The Arena [1974]

This is obviously a gimmicked-up variation on the already gimmicky enough women-in-prison film, though screenwriters Joyce and William Corrington copy whole chunks from the Spartacus playbook even as they stick to a New World budget. A bunch of women from various quarters of the Roman world, all of which look like Italian countryside, are kidnapped into slavery [ie: the usual WIP showers, gropings, rapes, privations and proto-feminist bonding] and wind up at a provincial arena where the local gladiators are starting to bore the bloodthirsty fans. The head of the school [Daniele Vargas] experiments with female gladiators, which goes from being fluffy to deadly serious as the women start getting killed – the crisis comes when the girlfriend of the gladiator top dog is slaughtered after getting the thumbs-down, so there's the expected slave revolt, with the usual consequences [flabby Roman citizens thrown into the arena to get a taste of their own medicine, chases through supposedly extensive catacombs, all the nasty folk getting properly skewered].

Directed by Steve Carver, photographed by Aristide Massacesi [who allegedly co-directed, which seems possible] and edited by Joe Dante, it's still not very exciting - and a cropped UK DVD doesn't do the wide compositions any favours. Pam Grier was such an iconic presence she could often get away with just showing her profile and her figure, but she's not that credible as Nubian warrior Mamawi; Margaret Markov is much better as blonde Briton Bodicia, a pagan priestess. Also around are Rosalba Neri/Sara Bey as the nasty mistress of the slave quarters, Paul Muller as an obnoxious hairy-backed rapist, Marie Louise as a scheming former citizen of Rome who gets gang-banged during the riot and Lucretia Love quite terrible as a comical drunk from Hibernia. Actually, the girls look weedy in action, which plays well when they're supposed to be amateurs with no idea how to fight but undercuts the extensive revolt at the end.
KIM NEWMAN

First published in this form here.

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