Posts Tagged ‘Ator’

Iron Warrior aka Ator: The Iron Warrior aka Ator 3 (1987)

Posted: 12/10/2017 in Trash movies
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The last film of the Ator trilogy (things  get a bit complicated so it can also be considered a third of the quatrology) Ator: The Iron Warrior is what I would consider the most mind boggling of the bunch. While first two films: Ator The Fighting Eagle and Ator: Blade Master  were relatively straight Italo-Sword and Sorcery films (made by Joe D’Amato  just in time to cash in on the whole Conan The Barbarian craze of the 80’s).

D’Amato being a true cinema exploitator in heart  gave up on the further sequels when he found out there will be no Conan 3. So, the third Ator was instead directed by Alfonso Brescia (under the pen name Al Bradley) who changed the direction of the franchise into a more art house and psychedelic territory- sometimes to it’s own detriment.

 

 

Film begins with young Ator playing with his twin brother Trogar (this of course completely contradicts the story of him being adopted as a baby). Trogar ends up kidnapped by an evil redhead witch Phaedra. Now, next thing we know Phaedra ends up imprisoned for her crimes (I’m guessing not just the kidnapping because they sentence her to 18 years).  Also sorcerers hold her in a hula-hoop shape prison while they announce their verdict. I guess magic hula- hoop is the only way to contain a powerful witch (you learn something new every day).

This looks suspiciously like a 80’s synth- pop video!

Now, from the exchange between Phaedra and the good witch Deeva (black lady with a giant hair, previously seen in The New Barbarians) we learn that one of the twins was prophesied to protect the future of newborn princess Janna (so Sleeping Beauty kind of a deal?)  Anyway, 18 years later Phaedra returns without an ability to kill but with a mysterious warrior dressed in red and black with a metallic skull mask to do her biding. Who could that be? I wonder…

Once released Phaedra‘s fist order of business is to destroy the life of the young princes (Savina Gersak, a famous Yugoslav actress at a time) as much as she can. I also noticed that princess has one eyebrow colored in red– I guess that was the style at a time? She starts by making a scene in the court and the princess even treats her kindly! That doesn’t really stop her thou. Iron Warrior makes an epic entrance and starts destroying everything and everyone on his way. Princess somehow manages to run away but the King ends up speared six ways ’till Sunday.

 

 

Ator ( now with a darker and braided hair and wearing something that looks like a medieval version of a Mad Max costume) aimlessly wandering the lands  finds Princess Janna and saves her form the evil dwarf- like creatures  and confronts the mysterious Iron Warrior for the first time. Fight ends in a draw.  He decides to help Janna defeat Pheodra and regain her rightful place in the kingdom. Phaedra keeps performing her tricks like placing an impostor claiming to be Janna’s father, the deceased King or trapping them in a haunted castle.

I especially like the part when he throws a spear at him, and he catches it and throws it back…

Eventually Ator and Janna manage to find sorceress Deeva in her cave and she sends them to an island that has risen from the waves. There they must locate a gold chest, but Phaedra tricks Deeva, imprisons her and  then takes her place. Two of them don’t really figure out the switcheroo, at least not in time.  When Ator finally figures out that something is terribly wrong he goes on offensive and kills almost the whole army of the Kingdom. Witch just keeps pranking him and after his mighty sword proves ineffectual he decides to switch things up and sticks a torch in her mouth!? Didn’t see that one coming!

Take that you evil witch!

Now, when it seems that he finally saved the day Ator frees Princess Janna (yes, she has a habit of being captured all the time ), and she hugs him but then she does that evil stare into the camera, like she is possessed or something. That kind of faux- horror ending just seems out of place in a story like this.

She’s evil, EVIL!

Verdict: Now what Brescia does manage to achieve is the strange dreamlike atmosphere that is omnipresent in the whole movie . And it’s usage of strange angles and  frequent use of  slowmotion are somewhat ahead of time. Unfortunately, bizarre editing will often leave you scratching your head wandering what the hell just happened so any moments of actual excitement are few and far between.

Aftermath: D’Amato was by all accounts displeased how Ator 3 turned out and he publicly said that he doesn’t consider it a part of the series. So he personally took back reigns with the Ator 4 aka Son of Ator aka  Quest for the Mighty Sword and that movie is fascinating story all by itself. Noted for the absence of series lead Milles O’Keefe (replaced by his “son”, burly Eric Allan Kramer) but also for it’s usage of a Hobgoblin costume taken directly from the set of the infamous Troll 2! If fact that prompted the movie to be released as Troll 3 in Germany making it unlikely sequel of two different franchises! You don’t see that happening every day.

This will show everybody!

Thanks and acknowledgments: This is dedicated to our German friend who keeps reading and supporting (especially our Sword and Sorcery posts), people like you make it all worthwhile.

 

 

 

Ator: The Blade Master aka Cave Dwellers aka Ator 2 – L’invincibile Orion (1984)

Posted: 21/09/2017 in Trash movies
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Cave Dwellers is actually a sequel to Ator: The Fighting Eagle and its original title was Ator: The Blade Master. However, this film was done by the same people who did various other films back in the day so they changed the title, changed the credits and added footage from another film in the credits! Rumor has it that Cave Dwellers didn’t have a script and most of it was improvised on the spot. Wow. But you know what, that explains a lot about this movie. Let’s start with the basic plot.

Old man Akronas (played by Charles Borromel) creates some kind of mystical weapon called Geometric Nucleus (sounds like something you wouldn’t like to mess up with). Akronas feels that it can further the evolution of man, but fears what wicked men like Zor will do with it. Zor knows about this thing and tries to take it. Before telling his daughter Mila (played by Lisa Foster) to go “to the ends of the earth” to find Ator we get 5 minutes of flashbacks from original movie in which is shown how Ator had defeated the evil Spider King. Three minutes later and Mila is already on the other side of the Earth where she finds Ator (played by Miles O’Keeffe). On her way there she managed to kill several professional soldiers and get arrow to the her tit (I guess thats why you can’t quite aim at woman’s heart). Meanwhile, the evil Zor (played by David Brandon) has arrived to Akronas’ estate the moment Mila went out. He is quite an odd villain – big moustache, philosophing a lot while enjoying in sound of his own voice. And he imagines that he is something like Sharlock Holmes since he uses similiar interrogation methods on Akronas instead of just plain torturing him like any other good villain would do.

I

I used to trace Ator all the time but then I took an arrow to the tit

On the “other side of the Earth” Ator cures Mila’s tit (no, it’s not what do you think) and now he starts philosophizing. Seriously, everyone in this movie are talking some serious, heavy shits instead of just going pew pew all the time. Like the fact that Ator is using too many words for a bodybuilder isn’t confusing enough. Anyway, he wants Mila to prove him that she is really a daughter of Akronos. So he locks her in the cell with nothing inside under excuse that “if she is really the daughter of the Great One she’ll know what to do” (hm maybe I should use this the next time when government’s clerk comes to my home demanding from me to pay my bills). Then Mila in MacGyver style makes explosive literally out of nothing and blasts her way out. So they hit the road. Evil Zor uses his evil spells to lure them into some cave where they get attacked by cannibalistic neanderthals (?) and invisible monster. Wow how did they think of that? Hm I know. They were like “Hm we don’t have any budget so let Miles slaps himself while pretending to fight with some invisible monster”. This scene is so hilarious that you’ll have to check it out down here:

 

After cavemen encounter (contrary to the popular belief barbarians did exist at the same time as cavemen) Ator decides to visit a small peaceful village, the birthplace of his parents. He tried to organize them to fight against Zor. Instead, they betrayed, poisoned and captured him and Mila. All of that in exchange of Zor’s promise they won’t need to give sacrifices to the Serpent God. But nevertheless, Zor’s soldiers still pillaged them and burned their village. Talk about choosing a wrong side. Ator and Mila have been taken directly to Zor who plans to sacrifice them to the Serpent God along with several virgins (one them is big bearded guy). Ator somehow manages to free himself, then to defeat soldiers, Serpent God puppet and escape the castle. All of that with one swing and a bit of wrestling.

 

Now when they are free at last they want to go back to the castle they escaped from. Mila suggests secret underground passage (it’s an old castle after all) but Ator has better idea. He will attack from the sky using a fucking paraglider! You can actually hear soldiers stationed on the castle walls saying “Is that a bird”. Well, they didn’t live to see the answer since Ator bombed them with dead exploding herrings. After clearing his way through Ator lands safely onto castle walls and faces Zor in another 1v1 sword-fight. Where he defeats him, obviously. But no clichee will be left out. Akronas didn’t allow Ator to kill Zor under excuse of fair trial. In that moment, seemingly weaken Zor attacks Ator despite any healty logic and ends up impaled on the sword (this was to ensure that none of the cliches would be left out). Happy-end, Geometrical Nucleus (whatever that might be) is safe once again. Mila starts hitting on Ator but he ditches her with the most painless line he could think of: “When I defeat all the evil in the world then I’ll come back to you”. Absolute win!

Is that Ator up there?

Conclusion: Most of the costumes, sets and props look thrown together at the last minute or reused from other low budget productions. Some of this works OK, but most of the time you are wondering why there are handrails in the castle that appears to be 1500’s Bavaria, when the voice over explained that this movie occurs in the dark ages. Why are there samurai running around, and yet the snake cult temple looks distinctly Mediterranean? And how comes that Mila took only 3 minutes to reach Ator but when they went back the same way to the castle it took them over 40 minutes? I know you travel slower when in party but come on! I have to mention camera and night filters which are especially bad during zoomed in scenes. Of course, archive footage, flashbacks from the first part and shameless ripping off Conan the Barbarian are mandatory.

Ator The Fighting Eagle aka Ator The Blade Master aka Ator l’invincibile (1982)

Posted: 29/04/2013 in Uncategorized
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Kingdom of the spiders shall last 1000 years, and people shall suffer 1000 years, for it is written. And this time shall be known as the Age of Darkness and  the shadow of the spider shall be the law. Indeed, the people shall pay tribute to the word of the master and live in bondage in the valley of the shadows,  even to very mists of a volcano that sleeps above. When 1000 years is done a man will come to promise different way and he shall be named Toran and many  will believe and many will be prosecuted. The sign of Toran will bare witness to the legend, but Toran will fail. For the wrath of the Spider King is mighty  indeed. People of the valley shall weep, for there is no hope, for it is also written that the Spider King will reign until the day the mountain speaks forth in anger. Then out of the darkness prophecy relives, for Toran casts the seed upon the wind, and even in death to hymn his born a son. That’s pretty much it.

The son of Toran is born on stormy night, in a small village. We see woman holding a baby with rather large head, being quite upset. On the other side of  village, in a shack, a lone man wakes up. Saying nothing else than “It is done”, he gets up and leaves the shack. Then, we see golden black man, playing with  his spiders. Yes, that’s right. He is no one else than the High Priest of the Spider (played by Dakkar). Word travels fast across the land, and the news  about arrival of son of Toran have reached to Spider King. Obviously shaken by such news he announces to his servants that child must die, before he reaches  manhood. Sounds familiar?

The child must die

The child must die!!!

The man from the shack comes named Griba (played by Edmund Purdom) to take the new born baby from her mother, and she gives her son to him without either of  them saying a word. That’s what I call motherhood! Anyway, Griba manages to take baby far away, just moments before men of High Priest of the Spider came to  village, slaughtering everyone in their way. But he couldn’t keep the baby for himself, so he decides to give him to young, but poor couple from another  village, with promise that, for their effort, they will receive provisions, armor and hunting weapons.

Transaction complete

Transaction complete!

Many years later, baby has grown up into Ator (played by Miles O’Keeffe), the greatest gay icon of his time. He is in the field, playing with his sister  Sunya (or at least he thinks she is his sister). Ator and Sunya (played by Ritza Brown) are apparently in love (?!). Ator fails to understand the fact that  he can’t marry Sunya (what about incest being sick?). They’ve had a short discussion after which Ator decides to visit his father, in order to ask for a hand  of his sister!!! Funny things is that everyone in the village looks exactly the same like 20 years ago, including his parents, who haven’t aged even for a  day. Now, back to marriage proposing. In normal and traditional occasions, every sane father would kick out such sick and twisted suitor. But no! When Ator popped the question, after previously explaining the situation, his father and future father-in-law (that happens too), replied to him “Ator, you don’t know  how really happy you made me” (!!!), after which he started explaining to his adopted son events from the beginning of this review. So basically, general  happiness in the village, preparations for the wedding, Ator wearing a girly boots while being happy that he will become his own brother-in-law, etc… But,  as it always happens, right before the wedding started, evil High Priest of the Spider attacked village, in orgies of blood and intestines… It seems that  professional soldiers are no match for peasants armed with rakes and pitchforks… Still, soldiers outnumbered peasants, ending up with many casualties on  both sides, and village torched to the ground… Oh yeah, they kidnapped Sunya, and during that act we could clearly see genuine medieval panties.

Medieval panties

Genuine medieval panties.

After leaving the village, Ator encounters Griba, who tells him about prophecy according to which Ator will end tyranny of Spider King. Griba takes Ator under  his command, and starts training him in swords fight and karate (?), providing our hero with the armor and swords. During one of their trainings, Ator helped  lady in distress (what a gentleman), who was attacked by some bandits. No, in this movie she didn’t thank him by allowing him to harvest the fruits of her  loins, so they departed. Anyway, without any previous explanation, Ator goes to some random cave where he finds The Mighty Sword of Might aka Toran’s sword.

Mighty sword of might

Mighty sword of might!

During hunt in a forest, Ator gets captured by Amazon women warriors (not again!). And not just by any Amazon woman, but by the girl he saved from bandits  couple of scenes ago. To get this short, after a speech consisted of shitload of more feministic bullshits, Amazon queen announces that her girls will fight  in tournament and the prize is content of Ator’s underpants. And not only that… The victor of competition will have the honor and the duty to be fertilized   by our muscular hero, thus bearing a child that will be future queen of all tribes. I wonder what they will do in case that child happens to be a male? Meh,  it’s best not to think about it. Anyway, as you have already guessed, victorious girl is the woman Ator saved from the bandits. And who captured him in  return. Her name is Roon (played by Sabrina Siani). Her orders are clear: spend the night with Ator, get plowed and fertilized, and kill him in the morning  (black widow syndrome; or is it mantis). But when Roon heard about his kidnapped love and his intentions to desecrate the Temple of the spider, she got  softened and decided to join him. For that goal, they needed to get away from Amazon village. There is one more problem. Toran’s sword is being held in the  center of village and guarded by Amazon warriors. So they sent a bear, who was Ator’s gift to Sunya (I should have probably mentioned that earlier), to do  their dirty job. How brave… Distraction was successful, they’ve got the sword and escaped the village.

Fertilizing

Fertilizing time!

Somewhere along the way, Roon got trapped after following mysterious deer of mystery, which lured Amazon girl into cave and then ridiculously disappeared. On  the other side, Ator encounters evil sorceress, after following the image of Sunya. Evil sorceress shows him a vision where Sunya is now with the High Priest  of the Spider (once she went black, she never came back), seduces him, and right when he was about to heat her oven, Roon rescues him, by shooting an arrow  into sorceress’ mirror, thus making her look like a hideous monster. Seems to me like another rip-off, this time of Odyssey. Since our heroes got reunited at evil sorceress, they choose to get some rest at a local inn. Only thing worth of mentioning there is a fat inn keeper girl  (played by Chandra Vazzoler), who serves the bean and shows her tits.

Mystery deer of mystery

Now Ator and Roon are in the other cave, surrounded by blind blacksmiths and blind warriors. No one is attacking them so they proceed deeper in the cave  where Ator finds mighty shield of might. He fights with his shadow, takes the shield and, on his way out, he heroically kills blind people. Such a bravery!  True warrior indeed!

Fight with the shadow

Shadow-warrior

Grand finale takes the place inside Temple of the Spider. Ator and Roon are outnumbered by black knights, but they eventually kill every single one. Just to  mention that the scenes of swords fighting aren’t worth mentioning. Only High Priest of the Spider has left. Fight between him and Ator lasts for some time,  but it ends up with High Priest of the Spider seeing his own reflection in the mighty shield of might, which makes him explode (???). Now the only thing left  to do is to save Sunya, who is trapped in giant spider web made of ropes. But it’s not that easy. Ator there finds Griba, who reveals to him that he was just  using our hero in order to become the next High Priest of the Spider! What a twist! I bet you didn’t expect that. Anyway, after a short fight, Ator pushes  Griba into ropes (sorry, i mean spider web), frees Sunya and both of them hit the road. But it turns out that Griba wasn’t enough meal for Spider King, so  the giant spider (which can be barely seen) went outside to pursue gay Ator. There, Ator uses a Sunlight reflection of his mighty shield of might in order to  distract Spider King, come closer, and cuts him with the mighty sword of might, thus ending his reign. End of Spider King tyranny is represented with archive  footage from Animal Survival show.

You blew up!

Conclusion: This is, by the far, the worst Conan of Barbarian rip-off!!! Poor casting, terrible acting, awful scenes of fight, low budget, ugly women, Miles  O’Keeffe being even more gay than in Sword of the Valiant, static camera, boring and repeating choreography… The fact is, women do like Miles, but Miles  doesn’t like them… It would be much better for everyone that writer and director of this calamity David Hills, should have stick to making porn movies as did in following years. Also, don’t miss pathetic ending scene. It’s to throw up your life.
In short: This movie shall last 90 minutes, and its viewers shall suffer 90 minutes,  for it is directed.

Sword of the Valiant: The Legend of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (1984)

Posted: 04/04/2013 in Trash movies
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After a slew of Chuck Norris movies, Ninja movies and a Ninja movie with Chuck Norris Cannon Inc. bravely decided to experiment with a wining formula and produce a lush fantasy epic set in the Arthurian times with no one else but Sir Sean Connery himself as he main antagonist. Now, Sean is a fascinating human being- that man doesn’t do anything half-way, it’s always win or lose, brilliant or terrible when he is concerned!  The mere fact that you’re here proves in which column this one goes to.

Story is interestingly enough based on 14th Century poem “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” Based in the sense that it has the same name and nothing else.

Sir Gawain book

Shame on you Tolkien, shame on you…

Movie starts with the He- Man music and a young blacksmith showing of his chiseled physic and homosexual haircut (so it’s He- Man all the way I guess). The grand feast starts in the court but King Arthur is not amused. Even though he is old as a bible he demands some action!Prolonged time of peace left his knights obese and useless. But fear not- sound of storm approaching and a strange green light promise something of a challenge.

None other but Sir Sean Connery rides into the hall, with a black face, glitter, green plastic armor and fuzzy hair. Strangely King doesn’t seem to be amused by that. Sean aka The Green Knight demands the good sport(?) He takes his axe and after demonstrating the incredible sharpness of the blade he seeks a man brave enough to try to hack his head off with it. If he survives he demands a chance to return the favor. All fair, right?

At this point all those brave knights decided they have something else to do, mostly concentrate on the same spot on the floor and be really, really quiet. Knowing that it’s now or never young blond blacksmith decides to take a chance and make his king proud. King is overjoyed that he has at least one champion to represent him among the fat slobs he is surrounded with and hastily proclaims the boy Sir Gawain. Unfortunately that doesn’t change the fact that the boy looks like he’s going to piss himself any moment so let’s say he’s got a long way to go in the heroing department.

Gawain successfully beheads Connery but he completely fails at shutting him up. With immortal words “My body… come to me my body” Sean calls forth his remaining parts and after easily reattaching his head start laughing like a maniac.

 

 

 

…and the body came.

Gawain realizes that he made the biggest mistake of his (presumingly short) life. Seeing how pathetic Gawain is Knight spares his life, at least for a year- giving him time to grow beard and answer the mysterious riddle. After that he disappears and King finally amused decides to finally continue the feast.

Next thing you know Gawain, now a knight in a (literally) shining armor with his (ironically) bearded assistant starts his epic quest. Quickly he find out that it’s not easy to pee when you have a ton of armor on but the assistant hands him the can opener (I kid you not!) and all problems are solved. Then he sees a pony unicorn and decides to do what any valiant knight would do in that situation- TO FREAKIN’ KILL IT WITH A CROSSBOW! Thankfully the animal escapes never to be seen again.

Bit disappointed they keep going and end up in a tent of a sexy witch! She offers many pleasurable things to the knight but he seems more interested his quest thingie so she sends him to fight the evil black knight (who makes robot-like noises for reasons unknown). After defeating the evil robo- knight in a sloppy battle in the swamp he heads to his city the mysterious and beautiful city of Lioness.  Showing (finally) some signs of chivalry he brings the wounded guardian inside the city walls he returns the black knight to the city too, but the guardian (in fact not the robot!) felt a bit leas chivalrously and commanded soldiers to kill the young knight where he stands. No good deed goes unpunished, right? He tries to run for it but it seems they seal the city walls and our young knight fate seems doomed. But NO, young princess, also possessing a magical powers instantly falls in love with him and saves him by rendering him invisible!!! Didn’t see that one coming!

 

 

 

Another fine example of medieval fighting arts!

She tries to hide her new found love but her old witch queen- mother finds him and decides to marry him ASAP after depositing of her last husband. He again runs for it, now with the princess but they end up separated. Meanwhile The Green Knight found out the Sexy Witches  scheming and punishes her, not in the usual Sean Connery back-fist slap manner but rather with a green beam from his finger- that transforms her into a small red porcelain frog, the kind you can maybe find in a Chinese Shop or somewhere like that.

Green Knight01

Happens all the time!

Then he blows a terrible wind which takes our hero miles and miles away just in time to meet a ex thief- now a priest and a mighty wizard that’s also a dwarf.

 

Connery blows,  not the way you think so though…

Dwarf wizard summons a mummy knight (hmmm, first time I’ve seen one of those too) from the sarcophagus but Gawain destroys it easily. He continues down the wizard’s cave and exists into the City of Lioness- again! It’s just that all the kingdom have grown old, crumbling and covered in  cobweb (including his love). He takes her into his arms, moves her to some small shack in the woods and she comes to life again! Oh, the good forest air truly does miracles for the health!

Now it’s obviasly time for gratitude sex scene. No, it seems not! Gawain looses himself in the woods for a moment- just long enough for a procession of knights to appear out of thin air lead by *The Evil Fat Ginger and his king Peter Cushing (Dr. Van Helsing himself)!

Ginger

Gingers now & then

Gawain seems slightly disappointed to lose the love of his life and organizes the heist of his darling soon afterwords. Unfortunately he fails and Lady of Lioness seemingly dies in the fire? Heartbroken he finds a way to the neighboring kingdom who are of course in conflict with those that held his lady captive. He looses conciseness and is nursed to health by… Lady of Lioness! We can safely assume that his whole noble quest was a bad mushroom trip at this point.

miles

HE- MAN, TA- TA- TA- TATATA- TA!

After regaining his strength he realizes that his borrowed year is over and that he must finally confront The Green Knight. His lady awards him with a sash (?) and he rides out to meet his fate. His bearded squire joins him out of nowhere ’cause “he knew the day”. On the battlefield he is surprised by the evil redheaded dude who want’s to settle the score with him and they engage in a duel. Duel somehow escalates into a full on battle between the two kingdoms and Gawain finally menages to stab the annoying bastard thru the heart. Evil Peter Cushing is disappointed and heads back to this castle. And then out of nowhere- The Green Knight appears! He invites him to the Green Chapel( sounds like an offer you can not refuse). He says goodbye to his friends and fallows the Green Knight.

Once in the Chapel he trembles before the blade (fallowed by terrible synth sound effects) but finally finds the courage to meet his maker. But then the mysterious scarf that his Lady gave him saves him his life and he joyfully engages in a short and bloody battle in which he stabs Sean to death. “The full circle of the year is done…” he proclaims boldly and then dies by drying away like a plant left without the sunlight and water for way too long. We almost catch a glimpse of the message that the director tried to get across here, almost… He returns to the battlefield and finds Lady of Lioness waiting for him there. Lady being joyful as she is instead of giving him a kiss, a hand or anything – turns into a dove and flies away thus trying to let us know she symbolizes the force of nature like the Green Knights himself. A Passable idea yes, but catastrophically realized to the point of idiocy.

Verdict: He went from one kingdom to the next, traveled, fought, fell in love and lost his love, fought some more and experienced many things in life. That (at least in theory) provided him with tools to survive the final confrontation with  the Green Knight aka solve his riddle. Yet, after all those things he was still incapable to grow a beard and looked  absolutely the same- as a pathetic gay ass He- Man ( not really the most straight character) ripoff and for that alone he deserves to be slain!

To be truthful The most impressive thing about this movie is how manly Sean Connery managed  to look despite the fact that he was  painted in brown, scattered with glitter, wearing plastic green horns on his head and wore a costume that had a something of a man’s boob window on the chest! But in the end we shouldn’t’ really be all that surprised- that man managed even to look manly in a wedding dress as this completely unrelated photo shows.

Manlier in a dress than you’ll ever be in your regular clothes… ’nuff said!

A (nice) bit of Trivia: Miles O’Keeffe (Gawain) continued his string of long haired, barbarian looking characters with the incredible Ator, the Flying Eagle franchise(more on that at later date), as well as a mute version of Tarzan, you know the version that has Bo Derek as Jane getting naked and captured as the main selling point of the film.

Director Stephen Weeks actually made this film two times!!! First one  in 1978, and of course both version failed financially as well as critically.

Sir Sean Connery was incredibly dedicated in his involvement in this film even though he had to make another one, a Bond film at the same time (Never Say Never Again)! Still he found the role of Green Knight so intriguing he spent free time from the Bond shoot filming his scenes in The Sword of the Valiant.

Director was originally adamant in having Mark Hammil (of Star Wars fame) as Gawain, far FAR superior actor for the role but in their infinite wisdom the gods of Cannon Films Yoram and Globus decided that Miles is the right man for the job and quite possibly killed any chance of success that this film had with this simple decision.