Les gladiatrices

Unlike other Italian schlock whose racy titles promise more titillation than they could ever deliver, the Amazon Women of this film totally dominate the proceedings and it also lives up to its original Italian title 'Le Gladiatrici', with plenty of ferocious girl-on-girl swordplay. Thor, in the form of Joe Robinson, happily spends more time cosily shacked up with his chum Ubaratutu (played by Harry Baird); while the matriarchy presided over by the lynx-eyed, white cat stroking Black Queen Janine Hendy - who "thirsts for blood and death" - goes about its day to day business of showing itself as profligate with the lives of its hot young women as Sumuru would be eighteen thousand years later in her own bid to rule over men.

It would be tempting to describe the women and costumes as too modern looking, did its sexual politics ("the rule of women was the most frightful and horrible form of government") not already seem so antidiluvian a mere half century later.

Only reason I watched this today (on a tape from one of the usual online sources) was that I expected it might be a movie I remembered from my youth. And, by "youth," I mean when I was about 7 or 8. The movie is a pretty standard "strong-man" film, although the man appears in very few scenes. Mostly, it's about a bizarre society of "amazon" women (who, I suspect, have none of them ever been on the same continent as the eponymous river) who enslave other women and force them to participate in gladiatorial combat. The slaves wear delightfully short skirts and lots of facial make-up. I have this creepy feeling that this film may have set my notions of what "sexy" means for the 35 years that have followed my seeing it, as I _still_ think thighs and mascara are pretty neat. But, also, I have always remembered a couple of scenes in particular, especially a climactic tug-of-war between Thor and 100 of the amazons. Perhaps it must be conceded as some indicator of quality that, unseen by me again in all that time, I _still_ remembered this movie. (On the other hand, if I had remembered it better, I'd have saved my money and not bought the tape. Make of those facts what you will.)

This is another film which I have just watched but it has already slipped my mind quite completely! Indeed, the peplum genre – especially in its lowest form, and this is easily among the least I have watched! – has a curious tendency to be instantly forgettable.

The fact that this features no recognizable cast members certainly did not help and, though I purposely scheduled it to be viewed right after the brand-new Marvel/Kenneth Branagh blockbuster THOR (2011), unsurprisingly the film has nothing at all to do with that superhero figure despite featuring a character by that name in the English-dubbed version I watched. Rather, as can be gleaned from the title, it awkwardly blends mild feminist attitudes with the vaguest whiff of Scandinavian mythology (I guess the film-makers could not get the rights to Hercules, Maciste or any of those other muscle-bound characters!); incidentally, it was originally released as, simply, LE GLADIATRICI – that is to say, making no reference whatsoever to the dime-a-dozen he-man hero (here played by the generically-named Joe Robinson)!

However I rack my brain to try to recall the plot details, I cannot come up with anything substantial…and the same goes for the rest of the protagonists, be it friends or foes! I can only surmise that the people involved kept the script handy in order to get from Point A to Point B during the shooting stage of this type of unassuming (read: invincibly low-brow) fare – but it does feel odd that, having gone through 86 minutes of it, there is nothing tangible to talk about after only a couple of days! Actually, there is a 10-page dissection of the film available online…but I will be damned if I am going to read it to jog my memory of it all…but, from the accompanying stills, I hazily recall: Thor fighting a caged ape; his having a colored sidekick; the villainous Queen of Babylos {sic} having a fluffy white cat for a pet; and her gladiatress minions not only getting to don Smurf-like head-gear but forever prone to breaking into the hilarious war-cry of "Elt! Elt! Elt!" WTF?!

In THOR AND THE AMAZON WOMEN, the men have been enslaved by the females of the title. A prophecy tells of a mighty testosterone-filled warrior who will arise to free these subjugated males.

Enter Thor (Joe Robinson), who, at first, refuses to engage this estrogenic army, and is nearly captured. Luckily, a fellow burly man, named Ubaratutu (Harry Baird) rescues him, so that they can hang out in Ubaratutu's cave home and chat in their colorful, polyblend loincloths.

In the meantime, Thor's girlfriend and her son are captured instead. While she is inducted into the Amazon's school of gladiatrixes, her son becomes a slave.

About this time we must ask TWO QUESTIONS: #1- How do all of these warriors keep their hair so soft, manageable, and oil-free? #2- Is there going to be any actual action in this movie? If this were a Hercules movie, many men, women, trees, boulders, etc., would have been flying around like Frisbees by now!

Meanwhile, Thor and Ubaratutu chat on.

Oh no!

Ubaratutu is caught by the fiendish, Smurf-hatted females, and forced to flex his muscles while rotating before their queen! Oh! The humanity! Can Thor deliver him, and every red-blooded man, before further indignities ensue?

Amazingly, though a lot seems to be going on, this movie still manages to be quite dull. Even the final, obligatory "test of strength" is no more rigorous than a "challenge" found on some survival game show! The big revolt also turns out to be less than exciting.

INTERESTING FACT: When men are enslaved by Amazon women, they all sleep together in huge, sweaty piles...

Italian muscle movie of the 'sixties with it's brains in its gluteus maximus muscles. Aggressive amazons are enslaving men; to the rescue come the mighty Thor and his black sidekick, Ubaratutu (spelling?). I was convulsed with laughter both times that I saw this flick but many will simply accept it for what it is: a knuckle-headed spinoff of the Hercules series. I haven't seen it listed on TV in more than three decades, either because it's considered too stupid to show (why would that stop them?) or, more likely, because it's just too politically incorrect for our "sensitive" times: Ubaratutu is portrayed as dim-witted and cowardly and always refers to Thor as "master." If you watch this with people who are tuned-in to "camp," it may destroy you, as it did me. I laughed so hard that I cried, but don't say you weren't warned.