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1974, directed by Steve Carver Starring Margaret Markov, Pam Grier, Lucretia Love, Paul Muller, Daniele Vargas, Marie Louise, as Mary Count, Rosalba Neri, Vassili Karis, Sid Lawrence, |
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Well, it’s been a long time coming but the end is finally in sight: Pam Grier is about to be released from jail. The parole board are examining her file at length, and the metaphorical bull dykes are turning their attentions to newer, less troublesome fish like Linda Blair or Brigitte Nielsen. But first there’s a last little bit of exercise-yard business to get out of the way - a fun little flick called The Arena. If, as I
Flash forward to a Roman province somewhere in, oh, Italy probably. This is Brundisium, and there’s a slave market on. Up for grabs this morning are Bodicia, Mamawi, Deirdre (Lucretia Love, which sounds like a porn star name), a drunk, and Livia (Marie Louise), a noble Roman woman fallen on hard times. The whole group are bought by Priscium (Sid Lawrence), a ‘hilarious’ gay stereotype. Priscium works for Brundisium’s answer to Peter Ustinov, Timarchus (Daniele Vargas). The girls are there to be serving wenches and as sex toys for the gladiators in Timarchus’ arena. But first it’s time they got cleaned up, and don’t think that because we’re in Ancient Rome there’ll be any skimping on the obligatory shower scenes. The girls are forcibly stripped by a couple of gladiators - Marcus (Vassili Karis) and Wulfstan (Ivan Gasper) - and then scrubbed down by Cornelia (Rosalba Neri), Roman equivalent of the vicious, butch warden. That night there’s a good old Roman Orgy, with Mamawi and Bodicia offered as entertainment. Mamawi gets down to some sexy dancing, but the haughty Bodicia breaks a wine jug on the head of a guy dumb enough to grope her arse. One of the Romans decides to teach Bodicia some respect by raping her, though how much of her obvious distress is due to the guy’s hideous hairy back isn’t made clear. At least he didn’t say “this one has spirit” or “she’s a feisty one” or some other dreadful cliché. Despite getting to watch sizzling Pam Grier dances and Margaret Markov rape scenes, Timarchus is not a happy man. The crowds are bored with seeing guys killing each other, and like any good promoter he needs a gimmick. First, he tries pitting the gladiator’s monosyllabic trainer Septimus (Pietro Ceccarelli, though it‘s possible to mistake him for Tor Johnson) against two opponents: Marcus and black gladiator Quintus (Jho Jhenkins). It’s traditional for gladiators to have sex with their pick of the slave girls first. This prompts my favourite line in the movie: when stuck-up Roman bitch Livia cries, “Oh Gods, do you mean we have to satisfy their animal heat?” No love, you just have to shag them. Bodicia is the lucky girl sent to satisfy Marcus’ animal heat. He’s initially too distraught to do anything, being resigned to dying the next day. Still, she manages to coax him around. Meanwhile Mamawi has been summoned by Quintus. At first he tries to rape her, but she is able to fight him off. She admonishes him for allowing the Romans to make him an animal, and he looks so remorseful that she fucks him anyway. As for Septimus, he has his own partner Lucinia (Mary Count), the mother of his child. During the next day’s contest, Septimus predictably kills Marcus and Quintus. However the crowd are still pretty unimpressed, and Timarchus frets about keeping them entertained. Later, Livia asserts that the match wasn’t fair anyway: being a superior Roman she naturally looks down on black slaves. This prompts Mamawi to try and kill her, and when Bodicia steps in she ends up on the receiving end of Mamawi’s anger. Timarchus is summoned at the commotion and observes that, hey, those two women are fighting just like gladiators!
The next match is due to take place the following day, with Bodicia scheduled to take on Mamawi. Bodicia claims her right to pick a slave to spend the night with, and chooses Septimus. He is grief-stricken at Lucinia’s death, so Bodicia tries to convince him to help them escape. But Septimus has other ideas: he breaks into Timarchus’ bedchamber and tries to kill his master. Unfortunately he is captured by the guards and executed, and if that isn’t bad enough the acting in this scene is pretty lethal too. Overjoyed to still be alive, Timarchus claims he will release the victor of the next contest. Mamawi, looking out for number one as usual, is determined to win. Bodicia, more of a bolshy communist type, wants all the gladiators to break out together. The contest begins and the women are pretty evenly matched, but Mamawi eventually gets the upper hand. It looks bad for Bodicia but at that moment the gladiators make their move. A pitched battle between the slaves and soldiers erupts, which the crowd find jolly entertaining. So much so that they toss Timarchus and Priscium into the fray where both are quickly dispatched - as is Cornelia, who gets skewered by Mamawi. As for Livia, the haughty Roman bitch, she’s gang-raped by the same crowd who wanted her set free not minutes earlier. Bloody Romans… The gladiators end up in a running battle with the local legion, which continues into the catacombs beneath the town. Eventually the survivors (i.e. Mamawi and Bodicia) make it out of the labyrinth and head for freedom: Pam Grier to an even more successful career as the Queen of Blaxploitation, and Margaret Markov to complete obscurity. The Arena came about because producer Roger Corman was looking for a new twist on the lucrative women in prison theme. His head of development at New World was an Oxford scholar named Frances Doel, who suggested combining the WIP movie with a Roman gladiator picture. The result, while flawed, is highly entertaining. First up, you have a bunch of attractive women in skimpy warrior outfits years before Xena. And the actresses aren’t bad either; Markov is rather more bland than she was in Black Mama, White Mama, but by now Pam Grier had the ‘complete badass’ thing down perfectly. Marie Louise is also enjoyably nasty as the stuck-up Livia, and gets some of the movie’s worst (and funniest) lines. The guys don’t fare quite so well. Vassili Karis is anonymously handsome and noble as Marcus, but he isn’t around for very long. Peplum flick stalwart Pietro Ceccarelli as Septimus doesn‘t just look like Tor Johnson, he acts like him too. I rather like the way he‘s credited as ’Peter Cester’ as if the viewer won’t notice the horrible dub job. Then there’s Daniele Vargas as Timarchus… Oh dear oh dear oh dear. An actor so bad, he literally chews the scenery. There’s some nice production value from shooting in Italy, the spiritual and literal home of the sword and sandal flick, but this brings me to an unfortunate niggle. It isn’t normally my style to criticise a film based on its DVD presentation; I prefer to concentrate on what the filmmakers originally came up with, rather than how it was treated years later by a bunch of completely different guys. However, Corman’s DVD label New Concorde do this film no favours at all. With only one exception I can think of (Battle Beyond The Stars), all of New Concorde’s releases are pan & scan versions. This really isn’t the way to go, since original prints are often still around - MGM’s UK release of Piranha features a gorgeous restored anamorphic widescreen picture, unlike the cropped New Concorde version.
In case you were wondering, the Romans really did have female gladiators fighting in their arenas. To learn more, check out the Gladiatrix site. As for this flick, skip right past the dodgy 2001 remake with Playmates Karen McDougal and Lisa Dergan. A much better idea is to follow Pam Grier as she leaves prison, hops in some righteous pimpmobile and heads off to far more funky climes… Dave Thomas, 5th November 2003
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The Arena
The
best thing about the opening scene is that it’s pretty clear we aren’t
in the Philippines any more. In fact the setting is Britain (or as it was called
back then, Italy), where Druid priestess Bodicia (Margaret Markov) is performing
a sacred face painting ritual. Unfortunately this is busted up by some killjoy
Romans and Bodicia is captured. Thence to Nubia (or as it was then, a different
part of Italy), where Mamawi (Pam Grier) is boogie-ing on down with her honey.
It’s all very tribal and everyone is dressed in 
Sure
enough, after some rudimentary training the girls end up in the arena. This
disturbs Lucinia, who confides in Septimus that she fears she will die there. He
chides her not to be so foolish, since the first match is to be between Bodicia
and Deirdre. When the contest comes, Deirdre is so drunk that she passes out of
her own accord. It’s not much of a fight, but the crowd seem to like it. Thus
the next day Mamawi is put up against Livia. However Mamawi’s chance for
revenge is short-lived, because once the crowd discover Livia is a Roman they
demand she be replaced. Sure enough the standby gladiator is Lucinia, who is
quickly beaten by Mamawi. Timarchus gives Lucinia the old thumbs-down, and under
pain of a Roman arrow in the back Mamawi is forced to kill her. The heartbroken
Septimus can only watch helplessly.
The problem is that The Arena was shot in a pretty
wide Scope format, obvious from the opening and closing credits and THE BLOODY
TRAILER, included on the disc in widescreen! From these brief glimpses it’s
obvious that director Steve Carver had a pretty good eye for filling the frame -
along with the nice cinematography by legendary schlockmeister Joe D'Amato
(credited as Aristide Massaccesi). This is ruined by the pan & scan version,
particularly painful in the battle scenes. Of course I doubt there’ll ever be
a remastered widescreen version of this movie, but a guy can dream…