The success of Conan the Barbarian (1982) not only solidified Arnold Schwarzenegger's movie career, but also rekindled interest in the sword and sorcery film genre. One of the first projects "inspired" by Conan's box-office success was Ator: The Fighting Eagle (1982) an Italian-made fantasy that was seen by countless teenage boys thanks to it's wide distribution in mom and pop video stores.

Ator begins with a seemingly endless prologue. In a booming voice that's self-aggrandizing in that 'Charlton Heston reads the bible' kind-of-way, the narrator babbles on about a prophecy and an end to eternal darkness. The story finally starts with a woman giving birth to a twenty-pound infant. The midwives scatter immediately for the child bears the mark of Thoren.

This is apparently a big deal.

The Spider King, who plays with tarantulas and wears a bit too much eye shadow, receives word of the child's auspicious birth. "Lord, the sign is in the sky. The animals cry out… and the wind, the trees, the mountain. The earth trembles like a virgin being drawn to the nuptial bed."

An eagle statue in the King's throne room sheds tears of blood. This seemingly leaves no doubt. After giving his troops a pep talk, he sends his soldiers to kill the child and prevent the prophecy from coming true. The Spider King is sometimes referred to as Dakkar, which just so happens to be the name of the actor playing him.

A mysterious stranger, played by Edmund Purdom, arrives to take baby Ator to safety. Purdom was once a mainstay of Hollywood biblical epics. Here, in a mangy wig and Fu Manchu moustache, he is a far cry from such MGM classics as The Student Prince (1954) and The Prodigal (1955). As soldiers slay the villagers and any newborn children, Purdom sprinkles magical talcum powder on Ator's birthmark, making him indistinguishable from any other infant. "Grow fast and grow strong young Ator," he tells the baby, "You have much to do."

The narrator needlessly reminds us how Ator, the son of Thoren, will bring an end to the tyrannical rule of the Spider King. We learn that Purdom's character is named Griba. He drops baby Ator off with a needy family. Griba will provide them with life's necessities, "In return, you must raise this child as your own."

Fast-forward approximately eighteen years to a fully-grown Ator (Miles O'Keeffe) and his adopted sister Sunya (Ritza Brown). Ator presents her with a bear cub as a gift. After it bites her hand, he makes this incestuous declaration, "I love you."

"And I love you," she answers.

Though we know that they are not related, Ator believes that Sunya is his blood relative. A romantic theme begins to play as birds chirp happily in the background during this bizarre exchange of dialog.

"Why can't we marry?"

"Ator, we are brother and sister."

He considers this for a moment, and then simply says, "I'll talk with father."

Ator sits down for a chat with dear old pop and receives some unexpected news. "Ator, you don't know how really happy you've made me. Sunya is not your sister." The sudden revelation that he is adopted doesn't seem to faze Ator in the least. Dad happily gives his blessing, though the idea is still pretty creepy.

Dancers clad in furry loincloths perform their Martha Graham-style moves for the happy couple, but just as they are about to seal their nuptials with a kiss, the Spider King and his minions attack. Standard pillaging and plundering commences with the stunt men soldiers battling the villager extras in the sloppy, half choreographed fight routines indicative of low-budget films like Ator. Our hero fights bravely, but is knocked unconscious as Sunya is kidnapped. When Ator awakens he finds his village in flames and his adoptive parents slain.

Ator encounters Griba by a picturesque waterfall, a location that will seem familiar to fans of Italian peplum since this particular waterfall seems to appear in nearly all sword and sandal movies. Ator attacks, but Griba knocks him on his ass, "You have learned to fight like a tiger, but that is not sufficient."

"I though you were one of the black knights," Ator tells him. It's a reasonable assumption given Griba's ridiculous choice of headgear, a black swan-shaped helmet.

"You were born to defeat the ancient one, the Spider King."

Ator follows Griba to his cave, which is the same set as the King's throne room, only slightly redressed. Ator begins his apprenticeship in montage. It's during this sequence that O'Keeffe sheds his costume to reveal the real reason he was cast… he looks great in a loincloth.

While training one afternoon by the waterfall, Ator witnesses a shapely blonde being menaced by a trio of barbarians. After the three men are dispatched, the thieving blonde rides off without even thanking Ator. He returns to the cave, but Griba is gone, the only thing left is a sword. Ator holds the "Sword of Thoren" aloft and is soon off to fulfill his destiny.

While in the woods hunting, Ator is easily captured by a band of warrior women, one of whom is Roon (Sabrina Siani) the blonde he encountered earlier. Whenever there's a bunch of Amazons onscreen, you know there's bound to be a girl fight. Sure enough, it is declared that the winner of an Amazonian wrestling match will receive a night alone with Ator as her reward. After a few half-hearted karate-chops, Roon is declared the winner. To the victor go the spoils and later that night she gets cozy with Ator. He stalls, declaring his love for Sunya and how he plans to rescue her from the Spider King. Roon thinks it's a swell idea and decides to tag along to see if she can purloin some of Dakkar's riches.

Tiok the baby bear has tagged along on Ator's adventures thus far and distracts the Amazon guards so that Ator can retrieve the sword of Thoren. The plan doesn't work all that well and the script doesn't bother with the details of their escape as we cut to Ator and Roon the next day.

Roon chases a speckled faun into a cave. The faun vanishes and she is trapped in a cave-in. Ator goes looking for her, but finds Sunya frolicking in the forest. He follows the apparition into the lair of bewitching sorceress Indun (Laura Gemser).

"Do you want to see your beloved?" she asks, producing a vision of Sunya getting friendly with Dakkar and his tarantula pals. Ator stupidly drinks a potion and falls under Indun's spell. "You will be mine until you have no strength left to satisfy me."

Tiok helps free Roon from the cave and she tracks Ator to Indun's love shack. Roon uncovers a magic mirror and, with her reflection revealed, Indun reverts to her ancient hag-like visage. Ator and Roon escape to a jungle cloaked in fog, "the land of the walking dead". Undead warriors briefly chase them, but just as soon as they appear, the zombies inexplicably vanish. It's as if the filmmakers became bored with the zombie subplot, finished for the day and never bothered to complete the scene.

Cut to a busy tavern where Ator and Roon are having a snack. Roon must defend herself when she is caught trying to pilfer the innkeeper's satchel of gold. Ator spots Griba and leaves his pal to defend herself. Griba uses the magic talcum powder to uncover Ator's birthmark. He goes on about the prophecy for the umpteenth time and adds another layer to the oft-told tale. "Now you must go to the volcano of shadows and take possession of the shield of Moordoor, the shield which wards off death. It will render you immortal as long as it remains within your keeping."

Back at Dakkar's place, that eagle statue is crying blood again, signaling that Ator is on the move. The next stop on Ator's episodic journey is a cave (supposedly at the base of a volcano) filled with blind warriors. Since the blind have a highly developed sense of smell, Roon suggests rubbing themselves with some special leaves that will cover their scent. As it so happens, the exact plant they need is growing next to the mouth of the cave. After rubbing themselves down, they tippy-toe past the warriors to the chamber where the shield is kept. He is awed by the shield's splendor despite the fact that it looks like a mirror borrowed from grandma's dressing table. But before he can claim the shield, he must do battle with a shadow warrior, a low-rent special effect achieved with a spotlight and an off camera stuntman. After Ator takes a few swings at his opponent, Roon covers the shield with her cloak, extinguishing the shadows light source. As guards, the blind "warriors" leave a lot to be desired. While sneaking back out, the warriors catch a whiff of Ator's manly scent and there is a brief, inconsequential scuffle.

Dakkar's lair must be right next door to the volcano for Ator and Roon are soon penetrating the impenetrable fortress. Ator chastises Roon's lust for gold, but before his companion can abscond with the Spider King's riches, they are discovered. They fight off several soldiers before Ator must battle Dakkar himself. The fight is over before it really begins for when Dakkar catches sight of himself in Ator's magic shield, he disappears in a puff of smoke.

Talk about anti-climactic.

Shrieks for help lead Ator to Sunya, who is being held in a giant spider web made of nylon rope. How will he ever undo all those sailor's knots? Before Ator can save his beloved from an oversized prop spider, Griba appears with an unsurprising plot twist. Griba has trained Ator to kill Dakkar so that her can regain his rightful place as High Priest of the Spider. It seems a roundabout way to achieve one's goals, but to each his own.

Master and student clash swords with Griba becoming tangled in the web. Ator leaves him for spider food and saves Sunya, but he has one more task to complete. In an ancient amphitheatre that serves as the entrance to Dakkar's lair, Ator must face one of the most ridiculous oversized prop spiders in film history. The only other film that comes close to equaling this preposterous monster is 1975's The Giant Spider Invasion, in which a costumed, eight-legged Volkswagen Bug terrorized the populace.

As Ator waves his sword around, doing battle with the creature, the strings operating the spider's legs can clearly be seen. The giant marionette is soon vanquished and Ator says good-bye to Roon who was mortally wounded in her fight with the palace guards.

The volcano explodes, or rather, we're shown stock footage of volcanoes exploding. Ator and Sunya escape the rain of fire, the closing shot of the film is of the two lovebirds running hand in hand through a meadow. The fact that this image is accompanied by a stunningly atrocious love theme is somehow apropos. It's the perfect ending for an endearingly imperfect entry in the sword and sorcery genre.

To say that Ator: The Fighting Eagle was made fast and cheap is a bit of an understatement. Conan made its debut in early '82. Director Joe D'Amato had Ator in theatres by October of that same year. Since he wrote, produced, shot and directed the film to cash in on Conan's success, one would think that Ator would include some of the same sex and violence as in Conan's R rated adventures. Ator's exploits are rather tame in comparison, perhaps in an effort to broaden the film's international audience. There is evidence of a beheading in a longer version of the zombie scene, but this sequence is missing from all U.S. cuts of the film.

Miles O'Keeffe co-starred alongside Bo Derek in the 1982 remake of Tarzan the Ape Man. Though he proved to be one of the most stunning Lord of the Apes ever committed to celluloid, Tarzan was a box office flop. O'Keeffe's next role would be that of Ator, a character he would go on to play in several sequels. Ator L'Invincible 2 (aka The Blade Master and The Cavedwellers, 1984) continues where the first film left off and is just as silly as it's predecessor. Next was the loosely connected Iron Warrior (1987). Eric Allen Kramer took over the lead role in the final Ator film, Quest For the Mighty Sword (1990). Since his days wielding Ator's sword, O'Keeffe has starred in a number of low budget direct-to-video action movies and is still acting today.

CCT also recommends:

Tarzan the Ape Man

Goliath and the Dragon

Red Sonja

If renting movies is for you, try Netflix. They stock most of the movies CCT recommends.