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| Behold! The beauty of VHS! |
I recently acquired two sword and sorcery titles for
my collection and upon receiving the second one, made a very interesting discovery.
Now as you know I love good cover art and both of these titles have that but
what really stands out to me is the fact that they are so very similar. The
titles in question are Barbarian Queen (1985) released by Vestron Video and
Amazons (1986) released by MGM/UA Home Video.
What struck me as I opened the package containing Barbarian Queen was the fact that
there were five scantily clad women represented on the cover art, one which
seemed to be deemed the head amazon warrior. I thought it looked extremely
familiar so I went to the shelf and pulled down the MGM VHS of Amazons and yes!
Almost the same exact cover art. Five scantily clad amazon warriors with one
represented as a head warrior. Isn’t that nifty? I had to wonder if they were
released close together and sure enough they were.
Barbarian Queen was released shortly after the success of
Deathstalker (1983) and stars Lana Clarkson who portrayed Kaira, an Amazon
warrior. Amazons was released a year after Barbarian Queen in 1986 so it looks
as if someone was cashing in on the whole sword and sorcery craze which was
made very popular by the films Conan the Barbarian (1982), Conan the Destroyer
(1984) and Red Sonja (1985).
As I compared the artwork I found an even more interesting
little tidbit. The head warriors look pretty much the same in the face! At this
point I was getting my geek on. Seriously though look at the screen shots (even
though they are a bit blurry). Each warrior is wearing very similar head pieces but
the facial features are exact. Barbarian Queen’s head warrior looks to be a
little more psychical than the head honcho of Amazons but both are of course
dripping sexuality which is the main draw to these exploitative action films
right?.......riiiiiiiight.
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| Sexy lady one |
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| Sexy lady two...they look the same to these eyes! |
So after finding the artwork rather interesting with look
alike head warrior princesses surrounded by scantily clad beautiful warrior
women, I decided to dig a little into the production of the films themselves to
see if there was a connection. Low and behold there was! I really shouldn’t be
surprised either to be honest. I mean really, who has made a career of ripping
of popular films, making them for next to nothing as far as money spent is
concerned and make a decent profit from it? None other than the man with a film
career that reads like a rap sheet/grocery list. The man who has probably
employed more big name stars before they were stars. Who is the purveyor of
cheap B films you may ask? None other than Mr. Roger Corman!!
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| HA HA! All the way to the bank baby! |
Barbarian Queen was filmed in Argentina through Corman’s
production company Rodeo Productions in Buenos Aires. Amazons was also filmed
in Argentina but the production company info is sketchy. I haven’t had a chance
to watch either one since I just recently acquired them but hopefully with a
viewing of each I might be able to shed some light on that subject. My
cheapyBmovie-sense tells me that they were both filmed in the same locations,
by the same production company and funded the same wallet which belongs to
Corman.
So there you have it. My indulgence into exploitation films
leaves me with more useless knowledge that I can spew forth when the moment
arises. And that usually isn’t very often……which is why I have this blog so
that I can spew forth the knowledge and give you, my trusted reader, some info
you really don’t need but hell isn’t that reason you keep tuning in?
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