By John Walsh

Titan Books

The official retrospective hardback book telling the story of the making of Conan the Barbarian.

I have a lot of time for 1982’s Conan the Barbarian. It was the first film that I snuck into under-age, and 13-year-old me lapped up its excesses. I’ve bought subsequent home entertainment releases, comics and novels, but a lavish ‘making of’ book was long overdue – forty years in fact.

This is exactly the sort of behind-the-scenes book you’d expect from Titan – heavy, quality paper, embossed/varnished cover and lots of clear photos printed to a high quality. Author John Walsh continues to establish himself as the go-to person for these sorts of books, having written similar volumes on Escape from New York, Flash Gordon, the Dalek movies and The Wicker Man.

As one would anticipate, the book follows an established format, including interviews with cast and crew and featuring behind-the-scenes photography from the shoot. The Introduction by co- producer Raffaella De Laurentiis is particularly insightful – I hadn’t realised that the movie started shooting in the former country of Yugoslavia and that it was awarded an ‘X’ rating on its first three submissions to MPAA.

Subsequent chapters look at Conan creator Robert E. Howard, his novels (and those completed in his wake) and the popular comic book that has been running since 1970. We learn about the years taken to develop the movie (at one stage Oliver Stone wrote an ‘unfilmable’ drug-fuelled script ) and are treated to pages of artwork by cover artist Frank Frazetta, production designer Ron Cobb and storyboard artist William Stout. In addition to profiles on director John Milius, stars Arnold Schwarzenegger, James Earl Jones and Sandahl Bergman (and others), there’s some previously unseen behind-the-scenes shots and pages on stunts, weapons, the snake, miniatures, mattes, post-production and posters.

Verdict: In 1982, this would have been my favourite book. In 2023, it’s still a great addition to the movie-making section of your bookshelf. 9/10

Nick Joy

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