – just solid workmanship-like direction.

So, despite some subversive stuff reinstated for the restored cut released in 1991 (featured here), there’s little to argue that this was Douglas’s baby through and through. 

At a whopping 3 hours and 17 minutes which includes an overture and a intermission, the grand-scale story moves at a relatively brisk pace and tells a simple story; a clear precursor to ‘Gladiator’.

Spartacus (Douglas) was from a generation of slaves and lived out his childhood and young adulthood working in the mines. In a moment of rebellion (where he bites the ankle that feeds him so to speak), he is sentenced to death by starvation. 

Rescued from death by Batiatus (Peter Ustinov) who is looking for healthy slave specimens for his gladiator school, Spartacus is moved to the school where he trains for months alongside other slaves who he will at some point be forced to fight at the whims of the wealthy.

When paired against fellow slave Draba (Woody Strode) for the entertainment of Marcus Licinius Crassus (Laurence Olivier), he loses but Draba spares his life and then rushes Crassus and gets a spear in his back. 

A defining moment for Spartacus who also falls in love with a gorgeous slave woman Varinia (Jean Simmons), he eventually stages a slave uprising at the gladiator school that turns into an all-out war against the Roman empire led by Crassus.

We meanwhile see the machinations of the Roman Empire where Senator Gracchus (Charles Laughton) wants to usurp the rule of Crassus and let his friend Julius Caesar come to power. 

So as Spartacus builds up his army crossing Italy, will it be enough to ensure his dream of freedom for all slaves and crush the dictatorship of Crassus? And the answer to that question is what makes this pic one of the smarter of its era as usually that answer would be a no-brainer but not so here. 

Where ‘Spartacus’ flies is the eclectic cast of seasoned pros with Douglas making the perfect stoic hero to Laurence Olivier’s merciless villain and fun supporting characters with Charles Laughton and Peter Ustinov.

Ustinov, who won Best Supporting Actor for the role, particularly lightens the film up. Only Tony Curtis and Jean Simmons seem a bit out of place with Curtis publicly whining about his experiences with the film and Simmons not quite overcoming the dated elements of her perfect and very sixties hair and makeup…

If no one scene ever matches the spectacle of the chariot sequence in ‘Ben-Hur’, the film makes up for it with more interesting characters and a more unsure fate for these characters.

The restored cut also includes some extra seditious goodies like the infamous ‘I like both snails and oysters’ bath sequence between Curtis and Olivier and some nastier violence including a full-blown arm amputation complete with bloody arterial spray. You won’t find that in that pansy ‘The Ten Commandments’ film!

The 1080p AVC 2.20:1 encode has some big shoes to fill coming after the outstanding Criterion DVD which was approved by the 1991 restorer Robert Harris and…the results are mixed. Undeniably cleaner looking and for casual fans of the movie, most will be happy with this presentation.

But more careful attention notices some excessive digital noise reduction which scrubs some of the grain away and consequently some of the detail. So it loses some of that film look that might disappoint purists. For those with the HD-DVD and wondering if the switch to Blu would be justified, yes, the Blu does look better but I’m still keeping my Criterion. 

The DTS-HD 5.1 MA track works for the era of the film with most problems going back to the original sound design. What really provokes me to keep a hold of my Criterion are the ho-hum extras for the Blu.

We get some interviews with Peter Ustinov and Jean Simmons, a ‘Behind the Scenes at Gladiator School’ featurette, some newsreel clips, image galleries and some interesting deleted scenes. Also included is BD-Live connectivity but nothing specific to ‘Spartacus’ can be found. 

‘Spartacus’ is rightly considered a classic and should be required viewing for any fans of the old-school epic. That Kubrick directed is an interesting footnote for aficionados but ‘Spartacus’ ultimately succeeds on its cast and headliner Kirk Douglas.

The video is spotty but certainly looks ok overall although extras are a bit weak. If you’re a stickler for restorations, I would suggest a rental otherwise most will probably be happy with it. 

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