Die sieben glorreichen Gladiatoren

When Conan the Barbarian became a hit in 1982, the Italians where superbly equipped to exploit that fad with a vengeance given their long history of producing bad Hercules and Hercules rip off films. Directed by Italian schlockmaster, Bruno Mattei (Rats Night of Terror, Robowar, Cruel Jaws), it features terrible dubbing, some nice actual Roman ruins for outdoor sets (they already existed and were likely free), the incomparable bad acting team of Lou Ferrigno AND Sybil Danning (who were also both in the Italian 1983 Hercules film), and it has a women's wresting scene where the competitors wear some very non-Roman tiny gold bikinis. The plot is pretty straight forward. Good guy (Ferrigno) gets a magic sword, recruits a team of gladiators, which includes sword & sandal veteran Brad Harris, and kills of a bunch of bad guys terrorizing a group of women. My personal favorite scene is when the "Emperor" tries to wield the magic sword, gets burned since he is not "divine" like Ferrigno. As the Emperor is wildly over acting getting "burned" by the magic sword handle, his cheap plastic crown falls off his head and bounces down a bunch of steps making very audible noises which clearly indicate the crown is very much made of plastic. The film does drag in places, but overall it's an entertaining piece of garbage for bad film fans and fans of director Bruno Mattei's work.

The problem with this movie is not that it rehashes the plot of "The Magnificent Seven"; after all, even that movie was a remake of something else ("The Seven Samurai", which I have not seen yet). The problem is that it rehashes it in a plodding and unimaginative fashion. The main difference between the two movies (besides the obviously lower production quality, of course) is that "The Magnificent Seven" were interesting, intelligent and articulate characters; "The Seven Magnificent Gladiators" are 5 primitive muscleheads, a rookie, and a warrior woman (Sybil Danning). The fight scenes are mostly Bud-Spencer-and-Terence-Hill-do-sword-and-sorcery-style. And being this a PG film, it completely lacks any of the blood and nudity usually found in the genre. A sensuous (but brief) female bikini wrestling match is as risqué, and as thrilling, as it gets here, folks (and no, Sybil is not featured in it). (**)

Not all of them can be winners, even Buñuel and Fernando de Fuentes had their own lower tier films, while this isn't exactly on the same level as La hija del engaño (1951) or something like that it's still a very tepid entry for Mattei, devoid of life and stimulating ideas, it never rises above being a slightly above average peplum/Conan rehash/parody. Mattei and Fragasso only made one of these after all.

Bruno, predictably, has zero interest in this story and directs a lot of the action sequences with laziness and carelessness, which sort of works considering the style of his oeuvre as in that the parodic elements and complete degradation of the genres and subjects he touches can easily flourish even on auto-pilot but this outing lacks compelling images, expressive touches and a cohesive sense of direction that typically unites all of the elements of a good film, things we usually find on Mattei films but not here, making it one of his least interesting ones.

The first person sequence with Sybil Danning and a couple of the delirious scenes kind of bring this one up a notch but the poor budget restricts much of it. With the classically mostly static camera, the kitschy outfits and the abundant wide shots that capture the fights, one can understand that it's totally a peplum send up, after all, it's on Italy's DNA regardless of whether or not they try to rip-off Conan. As its own peplum tribute/parody it works just fine even in its poor condition.

Nothing on television again and man this is on. Lou (Hulk) in this and man this is so bad that it hurts to watch but I am anyways just to laugh at it. How can the Director and Producers even think that this is something someone would love to watch? So many bad movies that get rated higher.

Not this movie being rated higher but there are. This one is just nothing to praise for it but the acting and playing too much instead of being a serious movie. Who ever likes this has to be completely nuts. No way someone could like it. Lou is terrible actor and okay body builder.

Oh well, they just keep showing bad movies on television. Just like America 3000 is bad too.

This movie should have been called One Magnificent Gladiator, One Mediocre Gladiator, Four Scrungy Men and Sybil Danning. Better yet, Lou Ferringo With His Shirt Off and Sybil Danning Almost.

I suppose it's in the tradition of Seven Samurai, but I don't believe it intends to be comparable. It is silly fun, like other sword-and-sandal movies.

I admit it does make Conan the Barbarian look like art.

Nobody who sees Lou Ferrigno and Sybil Danning in lead roles and watches the movie anyway has a right to complain.

I've heard from imdb's bio of Lou that the most he ever benched was 560. That's hard to believe, seeing that chest and those arms. I'd have thought at least 700, since I can handle 550 and nobody looks at me twice. So it goes.