I used to have a VHS tape with Conan the Barbarian, The Sword and the sorcerer and Excalibur on it. I literally wore the tape out I watched it so many times.
By Crum, Conan the Barbarian is still one of the most epic of the sword and sorcery film quite funny that this movie trumps the movie that this genre namesake is founded on uncanny. To this day Basil Poledouris' soundtrack rings in my head from time to time.
Yeah and Robert E Howard was the best, he created an entire universe his stories were epic. The Conan movies don't do his stories justice, he's one of the best American writers ever and his horror stories are also amazing. He achieved all this with little fanfare and died in his mid thirties (suicide).
That was the film that made arnold a big time, although the terminator was great though, but this was the film that did it and it made a lot of money at the box office as well.
Which also, proved without a shadow of a doubt, that Arnold was not an actor, but strictly an action figure. Showing emotion was painful to watch.🤨🙄😳😟😱
i loved growing up in this time period, my father had been a Tolkien fan and took me to see the animated Lord Of The Rings films in the theatre. i also grew up watching the old Errol Flynn Robin Hood and other films like that that my father had liked when he was young as well as those cool old Sinbad films. so in this period where they were making all the Sword and Sorcery type films i was in heaven. a lot of them werent great films and i knew they werent great films but i still had a blast watching them, and playing Dungeons and Dragons with my friends. i also always liked "Partners", yeah it would be seen as very offensive to a lot of people today and it does have some cringey clichés going on. i think John Hurt it very good in it and his character of a closeted gay man is well done and shows the times well, and there are some tender scenes as Ryans character starts to slowly understand him a little better and see him as a person and care for him. people can view it as an insulting or offensive film full of stereotypes, but in a lot of ways it is the opposite. it is the type of film at the time that was just gently trying to open a door to make a subculture or an alternate lifestyle more relatable and normal and thus acceptable. i am familiar with Christiane F the person but i have never seen the film. i will have to track it down.
@@ThatOldTV its kind of interesting and strange to think about, because those films my father grew up with and so in turn i grew up with because of it is what was popular at that time it was a big mix of westerns and musicals. but also those Errol Flynn and Douglas Fairbanks Jr films my father loved.
newwavepop@ you make a good point about Partners, a run of the mill film with a central gay character. The fact that it came out out this time , just under a year after the first cases of HIV/AIDS, began making headlines. Here, in 1982, America's view of homosexuality grew worse and any film that showed gays in a positive light was shunned or ignored by society altogether. Your dad sounded like a really good guy. My dad would always drop my brother and I off at a movie theater every weekend(he didn't care for movies). I miss my parents and my lily brother. RIP, ALL OF YOU!!
@@gwenwachsman3739 sorry for the loss of your loved ones. i am 49 now and chose not to have kids so i have no idea what the younger generations actually do now. but going to see a movie back then with friends or hanging out at the mall or some arcade all day seemed like great times and real actual socializing, i feel like todays kids dont get to enjoy that not to even mention since the Covid stuff.
I'm kind of surprised that Siskel and especially Ebert didn't pick up on how much Conan the Barbarian borrows from the great foreign directors of the early 20th Century in its visual style particularly Kurosawa and Eisenstein.
I find it interesting how much time clips of Conan took up, but I guess the makers gave them that much to use. The last scene has the music altered a little with the Conan theme/Anvil of Krom starting twice, when it only does once in the film.
It's odd to look up Roger's print review of THE SWORD AND THE SORCERER because he gives it only 1/2 a star (out of 4) and that doesn't track with his review here. He doesn't recommend the movie, but he sure as hell doesn't react to it like it's barely above Zero-stars bad (the Tribune has taken pains to make almost none of Gene Siskel's print reviews available, so I have no earthly idea what star rating he gave TSATS to go with his "Yes" recommendation here). Kind of reminded me of him giving 2 stars out of 4 to 1980's THE FINAL COUNTDOWN and then agreeing with Gene to put it on their Worst of 1980 list. Sometimes I think Roger got genuinely angry about a film on the commute between writing his Chicago Sun-Times column and doing his TV show.
And if you liked Conan The Barbarian, you should seek out THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD with Vincent D'Onofrio as Conan's creator ROBERT E. HOWARD. Really tragic in the end. And hoping one day to see a serious biopic on HP LOVECRAFT as well. Also 1:50..... as the saying goes, "you need a scorecard to tell them apart."
I don't know if anyone has read the S. King book Talisman, but I have, and I read it 6 times cover to cover. It is THAT good. I mean werewolves with machine guns. Really. But that aside, there is a character in the book Reverend Sunlight Gardner who runs the Sunlight Gardner Home for Wayward Boys, and the way he is written makes me believe that Richard Lynch (Cromwell from Sword and Sorcerer) would have been the best actor to portray him. Now that Lynch is dead, I have no desire to see a film version.
It might interest you to know that no less than Steven Spielberg and the Duffer Brothers are developing The Talisman as a Netflix series. Now, if those guys can't find the right person to play Sunlight Gardner, I don't know who could.
@@gspendlove Of all the people you have seen in films and on TV who would you suggest? Also, when you go back and read the dialogue of both Speed and of Snoball, do you really THINK that any of that pathos will make it to a film in modern times? No, surely we can agree the time for this adaptation has either passed or not yet come to pass.
I used to have a VHS tape with Conan the Barbarian, The Sword and the sorcerer and Excalibur on it. I literally wore the tape out I watched it so many times.
What is best in life? To hear the lamentations of the critics.
Hahaha. You made me spit out my coffee
By Crum, Conan the Barbarian is still one of the most epic of the sword and sorcery film quite funny that this movie trumps the movie that this genre namesake is founded on uncanny.
To this day Basil Poledouris' soundtrack rings in my head from time to time.
Howard’s works, which Conan is a part of, made the “sword and sorcery” genre.
Yeah and Robert E Howard was the best, he created an entire universe his stories were epic. The Conan movies don't do his stories justice, he's one of the best American writers ever and his horror stories are also amazing. He achieved all this with little fanfare and died in his mid thirties (suicide).
Remember seeing Conan back when it came out. Really great movie.
That was the film that made arnold a big time, although the terminator was great though, but this was the film that did it and it made a lot of money at the box office as well.
Christiane F is a teenager's horror story.
Which also, proved without a shadow of a doubt, that Arnold was not an actor, but strictly an action figure. Showing emotion was painful to watch.🤨🙄😳😟😱
RIP to both John Hurt and Ryan O’Neal.
i loved growing up in this time period, my father had been a Tolkien fan and took me to see the animated Lord Of The Rings films in the theatre. i also grew up watching the old Errol Flynn Robin Hood and other films like that that my father had liked when he was young as well as those cool old Sinbad films. so in this period where they were making all the Sword and Sorcery type films i was in heaven. a lot of them werent great films and i knew they werent great films but i still had a blast watching them, and playing Dungeons and Dragons with my friends.
i also always liked "Partners", yeah it would be seen as very offensive to a lot of people today and it does have some cringey clichés going on. i think John Hurt it very good in it and his character of a closeted gay man is well done and shows the times well, and there are some tender scenes as Ryans character starts to slowly understand him a little better and see him as a person and care for him. people can view it as an insulting or offensive film full of stereotypes, but in a lot of ways it is the opposite. it is the type of film at the time that was just gently trying to open a door to make a subculture or an alternate lifestyle more relatable and normal and thus acceptable.
i am familiar with Christiane F the person but i have never seen the film. i will have to track it down.
Same here. I grew up in the 70's and 80's. I watched a lot of the films my parents grew up watching. Good times.
@@ThatOldTV its kind of interesting and strange to think about, because those films my father grew up with and so in turn i grew up with because of it is what was popular at that time it was a big mix of westerns and musicals. but also those Errol Flynn and Douglas Fairbanks Jr films my father loved.
newwavepop@ you make a good point about Partners, a run of the mill film with a central gay character. The fact that it came out out this time , just under a year after the first cases of HIV/AIDS, began making headlines. Here, in 1982, America's view of homosexuality grew worse and any film that showed gays in a positive light was shunned or ignored by society altogether. Your dad sounded like a really good guy. My dad would always drop my brother and I off at a movie theater every weekend(he didn't care for movies). I miss my parents and my lily brother. RIP, ALL OF YOU!!
@@gwenwachsman3739 sorry for the loss of your loved ones.
i am 49 now and chose not to have kids so i have no idea what the younger generations actually do now. but going to see a movie back then with friends or hanging out at the mall or some arcade all day seemed like great times and real actual socializing, i feel like todays kids dont get to enjoy that not to even mention since the Covid stuff.
You all make good points!
I miss movies like Sword And The Sorcerer shown in mainstream theaters.
This is a rare episode where I haven't seen any of the movies reviewed!
I finally watched Conan for the first time and it was a lot of fun!
"Conan The Barbarian" has stood the test of time. The rest of them, including its very own sequel, sadly have not. Maybe Excalibur.
I still love Excalibur. .. But yeah, the original Conan is a classic. Solid movie making.
@@Fiveash-Art I loved Excalibur as a kid but now I see it's flaws. Conan The Barbarian was great as a kid and even better as an adult.
@@JoeyArmstrong2800 Sure it's flawed .. it lacks a bit of focus and it's also a bit bloated. Still a great movie. Agree with you about Conan.
@@Fiveash-Art Don't get me wrong Excalibur is great but tonally it's like 2 different movies. The second half which I enjoy more than the first.
Christiane F one of my favorites
" One damn thing after another "...lmbo
I'm kind of surprised that Siskel and especially Ebert didn't pick up on how much Conan the Barbarian borrows from the great foreign directors of the early 20th Century in its visual style particularly Kurosawa and Eisenstein.
You may be giving them too much credit.
I don't know. Beach Girls sounds kinda good. haha. And I love Conan the Barbarian.
And your fifteen, right?
I find it interesting how much time clips of Conan took up, but I guess the makers gave them that much to use. The last scene has the music altered a little with the Conan theme/Anvil of Krom starting twice, when it only does once in the film.
I'm happy to see they included the wonderful orgy scene
Little less music? How dare he! 99% of that movie is the music.
Anyhow, he sild so well the fog of the week "senior snatch" now I want to see it.
It's odd to look up Roger's print review of THE SWORD AND THE SORCERER because he gives it only 1/2 a star (out of 4) and that doesn't track with his review here. He doesn't recommend the movie, but he sure as hell doesn't react to it like it's barely above Zero-stars bad (the Tribune has taken pains to make almost none of Gene Siskel's print reviews available, so I have no earthly idea what star rating he gave TSATS to go with his "Yes" recommendation here). Kind of reminded me of him giving 2 stars out of 4 to 1980's THE FINAL COUNTDOWN and then agreeing with Gene to put it on their Worst of 1980 list. Sometimes I think Roger got genuinely angry about a film on the commute between writing his Chicago Sun-Times column and doing his TV show.
I read recently that the stars aren't good for using to compare movies, but maybe just for the same genre.
The original subbed vs dubbed argument
I could only find the Christiane F movie on UA-cam dubbed..
And if you liked Conan The Barbarian, you should seek out THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD with Vincent D'Onofrio as Conan's creator ROBERT E. HOWARD. Really tragic in the end. And hoping one day to see a serious biopic on HP LOVECRAFT as well. Also 1:50..... as the saying goes, "you need a scorecard to tell them apart."
the vhs version of christaine f used dubbed american voices. for decades i thought the film was badly acted
no mine had subtitles. Dubbing is horrendous
Wrong Conan film in the thumbnail.
I don't know if anyone has read the S. King book Talisman, but I have, and I read it 6 times cover to cover. It is THAT good. I mean werewolves with machine guns. Really. But that aside, there is a character in the book Reverend Sunlight Gardner who runs the Sunlight Gardner Home for Wayward Boys, and the way he is written makes me believe that Richard Lynch (Cromwell from Sword and Sorcerer) would have been the best actor to portray him. Now that Lynch is dead, I have no desire to see a film version.
It might interest you to know that no less than Steven Spielberg and the Duffer Brothers are developing The Talisman as a Netflix series. Now, if those guys can't find the right person to play Sunlight Gardner, I don't know who could.
@@gspendlove Of all the people you have seen in films and on TV who would you suggest? Also, when you go back and read the dialogue of both Speed and of Snoball, do you really THINK that any of that pathos will make it to a film in modern times? No, surely we can agree the time for this adaptation has either passed or not yet come to pass.
You should know you whiffed the thumbnail. That's Conan the Destroyer.
Yep .. that confused me ... I thought ... wait a second? Sword and The Sorcerer was released a couple of years before The Destroyer. 😆