Kirk Douglas as Spartacus, the slave leader
by John Wight
“I am Spartacus!” is arguably the most iconic line in the history of Hollywood. Still today, it is a short and simple refrain that allows us to envisage a different world than the one we currently inhabit — one in which the personal is sacrificed in the name of the group and collective in the name of something greater and more important than self.
Kirk Douglas — born Issur Danielovitch in 1916 — both produced and was the star of this hugely significant cinematic project, which broke new ground. At the time he was in his Hollywood prime and knew it. An action star before the term was invented, Kirk Douglas was the son of poverty and thus had been exposed to communist ideas while growing up in New York:
My father, who had been a horse trader in Russia, got himself a horse and a small wagon, and became a ragman, buying old rags, pieces of metal, and junk for pennies, nickels, and dimes … Even on Eagle Street, in the poorest section of town, where all the families were struggling, the ragman was on the lowest rung on the ladder. And I was the ragman’s son.
Though never a communist himself, a childhood marked by ‘crippling poverty’ left its indelible mark on his consciousness. It is arguably why the historical character and story of Spartacus resonated with him to the extent that it did. It informed his detestation of the anti-communist witch-hunts and all of its reactionary works in the 1950s. He particularly reviled those in Hollywood who turned on former friends to save their own skins and careers during this malign period in American affairs:
So they became super-patriots. And to prove themselves right-minded, they were more than willing to sacrifice the lives of others, even their fellow Jews. They were like the Vichy government in France, collaborators who held on to their influence and position at the expense of their fellow countrymen.
Spartacus the movie was based on the 1951 novel of the same name by Howard Fast. Fast — like Douglas the son of poverty and an Eastern European Jewish background — was a card-carrying member of the Communist Party USA. His was a life lived under iron heel of a capitalist system that promised much but delivered little. The Great Depression of the 1930s radicalised his mind and soul.
For his refusal to name names, Fast was sent to prison in 1950, which is where he began work on the most consequential novel of his career in books. Due to the blacklist, he was forced to publish Spartacus himself, using his own money. His decision to do so proved inspired, as the novel quickly became a bestseller.
Kirk Douglas in the 1950s was a trailblazer for movies that challenged the received truths of capitalism. His was the creative sensibility of a man for whom orthodoxy in all things was an impediment to progress and understanding. His 1957 classic, Paths of Glory, was a veritable shot across the bows of the militarism and warmongering propensities of the then, and still today, American ruling class and culture.
It was also his first creative partnership with Stanley Kubrick. Kubrick was just 30 when Douglas hired him to replace original director, Anthony Mann, on Spartacus, after just three weeks of shooting. Douglas’ story goes that Mann was in such awe of Peter Ustinov — Batiatus in the movie — that he allowed him to direct himself:
He let Peter Ustinov direct his own scenes by taking every suggestion Peter made. The suggestions were good — for Peter, but not necessarily for the film.
Spartacus cost twelve million dollars to make, which in 1960 was a mammoth budget for a Hollywood production. The sheer scale of the story and its historical sweep ensured that its creative core had to be unflinchingly focused. This is where screenwriter Dalton Trumbo came into his own.
Trumbo was a screenwriter’s screenwriter. His was the sensibility of the artisan more than that of the artist. His job was writing movies and writing movies was his job. Not for he the need for a muse. All he required to get going was a cigarette in his mouth, a drink by his side, and benzedrine.
Dalton Trumbo
The anti-communist blacklist may have come for him, yet it did not stop him from plying his trade. After serving eight months in prison for refusing to name names, he wrote under a variety of pseudonyms. Under one of said pseudonyms — Richard Rich — he won the screenwriting Oscar in 1957 for the movie, The Brave One.
Kirk Douglas brought Trumbo in out of the cold for Spartacus in defiance of a Hollywood blacklist which by then was a metric of the industry’s lack of integrity. Trumbo’s vision of the movie was a simple and also stunningly impactful one: allegory.
In the historical figure of Spartacus, Trumbo saw a common slave transformed into the inspiration behind, and leader of, a socialist revolution. He saw thereby the vision of the revolution that he and many of his generation considered the solution to the economic and social ills of America. It was a vision shared by Kirk Douglas. Consider these words, from the film:
I’d rather be here, a free man among brothers facing a long march and a hard fight, than to be the richest citizen in Rome, fat with food he didn’t work for and surrounded by slaves.
Spartacus was a troubled project and production. Kirk Douglas, Stanley Kubrick, Laurence Olivier, Peter Ustinov — when such giant talents were combined with a huge budget and high expectations, how could it not have been? But the end product of such deep creative tension was an alchemy responsible for a Hollywood classic.
Still to this day, Spartacus is a movie of immense sweep and enduring truths. Kirk Douglas articulated those enduring truths thus:
I believe much of the divisiveness in the world has been caused by religion, even in the time of Spartacus when they worshipped many gods. What is the purpose of religion? After ninety-five years on this planet, I have come to the conclusion that religion should be based on only one thing: helping your fellow man. If everybody followed that religion — helping his fellow man — armies would vanish overnight.
