I love that movie. There are two things about it that bug me though, and both of them have to do with that diva Kirk Douglas. The first one is that his character was supposed to be more complex, but he insisted that he play an uncomplicated good guy. The second one is he wouldn’t let Kubrick end the movie with the execution, which would have made it awesome. They had to tack on that sappy ending with the German woman singing. Kubrick would have been better off casting someone else. I read that he wanted to keep Douglas happy so he’d do Spartacus.
I also read that France banned the movie, and still don’t like it to this day. Those cheese eating surrender monkeys.