Overrated and overhyped

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

One of those movie experiences that is so good it makes you realize you've been grading everything else on a curve.

What can one expect of a film about raving amazons from 1973? I expected something really terrible but it wasn't at all as bad as I expected. The basic story of a competition between two female leaders is kind of silly, but it has not at all the campy weirdness one would expect with all these big breasted women doing naked oil wrestling, throwing javelin, riding on horses, sleeping together, fighting, et cetera.There are even sincere dialogues, nice looking sets and mass fight scenes. It has the looks of an expensive film. The story line of Antiope finding affection of a man, and being troubled by it, is not very interesting, but believable in a sense, also thanks to the reasonable acting by Angelo Infanti. All other acting is not very good, but never the cringing kind of bad.But how to watch this? It is not too bad to get the predicate 'camp'. It is not funny enough to be a comedy (only a slight bit, when women are torn between aversion and lust for men). And it is certainly not factual to be enjoyed as an historical drama, as many others already have pointed out.And what about an erotic film? There are pretty women in it, often naked. But the characters themselves HARDLY seem to enjoy sexuality. They have to ENDURE it in order not to die out. Which was perhaps the whole joke of the film, I guess, but only director Terence Young could have told us that. I rate this 5/10.

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.

I would say that this otherwise acceptable bit of sword and sandals with a feminine twist ( and loads of wholesome female flesh) was spoilt by the rather weak and disappointing ending.I loved the two fight scenes between the two rivals for the four year term of office as queen (!!) especially the second and nude fight which led to a tender reconciliation between them.But it was marred for me by the way the men had to get their own way in the end. Shame!I only recently obtained the DVD of this old movie after looking out for it for a while. It's a bit scrappy in parts, but worth watching. I suspect some scenes have been lost altogether.It's a shame there isn't more of this escapist stuff out there full of voluptuous bimbos! As another reviewer has said, the fight scenes are very well done.

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!