The War Goddess (1975)

Did you people see the same film I saw?

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

If you want to see some naked women, riding horses, throwing spears, female warriors fighting each other or with men, or Angelo Infanti eating an apple in almost any scene, this is the film for you. A pile of barren beauty contest and they gave for making this film. There is even a pathetic ballet scene that takes place in a cave. The whole movie is boring. Except maybe the fighting scene between Antiope(Alena Johnston, a beautiful blonde) and Orytheia(a not so beautiful Sabine Sun but, she was the wife of the director, Terence Young). Luciana Paluzzi, the beautiful Fiona from Thunderball(directed by the same Terence Young), has a small role as Phaedra . Riz Ortolani's music (which is very talented) is not great in this one.

There is no sense of fun or logic or pacing to this "movie." The first half is pretty much as bad as they come, then Luciana Paluzzi shows up for about ten minutes then the rest is lousy again. Terence Young, Bob Simmons both did some of the best Bond films, Simmons being stunt man/coordinator. I hope they were off drinking and whoring around and aren't responsible for most of this movie because that's about the only explaining it. There is virtually no style to the film, barley even C grade film school work and F grade acting other than Paluzzi who does her own dubbing-but sadly keeps her clothes on. All the fight scenes are poorly done with people pretending to be impaled on spears and the ladies struggling under the weight of their own armor. Certainly women can be athletic but I guess none could be found to be in this movie. Humor? The fact that it's unfunny when it's supposed to be doesn't make it a success. It's just so shoddy. Composer Riz Ortalani at least doesn't shame himself and turns in a fun main theme and a few other good tunes, but his music is choppily edited. There is a fair amount of mostly brief nudity but most of it is shot from far away with no erotic or exploitation generated--it's like they didn't' even care about showing off the nudity. Best scene is a naked fight during a thunder storm which has a bit of style and exploitation, almost nothing else in the movie works. It's inept, though the sets and number of extras are large what they do with them is poor. 2 decent glass matte paintings. The DVD from world class bad filmmaker Fred Ray is full frame scratched up choppy and froze in my DVD player when I desperately tried to fast forward to the next badly staged battle scene or through the horribly acted non funny talk scenes that outnumber battle and gratuitous nude scenes--this print is missing the opening "joke" titles other reviews refer to. It's just about totally worthless. Lead non actress has large natural breasts and no ability to carry a scene let alone a whole movie, lead dark haired villainess has large fake ones. A few dolly shots, very few,are the only attempts to direct a scene and again the cast of women can't act and can't fight and the nude scenes are usually shot so blandly--there is just virtually no reason to watch it. Shockingly it's listed as Terence Young's (fill in the blank for the title as there are several to choose from) perhaps the producers insisted on using this credit or for some reason Young actually wanted to possess this film in that way. Wow, hard to believe he ever did anything worthwhile from seeing this, it's almost beyond understanding--other than perhaps whatever big parties the cast and crew may have enjoyed and their pay checks--too bad they kept all that fun to themselves. I'd really like to know what they were thinking, or perhaps they were hoping the movie would go unseen, Sad sad. Young has made other bad films but rarely one so inept and clunky.

The storyline is rather stupid, with the silly anti-Women's Lib back ground (women can not do without men, see…). But the movie in its original full unrated version contains two or three of the most erotic soft core lesbian scenes ever. The women are strong but very good looking (this was shot before any silicon stuff came to pollute nudity). The camera work is of course excellent (director Terence Young). The first memorable scene consists of a topless oil wrestling fight to decide who the next queen will be. There is also a long savage nude fight with the same competitors which ends with cute kissing. This probably the only mainstream movie to picture women wrestling with a strong erotic overtone.

"War Goddess", a 70's vintage sword-and-sandal movie that depicts life in a strong Amazon nation, is worth watching for two reasons. First, although it was remastered onto DVD from several VHS versions, it does a good job explaining how an Amazon becomes a warrior, how the nation was ruled, and, how the Amazon army fought.Unlike other Amazon movies that portrayed women warriors as bimbos or inaccurately dressed with little fighting skills, "War Goddess" depicts women dressed as a warrior should be dressed, with the light leather armor of the time. And, you will be most impressed with the three battle scenes that show a high amount of training in horsemanship, throwing the javelin, and fencing with the short sword. Sadly, they aren't shown wielding the labrys and their shields are round and not half-moon. But, their bravery and ferociousness in battle are great examples of what a real Amazon of the Bronze Age would be like.There is some gratuitous nudity which I didn't' care for, but overall, this movie was fantastic. You can rent or buy it from Netflix, Blockbusters, and Amazon.com.