User reviews

The mighty Lou Ferrigno stars in this swords & sandal take on Akira Kurosawa's classic The Seven Samurai, brought to us in this case by the ever maligned Bruno Mattei.

Big Lou's mission, along with his assembled warriors, is to defend a small village from the annual onslaught of a sadistic immortal and his cronies. To aid him in his task, Lou wields a magic sword, a sword in fact that only he can hold and formerly the trusted side arm of none other than Achilles - or so we're told.

Cue plenty of fairly enjoyable (if slightly handled) battles as our hero's fight for justice on behalf of the victimised community.

OK despite the title this is sadly most definitely NOT magnificent stuff, but it is nonetheless a harmless enough way to pass an hour and a half or so. Besides, how can any man really complain when none other than the gorgeous (and wonderfully buxom!) Sybil Danning is present?!

The problem with this movie is not that it rehashes the plot of "The Magnificent Seven"; after all, even that movie was a remake of something else ("The Seven Samurai", which I have not seen yet). The problem is that it rehashes it in a plodding and unimaginative fashion. The main difference between the two movies (besides the obviously lower production quality, of course) is that "The Magnificent Seven" were interesting, intelligent and articulate characters; "The Seven Magnificent Gladiators" are 5 primitive muscleheads, a rookie, and a warrior woman (Sybil Danning). The fight scenes are mostly Bud-Spencer-and-Terence-Hill-do-sword-and-sorcery-style. And being this a PG film, it completely lacks any of the blood and nudity usually found in the genre. A sensuous (but brief) female bikini wrestling match is as risqué, and as thrilling, as it gets here, folks (and no, Sybil is not featured in it). (**)

Move over Kurosawa and Sturges, Bruno "SS Girls" Mattei has got this. Basically the old Seven Samurai plot reworked for ancient Roman times. A demigod douchebag is terrorizing frightened villagers. So some of the village women go and get a magic sword that only one man can wield (heard that before?). Then they recruit Lou Ferrigno, Brad Harris, sexy Sybil Danning, and a few forgettable types to help fight the villain.

Reunites the stars of Cannon's Hercules movie, released the same year. It's directed with what can only honestly be called a complete absence of talent. Badly acted, badly dubbed, with stunt choreography that appears to have been made up on the spot not unlike my brother & I play fighting as kids using sticks as swords. Filmed in Italy and utilizing actual ruins as sets, this should have at least had some local flavor or scenic appeal going for it. But nope. I wanted to like it in spite of itself, but it's just not that much fun.

This Italian made, Lou Ferrigno lead remake of Seven Samurai (1954) is the epitome of atrocious.

It tells the Seven Samurai story, tweaked with Gladiators instead of Samurai and instead of excellent it's ruddy awful.

Ferrigno may have been an outstanding human specimen but he was certainly no actor. Surrounded by people honestly not much better, with poor action sequences and an excessively simplified version of the original plot and this is a a travesty.

One for fans of bad films? No. Good films? No. Seven Samurai fans? No. Basically this is for, Ferrigno fans? And hardcore ones at that.

Yikes!

The Good:

Nope

The Bad:

Cringe inducing acting

Cheesy score

The villians outfit, yikes!

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

The Hulk didn't do Ferrigno's physique justice

I had the misfortune of seeing this movie at the theater as a kid. We did not come to see this movie, but rather the science fiction film "Dreamscape". Unfortunately, for whatever reason that movie was taken out and this one inserted in its place. Whatever you may think of that movie it was certainly better than this one which seems to be some sort of gladiator version of "The Seven Samurai". Well it is not, it is not even in the caliber of a Conan movie, it is not even in league with the Marc Singer film "Beastmaster". The film just plays out in the most absurd possible way, I saw this under the title "The Seven Magnificent Gladiators" and let me just say that there just not seven gladiators for very long in this film. They drop like flies in this movie with only Lou Ferrigno being a sure survivor. Poor Lou, I am guessing he was hoping he could have a career in acting other than being the powerful Hulk. He just never became the big star Arnold was and you have to feel a bit sorry for him as he was deaf and that impeded his ability to act. Still, I enjoyed his brief performance in "The Incredible Hulk" movie and I hear he did the voice of the Hulk and he did a good job with that as well. Hear, he is dubbed and the movie is just laughable. I laughed at the theater when that one woman gave that one guy the magical sword and he died and the lady who gave him the sword did not really seem that concerned.

This movie should have been called One Magnificent Gladiator, One Mediocre Gladiator, Four Scrungy Men and Sybil Danning. Better yet, Lou Ferringo With His Shirt Off and Sybil Danning Almost.

I suppose it's in the tradition of Seven Samurai, but I don't believe it intends to be comparable. It is silly fun, like other sword-and-sandal movies.

I admit it does make Conan the Barbarian look like art.

Nobody who sees Lou Ferrigno and Sybil Danning in lead roles and watches the movie anyway has a right to complain.

I've heard from imdb's bio of Lou that the most he ever benched was 560. That's hard to believe, seeing that chest and those arms. I'd have thought at least 700, since I can handle 550 and nobody looks at me twice. So it goes.

When Conan the Barbarian became a hit in 1982, the Italians where superbly equipped to exploit that fad with a vengeance given their long history of producing bad Hercules and Hercules rip off films. Directed by Italian schlockmaster, Bruno Mattei (Rats Night of Terror, Robowar, Cruel Jaws), it features terrible dubbing, some nice actual Roman ruins for outdoor sets (they already existed and were likely free), the incomparable bad acting team of Lou Ferrigno AND Sybil Danning (who were also both in the Italian 1983 Hercules film), and it has a women's wresting scene where the competitors wear some very non-Roman tiny gold bikinis. The plot is pretty straight forward. Good guy (Ferrigno) gets a magic sword, recruits a team of gladiators, which includes sword & sandal veteran Brad Harris, and kills of a bunch of bad guys terrorizing a group of women. My personal favorite scene is when the "Emperor" tries to wield the magic sword, gets burned since he is not "divine" like Ferrigno. As the Emperor is wildly over acting getting "burned" by the magic sword handle, his cheap plastic crown falls off his head and bounces down a bunch of steps making very audible noises which clearly indicate the crown is very much made of plastic. The film does drag in places, but overall it's an entertaining piece of garbage for bad film fans and fans of director Bruno Mattei's work.

Nothing on television again and man this is on. Lou (Hulk) in this and man this is so bad that it hurts to watch but I am anyways just to laugh at it. How can the Director and Producers even think that this is something someone would love to watch? So many bad movies that get rated higher.

Not this movie being rated higher but there are. This one is just nothing to praise for it but the acting and playing too much instead of being a serious movie. Who ever likes this has to be completely nuts. No way someone could like it. Lou is terrible actor and okay body builder.

Oh well, they just keep showing bad movies on television. Just like America 3000 is bad too.

Not all of them can be winners, even Buñuel and Fernando de Fuentes had their own lower tier films, while this isn't exactly on the same level as La hija del engaño (1951) or something like that it's still a very tepid entry for Mattei, devoid of life and stimulating ideas, it never rises above being a slightly above average peplum/Conan rehash/parody. Mattei and Fragasso only made one of these after all.

Bruno, predictably, has zero interest in this story and directs a lot of the action sequences with laziness and carelessness, which sort of works considering the style of his oeuvre as in that the parodic elements and complete degradation of the genres and subjects he touches can easily flourish even on auto-pilot but this outing lacks compelling images, expressive touches and a cohesive sense of direction that typically unites all of the elements of a good film, things we usually find on Mattei films but not here, making it one of his least interesting ones.

The first person sequence with Sybil Danning and a couple of the delirious scenes kind of bring this one up a notch but the poor budget restricts much of it. With the classically mostly static camera, the kitschy outfits and the abundant wide shots that capture the fights, one can understand that it's totally a peplum send up, after all, it's on Italy's DNA regardless of whether or not they try to rip-off Conan. As its own peplum tribute/parody it works just fine even in its poor condition.

The highlight of this otherwise boring Italian B-movie, besides the gorgeous Sybil Danning is the 3 minute female wrestling scene in this movie. Two female slaves, tied together at the wrist are wrestling for the entertainment of the Roman emperor. This scene has made the movie much sought after by aficionados of frmale wrestling everywhere. Its is probably one of the best scenes of any movie. I remember seeing the film in the cinema as an 16 year old and the scene did really kindle my interest in female wrestling. For acting out the scene the director enlisted beautiful, fit actress and stunt woman Mindi Miller and a fellow blonde wrestler from the "Golden Girls" female wrestling producer/promotion from California. This is what gives this scene the beauty and the wrestling skill beyond what could be expected in this B-movie. Sadly neither Mindi Miller nor her opponent are credited in the film credits. Recently imdb has added Mindi in their database entry on the film, thanks to my insistence.

My review was written in August 1985 after watching the movie on HBO.

"The Seven Magnificent Gladiators" is an uncredited (and subpar) remake of John Sturges' "The Magnificent Seven", itself a remake of "Seven Samurai". Action has been transplanted to ancient Rome in this quickie, made in 1982 as a warmup for Lou Ferrigno just prior to his starring in Cannon's "Hercules". Like "Hercules", the film set no box office fires when released regionally in August 1984. A third pic, "Hercules II", remains on the shelf.

Ferrigno toplines as Han, a barbarian who, after proving his prowess as a chariot racer, is asked by the women of the beleaguered village of Clusium to defend their town against the supposedly immortal demigod Nicerote (Dan Vadis), who annually descends upon them to exact a tribute and kill off any able-bodied men. Han passes the test as the only man able to wield the magical Sword of Achilles.

Accepting the assignment, Han teams up with a gladiator Scipio (Brad Harris), whom he bested in the chariot race, Scipio's pal Julia (Sybil Danning) and four other out-of-work warriors.

Plot twists and individual scenes are right out of the Yul Brynner-Steve McQueen classic, with Goliath (Ivan Beshears) introed chopping wood in a vignette identical to Charles Bronson's entrance in the original film and Giafiro (Michael Franz) going through a truncated version of Horst Buccholz' role. Main changes are the introduction of campy scenes in Rome of the emperor (Yehuda Efroni), including the anachronism of oiled-up women in bikinis wrestling for his entertainment. Also, instead of the strategy of defense in the original films, director Bruno Mattei stages two ho-hum swordplay battles. Only point of interest is Sybil Danning's femme warrior, convincingly integrating the previously all-male, he-man format.

Cast, though articulating in English, is sabotaged by poor dubbing and film develops very little period atmosphere.