The Arena

The Arena (1974)

See wild women fight to the death!

Female gladiators fight to the death. Inspired by the story of Spartacus, follow the adventures of a bevy of slave girls who, upon finding themselves thrust into the gladiator ring, mount a vicious rebellion to fight their way to freedom.

Date of release
1974-03-13
TMDB
5.3 / 10 (53)
Runtime
1h 21m
Genres
Action, Adventure
Director
Steve Carver

Casting

Interesting facts

The Arena is a 1974 sword-and-sandal film directed by Steve Carver in his feature directorial debut. It stars Pam Grier and Margaret Markov as female gladiators in ancient Rome, who have been enslaved and must fight for their freedom. This marks the second teaming of Grier and Markov; in 1972 they had starred together in the women-in-prison film Black Mama, White Mama.

Production

The movie was one of a series of women-in-prison films that Roger Corman co-financed following the success of The Big Doll House, including The Big Bird Cage, The Hot Box and Black Mama, White Mama. Most of those films had been shot in the Philippines but The Arena would be a European co production. Corman recalled: "It was the story of women and gladiators, based loosely on the Spartacus story.

Martin Scorsese said that Roger Corman offered him the film to direct following Boxcar Bertha. However he elected to make Mean Streets instead. Pam Grier was excited to make the film as it involved a trip to Italy and she had enjoyed working with Markov.

The Arena was the first feature directed by Steve Carver, who worked in post production at New World. Carver recalled: "The script had several scenes in which the girls were undressed—one of Roger's prerequisites. A clause in Pam and Maggie's contracts included full frontal nudity and precluded any discussions whatsoever." He said Federico Fellini was shooting Amarcord at the same studios and came to visit the production.

While Steve Carver is credited as the director in the American version of the film, the Italian version omits Carver and names "Michael Wotruba" as director instead. Michael Wotruba was a pseudonym then used by Joe D'Amato. D'Amato is credited in both versions as cinematographer under his birth name Aristide Massaccesi.

In an interview, D'Amato said the Italian producer Franco Gaudenzi did not trust Carver, who was sent by Roger Corman, and sent D'Amato to take care of the cinematography and help Carver if needed. According to D'Amato, Carver ended up directing the scenes with dialog, whereas he himself took care of the fight sequences in the arena.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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