Thursday, December 13, 2018

By the Gods!

Pietro Torrisi is THE BARBARIAN MASTER (1982)

That's Yvonne Fraschetti and Hal Yamanouchi. I enjoy Pietro's movies of the 1980s. Yes, they're very low budget and acting is nearly non-existent but they're fun to watch, certainly if you're a fan of Pietro from his movies from the Golden Era. He obviously looked much older but he was in good shape. He still had his abs. It also stars Mario Novelli (below). As a fan of the genre, watching the two long-time PEPLUM stars fight to the finish is fun and one of the film's highlights. This fight scene, with the two wearing very little, is, like so many other films out there, a bit ridiculous in regards to pairing: Mario is simply no match to beefy Pietro and yet the stronger one is shown as struggling. I like Mario but every time I watch this scene, I say "Come on!" In real life Pietro would have snapped Mario like a twig. Like so many such films of the 80s, incidental nudity is rampant. Yvonne Fraschetti only appeared in two films so I know very little of her while Japanese-born Yamanouchi has appeared in over 70 productions. I have to write an article of Asian actors in PEPLUM films. Not to be confused with THE INVINCIBLE BARBARIAN (1982), also starring Torrisi, in which promotional photos from it were used for this film, and vice versa.

2 comments:

Richard Svensson said...

I still have this one on VHS, under the title "Sword of the Barbarians." I must've been produced super fast after the first Conan movie. As you say, it's very cheaply made, but I do like the moody photo and music.

Tim Mayer said...

Wow, saw this at a drive-in around 1984 as "Sword of the Barbarians".