Review – Conan the Barbarian: The Official Story of the Film by John Walsh

by Gary Romeo

Well I saved my pennies and I saved my dimes
(Giddy up giddy up 409)
For I knew there would be a time
(Giddy up giddy up 409)
When I would buy a brand new 409
(409, 409)

Apologies to the Beach Boys. We’re not talking about a car here, but we are talking about NOSTALGIA. Fans of the Conan the Barbarian film will want this book. Save your pennies and dimes, it is a bit pricy, even with Amazon’s discount. (Normally $50 but reduced to $45.) But if you are a fan of the movie and want to relive some good memories it is worth the purchase.

It makes for a nice coffee table book, approximately 13″ by 10″ by (only) 3/4″ inches. The cover is a reproduction of the movie poster, which is fine, but I think the book looks more intriguing without the dust jacket.

I’ll briefly cover the contents and try not to criticize the book for what it didn’t do but praise it for what it did well. (But, of course, I’ll ignore that when I want to.)

The “Foreword” by Raffaella De Laurentiis is short but interesting. She briefly recaps her career and states “The fact that I was a woman actually helped me deal with these fiery macho men. Being a woman was never a problem in my career.” She states that director, John Milius, “a great guy, and a fabulous writer … liked to challenge authority figures. It was his style.” Most interesting she states “In the original script, it was the character of Conan who performed the narration. But ultimately we changed it to Mako’s character.” And, to no one’s surprize, “Conan got an “X” rating on three submissions to the MPAA before we finally received an “R”. The picture was unique, and the violence made a real impact in 1982.”

The “Introduction” gives a brief overview of the film, Robert E. Howard, the comic books, and the books. The film is given credit for redefining “the limits of acceptable mainstream filmmaking and, in the process, created one of the world’s biggest film stars.”

The overview on Robert E. Howard is weak and has errors and sometimes just bugs me. The author states “He was considered the father of the sword-and-sorcery genre.” Dammit! That should be “is” not “was.” What the Hell was author John Walsh thinking? And there are a few dubious and incorrect statements: “Robert and his mother would spend many years together helping relatives suffering from tuberculosis” and “In 1928, he revisited some of the Kull stories to create Red Shadows” and he created “the character Turlogh Dubh O’Brien … Unfortunately, he was unable to sell any of these stories.”

The comics section comes before the books section. Probably because the author feels “The comics are arguably, apart from the books, the vehicle that had the most significant influence on the longevity and popularity of the character.” I really can’t argue with that. The comics played a big role in popularizing the character. My own introduction to Conan was from the comics. Lin Carter and L. Sprague de Camp are briefly mentioned, and the Lancer/Ace series is singled out as a highlight. Sadly, non-Conan books are ignored.

The rest of the book deals with aspects of the film. Text is surrounded with nicely reproduced images from the film. A typical page looks like this:

The “Development” section covers: “Putting Conan on Screen” (info about the producers), “Written in Stone” (info about Oliver Stone’s screenplay), “Conan the Unfilmable” (info concerning the budget mostly) “Frank Frazetta’s Art” (a good summary on Frazetta’s influence along with great full page reproductions of his art), “Production Designer Ron Cobb” (comprehensive info about Mr. Cobb with many pages of art), “The Art of William Stout” (another comprehensive look), “Director John Milius” (the master at work).

“Casting” was a favorite part of the book. Arnold, James Earl Jones (his casting makes minced meat of all complaints about race-swapping in films; he was GREAT!), Sandahl Bergman (beautiful), Gerry Lopez, Cassandra Gava, William Smith, Mako, Sven-Ole Thorsen, Ben Davidson, and Max Von Sydow are all covered in depth.

“The Shoot” covers location issues, stunts, swords, various props, wolves, snakes, orgies (no nudity, drat!), and other highlights from the film. “Conan’s World” covers set design, matte paintings, SFX, and other highlights. “Post Production” gets into editing (cutting) the film, the magnificent Basil Poledouris score, poster art, creatures that didn’t make the cut, and other technical issues. It is a thorough look at all aspects of the film.

Finally, there is a bibliography and acknowledgements. All in all, it is a worthy tome for those that loved the 1982 film. Obviously, it isn’t essential for that “purist” who dreads the mention of the film. 🙂 But for the completist and dedicated fan who supports Conan product and would like to see future Conan films it is an obligatory buy.