Focus On: Conan The Barbarian (1982)

The next several posts are going to be a departure from the porn leanings that you've by now become accustomed to with MotörDuley. This is actually kind of an experiment as well. I have an idea for a new feature, called "Focus On" that I want to try out. Basically what's going to happen is, I'll select something specific that interests me (probably a movie), and post as many magazine articles and whatnot as I can.

The first selection, obviously, is the original Conan the Barbarian film from 1982. Now, lets be clear, Conan isn't high art or anything. That said, the character as written by Robert E. Howard is pretty cool. Conan is THE alpha-male. This isn't just Superman without the cape. Fuck that. Conan emerged six years (Conan first appeared in Weird Tales in 1932) before Superman swooped into Action Comics.

As a kid I read all of the Conan paperbacks that had R.E. Howard's name on them. This is in addition to reading Savage Sword, and Conan Saga. However the color comic, and the paperbacks by other authors never interested me. All of this started about five years after the movie was released in 1982.

I was only six when the movie was released in May 1982. Even though I asked nicely, for some reason my parents wouldn't take me to see this hyper-violent movie. So I had to wait a while. Eventually I had my grandfather tape it off of HBO for me, and I got the full experience.

So it's reasonable to say, that at some point I had an unhealthy amount of Conan in my life. But, that was a long time ago, and now, I don't have the paperbacks anymore, and now, I don't have the comics anymore. Alright, now, in a fit of nostalgia, I've gotten my hands on a handful of magazines that cover the original film.

Some of these magazine articles aren't revelatory by any stretch, however, there's a few that are in depth, specifically the Cinefantastique articles are great. They're cool, and they're coming.

The recent 2011 Conan movie kind of took the wind out of peoples sails as far as a theatrical version of the character is concerned. Bear in mind, R.E. Howard's vision has never been faithfully adapted. However the Milius version is decent. And as far as being a sword and sorcery film, it's fantastic. In fact it's the best sword and sorcery film that I've seen.

-BoDuley