Please note: This was screened in Jan 2016
Stanley Kubrick's multi Oscar®-winning swords-and-sandals epic, centred on a Roman slave revolt headed by Kirk Douglas's titular hero, defined a genre and ushered in a new Hollywood era - and was the very first film to openly defy Hollywood's blacklist by giving Dalton Trumbo, one of the most successful writers to use fronts and pseudonyms, sole credit under his true name.
This is widescreen filmmaking on a massive scale: its fantastic supporting cast (including Laurence Olivier, Charles Laughton, Jean Simmons, Tony Curtis and Peter Ustinov), bold costumes, gritty fight sequences and lush Technicolour cinematography have made it a landmark of cinema. It was Spartacus himself, Kirk Douglas, who helped save Trumbo from movie-making purgatory by naming him as the one true screenwriter of his film (Douglas also executive produced), and it was a bold, brave move. For Trumbo (whose HUAC defiance meant he spent time in jail, went broke for a time and had to move to Mexico) the blacklist was over, but for countless others - it continued.
When the film opened in December 1960, actress and notorious gossip columnist Hedda Hopper did her damnednest to convince her readers not to go and see it ("it's based on a book written by a Commie and the screen script was written by a Commie, so don't go see it") but Spartacus went on to be lauded by President Kennedy (who effectively crossed picket lines to watch it), win four Oscars®, and become the most profitable film in Universal Studio's history. I'm Spartacus, indeed.