Spartacus (1960) Stanley Kubrick   Before you sit down to watch Attila, I am compelled to recommend this far more artistic and epic depiction of one man's revolt against the tyranny of Rome. There's little I can add to the unanimous and well deserved chorus of approval which has greeted Spartacus since its release over 40 years ago. Suffice to say, if anyone has not yet seen this production, I urge them to screen the DVD from Universal Home Video, which presents the film in its full, wide-screen splendor. The story follows a gladiator in training, Spartacus (Kirk Douglas) who leads his fellow gladiators in a revolt against their master. Raiding the surrounding landscape, Spartacus frees all the slaves and trains them in his gladiatorial expertise. A gladiator is twice as deadly as a Roman soldier, and Spartacus soon has several legions' worth, inspiring terror in the heart of Rome. Laurence Olivier plays Crassus, the creepy, cold-blooded Roman general who sees himself as the patriarch of Rome and uses the national emergency of the slave revolt to install himself as dictator. Written for the screen by formerly blacklisted writer Dalton Trumbo, the screenplay is literate, deep, and predictably interprets Rome as a regime where law and order is purchased at the cost of its citizens' rights. Yet Trumbo's work surprisingly escapes heavy-handedness. The scale of the film is mammoth, yet it never crushes its characters, thanks to the brilliance and steady hand of then-neophyte director Stanley Kubrick (who would prove his genius many times over in subsequent films). Admittedly, Kirk Douglas' and Tony Curtis' New York accents sound out of place among the English stage diction of Olivier and Jean Simmons, but all of the performances are so energetic and compelling, the clashing accents are rarely noticeable. Add to that visceral gladiator duels and a sprawling battle scene (which served as the model for Braveheart), and the result is one of the best epics of all time. The DVD release ciontains little in the way of supplements, though the theatrical trailers are included. —Paul Andrew MacLean

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