Doctor Movie: Episode 313: The Arena (1974)

Show Notes

Join Doctor Movie for a look at your favorite movies from behind the steering wheel. This episode we look at the Italian sword and sandal/ women prison mash-up that is The Arena. Pam Grier in chain mail, what else ya need?

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

What is Doctor Movie! and Hail Ming Power Hour!?

Cinematic oddities and awesomeness under the watchful of the all-powerful Ming and Doctor Movie!

Pam Grier is wearing chainmail and ready to kick some butt.

All that and a whole lot more right here on Doctor Movie.

Yah, yah, yah, yah, yah.

Wait a minute, I hear something.

Hey, everybody, what's happening?

It's Doctor Movie time.

Glad you could join me for another one.

Hey, we are talking about an Italian production, I believe it's Italian, from 1974.

Yikes, that's a big truck.

Oh, I guess I should say, if you don't know anything about this show, I do this show while driving down the road, and I almost got ran over by a big truck.

So there you go.

That's what that was all about.

The Arena, from 1974.

It's an adventure action flick.

This was directed by, oh, Joe D'Amato.

We're a fan, right?

And Steve Carver.

So I don't know if this is partially picked up because the director got mad and left.

I haven't done any research on that.

But oh, Joe D'Amato, he always kinda steps in and does his thing, which explains a lot about this movie, actually.

So let's see here.

We got a synopsis in ancient Rome.

Interesting gladiatoric contest is revived when female combatants are introduced into the arena.

Yeah, that's kinda what you got going on here, is female gladiators.

That's what it ends up being.

So in a nutshell, I guess this is the new thing, because I don't see a, oh, here we go, a wide watch.

It's epic, intense, and un-symphalized, especially for 1974.

The scenes are entertaining and fun, feel good joy as its jungle-caged fever females against the males.

That's a tongue-twister in itself.

Don't know how much I believe in that, but okay.

Let's see, we've got a 5.2 out of 10.

Yeah, it's kind of been on the road.

I'll agree with that.

As far as our cast, we've got Pam Grier.

I mean, what else you need to know?

It's Pam Grier.

Pam Grier, boom, that's it, you know, a legend.

Here's the weird thing.

Why would you hire an American actress to be in your movie who speaks English, and the movie is, I mean, everybody talking in this movie, it's hard to explain.

They're all speaking English, but they went back and overdubbed all their voices anyways in English.

I don't understand.

So Pam Grier does not have Pam Grier's voice.

She sounds like a white lady, which is really weird, but that's just something to check out.

We've got some other hotties, obviously you had to have those for this movie.

I don't really know any of them from anything else.

Margaret Markov, looks like she's been in several things with Pam Grier.

Let's see who else we got.

Anna Melita, kind of the same deal.

Big Bird Cage, you know, all these imprisoned women movies, right?

Mary-Louise Sinclair, who ends up being kind of the other main stable in this movie.

Cat of Nine Tales, so we got a little Argento.

That's the only thing I've seen that she's in.

So, there you go, not a whole lot to talk about here as far as the cast.

But it doesn't stop this from being a bit entertaining.

It starts off with this, I don't know, hippie group of people that live out in the woods, you know, with all the flowers in their hair and they're worshiping trees and, you know, all that hippie crap.

And then the Romans come through and, you know, grab a lady and take her into custody and becomes a prisoner.

And you don't really get a whole backstory of the rest of them, but she gets brought into the Roman Empire as a slave with these other women and they all end up becoming a band of strong women together.

They're all prisoners, but they kind of work for the gladiator system.

They are bought by this guy who is way more feminine than they are.

And you know, as long as they follow the rules and take care of the gladiators and, you know, all that stuff, then, you know, they live not a terrible life.

They are brought in and humiliated in front of everybody, but our woman from the woods, Livia, which is Mary Louise Sinclair, ends up having feelings for one of the gladiators.

And, you know, they kind of become a little bit of an item till he gets killed.

So, you know, love don't last long when you're a gladiator.

So, yeah, these women are the ones that are supposed to be like giving the gladiators their last night hurrah before they plan to go out and die, you know.

So that's kind of their job.

And I think they work the crowd too by, you know, supplying drinks and stuff while the fights are going on.

So, you know, you get a few gladiator fight scenes going on in this.

And before you know it, it leads to, you know, the owners trying to figure out what's going to make this better.

It's getting where it's losing its, you know, its value.

People are not as interested anymore.

So yeah, they decide to introduce women into it and why not use the women we already got?

So there you go.

That's kind of what's going on.

And the women realize, hey, this is just an even shorter path to dying.

So we got to figure out something.

So there's this one guy who is the trainer for all the gladiators who's in love with one of the slaves.

Now, of course, you got your typical banter between the slaves.

One of them don't like this one.

One lady is actually Roman.

Why she's a slave?

No idea.

But she brags and brags about, well, she's not like the rest of them because she's actually Roman, but she's still a slave, so it's kind of a weird thing there, but she makes some comment about one of the gladiators died, but it didn't really matter because he was just a black guy, which Pam Grier takes offense.

They start getting into a fight, and I think that's what leads to them seeing how these women are just brawling with each other, and they say, hey, we can put this in front of people and make some money.

So there you go.

So ladies, keep you cool.

Don't get in fights, because when you do, it may be publicized, you know.

You may be the next version of GLOW, you know, the wrestling team, who knows.

But anywho, it gets down to them having to fight each other, then you kind of get the enter the dragon scenario where now these gladiators that are friends now have to fight each other.

They do things where they team up two against one and all these kind of things.

So you know, you get all this kind of action going on.

And towards the end, like I said, the trainer is having kind of a love affair with one of the women.

Matter of fact, they even have a kid together.

And they rig it up to where she ends up getting killed in one of the fights.

And he's pretty upset about it.

So Livia walks up to him and says, look, you know, we know that you cared about her, gave you a child.

Do you want that child to grow up in this situation?

Because apparently he's probably just a slave too, because he's a gladiator.

They make that point as well, hey, you think you're living with all this glory and stuff, but you're just a slave just like we are.

So, lots of depth to all that stuff, just like we found in the movie Gladiator, right?

Points all that out.

So they talk him into helping them come up with a way to escape, right?

And he's going to try to help get some weapons and stuff in certain locations to help them get through the catacombs.

Catacombs lead out to the edge of the beach, where from there they can hopefully get away and get free.

That's kind of the whole plan.

But it comes down to a big fight at the end where Pam Grier's character, Mamoy, Mamoy, Mamoy, I can't say her name, and Livia have to fight each other.

And you don't know if they're really willing to kill each other or what.

But what happens is, our trainer of the gladiators betrays the Caesar and all this stuff.

But he's already kind of put some things in place, but he's going out to be crucified.

And when he does, they send the strongest part of the security with him.

So when the girls are fighting, there's very little security there.

So while they're fighting, at the end of it, they stop and they start attacking.

They've got some other ladies up there that's got bows and arrows.

So it's funny that all these slave women that haven't really been doing any of the gladiator stuff are now stepping up, and they all are really good archers, just instantly.

So there you go.

There's something for you.

You know, how does this thing work?

You just pull it.

Okay, cool.

I just killed a guy.

All right, cool.

So yeah, you know, pretty instantaneous being able to shoot people, you know.

That just kind of stood out to me.

But for the most part, you know, they start killing all the Roman people that are there.

Not all the people, but all the soldiers.

They take over the guy that's up there that's leading all of it.

Matter of fact, they knock him off his balcony and he falls down into the gladiator pit.

And you know, Pam Grier kills him.

So there you go.

Or they both kill him or one or the other.

And so there's their chance to escape.

Now they've got other soldiers chasing them.

They go through the catacombs.

And you start off with the group of them, but as it goes on, obviously you're going to lose some of them, right?

That's just the way these things are built.

And you know, do some of them make it out?

I don't know.

You just had to watch it yourself.

So there you go.

That's as far as I'm going to take this one.

And you can check it out and let me know what you think.

It's on Tubi.

And you know, it's alright.

It's alright.

Yeah, there's, you know, there's quite a bit of nudity in these movies.

That's just, that's how these things roll.

You know, it's a selling point.

But for a gladiator movie, I mean, it's actually pretty decent.

You know, never been a big fan of, you know, the Sandal movies, you know, but Sword and Sandal kind of stuff.

You know, some of them I like, okay.

But this wasn't bad.

So I kind of agree with it on the meter here, the ratings.

I give it about a three.

It's right in the middle of the road.

So there you go.

That's kind of my thoughts on this one.

You can check it out.

I'm always down for any kind of Italian movie just to see what craziness is going to be in it.

And this one stays pretty level headed.

It doesn't get too crazy.

So you can check it out for yourself.

Let me know what you think.

And if you got recommendations or anything else you want covered, let me know and be glad to do it.

All right, folks, that's going to be it for this one.

And we will check you later.