`Spartacus' vs. `Gladiator': Which one did it better?

Ridley Scott's brutal Roman epic, "Gladiator," has been so successful at the box office that several more ancient-world spectacles are in the works. While we're waiting for them, the Egyptian has booked a 70mm print of the restored version of Stanley Kubrick's "Spartacus" (1960) for a week beginning tonight.

In some ways, they're almost the same movie. While the vengeance-in-the-arena plot of "Gladiator" is borrowed from "Ben-Hur" (1959), and some of the same historical characters turn up in "The Fall of the Roman Empire" (1964), the focus on athletes trained to fight and die in "Gladiator" is most reminiscent of "Spartacus."

Indeed, the late Oliver Reed's role as a slave trader/gladiator trainer (truncated because Reed died during the production) is almost identical to the character Peter Ustinov plays in "Spartacus." The part won an Oscar for Ustinov, who slyly tweaks the role by behaving as if he were buying and selling used chariots rather than people. It's possible "Gladiator" could earn a posthumous nomination for Reed, though the writing of the role isn't as skillful in the new film.

Ustinov reportedly created much of his own dialogue, as did Charles Laughton, playing the cheerfully corrupt senator who befriends him. Their scenes together are among the wittiest in Kubrick's movie. They are upstaged only by Laurence Olivier's authoritative, multilayered portrait of a Roman general who means to use a pre-Christian slave rebellion to achieve dictatorship.

Perhaps the major difference between "Gladiator" and "Spartacus" is the deliberate mixture of moods in the latter. While "Gladiator" plays out on one level, risking monotony, "Spartacus" holds your attention for more than three hours by blending romance and humor, heroics and tragedy.

At the time of its original release, The New Republic's Stanley Kauffmann wrote that "a lot of first-rate professionals have pooled their abilities to make a first-rate circus." The public agreed, making it the No. 1 box-office draw of its year.

Around town

The three-screen Majestic Bay Theater will open next Friday in Ballard with "The Contender," "Remember the Titans" and a couple of classics - "Casablanca" and "Singin' in the Rain" - in the auditorium that is equipped to show older films in their proper aspect ratios . . . A new screenplay, "Mrs. Baker," will be staged at 7:30 p.m. Monday at On the Boards. Kris Kristensen and Brian McDonald wrote the script, which Kristensen will stage . . . Charles Chaplin's "The Gold Rush," featuring live music by Asylum Street Spankers, plays at 7 and 9:15 p.m. Wednesday at Experience Music Project at Seattle Center . . . At 7:30 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday, Hokum Hall in West Seattle is showing a collection of silent comedies, including Chaplin's "The Rink," also accompanied by live music . . . The Seattle Art Museum continues its latest film-noir cycle at 7:30 p.m. Thursday with "The Man I Love." The museum is also showing all eight hours of Lars von Trier's supernatural Danish soap opera, "The Kingdom," with the first two-hour installment scheduled at 7:30 p.m. tonight. The concluding half of Part One plays at 7:30 p.m. tomorrow, followed at 9:30 p.m. tomorrow by the first two hours of Part Two. The two-hour finale plays at 7:30 p.m. Sunday. Part Two is not currently available on video. Tickets are $8 per night, or $7 for museum members . . . The Little Theatre on Capitol Hill is showing a powerful documentary about breast-cancer activists, "Rachel's Daughters," tonight through Sunday . . . Soundtrack Cinema, at 10 p.m. tomorrow on KING-FM (98.1), features music from Bruce Lee movies, including "Game of Death" and "Enter the Dragon" . . . The Paramount's latest "Silent Movie Mondays" series continues with Yakov Protazanov's "Aelita, Queen of Mars," at 7 p.m. Monday. Dennis James, Amy Crocker and Robert Korda will provide musical accompaniment for the big-budget 1924 Soviet futuristic spectacle . . . An IMAX 3-D collection of animated shorts, "CyberWorld 3D," opens Nov. 13 at the Boeing IMAX Theatre at the Pacific Science Center. "Fantasia 2000" will be back for the holidays at the same location, beginning Nov. 23. . . . Seattle Public Library is inviting the public to celebrate the library's expanded film and music collections at all library branches. Thanks to a grant from the Carnegie Corp. of New York, the library has purchased 15,000 videotapes, 25,000 CDs and 1,500 DVDs. Each branch will display its new additions tomorrow . . . The Cinerama's late show tonight and tomorrow is James Cameron's "The Abyss," at 12:30 a.m. . . . The snowboarding movie "TB9" is at the SeaTac Mall for 10:30 p.m. shows tonight and tomorrow.

Out of town

General Cinemas is closing the Lincoln Plaza multiplex in Tacoma . . . The remodeled North Bend Theatre continues its Eastside Film Festival tonight through Sunday with "Butterfly" and the restoration of Hitchcock's "Rear Window." The final double bill, "The Five Senses" and "The Color of Paradise," will play Monday through Thursday . . . The Clyde Theatre in Langley is showing "Shower," Tuesday through Thursday . . . The Olympia Film Society has scheduled free showings of "Spike and Mike's Classic Festival of Animation," at 5 and 7 p.m. tonight and 2, 4 and 6 p.m. tomorrow at the Capitol Theatre in downtown Olympia. In addition, the Olympia Film Society will show Robert Bresson's "Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne" free at 8 p.m. tomorrow at the same location. Sunday through Thursday, at regular admission prices, the theater has a druggy double bill: "Jesus' Son" and "Benjamin Smoke" . . . Todd Haynes, director of "Safe," "Poison" and "Velvet Goldmine," will be the judge for the Northwest Film Center's 27th Northwest Film and Video Festival. His selections will be screened Nov. 2-10 at the Guild theater in Portland . . . Next weekend, Portland gets a new downtown multiplex, the Fox Tower 10, to be operated by Regal Cinemas . . . Voted one of the top five films at this year's Seattle International Film Festival, the Australian coming-of-age movie "Looking For Alibrandi" will make its cable debut at noon Sunday on American Movie Classics.