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Screening: Kirk Douglas once said of director Stanley Kubrick, "He'll be a fine director some day, if he falls flat on his face just once. It might teach him how to compromise." Douglas and Kubrick fought almost daily during filming of Spartacus, as did the rest of the cast and crew; the bouts between Charles Laughton and Lawrence Olivier (as well as Ustinov) are legendary. Trumbo and Howard Fast couldn't stand each other; Fast once called Trumbo (without of course knowing it was him, as he was using the pseudonym Sam Jackson at the time) "the world's worst writer." Over schedule, over budget, the shoot was wrought with problems, not least of which was Kubrick. He was only about thirty at the time. A tinkering perfectionist even then, he shot ridiculous amounts of coverage, from every conceivable angle-and ordered prints of every take. He used 2 or 3 mammoth 70mm cameras at a time, sometimes as many as 6 or 7. He would actually place all of the extras for death-and-battle scenes himself-the equivalent of a master chef folding every napkin and setting every place setting for a banquet. Then he would order take after take of a shot because an extra, way in the back, didn't do his cross properly. And with all of that, Kubrick still maintained up until his death that "Spartacus was the only film on which I did not have absolute control." No matter-because despite it's important political and cultural significance, its appeal to cinephiles and film historians, its place in cinematic history as a Kirk Douglas film, a Stanley Kubrick film, a Dalton Trumbo film-in essence it's really just an incredible kick ass gladiator movie.-Jon Jolles Tidbit:
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