Movie review - "Spartacus" (1960) ****

Occasionally this film is weighed down by the this-is-an-epic-so-we-must-all-stand-around-and-act-like-we're-in-an-epic-movie, but it remains one of the most passionate of the epics. For starters, Spartacus is going to die and his rebellion fail, so how do you make it interesting? The script comes up with two solutions: one basic but highly effective (Jean Simmons showing Spartacus his son on the cross - you always know a character is a goner when he says "I don't mind if I die provided X" just like Swayze did in Point Break), the other totally brilliant one of the cleverest and most inspirational bits of business I think in the movies (the "I'm Spartacus" scene).

Much of this is very moving: the fate of Charles Laughton, Jean Simmons at the cross, Tony Curtis dying, the looks on the faces of other slaves as the revolt has ended, the Woody Strode scene where he decides he ain't gonna take it anymore.

The film is famous for its homoerotic element (chiefly the Laurence Olivier-Curtis oysters and snails moment, but also the Curtis character is coded as gay [bath boy, actor, in love with Spartacus] and of course it involves Spartacus), but is pretty much an everyone-can-have-sex free-for-all: Olivier wants Curtis and Simmons, Simmons is given to Kirk Douglas as a sex slave, Simmons has a nude swim and hops under the toga with Douglas, Laughton has heaps of mistresses, Romans attend all-male baths (with John Gavin handsome but not very convincing as Julius Caesar).

Kirk Douglas was ideally cast but occasionally seems uninterested by what is going on on-screen (to be fair he was also a producer and it must have been stressful; he's also playing a character who is basically Mr Perfect). There are some stand out supporting performances: Laurence Olivier as the flinty, conflicted Crassus, Charles Laughton as an old time Senator and Peter Ustinov as an unscrupulous gladiator dealer. John Ireland (who plays Crixus) does look as though he's wandered in from the set of a Western. The best spectacle comes at the beginning, with the slaves on the rocks, and the gladiator uprising.