Kirk Douglas produced both Paths & Spartacus. He hired Anthony Mann to direct the latter, but differences occured, Mann was fired & Kubrick brought in at the last minute. From what I understand the salt mine sequences were directed by Mann.

Kubrick disavowed Spartacus from his filmography because he didn't have creative control. The film is really more a collaboration between Douglas & writer Dalton Trumbo. But of course Kubrick deserves credit for keeping the massive epic coherent, fast-paced & quite beautiful. Interestingly, there are glitches for such a detailed director: e.g. Douglas's costume shifts between cuts in the scene where he talks to Jean Simmons as she wades in a pool.

I do find Kubrick's choices of material rather fascinating. He goes from collaborating with Arthur C. Clark on 2001: to Thackery, to a best-seller by Stephen King (also using a A list actor, very unusual for him) to something as obscure as Traumnovelle. What ever inspired him to film a book like that?

I have my own choices for all-time greatest directors (I mean, David Lynch, anyone?), but no one, no one, filmed rituals the way Kubrick did: the duel in Barry Lyndon, the execution in Paths, the strange orgy in Eyes Wide Shut. All magnificent.

Final note on 'Brick: Whenever I see The Shining & Scatman Crothers reacting to Danny's psychic summons I recall that one shot supposed took a hundred or so takes (doesn't the film hold the record for the largest amount of film exposed to film in final cut?), only to have him walk into the lobby & get killed. What a waste!

Hitch, too. Unquestionably great.

I have a question, what do you suppose was behind Frenzy? The film is so, so damned British. The actors, from what I gather, were all well known in the UK, but not in the US, or I presume, worldwide. Was it an experiment in casting, just as Psycho was an experiment using TV methods to film a motion picture? Either way it was quite a departure from his usual casting habits (aside from the women being blonde).