My taste includes both snails and oysters
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
|
"My taste includes both snails and oysters"--Laurence Olivier (Marcus Licinius Crassus to his slave Antoninus (Tony Curtis) in Spartacus as an example of queer coding. |
|
Related e |
|
Featured: |
My taste includes both snails and oysters is an often cited phrase from the film Spartacus. The phrase is featured in the 1967 re-release. In a bath scene in which the Roman patrician and general Crassus (Laurence Olivier) attempts to seduce his slave Antoninus (Tony Curtis), speaking about the analogy of "eating oysters" and "eating snails" to express his opinion that sexual preference is a matter of taste rather than morality.
When the film was restored (two years after Olivier's death), the original dialogue recording of this scene was missing; it had to be re-dubbed. Tony Curtis, by then 66, was able to re-record his part, but Crassus' voice was an impersonation of Olivier by the actor Anthony Hopkins. A talented mimic, he had been a protege of Olivier during his days as the National Theatre's Artistic Director and knew his voice well.
See also
