Release Year: 1982
Starring: Marc Singer, Tanya Roberts, Rip Torn, John Amos, Joshua Milrad, Rod Loomis, Ben Hammer, Janet DeMay, Christine Kellogg, Janet Jones
Writers: Don Coscarelli, Paul Pepperman
Director: Don Coscarelli
Music: Lee Holdridge
Cinematographer: John Alcott

Something seeped into the collective consciousness of film-makers in the later 1970s and early ’80s. That ‘thing’ was Star Wars - sorry, not gonna call it A New Hope – with its story of a sword wielding young hero (Luke Skywalker) battling an evil sorcerer (Darth Vader). Sure it was science fiction, but it was a fantasy film too. While some film-makers chose to feed off the sci-fi elements of Star Wars and make poor imitations; others chose to go the other way and set their stories on Earth. But these films were not set now, or in the future, but back in the past…‘in an age undreamed of.’

In the early ’80s five sword and sorcery films cut their way out of nowhere and onto cinema screens around the world. They were Conan the Barbarian, Excalibur, Disney’s Dragonslayer, Harryhausen’s The Clash of the Titans and The Sword and the Sorcerer. Each of these films received poor – verging on savage – reviews from the media, and each of the films were expected to tank at the box-office. But you know what? They didn’t. Mind you, they weren’t massive hits but they did respectable business putting bums on seats. And with the home video age just around the corner, these films were out at the right time to ride the crest of that wave.

Out of these films, Conan probably did the best, but you’ve got to remember Arnold Schwarzenegger was not a household name back then. Unless you were into bodybuilding, he was a nobody. I know Arny made films before Conan – like Hercules Goes Bananas and Bob Raffelson’s Stay Hungry – but they weren’t exactly hits. He was a nobody with a thick Austrian accent, and in Conan hearing him mouth the words ‘Crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of their women’, had most fifteen year old boys rolling on the floor with laughter.

In Australia, Excalibur was reduced to a laughing stock, not because of poor acting but some unfortunate timing. A few months prior to the films release, Nescafe (a coffee company — although I sure they are pretty well global) ran a television commercial which feature Carl Orf’s O Fortuna from Carmina Burana. Now days, that particular musical leitmotif has been virtually done to death, but back then — unless you were a classical music enthusiast — it was a pretty impressive and emotive musical piece. When the trailers for Excalibur were shown on cinema screens (or TV spots — that’s where I remember it), that featured O Fortuna were played, the Nescafe connection was made, and once again fifteen year old boys were rolling on the floor with laughter.

I could go on about these films laugh-inducing short-comings, but you get the idea. But these films had something about them that transcended hokey sets, poor special effects, lousy acting and pompous over-blown music. These films slowly became cult hits.

The success of this first wave of sword and sorcery films paved the way for a second wave. Amongst this crop were films like Conan the Destroyer, Krull, Yor, and The Beastmaster. The Beastmaster, like the others was not a runaway hit when it was released. To be fair though, it was up against some pretty stiff competition, including ET – the Extra Terrestrial, An Officer and a Gentleman and The Road Warrior (or Mad Max 2 as it will always been known to me). But the film did reasonable business, making around three-million dollars in the United States, which was about a third of the films production costs. The film did well in Europe, on video, and became a mainstay on cable television. It has been reported that a comedian remarked that the meaning of HBO was not ‘Home Box Office’, but ‘Hey, Beastmaster‘s On’.

As I said earlier, The Beastmaster was a second wave sword and sorcery film, and whereas the first wave may have fed off Star Wars, the second wave fed off the success of the first wave. The interesting thing here is that The Beastmaster was based on a book by the same name by Andre Norton. In her novel, the hero was a Navajo named Hosteen Storm, and the story was set in the future. It was science fiction. But scriptwriters, Don Coscarelli and Paul Pepperman, chose not to follow the Star Wars route, even though sci-fi was hot, and they were adapting a property with science fiction elements. Allegedly, Coscarelli was a big fan of the films of Ray Harryhausen (aren’t we all) and Steve Reeves Hercules adventures, and that influenced his decision. Instead they transposed the story to the past for a sword and sorcery adventure.

As the film opens, an evil priest named Maax (that’s ‘May-Axe’ – played by Rip Torn), and his entourage, walk through the gates to the city of Arok at night. He navigates his way through the deserted streets to the centerpiece to the town, which is a giant stone step pyramid. He enters a doorway at the base and is greeted by three slim-bodied, but grizzle-faced crones who are writhing over a cauldron of blood.

The crones speak of a prophecy where Maax will die at the hand of King Zed’s unborn son. In the cauldron is an image of the clearly pregnant Queen. Maax boldly proclaims that Zed’s unborn son will die. At that moment, King Zed (Rod Loomis) and his soldiers, including a beefy fellow named Seth (John Amos), storm into Maax chamber and banish him from the city of Arok.

However, Zed is unaware of the prophecy and is essentially banishing Maax because he is a weedy little germ who likes sacrificing children – rather than due to the direct threat to his family. But despite Maax threats, Zed is happy to have the mad priest led away — rather than killing him — and leave the crones to do their conjuring. Further, despite the threats made against the Queen (and his unborn son), he appears to have no guards stationed around the Royal bed chamber.

This lax security is an issue because, even though Maax may have been banished, one of the crones continues the mission to kill Zed’s unborn son. Armed with a cow, she sneaks in the Royal bed chamber. I mean, how can you sneak into the King’s bedroom with a cow and not be noticed? Let’s just gloss over that plot point and just say ‘some kind of magic’ is at work. The crone then pours some fluoro-blue liquid goo across the neck of the King and the Queen. This is witch-craft, because this goo seems to act as some kind of restraint. Then the conjuring starts, and somehow the crone transmutes the unborn child from the Queen’s womb, into the womb of the cow. Then the crone skulks off into the night leading her cow behind her. Now, I know this is way back ‘in an age undreamed of’, or ‘shrouded in the mists of time’, or whatever other metaphor the scriptwriters want to use to indicate a long, long time ago, but even back then, surely the King had some power. What’s the point of being King if you can’t get a few guards stationed around the Royal Homestead?

So the old crone makes her way out of the city and retrieves the baby by cutting open the cow. Beside her is a roaring fire with a red hot branding iron lodged in the embers — you see, she has to brand the child with the sign of the God, Ar — and then sacrifice the baby.

At this time, however, a man from the Emurite tribe happens to be walking his donkey, and sees the crone by the fire. As she brands the child’s hand, the man hears the cry and realises something is afoot. As she raises a knife to stab the child, he produces what looks like a Celtic-knotted boomerang with blades, and hurls it at the old crone, where it lodges in her back. But as so often happens in films like this, when your dealing with witches and magic, death never comes easy. The Emurite has to resort to using a sword and then throws her into the fire, which maybe, kills her. Who knows, she may have just vanished again. The end result is that he has rescued the child which he takes back to the village of Emur – and raises the boy as his own.

The boy is named Dar, and he slowly grows to manhood. The first inkling that there may be something special about him occurs one day when he is practicing his swordsmanship with his adoptive father. A grizzly bear forces its way out of the undergrowth and advances on Dar and his father, who has tripped over and injured his leg. Fearing that his father will be killed, young Dar approaches the bear and telepathically tells it to go away. The bear does.

As a man, Dar helps with the work in the fields, that is until he sees a cloud of dust on the horizon. The dust is from the hooves of a band of murderous barbarians called the Jun. At this point, you’re probably wondering what happened to the evil priest, Maax? Well, now he is in control of the Jun horde, and has them carry out raids to further bolster his quest for power.

The Jun attack Emur and Dar is knocked unconscious and the village is set on fire. But luckily Dar’s dog, even though it has been shot with an arrow, drags Dar out of the village and away from the flame. Later, Dar awakens, and finds his dog dead, beside him. Now the measure of a man is how you react to cruelty to animals — particularly dogs — and it was an issue that was addressed in quite a few films in the early 1980s. In fact, I’ll even go as far to say that it was a cinematic movement — granted it was a very small movement, and possibly only I and my friend Shelley picked it up. Some notable examples were An Eye for an Eye (82) with Chuck Norris — the bad guys killed his dog, so Chuck killed the bad guys; Sudden Impact (83) with Clint Eastwood — the bad guys kill Dirty Harry’s partner (so what, they always die), and then injure his dog, it’s the dog thing that set’s Harry off — he kills the bad guys with his .44 Automag.

Of course, what is Dar going to do when they kill his dog? This is given even more credence by the fact that Dar is ‘The Beastmaster’ – a man with an empathy with animals. So Dar wants revenge. Firstly though, Dar gathers together all the slain bodies of the villagers, his adoptive father, his dog, and then lights a funeral pyre. Then he’s off to avenge his dog and seek out his destiny in the Valley of Ar.

Just before Dar starts out, he visualises the landscape ahead from the air, and then an eagle flies down and perches next to him. Dar realises he can see through the eagles eyes – especially if he concentrates and goes cross-eyed. As Dar soldiers off, his new friend the eagle flies with him. Later as Dar frolics by a stream, two ferrets steal Dar’s tunic. Dar runs after the ferrets, but then in pursuit he falls into a pit of quicksand. The ferrets come to the rescue by biting through a branch. Dar has just made two new friends. He names them Kodo and Podo.

Next Dar has visions of a black panther (it looks like a tiger covered in boot polish) that is tethered to a stake and is about to be killed by the Juns. Despite being outnumbered, Dar rushes to the beasts aid — along with a little help from the eagle, Kodo and Podo. The panther becomes Dar’s newest travelling companion. To paraphrase Dar, with the eagles he has his eyes; with Kodo and Podo he has his cunning; and now with the panther, Ruh, he has his strength.

The quest continues, and Dar stumbles on a waterfall where two slaves from the Temple of Ar are bathing; their clothes lying discarded on the shore. Dar, being a somewhat cheeky and lusty young fellow, sends Kodo and Podo to steal the girls clothes. They pick up the cloak from the slave named Kiri (Tanya Roberts) and scuttle into the undergrowth. Naturally she gives chase. Then Dar has Ruh leap and and scare her — but it’s just a ploy so he can pretend to be the big, brave hero and rescue her.

She is impressed, but she is dedicated to the Temple of Ar, and heads back to the village of Arok. Dar has a choice. Does he continue to follow the Jung horde? Or does he follow the girl? Naturally, he chooses to follow her.

Now it is not my plan to outline the whole film and spoil it for those who have not seen it. But to recap, we have Dar, the son of a King, who in prophecy is destined to kill and evil priest with a penchant for child sacrifice. As Dar grows he finds he has the ability to communicate with animals. After his village is destroyed — and his dog killed — he decides to hunt down those responsible, and along the journey he acquires the companionship of an eagle, two ferrets and a panther. And finally after some lusty hijinx at a waterfall, Dar meets and falls in love with a beautiful slave girl — who happens to come from the same city that destiny has fated him to return to. I don’t need to say more than that. You can see where it is going — but I can assure you there is plenty more adventure, new companions, and the odd icky bit along the way. What out for those ‘Death Guards’!

I don’t know too much about Marc Singer. He seemed to spring from nowhere for this part, although he proved to be an engaging an athletic lead (although those crosseyed pensive stares as he taps into the minds of his animal companions still make me grin). Next I saw him in the television series V – the original 1984 series, (not the new revision, which at the time of writing is just about to hit Australian shores and we’re being bombarded with a saturation campaign). V was pretty successful in its day, leading to a second mini-series, and finally a weekly television series. And then there were two sequels to The Beastmaster – The Beastmaster 2: Through the Portal of Time and Beastmaster III: The Eye of Braxus. I confess that I haven’t seen the two sequels – I have never noted them on Australian television nor have I seen them available in a video shop (maybe they were always out on loan?) Of course, I could look up Marc Singer on IMBd and tell you what else he has done, but where’s the fun it that. If you want to know more, look him up yourself.

Now Tanya Roberts had been in Charlie’s Angels. I hate to admit it, but I was a regular viewer of Charlie’s Angels – I mean three gorgeous women fighting crime, what’s not to like? But I can’t remember Tanya Roberts. Maybe my brain is addled, or the series was really in decline by the time she hit the show. But that seemed to be Roberts’ big break. From television she scampered across to the movies, and at the risk of sounding unkind – because she was not much of an actress – her career was kept afloat by tasteful glimpses of nudity in most of her films. Once again, I am going to remind you that this was the early 80′s and home video was taking off everywhere. And the thing about home video, is that you can pause and slo-mo your favourite bits. You could never do this before. If your favourite bits happen to feature an actress cavorting around naked, well so be it. And while fifteen-year-old boys may have been laughing at Arnold’s accent, Excalibur’s music, Marc Singer’s cross-eyed stare, and that stupid golden owl from The Clash of the Titans, they were dead silent (possibly with their hands down the front of their pants) when Tanya Roberts was on the screen. From The Beastmaster, Roberts went on to another sword and sorcery flick, the stodgy Hearts and Armour. More subtle nudity followed in Sheena: Queen of the Jungle. Undoubtedly her biggest role though, was as the Bond girl Stacey Sutton in A View to a Kill. Legend had it, that she was selected for the role after producer Cubby Broccolli saw her topless scenes in The Beastmaster. Maybe it wasn’t just fifteen-year-old boys with their finger on the slo-mo button?

Rip Torn played Maax, but he wasn’t the first choice for the role. When the script was being written, Coscarelli wanted Klaus Kinski for the role – but sadly for us filmgoers, a five-thousand dollar salary dispute saw the magnificently insane one passing on the role. But Torn is pretty good, despite the ridiculous hook nose prosthetic he has to wear. And I must say, it is good to see Torn not playing a gangster and branching out his wings to play an evil sorcerer.

The Beastmaster is a film that should have been relegated to video history, but it has refused to die. The reason for this is simple – it’s damn entertaining. The acting, the sets, the makeup all may be flawed, but in the end they don’t really matter. This film has a timeless charm that transcends its shortcomings.

Those who know me well, will notice a phrase I use very often, which is: ‘…possibly the greatest film ever made.’ Unlike Keith who prefers not to use such labels, I say that all the time. To me, ‘the greatest film ever made’ is the movie of the moment. It is the movie I am watching or have just watched and that I have enjoyed. In recent weeks, if you had asked me what was the greatest film ever made was, I would have answered (and did on several occasions) the Drunken Master, The Future is Unwritten, Murder by Decree, and even Inglourious Basterds; quite simply because they were the films I was watching. Now to say that The Beastmaster is the greatest film of all time takes on an added veracity due to the amount of times I have watched it. So, I may have championed The Beastmaster to be the greatest film of all on more occasions than any other film. Well, that’s not quite true – there are the classic Bond films, and there is Flash Gordon. But aside from them, The Beastmaster is the greatest. But, hey, you already know that!

So okay, I am a fan, but the film works for all ages. Kids today can discover the joys of the mischievous Kodo and Podo, the panther Ruh. As they get older they can discover the joys of Tanya Roberts bathing scenes. And beyond that, you’ve got a rollicking adventure story, about good and evil, with a swashbuckling hero, brandishing a bloody great sword. Really, what’s not to like?