In the mines of the Roman province of Libya, slave Spartacus (Kirk Douglas) is sentenced to be starved to death after ankling a guard with his teeth. Slave merchant Batiatus (Peter Ustinov) soon arrives and buys the condemned Spartacus, recognizing an unbroken spirit he can mold into something great. They return to the city of Capua, where Batiatus operates a gladiator training school.

Spartacus proves as agile intellectually as he is physically, though a gladiator named Draba (Woody Strode) refuses to be friendly with him, given that they might have to fight each other one day. Granted time alone with slave girl Varinia (Jean Simmons), Spartacus becomes enraptured with her.

Roman general Marcus Crassus (Laurence Olivier) arrives with a small party and requests to see two pairs of gladiators fight to the death. Batiatus waffles, believing that would be bad for morale, but Crassus won’t be denied a blood spectacle. Spartacus and Draba are chosen and square off in the arena. Given the opportunity to finish off Spartacus, Draba refuses and is killed.

Crassus is beguiled by Varinia and buys her. The captain of the guards antagonizes Spartacus about this and an open revolt erupts. Moving from town to town, the gladiator rebellion grows in strength. In the Roman Senate, Gracchus (Charles Laughton) shrewdly dispatches the garrison of Rome to end the revolt, leading the way for Julius Caesar to take command of the city and holding the imperial ambitions of Crassus in check.

Spartacus is reunited with Varinia, and befriends an escaped slave (Tony Curtis). Encamped on Mount Vesuvius, Spartacus intends to march his slave army through Italy to the sea, where ships chartered from Sicilian pirates can take them to freedom. Crassus waits for the situation to become desperate enough for the Senate to give him control of Rome, in exchange for meeting Spartacus on the battlefield and crushing the rebellion.

Spartacus was Kirk Douglas’ answer to Ben Hur. He had wanted the title role in that film, but watched as Charlton Heston got the part instead. Douglas bought the film rights to Howard Fast’s 1952 novel about an earlier slave revolt against the Roman Empire, and hired Dalton Trumbo to adapt it.

Fast and Trumbo were accused Communists who had both gone to jail for refusing to cooperate with the House Un-American Activities. Douglas ignored the Hollywood blacklist intended to keep such men out of the business and gave them screen credit. The American Legion picketed the Los Angeles premiere, and Douglas responded by hiring Trumbo to write two more movies for him.

Anthony Mann was employed by Universal to direct, but ran into difficulty dealing with the high powered egos on the set, including five actor-directors used to doing things their way. He bowed out two weeks into filming, and Douglas brought in the 30-year-old Stanley Kubrick to finish the $12 million epic, one of the biggest budgets rung up by a movie until that time.

Instead of being grateful, Kubrick fired Sabina Bethmann and cast Jean Simmons in the role of Varinia. Kubrick cut much of the early dialogue between Simmons and Douglas, preferring instead to use music and image to tell their story. Kubrick rewrote the script, but when he sought to have Trumbo’s name removed from the credits so he could assume sole authorship, Douglas stood by his blacklisted screenwriter.

Spartacus became the third highest grossing film in the U.S. that year, but Kubrick disowned Spartacus, the only one of his films he had no creative control over. It never rises to greatness, but is good throughout, at times very good. The scenes in the gladiator school are easily the best, as we watch the slaves stripped of their humanity, a theme Kubrick would revisit throughout his career. Here, it ends in a triumph. Kubrick’s later pictures would be far less upbeat about the human race.

Executive producer Douglas hired the best artisans in the business, and the film benefits greatly from it. Kubrick is just one example. Olivier, Ustinov and Laughton are appropriately treacherous, witty, and droll as Roman connivers; the political maneuvering between them is a real pleasure to watch. With Douglas the actor so intense, the British talent lends the film a real vitality and humor.

Kubrick’s heart isn’t in battle scenes and they do pale in comparison to the spectacles that came later. Alex North composed a tremendous musical score, and Saul Bass designed one of his finest title sequences ever. Spartacus won six Academy Awards, including Best Supporting Actor for Peter Ustinov, the only win ever for an actor in a Kubrick film. Restored in 1990 with 14 minutes of additional scenes, I recommended this for fans of epics with 196 minutes to spare.