Thor and the Amazon Women (1963)

Yo, there's no way for me to review this film without saying, take your *insert ethnicity + "ass" here* to see this film,like now. You have to see it in order to know what you're really messing with.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

Both the Italian ("Le Gladiatrici") and the American ("Thor And The Amazon Women") titles sound like they can't miss, but they do. This film does deserve credit for being one of the earliest films featuring female gladiators, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired. The entire premise doesn't make much sense: why would this matriarchical society purposely kill off so many of its finest female warriors? Might be of interest to some: Harry Baird's impressive muscle display in one scene. * out of 4.

This movie is confused and misleading. At the very beginning you are treated to a little ditty about "the God of Thunder, Mighty Thor"! The song was actually Thor's theme song in an early attempt to animate the old Marvel comic book characters. They were shown on TV after school back in the '60's! How it wound up attached to this mess is beyond me, but it does illustrate how misleading the movie is. The Thor in this picture is NOT the God of Thunder. He's just some steroid junkie with blonde hair and the name. At no point during this flick is any attempt made to connect him to the old Norse legends. He's just a strong guy. A strong, mostly incompetent guy. Now, seeing as the title of the movie has Thor in it, you might expect that the story would be about him, but you'd be wrong! As has been pointed out in some of the other reviews, Thor actually has little screen time. The film is mostly concerned with the trials and tribulations of Tamar, who has been captured by the Amazons and will soon have to fight for her life in the arena. So, right from the outset, this movie misleads you twice. I doubt this was an accident. What to say about this flick? considering that the Italians invented this film genre you would expect it to be much better than it is. The men are portrayed as buffoons while the women are basically ruthless and brutal. There's really not much of a storyline and so, in order to pad out the film to its 84 minute length, the director treats us to lots of clumsily staged battles- to-the- death between the slave women. There is a lot of killing in this movie. Some of the slave girls choose to disembowel themselves rather than slay one of their comrades. At one point we're shown a shot of a pile of dead slave girls, all of whom were slain in the arena in one afternoon of sport! As you might surmise, this movie is actually kind of dark for a 60's sword and sandal flick, which makes the scenes with Thor and his African companion all the more incongruous. Many of their scenes are played for laughs in a broad slapstick manner. One minute a slave girl is running herself through with a sword, and the next Thor and Ramalamatutu, or whatever his name is, are doing schtick! I was wondering if they were going to break into "Who's On First" sometimes. The movie delivers all of the girl fights you could possibly desire, but if you're looking for the ultra-buff hero to pull down a temple or toss giant statues around like they were made of cardboard, you're going to be very disappointed. The only feat of strength that Thor pulls off in the whole film is beating 101 Amazons in a game of tug-of-war. Somehow this is all that is required to bring the Amazon Empire crashing down. Oh brother!I downloaded this movie off of one of the free public domain movie websites. As I state in the title of this review, there's a reason why nobody has held on to the rights to this flick. By today's standards it has the potential to be seen as extremely offensive. Thor's black chum spends most of his time addressing him as "master". I'm surprised he doesn't play the banjo too. The worst offense, however, is contained in the working premise of the story. you see, The Amazons are bad because they want to subjugate men. Tamar and the good women in the film all realize that women are supposed to be subservient to men. As Tamar herself explains, that's how Nature wants it to be. Given how goofy the men act in this little cowpile of a film it's kind of surprising that she didn't go over to the Amazon queen's way of thinking.

Or should the summary be delightfully dreadful drek?I would recommend this with certain caveats. Seen years ago with the local Sci-Fi group on Bad Movie Night, this sophomoric effort of a jaw dropping galacticly gaping yawn of a YAHM (Yet Another Hercules Movie) was astoundingly amusing due to the rapid fire quips, comments, puns, & imaginative invented subtext. The script/dialog & plot are entirely forgettable which, juxtaposed (w/a nod at T&A) by minimal female costuming along with burgeoning beefcake exposure, results in any attempt at good, much less excellent, acting a forlorn forgone conclusion. The rough low budget charm of Attack of the Killer Tomatoes and the wondrously sad editing (police car leaving station at night cutting to completely different police car in rapid transit down road in daylight cutting to original police car arriving at destination at night) and props (wiggling of cardboard "head stone" in graveyard as cape brushes over it) of Plan 9 from Outer Space are entirely missing. Missing also is any value as a stream of consciousness Psych and Sociology Prof Fodder audience endurance test such as Erasurehead. The entirely forgettable character of Uber-Tattoo (de pain, de pain)… er... Uber-Tanto (heap bad medicine, Kimosabi)… er... Ubaratutu has no real redeeming character traits or anything of value to support interest or this movie. Just further evidence of a lack of any talent or skill by the writer(s) of this sad effort totally negating any scope or expanse for an actor to work completely hobbling the characters.Unless in a very open and receptive frame of mind with a view toward enjoying the obvious lack of energy between characters, you will leave the video store upon returning the movie muttering, "What was my motivation?" (which I would imagine the actors would echo once the project was over, they saw the completed product, and they received their paycheck).Further comment would be redundant given previous reviews so would rather recommend viewing this schlock w/a group forewarned and ready for fun. Solo viewing isn't recommended unless in the proper frame of mind (out of body?).

Having just viewed this god awful movie I cannot go on without a comment. As a long term fan of sword and sandal movies I try to hunt down just about everything from that era, however this is the first time I have had to watch it bit by bit, yes it's so bad it's hilarious. Our hero Thor, a real bad acting performance from British actor Joe Robinson see's him up against Amazonian women who rule the land with an iron fist enslaving men and even having their own female gladiators to kill each other in the arena. From the very start it is quite clear that the writers of this nonsense must have came straight from a school play. Our hero Thor lives in a neat little underground cave with his black "servant", homo erotic overtones by the score when he gives his master an err...massage to sort his bad shoulder you know you are in for some fun, the servant...what ever his name is!, is portrayed as a bungling oaf and with the silly music that accompany's him is all there to see just how degrading it is, I will refrain from going over the plot but you really must see some of these scene's for yourselves, the first one is when Thor is discovered by the Amazon women and the line is "we are here to capture you Thor and take you back" or when his servant is captured by the queen who is luckily for him is also black puts him on a revolving pedestal and tells him to flex his muscles all over his body, she is so smitten by him in an instant he has some sort of African garb on and is to be her husband and king, the ensuing fight between him and Thor who is trying to change his mind on this is utterly hilarious.This movie makes greats like Santa Clause Conquers The Martians and Plan 9 From Outer Space like cinema masterpieces!.