Die sieben glorreichen Gladiatoren

Move over Kurosawa and Sturges, Bruno "SS Girls" Mattei has got this. Basically the old Seven Samurai plot reworked for ancient Roman times. A demigod douchebag is terrorizing frightened villagers. So some of the village women go and get a magic sword that only one man can wield (heard that before?). Then they recruit Lou Ferrigno, Brad Harris, sexy Sybil Danning, and a few forgettable types to help fight the villain.

Reunites the stars of Cannon's Hercules movie, released the same year. It's directed with what can only honestly be called a complete absence of talent. Badly acted, badly dubbed, with stunt choreography that appears to have been made up on the spot not unlike my brother & I play fighting as kids using sticks as swords. Filmed in Italy and utilizing actual ruins as sets, this should have at least had some local flavor or scenic appeal going for it. But nope. I wanted to like it in spite of itself, but it's just not that much fun.

My review was written in August 1985 after watching the movie on HBO.

"The Seven Magnificent Gladiators" is an uncredited (and subpar) remake of John Sturges' "The Magnificent Seven", itself a remake of "Seven Samurai". Action has been transplanted to ancient Rome in this quickie, made in 1982 as a warmup for Lou Ferrigno just prior to his starring in Cannon's "Hercules". Like "Hercules", the film set no box office fires when released regionally in August 1984. A third pic, "Hercules II", remains on the shelf.

Ferrigno toplines as Han, a barbarian who, after proving his prowess as a chariot racer, is asked by the women of the beleaguered village of Clusium to defend their town against the supposedly immortal demigod Nicerote (Dan Vadis), who annually descends upon them to exact a tribute and kill off any able-bodied men. Han passes the test as the only man able to wield the magical Sword of Achilles.

Accepting the assignment, Han teams up with a gladiator Scipio (Brad Harris), whom he bested in the chariot race, Scipio's pal Julia (Sybil Danning) and four other out-of-work warriors.

Plot twists and individual scenes are right out of the Yul Brynner-Steve McQueen classic, with Goliath (Ivan Beshears) introed chopping wood in a vignette identical to Charles Bronson's entrance in the original film and Giafiro (Michael Franz) going through a truncated version of Horst Buccholz' role. Main changes are the introduction of campy scenes in Rome of the emperor (Yehuda Efroni), including the anachronism of oiled-up women in bikinis wrestling for his entertainment. Also, instead of the strategy of defense in the original films, director Bruno Mattei stages two ho-hum swordplay battles. Only point of interest is Sybil Danning's femme warrior, convincingly integrating the previously all-male, he-man format.

Cast, though articulating in English, is sabotaged by poor dubbing and film develops very little period atmosphere.

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.

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.

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). (**)