Battle of the Amazons (1973)

This movie is the proof that the world is becoming a sick and dumb place

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

Craptastic madness that brings the swords and sandals genre into the seventies (i.e just the same only with more nudity and gore) and adds a slightly feminist angle. That's feminist in an Italian sense, where a bunch of strong willed, independent women oppress a bunch of weak willed men, only mostly with their boobs hanging out and some of them being lesbians and what not. These amazons are being a pain in the arse to all and sundry, and first we see them a bunch of then have captured hunky bandit Zeno making out with one of their own. After cutting off one of their arms, he gets himself enslaved with the added bonus of having to watch his girl get impaled on some spikes during one of the amazonians demented rituals. It's not a surprise that first chance he gets, he throws a scorpion down the back of an amazon's neck and legs it. After nearly dying in the forest, he's saved by a strong headed but fairly conservative village girl whose village is constantly being invaded by these blobstrop-suffering murder-junkies. Of course, Zeno gets roped into teaching the villagers how to fight back, but not before all his mates sexually harass and nearly rape the village girl. Feminism indeed!These villagers are barely worth saving to be honest. A few of them, including a guy who thinks he's going to marry village girl, don't want to fight the amazons and just want to hide every time they come rolling through the village with their hilarious war cry. They even get the chief of the tribe killed when he tries this approach. Others, mainly women, want to get stuck in and fight back, but even one of them is a planted traitor! Zeno would be better off just heading for the hills and forgetting about it to be honest, but then he has a naked horseback ride with the village girl, in slow motion, and that changes all that.Even with all the fake sex, amazon murder sprees and subsequent orgies with non-murdered new slaves, endless scenes of training and treachery, the main part of the film is the actual battle. Now, there's some sort of premise about a god the amazons worship that causes them to don masks while heading into battle, but seriously, this is just a ploy to cover for the fact that during the big battle, the amazons are all played by stuntmen! Add to this insanity (they don't even pad the men out) the bonus of everyone jumping at each other from hidden trampolines and screaming in a bizarre voice and you can't help but enjoy it. Well, I did anyway. I'm not sure Julie Burchill would.Alfonso also stuffs the film full of stupid dialogue just to fill the atmosphere with more crapness. I wonder why they bothered having Frank Bana there? He just kind of stood around.

An extremely bad movie about warrior women which still manages to entertain from the sheer absurdity of it all. That, and a couple of the fight scenes are pretty good too, especially the huge, long-expected battle at the end which very nearly lives up to expectations. Sure, a lot of Italian cinema is stylish, magnificent stuff, but they also made their fair share of clunkers. Alfonso Brescia's movie is hindered by exceptionally bad dubbing, acting, photography, choreography, lack of script, you name it...it's a wonder that this film is watchable at all.Things begin horribly with a really cheesy scene of a man and a woman riding towards each other on horseback in slow motion. What follows is a story involving capture, escape, torture, and eventually betrayal and warfare. This is bad stuff through and through, and bad movie fans will no doubt get a kick out of watching it. The best thing that I can say is that there's a lot of action, so it never becomes too boring. Sadly the majority of the action scenes take place in the dark, so it's impossible to see what's going on. Copious use of day-for-night filming also makes this film look very poor. Forget about any luscious woodland locations - it looks like this film was shot in a copse somewhere, and picturesque is far from the word to describe this disappointing, dirty-looking locale.The music is cheesy and horrible, the acting highly amateurish from most of the cast, with only one or two of the leads showing any professionalism whatsoever. Lincoln Tate is okay as the hero, and Lucretia Love (impossible to believe that this is her real name) as the heroine, but that's about it. The dubbing is highly amusing and over the top as usual, packed with funny lines like "murdering bunch of bitches". The Amazons' battle cry sounds like "hahohi-i-i-i-i-i!!" and is really cheesy! Despite being a film about strong, powerful women this still manages to be extremely sexist, with one scene involving a lady almost being raped incredibly played for laughs! As I mentioned, the action scenes are all right and worth watching, especially the huge battle at the end which is where all the budget apparently went. There's a definite martial arts influence with lots of flying kicks, headbutts and punches going on. The gore is minimal but there are a few cool scenes of people being repeatedly speared and stabbed. Most incredibly of all, though, are the many mistakes which are easy to spot while watching. For instance, actresses change parts in one scene, noticeably by their hair colour changing! Also, in the film's major battle at the end, it's pretty obvious that the Amazons are actually played by men. Three factors give it away; a) they wear masks to disguise their faces all of a sudden, b) they're muscular, and c) they've got hairy arms and legs. It makes for very surreal entertainment, that's for sure. Although a terrible film in most respects, BEAUTY OF THE BARBARIAN is a forgotten epic to be sought out by bad-film connoisseurs...if they can be bothered.

Coming ten years after the heyday of the sword and sandal epics, Battle of the Amazons adds two ingredients to the well established recipe: bared breasts and a modicum of bloodshed. Otherwise, this is a standard if watchable effort, unimaginatively directed by Alfonso Brescia and burdened by the obvious use of male stunt actors in the place of women during the climatic battle sequence. Produced at the height of the Women's Liberation movement, Battle of the Amazons is a call to arms for men (and their loyal wives) threatened by feminism. Eurovista's DVD utilizes a reasonably worn English language print but is thankfully in widescreen format, and extras include a very worn, full frame theatrical trailer and a TV teaser in much better condition.

In the past numerous films relating to either mythological or scientifically fictional themes have been successfully produced to offer audiences entertainment, amusement, and an opportunity to momentarily escape from daily reality. No matter how scientifically false, or mythologically amusing a film's premise may be, viewers have always discovered hours of relaxation associated with a fine production. Sadly, however, this is not the case with Amazzoni: donne d'amore e di guerra. An actor's (or actress's) ability to act obviously appeared to be a rather low priority with this film. Therefore, actors "acted" as though a primary school instructor held them at bay with a ruler until each child recited his lines for the following day's school play. Furthermore, it was intolerably obvious to those of us who managed to sit somewhat patiently until the conclusion of this film that numerous women's roles (i.e. those parts demanding feats of strength or masculine agility) were most apparently played by men; in other words, little time, thought, and effort were given for the proper and realistic disguise of men (assuming the parts of Amazons) to have them appear somewhat like women. Thirdly, a poorly conceived storyline seemed to have been concocted only to serve as an excuse for provocatively-clad, physically well-built, attractive women to appear on the wide screen. (Yet, I suppose if the acting had been a bit more plausible, and a director interested more in directing than in "misdirecting" had been employed, the plot of this miserably produced film may have actually become more comprehensible and possibly even appreciated.) On a scale of one to ten I gave this film a three merely because certain battle scenes appeared to have some degree of plausibility. Otherwise, I believe most of us might possibly prefer the childish acting of a primary school play; at least children in the elementary school grades are expected to act childish. Childish , horrendous acting on the part of actors (and actresses) in this film is inexcuable.