THE WARRIOR AND THE SORCERESS (1984)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical, sociological*

I hadn't planned on doing loads of research on the production history of THE WARRIOR AND THE SORCERESS, one of assorted sword-and-sorcery flicks Roger Corman had shot in Argentina. But I got curious. The film has a warrior, all right, in the form of David Carradine. And though this character is only called the Dark One in the finished script, at least one early script gives the movie the title KAIN OF DARK PLANET, which I choose to believe was someone riffing on the name of Carradine's most famous role. But why did the film's title claim to have a sorceress in the story, where there isn't any analogous character present. nor even a need for one? And that led me to this blogpost by the film's co-writer William Stout, who averred that the film's director and co-scripter John Broderick tried to rip off both Stout and Akira Kurosawa.

Stout's account makes clear that the producers always wanted to rip off Kurosawa's film YOJIMBO (which in its turn may have been a swipe from Dashiell Hmmett's novel RED HARVEST). Stout claims that he wanted to avoid a total copy of the Kurosawa plot, but that Broderick rewrote things so that WARRIOR followed the template exactly: unaffiliated loner comes to town, sees a gang war between two factions, and manipulates them to fight each other. Broderick's side of the story will never be known, as he passed in 2001.

In truth, Carradine's character-- whom I will go ahead and designate as "Kain"-- doesn't really do that much manipulation. On a world with two suns, Kain, some sort of warrior-priest, happens upon an isolated desert city where all of the inhabitants are desperately dependent on a single wellspring. Consequently, the two main warlords of the city, Zeg and Bal Caz, are constantly trying to edge the other out, but they don't want to initiate all-out war. When Kain defeats a handful of soldiers with his sword, both warlords try to hire him to take out their enemy.

Kain's motivations are not clear. He has one exchange with Naja, a local priestess (Maria Socas, who spends most of the film nude) and Naja loosely suggests that their two professions were once allied in some way. Is that the reason he wants to undermine both warlords? The script does not say. In a very undeveloped subplot, both warlords also want Naja to create a great sword for one of them to use, but by the climax Kain is the one who ends up using the weapon to defeat an enemy. There's nothing magical or super-scientific about the blade, which is actually crafted by an unnamed blacksmith while Naja stands to one side, possibly blessing the process. I theorize that this rigamarole was just inserted because someone thought a little sword-mythology was a must for a sword-wielding hero. 

Broderick may have done just what Stout claimed he did, but I like the directorial look of WARRIOR much more than most Corman efforts in this genre; his locations are well photographed and the look of the city has a stark, deprived quality. I suppose said genre is more "sword-and-planet" than "sword-and-sorcery," for I didn't see any evidence of magic whatever. Instead, in addition to the mostly humanoid inhabitants, there are a smattering of alien creatures and one intelligent lizard-man, as well a female dancer who, when she dances for Kain, displays four breasts. Strangely, on IMDB everyone mentions the four breasts, but not the fact that she has some sort of ALIEN-like appendage that whips out and almost poisons Kain. At that point Kain loses his standing with both warlords, who go to war while Kain ends up using his new sword to take out his most persistent foeman.

In contrast to the severe look of the costumes and exteriors, there's a generous helping of female nudity in addition to that of Ms. Socas and the dancer, and Carradine, his face grizzled with five-o-clock shadow, seems more invested here than in his usual grind-it-out hackwork. I gave WARRIOR a fair rating of mythicity only for the copious scenes emphasizing the city's quite understandable obsession with their water supply, an "element" (heh) not present in either YOJIMBO or RED HARVEST.

Oh, and Roger Corman's reason for sticking "sorceress" in the title was ostensibly to justify sticking a hot babe in the promotional posters. I believe that he said that, but it's not like he needed such an excuse with any of the DEATHSTALKER movies. Possibly he just thought his title was catchier.