The Hollywood blacklist was cracking at last with the previously unemployable Dalton Trumbo’s script from Howard Fast’s semi-Stalinist novel about the militant slave (a premature Communist!) who led a revolt against his Romanov-like Roman masters. This is hardly Kubrick’s most personal film, but it certainly is much bare-chested fun, from the cheeky performances (Peter Ustinov won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar) to the dagger fights to the homoerotic bathing scene involving Laurence Olivier and Tony Curtis (who talks "New Yorkese" throughout). Other virtues: Alex North’s much-praised score, and the Academy Award-winning cinematography by Russell Metty, who also photographed Douglas Sirk melodramas.