I’ve watched this disaster unfold all last week, then the formal detailed announcement came Friday as posted on the Deadline website. Universal, in conjunction with Paradox, has a new Conan movie in the works with Arnold Schwarzenegger returning at age 63 to reprise his role as Conan. The new film, being fast tracked for a 2014 release, will be titled The Legend of Conan. Paradox’s head honcho Fredrik Malmberg describes the premise of the film in this excerpt form the film’s announcement:

The original ended with Arnold on the throne as a seasoned warrior, and this is the take of the film we will make,” Malmberg told me. “It’s that Nordic Viking mythic guy who has played the role of king, warrior, soldier and mercenary, and who has bedded more women than anyone, nearing the last cycle of his life. He knows he’ll be going to Valhalla, and wants to go out with a good battle.

Evidently it has been some time since Fred has read the original Conan stories. Last time I checked he was still a Cimmerian and his god was Crom. Howard’s Conan would not want jump into a battle just so he can die and go to “Viking heaven.” He would much rather emerge victorious and save the dying for another day.

This “direct sequel” business has me puzzled too. They will have to explain how he got from being a young Conan to that final shot from the 1982 film with an aged Conan on the throne. Will we see a younger actor with Arnold’s face CGI’d onto his body act out various scenes from Conan’s past as he rises to king as a pirate, bandit, mercenary, seasoned warrior, leader of armies and his ascension to the throne of Aquilonia in a series of flashbacks?  Also, the movie-makers will pretend like 1984′s Conan the Destroyer and last year’s re-boot of Conan the Barbarian never existed. While some strickly Conan fans think this might be a good idea, I don’t get the logic behind it.

Arnold’s obviously too old for some version of The Hour of the Dragon adaptation. Age-wise he’s more suited to de Camp and Carter’s Conan of the Isles — which no Howard fan wants to see. We’ll have to wait and see what screenwriter and producer Chris Morgan comes up with as the film progresses — that is if he finishes the script for the new Fast and Furious movie he’s penning in time to write one or at least oversee another scriptwriter for this Conan, along with his producing duties.

While there was some hope the 2011 movie would at least make an effort to capture Howard’s Conan, it just wasn’t up to the task. Momoa was a pretty good Conan, but the script was a dog. In that case they had some 27 years to get it right and didn’t. I don’t see how they can do it in less than two years. As true Howard fans have learned from previous efforts, Conan is a property to Hollywood, but a treasure to us.

Being a part of the panel celebrating Conan’s 80^th birthday was going to be a lot of fun—no pressure, just utilize whatever Howardian information I had stowed away from 45 plus years of reading.  However, at a Friday night supper with my fellow panel members—Rusty Burke, Don Herron and Indy Cavalier—I was given notice, from Indy, and earlier that day from Don, that everyone but me was a member of the elite Black Circle group.  Not sure how to handle such snobbery I politely ignored the jeers and evil laughter and concentrated on my burger.  Seriously, I felt lucky indeed to end up with such distinguished panel partners, but I’d chop an arm off before I’d let them know that.

Anyway, Don and I arrived at the Hyatt on Thursday and after checking in took the elevator to the fifteenth floor—absolutely beautiful hotel with a fantastic view, only thing missing was a hospitality room.

Nine o’clock Friday morning was the opening of the dealer’s room and I was ready to participate—my money clip was hot and my fingers were itching; time to buy.  Going to a PulpFest is quite the experience—if you like pulps and first editions you know the minute you walk into the dealer’s room that you’re in the right place.  Row upon row of pulps, and unlike buying off eBay you get to give the old magazine a smell test before your purchase.  But while I love pulps I’m more of an autograph seeker and it wasn’t long before I had discovered a signed copy of John W. Campbell’s Who Goes There?—with the Malcolm Smith cover—and snapped it up immediately.

On Saturday Don introduced me to Walker Martin who had a pile of old Frank A. Munsey Company checks.  I love these signed beauties—each one, of course, bears the author’s name and the amount paid, and on the back of the check is the writer’s signature and the title of the tale.  Mr. Martin was kind enough to allow me to sit behind his table and I had a grand time poring through a couple of stacks of this very rare material.  I picked up a nice little group, including Talbot Mundy, Walt Coburn, Anthony M. Rud, and a writer I haven’t read enough of but who wrote at least one very cool story in the vein of William Hope Hodgson, Philip M. Fisher.  The nicest item, however, was a signed Cornell Woolrich check for his story “Gratitude”—this lucky grab I was able to obtain from Scott Hartshorn, a PulpFest friend I first met in 2006.  Hopefully you’ll forgive this listing of some of my purchases but that’s Pulpfest—part of the gab is checking out everybody’s new treasures.

But then came Saturday night and Conan panel time.  There was some liquid knowledge flowing at the bar beforehand which seems to be the customary thing to do.  Our presentation was scheduled to start at 8:30 but in typical PulpFest style we went on a bit late, around 8:50 or so.  It’s not because of bad planning; it’s actually due to the enthusiasm of the fans—every panel I saw had a pretty good turnout with people asking plenty of questions.

Our panel went, I feel, very well, with no casualties and while usually we would have been given our hour, that night we had to pretty much end on time—an auction was scheduled right after our talk and you never want to get in the way of a pulp fan with cash, so we made it a point to be done at 9:30.  A pretty nice-sized crowd did show up, perhaps seventy or so, and while some were there waiting for the auction all seemed interested in Howard and his tales of Conan.

I was really pleased to see some younger people in the audience—their love and enthusiasm for Howard was truly infectious and I don’t see interest in our favorite Texan dying out anytime soon.  One gentleman explained that he started reading REH after watching Conan the Barbarian—so even bad movies can do some good.

After the panel we traveled back to the bar and while I’m no longer supposed to drink I broke my doctor’s rule (his rule, not mine) and had a couple.  It was great listening to people describe their collections and what items they’re still hoping to discover.  A lot of knowledge being spread around and a lot of great people enjoying themselves—it really doesn’t get much better than that.

I’ll be going back to PulpFest, that’s for sure—maybe not next year but soon.  It was a blast to renew old friendships and create new ones—Howard fans are a polite and fun bunch—unless, of course, you stand between them and a pulp they desire; then it can get downright bloody.

I’d like to take some time and thank Ed Chaczyk for his contribution—he recorded the whole thing and I didn’t see him nod off once!  So I’m sure Ed will be posting video of the three Black Circle members and their acolyte fairly soon.  Photos this time are: my panel members posing by our hotel, the front of one of my check purchases, and the two cakes that were devoured by the audience before, and after, our presentation.  Cakes, pulps, and friends—I can now die a happy camper.  It was great to be a part of PulpFest 2012.

Matthew Clark, Howard fan and Friend of TGR, has a new audio production making its premiere tomorrow evening (Monday, 07/16) on KBOO radio of REH’s “Vulture’s Sanctuary.” The show will air live at 11:00 pm PDST and will be streamed on the internet.. If you can’t listen to it live, Matthew will have it permanently posted on the Gremlin Time section of the Oregon based radio station’s webpage in about a week.

As readers of this blog know, Matthew has previously produced three other Howard stories: “Pigeons From Hell,” “Wild Water” and “The Valley of the Lost,” all of them posted on KBOO’s website. In addition to Robert E. Howard, Matthew presents stories a by a host of other classic authors: Jack London, Damon Runyon, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Edith Warton, Rafael Sabtini, Zora Neal Hurston, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sosiki Natsumi, and many others. So if yuo want to hear a good want to hear a good story, tune in for a full hour on the 3rd Monday of every month.

Here is Mathew’s description of this classic pulp western adventure by Robert E. Howard:

Tonight, Fortunato presents “Vultures’ Sanctuary”, an old school western by Robert E. Howard, first printed in 1936. At first, Big Mac just wanted to take a real vacation in California. But, he’d stopped off in the lawless town of Capitan, and there was this girl, Judith Ellis, who at first, thought the big man was just another brawling roughneck. Now, he was riding deep into the wild mountains of the Guadalupes and into the middle of an impregnable outlaw stronghold to rescue her from the clutches of the mysterious bandit chief, El Bravo.

“Vultures Sanctuary” and the other Howard radio plays are great adaptations and well worth a listen.

Documentaries about our favorite writers can sometimes be very difficult to watch. The scuttlebutt I’ve been hearing about Barbarian Days is intriguing enough that I’m now anxious to see for myself if the filmmakers treat Howard—and his fans—with dignity. It appears that the movie is more a testament to Howard Days than the story of Howard himself and that’s fine; however, the pictures of the Barbarian Days poster that I’ve seen floating around on the web are terrible and dignity is not the word that comes to my mind.

So, I thought, since we acknowledged the 75th anniversary of the death of H. P. Lovecraft last week, it might be useful to look at one of the documentaries celebrating his life. The Eldritch Influence: The Life, Vision and Phenomenon of H. P. Lovecraft is, for the most part, a very respectful look at Lovecraft and his life and future Howard cinematic biographers could gain much from a viewing. Ramsey Campbell, Brian Lumley and Neil Gaiman give revealing interviews and reminisce of when they first read Lovecraft and how that discovery has influenced their own writing—and that of other authors as well. Robert E. Howard even gets a respectful mention and we’re treated to a photo of the Texan. S. T. Joshi is also a talking-head and furnishes some information on the biography of Lovecraft—and thankfully steers clear of giving his opinion of Howard. Filmmaker Stuart Gordon is represented and while I’m not a huge fan of his adaptations of the Old Gent’s stories I certainly can’t find fault with his admiration for HPL.

As any good documentary on Lovecraft should do we’re given a bit of a tour of Providence and we get to see images of Lovecraft’s house at 598 Angell Street and his last residence, at 66 College Street. A visit to the cemetery lets us pay respect at his gravesite and the tour includes views of some famous locations that were incorporated into his tales, including the Fleur-de-Lys building from “The Call of Cthulhu.”

It’s an entertaining look at the life of Lovecraft and, for the most part is handled extremely well—except for some stuff that really should have just been left out. Authors Andrew Migliore and John Strysik, in their Lurker in the Lobby: A Guide to the Cinema of H. P. Lovecraft, sum it up nicely—“Where the film errs…is the faux footage of the occult specialist and the occult group’s ritual to summon some unnameable (sic) thing. These might have worked if they were executed better, but in the end they leave the viewer asking why.”

I disagree with the “might have worked” bit—having fans act out Lovecraftian scenes never agrees with me. It seems there is always a part where someone is reciting passages from the Necronomicon and then nervously looking about, like he actually expects something to happen. Leave this junk out—it really does nothing for Lovecraft. It would be like going to Cross Plains and seeing some hairy, half naked, pot-bellied guy running around waving a sword and yelling “Crom!” every few minutes. Nothing I need to see, and thankfully have never seen. Treat your subject with respect—and that, except for a few minor points, is exactly what this documentary does.

Last evening I was one of a select few to get a sneak preview of the completed Barbarian Days film. Principal photography of the film was done at the 2008 Howard Days; the stars of the film are Rusty Burke as the “Godfather of Howard Days,” Mark Finn as the “Guest of Honor,” Bill Cavalier as the “Boss Dog of REHupa,” Chris Gruber as the “Boxing Stories Expert” and a host of other recognizable Howard Days attendees. But my ugly mug wasn’t among them — I was attending my wife’s family reunion in Mexico and couldn’t make it that year – it is the only Howard Days I’ve missed in the past ten years. For some background on the film, check out this previous blog post. The crew of filmmakers include Damian Horan, director; Grant Gish, writer and executive producer; Scott Thomas Towler, producer; Andrew Pettit co-producer; Adam Watson, cinematographer and Michael Koerbel, cinematographer. Here is the film’s synopsis from the Barbarian Days website:

Synopsis

Most people spend their whole lives searching for what makes them happy. Few find it. Even fewer get the chance to share it with friends.

Every year hundreds of fans flock to tiny Cross Plains, Texas, the home of Robert E. Howard, creator of Conan the Barbarian. Nearly 80 years after his death by suicide, Howard, an outsider himself, has attracted his own merry band of self-admitted outcast followers.

We followed the Big 4, the top two Howard scholars from the old guard and two up and comers, through their world of fandom at “Howard Days,” the annual celebration of Howard’s life and works.

Despite the cheery air of the celebratory weekend, drama and emotions often run high as Howard fans take their pastime very seriously, often leading to heated arguments and in some cases, brawls. In the end, however, the fans are all gathered for the same reason, to share their passion for Howard and for one weekend a year leave their ordinary lives behind.

The cinematography, editing, lighting, sound, music, etc. are all first rate; this is a very professional film. The director and the rest of the crew deserve a big hat tip from all Howard fans for putting thousands of man hours into the production and editing of this movie – the easy part is the filming, but the real work begins after the last scene is shot. This being an independent film, it has taken a few years to get the funds together to finish it. However, the film crew has worked hard to get it completed and ready for viewing.

The film itself covers a lot of ground, with extensive interviews with the four “stars” and many other Howard Heads. Each has their own story  to tell about their connection to Howard and what he means to them and the filmmakers allow ample time for them to make their point. Transitions from scene to scene and topic to topic are very smooth, which follows a logical chronology to the story they are telling.

Obviously, Barbarian Days was produced for a broad market, so some of the content might be common knowledge to the regular suspects who attend Howard Days. But those people are already on the Howard bandwagon – the hope for the film is it may bring new converts to the Texan fictioneer’s fold.

In places Howard Heads do look like and sound a bit like geeks (heck, some of us are), but overall the film portrays the fans and Howard in a favorable light – something many us were worried about. Indeed, the filmmakers take the topic seriously and treat everyone with dignity, especially the Cross Plains townspeople. A segment on the December 2005 fires is included and highlights the devastation the town suffered and the big comeback the citizens made from the near destruction of the town. Inter-cut with the film are scenes from the two Schwarzenegger Conan movies and The Whole Wide World, but they are not just thrown in, but rather interwoven the topic being discussed. Bottom line, if you’ve never been to Howard Days, the film gives you a good feel for what it is like. All of the activities and events are shown from Friday morning’s coffee and doughnuts at the Pavilion through the annual barbecue at the Caddo Peak Ranch. The Barbarian Festival gets some nice coverage as well.

The only scene I would take issue with is an animated one. The animated sequence was used to illustrate the much discussed 2007 confrontation at Howard Days between Chris Gruber and Leo Grin. Since no one would talk about it on camera, not even the instigator (Chris), the filmmakers took some artistic license and used Leo’s own account from the pages of the August 2007 issue of The Cimmerian in Brian Leno’s trip report, “Down the Rabbit Hole.” Situations like this are like a falling out among family members – everyone moves on afterward and what happened stays in the family. Such is the case here.

One thing thing that was particularly compelling is Indy’s voice over statement at the end of the film. He gets the last word with his statement “Robert E. Howard saved my life.”

But Lee Breakiron pops up after the credits and gets upstaged by a group of nearby mooing cows, which renders him speechless.

All in all, it is a great film that keeps you entertained and invested in the story — I recommend it to Howard fans and non-believers as well.

As to where you can view the film, it has made the short list at several festivals at which the filmmakers are hoping to premiere it, but they have not yet been granted full acceptance. If and when they are accepted, the word will come down from them and I will be sure and get the names and dates of the pertinent festival(s) up on this blog.

Other than screening at festivals, which will definitely be a good forum to attract potential distributors, the filmmakers also plan on distributing DVD’s on as a backup plan. The DVD’s will only be available once they’ve either played the film at least one festival, or once they’ve heard back from all festivals regarding their submission status. They would also love to be able to allow for paid streaming of the film online at some point. So keep your fingers crossed and wish these gents much success in their efforts to bring Barbarian Days to the masses.

This is the third post for 2011 of the online version of Nemedian Dispatches. This feature previously appeared in the print journal, but now relocated here to the blog. On a quarterly basis, Nemedian Dispatches will highlight new and upcoming appearances of Howard’s fiction in print, as well as Howard in other types of media.

In Print:

Conan the Barbarian: The Stories that Inspired the Movie
This is a mass market paperback collection from Del Rey of five of Howard’s Conan yarns that purported inspired the movie script, though I don’t see how. Contents include “The Phoenix on the Sword,” “The People of the Black Circle,” “The Tower of the Elephant,” “Red Nails” and “Rogues in the House.” A slightly different version was published in Britain by Gollancz.

Conan the Barbarian and Solomon Kane Movie Novelizations
Also available, the Conan movie novelization by former REHupan Mike Stackpole and the movie tie-in for Solomon Kane by Ramsey Campbell, who has a long history with Kane having completed several of Howard’s uncompleted Kane stories for previous paperback collections.

Griots
This new sword and sorcery anthology is now available. Griots features a brand new Imaro novella by Charles Saunders and 13 other stories by gifted authors set in African or African-inspired backgrounds. Each story has a full page illustration accompanying it, with a stunning cover by Natiq Jalil to complete the package.

Kindle & E-Books:

The Deadly Sword of Cormac and From Dark Corners
Howard fan Steve Miller is working on several little eBooks/PDFs of Howard’s stories in the hopes of showing more people that Howard wrote other stories in addition to Conan and Solomon Kane. Two are currently available: “The Deadly Sword of Cormac” and “From Dark Corners.” Here is the projected schedule of coming Howard fiction projects: “Terror on River Street” and “Fists of Foolishness,” releasing 2nd week of September; “From Dark Corners 2,” releasing 2nd week of October and “Shanghaied Mitts”: TBD. Also of interest is the “ROLF!: The Rollplaying Game of Big Dumb Fighters” line.

Conan the Barbarian
River Drafting has just released nine of ten projected e-books all titled Conan the Barbarian and numbered  1 through 10. “The Hour of the Dragon,” “Shadows in the Moonlight,” “Jewels of Gwahlur,” “The People of the Black Circle,” “Queen of the Black Coast,” “Shadows in Zamboula” and “A Witch Shall Be Born” are some of the stories featured in this collection.

Robert E. Howard’s Ancient Terrors
A collection of 14 tales of nail-biting terror and psychological horror by REH. Formatted for Kindle, with original commentary by the editor, David N. Brown.

Gardens of Fear and Beyond the Black River
Volumes 6 and 7 of Wildside’s The Weird Works of Robert E. Howard are now available for Kindle. Edited by Paul Herman with new covers by Stephan Fabian.

Audio Books:

People of the Dark
This audio book is in CD format and produced in partnership with Wildside Press. The stories are read by Wayne Jane, Brian Holsopple, Gary Kobler, Bob Barnes, and Charles McKibben; the book runs approximately 5.5 hours in length.

Graphic Art:

The Forbidden Kingdom and Army Of The Damned
These are two high quality art prints measuring 16″ x 24″ and printed on 8pt stock by Artist Patrick J. Jones from Girasol Collectibles. Special discount applies when you purchase both. Girasol has also just published a replica of the June 1938 issues of Weird Tales that features the first publication of the REH poem, “The Last Hour.”

Coming Soon:

Conan the Destroyer, Conan the Berserker and Conan the Indomitable
It looks like British publisher Gollancz has come up with yet another way to repackage Howard’s Conan tales for sale. These three paperback volumes are coming out in October, November and December, respectively.

Spicy Adventures
Pre-orders are being accepted for this comprehensive collection of Howard’s “spicy” stories, which includes all six of the Wild Bill Clanton adventures. This hardcover book from the REH Foundation Press runs 211 pages and is due out the end of September with a print run of 200 copies. The book also has a standout cover by Jim and Ruth Keegan.

Lone Scout of Letters: Herbert Klatt
Many consider Herbert Klatt to be the Fourth Musketeer who rounded out the group of friends that included REH, Clyde Smith and Truett Vinson. This collection of rare articles from the pages of the Lone Scout and other Tribe newsletters, along with numerous pieces of correspondence among the foursome, is a must have for any Howard collector. Rob Roehm, who compiled and edited this volume, will be publishing this book through his Roehm’s Room Press. Pricing and ordering details will be posted soon here on the blog.

The Dark Man
Due out any day now is Vol. 6, No. 1 of The Dark Man. Contents include: “Faction and Fiction in Barack the Barbarian” by Jeffrey Kahan, “Gloria” by Rusty Burke and Rob Roehm, “Theosophy and the Thurian Age: Robert E. Howard and the Works of William Scott-Elliot” by Jeff Shanks, plus a letters column. Ordering information should be up soon at the TDM website.

Robert E. Howard’s Savage Sword #3
The third issue of this Dark Horse comic featuring Howard’s heroes in new adventures and restored, re-colored reprints of classic tales. This outing features adventures starring Conan, Kull, Brule, the Sonora Kid and Steve Harrison. Contributors include David Lapham, Paul Tobin, Jeremy Barlow, Joshua Williamson, Wellinton Alves, Patric Reynolds, Cobiaco, Tony Parker and Gerald Parel.

Since the dust has settled down a little, I thought I’d post some random thoughts on the new Conan movie, because while it seems that some Howard fans fear that the “End of Days” has come upon us, it should be not forgotten that Howard has done his share of weathering storms in the past, and I feel this cinematic cloudburst will be no different.

It’s been a few years since I even set foot inside a theater and so when I came out from a Saturday afternoon matinee of Conan the Barbarian I was pretty excited. That 3-D was cool, although I admitted to myself that it was pretty blurry doing the fight scenes, and some of the characters were just superfluous—for instance, Conan asking aid from a thief when he was a pretty fair example of one himself. Didn’t understand that, probably never will. Conan purposely getting thrown into prison so he can keep tabs on a guy whose nose he cut off was just plain silly—but I did think it was funny when he stuck his finger in the bastard’s nasal cavity, and then twisted it. The Sand Demons were the coolest thing in the show, I thought, especially in 3-D, pretty scary. Rose McGowan was a dream for all people with a domination fetish, but a nightmare for the “normal” ones. Stephen Lang was a pretty cool villain, and was a pretty good adversary for the Cimmerian. Seemed like there was some sort of shenanigans going on between father and daughter there but it really wasn’t spelled out for certain. “Little Conan” was pretty cool when he killed the Picts, although it came as no surprise when he finally did spit out the unbroken egg, and Ron Perlman is always a plus to a movie.

The plot was about as thin as store-bought gravy and made me wonder why they just didn’t use the storylines from “The Tower of the Elephant” or “Rogues in the House.” I did like Jason Momoa, though; for what he was given I thought he did fine.

I’ve been hearing the movie was a flop and that it is in contention for worst movie of the year and while I certainly didn’t think it was that bad, that news is not good news for Robert E. Howard, or his fans. But think how amazed Howard would be to realize that almost 80 years after creating Conan some people are willing to invest millions of dollars into a movie dealing with his most famous character. Lots of writers have died and nobody has ever even had a vague idea of doing movies on their writings, but here we have a pulp writer from Texas whose heroes are a hot commodity in Hollywood. Or, at least, were. Maybe Howard’s main characters should be left alone and movie makers should start concentrating on his horror stuff, like “Pigeons From Hell” or “The Horror From the Mound.” Either of these would make a great scary movie, and would probably bring the teenagers in like cattle.

It’s not the worst thing that Howard fans have ever had to contend with—everybody remember the de Camp days? Here we had a man who was actually changing the words in some of Howard’s Conan, and non-Conan, stories and then inventing some pretty crappy new tales featuring our favorite barbarian who, in de Camp’s hands, had suddenly become unrecognizable. You couldn’t pick up a Conan book for a number of years without some de Camp or Carter reference contained within; even the first Conan movie had de Camp’s fingerprints on it.

If anybody seeing the new movie likes it well enough to wander down to their bookstore they’ll find pure Howard and that will hook them like a fish—back when the Arnold movie came out the chances were they’d come across the Conan series as added to by de Camp and Carter and just continue on with other names until you’re really nauseated.

So come on Howard fans. Conan withstood the depression, World War II, the de Camp years, a rotten television series, a rotten Saturday morning cartoon show, four or five completely rotten movies and he’s still standing, along with his creator. You don’t know Robert E. Howard if you think his storytelling ability isn’t a match for what lies in the years ahead. There’s a fire in his writing that will draw Hollywood directors to his stories like moths to a flame. One of these times that’ll be a good thing.

Oh, and the movie, I enjoyed the hell out of the experience—didn’t match up to what I had hoped, but I thought it was still a neat theatric joyride. It’s always cool to see Howard’s name lit up on the big screen—like I said earlier, he would be amazed.

One of my duties for the Robert E. Howard Foundation is monitoring the email account. Besides the usual questions about when something will be printed or where a particular story or poem has appeared, we get a lot of requests for copyright information and contacts. Every once in a while we also get little nuggets of information provided to us.

This morning the Foundation received an email from Manuel Barrero in Spain. He wanted to let us know about a book he wrote, Conan: La Imagen de un Mito. That’s Conan: The Image of a Myth for us Anglos.

The book is only available in Spanish, but Barrero tells us that it is “about the image of the Cimmerian warrior created by Robert E. Howard and its perversion and manipulation over the years by others (authors and artists, illustrators and film makers). Of course, it is also a book about the image of heroic fantasy in film, from Cabiria to Nispel’s Conan the Barbarian.”

I haven’t heard of Barrero and can’t read Spanish, so I have no opinion to offer on this book. Anyone interested can look here for more details.

Conan: “Lucius has no nose.”

Artus: “How does he smell?”

Conan: “Awful!”

That pretty much sums up the new Conan movie.

By now you’ve seen the movie and read the reviews, perused the discussion boards, seen the dismal box office numbers. Reviews have run the gamut from Leo Grin’s short and to the point review to Dennis McHaney’s favorable review to Al Harron’s extensive deconstruction at the Conan Movie Blog and everything in between. Online discussions have been hot and heavy. As for the box office, well Conan the Barbarian finished fourth with $10 million behind Richard Rodriquez’s Spy Kids 4 that features an android dog that fires large ball bearings out of its arse.

After reading the early reviews I went into the movie with low expectations, still I nearly came out of my seat a few times early on to rail at the screen with raised fist. Thankfully my wife managed to calm me down and the restraints she brought were not needed. I had to literary switch off my brain, turning the grey matter between my ears to oatmeal, in order to make through the entire movie.

As I sat there in the dark watching a disaster unfold before my eyes, I got to thinking why should I have to lower my expectations? Why can’t Hollywood make a decent Robert E. Howard movie? Given the amount of source material, they could have easily adapted a story or several stories instead of doing a ham-handed remake of Milius’ Conan. Yes, I know that I am like Charlie Brown attempting to kick the football, but thwarted every time by Lucy pulling it away at the last moment. I guess I hope just one time the football won’t be pulled away.

I did like a few things about the movie. I thought the sand monsters fight scene was well done, sort of homage to Ray Harryhausen’s skeleton warriors scene from Jason and the Argonauts. The scenes of Corin with young Conan were well done, as was the scene with the wheel Tamara was tied to was falling down the well shaft (or whatever it was) with Conan and Khalar Zym fighting on top of it. But overall, the negatives far outweighed the positives.

With the poor showing at the box office, I doubt if we will see a sequel, unless it is a surprise hit overseas and DVD sales go through the roof.  The powers that be had one chance to produce a hit, but they failed and the lackluster ticket sales also dooms other Howard movies on the drawing board.

“Behold and despair” indeed.