Behind-The-Scenes Stories From 'Conan the Barbarian'
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A lot of movies likely come to mind when you think of Arnold Schwarzenegger, but for many fans, his first big Hollywood break, Conan the Barbarian, is preeminent. It's one of his greatest movies, and it's a fantastic sword and sorcery flick that's just as much fun to watch now as it was in 1982.
Since the movie has been out for 40+ years, numerous stories and rumors have come to light about the many behind-the-scenes aspects of the film. The movie took so long to produce - and resulted in multiple injuries, so there's a lot many fans already know about the making of Conan the Barbarian.
Still, it's unlikely most fans know everything there is to know about the movie, and this list aims to fill in the gaps. Take a look below, and be sure to vote up the most informative or entertaining items.
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1Schwarzenegger Was So Relaxed By Makeup Guys Painting Symbols On Him, He Fell Asleep
Everyone appearing in a film has to go to hair and makeup and transform themselves in one way or another. Whether it's an application of makeup or a full-on transformation into a movie monster, some time will be spent in a chair while a crew of busy workers clip, glue, pat, and paint you.
Depending on what's being done, some actors read, others watch TV, and some have to sit there and do nothing at all to ensure the process isn't interrupted. For the scene in which Conan's friends attempt to revive him after taking him down from the Tree of Woe, Schwarzenegger had to have various parts of his body painted, including his face, and this meant he had to lie down without moving for long periods of time, so as you can imagine, he was pretty relaxed. As he explained:
For me, it was, of course, not so difficult at all because I was just lying there, I remember I was just lying there on the beach, and these guys were all crawling around me doing their painting and stuff, and I fell asleep because it was so soothing it was like getting a massage on the beach, or something like that. So, this was the least difficult moment of my making of Conan.
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2You Can Hear The Rattle Of Chains In The Movie’s Score
The score for Conan the Barbarian was the responsibility of Basil Poledouris, and in a strange move, he recorded the score before principal photography was started. This isn't how scoring a movie usually works, but he had the storyboards to work with and turned out an excellent series of musical compositions for the film.
He had a year to begin recording thematic concepts for the film, which weren't finished pieces but set the direction he wanted to go in. When shooting began, he was able to make changes as filming progressed, and he worked closely with the director to match his vision for the film.
The final score is very operatic, and the music has to carry much of the story because there is very little dialogue in the movie. In a sense, the music is a narrator that takes the viewer from one scene to another. This is apparent during the Wheel of Pain scene and throughout the movie's most significant moments.
Instead of using modern instruments throughout the score, Poledouris wanted to use more ancient musical instruments. He also created instruments out of unusual items, including chains, which can be heard rattling in the music for the Wheel of Pain sequence.
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3James Earl Jones Made His Snake So Comfortable, The Animal Trainer Had To Liven It Up
In Conan the Barbarian, James Earl Jones plays Thulsa Doom, and he transforms into a snake at the end of the film. The character has a thing for snakes and carries one around with him in several scenes. Unlike the giant snakes depicted throughout the movie, Jones's pet was a live animal, and it enjoyed hanging out with the actor.
Jones got to know some snakes brought to the set, and his time in the Army served him well. He had experience working with snakes during Ranger training and was comfortable around them. When he held the snake, though, it was too comfortable around him, and the animal trainers had to “fluff him up and get him moving so he would look live.”
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4The Famous ‘Crush Your Enemies’ Quote Is From A Biography Of Genghis Khan
If you ask a fan to quote Conan the Barbarian, there's an excellent chance they will say the following:
What is best in life? To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women.
This iconic cinematic moment takes inspiration from The Emperor of All Men, a Harold Lamb book about Genghis Khan. It's a little different in the book, but you can see how it worked its way into the film. When Khan asks one of his officers of the Mongol guard what brings the greatest happiness, he says:
The open steppe, a clear day, and a swift horse under you. …and a falcon on your wrist to start up hares.
To this, Khan replies:
Nay. To crush your enemies, to see them fall at your feet – to take their horses and goods and hear the lamentation of their women. That is best.
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5The Actor Who Played Subotai Was The Director’s Surfing Buddy
Subotai is a Hyrlanian thief and archer Conan meets on his journey, and the two become fast friends. Subotai was played by Gerry Lopez in his first acting role. As it happens, Lopez wasn't an actor at all, but he was something of an inspiration to the director, John Milius.
The two were surfing buddies and had known each other for a long time, so when Milius was casting for Subotai, he used Lopez as a model for how he thought the character should be portrayed. He read numerous actors for the part but kept comparing them to Lopez until someone told him to just cast his friend and be done with it.
That's what ultimately happened, and they tested Lopez in the role, and he was a perfect fit! Producer Raffaella De Laurentiis and her father, Agostino "Dino" De Laurentiis, were surprised at how good he was in the part. Lopez didn't come to the set without some background knowledge, as he was a fan of the books, having read them all.
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- Conan Unchained: The Making of Conan The Barbarian
- Universal Studios Home Video
6Director John Milius Was The Best Archer On The Set
During the scene involving the gigantic snake, Conan is wrapped in its coils while fighting it for his life. Fortunately, Subotai is nearby and manages to fire a few arrows into the monstrous snake's head. To shoot the scene, real arrows had to be fired into the snake puppet from a distance, which was dangerous, as Schwarzenegger was right there.
Ultimately, the job fell to the director, who was the best archer on set. As he explained:
I had to do it ‘cause I turned out to be the best archer, and I had to shoot the arrows right past Arnold’s head into the snake. Now it was an easy shot – it would be nothing if he wasn't there, but it really bothers you when somebody's there.
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7The ‘Wheel Of Pain’ Was Actually Really Easy To Push
When Conan is captured and enslaved, he's forced to turn the Wheel of Pain with several other prisoners. Over time, the other prisoners disappear, and only Conan remains. He's become the massive, musclebound barbarian we all know and love, so pushing the Wheel of Pain had to be a good workout.
As it turns out, that's not entirely true. While Schwarzenegger is certainly strong, there was no reason while filming to make pushing the wheel an actual chore for the actor. If anything, production designers went too far the other way. As revealed in The Making of Conan the Barbarian documentary, the wheel was easy to move. Production designer Ron Cobb recalled:
The biggest problem we had was that it was so well balanced that when Arnold tried to get on it to actually push the thing, it just instantly spun, and the next spoke came around and hit him in the back of the head! It was no effort at all to push it, so for a while, we had part of the crew on the other side of the wheel out of the shot, pushing against Arnold, so it looks like it was hard to push.
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8Arnold Schwarzenegger Had To Bite A Real Vulture’s Neck
When Conan is crucified on the Tree of Woe, he's left to die in the sun, which nearly kills him. As he's fading in and out, he awakens to a vulture casually gnawing on his chest while sitting atop his shoulder. Conan isn't enjoying the attention, so he does the only thing he can: he turns his head and bites the vulture in the neck, and throws it off him as it shrieks.
While most movies would substitute an actual vulture for a fake one, that's not how it was done on Conan the Barbarian's set. Instead, they used a real vulture that Schwarzenegger had to literally bite in the neck. And by “real,” we mean “really dead.”
As Schwarzenegger explains in The Making Of Conan the Barbarian documentary:
There was actually a real vulture leaning over to me. But then pulling back, and then we picked it up by putting this vulture that just died mysteriously, and I bit into that neck. And the reason why I remember this very carefully was because right after that, the medics always ran up to me and gave something to me to gargle with because of the danger of getting really, really sick because with this being still a real thing, you know, except it was now stuffed and all that but just I mean very primitively done.
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9Animal Rights Activists Objected To The Final Battle, But No Horses Were Injured
During the final battle between Conan and his allies against the army of Thulsa Doom, a bunch of horses were brought in to handle the cavalry charge. A lot of work went into making it looks realistic when weapons and horses met during a shot. However, as crew have pointed out:
There were absolutely no animals injured. The only animals were the Great Danes: these huge Scandanavian guys. They were the only ones who were ever injured, but the real animals themselves were never injured.
Animal rights activists picketed the scene, believing the shots to be authentic, and thought a horse was injured or killed during a scene involving punji sticks. They spoke with the director about it, and he was very succinct in his response:
Ladies and gentlemen, did you see a stuntman falling through those sticks prior to the horse going through them? When that horse fell down the hill, there was a stuntman ahead of the horse. Do you think the stuntman died? No. Well, the horse didn't die either – they were made out of rubber.
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10Schwarzenegger Broke Someone’s Window Playing Golf On Location In Spain
During the filming of Conan the Barbarian, Schwarzenegger was shooting a lot of scenes in Spain, and like many people, he enjoyed having fun in his free time. When he had a break from shooting, he and Gerry Lopez grabbed some clubs and headed out to a golf course in Spain.
Lopez revealed what happened in an interview with The Arnold Fans:
I think one of the funniest things is when we were down in El Maria and we were staying on a really nice golf course. No one every really played there; it was empty the whole time. Of course it was like April and still a little cool but it was nice, and Arnold goes, “Gerry, you want to play golf?” and I said I don’t know how. And he goes, “What, and you think I do?” So I said, "Yeah, let’s go!"
So we went and got a driving range and got a lot of balls, because we knew we were going to lose balls. We just went out there and played golf, and we were just terrible! Ah man, we were teeing off and he slices one and it goes right through this guy’s big window! He looks at me and I go, “Should we run?” and he goes, “Yeaaah!” So that was it; that was the last hole. We just took off. That was pretty major. It went through a large window of a house overlooking the freeway. The ball just took it out!
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11Max Von Sydow’s Death Scene Was Spoiled By Overzealous Blood Bags
Max von Sydow plays King Osric in Conan the Barbarian and lends a great deal of gravitas to the film. He enjoyed playing the character and took the job for his son, who was a fan of the Conan comics.
Unfortunately, the actor's favorite scene in the movie isn't actually in the final cut, and it had to be removed because of some problems with the blood bags used during his death scene.
After the scene, when the three thieves are presented to King Osric, King Osric is killed by his bodyguards, I believe, who has gone secretly with the snake worshippers. And [director] Milius, who is very fond of swords and decapitations and things, he had figured out that I was not going to be decapitated, but he wanted the man to hit me with his sword right over my stomach, I believe.
And almost cut me in half. So I was rigged up with big blood bags all over underneath this costume I had, and this guy came up to me and tried to kill me and hit me with his sword, and I tried to die [laughs] as realistically as I could, but he missed, so no blood was shown, and Milius was very upset and so another time… retake, and we did it again, and the same result.
It was not as spectacular as he wanted, so again, they put up these blood bags, and finally, he hits the right spot, and I was a fountain of blood! And we all fell in a paroxysm of laughter because it was so extraordinary but apparently not usable, so the scene was cut.
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12The Movie Had To Be Recut 3 Times To Avoid An ‘X’ Rating
When the MCAA created the modern movie rating system, the X-rating was intended to restrict people under the age of 16 from seeing a film. This was most commonly associated with pornography, but that's not all it prohibited for children. Another aspect of a movie that could earn an X-rating is violence, and Conan the Barbarian has it in spades.
In fact, the movie had to be recut three times to avoid the X-Rating, which would have killed ticket sales. Most feature films with an X-Rating, like Caligula and Fritz the Cat, didn't earn much money at the box office, so in a way, it's the modern reason filmmakers don't release many R-rated movies – it limits their audience.
The studio was very nervous about the film's rating and insisted that it be recut until the MPAA finally dropped the X-rating. It took some work, but the talented editing team managed to shore it up enough to make it happen.
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- Conan Unchained: The Making of Conan The Barbarian
- Universal Studios Home Video
13Oliver Stone Wrote An Early Draft Of The Script And Wanted To Make A 12-Movie Series
If there's one name few would attach to Conan the Barbarian, it's Oliver Stone. He doesn't make movies like Conan, so it's hard to think of the legendary director as being involved with the project. As it happens, he was heavily involved and even wrote an early draft of the script, making him one of the movie's co-writers (opposite writer/director John Milius).
Stone came onto the project out of his interest in working on the popular pulp hero. He wanted to see it made into 12 movies and felt that the producers came in short and only did one movie. His script was compared to Dante's Inferno, and it was allegedly epic.
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