Conan the Barbarian (1982)
“Barbarism is the natural state of mankind. Civilization is unnatural.” – Robert E. Howard
Robert E. Howard’s literary creation, originally published in a pulp magazine called “Weird Tales” during the 1930s, comes to life in 1982’s Conan the Barbarian. As a wildly popular role-playing game called “Dungeons and Dragons” was the rage among teenagers, Conan proved to be a timely heroic fantasy release.
The setting is the Hyborian Age, a fictional period invented by Howard, around 10,000 B.C. It is a time of magic, madmen, and mercenaries, and barbarians who kill before they end up killed. The film starts off with Conan as a young lad in Cimmeria, orphaned at the hands of an evil snake cult-leader and a black-magic sorcerer named Thulsa Doom, and is taken into slavery. As he grows, he soon fights in an arena for sport and becomes very good at what he does. Soon, he escapes and uses his freedom to seek revenge on the man responsible for the murder of his parents, with some help from new friends he meets along the way.
The origin of Conan the Barbarian as a film started in 1975 when director/producer George Butler screened footage of the bodybuilding documentary Pumping Iron to toy-company heir turned film producer Edward R. Pressman and comic-store owner Ed Summer. Pressman grew enamored of the highly intelligent, charismatic champion named Arnold Schwarzenegger and felt he could have star potential in the right vehicle. Summer suggested Conan, bringing Pressman to his store to show him issues of Marvel’s “Conan the Barbarian” as well as some of Frank Frazetta’s stunning artwork for the covers of Howard’s book reprints. The paintings evoked action and excitement, and a cinematic appeal — a movie captured in a single image.
Acquiring the Conan property proved challenging due to the rights holders being fragmented among multiple parties over the years. In the meantime, Pressman called in Ed Summer to write a script for a low-budget version of “Conan” made for $2.5 million. Summer wrote the first story treatment with Roy Thomas, the writer for Marvel Comics’ “Conan the Barbarian”, but couldn’t yet legally adapt Howard’s stories. After two years of legal hurdles, Pressman finally sorted it out. The rights to Howard’s works were only $7,500, but it cost over $100,000 in legal fees.
According to Arnold, he was approached by Pressman at a restaurant on Sunset Boulevard. He received offers regularly from fast-talking Hollywood types to be their Tarzan or Hercules. Schwarzenegger had never heard of Conan (or Pressman for that matter), but the producer seemed so low-key and nervous in his pitch, yet with great thoughtfulness, that Schwarzenegger took his intent as earnest. He consented to a $250,000 retainer toward a $3.5 million, five-picture deal, on condition that he wouldn’t star in any other fantasy genre films.
Schwarzenegger set to training for his role, working on reducing his thick Austrian accent with speech lessons. He also engaged in training courses on horse-back riding, rope-climbing, and sword fighting, as would the other main players. He also trimmed down his physique so his body would be athletic as well as strong, looking like he built his muscles from natural use rather than pumping iron all day.
With Conan cast and story rights in hand, Pressman was told by Paramount they would fund the film if they could find a writer with clout. He met with Oliver Stone through his agent, acclaimed for his screenplay to Midnight Express. He had recently read a script by Stone called “The Platoon” (later Platoon) and was impressed. Pressman asked Stone to write a draft for “Conan” and see what he could come up with, the sky’s the limit. Stone gravitated toward two Howard stories, “A Witch Shall Be Born” (which inspired the famous scene of Conan’s crucifixion and battle with a vulture) and “The Scarlet Citadel” (containing the giant snake).
The secondary characters were mainly an amalgamation of names and traits found in characters in Howard’s “Conan”, “King Kull,” and “Bran Mak Morn” series, which Pressman also acquired the rights to in his deal. Stone’s scope was massive, featuring elaborate battles with mechanized chariots against hordes of mutant enemies. Stone placed the setting as a post-apocalyptic future rather than in pre-history, envisioning a series like James Bond, coming back every couple of years with a new cinematic adventure.
Pressman loved the script but Paramount pulled out after reading it. After shopping it to various studios, none seemed willing to put up the money, especially with the untested Oliver Stone was suggested as a co-director with Jaws 2 second-unit director Joe Alves. The bean counters estimated that the cost of production to produce a big-screen version of Stone’s script would run four hours long (including an intermission) with a budget upwards of $40 million. Pressman sought out directors with more of a name: John Milius, Alan Parker (who directed Stone’s Midnight Express), Ridley Scott, and Ralph Bakshi. Milius was busy shooting Big Wednesday, Scott passed because he wanted a different main actor, while Bakshi insulted Schwarzenegger claiming he was too big, so he was out. Schwarzenegger reached out to Hal Needham, who was directing a film in which he appeared called The Villain, but Needham said it would be a mistake for both of them because he couldn’t understand the script.
Pressman remained optimistic that something could be worked out and soon they caught their first big break toward that end when he and Stone met with producer Dino De Laurentiis. De Laurentiis like the script and bought it, bringing it to Ned Tanen at Universal. Tanen liked it but said it was far too violent and expensive. It needed a rewrite to tone it down and get it within a modest budget. De Laurentiis wanted a director he had under contract to take control, John Milius, who also was an award-winning screenwriter.
Milius, who was under contract with De Laurentiis on his next film, Half of the Sky, knew nothing about Conan or Robert E. Howard. The conceptual designer on Half of the Sky, Ron Cobb, was hired by Pressman to do pre-production artwork based on Stone’s script while Milius was away in Europe. When Milius returned, Cobb encouraged him to give Conan script a look. Milius read it and proclaimed that no one could make this picture but him. Milius met with Stone about the script and was sold on the concept because it was both inspirational and utterly insane. Milius felt he had to do Conan – he was born to do it. He approached De Laurentiis and asked about switching his directorial assignment if the producer could acquire it.
Feeling like it would be a much more commercial venture, De Laurentiis sold off Half of the Sky to Warner and bought the into Conan the Barbarian, on the condition that Milius revise the script to his liking and bring down the cost of production by half. It took a year to work out the deal with DeLaurentiis, letting the Italian film mogul call the shots financially and production-wise for the first film other than the script, star, and director, while Pressman waived a share of the profits to retain the rights for sequels and merchandising for his toy company. Pressman would later trade sequels rights away to De Laurentiis for $4.5 million, 10% of the gross for all sequels, and director Roger Donaldson to helm The Bounty. The toy rights were sold to Mattel, who planned similar figures to their “Masters of the Universe” toy line. Bringing it full circle, Pressman produced the 1987 MOTU film.
The De Laurentiis deal hit some early turbulence. Schwarzenegger had once been considered to star in De Laurentiis’s Flash Gordon but got off on the wrong foot with the producer by asking him why a little man needed such a big desk. A shouting match ensued. De Laurentiis fumed at Schwarzenegger that his accent was horrendous and he was not worthy of the role. De Laurentiis despised Schwarzenegger’s rude and pushy attitude and wanted to replace him. Milius assured him that they could not find anyone else suitable physically to play the Conan role, accent or not.
It took nine months for Milius to read all of Howard’s stories and complete his first revision. He also heavily researched ancient Pagan cults and practices, specifically snake and assassination cults like the Hashishim in Persia and the Thuggees in India. Fascinated by the history of war and military strategy, he wanted authentic weaponry of bygone eras, as well as ancient battle tactics, to provide depth to his fictional era in Conan.
Each revision drifted further away from Stone’s original screenplay. As elements of the Stone’s plot framework remained through the revisions, he received a co-writer credit though Milius made every other aspect his own. Stone’s massive battle sequences were reduced to masculinized personal conflicts. Milius mixed in Western genre tropes and reduced the supernatural elements and sorcery to just a couple of scenes. He injected new ideas like Conan’s childhood and revenge motivation, the Wheel of Pain, and the snake cults. He added ideas from another Howard story, “The Tower of the Elephant,” which inspired the scene where Conan and company scale the Tower of Set, and a “Conan” story not written by Howard, L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter’s “The Thing in the Crypt,” inspired the sequence in which Conan takes a sword from an Atlantean king’s corpse.
Milius used the concept of ancient pagan practices to comment on the more modern-day cults by Jim Jones and Charles Manson, full of followers so brainwashed by their cult leader that they would kill themselves by his whim. This fits in with the central conflict of the movie between the freedom of living by a personal code embodied in Conan versus living under someone else’s rules embodied by the religious cults and Thulsa Doom. Milius emphasized emotions and action over exposition and dialogue. To believe in the actions, especially with its heavy emphasis on mysticism, one has to feel the film’s surreal nature, and know that anything might happen, even the supernatural, within the construct of this mysterious, mythical realm.
Milius also experienced challenges with De Laurentiis, who tried to fire him and take over the picture. Nevertheless, Milius persisted. Reportedly, Milius bought lead Mussolini figurine that he would bring to meetings and show it to De Laurentiis to remind him of how fascist he sounded. Not persevering, however, was the original cinematographer, Flash Gordon‘s Gil Taylor, who Milius grew weary with because he was a perfectionist that worked too methodically, firing him after three weeks and hiring Duke Callaghan, who was used to working with fast-paced schedules.
For casting, Milius envisioned Sean Connery as Thulsa Doom, Lou Ferrigno as Doom’s henchman, and Raquel Welch as Conan’s warrior companion Valeria. Schedule and budget issues wouldn’t allow for these actors at the time. James Earl Jones signed on as Thulsa Doom, with lighter eyes and straight hair to represent the last of a dying race of people who can transform into snakes. Sandahl Bergman was hired by Milius after he screened All That Jazz and thought she’d make the perfect Valeria (she received a Golden Globe for New Star of the Year). Milius cast Gerry Lopez, a surfer he cast in Big Wednesday, as Subotai. Lopez’s voice was overdubbed due to inconsistency in his accent by Japanese actor Sab Shimomo. After the originally cast Sterling Hayden fell ill, De Laurentiis brought in Max von Sydow, the antagonist of Flash Gordon, for the King Osric role.
Milius’s research and revisions pushed the release date to the Summer of 1981 when another major problem arose. After three or four months of pre-production in Yugoslavia, the country began to undergo political upheaval in the wake of Marshal Tito’s death in May of 1980. The shoot relocated to Spain, where Milius had shot The Wind and the Lion. The relocation would require new scouting, and the release date would be pushed forward six months to December of 1981.
The shoot in Spain was grueling. In the mountains near Segovia, the actors and crew endured temperatures well below zero. Oppressive humidity marked their time in Almeria, inundated by mosquitoes in the air and gnats invading their wardrobe. Injuries were commonplace, with actors finding themselves trampled by animals, gashed during swordfights, and occasionally tearing a ligament. The dirt was all-encompassing, triggering Milius’s chronic asthma. Milius would treat any griping with encouragement to stay all-in, stating, “The pain is momentary, but this movie is forever.”
Milius wanted audiences transported to another time and place that meticulously resembled ancient days. Ron Cobb, working for the first time as a production designer, researched ancient civilizations from Mayan to Aztec to Celtic to Viking to Samurai to Mongol. $3 million of the budget went to constructing the mammoth sets with meticulous fantasy period detail. The wardrobe, the weaponry, and the idols they worshiped were all inspired by actual sources. Nearly fifty lavish sets were constructed in striking detail and about three thousand hand-made costumes for the cast, as well as the film’s five-thousand extras and stunt personnel.
Milius wanted his cast to perform their own stunts whenever possible, especially Schwarzenegger because there were no stuntmen available with his amazing physique. The main players learned to do an olden form of martial arts from Japan called kendo (fighting with bamboo swords) and bushido (the samurai way of life), which Milius had also learned growing up as a Japanophile. Milius applied his love of Japanese culture to Conan, adopting samurai teachings on war, weaponry, and living by a code of honor. Milius lifted styles from Japanese directors, giving Conan a distinct and elegant flow among a sea of stiff and hokey entries its brutish genre. Influences range from Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai and Kobayashi’s Kwaidan, which he made cast and crew screen multiple times in preparation.
Although physically exhausting, Schwarzenegger enjoyed acting for Milius due to his thoughtfulness, energy, and attitude. Milius spent much time with his actor, taking him to dinner, skeet shooting, or building models, learning about what makes him tick, and most importantly, his psychological reactions. Milius memorized the triggers to get his inexperienced star actor to elicit the facial expressions he wanted for specific scenes.
Despite Conan’s rough-and-tumble image, Schwarzenegger saw him as a sensitive hero, a lover of women and of living a simple life. Although a ladies man, Schwarzenegger said that the lovemaking scenes were the hardest to do. Especially with Valeria. Schwarzenegger saw Bergman more as a sister than a lover; she called him “Hansel” and he called her “Gretel” while on the shoot. Add to this, Berman’s stunt coordinator boyfriend was off-camera watching every moment. Dozens of Spanish men peeked through the wall, gazing at Sandahl Bergman…or Schwarzenegger himself.
Schwarzenegger expected to do the voiceover narration, given that it is his story. De Laurentiis couldn’t stand his voice and vetoed it. Universal also had qualms about the thickness of Schwarzenegger’s accent being understood. Milius compromised by using a different narrator (Mako) but he wouldn’t overdub Schwarzenegger’s voice unless test screenings didn’t go well. Test audiences loved the film and Schwarzenegger as the star, so his voice remained. The buzz inspired Milius to imagine it the first of a trilogy, all about Conan and his sword.
Conan the Barbarian topped the box office for its first two weeks of release, garnering nearly $40 million domestically and another $40 million overseas. The R rating left out the younger audience into D&D and the Marvel comic, but director John Milius was content to try to make a film every bit as adult-oriented as Excalibur. To that end, he failed, as this is a juvenile adventure all of the way…and why not? Many viewers’ only exposure to the mythic hero was in the Marvel comic itself.
A terrific score by Milius’ USC film school classmate Basil Poledouris, who also scored Big Wednesday, generates ample excitement, along with nicely developed visual effects. De Laurentiis wanted a more pop-oriented score, but Milius said he wanted something that evoked classic themes.
John Milius’ Conan is a blood-and-guts adventure all the way, with lots of viscera flying across the screen with every scuffle. Milius’s 140-minute cut was deemed too long and graphically violent that Universal ordered re-edits. Removed was a more graphic scene of Conan’s mother beheading that displays head rolling on the ground gushing blood. A sequence involving Conan cutting a pickpocket’s arm off was also removed, as was King Osric’s bloody death. The re-editing delayed the release until the spring of 1982.
Some fans of Howard’s “Conan” weren’t pleased with Milius’s film. The book series represents Conan as intelligent, conversational, and stronger, and despite casting the perfect physical embodiment in Schwarzenegger, the producers don’t utilize Arnie’s natural intelligence and articulate nature because they feared audiences wouldn’t understand his accent and his lack of experience as an actor might induce unintentional laughs.
Sword-and-sorcery films usually have inherent silliness, and Conan the Barbarian is no different. However, that doesn’t make this a bad film, as there is greatness to it amid the hammy acting and pomposity of the situations. First and foremost, it’s Arnold at his finest. He’s taciturn but has an undeniable presence, breathing life and humanity into what might otherwise be a one-dimensional brute.
There are only a handful of these sword and sorcery films worth watching, as they are generally quite bad, but Conan the Barbarian is among the rare exceptions. The main reason comes from the passion of its director Milius has for crafting an epic tale with great reverence for the tradition of the olden epics from ancient times. If you love muscle men and mad mages battling it out for guts and glory, or just love Ah-nold, this is about as good as it gets in that department.
Qwipster’s rating: A-
MPAA Rated: R for strong violence, sex, nudity, and gore
Running time: 129 min.
Cast: Arnold Schwarzenegger, James Earl Jones, Sandahl Bergman, Gerry Lopez, Ben Davidson, Mako, Max von Sydow
Director: John Milius
Screenplay: John Milius, Oliver Stone