War Goddess

A very strange and anachronistic movie of 1973; it feels like it should have been made a decade before, at the height of the sword and sandal boom. As for Terence Young directing...who knows?! I saw the English dub, which is pretty bad, but then so is this overlong and rather aimless film. It highlights Amazon society, following their new queen as she engages with a male tribe for procreation, but the acting is limited at best and the dialogue pitiful. Some nice acrobatics here and there and one battle scene, but the focus throughout is on showing skin, most notably in an explicit nude catfight, so this is more a skin flick than anything else.

First: this movie is from 1973 and not 1974. The sequel is made in 1974 "Amazzoni - donne d'amore e di guerra, Le" and not in 1973. There is also an third movie, a comedy made in 1975.

The movie "Guerriere dal seno nudo, Le" have I seen in the cinema when I was 15 years old. At that time the movie was rated 18 years but lucky that I get in. Why this movie was rated 18 years have I never understood. You don't see any pornography or parts of human body in blood. But maybe the idea that the Amazon women must killed the men after they have mate. Also they killed the babies when it's a boy but you don't see anything.

It's now 30 years later that I've seen the movie but still it's in my mind. The beautiful women who fight in a training camp and battle against men. Never have I seen so professional women fighters as in this movie. They fight with sword and are dressed in a erotic war clothes. There a an lot of Latin look-a-like women in this movie and is a pleasant to see them. The sexual parts of the movie are not very great. You see some parts of nudity and that's it. Enough to see the movie with your children if you want to tell them how children became to this world.

The 2 sequels of this movie: The second is poor follow-up and have not satisfy me. It go about killing more men without any reasons. The third is great but have an another kind of genre. It's a comedy about an karate fighter and a large men who come in the area of the Amazon women. In a funny style they fight against the Amazon women. It have impressed me not very much. IF SOMEONE KNOW THE TITTLE OF THE THIRD MOVIE, PLEASE LET ME KNOW.

A sexually-liberated (if not terribly explicit) peplum which inconceivably attracted an assortment of talent - director Young, cinematographer Aldo Tonti, production designer Mario Garbuglia, composer Riz Ortolani - but the result is jaw-droppingly awful, so much so that I can't remember the last time I laughed so hard (for all the wrong reasons) during a film! The warriors of the title are man-hating (i.e. lesbian) Amazonian women who must go through the 'humiliation' of mating once a year with strong men (settling on a garrison of the Greek army, despite their well-known reputation as homosexuals) in order to bear females to continue their line!

It's well and good that the film doesn't take itself too seriously - as can be witnessed from the self-deprecating text which opens and closes the picture - but that doesn't excuse the sheer insanity of some of its concepts: the Amazonians being able to avoid an ambush or detect an intruder in their camp because one of them is allergic to males and has a sneezing fit whenever she senses their presence; the mating is preceded by a ritual of anti-male chanting that is supposed to 'insulate' the women in the call of their duty, thus making submission (even if temporary) to the opposite sex tolerable. Also worth mentioning are the Olympian challenges between the two armies (which the men invariably lose?!), not one but two all-nude wrestling matches - no doubt inspired by the notorious male equivalent which forms the centerpiece of Ken Russell's WOMEN IN LOVE (1969) - between the current Amazonian Queen and her jealous and scheming rival (belatedly revealed as her own sibling, but which doesn't prevent them from subsequently becoming lovers!!), the stupid mugging of a love-struck servant girl who drinks an aphrodisiac prepared for the Queen by the conspirators...not forgetting the ludicrous art direction (everything in the Amazonian court, including the Queen's throne and scepter, seems to be made in the shape of an axe for no apparent reason!), the incongruous costumes (from the much later Roman Empire era), or the battle scenes in which the fighting Amazonians are barely-concealed stuntmen in drag!!

Apparently, LE GUERRIERE DAL SENO NUDO (which literally translates to THE BARE-BREASTED WARRIORS but was known internationally as THE AMAZONS) was a rival production with the equally irresistible-sounding LE AMAZZONI - DONNE D' AMORE E DI GUERRA aka BATTLE OF THE AMAZONS (1973), directed by Al Bradley...er...Alfonso Brescia!

The storyline is rather stupid, with the silly anti-Women's Lib back ground (women can not do without men, see…). But the movie in its original full unrated version contains two or three of the most erotic soft core lesbian scenes ever. The women are strong but very good looking (this was shot before any silicon stuff came to pollute nudity). The camera work is of course excellent (director Terence Young). The first memorable scene consists of a topless oil wrestling fight to decide who the next queen will be. There is also a long savage nude fight with the same competitors which ends with cute kissing. This probably the only mainstream movie to picture women wrestling with a strong erotic overtone.

This movie's greatest selling point is the sex. There is tons of it, even for an exploitation film. I wouldn't go out of my way to review this if that was all it had to offer though. It presents minimal plot yet an interesting take on politics in the city of Amazons. Most impressive of all however, is the acrobatics.

For some reason, women in American movies at this time were, more often than not, poor fighters. Even in the 80's, Sandahl Bergman, the queen of fantasy adventures, could just barely pass as someone trained with a sword. She was in at least three I can think of in which swordplay was important to her character, yet she never once sold me that she could use it. Against the odds, every major and minor character in War Goddess can fight. On foot, horseback, and in mud, these women can wield any weapon and perform any feat. It's very impressive.