La guerra del ferro - Ironmaster (1983)

User Rating:

4.1/10   

Director:

Umberto Lenzi

Writers:

Luciano Martino (story) and
Alberto Cavallone (story) ...

Release Date:

10 March 1983 (Italy)

Genre:

Action | Adventure

Plot:

A tale that takes place at the dawn of history. The movie tells the story of a tribe that discovers...

Plot Keywords:

Iron | Tribe | Death | Sword Fight | Sword And Sorcery

Cast

Sam Pasco	...	Ela
Elvire Audray	...	Isa
George Eastman	...	Vood
Pamela Prati	...	Lith (as Pamela Field)
Jacques Herlin	...	Rag
Danilo Mattei	...	Tog (as Brian Redford)
Benito Stefanelli	...	Iksay
Areno D'Adderio
Giovanni Cianfriglia
Nello Pazzafini
Walter Lucchini
Nicola La Macchia		(as Nico La Macchia)
William Berger	...	Mogo

Also Known As:

Iron Master (Philippines: English title)
Ironmaster (UK)
Ironmaster, la guerre du fer (France)
La guerre du fer (France)
The Iron Master (UK) (video box title)

Runtime:

France:90 min | USA:98 min | West Germany:94 min | Spain:90 min

Country:

Italy | France

Language:

Italian

Color:

Color (Telecolor)

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Iceland:16 | Finland:K-16 | Norway:18

Filming Locations:

Custer State Park - 13329 U.S. Highway 16A, Custer, South Dakota, USA

Company:

Nuova Dania Cinematografica

Quotes:

Vuud: You won, Ala, but one day there will be another Vuud.

Movie Connections:

Edited into 42nd Street Forever, Volume 1 (2005) (V)

Lenzi's costume epic World War II parable gone awry

Umberto Lenzi has almost always been one of Italy's better "B-movie" directors, delivering consistently entertaining films throughout his career right up to the mid 80's. Ironmaster was a bit of a turning point, with Lenzi working with smaller and smaller budgets and with lesser and lesser known actors.

With this dead-serious caveman adventure, we have most of the old regulars from Lenzi's crime films like Nello Pazzafini, Giovanni Cianfriglia, Ottaviano Dell'Acqua, and Riccardo Petrazzi (most of whom were primarily stunt men)... a couple other familiar faces like William Berger (KEOMA), George Eastman (KING DAVID), Danilo Mattei and Walter Lucchini (both from CANNIBAL FEROX) and that kid with the wounded leg in NIGHTMARE CITY. But who did Lenzi's producer Luciano Martino cast as the lead? The answer is the pretty mysterious case of bodybuilder Sam Pasco, who seem to have appeared out of nowhere and then disappeared (having never acted in a film since) even though he really isn't bad at all in this movie.

Anyway, the whole thing is a pretty obvious parable of WW2 with Eastman's character Vood as basically Hitler's caveman equivalent, though he goes around smashing things while his lady friend does all the talking for him. It's actually not a bad plotline either, aided by some sumptuous photography, decent special effects, some really energetic editing, and one of Guido and Maurizio De Angelis's best forgotten scores (omitting the really lame title theme). The movie's main weakness is the heavy-handedness of everything, with morals being pitched left and right when the movie is really too low budget and silly to be taken seriously.

Almost universally, this film is trashed as one of the all-time worst but it really isn't that bad at all. Much like Bruno Mattei's much-maligned ROBOWAR and Sergio Martino's SLAVE OF THE CANNIBAL GOD (which this film recycles some music from) IRONMASTER really would have been given a lot more credit had the producers put a little more money into it. It's still quite a lot of fun, and pretty far from boring to say the least.