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.
Review of The Seven Magnificent Gladiators
