A visit to the 1959 set of ‘Spartacus’
Even before its release, the 1960 film epic “Spartacus” was dogged by rumors of tension on the set, with star-producer Kirk Douglas butting heads with MGM, and a young Stanley Kubrick replacing director Anthony Mann after a week of shooting. On April 17, 1959, the Los Angeles Times’ Phillip K. Scheuer reported after a visit to the set that the “only fighting goes on before cameras,” and that Kubrick is “reasonably in control of a situation still potentially explosive.”