Bayflicks.net

When we think of toga movies from the late ’50s and early ’60s, the adjective “great” doesn’t come to mind (unless we mean size rather than quality). Sure, Spartacus has everything we look for in the old roadshow epics: stirring music, thousands of extras, an intermission. But it moves you to triumph and tragedy instead of laughter and boredom, while making important points about the exploitation of human beings and the ease with which a morally compromised republic can slide into dictatorship. The first Hollywood film to credit a blacklisted screenwriter (Dalton Trumbo) and the only movie directed by Stanley Kubrick that isn’t a Stanley Kubrick film, Spartacus is so good you can almost forgive it Tony Curtis’ performance. (Hey, it’s a toga movie; there has to be something laughable.)