Barbarian movies were a staple of the fantasy genre in the 80’s. Everyone loves
a guy in a furry loin cloth, so much so the sub-genre became filled with entire franchises
(which we’ll get to in future episodes.) But the one who started them all still reigns supreme,
wearing a crown on a troubled brow. I’m talking of course about the movie
that catapulted Arnold Schwarzenegger into a household name, Conan The Barbarian, the
bloody and epic story of the Cimmerian warrior who would become a legend and king by his own hand.
So, come with us now back to the days of high adventure!
Conan came from the mind of writer Robert E Howard, a writer from Texas who really
is the man to thank for much of the sword and sorcery epics in film and story we have today.
And while that’s an amazing legacy, Howard’s life wasn’t a happy one. His mother had TB and was ill
throughout his childhood and Robert would have depression and health issues his entire life.
But he escaped into stories, becoming a prolific writer himself and began being published in
iconic magazines like Weird Tales. The tales of Conan would come from Howard’s lifelong
love of adventure stories of all sorts. While still a child he would start writing stories
based around tales of Vikings and faraway lands. Howard created a number of familiar characters
when it comes to the fantasy genre. Before Conan he created another barbarian, Kull (not
to be confused with Krull…. which we’ll get to eventually.) It would be one of his Kull stories
he’d retool to become the first Conan tale. Red Sonya would also be a creation of Howard’s,
who would later be turned into a chain mail clad warrior with a slightly altered name, Red Sonja.
According to Howard Conan forced himself into life on the page. Howard told the story of the
Barbarian appearing behind him while he sat at his desk, holding an axe above his head.
Conan told the writer that if he didn’t write the stories, he’d kill him. So, Howard worked
through the night without daring to turn around. In the daylight the specter of Conan disappeared
but Howard said he knew the Barbarian would return demanding him continue his work. It would happen
that Howard’s original Conan stories would all be done over the span of only a couple years.
The last Conan story he wrote would happen the same year that Howard would end his own life.
He would commit suicide after receiving word that his mother had slipped into a coma she
would never awaken from. He was 30 years old. The first film version of Conan The Barbarian
would take a while to finally reach the screen, starting in the mid-70s when Edward R Pressman
would finally get the rights in place to make movie. It was during this same time that a
feature film about the world of professional body building was making the rounds called Pumping
Iron and one of the films stars caught the eye of Pressman, a man with the last name Schwarzenegger.
Oliver Stone came on board to co-write the script for the film. But his script ideas
which set the movie not in a medieval landscape but a post-apocalyptic wasteland with a lot of
mutants (Stone was way into mutants at the time he said) would have cost 40 million dollars. It
was an investment cost no one was willing to take. Eventually Dino De Laurentiis would co-produce the
film with Pressman after a long and unsuccessful try at getting the movie made alone. Director
John Milius was brought on board and would also tweak the script that had been penned.
Milius was a big Viking fan, just like Robert E Howard, and he would take the setting out of
the future and set it in a world that wasn’t quite as far removed from our own history.
The budget would also be slashed in half, coming in at around 20 million dollars.
The film starts with Conan already a young boy and with the epic theme song playing
shows his father creating an amazing sword. Conan’s father tells him of the god Crom
and the riddle of steel. What follows are the events that make Conan the
warrior he is as Thulsa Doom and his minions ride into Conan’s village
and slaughter Cimmerians who live there along with Conan’s father and finally his mother.
They take all the children to a place called The Wheel of Pain,
a massive mill that the children are chained to and made to turn constantly. It’s through
this we see Conan grow into a powerfully muscled figure, ultimately being the last one chained to
the wheel and alone being the one to turn it. Conan is then taken to be trained as a fighter
in not only the gladiator pits but also in the East. Not just a fighter,
Conan is shown to learn reading and writing and philosophy…and…. other things.
Eventually Conan is freed and unsure of what to do after a life in servitude
of a sort finds his way thanks to the discovery of a sword. Being a told a prophecy that he will
make himself king by his own hand (after warming himself by a randy witch’s fire),
Conan searches for Thulsa Doom. He does so with his companions Subotai and Valeria, both skilled
warriors and thieves. After killing a massive snake that’s part of the Doom Cult, the trio are
giving the task of saving the princess Yasimina by her father Kind Osric from Doom himself.
This doesn’t turn out well for Conan who winds up captured and nearly dies after
being crucified on the Tree of Woe having left behind his companions to face Doom himself,
even though he’s fallen in love with Valeria. Before he headed to the temple of Doom
(no not that one) he meets a wizard who aids him. This is the narrator who has been guiding
us on the journey. This same wizard is enlisted by Valeria and Subotai to keep the spirits of
death from collecting Conan to take him to the underworld. Valeria knows there will be a price
to pay for this, but she is willing to pay it. Conan survives the night thanks to his companions,
and they return to the temple to retrieve the princess. When they arrive, it is during an orgy
of sex and a rather interesting dinner. We also see that the legends of Doom are most likely true,
and he is over 1000 years old as he transforms into a giant snake.
They take the princess after fighting off the guards and Doom’s warriors
but Doom himself gets his revenge by Serpentor’ing a snake arrow into Valeria,
forcing her to pay the price for her ensuring Conan survival. She dies in Conan’s arms.
Conan gives Valeria a funeral pyre, defying the winds that wouldn’t allow any flame to burn. With
vengeance in his heart, he and his remaining companions prepare for Doom’s men to attack.
Conan asks Crom to give him the vengeance he seeks in a prayer. And then the battle comes.
Valeria appears to Conan, saving his life as a Valkyrie, asking Conan as she had done in
the past “do you want to live forever?” Doom manages to escape but not for long.
Conan goes back to the temple with the princess to finish him. Conan takes Doom’s head,
just as the cult leader did with mother…only this beheading takes a few wacks of the sword, not just
one. Conan leaves with the princess and we see an image of him from the future sitting on a throne,
worry on his brow which is wearing the heavy crown of a king…his prophecy fulfilled. But the story
for how he becomes king is one for another time. The film was shot in Spain over five months.
Schwarzenegger was kept as the lead actor. After seeing him no one else was ever considered. Even
though this was the case and Schwarzenegger was a world champion body builder, they wanted him
even more fit for the part. He’d be working out for a year and a half prior to shooting,
dropping over 25 pounds while training on horses and lifting weights.
Sandahl Bergman would be cast as Valeria thanks to her work in All That Jazz and the way she could
move thanks to being a dancer. She fit director Milius’s ideal of what a Valkyrie would look like.
As it was, she and Schwarzenegger would wind up doing most of their own stunts during the film.
Rounding out the trio would be Gerry Lopez as Subotai, who Milius had worked with on
the film Big Wednesday. Lopez wasn’t an actor but a surfer. Lopez’s voice would be dubbed for
the final cut of the film by actor Sab Shimono. Speaking of voices, you probably notice that
Schwarzenegger doesn’t have a lot of lines in the film. At the time his Austrian accent was
still quite heavy, and he would go through a lot of voice training, including working with
the director. But still, he doesn’t speak much in the movie. And actually, that works in the
favor of the character of Conan who, in the film at least, seems to be more about actions showing
what he feels and means, rather than words. This is reinforced in the scene where Subotai tells the
Wizard that he is crying for Conan at Valeria’s pyre because as a Cimmerian he won’t cry.
Thulsa Doom was played by the legendary James Earl Jones. Jones’s portrayal of the cult
leader is coldly terrifying, working perfectly with the snake persona that Doom personifies.
The film also utilizes the actor’s blue eyes well for Doom’s powers of hypnotism.
He’s an amazing villain but as always, the nicest guys always play the best villains. During filming
the veteran actor gave Schwarzenegger pointers on acting and helped him learn more about the craft.
Mako was cast as the Wizard and would also be the narrator for this film and the follow up.
Mako’s career was a long one. His voice would be heard in numerous projects over the years.
One of his final works would be voicing Splinter in the TMNT movie that would be
released a year after his death in 2007. The director didn’t want anyone smaller
than Schwarzenegger playing opposite him when it came to villains and bad guys, so he cast
only actors who were as tall as if not taller than Schwarzenegger. It made the process difficult with
The Arnold standing over six feet tall. But it would lead to the casting of Sven Ole Thorsen as
Doom’s henchman Thorgrim. You might know Thorsen better though as the unstoppable mall security
guard La Fours in Mallrats…or any number of action films he’d go on to be a part of over the years.
In fact, Thorsen would co-star with Schwarzenegger in over a dozen films over the years after Conan.
Milius wanted this world to feel real and something that was very close to our own history,
even with all the giant snakes and magic within it. He took the beautiful work of
Frank Frazetta and other artists and would using actual ancient locations around Spain to shoot.
For special effects, Conan for the most part was practical. The gouts of blood that would come
from battles would be from blood bags strapped to actors. Animals were used in various scenes,
with quite a number of horses falling and doing stunts. One creature who wasn’t real was Conan’s
crucifixion snack of a vulture. This was a dummy bird, but it was made from actual bird feathers
from a dead vulture that had been applied to it. The large snake that Conan fights and stabs with
his sword during the robbery of the Tower of Serpents was a massive 36 feet long was
mechanical. During that fight we see Subotai shooting arrows into the snake while Conan
is fighting it. Those were actual bow shots being taken by director John Milius off camera.
Composer Basil Poledouris was brought on before filming to score the project.
He began by looking at the storyboards and artwork that Milius had put together.
It’s his thrumming and powerful theme music you hear as the sword is created during
the credits and immediately brings to mind the image of the warrior.
Poledouris would go on to score other genre films like Flesh and Blood,
RoboCop, and Cherry 2000 among many others. There’s been a lot of debate on the film in
terms of its themes and meanings. There are a number of people who see Conan and simply
a macho filled tale of blood, breasts and beasts. And hey, there’s nothing
wrong with that…my friend and yours Joe Bob Briggs would agree. But there’s actually a
lot more going on with Conan the Barbarian. The beginning shots of Conan’s father creating
the sword is really a metaphor for what happens to Conan. Conan is for all intents and purposes
the sword. He’s shaped by experience and hardened by life. He’s honed to a powerful
weapon. The Riddle of Steel is at play here, with Conan possibly being the answer.
The Riddle of Steel’s answer is debated to this day, but my take is that one. Crom’s gift to man
it would seem is will and thought. Conan is not an idiot or a creature
of pure barbarism. Throughout the film we see him learning,
reading, even covering up his breeding partner from the view of the crowd. He loves Valeria,
giving her the eye of the serpent, the largest of the jewels they stole as a show of this devotion.
He uses cunning to battle the forces of Doom when they are outnumbered by them and they win.
Valeria is also Conan’s equal. There has been talk over her being an arm piece for Conan, but that’s
not the case. Valeria was planning on robbing the Tower of Snakes herself, she was smart enough to
bring rope. She, like Conan, has been alone for a long time in the world and as she said, they found
warmth with each other. She’s fearless, she loves him, and that doesn’t make her weak. It makes
her stronger and without her, Conan would have died. She’s a Valkyrie and she fought the forces
of death and won. Her character would set the blueprint for future warrior women in film and TV.
Another part of Conan The Barbarian I really love is how Milius mixed in different religions and
cultures within the film to create a style that goes hand in hand with his wish to make the film
more realistic. Thulsa Doom’s cult has images right out Sumerian artifacts, there’s aspects
of Egyptian as well as there being an actual python cult in Africa. Remember when I said
that it wasn’t THAT Temple of Doom…. well funny enough Milius also used aspects of the Thuggee
when creating the cult that worshipped Doom. Eastern philosophy is shown throughout as
well as the Viking and Nordic aspects with the belief in Valhalla and the appearance
of Valeria being a Valkyrie after death. Crom was actually named by Howard after a Pagan god,
Crom Cruach from Ireland’s pre-christian history. Conan and Subotai discuss their gods and
there’s a respect for each other’s beliefs, even if there’s some good-natured ribbing about where
their gods live. Can you believe a Barbarian is able to have a more even keeled conversation about
beliefs than most people you see online these days? Yeah…. think about that one.
Conan wasn’t a blockbuster, but a success when it was released making back around four times
its budget. It would be a favorite on video and cable TV where the film would continue to grow in
popularity. Schwarzenegger’s place in Hollywood history was secured as was the beginnings of
the rip offs, knock offs, and inspired by films that would hit the direct to video market over
the next many years as well as movie theaters. The film was supposed to be the first of a series
of movies and would have one direct sequel, Conan The Destroyer, which would have a PG
rating instead of an R (for the kids you know) but we’ll get to that one in a later episode.
Conan himself would be seen again in a number of different types of media, with video games
inspired by the stories and the current hit game Conan Exiles. There would be a cartoon
series called Conan The Adventurer/Conan and the Young Warriors in 1992 and would last two seasons.
Thanks to the success of the Hercules, Xena series (star Kevin Sorbo would play Howard’s
creation Kull in a feature film actually) Conan The Adventurer a LIVE action TV show was aired
for one season in syndication with Rolf Moeller as Conan. It differs in many ways from the film and
books it was based on, much like The Beastmaster did. It is notable that the film has Red Sonja
in an episode with Conan, something that had never happened before or since on film.
The feature film Red Sonja would happen in place of a 3rd Conan movie,
with Arnold Schwarzenegger starring opposite Brigette Nielsen in 1985 playing Kalidor
with Sandahl Bergman as the villain Queen Gedren. We’ll talk about this one later too.
In 2011, riding high on GoT and his portrayal of Kal Drogo, Jason Momoa stepped into the role
of Conan. While the film was fun and Momoa was very much Momoa it couldn’t find an audience.
Conan wasn’t a smiling; devil may care type as portrayed in this film
and it would only make around 2/3rds of its budget back on release. People just really wanted
Schwarzenegger back as an older and world-weary King Conan….and they may actually get that.
Last year it was announced that Netflix was working on a deal for a Conan The Barbarian TV
series. The deal being worked would allow the streaming service to produce not only a live
action series but animated and feature properties as well.
Conan has never gone away in the public eye, with Howard’s stories compiled together and still in
print along with ever growing fanbase of Conan The Barbarian the movie. It can’t be stressed
enough how big an impact the film has had when it comes to the fantasy genre and movies in general
thanks the introduction of Arnold Schwarzenegger, who himself is helping keep the legend alive.
In January Schwarzenegger posted a video calling out the attack on the capitol on
January 6th and in the video, he pulled out the Conan sword, stating how are Democracy is like the
sword and swords grow stronger the more they are tempered. It was a perfect metaphor at
a time when we needed it. Wise words from the man who brought a Barbarian to life.