John Wayne and Kirk Douglas never saw eye-to-eye politically, as the latter once confessed in a TV interview. Duke considered Spartacus to be Marxist propaganda and was infuriated by his liberal co-star when he was once late to set when filming The War Wagon together. It turned out Douglas had been shooting a commercial to … Read more
Stanley Kubrick’s Spartacus couldn’t have been more controversial upon its release in 1960. Title star Kirk Douglas took a massive risk in allowing blacklisted communist screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, one of the Hollywood Ten, to pen the Oscar-winning Roman epic without having to use a friend’s name in place of his own. The scribe had previously taken a … Read more
It’s been 59 years since the release of In Harm’s Way, one of the last black and white World War II epics and John Wayne’s final film not in colour. Duke starred as Captain Rockwell Torrey opposite Kirk Douglas and Patricia Neal, in the blockbuster that featured Henry Fonda in a lengthy cameo. Directed by … Read more
Having worked with formerly blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo to great success on Spartacus, Kirk Douglas hired the scribe to adapt Howard Rigsby’s 1957 novel Sundown at Crazy Horse. The 1961 movie, retitled The Last Sunset, would see the Hollywood star play fugitive Brendan O’Malley, who crosses the Mexican border and seeks refuge at the farm … Read more
Stanley Kubrick’s Oscar-winning Roman epic was incredibly controversial upon its release in 1960. Kirk Douglas allowed blacklisted communist screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, one of the Hollywood Ten, to pen Spartacus without having to hide his name. The scribe had previously been taking a clandestine approach to his work following his ostracisation from the film industry years … Read more
