Trivia for
Spartacus (1960) More at IMDbPro »

• Stanley Kubrick was brought in as director after Kirk Douglas had a major falling out with the original director, Anthony Mann. According to Peter Ustinov, the salt mines sequence was the only footage shot by Mann.
  
  
• Kirk Douglas, as co-producer of the film (through his company, Bryna Productions), insisted on hiring Hollywood Ten blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo to adapt the film. Douglas also hired blacklisted character actor Peter Brocco to play a supporting role.
  
  
• Stanley Kubrick was not given control of the script, which he felt was full of stupid moralizing. Since then, Kubrick has kept full control over all aspects of his films.
  
  
• The sound of the crowd cheering "Spartacus! Spartacus!" was actually recorded at a 1959 football game in Spartan Stadium, home of the Michigan State University Spartans in East Lansing, Michigan. Michigan State beat Notre Dame in that game, 19-0.
  
  
• Of the 167 days it took Stanley Kubrick to shoot this film, six weeks were spent directing an elaborate battle sequence in which 8,500 extras re-created the clash between the Roman troops and Spartacus' slave army. Several scenes in the battle drew the ire of the Legion of Decency and were therefore cut. These include shots of men being dismembered (dwarfs with false torsos and an actor with only one arm [Bill Raisch, the "One-Armed Man" of "The Fugitive" (1963) fame] with a phony breakaway limb as a Roman soldier who has his arm cut off in battle were used to give authenticity). Seven years later, when the Oscar-winning film was reissued, an additional 22 minutes were chopped out, including a scene in which Varinia watches Spartacus writhe in agony on a cross. Her line, "Oh, please die, my darling" was excised, and the scene was cut to make it appear that Spartacus was already dead.
  
  
• Winning a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his portrayal of Lentulus Batiatus, Peter Ustinov stands as the only actor to win an Oscar for a Stanley Kubrick film. Peter Sellers is the only other actor to receive so much as a nomination.
  
  
• The 1991 version was restored by Robert A. Harris who produced a new 65mm preservation negative from original color separations. The original camera negative had lost too much of its yellow layer to be usable.
  
  
• A number of scenes featuring Peter Ustinov and Charles Laughton were rewritten by Ustinov after Laughton rejected the original script.
  
  
• Draba, played by Woody Strode, is killed in the ring after attacking one of the senators. His body is hung upside down in the gladiators' quarters as a warning. Originally this was going to be a replica of Strode, but when the effect wasn't satisfactory, he himself hung upside-down, ropes tied around his ankles. As the gladiators slowly file past his dangling body, Strode doesn't flinch or twitch. According to his son Kalai Strode, the unused replica hung inside the entrance to Universal Studios' prop room for several years.
  
  
• Kirk Douglas, a passionate Zionist, wanted the history depicted to parallel the story of the Jewish people and clashed with screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, who was more interested in making the film a comment on modern-day politics and the Cold War.
  
  
• Ingrid Bergman, Jeanne Moreau, Elsa Martinelli and Jean Simmons rejected the role of Varinia. Sabine Bethmann was then cast, but when Stanley Kubrick arrived he fired her and re-offered the part to Simmons, who took it.
  
  
• The original version included a scene where Marcus Licinius (Laurence Olivier) attempts to seduce Antoninus (Tony Curtis). The Production Code Administration and the Legion of Decency both objected. At one point Geoffrey Shurlock, representing the censors, suggested it would help if the reference in the scene to a preference for oysters or snails was changed to truffles and artichokes. In the end the scene was cut, but it was put back in for the 1991 restoration. However, the soundtrack had been lost in the meantime and the dialogue had to be dubbed. Curtis was able to redo his lines, but Olivier had died. Joan Plowright, his widow, remembered that Anthony Hopkins had done a dead-on impression of Olivier and she mentioned this to the restoration team. They approached Hopkins and he agreed to voice in Olivier's lines in that scene. Hopkins is thanked in the credits for the restored version.
  
  
• Part of the film was shot at William Randolph Hearst's castle, San Simeon, where the horsemen ride up the marble stairs. Several scenes from The Godfather (1972) were also filmed there.
  
  
• Cinematographer Russell Metty walked off the set, complaining that Stanley Kubrick was not letting him do his job. When he returned to the set, Kubrick told him to shut up and butt out and, subsequently, Kubrick did the majority of the cinematography work. Metty complained about this up until the release of the film and even, at one point, asked to have his name removed from the credits. However, because his name was in the credits, when the film won the Academy Award for Best Cinematography, it was given to Metty, although he actually didn't shoot most of it.
  
  
• Screenwriter Dalton Trumbo originally wanted Universal to get Orson Welles to play the character of the pirate, Tigranes Levantus. It was eventually played by Herbert Lom.
  
  
• In order to get so many big stars to play supporting roles, Kirk Douglas showed each a different script in which their character was emphasized.
  
  
• During the arduous, long shoot, Tony Curtis allegedly asked Jean Simmons, "Who do I have to screw to get off this film?" Some versions of the interaction include Simmons shouting back, "When you find out, let me know."
  
  
• For a while the studio did not want to give the blacklisted Dalton Trumbo screen credit for his work. Stanley Kubrick said that he would accept the credit. Kirk Douglas was so appalled by Kubrick's attempt to claim credit for someone else's work that he used his clout to ensure that Trumbo received his due credit - and in doing so effectively ended the Hollywood blacklist.
  
  
• Contrary to what the book and film portray, the historical Spartacus was born free in Thrace (modern-day Bulgaria) and may have served in the Thracian army or even the Roman army in Macedonia (Rome often impressed soldiers of armies it had defeated into its own army). It is thought that he was either captured in battle or deserted the army and later captured (depends on what side he fought on) and then sold into slavery.
  
  
• Oscar-winning actor George Kennedy made his (unbilled) screen debut playing one of the soldiers who announces "I am Spartacus!" towards the end of the film.
  
  
• Although some reviews noted the story's unreliable correlation to history, many of the film's characters were derived from real figures, including Spartacus (d. 71 B.C.), Marcus Licinius Crassus (d. 53 B.C.) and Caius Sempronius Gracchus (d. 121 B.C.). As accurately depicted in the film, Spartacus was a Thracian slave who broke out of a Capuan gladiators' school to lead a revolt that was eventually suppressed by Crassus, who then crucified his captives by the hundreds. Spartacus was killed in battle - not, as stated in the film, captured and then crucified - after which Crassus ruled Rome in a triumvirate with Pompey and Julius Caesar. Gracchus lived decades earlier, and helped organize a social reform movement that lasted only a few years before its reforms were repealed. He was killed in a series of riots protesting the repeals.
  
  
• David Lean was considered to direct, but declined. Laurence Olivier was then asked to direct, but he had relinquished the directing assignment, as he felt the dual role of actor-director would prove too demanding.
  
  
• Tony Curtis split his Achilles' tendon while playing tennis with Kirk Douglas and was placed in a cast from heel to knee. His scenes were then delayed until his leg healed.
  
  
• Stanley Kubrick spent $40,000 on the over-ten-acre gladiator camp set. On the side of the set that bordered the freeway, a 125-foot asbestos curtain was erected in order to film the burning of the camp, which was organized with collaboration from the Los Angeles Fire and Police Departments. Studio press materials state that 5,000 uniforms and seven tons of armor were borrowed from Italian museums, and that every one of Hollywood's 187 stunt men was trained in the gladiatorial rituals of combat to the death. Modern sources note that production utilized approximately 10,500 people.
  
  
• The movie's line "I am Spartacus." was voted as the #64 of "The 100 Greatest Movie Lines" by Premiere in 2007.
  
  
• [June 2008] Ranked #5 on the American Film Institute's list of the 10 greatest films in the genre "Epic".
  
  
• Film preservationist Robert A. Harris has said that by 1991 the 65mm camera negative for this film was totally faded and unusable. Nothing could be done to produce any printing material from that element. Color separation elements made on black and white film in the early 1960s were used instead.
  
  
• When Laurence Olivier as Crassus issues the order "Crucify him!", after Spartacus has killed Antoninus, the two figures who move out of shot behind Kirk Douglas, ostensibly Olivier and John Gavin, are in fact a couple of brightly-lit extras of similar build and height.
  
  
• Hedda Hopper and John Wayne, both leaders in Hollywood's powerful right-wing element, publicly condemned the film as "Marxist propaganda" prior to its release.
  
  
• One of only three films to win Best Picture:Drama at the Golden Globes and not recieve a Best Picture nomination from the Academy Awards. The other two films are East of Eden and The Cardinal
  
  
• According to producer James B. Harris, Stanley Kubrick would repeatedly see Charles Laughton, Peter Ustinov and Laurence Olivier seemingly whispering to each other. Afraid they were gossiping about him, Kubrick leaned in to hear what they were saying and each was just reading the script aloud again and again to themselves.
  
  
• The 1991 restoration contains exactly four more minutes of footage than the version that ran in theaters in 1960. Two of those minutes are taken up by the famous "snails and oysters" scene. The rest are scenes of gore and violence - including a more explicit version of the death of Draba, and a shot of the amputation of the arm of a soldier (played by real-life amputee Bill Raisch). The remainder of the longer running time of the restored version is taken up by the Overture, Entr'acte, and Exit Music.
  
  

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