The Arena (1974) on Netflix
Timarchus organizes the events held in the colosseum of Brundisium, an ancient Roman town. Slave girls are sold to him, among them Mamawi, a Nubian captured recently, and Bodicia from Gaul.
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- Netflix2.6/5
- IMDb5.2/102,610 votes
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Trailer
Plot summary
The story draws loosely on the tale of Spartacus. Brundisium is a town of ancient Rome, and Timarchus is the man who organizes the events held in its colosseum. A group of slave girls is sold to him, and among the women are Mamawi, a Nubian who was captured only recently, and Bodicia, who comes from Gaul. When a fight breaks out among the girls, Timarchus gets an idea: he can send the women into the ring to fight one another to the death. For Mamawi and Bodicia, sticking together is the only way to survive what awaits them in the arena.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Arena (1974)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Italian producer Franco Gaudenzi did not trust Steve Carver, the director Roger Corman had sent, so he assigned cinematographer Joe D'Amato to help him; D'Amato said he ended up directing the arena fight scenes while Carver handled the dialogue.
- Director Steve Carver recalled that the script's scenes of the girls undressed were a Roger Corman prerequisite, and that Pam Grier's and Margaret Markov's contracts included full frontal nudity and ruled out any discussion of it.
- Joe Dante is credited as editor on the US release although he says he never worked on the film: Jon Davison was told to invent phoney Anglo names to replace the Italian credits and put Dante's name in as a joke.
- Roger Corman offered Martin Scorsese the chance to direct The Arena after Boxcar Bertha, but Scorsese chose to make Mean Streets instead.
- Italian productions of the era shot most films without live sync-sound, so all of The Arena's dialogue and sound effects were dubbed later; with Margaret Markov and Pam Grier no longer available, their lines were looped by other actors.
