Spartacus
director Stanley Kubrick, 1960

A big hype here was that it was the first screenplay Dalton Trumbo wrote after his come-back, having been blacklisted during the McCarthy anti-communist hysteria. (Never allow yourself to forget that the judge who pried his pit-bull teeth away from McCarthy's victims, Joseph N. Welch, was his fellow-Republican. So much for Popular Prejudice.)














I can't imagine Stanley Kubrick, a tremendous ego-tripper, cared much for Saul showing his face crumbling apart; surely he was smart enough to get it after a while. Saul must have sold the idea as symbolic for the crumbling away of the Roman Empire.

Intermission
It was this movie that inspired the Marquez' cartoon
reproduced in Harvey Kurtzman's Help! magazine (October 1963).
(click on it to see the other panels)

The cartoon created a storm at the time, many people
(who didn't seem to know their bible) taking umbrage
saying it ridiculed Christ.

Examples of Saul Bass' designs will be added later - two really stand out:
the gladiator school
the battle