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Conan the Barbarian (film)
Encyclopedia
Conan the Barbarian is a film about a young barbarian's quest to avenge his parents' deaths. The story is set in the fictional Hyborian Age
, thousands of years before the rise of modern civilization. The film opens with the words, "That which does not kill us makes us stronger", a paraphrasing of Friedrich Nietzsche
, on a black screen followed by a voice-over that establishes the film as the story of Conan's origin. "A burst of drums and trumpets" accompanies the forging of a sword, after which the scene shifts to a mountain top, where the swordsmith tells his young son Conan about the Riddle of Steel, an aphorism on the importance of the metal to their people, the Cimmerians
.
The Cimmerians are massacred by a band of warriors led by Thulsa Doom
. Conan's father is killed by dogs, and his sword is taken by Doom to decapitate Conan's mother. The children are taken into slavery; Conan is chained to a large mill, the Wheel of Pain. Years of pushing the huge grindstone build up his muscles. His master trains him to be a gladiator, and after winning many pit fights, Conan is freed. As he wanders the world, he encounters a witch and befriends Subotai, a thief and archer.
Following the witch's advice, Conan and Subotai go to Shadizar, in the land of Zamora, to seek out Doom. They meet Valeria
, a female brigand, who becomes Conan's lover. They burgle the Tower of Serpents, stealing a large jewel—the Eye of the Serpent—and other valuables from Doom's snake cult. After escaping with their loot, the thieves celebrate and end up in a drunken stupor. The city guards capture them and bring them to King Osric. He requests they rescue his daughter, who has joined Doom's cult. Subotai and Valeria do not want to take up the quest; Conan, motivated by his hatred for Doom, sets off alone to the villain's Temple of Set.
Disguised as a priest, Conan infiltrates the temple, but he is discovered, captured, and tortured. Doom lectures him on the power of flesh, which he demonstrates by compelling a girl to leap to her death. He then orders Conan crucified
on the Tree of Woe. The barbarian is on the verge of death when he is discovered by Subotai and brought to the Wizard of the Mounds, who lives on a burial site for warriors and kings. The wizard summons spirits to heal Conan and warns that they will "extract a heavy toll", which Valeria is willing to pay. These spirits also try to abduct Conan, but he is restored to health after Valeria and Subotai fend them off.
Subotai and Valeria agree to complete Osric's quest with Conan and they infiltrate the Temple of Set. As the cult indulges in a cannibalistic orgy, the thieves attack and flee with the princess. Valeria is mortally wounded by Doom after he shoots a stiffened snake at her. She dies in Conan's arms and is cremated at the Mounds, where Conan prepares with Subotai and the wizard to battle Doom. By using booby-traps and exploiting the terrain, they manage to kill Doom's soldiers. Valeria reappears for a brief moment as a Valkyrie
to save Conan from a mortal blow. Conan recovers his father's sword during the fight, although its blade is broken. After losing his men, Doom shoots a stiffened snake at the princess. Subotai blocks the shot and the villain flees to his temple.
Conan sneaks back into the temple where Doom stands at the top of a long stairway, addressing the members of his cult. Conan confronts Doom, who attempts to mesmerize him, but the barbarian resists and uses his father's sword to behead his nemesis. After throwing Doom's head down the stairs, Conan burns down the temple. He returns the princess, and the final scene shows him as an old king; the narration says his road to the throne is another tale.
of pulp-fiction writer Robert E. Howard
from the 1930s. Published in Weird Tales
, his series about the barbarian was popular with the readership; the barbarian's adventures in a savage and mystical world, replete with gore and brutal slayings, satisfied the reader's fantasies of being a "powerful giant who lives by no rules but his own". From the 1960s, Conan gained a wider audience as novels about him, written in imitation of Howard's style by L. Sprague de Camp
and Lin Carter
, were published. Frank Frazetta
's cover art for these novels cemented Conan's image as a "virile, axe-wielding, fur-bearing, cranium-smashing barbarian". John Milius
, the film's director, intended the film's Conan to be "a Northern European mythic hero". Danny Peary
described Conan as "muscular, majestic, brainy, yet with ambivalent scruples". Don Herron, a scholar on Howard and his stories, disagreed, noting that the personality of Conan in the film differs greatly from that of the literature. The Conan in the books detests restrictions to his freedom and would have resisted slavery in a violent fashion, whereas the film version accepts his fate and has to be freed. Robert Garcia's review of the film in his American Fantasy magazine states that "this Conan is less powerful, less talkative, and less educated than Howard's".
The female lead, Valeria, has her roots in two strong female characters from Howard's Conan stories. Her namesake was Conan's companion in "Red Nails
", while her personality and fate were based on those of Bêlit
, the pirate queen in "Queen of the Black Coast
". According to Kristina Passman, an assistant professor of classical languages and literature, the film's Valeria is a perfect archetype of the "good" Amazon
character, a fierce but domesticated female warrior, in cinema. Rikke Schubart
, a film scholar, said Valeria is a "good" Amazon because she is tamed by love and not because of any altruistic tendencies. Valeria's prowess in battle matches that of Conan and she is also depicted as his equal in behavior and status. The loyalty and love she displays for Conan makes her more than a dear companion to him; she represents his "possibilities of human happiness". Her sacrifice for Conan and her brief return from death act out the heroic code, illustrating that self-sacrificing heroism brings "undying fame". Valeria's name is not spoken in the film; the only scene where she was named, her self-introduction, was cut.
Milius based Conan's other companion, Subotai, on Genghis Khan
's main general, Subotai
, rather than on any of Howard's characters. According to film critic Roger Ebert
, Subotai fulfills the role of a "classic literary type—the Best Pal." He helps the barbarian to kill a giant snake and cuts him down from crucifixion; the thief also cries for his companion during Valeria's cremation, with the explanation that "being a Cimmerian, [Conan] will not cry for himself."
Conan's enemy, Thulsa Doom, is an amalgamation of two of Howard's creations. He takes his name from the villain in Howard's Kull of Atlantis
series of stories, but is closer in character to Thoth-Amon
, Conan's nemesis in "The Phoenix on the Sword
". The Doom in the film reminded critics of Jim Jones
, a cult leader whose hold on his followers was such that hundreds of them obeyed his orders to commit suicide. Milius said his research on the ancient orders of the Hashishim and the Thuggee
was the inspiration for Doom's snake cult.
, which had acquired the rights in 1966, went into receivership, and there were legal disputes over their disposition of the publishing rights, which ultimately led to them being frozen under injunction. Edward Summer
suggested Conan as a potential project to Edward R. Pressman
in 1975, and after being shown the comics and Frazetta's artwork, Pressman was convinced. It took two years to secure the film rights. The two main parties involved in the lawsuit, Glenn Lord
and de Camp, formed Conan Properties Incorporated to handle all licensing of Conan-related material, and Pressman was awarded the film rights shortly afterwards. He spent more than $
100,000 in legal fees to help resolve the lawsuit, and the rights cost him another $7,500.
The success of Star Wars
in 1977 increased Hollywood's interest in producing films that portray "heroic adventures in supernatural lands of fables". The film industry's attention was drawn to the popularity of Conan among young male Americans, who were buying reprints of the stories with Frazetta's art and adaptations by Marvel Comics
. John Milius first expressed interest in directing a film about Conan in 1978 after completing the filming of Big Wednesday
, according to Buzz Feitshans, a producer who frequently worked with Milius. Milius and Feitshans approached Pressman, but differences over several issues stopped discussions from going further.
Oliver Stone
joined the Conan project after Paramount Pictures
offered to fund the film's initial $2.5 million budget if a "name screenwriter" was on the team. After securing Stone's services, Pressman approached Frank Frazetta to be a "visual consultant" but they failed to come to terms. The producer then engaged Ron Cobb
, who had just completed a set design job on Alien
(1979). Cobb made a series of paintings and drawings for Pressman before leaving to join Milius on another project.
The estimates to realize Stone's finished script ran to $40 million; Pressman, Summer, and Stone could not convince a studio to finance their project. Pressman's production company was in financial difficulties and to keep it afloat, he borrowed money from the bank. The failure to find a suitable director was also a problem for the project. Stone and Joe Alves
, who was the second unit
director for Jaws
, were considered as possible co-directors, but Pressman said it "was a pretty crazy idea and [they] didn't get anywhere with it". Stone also said that he asked Ridley Scott
, who had finished directing Alien, to take up the task but was rejected.
Cobb showed Milius his work for Conan and Stone's script which, according to him, re-ignited Milius's interest; the director contacted Pressman, and they came to an agreement: Milius would direct the film if he was allowed to modify the script. Milius was known in the film industry for his macho screenplays for Dirty Harry
(1971) and Magnum Force
(1973). He was, however, contracted to direct his next film for Dino De Laurentiis
, an influential producer in the fantasy film industry. Milius raised the idea of taking on Conan with Laurentiis, and, after a year of negotiations, Pressman and Laurentiis agreed to co-produce. Laurentiis took over the financing and production and Pressman gave up all claims to the film's profits, though he retained approval over changes to the script, cast and director. Laurentiis assigned the responsibility for production to his daughter, Raffaella
, and Feitshans. Milius was formally appointed as director in early 1979, and Cobb was named as the production designer. Laurentiis convinced Universal Pictures
to become the film's distributor for the United States. The studio also contributed to the production budget of $17.5 million and prepared $12 million to advertise the film.
, Sylvester Stallone
, and William Smith
—all of whom had played tough figures, but in 1976, the two producers watched a rough cut of the bodybuilding film Pumping Iron
, and agreed Arnold Schwarzenegger
was perfect for the role of Conan. According to Schwarzenegger, Pressman's "low-key" approach and "great inner strength" convinced him to join the project. Paul Sammon, writer for Cinefantastique
, said that the former champion bodybuilder was practically the "living incarnation of one of Frazetta's paperback illustrations". Schwarzenegger was paid $250,000 and placed on retainer
; the terms of the contract restricted him from starring in other sword and sorcery films. Schwarzenegger said Conan was his biggest opportunity to establish himself in the entertainment industry.
Thanks to Pressman's firm belief in him, Schwarzenegger retained the role of Conan even after the project was effectively sold to Laurentiis. Milius wanted a more athletic look on his lead actor, so Schwarzenegger undertook an 18 month training regime before shooting began; aside from running and lifting weights, his routines included rope climbing, horseback riding, and swimming. He slimmed down from 240 to 210 lb (108.9 to 95.3 kg). Aside from Conan, two other substantial roles were also played by novice actors. Subotai was Gerry Lopez
, a champion surfer, whose only major acting experience was playing himself in Milius's Big Wednesday. Schwarzenegger stayed at Lopez's home for over a month before the start of filming so they could rehearse their roles and build a rapport. Sandahl Bergman, a dancer who had bit parts in several theater productions and films, played Valeria. She was recommended to Milius by Bob Fosse
, who had directed her in All That Jazz
(1979), and was accepted after reading for the part.
Milius said the actors were chosen because their appearances and personae fitted their roles. He wanted actors who would not have any preconceived notions to project into their roles. Although Milius had reservations when he witnessed the first few takes of the novices at work, he put faith in them improving their skills on the job and altered the script to fit their abilities. Schwarzenegger had studied for weeks in 1980 under Robert Easton
, a voice coach for several Hollywood stars, to improve his speech. His first line in the film was a paraphrasing of Mongol emperor Genghis Khan's speech about the good things in life and the actor delivered it with a heavy Austrian-accent; critics later described what they heard as "to crush your enemies—see dem [them] driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of dair vimen [their women]". Subsequently, Schwarzenegger underwent intensive speech training with Milius. Each of his later longer speeches was rehearsed at least forty times. Lopez's lines were also an issue: although Milius was satisfied with Lopez's work, the surfer's lines were redubbed by stage actor Sab Shimono
for the final cut. A source close to the production said this was done because Lopez failed to "[maintain] a certain quality to his voice."
Sean Connery
and John Huston
were considered for the other roles. James Earl Jones
and Max von Sydow
were, according to Milius, hired with the hope that they would inspire Schwarzenegger, Bergman, and Lopez. Jones was an award-winning veteran of numerous theater and cinema productions. Von Sydow was a Swedish actor of international renown. The role of Thulsa Doom was offered to Jones while he was considering applying for the role of Grendel
in an upcoming feature
based on James Gardner
's eponymous novel
; after learning it was an animation, Jones read Conans script and accepted the part of Doom. When filming started on Conan, Jones was also starring in a Broadway play
—Athol Fugard
's A Lesson to Aloes. He and the film crew coordinated their schedules to allow him to join the play's remaining performances. Jones took an interest in Schwarzenegger's acting, often giving him pointers on how to deliver his lines.
The Japanese actor Mako Iwamatsu, known professionally as "Mako", was brought onto the project by Milius for his experience; he had played roles in many plays and films and had been nominated for an Academy and a Tony Award
. In Conan, Mako played the Wizard of the Mounds and voiced the film's opening speech. William Smith, although passed over for the lead role, was hired to play the barbarian's father. Doom's two lieutenants were played by Sven-Ole Thorsen
, a Danish bodybuilder and karate
master, and Ben Davidson
, a former American-football player with the Oakland Raiders
. Milius hired more than 1,500 extras in Spain. Professional actors from the European film industry were also hired: Valerie Quennessen
was chosen to play Osric's daughter, Jorge Sanz
acted as the nine-year-old version of Conan, and Nadiuska played his mother.
, a writer who had created and edited several storylines for Marvel's Conan comic series. Summer and Thomas's tale, in which Conan would be employed by a "dodgy priest to kill an evil wizard", was largely based on Howard's "Rogues in the House
". Their script was abandoned when Oliver Stone joined the project. Stone was, at this time, going through a period of addiction to cocaine
and depressant
s. His screenplay was written under the influence of the drugs and the result was what Milius called a "total drug fever dream", albeit an inspirational one. According to Schwarzenegger, Stone completed a draft by early 1978. Taking inspiration from Howard's "Black Colossus
" and "A Witch Shall be Born
", Stone proposed a story, four hours long, in which the hero champions the defense of a princess's kingdom. Instead of taking place in the distant past, Stone's story is set in a post-apocalyptic future where Conan leads an army in a massive battle against a horde of 10,000 mutants
.
When Milius was appointed as director, he took over the task of writing the screenplay. Although listed as a co-writer, Stone said Milius did not incorporate any of his suggestions into the final story. Milius discarded the latter half of Stone's story. He retained several scenes from the first half, such as Conan's crucifixion ordeal, which was taken straight out of "A Witch Shall be Born", and the climbing of the Tower of Serpents, which was derived from "The Tower of the Elephant
". One of Milius' original changes was to extend Stone's brief exposition of Conan's youth—the raid on the Cimmerian village—into his teens with the barbarian's enslavement at the Wheel of Pain and training as a gladiator. Milius also added ideas gleaned from other films. The Japanese supernatural tale of "Hoichi the Earless
", as portrayed in Masaki Kobayashi's Kwaidan
(1965), inspired the painting of symbols on Conan's body and the swarm of ghosts during the barbarian's resurrection, and Akira Kurosawa
's Seven Samurai (1954) influenced Milius's vision of Conan's final battle against Doom's men. Milius also included scenes from post-Howard stories about Conan; the barbarian's discovery of a tomb during his initial wanderings and acquisition of a sword within were based on de Camp and Carter's "The Thing in the Crypt
". According to Derek Elley, Variety
s resident film critic, Milius's script, with its original ideas and references to the pulp stories, was faithful to Howard's ideals of Conan.
in October 1980, with Schwarzenegger, made up to look like Conan as a king in his old age, reading an excerpt from "The Nemedian Chronicles", which Howard had penned to introduce his Conan stories. This footage was initially intended to be a trailer but Milius decided to use it as the opening sequence of the film instead. According to Cobb, Laurentiis and Universal Pictures were concerned about Schwarzenegger's accent, so Milius compromised by moving the sequence to the end.
The initial location for principal photography
was Yugoslavia, but because of concerns over the country's stability after the death of its head of state, Josip Broz Tito
, and the fact that the Yugoslavian film industry proved ill-equipped for large-scale film production, the producers elected to move the project to Spain, which was cheaper and where resources were more easily available. It took several months to relocate; the crew and equipment arrived in September, and filming started on January 7, 1981. The producers allocated $11 million for production in Spain, of which approximately $3 million was spent on building 49 sets. The construction workforce numbered from 50 to 200; artists from England, Italy, and Spain were also recruited.
A large warehouse 20 miles (32.2 km) outside Madrid served as the production's headquarters, and it also housed most of the interior sets for the Tower of Serpents and Doom's temple; a smaller warehouse was leased for other interior sets. The remaining interiors for the Tower of Serpents were constructed in an abandoned hangar at Torrejón Air Base
. A full-scale, 40 feet (12.2 m) version of the tower was built in the hangar; this model was used to film Conan and his companion's climb up the structure.
The crew filmed several exterior scenes in the countryside near Madrid; the Cimmerian village was built in a forest near the Valsaín ski resort, south of Segovia
. Approximately one million pesetas
($12,084) worth of marble shavings were scattered on the ground to simulate snow. Conan's encounter with the witch and Subotai was shot among the Ciudad Encantada
rock formations in the province of Cuenca. Most outdoor scenes were shot in the province of Almería, which offered a semi-arid climate, diverse terrain (deserts, beaches, mountains), and Roman and Moorish structures
that could be adapted for many settings.
Conan's crucifixion was filmed in March 1981 among the sand dunes on the southeastern coast of Almería. The Tree of Woe was layers of plaster and Styrofoam applied onto a skeleton of wood and steel. It was mounted on a turntable, allowing it to be rotated to ensure the angle of the shadows remained consistent throughout three days of filming. Schwarzenegger sat on a bicycle seat mounted in the tree while fake nails were affixed to his wrists and feet. The scene in which Valeria and Subotai fought off ghosts to save Conan and the final battle with Doom's forces were filmed in the salt marshes of Almerimar. "Stonehenge-like ruins" were erected and sand piled into mounds that reached 9 metres (29.5 ft). The changes to the landscape attracted protests from environmentalists and the producers promised to restore the site after filming was completed.
The Temple of Set was built in the mountains, more than 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) west of the city of Almería. The structure was 50 metres (164 ft) long and 22 metres (72.2 ft) high. It was the most expensive of the sets, costing $350,000, and built out of various woods, lacquers, and tons of concrete. Its stairway had 120 steps. Milius and his crew also filmed at historical sites and on sets from previous films. Scenes of a bazaar were filmed at the Moorish Alcazaba of Almería
, which was dressed to give it a fictional Hyborian look. Shadizar was realized at a pre-existing film set in the Almerían desert; the fort used for the filming of El Condor (1970) refurbished as an ancient city.
It was expensive to build large sets, and Milius did not want to rely on optical effects
and matte paintings (painted landscapes). The crew instead adopted miniature effect
techniques (playing on perspective) to achieve the illusion of size and grandeur for several scenes. Scale models of structures were constructed by Emilio Ruiz
and positioned in front of the cameras so that they appeared as full-sized structures on film; using this technique the Shadizar set was extended to appear more than double its size. Ruiz built eight major miniature models, including a 4 feet (1.2 m) high palace and a representation of the entire city of Shadizar that spanned 120 square feet (11.1 m²).
Cobb's direction for the sets was to "undo history", "to invent [their] own fantasy history", and yet maintain a "realistic, historical look". Eschewing the Greco-Roman
imagery used heavily in the sword-and-sandal films of the 1960s, he realized a world that was an amalgamation of Dark Age cultures, such as the Mongols
and the Viking
s. Several scenarios paid homage to Frazetta's paintings of Conan, such as the "half-naked slave girl chained to a pillar, with a snarling leopard at her feet," at the snake cult's orgy. David Huckvale, a lecturer at the Open University
and broadcaster for BBC Radio
, said the designs of the Tree of Woe and the costumes appeared very similar to those used in Richard Wagner
's Ring of the Nibelung
operas at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus
in 1876. Principal photography was completed in the middle of May 1981. The film crews burned down the Cimmerian village and the Temple of Set after completing filming on each set.
" (a remote-controlled electronic camera mounted on a motorized lightweight crane) that Nick Allder
, the special effects supervisor, had devised when he worked on Dragonslayer
(1981). The stunts were coordinated by Terry Leonard, who had worked on many films, including Milius's previous projects and Steven Spielberg
's Raiders of the Lost Ark
(1981). Leonard said that Schwarzenegger, Bergman, and Lopez performed most of their own stunts, including the fights.
The three actors were given martial arts training ahead of filming. From August 1980, they were tutored by Kiyoshi Yamazaki, a karate black belt and master swordsman, who drilled them in sword-fighting styles that were meant to make them look proficient in using their weapons. They practiced each move in a fight at least 15 times before filming. Yamazaki advised Leonard on the choreography of the sword fights and had a cameo role as one of Conan's instructors.
Tim Huchthausen, the prop maker, worked with swordsmith Jody Samson
to create the sturdy weapons Milius thought necessary. Particular attention was paid to two swords wielded by Conan: his father's sword ("Master's sword") and the blade he finds in a tomb ("Atlantean sword"). Both weapons were realized from Cobb's drawings. Their blades were hand ground from carbon steel and heat treated and left unsharpened. The hilts and pommels were sculpted and cast through the lost-wax process; inscriptions were added to the blades via electrical discharge machining
. Samson and Huchthausen made four Master's and four Atlantean swords, at a cost of $10,000 per weapon. Copies of the Atlantean sword were struck and given to members of the production.
Samson and Huchthausen agreed the weapons were heavy and unbalanced, and thus unsuitable for actual combat; Lighter versions made of aluminum, fiberglass, and steel were struck in Madrid; these 3 lbs copies were used in the fight scenes. According to Schwarzenegger, the heavy swords were used in close-up shots. The other weapons used in the film were not as elaborate; Valeria's tulwar
was ground out from an aluminum sheet.
The copious amounts of blood spilled in the fight scenes came from bags of fake blood strapped to the performers' bodies. Animal blood gathered from slaughterhouses was poured onto the floor to simulate puddles of human blood. Most of the times trick swords made from fiberglass were used when the scene called for a killing blow. Designed by Allder, these swords could also retract their blades, and several sprayed blood from their tips. Although the swords were intended to be safer alternatives to metal weapons, they could still be dangerous: in one of the fights, Bergman sparred with an extra who failed to follow the choreography and sliced open her finger.
Accidents also happened in stunts that did not involve weapons. A stuntman smashed his face into a camera while riding a horse at full gallop, and Schwarzenegger was attacked by one of the trained dogs. The use of live animals also raised concerns about cruelty; the American Humane Association
placed the film on its "unacceptable list". The transgressions listed by the association included the kicking of a dog, the striking of a camel, and the tripping of horses.
, were responsible for the human dummies and fake body parts used in the film. The dummies inflated crowd numbers and stood in as dead bodies, while the body parts were used in scenes showing the aftermath of fights and the cult's cannibalistic feast. In Thulsa Doom's beheading scene Schwarzenegger hacked at a dummy and pulled a concealed chain to detach its head. The decapitation of Conan's mother was more complex: a Plexiglas shield between Jones and Nadiuska stopped his sword as he swung at her and an artificial head then dropped into the camera's view. A more elaborate head was used for the close-up shots; this prop spurted blood and the movements of its eyes, mouth, and tongue were controlled by cables hidden beneath the snow.
Allder created a $20,000 36 feet (11 m) mechanical snake for the fight scene in the Tower of Serpents. The snake's body had a diameter of 2.5 foot (0.762 m), and its head was 2.5 foot (0.762 m) long and 2 foot (0.6096 m) wide. Its skeleton was made from duralumin
(an alloy used in aircraft frames) and its skin was vulcanized foam rubber. Controlled by steel cables and hydraulics, the snake could exert a force between 3.5 and 9 tons. Another two snakes of the same dimensions were made: one for stationary shots and one for decapitation by Schwarzenegger. To create the scene at the Tree of Woe the crew tethered live vultures to the branches, and created a mechanical bird for Schwarzenegger to bite. The dummy bird's feathers and wings were from a dead vulture, and its control mechanisms were routed inside the false tree.
According to Sammon, "one of the greatest special effects in the film [was] Thulsa Doom's onscreen transformation into a giant snake". It involved footage of fake body parts, live and dummy snakes, miniatures, and other camera tricks combined into a flowing sequence with lap dissolve
. After Jones was filmed in position, he was replaced by a hollow framework with a rubber mask that was pushed from behind by a snake head-shaped puppet to give the illusion of Doom's facial bones changing. The head was then replaced with a 6 feet (1.8 m) mechanical snake; as it moved outwards, a crew member pressed a foot pedal to collapse the framework. For the final part of the sequence, a real snake was filmed on a miniature set.
There were few optical effects in Conan the Barbarian. Milius professed ambivalence to fantasy elements, preferring a story that showcases accomplishments realized through one's own efforts without reliance on the supernatural. He also said that he followed the advice of Cobb and other production members on the matters of special effects. Peter Kuran's Visual Concepts Engineering (VCE) effects company was engaged in October 1981 to handle post-production optical effects for Conan. VCE had previously worked on films such as Raiders of the Lost Ark and Dragonslayer. Among their tasks for Conan were adding glint and sparkle to The Eye of the Serpent and Valeria's Valkyrie armor. Not all of VCE's work made it to the final print: the flames of Valeria's funeral pyre were originally enhanced by the company but were later restored to the original version.
For the scene in which Valeria and Subotai had to fend off ghosts to save Conan's life, the "boiling clouds" were created by George Lucas's Industrial Light and Magic, while VCE was given the task of creating the ghosts. Their first attempt—filming strips of film emulsion suspended in a vat of a viscous solution—elicited complaints from the producers who thought the resulting spirits looked too much like those in a scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark, so VCE turned to animation to complete the task. First, they drew muscular warriors in ghostly forms onto cel
s and printed the images onto film with an Oxberry animation stand
and contact print
er. The Oxberry was fitted with a used lens that introduced lens flare
s to the prints; VCE's intention with using the old lens was to make the resultant images of the ghosts seem as if they were of real-life objects filmed with a camera. The final composite was produced by passing the reels of film for the effects and the live-action sequences through a two-headed optical printer
and capturing the results with a camera.
, to produce the score for Conan; they had a successful collaboration on Big Wednesday. The film industry's usual practice was to contract a composer to start work after the main scenes had been filmed, but Milius hired Poledouris before principal photography had started; the composer was given the opportunity to compose the film's music based on the initial storyboards and to modify it throughout filming before recording the score near the end of production. Poledouris made extensive use of Musync, a music-editing software, to modify the tempo of his compositions and synchronize them with the action in the film. The software helped make his job easier and faster; it could automatically adjust the tempo when the user changed the positioning of a beat. Poledouris would, otherwise, have had to conduct the orchestra and adjust his compositions on the fly. Conan is the first film to list Musync in its credits.
Milius and Poledouris exchanged ideas throughout production, working out themes and "emotional tones" for each scene. According to Poledouris, Milius envisioned Conan as an opera with little or no dialog; Poledouris composed enough musical pieces for most (approximately two hours) of the film. This was his first large-scale orchestral score, and a characteristic of his work here was that he frequently slowed down the tempo of the last two bars
(segments of beats) before switching to the next piece of music. Poledouris said the score uses a lot of fifths as its most primitive interval
; thirds and sixths are introduced as the story progresses. The composer visited the film sets several times during filming to see the imagery his music would accompany. After principal photography was completed, Milius sent him two copies of the edited film: one without music, and the other with its scenes set to works by Richard Wagner, Igor Stravinsky
, and Sergei Prokofiev
, to illustrate the emotional overtones he wanted.
Poledouris said he started working on the score by developing the melodic line—a pattern of musical ideas supported by rhythms. The first draft was a poem sung to the strumming of a guitar, composed as if Poledouris was a bard for the barbarian. This draft became the "Riddle of Steel", a composition played with "massive brass, strings, and percussion", which also serves as Conan's personal theme. The music is first played when Conan's father explains the riddle to him. Laurence E. MacDonald, Professor of Music at Mott Community College
, said the theme stirs up the appropriate emotions when it is repeated during Conan's vow to avenge his parents. The film's main musical theme, the "Anvil of Crom", which opens the film with "the brassy sound of twenty-four French horns in a dramatic intonation of the melody, while pounding drums add an incessantly driven rhythmic propulsion" is played again in several later scenes.
Poledouris completed the music that accompanies the attack on Conan's village at the beginning of the film in October 1981. Milius initially wanted a chorus based on Carl Orff
's Carmina Burana
to herald the appearance of Doom and his warriors in this sequence. After learning that Excalibur
(1981) had used Orff's work, he changed his mind and asked his composer for an original creation. Poledouris's theme for Doom consists of "energetic choral passages", chanted by the villain's followers to salute their leader and their actions in his name. The lyrics were composed in English and roughly translated into Latin; Poledouris was "more concerned about the way the Latin words sounded than with the sense they actually made." He set these words to a melody adapted from the 13th-century Gregorian hymn, Dies Irae
, which was chosen to "communicate the tragic aspects of the cruelty wrought by Thulsa Doom."
The film's music mostly conveys a sense of power, energy, and brutality, yet there are tender moments. The sounds of oboes and string instruments accompany Conan and Valeria's intimate scenes, imbuing them with a sense of lush romance and an emotional intensity. According to MacDonald, Poledouris deviated from the practice of scoring love scenes with tunes reminiscent of Romantic period
pieces; instead, Poledouris made Conan and Valeria's melancholic love theme unique through his use of "minor-key harmony". David Morgan, a film journalist, heard Eastern influences in the "lilting romantic melodies". Page Cook, audio critic for Films in Review, describes Conan the Barbarians score as "a large canvas daubed with a colorful yet highly sensitive brush. There is innate intelligence behind Poledouris's scheme, and the pinnacles reached are often eloquent with haunting intensity."
From late November 1981, Poledouris spent three weeks recording his score in Rome. He engaged a 90-instrument orchestra and a 24-member choir from Santa Cecilia
, and conducted them personally. The pieces of music were orchestrated
by Greg McRitchie, Poledouris's frequent collaborator. The chorus and orchestra were recorded separately. The 24 tracks of sound effects, music, and dialog were downmixed
into a single-channel
, making Conan the Barbarian the last film released by a major studio with a mono soundtrack. According to Poledouris, Raffaella De Laurentiis balked at the cost ($30,000) of a stereo
soundtrack and was worried over the paucity of theaters equipped with stereo sound systems.
's Iliad
, the Old English poem Beowulf
, and the 14th-century tale of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
pay detailed attention to the arsenal of their heroes. Grindley further said that Conan the Barbarian, like most other contemporary action films, uses weapons as convenient plot devices rather than as symbols that mark the qualities of the hero. James Whitlark, an associate professor of English, said the Riddle of Steel makes the film's emphasis on the swords ironic; it gives the allusion that the weapons have powers of their own, but later reveals them to be useless and dependent on the strength of their wielders. In the later part of the film, Doom mocks steel, proclaiming the power of flesh to be stronger. When Conan recovers his father's sword, it is after he has broken it in the hands of Doom's lieutenant during their duel. According to Grindley, that moment—Conan's breaking of his father's sword—"[fulfills] a snickering spectrum of Oedipal conjecture" and asserts Homer's view that "the sword does not make the hero, but the hero makes the sword." The film, as Whitlark says, "offers a fantasy of human power raised beyond mortal limits." Passman agrees, stating the film suggests that the human mind and emotions are stronger than physical might.
Another established literary trope found in the plot of Conan the Barbarian is the concept of death, followed by a journey into the underworld, and rebirth. Donald E. Palumbo, the Language and Humanities Chair at Lorain County Community College
, noted that like most other sword and sorcery films, Conan used the motif of underground journeys to reinforce the themes of death and rebirth. According to him, the first scene to involve all three is after Conan's liberation: his flight from wild dogs sends him tumbling into a tomb where he finds a sword that lets him cut off his chains and stand with new found power. In the later parts of the film, Conan experiences two underground journeys where death abounds: in the bowels of the Tower of Serpents where he has to fight a giant snake and in the depths of the Temple of Set where the cultists feast on human flesh while Doom transforms himself into a large serpent. Whereas Valeria dies and comes back from the dead (albeit briefly), Conan's ordeal from his crucifixion was symbolic. Although the barbarian's crucifixion might evoke Christian imagery, associations of the film with the religion are roundly rejected. Milius stated his film is full of pagan ideas, a sentiment supported by film critics such as Elley and Jack Kroll
. George Aichele, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and Religion at Adrian College
, suggested the filmmaker's intent with the crucifixion scene was pure marketing: to tease the audience with religious connotations. He, however, suggested that Conan's story can be viewed as an analogy of Christ's life and vice versa. Nigel Andrews, a film critic, saw any connections to Christianity related more to the making of the film.
Milius's concept of Conan the Barbarian as an opera was picked up by the critics; Elley and Huckvale saw connections to Wagner's operas. According to Huckvale, the film's opening sequence closely mirrors a sword forging scene in Siegfried
. Conan's adventures and ordeals seem to be inspired by the trials of the opera's titular hero
: witnessing his parents' deaths, growing up as a slave, and slaying a giant serpent—dragon. Furthermore, Schwarzenegger's appearance in the role of Conan evoked images of Siegfried, the role model of the "Aryan blonde beast", in the lecturer's mind. The notion of racial superiority, symbolized by this Aryan hero, was a criticism given by J. Hoberman
and James Wolcott
; they highlighted the film's Nietzschean epigraph and labeled its protagonist as Nietzsche's übermensch
. Ebert was disturbed by the depiction of a "Nordic superman confronting a black", in which the "muscular blond" slices off the black man's head and "contemptuously [throws it] down the flight of stairs". His sentiment was shared by Adam Roberts, an Arthurian scholar, who also said Conan was an exemplar of the sword and sorcery films of the early 1980s that were permeated in various degrees with fascist ideology. According to Roberts, the films were following the ideas and aesthetics laid down in Leni Riefenstahl
's directorial efforts for Nazi Germany
. Roberts cautioned that any political readings into these sword and sorcery films with regards to fascism is subjective. Film critic Richard Dyer
said that such associations with Conan were inaccurate and influenced by misconceptions of Nietzschean philosophies, and scholars of philosophy said that the film industry has often misinterpreted the ideas behind the übermensch.
Conan is also seen as a product of its time: the themes of the film reflect the political climate of the United States in the 1980s. Ronald Reagan
was the country's president and the ideals of individualism
were promoted during his two terms in office. He stressed on the moral worth of the individual in his speeches, encouraging his fellow Americans to make the country successful and to stand up against the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Dr. Dave Saunders, a film writer and lecturer at South Essex College of Further and Higher Education, linked facets of Conan the Barbarian to aspects of Reaganism—the conservative ideology that surrounded the president's policies. Saunders likened Conan's quest against Doom to the Americans' crusades, his choice of weaponry—swords—to Reagan's and Milius's fondness of resisting the Soviets with only spirit and simple weapons, and Doom's base of operations to the Kremlin
. Conan, in Saunder's interpretation, is portrayed as the American hero who draws strength from his trials and tribulations to slay the evil oppressors—the Soviets—and crush their un-American ways. Kellner and his fellow academic Michael Ryan proposed another enemy for the American individual: an overly domineering federal government. The film's association with individualism was not confined to the United States; Jeffrey Richards, a cultural historian, noticed the film's popularity among the youths of the United Kingdom. Robin Wood
, a film critic, suggests that in most cases, there is only a thin veneer between individualism and fascism; he also said that Conan is the only film in that era to dispense with the disguise, openly celebrating its fascist ideals in a manner that would delight Riefenstahl.
Sexual politics were also examined in thematic studies of the film. The feminist movement
experienced a backlash during the opening years of the 1980s and action films then were helping to promote the notions of masculinity
. Women in these films were portrayed as whores, handmaidens, or warriors and clad in flesh-revealing outfits. Conan gave its male audience a manly hero that overcame all odds and adversity, delivering them a fantasy that offered escape from the invasion of radical "strong feminist women" in their lives. Renato Casaro's promotional artwork for the film's release in the United States presents a sexualized portrayal of the two main characters, Conan and Valeria. Scantily clad in costumes cut in the styles of underwear, they wear long boots and sport their hair loose. While Conan strides forth in the picture with his sword held high, Valeria "squats in an impossible pose with her leather body-suit [in the shape of a teddy] forming a dark shape between her thighs". According to Schubart, critics did not accept Valeria as a strong female figure, but viewed her as a "sexual spectacle"; to them, she was the traditional male warrior buddy in a sexy female body.
The United States' public were offered a sneak preview on February 19, 1982, in Houston, Texas. In the following month, previews were held in 30 cities across the country. In Washington D.C., the mass of moviegoers formed long lines that spanned streets, causing traffic jams. Tickets were quickly sold out in Denver, and 1,000 people had to be turned away in Houston. The majority of those in the lines were male; a moviegoer in Los Angeles said, "The audience was mostly white, clean-cut and high-school or college age. It was not the punk or heavy-leather crowd, but an awful lot of them had bulging muscles." On March 16, Conan the Barbarian had its worldwide premiere
at Fotogramas de Plata, an annual cinema awards ceremony in Madrid, and began its general release
in Spain and France a month later. Twentieth Century Fox
handled the foreign distribution of the film. Universal originally scheduled Conans official release in the United States for the weekend before Memorial Day
—the start of the film industry's summer season when schools close for a month-long holiday. To avoid competition with other big-budget, high-profile films, the studio advanced the release of Conan the Barbarian and on May 14, 1982, the film officially opened in 1,400 theaters across North America.
and Richard Schickel
of Time
magazine illustrate their colleagues' divided views. Ebert called Conan the Barbarian "a perfect fantasy for the alienated preadolescent" whereas Schickel said, "Conan is a sort of psychopathic Star Wars, stupid and stupefying."
At the time Conan was released, the media were inclined to condemn Hollywood's portrayals of violence; typical action films showed the hero attaining his goals by killing all who stood in his way. Conan was particularly condemned for its violent scenes, which Newsweek
s Jack Kroll called "cheerless and styleless". In one of his articles for the San Francisco Chronicle
, Stu Schreiberg counted 50 people killed in various scenes. Other film critics differed over the film's portrayal of violence. David Denby
wrote in his review for New York
magazine that the action scenes were one of the film's few positive features; however, exciting as the scenes were, those such as the decapitation of Conan's mother seemed inane. On the other hand, Vincent Canby
, Carlos Clarens
, and Pascal Mérigeau were unanimous in their opinion that the film's depicted violence failed to meet their expectations: the film's pacing and Howard's stories suggested more gory material. According to Paul Sammon, Milius's cuts to assuage concerns over the violence made the scenes "cartoon-like".
Comparison with the source material also produced varying reactions among the critics. Danny Peary and Schickel expected a film based on pulp stories and comic books to be light-hearted or corny, and Milius's introduction of Nietzschean themes and ideology did not sit well with them. Others were not impressed with Milius's handling of his ideas; James Wolcott called it heavy-handed and Kroll said the material lacked substance in its implementation. The themes of individualism and paganism, however, resonated with many in the audience; the concept of a warrior who relies only on his own prowess and will to conquer the obstacles in his way found favor with young males. Wolcott wrote in Texas Monthly
that these themes appeal to "98-pound weaklings who want to kick sand into bullies' faces and win the panting adoration of a well-oiled beach bunny". Kroll's opinion was that the audience loved the violence and carnage but were cynical about the "philosophical bombast." While popular with audiences, the theatrical treatment of the barbarian was rejected by hardcore fans and scholars of Howard's stories. A particular point of contention was the film's version of Conan's origin, which is at odds with Howard's hints about the character's youth. Their point of view is supported by Kerry Brougher, but Derek Elley, Clarens, and Sammon said Milius was faithful to the ideology behind Howard's work.
Arnold Schwarzenegger's performance was frequently mentioned in the critiques. Clarens, Peary, Gunden and Nigel Andrews were among those who gave positive assessments of the former bodybuilder's acting: to them, he was physically convincing as the barbarian in his body movements and appearance. Andrews added that Schwarzenegger exuded a certain charm—with his accent mangling his dialog—that made the film appealing to his fans. Fanfares Royal S. Brown disagreed and was grateful that the actor's dialog amounted to "2 pages of typescript." Schickel summed up Schwarzenegger's acting as "flat", while Knoll was more verbose, characterizing the actor's portrayal as "a dull clod with a sharp sword, a human collage of pectorals and latissimi who's got less style and wit than Lassie." While Sandahl Bergman earned acclaim for injecting grace and dynamism into the film, the film's more experienced thespians were not spared criticisms. Gunden said von Sydow showed little dedication to his role, and Clarens judged Jones's portrayal of Thulsa Doom to be worse than camp. Brougher faulted none of the actors for their performances, laying the blame on Milius's script instead.
, mentioned that the film was a box office success in Europe and Japan as well. Worldwide, Conan the Barbarian grossed more than $100 million in ticket sales.
David A. Cook, Professor of Film Studies at Emory University
, wrote that Conans North American performance fell short of the amount returned by blockbusters
; the rentals of such films from their release in the continent were supposed to be least $50 million. Conans rental was the thirteenth highest for 1982 and when combined with those for E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
(the most successful film in that year with a rental of $187 million), On Golden Pond
, and The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas
—all distributed by Universal Pictures—constituted 30 percent of the year's total film rental. According to Arthur D. Murphy, a film-industry analyst, it was the first time that a single distributor captured such a substantial share of the film market.
The videocassette version of the film was released on October 2, 1982. Sales and rental figures of the videocassette were high; from its launch, the title was listed in Billboards Videocassette Top 40 (Sales and Rental categories) for 23 weeks. According to Sammon, sales of the film through frequent home video
releases increased the film's gross earnings to more than $300 million by 2007. Conan the Barbarian was novelized
by Lin Carter and the de Camps (L. Sprague and his wife, Catherine). It was also adapted by Marvel in comic form; scripted by Michael Fleisher
, the comic was one of the rarest paperbacks published by the company.
noted Bergman's performance as Valeria and awarded her a Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year—Actress. Poledouris's score was judged by Films in Reviews Page Cook as the second best sound track of the films released in 1982 and nominated by the American Film Institute
(AFI) for its 100 Years of Film Scores
in 2005. The film was one of the nominees for AFI's Top 10 Fantasy Films
in 2008 and its protagonist similarly nominated for AFI's 100 Heroes and Villains in 2003.
's The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring in 2001; several contemporary films of the same genre were judged by critics to be clones of Conan, such as The Beastmaster
(1982). Conans success inspired low-budget copycats, such as Ator, the Fighting Eagle (1982) and Deathstalker
(1983). Its sequel, Conan the Destroyer
, was produced and released in 1984; only a few of those involved in the first film, such as Schwarzenegger, Mako, and Poledouris, returned. Later big- and small-screen adaptations of Robert E. Howard's stories were considered by Sammon to be inferior to the film that started the trend. A spinoff from Conan was a 20-minute live-action show, The Adventures of Conan: A Sword and Sorcery Spectacular
, that ran from 1983 to 1993 at Universal Studios Hollywood
. Produced at a cost of $5 million, the show featured action scenes executed to music composed by Poledouris. The show's highlights were pyrotechnics, lasers, and an 18 feet (5.5 m) tall animatronic
dragon that breathed fire.
Several of those involved in the film reaped short-term benefits. Sandahl Bergman's Golden Globe for her role as Valeria marks her greatest achievement in the film industry; her later roles failed to gain her further recognition. Dino De Laurentiis had produced a string of box office failures since the success of King Kong
in 1976; it appeared Conan the Barbarian might be a turning point in his fortunes. The sequel was also profitable, but many of Laurentiis' later big-budget projects did not recoup their production costs and he was forced to declare bankruptcy in 1988. For John Milius, Conan the Barbarian is his "biggest directorial success" to date; his subsequent endeavors failed to equal its success and popularity.
Pressman did not receive any money from Conans box office takings, but he sold the film rights for the Conan franchise to Laurentiis for $4.5 million and 10 percent of the gross of any sequel to Conan the Barbarian. The sale more than paid off his company's debts incurred from producing Old Boyfriends, saving him from financial ruin; Pressman said this deal "made [him] more money by selling out, by not making a movie, than [he] ever have made by making one." He also arranged for Mattel
to obtain the rights to produce a range of toys for the film. Although the toy company abandoned the license after its executives decided Conan was "too violent" for children, Pressman convinced them to let him produce a film based on their new Masters of the Universe
toy line. The eponymous film
cost $20 million to produce and grossed $17 million at the United States box office in 1987.
Those who benefited most from the project were Basil Poledouris and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Poledouris's reputation in the film industry increased with the critical acclaim his score received; MacDonald noted Poledouris's work on Conan as "one of the most spectacular film music achievements of the decade", and Page Cook named it as the only reason to watch the film and as the second best film sound track (after E.T.s) for 1982. After hearing Conans music, Paul Verhoeven engaged Poledouris to score his films, Flesh and Blood
(1985) and RoboCop
(1987). The music in Verhoeven's Total Recall
(1990) also bore the influence of Conans score; its composer, Jerry Goldsmith
, used Poledouris's work as the model for his compositions.
Conan brought Schwarzenegger worldwide recognition as an action star and established the model for most of his film roles: "icy, brawny, and inexpressive—yet somehow endearing." The image of him as the barbarian was an enduring one; when he campaigned for George H. W. Bush
to be president, he was introduced as "Conan the Republican"—a moniker that stuck with him throughout his political career and was often repeated by the media during his term as Governor of California. Schwarzenegger was aware of the benefits the film had brought to him, acknowledging the role of Conan as "God's gift to [his] career." He embraced the image: when he was Governor of California, he displayed his copy of the Atlantean sword in his office, occasionally flourishing the weapon at visitors and letting them play with it. More than once, he spiced up his speeches with Conan's "crush your enemies, see them driven before you and hear the lamentations of their women".
Hyborian Age
The Hyborian Age is a fictional period within the artificial mythology created by Robert E. Howard, in which the sword and sorcery tales of Conan the Barbarian are set....
, thousands of years before the rise of modern civilization. The film opens with the words, "That which does not kill us makes us stronger", a paraphrasing of Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a 19th-century German philosopher, poet, composer and classical philologist...
, on a black screen followed by a voice-over that establishes the film as the story of Conan's origin. "A burst of drums and trumpets" accompanies the forging of a sword, after which the scene shifts to a mountain top, where the swordsmith tells his young son Conan about the Riddle of Steel, an aphorism on the importance of the metal to their people, the Cimmerians
Cimmeria (Conan)
Cimmeria is a fictional land of barbarians in antediluvian earth and the homeland of Conan the Barbarian in the works of Robert E. Howard.-Fictional history:...
.
The Cimmerians are massacred by a band of warriors led by Thulsa Doom
Thulsa Doom (character)
Thulsa Doom is a fictional character first appearing in the Kull short story "Delcardes' Cat" by Robert E. Howard. He has since appeared in comic books and film as the nemesis of Kull and, later, one of Howard's other creations, Conan the Barbarian....
. Conan's father is killed by dogs, and his sword is taken by Doom to decapitate Conan's mother. The children are taken into slavery; Conan is chained to a large mill, the Wheel of Pain. Years of pushing the huge grindstone build up his muscles. His master trains him to be a gladiator, and after winning many pit fights, Conan is freed. As he wanders the world, he encounters a witch and befriends Subotai, a thief and archer.
Following the witch's advice, Conan and Subotai go to Shadizar, in the land of Zamora, to seek out Doom. They meet Valeria
Valeria (Conan the Barbarian)
Valeria is a pirate and adventuress in the fictional universe of Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian stories. She appears in Robert E. Howard's Conan novella Red Nails, serialized in Weird Tales 28 1-3 . This was the last Conan story written by Howard, and published posthumously...
, a female brigand, who becomes Conan's lover. They burgle the Tower of Serpents, stealing a large jewel—the Eye of the Serpent—and other valuables from Doom's snake cult. After escaping with their loot, the thieves celebrate and end up in a drunken stupor. The city guards capture them and bring them to King Osric. He requests they rescue his daughter, who has joined Doom's cult. Subotai and Valeria do not want to take up the quest; Conan, motivated by his hatred for Doom, sets off alone to the villain's Temple of Set.
Disguised as a priest, Conan infiltrates the temple, but he is discovered, captured, and tortured. Doom lectures him on the power of flesh, which he demonstrates by compelling a girl to leap to her death. He then orders Conan crucified
Crucifixion
Crucifixion is an ancient method of painful execution in which the condemned person is tied or nailed to a large wooden cross and left to hang until dead...
on the Tree of Woe. The barbarian is on the verge of death when he is discovered by Subotai and brought to the Wizard of the Mounds, who lives on a burial site for warriors and kings. The wizard summons spirits to heal Conan and warns that they will "extract a heavy toll", which Valeria is willing to pay. These spirits also try to abduct Conan, but he is restored to health after Valeria and Subotai fend them off.
Subotai and Valeria agree to complete Osric's quest with Conan and they infiltrate the Temple of Set. As the cult indulges in a cannibalistic orgy, the thieves attack and flee with the princess. Valeria is mortally wounded by Doom after he shoots a stiffened snake at her. She dies in Conan's arms and is cremated at the Mounds, where Conan prepares with Subotai and the wizard to battle Doom. By using booby-traps and exploiting the terrain, they manage to kill Doom's soldiers. Valeria reappears for a brief moment as a Valkyrie
Valkyrie
In Norse mythology, a valkyrie is one of a host of female figures who decides who dies in battle. Selecting among half of those who die in battle , the valkyries bring their chosen to the afterlife hall of the slain, Valhalla, ruled over by the god Odin...
to save Conan from a mortal blow. Conan recovers his father's sword during the fight, although its blade is broken. After losing his men, Doom shoots a stiffened snake at the princess. Subotai blocks the shot and the villain flees to his temple.
Conan sneaks back into the temple where Doom stands at the top of a long stairway, addressing the members of his cult. Conan confronts Doom, who attempts to mesmerize him, but the barbarian resists and uses his father's sword to behead his nemesis. After throwing Doom's head down the stairs, Conan burns down the temple. He returns the princess, and the final scene shows him as an old king; the narration says his road to the throne is another tale.
Characters
The character, Conan, and the world of Hyboria were based on the creationsConan the Barbarian
Conan the Barbarian is a fictional sword and sorcery hero that originated in pulp fiction magazines and has since been adapted to books, comics, several films , television programs, video games, roleplaying games and other media...
of pulp-fiction writer Robert E. Howard
Robert E. Howard
Robert Ervin Howard was an American author who wrote pulp fiction in a diverse range of genres. Best known for his character Conan the Barbarian, he is regarded as the father of the sword and sorcery subgenre....
from the 1930s. Published in Weird Tales
Weird Tales
Weird Tales is an American fantasy and horror fiction pulp magazine first published in March 1923. It ceased its original run in September 1954, after 279 issues, but has since been revived. The magazine was set up in Chicago by J. C. Henneberger, an ex-journalist with a taste for the macabre....
, his series about the barbarian was popular with the readership; the barbarian's adventures in a savage and mystical world, replete with gore and brutal slayings, satisfied the reader's fantasies of being a "powerful giant who lives by no rules but his own". From the 1960s, Conan gained a wider audience as novels about him, written in imitation of Howard's style by L. Sprague de Camp
L. Sprague de Camp
Lyon Sprague de Camp was an American author of science fiction and fantasy books, non-fiction and biography. In a writing career spanning 60 years, he wrote over 100 books, including novels and notable works of non-fiction, including biographies of other important fantasy authors...
and Lin Carter
Lin Carter
Linwood Vrooman Carter was an American author of science fiction and fantasy, as well as an editor and critic. He usually wrote as Lin Carter; known pseudonyms include H. P. Lowcraft and Grail Undwin.-Life:Carter was born in St. Petersburg, Florida...
, were published. Frank Frazetta
Frank Frazetta
Frank Frazetta was an American fantasy and science fiction artist, noted for work in comic books, paperback book covers, paintings, posters, LP record album covers and other media...
's cover art for these novels cemented Conan's image as a "virile, axe-wielding, fur-bearing, cranium-smashing barbarian". John Milius
John Milius
John Frederick Milius is an American screenwriter, director, and producer of motion pictures.-Early life:Milius was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the son of Elizabeth and William Styx Milius, who was a shoe manufacturer. Milius attempted to join the Marine Corps in the late 1960s, but was rejected...
, the film's director, intended the film's Conan to be "a Northern European mythic hero". Danny Peary
Danny Peary
Danny Peary is an American film critic and sports writer. He has written many books on cinema and sports-related topics.-Biography:...
described Conan as "muscular, majestic, brainy, yet with ambivalent scruples". Don Herron, a scholar on Howard and his stories, disagreed, noting that the personality of Conan in the film differs greatly from that of the literature. The Conan in the books detests restrictions to his freedom and would have resisted slavery in a violent fashion, whereas the film version accepts his fate and has to be freed. Robert Garcia's review of the film in his American Fantasy magazine states that "this Conan is less powerful, less talkative, and less educated than Howard's".
The female lead, Valeria, has her roots in two strong female characters from Howard's Conan stories. Her namesake was Conan's companion in "Red Nails
Red Nails
"Red Nails" is the last of the stories about Conan the Cimmerian written by American author Robert E. Howard. A novella, it was originally serialized in Weird Tales magazine from July to October 1936. It is set in the pseudo-historical Hyborian Age and concerns Conan encountering a lost city in...
", while her personality and fate were based on those of Bêlit
Bêlit (Robert E. Howard)
In the fictional universe of Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian, Bêlit is a pirate queen who has a romantic relationship with Conan. She is Conan's first serious lover. She appears in Howard's Conan novelette "Queen of the Black Coast", first published in Weird Tales 23 5...
, the pirate queen in "Queen of the Black Coast
Queen of the Black Coast
"Queen of the Black Coast" is one of the original short stories about Conan the Cimmerian, written by American author Robert E. Howard and first published in Weird Tales magazine circa May 1934...
". According to Kristina Passman, an assistant professor of classical languages and literature, the film's Valeria is a perfect archetype of the "good" Amazon
Amazons
The Amazons are a nation of all-female warriors in Greek mythology and Classical antiquity. Herodotus placed them in a region bordering Scythia in Sarmatia...
character, a fierce but domesticated female warrior, in cinema. Rikke Schubart
Rikke Schubart
Rikke Schubart is a Danish author and film scholar, who teaches at Institute for Literature, Culture and Media at Syddansk Universitet in Odense, Denmark...
, a film scholar, said Valeria is a "good" Amazon because she is tamed by love and not because of any altruistic tendencies. Valeria's prowess in battle matches that of Conan and she is also depicted as his equal in behavior and status. The loyalty and love she displays for Conan makes her more than a dear companion to him; she represents his "possibilities of human happiness". Her sacrifice for Conan and her brief return from death act out the heroic code, illustrating that self-sacrificing heroism brings "undying fame". Valeria's name is not spoken in the film; the only scene where she was named, her self-introduction, was cut.
Milius based Conan's other companion, Subotai, on Genghis Khan
Genghis Khan
Genghis Khan , born Temujin and occasionally known by his temple name Taizu , was the founder and Great Khan of the Mongol Empire, which became the largest contiguous empire in history after his death....
's main general, Subotai
Subutai
Subutai was the primary military strategist and general of Genghis Khan and Ögedei Khan...
, rather than on any of Howard's characters. According to film critic Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
, Subotai fulfills the role of a "classic literary type—the Best Pal." He helps the barbarian to kill a giant snake and cuts him down from crucifixion; the thief also cries for his companion during Valeria's cremation, with the explanation that "being a Cimmerian, [Conan] will not cry for himself."
Conan's enemy, Thulsa Doom, is an amalgamation of two of Howard's creations. He takes his name from the villain in Howard's Kull of Atlantis
Kull (collection)
Kull is a collection of Fantasy short stories by Robert E. Howard. It was first published in 1967 by Lancer Books under the title King Kull. This edition included three stories completed by Lin Carter from unfinished fragments and drafts by Howard. Later editions, retitled as Kull, replaced the...
series of stories, but is closer in character to Thoth-Amon
Thoth-Amon
Thoth-Amon is a fictional character created by Robert E. Howard. He is an evil wizard in The Phoenix on the Sword, the first of the Conan the Cimmerian stories...
, Conan's nemesis in "The Phoenix on the Sword
The Phoenix on the Sword
"The Phoenix on the Sword" is one of the original short stories about Conan the Cimmerian, written by American author Robert E. Howard and first published in Weird Tales magazine December 1932. The tale was a rewrite of the unpublished Kull story, "By This Axe I Rule!" with long passages being...
". The Doom in the film reminded critics of Jim Jones
Jim Jones
James Warren "Jim" Jones was the founder and leader of the Peoples Temple, which is best known for the November 18, 1978 mass suicide of 909 Temple members in Jonestown, Guyana along with the killings of five other people at a nearby airstrip.Jones was born in Indiana and started the Temple in...
, a cult leader whose hold on his followers was such that hundreds of them obeyed his orders to commit suicide. Milius said his research on the ancient orders of the Hashishim and the Thuggee
Thuggee
Thuggee is the term for a particular kind of murder and robbery of travellers in South Asia and particularly in India.They are sometimes called Phansigar i.e...
was the inspiration for Doom's snake cult.
Production
From the 1970s, licensing issues had stood in the way of producing film versions of the Conan stories. Lancer BooksLancer Books
Lancer Books was a series of paperback books published from 1961 through 1973 by Irwin Stein and Walter Zacharius. While it published stories of a number of genres, it was noted most for its science fiction and fantasy, particularly its series of Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian tales, the...
, which had acquired the rights in 1966, went into receivership, and there were legal disputes over their disposition of the publishing rights, which ultimately led to them being frozen under injunction. Edward Summer
Edward Summer
Edward Summer has been an award winning painter, motion picture director, screenwriter, internet publisher, magazine editor, journalist and science writer, comic book writer, novelist, book designer, actor, cinematographer, motion picture editor, documentary film maker, film festival founder, and...
suggested Conan as a potential project to Edward R. Pressman
Edward R. Pressman
Edward R. Pressman is an American film producer.Pressman was born in New York City, New York, the son of Lynn and Jack Pressman, known as the "King of Marbles", who founded the Pressman Toy Corporation.-Filmography:...
in 1975, and after being shown the comics and Frazetta's artwork, Pressman was convinced. It took two years to secure the film rights. The two main parties involved in the lawsuit, Glenn Lord
Glenn Lord
Glenn Lord has been an agent, editor, and publisher of the prose and poetry of fellow Texan Robert E. Howard , and the first and most important researcher and scholar of Howard’s life and writings.- Biography :...
and de Camp, formed Conan Properties Incorporated to handle all licensing of Conan-related material, and Pressman was awarded the film rights shortly afterwards. He spent more than $
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
100,000 in legal fees to help resolve the lawsuit, and the rights cost him another $7,500.
The success of Star Wars
Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, originally released as Star Wars, is a 1977 American epic space opera film, written and directed by George Lucas. It is the first of six films released in the Star Wars saga: two subsequent films complete the original trilogy, while a prequel trilogy completes the...
in 1977 increased Hollywood's interest in producing films that portray "heroic adventures in supernatural lands of fables". The film industry's attention was drawn to the popularity of Conan among young male Americans, who were buying reprints of the stories with Frazetta's art and adaptations by Marvel Comics
Conan (Marvel Comics)
Conan is a fictional character based on Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian. He was introduced to the comic book world in 1970 with Conan the Barbarian, written by Roy Thomas, illustrated by Barry Smith and published by Marvel Comics....
. John Milius first expressed interest in directing a film about Conan in 1978 after completing the filming of Big Wednesday
Big Wednesday
Big Wednesday is an American coming of age film directed by John Milius. Milius co-wrote Big Wednesday with Denny Aaberg, and it is loosely based on their own experiences at Malibu and a short story Aaberg had published in a 1974 Surfer Magazine entitled "No Pants Mance." The picture stars...
, according to Buzz Feitshans, a producer who frequently worked with Milius. Milius and Feitshans approached Pressman, but differences over several issues stopped discussions from going further.
Oliver Stone
Oliver Stone
William Oliver Stone is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. Stone became well known in the late 1980s and the early 1990s for directing a series of films about the Vietnam War, for which he had previously participated as an infantry soldier. His work frequently focuses on...
joined the Conan project after Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
offered to fund the film's initial $2.5 million budget if a "name screenwriter" was on the team. After securing Stone's services, Pressman approached Frank Frazetta to be a "visual consultant" but they failed to come to terms. The producer then engaged Ron Cobb
Ron Cobb
Ron Cobb is an American cartoonist, artist, writer, film designer, and film director.By the age of 18, with no formal training in graphic illustration, Cobb was working as an animation "inbetweener" artist for Disney Studios in Burbank, California. He progressed to becoming a breakdown artist on...
, who had just completed a set design job on Alien
Alien (film)
Alien is a 1979 science fiction horror film directed by Ridley Scott and starring Tom Skerritt, Sigourney Weaver, Veronica Cartwright, Harry Dean Stanton, John Hurt, Ian Holm and Yaphet Kotto. The film's title refers to its primary antagonist: a highly aggressive extraterrestrial creature which...
(1979). Cobb made a series of paintings and drawings for Pressman before leaving to join Milius on another project.
The estimates to realize Stone's finished script ran to $40 million; Pressman, Summer, and Stone could not convince a studio to finance their project. Pressman's production company was in financial difficulties and to keep it afloat, he borrowed money from the bank. The failure to find a suitable director was also a problem for the project. Stone and Joe Alves
Joe Alves
Joe Alves is an American film production designer, perhaps best known for his work on three of the Jaws films. He directed Jaws 3-D....
, who was the second unit
Second unit
In film, the second unit is a team that shoots subsidiary footage for a motion picture. Its work is distinct from that of the first unit, which shoots all scenes involving principal actors...
director for Jaws
Jaws (film)
Jaws is a 1975 American horror-thriller film directed by Steven Spielberg and based on Peter Benchley's novel of the same name. In the story, the police chief of Amity Island, a fictional summer resort town, tries to protect beachgoers from a giant man-eating great white shark by closing the beach,...
, were considered as possible co-directors, but Pressman said it "was a pretty crazy idea and [they] didn't get anywhere with it". Stone also said that he asked Ridley Scott
Ridley Scott
Sir Ridley Scott is an English film director and producer. His most famous films include The Duellists , Alien , Blade Runner , Legend , Thelma & Louise , G. I...
, who had finished directing Alien, to take up the task but was rejected.
Cobb showed Milius his work for Conan and Stone's script which, according to him, re-ignited Milius's interest; the director contacted Pressman, and they came to an agreement: Milius would direct the film if he was allowed to modify the script. Milius was known in the film industry for his macho screenplays for Dirty Harry
Dirty Harry
Dirty Harry is a 1971 American crime thriller produced and directed by Don Siegel, the first in the Dirty Harry series. Clint Eastwood plays the title role, in his first outing as San Francisco Police Department Inspector "Dirty" Harry Callahan....
(1971) and Magnum Force
Magnum Force
Magnum Force is a 1973 American police thriller film and the second to feature Clint Eastwood as maverick cop Harry Callahan after the 1971 film Dirty Harry. Ted Post, who also directed Eastwood in TV's Rawhide and the feature film Hang 'Em High, directed the second film in the Dirty Harry series...
(1973). He was, however, contracted to direct his next film for Dino De Laurentiis
Dino De Laurentiis
Agostino "Dino" De Laurentiis was an Italian film producer.-Early life:He was born at Torre Annunziata in the province of Naples, and grew up selling spaghetti produced by his father...
, an influential producer in the fantasy film industry. Milius raised the idea of taking on Conan with Laurentiis, and, after a year of negotiations, Pressman and Laurentiis agreed to co-produce. Laurentiis took over the financing and production and Pressman gave up all claims to the film's profits, though he retained approval over changes to the script, cast and director. Laurentiis assigned the responsibility for production to his daughter, Raffaella
Raffaella De Laurentiis
Raffaella De Laurentiis is an Italian film producer. Films that she has produced include Conan the Barbarian, Dune, Prancer, Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story, Dragonheart, The Forbidden Kingdom and Kull the Conqueror.She is the daughter of film producer Dino De Laurentiis and actress Silvana...
, and Feitshans. Milius was formally appointed as director in early 1979, and Cobb was named as the production designer. Laurentiis convinced Universal Pictures
Universal Pictures
-1920:* White Youth* The Flaming Disc* Am I Dreaming?* The Dragon's Net* The Adorable Savage* Putting It Over* The Line Runners-1921:* The Fire Eater* A Battle of Wits* Dream Girl* The Millionaire...
to become the film's distributor for the United States. The studio also contributed to the production budget of $17.5 million and prepared $12 million to advertise the film.
Casting
While they were working to secure the film rights, Pressman and Summer were also contemplating the lead role. Summer said they considered Charles BronsonCharles Bronson
Charles Bronson , born Charles Dennis Buchinsky was an American actor, best-known for such films as Once Upon a Time in the West, The Magnificent Seven, The Dirty Dozen, The Great Escape, Rider on the Rain, The Mechanic, and the popular Death Wish series...
, Sylvester Stallone
Sylvester Stallone
Michael Sylvester Gardenzio Stallone , commonly known as Sylvester Stallone, and nicknamed Sly Stallone, is an American actor, filmmaker, screenwriter, film director and occasional painter. Stallone is known for his machismo and Hollywood action roles. Two of the notable characters he has portrayed...
, and William Smith
William Smith (actor)
William Smith is an American actor who has appeared in almost 300 feature films and television productions.Smith began his acting career at the age of 8 in 1942...
—all of whom had played tough figures, but in 1976, the two producers watched a rough cut of the bodybuilding film Pumping Iron
Pumping Iron
Pumping Iron is a 1977 docudrama about the world of bodybuilding, focusing on the 1975 IFBB Mr. Universe and Mr. Olympia competitions and the 100 days leading up to them. The film was inspired by a book of the same name, written by Charles Gaines and George Butler...
, and agreed Arnold Schwarzenegger
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger is an Austrian-American former professional bodybuilder, actor, businessman, investor, and politician. Schwarzenegger served as the 38th Governor of California from 2003 until 2011....
was perfect for the role of Conan. According to Schwarzenegger, Pressman's "low-key" approach and "great inner strength" convinced him to join the project. Paul Sammon, writer for Cinefantastique
Cinefantastique
Cinefantastique was a horror, fantasy, and science fiction film magazine originally started as a mimeographed fanzine in 1967, then relaunched as a glossy, offset quarterly in 1970 by publisher/editor Frederick S. Clarke...
, said that the former champion bodybuilder was practically the "living incarnation of one of Frazetta's paperback illustrations". Schwarzenegger was paid $250,000 and placed on retainer
Retainer agreement
A retainer agreement is a work for hire contract. It falls between a one-time contract and full-time employment. Its distinguishing feature is that the employer pays in advance for work to be specified later...
; the terms of the contract restricted him from starring in other sword and sorcery films. Schwarzenegger said Conan was his biggest opportunity to establish himself in the entertainment industry.
Thanks to Pressman's firm belief in him, Schwarzenegger retained the role of Conan even after the project was effectively sold to Laurentiis. Milius wanted a more athletic look on his lead actor, so Schwarzenegger undertook an 18 month training regime before shooting began; aside from running and lifting weights, his routines included rope climbing, horseback riding, and swimming. He slimmed down from 240 to 210 lb (108.9 to 95.3 kg). Aside from Conan, two other substantial roles were also played by novice actors. Subotai was Gerry Lopez
Gerry Lopez
Gerry Lopez , aka Mr. Pipeline, is an American surfer, shaper, journalist, and film actor.-Early life:Lopez was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, grew up in East Honolulu, Oahu, Hawaii and attended Punahou School. He frequented the semi secret reefs in and around Aina Haina as well as better known surf...
, a champion surfer, whose only major acting experience was playing himself in Milius's Big Wednesday. Schwarzenegger stayed at Lopez's home for over a month before the start of filming so they could rehearse their roles and build a rapport. Sandahl Bergman, a dancer who had bit parts in several theater productions and films, played Valeria. She was recommended to Milius by Bob Fosse
Bob Fosse
Robert Louis “Bob” Fosse was an American actor, dancer, musical theater choreographer, director, screenwriter, film editor and film director. He won an unprecedented eight Tony Awards for choreography, as well as one for direction...
, who had directed her in All That Jazz
All That Jazz
All That Jazz is a 1979 American musical film directed by Bob Fosse. The screenplay by Robert Alan Aurthur and Fosse is a semi-autobiographical fantasy based on aspects of Fosse's life and career as dancer, choreographer and director. The film was inspired by Bob Fosse's manic effort to edit his...
(1979), and was accepted after reading for the part.
Milius said the actors were chosen because their appearances and personae fitted their roles. He wanted actors who would not have any preconceived notions to project into their roles. Although Milius had reservations when he witnessed the first few takes of the novices at work, he put faith in them improving their skills on the job and altered the script to fit their abilities. Schwarzenegger had studied for weeks in 1980 under Robert Easton
Robert Easton (actor)
Robert Easton is an American actor whose career in film and television spans more than 60 years. His mastery of English dialect has earned him the epithet "The Man of a Thousand Voices", For decades he has been a leading Hollywood dialogue or accent coach.Easton was born Robert Easton Burke in...
, a voice coach for several Hollywood stars, to improve his speech. His first line in the film was a paraphrasing of Mongol emperor Genghis Khan's speech about the good things in life and the actor delivered it with a heavy Austrian-accent; critics later described what they heard as "to crush your enemies—see dem [them] driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of dair vimen [their women]". Subsequently, Schwarzenegger underwent intensive speech training with Milius. Each of his later longer speeches was rehearsed at least forty times. Lopez's lines were also an issue: although Milius was satisfied with Lopez's work, the surfer's lines were redubbed by stage actor Sab Shimono
Sab Shimono
Sab Shimono is an American actor who has appeared in dozens of movies and television shows in character roles.-Career:An accomplished stage actor, he has appeared on Broadway and in regional theaters including San Francisco's American Conservatory Theatre and Berkeley Repertory Theatre...
for the final cut. A source close to the production said this was done because Lopez failed to "[maintain] a certain quality to his voice."
Sean Connery
Sean Connery
Sir Thomas Sean Connery , better known as Sean Connery, is a Scottish actor and producer who has won an Academy Award, two BAFTA Awards and three Golden Globes Sir Thomas Sean Connery (born 25 August 1930), better known as Sean Connery, is a Scottish actor and producer who has won an Academy...
and John Huston
John Huston
John Marcellus Huston was an American film director, screenwriter and actor. He wrote most of the 37 feature films he directed, many of which are today considered classics: The Maltese Falcon , The Treasure of the Sierra Madre , Key Largo , The Asphalt Jungle , The African Queen , Moulin Rouge...
were considered for the other roles. James Earl Jones
James Earl Jones
James Earl Jones is an American actor. He is well-known for his distinctive bass voice and for his portrayal of characters of substance, gravitas and leadership...
and Max von Sydow
Max von Sydow
Max von Sydow is a Swedish actor. He has also held French citizenship since 2002. He has starred in many films and had supporting roles in dozens more...
were, according to Milius, hired with the hope that they would inspire Schwarzenegger, Bergman, and Lopez. Jones was an award-winning veteran of numerous theater and cinema productions. Von Sydow was a Swedish actor of international renown. The role of Thulsa Doom was offered to Jones while he was considering applying for the role of Grendel
Grendel
Grendel is one of three antagonists, along with Grendel's mother and the dragon, in the Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf . Grendel is usually depicted as a monster, though this is the subject of scholarly debate. In the poem, Grendel is feared by all but Beowulf.-Story:The poem Beowulf is contained in...
in an upcoming feature
Grendel Grendel Grendel
Grendel Grendel Grendel is an Australian animated film based on John Gardner's novel Grendel and starring Peter Ustinov. It was released in 1981....
based on James Gardner
James Alan Gardner
James Alan Gardner is a Canadian science fiction author.Raised in Simcoe and Bradford, Ontario, he earned Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Applied Mathematics from the University of Waterloo....
's eponymous novel
Grendel (novel)
Grendel is a 1971 parallel novel by American author John Gardner. It is a retelling of the Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf from the perspective of the antagonist, Grendel. The novel deals with finding meaning in the world, the power of literature and myth, and the nature of good and evil.Grendel...
; after learning it was an animation, Jones read Conans script and accepted the part of Doom. When filming started on Conan, Jones was also starring in a Broadway play
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
—Athol Fugard
Athol Fugard
Athol Fugard is a South African playwright, novelist, actor, and director who writes in English, best known for his political plays opposing the South African system of apartheid and for the 2005 Academy-Award winning film of his novel Tsotsi, directed by Gavin Hood...
's A Lesson to Aloes. He and the film crew coordinated their schedules to allow him to join the play's remaining performances. Jones took an interest in Schwarzenegger's acting, often giving him pointers on how to deliver his lines.
The Japanese actor Mako Iwamatsu, known professionally as "Mako", was brought onto the project by Milius for his experience; he had played roles in many plays and films and had been nominated for an Academy and a Tony Award
Tony Award
The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...
. In Conan, Mako played the Wizard of the Mounds and voiced the film's opening speech. William Smith, although passed over for the lead role, was hired to play the barbarian's father. Doom's two lieutenants were played by Sven-Ole Thorsen
Sven-Ole Thorsen
Sven-Ole Thorsen is a Danish actor, stuntman, bodybuilder and strongman competitor. Sven won Denmark's Strongest Man in 1983....
, a Danish bodybuilder and karate
Karate
is a martial art developed in the Ryukyu Islands in what is now Okinawa, Japan. It was developed from indigenous fighting methods called and Chinese kenpō. Karate is a striking art using punching, kicking, knee and elbow strikes, and open-handed techniques such as knife-hands. Grappling, locks,...
master, and Ben Davidson
Ben Davidson
Benjamin Earl Davidson is a former collegiate and professional American football player between 1961 and 1972, most notably in the American Football League with the Oakland Raiders from 1964 through 1969, and for the NFL Raiders from 1970 through 1972. He had also played in the NFL for the league...
, a former American-football player with the Oakland Raiders
Oakland Raiders
The Oakland Raiders are a professional American football team based in Oakland, California. They currently play in the Western Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League...
. Milius hired more than 1,500 extras in Spain. Professional actors from the European film industry were also hired: Valerie Quennessen
Valerie Quennessen
Valérie Quennessen was a French film actress.Quennessen was born in Paris and dedicated much of her childhood to pursuing her dream of becoming an acrobat. She quickly reached a level of competence and received an award for her expertise at the age of ten...
was chosen to play Osric's daughter, Jorge Sanz
Jorge Sanz
Jorge Sanz is a Spanish actor and is one of the most prominent actors of the Spanish cinema since the 1980s. He is known to international audiences for his roles in the films: Amantes by director Vicente Aranda and Fernando Trueba’s Belle Époque .-Early life :Jorge Sanz Miranda was born on August...
acted as the nine-year-old version of Conan, and Nadiuska played his mother.
Script writing
The drafting of a story for a Conan film started in 1976; Summer conceived a script with the help of Roy ThomasRoy Thomas
Roy William Thomas, Jr. is an American comic book writer and editor, and Stan Lee's first successor as editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics. He is possibly best known for introducing the pulp magazine hero Conan the Barbarian to American comics, with a series that added to the storyline of Robert E...
, a writer who had created and edited several storylines for Marvel's Conan comic series. Summer and Thomas's tale, in which Conan would be employed by a "dodgy priest to kill an evil wizard", was largely based on Howard's "Rogues in the House
Rogues in the House
"Rogues in the House" is one of the original short stories starring the fictional sword and sorcery hero Conan the Cimmerian, written by American author Robert E. Howard and first published in Weird Tales magazine circa January 1934...
". Their script was abandoned when Oliver Stone joined the project. Stone was, at this time, going through a period of addiction to cocaine
Cocaine
Cocaine is a crystalline tropane alkaloid that is obtained from the leaves of the coca plant. The name comes from "coca" in addition to the alkaloid suffix -ine, forming cocaine. It is a stimulant of the central nervous system, an appetite suppressant, and a topical anesthetic...
and depressant
Depressant
A depressant, or central depressant, is a drug or endogenous compound that depresses the function or activity of a specific part of the brain...
s. His screenplay was written under the influence of the drugs and the result was what Milius called a "total drug fever dream", albeit an inspirational one. According to Schwarzenegger, Stone completed a draft by early 1978. Taking inspiration from Howard's "Black Colossus
Black Colossus
"Black Colossus" is one of the original short stories starring the fictional sword and sorcery hero Conan the Cimmerian, written by American author Robert E. Howard and first published in Weird Tales magazine, June 1933...
" and "A Witch Shall be Born
A Witch Shall be Born
"A Witch Shall Be Born" is one of the original stories by Robert E. Howard about Conan the Cimmerian. It was written in only a few days in spring of 1934 and first published in Weird Tales in 1934. The story concerns a witch replacing her twin sister as queen of a city state, which brings her...
", Stone proposed a story, four hours long, in which the hero champions the defense of a princess's kingdom. Instead of taking place in the distant past, Stone's story is set in a post-apocalyptic future where Conan leads an army in a massive battle against a horde of 10,000 mutants
Mutant (fictional)
The concept of a mutant is a common trope in comic books and science fiction. The new phenotypes that appear in fictional mutations generally go far beyond what is typically seen in biological mutants, and often result in the mutated life form exhibiting superhuman abilities or qualities.-Marvel...
.
When Milius was appointed as director, he took over the task of writing the screenplay. Although listed as a co-writer, Stone said Milius did not incorporate any of his suggestions into the final story. Milius discarded the latter half of Stone's story. He retained several scenes from the first half, such as Conan's crucifixion ordeal, which was taken straight out of "A Witch Shall be Born", and the climbing of the Tower of Serpents, which was derived from "The Tower of the Elephant
The Tower of the Elephant
"The Tower of the Elephant" is one of the original short stories starring the fictional sword and sorcery hero Conan the Cimmerian, written by American author Robert E. Howard. It is set in the pseudo-historical Hyborian Age and concerns Conan infiltrating a perilous tower in order to steal a...
". One of Milius' original changes was to extend Stone's brief exposition of Conan's youth—the raid on the Cimmerian village—into his teens with the barbarian's enslavement at the Wheel of Pain and training as a gladiator. Milius also added ideas gleaned from other films. The Japanese supernatural tale of "Hoichi the Earless
Hoichi the Earless
is a character from Japanese mythology. His story is well known in Japan, and the best-known English translation first appeared in the book Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things by Lafcadio Hearn....
", as portrayed in Masaki Kobayashi's Kwaidan
Kwaidan (film)
is a 1964 Japanese portmanteau film directed by Masaki Kobayashi; the title means 'ghost story'. It is based on stories from Lafcadio Hearn's collections of Japanese folk tales. The film consists of four separate and unrelated stories. Kwaidan is the archaic transliteration of Kaidan, meaning...
(1965), inspired the painting of symbols on Conan's body and the swarm of ghosts during the barbarian's resurrection, and Akira Kurosawa
Akira Kurosawa
was a Japanese film director, producer, screenwriter and editor. Regarded as one of the most important and influential filmmakers in the history of cinema, Kurosawa directed 30 filmsIn 1946, Kurosawa co-directed, with Hideo Sekigawa and Kajiro Yamamoto, the feature Those Who Make Tomorrow ;...
's Seven Samurai (1954) influenced Milius's vision of Conan's final battle against Doom's men. Milius also included scenes from post-Howard stories about Conan; the barbarian's discovery of a tomb during his initial wanderings and acquisition of a sword within were based on de Camp and Carter's "The Thing in the Crypt
The Thing in the Crypt
"The Thing in the Crypt" is a short story written by L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter starring the fictional sword and sorcery hero Conan the Cimmerian created by Robert E...
". According to Derek Elley, Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
s resident film critic, Milius's script, with its original ideas and references to the pulp stories, was faithful to Howard's ideals of Conan.
Filming
Filming started at England's Shepperton StudiosShepperton Studios
Shepperton Studios is a film studio in Shepperton, Surrey, England with a history dating back to 1931 since when many notable films have been made there...
in October 1980, with Schwarzenegger, made up to look like Conan as a king in his old age, reading an excerpt from "The Nemedian Chronicles", which Howard had penned to introduce his Conan stories. This footage was initially intended to be a trailer but Milius decided to use it as the opening sequence of the film instead. According to Cobb, Laurentiis and Universal Pictures were concerned about Schwarzenegger's accent, so Milius compromised by moving the sequence to the end.
The initial location for principal photography
Principal photography
thumb|300px|Film production on location in [[Newark, New Jersey]].Principal photography is the phase of film production in which the movie is filmed, with actors on set and cameras rolling, as distinct from pre-production and post-production....
was Yugoslavia, but because of concerns over the country's stability after the death of its head of state, Josip Broz Tito
Josip Broz Tito
Marshal Josip Broz Tito – 4 May 1980) was a Yugoslav revolutionary and statesman. While his presidency has been criticized as authoritarian, Tito was a popular public figure both in Yugoslavia and abroad, viewed as a unifying symbol for the nations of the Yugoslav federation...
, and the fact that the Yugoslavian film industry proved ill-equipped for large-scale film production, the producers elected to move the project to Spain, which was cheaper and where resources were more easily available. It took several months to relocate; the crew and equipment arrived in September, and filming started on January 7, 1981. The producers allocated $11 million for production in Spain, of which approximately $3 million was spent on building 49 sets. The construction workforce numbered from 50 to 200; artists from England, Italy, and Spain were also recruited.
A large warehouse 20 miles (32.2 km) outside Madrid served as the production's headquarters, and it also housed most of the interior sets for the Tower of Serpents and Doom's temple; a smaller warehouse was leased for other interior sets. The remaining interiors for the Tower of Serpents were constructed in an abandoned hangar at Torrejón Air Base
Torrejon Air Base
Madrid-Torrejón Airport is a commercial airport in Spain. It is a joint-use facility between the Spanish Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of Public Works. The civil part is dedicated primarily to executive and private aviation. The airport is located northeast of Madrid, west of Alcalá de...
. A full-scale, 40 feet (12.2 m) version of the tower was built in the hangar; this model was used to film Conan and his companion's climb up the structure.
The crew filmed several exterior scenes in the countryside near Madrid; the Cimmerian village was built in a forest near the Valsaín ski resort, south of Segovia
Segovia
Segovia is a city in Spain, the capital of Segovia Province in the autonomous community of Castile and León. It is situated north of Madrid, 30 minutes by high speed train. The municipality counts some 55,500 inhabitants.-Etymology:...
. Approximately one million pesetas
Spanish peseta
The peseta was the currency of Spain between 1869 and 2002. Along with the French franc, it was also a de facto currency used in Andorra .- Etymology :...
($12,084) worth of marble shavings were scattered on the ground to simulate snow. Conan's encounter with the witch and Subotai was shot among the Ciudad Encantada
Ciudad Encantada
The Ciudad Encantada is a geological site near the city of Cuenca, in Castile La Mancha, Spain in which the erosive forces of weather and the waters of the nearby Júcar river have formed rocks into distinctive and memorable shapes....
rock formations in the province of Cuenca. Most outdoor scenes were shot in the province of Almería, which offered a semi-arid climate, diverse terrain (deserts, beaches, mountains), and Roman and Moorish structures
Moorish architecture
Moorish architecture is the western term used to describe the articulated Berber-Islamic architecture of North Africa and Al-Andalus.-Characteristic elements:...
that could be adapted for many settings.
Conan's crucifixion was filmed in March 1981 among the sand dunes on the southeastern coast of Almería. The Tree of Woe was layers of plaster and Styrofoam applied onto a skeleton of wood and steel. It was mounted on a turntable, allowing it to be rotated to ensure the angle of the shadows remained consistent throughout three days of filming. Schwarzenegger sat on a bicycle seat mounted in the tree while fake nails were affixed to his wrists and feet. The scene in which Valeria and Subotai fought off ghosts to save Conan and the final battle with Doom's forces were filmed in the salt marshes of Almerimar. "Stonehenge-like ruins" were erected and sand piled into mounds that reached 9 metres (29.5 ft). The changes to the landscape attracted protests from environmentalists and the producers promised to restore the site after filming was completed.
The Temple of Set was built in the mountains, more than 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) west of the city of Almería. The structure was 50 metres (164 ft) long and 22 metres (72.2 ft) high. It was the most expensive of the sets, costing $350,000, and built out of various woods, lacquers, and tons of concrete. Its stairway had 120 steps. Milius and his crew also filmed at historical sites and on sets from previous films. Scenes of a bazaar were filmed at the Moorish Alcazaba of Almería
Alcazaba of Almería
The Alcazaba of Almería is a fortified complex in Almería, southern Spain. The word alcazaba, from the Arabic word al-qasbah, signifies a walled-fortification in a city.-History:...
, which was dressed to give it a fictional Hyborian look. Shadizar was realized at a pre-existing film set in the Almerían desert; the fort used for the filming of El Condor (1970) refurbished as an ancient city.
It was expensive to build large sets, and Milius did not want to rely on optical effects
Compositing
Compositing is the combining of visual elements from separate sources into single images, often to create the illusion that all those elements are parts of the same scene. Live-action shooting for compositing is variously called "chroma key", "blue screen", "green screen" and other names. Today,...
and matte paintings (painted landscapes). The crew instead adopted miniature effect
Miniature effect
A miniature effect is a special effect created for motion pictures and television programs using scale models. Scale models are often combined with high speed photography or matte shots to make gravitational and other effects appear convicing to the viewer...
techniques (playing on perspective) to achieve the illusion of size and grandeur for several scenes. Scale models of structures were constructed by Emilio Ruiz
Emilio Ruiz del Río
Emilio Ruiz del Río was a Spanish film set decorator and special effects and visual effects artist. Ruiz del Rio's career spanned over 60 years.-Career:...
and positioned in front of the cameras so that they appeared as full-sized structures on film; using this technique the Shadizar set was extended to appear more than double its size. Ruiz built eight major miniature models, including a 4 feet (1.2 m) high palace and a representation of the entire city of Shadizar that spanned 120 square feet (11.1 m²).
Cobb's direction for the sets was to "undo history", "to invent [their] own fantasy history", and yet maintain a "realistic, historical look". Eschewing the Greco-Roman
Greco-Roman world
The Greco-Roman world, Greco-Roman culture, or the term Greco-Roman , when used as an adjective, as understood by modern scholars and writers, refers to those geographical regions and countries that culturally were directly, protractedly and intimately influenced by the language, culture,...
imagery used heavily in the sword-and-sandal films of the 1960s, he realized a world that was an amalgamation of Dark Age cultures, such as the Mongols
Mongol Empire
The Mongol Empire , initially named as Greater Mongol State was a great empire during the 13th and 14th centuries...
and the Viking
Viking
The term Viking is customarily used to refer to the Norse explorers, warriors, merchants, and pirates who raided, traded, explored and settled in wide areas of Europe, Asia and the North Atlantic islands from the late 8th to the mid-11th century.These Norsemen used their famed longships to...
s. Several scenarios paid homage to Frazetta's paintings of Conan, such as the "half-naked slave girl chained to a pillar, with a snarling leopard at her feet," at the snake cult's orgy. David Huckvale, a lecturer at the Open University
Open University
The Open University is a distance learning and research university founded by Royal Charter in the United Kingdom...
and broadcaster for BBC Radio
BBC Radio
BBC Radio is a service of the British Broadcasting Corporation which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a Royal Charter since 1927. For a history of BBC radio prior to 1927 see British Broadcasting Company...
, said the designs of the Tree of Woe and the costumes appeared very similar to those used in Richard Wagner
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
's Ring of the Nibelung
Der Ring des Nibelungen
Der Ring des Nibelungen is a cycle of four epic operas by the German composer Richard Wagner . The works are based loosely on characters from the Norse sagas and the Nibelungenlied...
operas at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus
Bayreuth Festspielhaus
The or Bayreuth Festival Theatre is an opera house north of Bayreuth, Germany, dedicated solely to the performance of operas by the 19th-century German composer Richard Wagner...
in 1876. Principal photography was completed in the middle of May 1981. The film crews burned down the Cimmerian village and the Temple of Set after completing filming on each set.
Stunts and swords
Several action scenes in Conan were filmed with a "mini-jibJib (camera)
In cinematography, a jib is a boom device with a camera on one end, and a counterweight and camera controls on the other. It operates like a see-saw, but with the balance point located close to the counterweight, so that the camera end of the arm can move through an extended arc. A jib permits the...
" (a remote-controlled electronic camera mounted on a motorized lightweight crane) that Nick Allder
Nick Allder
Nick Allder is a American film special effects supervisor and coordinator. Allder has won multiple awards including an Academy Award in 1980 for the film Alien, as well as a BAFTA film in 1998 for his work on the film The Fifth Element...
, the special effects supervisor, had devised when he worked on Dragonslayer
Dragonslayer
Dragonslayer is a 1981 fantasy movie set in a fictional medieval kingdom, following a young wizard who experiences danger and opposition as he attempts to defeat a dragon....
(1981). The stunts were coordinated by Terry Leonard, who had worked on many films, including Milius's previous projects and Steven Spielberg
Steven Spielberg
Steven Allan Spielberg KBE is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur. In a career of more than four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as an...
's Raiders of the Lost Ark
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Raiders of the Lost Ark is a 1981 American action-adventure film directed by Steven Spielberg, produced by George Lucas, and starring Harrison Ford. It is the first film in the Indiana Jones franchise...
(1981). Leonard said that Schwarzenegger, Bergman, and Lopez performed most of their own stunts, including the fights.
The three actors were given martial arts training ahead of filming. From August 1980, they were tutored by Kiyoshi Yamazaki, a karate black belt and master swordsman, who drilled them in sword-fighting styles that were meant to make them look proficient in using their weapons. They practiced each move in a fight at least 15 times before filming. Yamazaki advised Leonard on the choreography of the sword fights and had a cameo role as one of Conan's instructors.
Tim Huchthausen, the prop maker, worked with swordsmith Jody Samson
Jody Samson
Jody Samson was a knifemaker and bladesmith from Burbank, California who designed butterfly knives for Benchmade and the swords used in such movies as Conan the Barbarian, Conan the Destroyer, First Knight, The Mask of Zorro, Blade, Blind Fury, Batman & Robin, Batman Forever, and Streets of...
to create the sturdy weapons Milius thought necessary. Particular attention was paid to two swords wielded by Conan: his father's sword ("Master's sword") and the blade he finds in a tomb ("Atlantean sword"). Both weapons were realized from Cobb's drawings. Their blades were hand ground from carbon steel and heat treated and left unsharpened. The hilts and pommels were sculpted and cast through the lost-wax process; inscriptions were added to the blades via electrical discharge machining
Electrical discharge machining
Electric discharge machining , sometimes colloquially also referred to as spark machining, spark eroding, burning, die sinking or wire erosion, is a manufacturing process whereby a desired shape is obtained using electrical discharges...
. Samson and Huchthausen made four Master's and four Atlantean swords, at a cost of $10,000 per weapon. Copies of the Atlantean sword were struck and given to members of the production.
Samson and Huchthausen agreed the weapons were heavy and unbalanced, and thus unsuitable for actual combat; Lighter versions made of aluminum, fiberglass, and steel were struck in Madrid; these 3 lbs copies were used in the fight scenes. According to Schwarzenegger, the heavy swords were used in close-up shots. The other weapons used in the film were not as elaborate; Valeria's tulwar
Talwar
The talwar is a type of curved sword or sabre from India and modern-day Pakistan...
was ground out from an aluminum sheet.
The copious amounts of blood spilled in the fight scenes came from bags of fake blood strapped to the performers' bodies. Animal blood gathered from slaughterhouses was poured onto the floor to simulate puddles of human blood. Most of the times trick swords made from fiberglass were used when the scene called for a killing blow. Designed by Allder, these swords could also retract their blades, and several sprayed blood from their tips. Although the swords were intended to be safer alternatives to metal weapons, they could still be dangerous: in one of the fights, Bergman sparred with an extra who failed to follow the choreography and sliced open her finger.
Accidents also happened in stunts that did not involve weapons. A stuntman smashed his face into a camera while riding a horse at full gallop, and Schwarzenegger was attacked by one of the trained dogs. The use of live animals also raised concerns about cruelty; the American Humane Association
American Humane Association
The American Humane Association is an organization founded in 1877 dedicated to the welfare of animals and children.The AHA's Film and Television Unit has monitored the welfare of animals during the production of films and television programs since 1940. They are the source of the familiar...
placed the film on its "unacceptable list". The transgressions listed by the association included the kicking of a dog, the striking of a camel, and the tripping of horses.
Mechanical effects
Carlo De Marchis, the special make-up effects supervisor, and Colin Arthur, former Studio Head of Madame TussaudsMadame Tussauds
Madame Tussauds is a wax museum in London with branches in a number of major cities. It was founded by wax sculptor Marie Tussaud and was formerly known as "Madame Tussaud's", but the apostrophe is no longer used...
, were responsible for the human dummies and fake body parts used in the film. The dummies inflated crowd numbers and stood in as dead bodies, while the body parts were used in scenes showing the aftermath of fights and the cult's cannibalistic feast. In Thulsa Doom's beheading scene Schwarzenegger hacked at a dummy and pulled a concealed chain to detach its head. The decapitation of Conan's mother was more complex: a Plexiglas shield between Jones and Nadiuska stopped his sword as he swung at her and an artificial head then dropped into the camera's view. A more elaborate head was used for the close-up shots; this prop spurted blood and the movements of its eyes, mouth, and tongue were controlled by cables hidden beneath the snow.
Allder created a $20,000 36 feet (11 m) mechanical snake for the fight scene in the Tower of Serpents. The snake's body had a diameter of 2.5 foot (0.762 m), and its head was 2.5 foot (0.762 m) long and 2 foot (0.6096 m) wide. Its skeleton was made from duralumin
Duralumin
Duralumin is the trade name of one of the earliest types of age-hardenable aluminium alloys. The main alloying constituents are copper, manganese, and magnesium. A commonly used modern equivalent of this alloy type is AA2024, which contains 4.4% copper, 1.5% magnesium, 0.6% manganese and 93.5%...
(an alloy used in aircraft frames) and its skin was vulcanized foam rubber. Controlled by steel cables and hydraulics, the snake could exert a force between 3.5 and 9 tons. Another two snakes of the same dimensions were made: one for stationary shots and one for decapitation by Schwarzenegger. To create the scene at the Tree of Woe the crew tethered live vultures to the branches, and created a mechanical bird for Schwarzenegger to bite. The dummy bird's feathers and wings were from a dead vulture, and its control mechanisms were routed inside the false tree.
According to Sammon, "one of the greatest special effects in the film [was] Thulsa Doom's onscreen transformation into a giant snake". It involved footage of fake body parts, live and dummy snakes, miniatures, and other camera tricks combined into a flowing sequence with lap dissolve
Lap dissolve
A lap dissolve is a technical term in film editing, most often used in the United States, applying to the process whereby the fading last shot of a preceding scene is superimposed over the emerging first shot of the next scene, so that, for a few moments, both shots are seen simultaneously...
. After Jones was filmed in position, he was replaced by a hollow framework with a rubber mask that was pushed from behind by a snake head-shaped puppet to give the illusion of Doom's facial bones changing. The head was then replaced with a 6 feet (1.8 m) mechanical snake; as it moved outwards, a crew member pressed a foot pedal to collapse the framework. For the final part of the sequence, a real snake was filmed on a miniature set.
Optical effects
For the scene in which Valeria and Subotai had to fend off ghosts to save Conan's life, the "boiling clouds" were created by George Lucas's Industrial Light and Magic, while VCE was given the task of creating the ghosts. Their first attempt—filming strips of film emulsion suspended in a vat of a viscous solution—elicited complaints from the producers who thought the resulting spirits looked too much like those in a scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark, so VCE turned to animation to complete the task. First, they drew muscular warriors in ghostly forms onto cel
Cel
A cel, short for celluloid, is a transparent sheet on which objects are drawn or painted for traditional, hand-drawn animation. Actual celluloid was used during the first half of the 20th century, but since it was flammable and dimensionally unstable it was largely replaced by cellulose acetate...
s and printed the images onto film with an Oxberry animation stand
Animation stand
An animation stand is a device assembled for the filming of any kind of animation that is placed on a flat surface, including cel animation, graphic animation, clay animation, and silhouette animation....
and contact print
Contact print
A contact print is a photographic image produced from film; sometimes from a film negative, and sometimes from a film positive. The defining characteristic of a contact print is that the photographic result is made by exposing through the film negative or positive, onto a light sensitive material...
er. The Oxberry was fitted with a used lens that introduced lens flare
Lens flare
Lens flare is the light scattered in lens systems through generally unwanted image formation mechanisms, such as internal reflection and scattering from material inhomogeneities in the lens. These mechanisms differ from the intended image formation mechanism that depends on refraction of the image...
s to the prints; VCE's intention with using the old lens was to make the resultant images of the ghosts seem as if they were of real-life objects filmed with a camera. The final composite was produced by passing the reels of film for the effects and the live-action sequences through a two-headed optical printer
Optical printer
An optical printer is a device consisting of one or more film projectors mechanically linked to a movie camera. It allows filmmakers to re-photograph one or more strips of film...
and capturing the results with a camera.
Music
Milius recruited his friend, Basil PoledourisBasil Poledouris
Vassilis Konstantinos "Basil" Poledouris was a Greek-American music composer who concentrated on the scores for films and television shows...
, to produce the score for Conan; they had a successful collaboration on Big Wednesday. The film industry's usual practice was to contract a composer to start work after the main scenes had been filmed, but Milius hired Poledouris before principal photography had started; the composer was given the opportunity to compose the film's music based on the initial storyboards and to modify it throughout filming before recording the score near the end of production. Poledouris made extensive use of Musync, a music-editing software, to modify the tempo of his compositions and synchronize them with the action in the film. The software helped make his job easier and faster; it could automatically adjust the tempo when the user changed the positioning of a beat. Poledouris would, otherwise, have had to conduct the orchestra and adjust his compositions on the fly. Conan is the first film to list Musync in its credits.
Milius and Poledouris exchanged ideas throughout production, working out themes and "emotional tones" for each scene. According to Poledouris, Milius envisioned Conan as an opera with little or no dialog; Poledouris composed enough musical pieces for most (approximately two hours) of the film. This was his first large-scale orchestral score, and a characteristic of his work here was that he frequently slowed down the tempo of the last two bars
Bar (music)
In musical notation, a bar is a segment of time defined by a given number of beats of a given duration. Typically, a piece consists of several bars of the same length, and in modern musical notation the number of beats in each bar is specified at the beginning of the score by the top number of a...
(segments of beats) before switching to the next piece of music. Poledouris said the score uses a lot of fifths as its most primitive interval
Interval (music)
In music theory, an interval is a combination of two notes, or the ratio between their frequencies. Two-note combinations are also called dyads...
; thirds and sixths are introduced as the story progresses. The composer visited the film sets several times during filming to see the imagery his music would accompany. After principal photography was completed, Milius sent him two copies of the edited film: one without music, and the other with its scenes set to works by Richard Wagner, Igor Stravinsky
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....
, and Sergei Prokofiev
Sergei Prokofiev
Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor who mastered numerous musical genres and is regarded as one of the major composers of the 20th century...
, to illustrate the emotional overtones he wanted.
Poledouris said he started working on the score by developing the melodic line—a pattern of musical ideas supported by rhythms. The first draft was a poem sung to the strumming of a guitar, composed as if Poledouris was a bard for the barbarian. This draft became the "Riddle of Steel", a composition played with "massive brass, strings, and percussion", which also serves as Conan's personal theme. The music is first played when Conan's father explains the riddle to him. Laurence E. MacDonald, Professor of Music at Mott Community College
Mott Community College
Charles Stewart Mott Community College is a publicly supported post-secondary institution located in Flint, Michigan. Its district is the same as the Genesee Intermediate School District and is governed by an elected board of Trustees...
, said the theme stirs up the appropriate emotions when it is repeated during Conan's vow to avenge his parents. The film's main musical theme, the "Anvil of Crom", which opens the film with "the brassy sound of twenty-four French horns in a dramatic intonation of the melody, while pounding drums add an incessantly driven rhythmic propulsion" is played again in several later scenes.
Poledouris completed the music that accompanies the attack on Conan's village at the beginning of the film in October 1981. Milius initially wanted a chorus based on Carl Orff
Carl Orff
Carl Orff was a 20th-century German composer, best known for his cantata Carmina Burana . In addition to his career as a composer, Orff developed an influential method of music education for children.-Early life:...
's Carmina Burana
Carmina Burana (Orff)
Carmina Burana is a scenic cantata composed by Carl Orff in 1935 and 1936. It is based on 24 of the poems found in the medieval collection Carmina Burana...
to herald the appearance of Doom and his warriors in this sequence. After learning that Excalibur
Excalibur (film)
Excalibur is a 1981 dramatic fantasy film directed, produced and co-written by John Boorman that retells the legend of King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table. Adapted from the 15th century Arthurian romance, Le Morte d'Arthur by Thomas Malory, Excalibur features the music of Richard Wagner...
(1981) had used Orff's work, he changed his mind and asked his composer for an original creation. Poledouris's theme for Doom consists of "energetic choral passages", chanted by the villain's followers to salute their leader and their actions in his name. The lyrics were composed in English and roughly translated into Latin; Poledouris was "more concerned about the way the Latin words sounded than with the sense they actually made." He set these words to a melody adapted from the 13th-century Gregorian hymn, Dies Irae
Dies Irae
Dies Irae is a thirteenth century Latin hymn thought to be written by Thomas of Celano . It is a medieval Latin poem characterized by its accentual stress and its rhymed lines. The metre is trochaic...
, which was chosen to "communicate the tragic aspects of the cruelty wrought by Thulsa Doom."
The film's music mostly conveys a sense of power, energy, and brutality, yet there are tender moments. The sounds of oboes and string instruments accompany Conan and Valeria's intimate scenes, imbuing them with a sense of lush romance and an emotional intensity. According to MacDonald, Poledouris deviated from the practice of scoring love scenes with tunes reminiscent of Romantic period
Romantic music
Romantic music or music in the Romantic Period is a musicological and artistic term referring to a particular period, theory, compositional practice, and canon in Western music history, from 1810 to 1900....
pieces; instead, Poledouris made Conan and Valeria's melancholic love theme unique through his use of "minor-key harmony". David Morgan, a film journalist, heard Eastern influences in the "lilting romantic melodies". Page Cook, audio critic for Films in Review, describes Conan the Barbarians score as "a large canvas daubed with a colorful yet highly sensitive brush. There is innate intelligence behind Poledouris's scheme, and the pinnacles reached are often eloquent with haunting intensity."
From late November 1981, Poledouris spent three weeks recording his score in Rome. He engaged a 90-instrument orchestra and a 24-member choir from Santa Cecilia
Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia
The Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia is one of the oldest musical institutions in the world, based in Italy.It is based at the Auditorium Parco della Musica in Rome, and was founded by the papal bull, Ratione congruit, issued by Sixtus V in 1585, which invoked two saints prominent in Western...
, and conducted them personally. The pieces of music were orchestrated
Orchestration
Orchestration is the study or practice of writing music for an orchestra or of adapting for orchestra music composed for another medium...
by Greg McRitchie, Poledouris's frequent collaborator. The chorus and orchestra were recorded separately. The 24 tracks of sound effects, music, and dialog were downmixed
Downmixing
Downmixing is a general term used for manipulating audio where a number of distinct audio channels are mixed together to produce a lower number of channels...
into a single-channel
Monaural
Monaural or monophonic sound reproduction is single-channel. Typically there is only one microphone, one loudspeaker, or channels are fed from a common signal path...
, making Conan the Barbarian the last film released by a major studio with a mono soundtrack. According to Poledouris, Raffaella De Laurentiis balked at the cost ($30,000) of a stereo
Stereophonic sound
The term Stereophonic, commonly called stereo, sound refers to any method of sound reproduction in which an attempt is made to create an illusion of directionality and audible perspective...
soundtrack and was worried over the paucity of theaters equipped with stereo sound systems.
Themes
The central theme in the film is the Riddle of Steel. At the start of the film, Conan's father tells his son to learn the secret of steel and to trust only it. Initially believing in the power of steel, Thulsa Doom raids Conan's village to steal the Master's sword. Subsequently, the story centers on Conan's quest to recover the weapon in which his father has told him to trust. Weaponry fetish is a device long established in literature; Carl James Grindley, an assistant professor of English, said ancient works such as HomerHomer
In the Western classical tradition Homer , is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature.When he lived is...
's Iliad
Iliad
The Iliad is an epic poem in dactylic hexameters, traditionally attributed to Homer. Set during the Trojan War, the ten-year siege of the city of Troy by a coalition of Greek states, it tells of the battles and events during the weeks of a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles...
, the Old English poem Beowulf
Beowulf
Beowulf , but modern scholars agree in naming it after the hero whose life is its subject." of an Old English heroic epic poem consisting of 3182 alliterative long lines, set in Scandinavia, commonly cited as one of the most important works of Anglo-Saxon literature.It survives in a single...
, and the 14th-century tale of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a late 14th-century Middle English alliterative romance outlining an adventure of Sir Gawain, a knight of King Arthur's Round Table. In the poem, Sir Gawain accepts a challenge from a mysterious warrior who is completely green, from his clothes and hair to his...
pay detailed attention to the arsenal of their heroes. Grindley further said that Conan the Barbarian, like most other contemporary action films, uses weapons as convenient plot devices rather than as symbols that mark the qualities of the hero. James Whitlark, an associate professor of English, said the Riddle of Steel makes the film's emphasis on the swords ironic; it gives the allusion that the weapons have powers of their own, but later reveals them to be useless and dependent on the strength of their wielders. In the later part of the film, Doom mocks steel, proclaiming the power of flesh to be stronger. When Conan recovers his father's sword, it is after he has broken it in the hands of Doom's lieutenant during their duel. According to Grindley, that moment—Conan's breaking of his father's sword—"[fulfills] a snickering spectrum of Oedipal conjecture" and asserts Homer's view that "the sword does not make the hero, but the hero makes the sword." The film, as Whitlark says, "offers a fantasy of human power raised beyond mortal limits." Passman agrees, stating the film suggests that the human mind and emotions are stronger than physical might.
Another established literary trope found in the plot of Conan the Barbarian is the concept of death, followed by a journey into the underworld, and rebirth. Donald E. Palumbo, the Language and Humanities Chair at Lorain County Community College
Lorain County Community College
Lorain County Community College is a community college located in the city of Elyria in Lorain County, Ohio, which is part of the Northeast Ohio region. It was visited by Barack Obama, the President of the United States, in January 2010....
, noted that like most other sword and sorcery films, Conan used the motif of underground journeys to reinforce the themes of death and rebirth. According to him, the first scene to involve all three is after Conan's liberation: his flight from wild dogs sends him tumbling into a tomb where he finds a sword that lets him cut off his chains and stand with new found power. In the later parts of the film, Conan experiences two underground journeys where death abounds: in the bowels of the Tower of Serpents where he has to fight a giant snake and in the depths of the Temple of Set where the cultists feast on human flesh while Doom transforms himself into a large serpent. Whereas Valeria dies and comes back from the dead (albeit briefly), Conan's ordeal from his crucifixion was symbolic. Although the barbarian's crucifixion might evoke Christian imagery, associations of the film with the religion are roundly rejected. Milius stated his film is full of pagan ideas, a sentiment supported by film critics such as Elley and Jack Kroll
Jack Kroll
John Kroll – known as Jack Kroll – was an award-winning Newsweek drama and film critic. His career spanned 37 years – more than half the publication's existence.-Biography:...
. George Aichele, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and Religion at Adrian College
Adrian College
Adrian College is a private, co-educational liberal arts college related to the United Methodist Church in the city of Adrian, Michigan.-Campus:The school is approximately a 45-minute drive from Ann Arbor and Toledo, Ohio, and 90 minutes from Detroit...
, suggested the filmmaker's intent with the crucifixion scene was pure marketing: to tease the audience with religious connotations. He, however, suggested that Conan's story can be viewed as an analogy of Christ's life and vice versa. Nigel Andrews, a film critic, saw any connections to Christianity related more to the making of the film.
Milius's concept of Conan the Barbarian as an opera was picked up by the critics; Elley and Huckvale saw connections to Wagner's operas. According to Huckvale, the film's opening sequence closely mirrors a sword forging scene in Siegfried
Siegfried (opera)
Siegfried is the third of the four operas that constitute Der Ring des Nibelungen , by Richard Wagner. It received its premiere at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus on 16 August 1876, as part of the first complete performance of The Ring...
. Conan's adventures and ordeals seem to be inspired by the trials of the opera's titular hero
Sigurd
Sigurd is a legendary hero of Norse mythology, as well as the central character in the Völsunga saga. The earliest extant representations for his legend come in pictorial form from seven runestones in Sweden and most notably the Ramsund carving Sigurd (Old Norse: Sigurðr) is a legendary hero of...
: witnessing his parents' deaths, growing up as a slave, and slaying a giant serpent—dragon. Furthermore, Schwarzenegger's appearance in the role of Conan evoked images of Siegfried, the role model of the "Aryan blonde beast", in the lecturer's mind. The notion of racial superiority, symbolized by this Aryan hero, was a criticism given by J. Hoberman
J. Hoberman
James Lewis Hoberman , also known as J. Hoberman, is an American film critic. He is currently the senior film critic for The Village Voice, a post he has held since 1988.-Education:...
and James Wolcott
James Wolcott
James Wolcott is an American journalist, known for his critique of contemporary media. Wolcott is the cultural critic for Vanity Fair and contributes to The New Yorker. He also writes a blog....
; they highlighted the film's Nietzschean epigraph and labeled its protagonist as Nietzsche's übermensch
Übermensch
The Übermensch is a concept in the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. Nietzsche posited the Übermensch as a goal for humanity to set for itself in his 1883 book Thus Spoke Zarathustra ....
. Ebert was disturbed by the depiction of a "Nordic superman confronting a black", in which the "muscular blond" slices off the black man's head and "contemptuously [throws it] down the flight of stairs". His sentiment was shared by Adam Roberts, an Arthurian scholar, who also said Conan was an exemplar of the sword and sorcery films of the early 1980s that were permeated in various degrees with fascist ideology. According to Roberts, the films were following the ideas and aesthetics laid down in Leni Riefenstahl
Leni Riefenstahl
Helene Bertha Amalie "Leni" Riefenstahl was a German film director, actress and dancer widely noted for her aesthetics and innovations as a filmmaker. Her most famous film was Triumph des Willens , a propaganda film made at the 1934 Nuremberg congress of the Nazi Party...
's directorial efforts for Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
. Roberts cautioned that any political readings into these sword and sorcery films with regards to fascism is subjective. Film critic Richard Dyer
Richard Dyer
Richard W. Dyer is an English academic specialising in cinema. As of 2006 he is Professor of Film Studies at King's College London. Previously he was at the University of Warwick...
said that such associations with Conan were inaccurate and influenced by misconceptions of Nietzschean philosophies, and scholars of philosophy said that the film industry has often misinterpreted the ideas behind the übermensch.
Conan is also seen as a product of its time: the themes of the film reflect the political climate of the United States in the 1980s. Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
was the country's president and the ideals of individualism
Individualism
Individualism is the moral stance, political philosophy, ideology, or social outlook that stresses "the moral worth of the individual". Individualists promote the exercise of one's goals and desires and so value independence and self-reliance while opposing most external interference upon one's own...
were promoted during his two terms in office. He stressed on the moral worth of the individual in his speeches, encouraging his fellow Americans to make the country successful and to stand up against the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Dr. Dave Saunders, a film writer and lecturer at South Essex College of Further and Higher Education, linked facets of Conan the Barbarian to aspects of Reaganism—the conservative ideology that surrounded the president's policies. Saunders likened Conan's quest against Doom to the Americans' crusades, his choice of weaponry—swords—to Reagan's and Milius's fondness of resisting the Soviets with only spirit and simple weapons, and Doom's base of operations to the Kremlin
Moscow Kremlin
The Moscow Kremlin , sometimes referred to as simply The Kremlin, is a historic fortified complex at the heart of Moscow, overlooking the Moskva River , Saint Basil's Cathedral and Red Square and the Alexander Garden...
. Conan, in Saunder's interpretation, is portrayed as the American hero who draws strength from his trials and tribulations to slay the evil oppressors—the Soviets—and crush their un-American ways. Kellner and his fellow academic Michael Ryan proposed another enemy for the American individual: an overly domineering federal government. The film's association with individualism was not confined to the United States; Jeffrey Richards, a cultural historian, noticed the film's popularity among the youths of the United Kingdom. Robin Wood
Robin Wood (critic)
Robert Paul "Robin" Wood was a Canada-based film critic and educator. He wrote books on Alfred Hitchcock, Howard Hawks, Ingmar Bergman, and Arthur Penn and was a member, until 2007, of the editorial collective that publishes the magazine CineACTION!, a film theory collective founded by Wood and...
, a film critic, suggests that in most cases, there is only a thin veneer between individualism and fascism; he also said that Conan is the only film in that era to dispense with the disguise, openly celebrating its fascist ideals in a manner that would delight Riefenstahl.
Sexual politics were also examined in thematic studies of the film. The feminist movement
Feminism
Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...
experienced a backlash during the opening years of the 1980s and action films then were helping to promote the notions of masculinity
Masculinity
Masculinity is possessing qualities or characteristics considered typical of or appropriate to a man. The term can be used to describe any human, animal or object that has the quality of being masculine...
. Women in these films were portrayed as whores, handmaidens, or warriors and clad in flesh-revealing outfits. Conan gave its male audience a manly hero that overcame all odds and adversity, delivering them a fantasy that offered escape from the invasion of radical "strong feminist women" in their lives. Renato Casaro's promotional artwork for the film's release in the United States presents a sexualized portrayal of the two main characters, Conan and Valeria. Scantily clad in costumes cut in the styles of underwear, they wear long boots and sport their hair loose. While Conan strides forth in the picture with his sword held high, Valeria "squats in an impossible pose with her leather body-suit [in the shape of a teddy] forming a dark shape between her thighs". According to Schubart, critics did not accept Valeria as a strong female figure, but viewed her as a "sexual spectacle"; to them, she was the traditional male warrior buddy in a sexy female body.
Release
In 1980, the producers began advertising to publicize the film. Teaser posters were put up in theaters across the United States. The posters reused Frazetta's artwork that was commissioned for the cover of Conan the Adventurer (1966). Laurentiis wanted Conan the Barbarian to start playing in cinemas at Christmas, 1981, but Universal executives requested further editing after they previewed a preliminary version of the film in August. A Hollywood insider said the executives were concerned about the film's portrayal of violence. The premiere was delayed until the following year so changes could be made. Many scenes were excised from Thulsa Doom's attack on Conan's village, including the close-up shots on the decapitated head of Conan's mother; the late notice of the changes forced Poledouris to quickly adjust his score before recording music for the sequence. Other scenes of violence that were cut included Subotai's slaying of a monster at the top of the Tower of Serpents and Conan chopping off a pickpocket's arm in a bazaar. Milius intended to show a 140-minute story; the final release ran 129 minutes. According to Cobb, the total production expenses approached $20 million by the time the film was released.The United States' public were offered a sneak preview on February 19, 1982, in Houston, Texas. In the following month, previews were held in 30 cities across the country. In Washington D.C., the mass of moviegoers formed long lines that spanned streets, causing traffic jams. Tickets were quickly sold out in Denver, and 1,000 people had to be turned away in Houston. The majority of those in the lines were male; a moviegoer in Los Angeles said, "The audience was mostly white, clean-cut and high-school or college age. It was not the punk or heavy-leather crowd, but an awful lot of them had bulging muscles." On March 16, Conan the Barbarian had its worldwide premiere
Premiere
A premiere is generally "a first performance". This can refer to plays, films, television programs, operas, symphonies, ballets and so on. Premieres for theatrical, musical and other cultural presentations can become extravagant affairs, attracting large numbers of socialites and much media...
at Fotogramas de Plata, an annual cinema awards ceremony in Madrid, and began its general release
Film release
A film release is the stage at which a completed film is legally authorized by its owner for public distribution.The process includes locating a distributor to handle the film...
in Spain and France a month later. Twentieth Century Fox
20th Century Fox
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation — also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox — is one of the six major American film studios...
handled the foreign distribution of the film. Universal originally scheduled Conans official release in the United States for the weekend before Memorial Day
Memorial Day
Memorial Day is a United States federal holiday observed on the last Monday of May. Formerly known as Decoration Day, it originated after the American Civil War to commemorate the fallen Union soldiers of the Civil War...
—the start of the film industry's summer season when schools close for a month-long holiday. To avoid competition with other big-budget, high-profile films, the studio advanced the release of Conan the Barbarian and on May 14, 1982, the film officially opened in 1,400 theaters across North America.
Critical response
The media's reactions toward Conan were polarized. Aspects of the film heavily criticized by one side were regarded in a positive light by the other; Professor Gunden pointed out that "for every positive review the film garnered, it received two negative ones." The opinions of Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-TimesChicago Sun-Times
The Chicago Sun-Times is an American daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois. It is the flagship paper of the Sun-Times Media Group.-History:The Chicago Sun-Times is the oldest continuously published daily newspaper in the city...
and Richard Schickel
Richard Schickel
Richard Warren Schickel is an American author, journalist, and documentary filmmaker. He is a film critic for Time magazine, having also written for Life magazine and the Los Angeles Times Book Review....
of Time
Time
Time is a part of the measuring system used to sequence events, to compare the durations of events and the intervals between them, and to quantify rates of change such as the motions of objects....
magazine illustrate their colleagues' divided views. Ebert called Conan the Barbarian "a perfect fantasy for the alienated preadolescent" whereas Schickel said, "Conan is a sort of psychopathic Star Wars, stupid and stupefying."
At the time Conan was released, the media were inclined to condemn Hollywood's portrayals of violence; typical action films showed the hero attaining his goals by killing all who stood in his way. Conan was particularly condemned for its violent scenes, which Newsweek
Newsweek
Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
s Jack Kroll called "cheerless and styleless". In one of his articles for the San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...
, Stu Schreiberg counted 50 people killed in various scenes. Other film critics differed over the film's portrayal of violence. David Denby
David Denby (film critic)
David Denby is an American journalist, best known as a film critic for The New Yorker magazine.-Background and education:Denby grew up in New York City. He received a B.A...
wrote in his review for New York
New York (magazine)
New York is a weekly magazine principally concerned with the life, culture, politics, and style of New York City. Founded by Milton Glaser and Clay Felker in 1968 as a competitor to The New Yorker, it was brasher and less polite than that magazine, and established itself as a cradle of New...
magazine that the action scenes were one of the film's few positive features; however, exciting as the scenes were, those such as the decapitation of Conan's mother seemed inane. On the other hand, Vincent Canby
Vincent Canby
Vincent Canby was an American film critic who became the chief film critic for The New York Times in 1969 and reviewed more than 1000 films during his tenure there.-Life and career:...
, Carlos Clarens
Carlos Clarens
Carlos Clarens was a film historian and writer on the cinema particularly noted for his sensitive, pioneering Illustrated History of the Horror Film...
, and Pascal Mérigeau were unanimous in their opinion that the film's depicted violence failed to meet their expectations: the film's pacing and Howard's stories suggested more gory material. According to Paul Sammon, Milius's cuts to assuage concerns over the violence made the scenes "cartoon-like".
Comparison with the source material also produced varying reactions among the critics. Danny Peary and Schickel expected a film based on pulp stories and comic books to be light-hearted or corny, and Milius's introduction of Nietzschean themes and ideology did not sit well with them. Others were not impressed with Milius's handling of his ideas; James Wolcott called it heavy-handed and Kroll said the material lacked substance in its implementation. The themes of individualism and paganism, however, resonated with many in the audience; the concept of a warrior who relies only on his own prowess and will to conquer the obstacles in his way found favor with young males. Wolcott wrote in Texas Monthly
Texas Monthly
Texas Monthly is a monthly American magazine headquartered in Austin, Texas. Texas Monthly is published by Emmis Publishing, L.P. and was founded in 1973 by Michael R. Levy, Texas Monthly chronicles life in contemporary Texas, writing on politics, the environment, industry, and education...
that these themes appeal to "98-pound weaklings who want to kick sand into bullies' faces and win the panting adoration of a well-oiled beach bunny". Kroll's opinion was that the audience loved the violence and carnage but were cynical about the "philosophical bombast." While popular with audiences, the theatrical treatment of the barbarian was rejected by hardcore fans and scholars of Howard's stories. A particular point of contention was the film's version of Conan's origin, which is at odds with Howard's hints about the character's youth. Their point of view is supported by Kerry Brougher, but Derek Elley, Clarens, and Sammon said Milius was faithful to the ideology behind Howard's work.
Arnold Schwarzenegger's performance was frequently mentioned in the critiques. Clarens, Peary, Gunden and Nigel Andrews were among those who gave positive assessments of the former bodybuilder's acting: to them, he was physically convincing as the barbarian in his body movements and appearance. Andrews added that Schwarzenegger exuded a certain charm—with his accent mangling his dialog—that made the film appealing to his fans. Fanfares Royal S. Brown disagreed and was grateful that the actor's dialog amounted to "2 pages of typescript." Schickel summed up Schwarzenegger's acting as "flat", while Knoll was more verbose, characterizing the actor's portrayal as "a dull clod with a sharp sword, a human collage of pectorals and latissimi who's got less style and wit than Lassie." While Sandahl Bergman earned acclaim for injecting grace and dynamism into the film, the film's more experienced thespians were not spared criticisms. Gunden said von Sydow showed little dedication to his role, and Clarens judged Jones's portrayal of Thulsa Doom to be worse than camp. Brougher faulted none of the actors for their performances, laying the blame on Milius's script instead.
Box office and other media
According to Rentrak Theatrical, a firm of media analysts, Conan debuted at the top spot at the US box office, taking $9,479,373 over the opening weekend. Rentrak's data on Conan covered 8 weeks after the film's release; during that period, Conan grossed $38,513,085 at the box office in the United States. Universal Pictures received $22.5 million after deducting the amounts due to the cinema owners. This sum—the rental—was more than the money Universal had invested in making the film, thus qualifying Conan as a commercial success; any further income from the film was pure profit for the studio. Marian Christy, interviewer for the Boston GlobeThe Boston Globe
The Boston Globe is an American daily newspaper based in Boston, Massachusetts. The Boston Globe has been owned by The New York Times Company since 1993...
, mentioned that the film was a box office success in Europe and Japan as well. Worldwide, Conan the Barbarian grossed more than $100 million in ticket sales.
David A. Cook, Professor of Film Studies at Emory University
Emory University
Emory University is a private research university in metropolitan Atlanta, located in the Druid Hills section of unincorporated DeKalb County, Georgia, United States. The university was founded as Emory College in 1836 in Oxford, Georgia by a small group of Methodists and was named in honor of...
, wrote that Conans North American performance fell short of the amount returned by blockbusters
Blockbuster (entertainment)
Blockbuster, as applied to film or theatre, denotes a very popular or successful production. The entertainment industry use was originally theatrical slang referring to a particularly successful play but is now used primarily by the film industry...
; the rentals of such films from their release in the continent were supposed to be least $50 million. Conans rental was the thirteenth highest for 1982 and when combined with those for E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial is a 1982 American science fiction film co-produced and directed by Steven Spielberg, written by Melissa Mathison and starring Henry Thomas, Dee Wallace, Robert MacNaughton, Drew Barrymore, and Peter Coyote...
(the most successful film in that year with a rental of $187 million), On Golden Pond
On Golden Pond (1981 film)
On Golden Pond is a 1981 American drama film directed by Mark Rydell. The screenplay by Ernest Thompson was adapted from his 1979 play of the same title. Henry Fonda won the Academy Award in what was his final film role. Co-star Katharine Hepburn also received an Oscar, as did Thompson for his...
, and The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas
The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (film)
The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas is a 1982 film adaptation of the musical of the same name released by Universal Pictures, which was co-written and directed by Colin Higgins...
—all distributed by Universal Pictures—constituted 30 percent of the year's total film rental. According to Arthur D. Murphy, a film-industry analyst, it was the first time that a single distributor captured such a substantial share of the film market.
The videocassette version of the film was released on October 2, 1982. Sales and rental figures of the videocassette were high; from its launch, the title was listed in Billboards Videocassette Top 40 (Sales and Rental categories) for 23 weeks. According to Sammon, sales of the film through frequent home video
Home video
Home video is a blanket term used for pre-recorded media that is either sold or rented/hired for home cinema entertainment. The term originates from the VHS/Betamax era but has carried over into current optical disc formats like DVD and Blu-ray Disc and, to a lesser extent, into methods of digital...
releases increased the film's gross earnings to more than $300 million by 2007. Conan the Barbarian was novelized
Conan the Barbarian (novel)
Conan the Barbarian is a 1982 fantasy novel written by L. Sprague de Camp, Lin Carter and Catherine Crook de Camp featuring Robert E. Howard's seminal sword and sorcery hero Conan the Barbarian, a novelization of the feature film of the same name. It was first published in paperback by Bantam Books...
by Lin Carter and the de Camps (L. Sprague and his wife, Catherine). It was also adapted by Marvel in comic form; scripted by Michael Fleisher
Michael Fleisher
Michael L. "Mike" Fleisher is an American writer known for his DC Comics of the 1970s and 1980s, particularly for the characters the Spectre and Jonah Hex.-Early life and career:...
, the comic was one of the rarest paperbacks published by the company.
Accolades
Conan the Barbarian did not receive any film awards, but the Hollywood Foreign Press AssociationHollywood Foreign Press Association
The Hollywood Foreign Press Association is an organization composed of working journalists who cover the United States film industry for a variety of outlets, including newspapers and magazines in Europe, Asia, Australia and Latin America. Today, the 90 members of the HFPA represent at least 55...
noted Bergman's performance as Valeria and awarded her a Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year—Actress. Poledouris's score was judged by Films in Reviews Page Cook as the second best sound track of the films released in 1982 and nominated by the American Film Institute
American Film Institute
The American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act...
(AFI) for its 100 Years of Film Scores
AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores
Part of the AFI 100 Years… series, AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores is a list of the top 25 film scores in American cinema. The list was unveiled by the American Film Institute in 2005.-The List:-External links:**...
in 2005. The film was one of the nominees for AFI's Top 10 Fantasy Films
AFI's 10 Top 10
AFI's 10 Top 10 honors the ten greatest American films in ten classic film genres. Presented by the American Film Institute , the lists were unveiled on a television special broadcast by CBS on June 17, 2008....
in 2008 and its protagonist similarly nominated for AFI's 100 Heroes and Villains in 2003.
Legacy and impact
Whereas most comic book and pulp adaptations were box office failures in the 1980s, Conan the Barbarian was one of the few that made a profit. According to Sammon, it became the standard against which sword and sorcery films were measured until the debut of Peter JacksonPeter Jackson
Sir Peter Robert Jackson, KNZM is a New Zealand film director, producer, actor, and screenwriter, known for his The Lord of the Rings film trilogy , adapted from the novel by J. R. R...
's The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring in 2001; several contemporary films of the same genre were judged by critics to be clones of Conan, such as The Beastmaster
The Beastmaster (film)
The Beastmaster is 1982 fantasy film directed by Don Coscarelli that starred Marc Singer, Tanya Roberts, John Amos and Rip Torn. The film was marketed with the tagline "Born with the courage of an eagle, the strength of a black tiger, and the power of a god."-Summary:The Beastmaster tells the story...
(1982). Conans success inspired low-budget copycats, such as Ator, the Fighting Eagle (1982) and Deathstalker
Deathstalker (film)
Deathstalker is a 1983 Argentine low-budget science fiction fantasy film adventure directed by James Sbardellati.-Plot:The warrior Deathstalker is sent by a witch on a quest to find a chalice, an amulet, and a sword, two of which are held by the wicked sorcerer Munkar. Deathstalker finds the sword...
(1983). Its sequel, Conan the Destroyer
Conan the Destroyer
Conan the Destroyer is a 1984 American action fantasy film directed by Richard Fleischer, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Mako returning to resume their roles as Conan and Akiro the wizard, respectively. The cast also includes Grace Jones, Wilt Chamberlain, Tracey Walter and Olivia d'Abo. It is...
, was produced and released in 1984; only a few of those involved in the first film, such as Schwarzenegger, Mako, and Poledouris, returned. Later big- and small-screen adaptations of Robert E. Howard's stories were considered by Sammon to be inferior to the film that started the trend. A spinoff from Conan was a 20-minute live-action show, The Adventures of Conan: A Sword and Sorcery Spectacular
The Adventures of Conan: A Sword and Sorcery Spectacular
The Adventures of Conan: A Sword and Sorcery Spectacular was an attraction at Universal Studios Hollywood that ran from 1983 to 1993. It was a 20-minute live-action stage show, similar to the theme park's other "action spectaculars," that took place in an indoor theater and was loosely based on the...
, that ran from 1983 to 1993 at Universal Studios Hollywood
Universal Studios Hollywood
Universal Studios Hollywood is a movie studio and theme park in the unincorporated Universal City community of Los Angeles County, California, United States. It is one of the oldest and most famous Hollywood movie studios still in use...
. Produced at a cost of $5 million, the show featured action scenes executed to music composed by Poledouris. The show's highlights were pyrotechnics, lasers, and an 18 feet (5.5 m) tall animatronic
Animatronics
Animatronics is the use of mechatronics to create machines which seem animate rather than robotic. Animatronic creations include animals , plants and even mythical creatures...
dragon that breathed fire.
Several of those involved in the film reaped short-term benefits. Sandahl Bergman's Golden Globe for her role as Valeria marks her greatest achievement in the film industry; her later roles failed to gain her further recognition. Dino De Laurentiis had produced a string of box office failures since the success of King Kong
King Kong (1976 film)
King Kong is a 1976 American monster movie produced by Dino De Laurentiis and directed by John Guillermin. It is a remake of the 1933 classic film of the same name, about a giant ape that is captured and imported to New York City for exhibition....
in 1976; it appeared Conan the Barbarian might be a turning point in his fortunes. The sequel was also profitable, but many of Laurentiis' later big-budget projects did not recoup their production costs and he was forced to declare bankruptcy in 1988. For John Milius, Conan the Barbarian is his "biggest directorial success" to date; his subsequent endeavors failed to equal its success and popularity.
Pressman did not receive any money from Conans box office takings, but he sold the film rights for the Conan franchise to Laurentiis for $4.5 million and 10 percent of the gross of any sequel to Conan the Barbarian. The sale more than paid off his company's debts incurred from producing Old Boyfriends, saving him from financial ruin; Pressman said this deal "made [him] more money by selling out, by not making a movie, than [he] ever have made by making one." He also arranged for Mattel
Mattel
Mattel, Inc. is the world's largest toy company based on revenue. The products it produces include Fisher Price, Barbie dolls, Hot Wheels and Matchbox toys, Masters of the Universe, American Girl dolls, board games, and, in the early 1980s, video game consoles. The company's name is derived from...
to obtain the rights to produce a range of toys for the film. Although the toy company abandoned the license after its executives decided Conan was "too violent" for children, Pressman convinced them to let him produce a film based on their new Masters of the Universe
Masters of the Universe
Masters of the Universe is a media franchise created by Mattel....
toy line. The eponymous film
Masters of the Universe (film)
Masters of the Universe is a 1987 science-fiction fantasy film based on the toy line by the same name. The movie stars Dolph Lundgren as He-Man and Frank Langella as Skeletor...
cost $20 million to produce and grossed $17 million at the United States box office in 1987.
Those who benefited most from the project were Basil Poledouris and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Poledouris's reputation in the film industry increased with the critical acclaim his score received; MacDonald noted Poledouris's work on Conan as "one of the most spectacular film music achievements of the decade", and Page Cook named it as the only reason to watch the film and as the second best film sound track (after E.T.s) for 1982. After hearing Conans music, Paul Verhoeven engaged Poledouris to score his films, Flesh and Blood
Flesh & Blood (film)
Flesh & Blood is a 1985 film directed by Paul Verhoeven. It is set in the year 1501 in Italy, and follows a group of mercenaries as they loot, rape and kill....
(1985) and RoboCop
RoboCop
RoboCop is a 1987 American science fiction-action film directed by Paul Verhoeven. Set in a crime-ridden Detroit, Michigan in the near future, RoboCop centers on a police officer who is brutally murdered and subsequently re-created as a super-human cyborg known as "RoboCop"...
(1987). The music in Verhoeven's Total Recall
Total Recall
Total Recall is a 1990 American science fiction action film. The film stars Arnold Schwarzenegger, Rachel Ticotin, Sharon Stone, Michael Ironside, Ronny Cox & Mel Johnson, Jr.. It is based on the Philip K. Dick story “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale”...
(1990) also bore the influence of Conans score; its composer, Jerry Goldsmith
Jerry Goldsmith
Jerrald King Goldsmith was an American composer and conductor most known for his work in film and television scoring....
, used Poledouris's work as the model for his compositions.
Conan brought Schwarzenegger worldwide recognition as an action star and established the model for most of his film roles: "icy, brawny, and inexpressive—yet somehow endearing." The image of him as the barbarian was an enduring one; when he campaigned for George H. W. Bush
George H. W. Bush
George Herbert Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 41st President of the United States . He had previously served as the 43rd Vice President of the United States , a congressman, an ambassador, and Director of Central Intelligence.Bush was born in Milton, Massachusetts, to...
to be president, he was introduced as "Conan the Republican"—a moniker that stuck with him throughout his political career and was often repeated by the media during his term as Governor of California. Schwarzenegger was aware of the benefits the film had brought to him, acknowledging the role of Conan as "God's gift to [his] career." He embraced the image: when he was Governor of California, he displayed his copy of the Atlantean sword in his office, occasionally flourishing the weapon at visitors and letting them play with it. More than once, he spiced up his speeches with Conan's "crush your enemies, see them driven before you and hear the lamentations of their women".