A Guerra das Fêmeas

This movie does NOT take itself seriously, I figured that out in the first three minutes. An opening title informs us "This movie happened, if it happened at all, about 3000 years ago." That means it takes place in 1000BC. What's wrong with that? Well the heroes are Roman soldiers and the Roman empire did not begin until 750BC. Therefore these soldiers represent an empire that will not even exist for over 2 centuries! I'll bet no one went to see this movie for a history lesson though. The real heroes are Amazon warriors who have to mate with men once a year or they will die out. Practicing selective breeding they only mate with tough Roman soldiers and they make love while chanting "Men are pigs, men are filth." (Which is something I and the other girls in my sorority did in college. I guess some traditions never die.) No monsters, dragons or giants. The battle scenes are okay and there is a mud wrestling scene that all the men will enjoy. If you want a plot that makes sense, or at least pretends to, try any of the HERCULES movies.

A very strange and anachronistic movie of 1973; it feels like it should have been made a decade before, at the height of the sword and sandal boom. As for Terence Young directing...who knows?! I saw the English dub, which is pretty bad, but then so is this overlong and rather aimless film. It highlights Amazon society, following their new queen as she engages with a male tribe for procreation, but the acting is limited at best and the dialogue pitiful. Some nice acrobatics here and there and one battle scene, but the focus throughout is on showing skin, most notably in an explicit nude catfight, so this is more a skin flick than anything else.

The idea of women in battle seems to always draw men to the screen. After Thunderball in which I participated, I remain distressfully unimpressed with Director Young's haphazard portrayal of a classic theme. It seems to come apart at the seams.

It's saving grace (to me) was the portrayal of the Amazonians ...at home. The sequence in which the young Amazons live amidst the warriors becomes more natural and intimate to this viewer. In particular the little five or six year old blond Amazon played by Mary Scott O'Connor was heartwarming She came across as feisty, vibrant and ready to challenge the world compared to the "Queen" who walked through her role as if she were with 'valley girls' on a shopping spree.

The 'Greek Army' portrayed by actual Spanish Army soldiers and extras was a far cry from the Greek Warriors of an antiquity we all come to expect on the screen. For my money, I'd give the little blond Amazon star billing over most of the other so-called warriors out to exterminate all but the breeding stock of the male gender. The repetitious axe visuals might be more suited to the next generations 'Texas Chain-Saw Movie' ... give the kid credit and move on. Fred Vallachi was wise in gathering and casting the youngest Amazons from the hinterlands and ex-patriot communities of Spain.

A sexually-liberated (if not terribly explicit) peplum which inconceivably attracted an assortment of talent - director Young, cinematographer Aldo Tonti, production designer Mario Garbuglia, composer Riz Ortolani - but the result is jaw-droppingly awful, so much so that I can't remember the last time I laughed so hard (for all the wrong reasons) during a film! The warriors of the title are man-hating (i.e. lesbian) Amazonian women who must go through the 'humiliation' of mating once a year with strong men (settling on a garrison of the Greek army, despite their well-known reputation as homosexuals) in order to bear females to continue their line!

It's well and good that the film doesn't take itself too seriously - as can be witnessed from the self-deprecating text which opens and closes the picture - but that doesn't excuse the sheer insanity of some of its concepts: the Amazonians being able to avoid an ambush or detect an intruder in their camp because one of them is allergic to males and has a sneezing fit whenever she senses their presence; the mating is preceded by a ritual of anti-male chanting that is supposed to 'insulate' the women in the call of their duty, thus making submission (even if temporary) to the opposite sex tolerable. Also worth mentioning are the Olympian challenges between the two armies (which the men invariably lose?!), not one but two all-nude wrestling matches - no doubt inspired by the notorious male equivalent which forms the centerpiece of Ken Russell's WOMEN IN LOVE (1969) - between the current Amazonian Queen and her jealous and scheming rival (belatedly revealed as her own sibling, but which doesn't prevent them from subsequently becoming lovers!!), the stupid mugging of a love-struck servant girl who drinks an aphrodisiac prepared for the Queen by the conspirators...not forgetting the ludicrous art direction (everything in the Amazonian court, including the Queen's throne and scepter, seems to be made in the shape of an axe for no apparent reason!), the incongruous costumes (from the much later Roman Empire era), or the battle scenes in which the fighting Amazonians are barely-concealed stuntmen in drag!!

Apparently, LE GUERRIERE DAL SENO NUDO (which literally translates to THE BARE-BREASTED WARRIORS but was known internationally as THE AMAZONS) was a rival production with the equally irresistible-sounding LE AMAZZONI - DONNE D' AMORE E DI GUERRA aka BATTLE OF THE AMAZONS (1973), directed by Al Bradley...er...Alfonso Brescia!

There is no sense of fun or logic or pacing to this "movie." The first half is pretty much as bad as they come, then Luciana Paluzzi shows up for about ten minutes then the rest is lousy again. Terence Young, Bob Simmons both did some of the best Bond films, Simmons being stunt man/coordinator. I hope they were off drinking and whoring around and aren't responsible for most of this movie because that's about the only explaining it. There is virtually no style to the film, barley even C grade film school work and F grade acting other than Paluzzi who does her own dubbing-but sadly keeps her clothes on. All the fight scenes are poorly done with people pretending to be impaled on spears and the ladies struggling under the weight of their own armor. Certainly women can be athletic but I guess none could be found to be in this movie. Humor? The fact that it's unfunny when it's supposed to be doesn't make it a success. It's just so shoddy. Composer Riz Ortalani at least doesn't shame himself and turns in a fun main theme and a few other good tunes, but his music is choppily edited. There is a fair amount of mostly brief nudity but most of it is shot from far away with no erotic or exploitation generated--it's like they didn't' even care about showing off the nudity. Best scene is a naked fight during a thunder storm which has a bit of style and exploitation, almost nothing else in the movie works. It's inept, though the sets and number of extras are large what they do with them is poor. 2 decent glass matte paintings. The DVD from world class bad filmmaker Fred Ray is full frame scratched up choppy and froze in my DVD player when I desperately tried to fast forward to the next badly staged battle scene or through the horribly acted non funny talk scenes that outnumber battle and gratuitous nude scenes--this print is missing the opening "joke" titles other reviews refer to. It's just about totally worthless. Lead non actress has large natural breasts and no ability to carry a scene let alone a whole movie, lead dark haired villainess has large fake ones. A few dolly shots, very few,are the only attempts to direct a scene and again the cast of women can't act and can't fight and the nude scenes are usually shot so blandly--there is just virtually no reason to watch it. Shockingly it's listed as Terence Young's (fill in the blank for the title as there are several to choose from) perhaps the producers insisted on using this credit or for some reason Young actually wanted to possess this film in that way. Wow, hard to believe he ever did anything worthwhile from seeing this, it's almost beyond understanding--other than perhaps whatever big parties the cast and crew may have enjoyed and their pay checks--too bad they kept all that fun to themselves. I'd really like to know what they were thinking, or perhaps they were hoping the movie would go unseen, Sad sad. Young has made other bad films but rarely one so inept and clunky.