Gor (1987)

Gor is a 1987 American science fiction/fantasy adventure film from the Cannon Group. It was shot in South Africa. It is based on Tarnsman of Gor, the first of John Norman’s rather controversial Gor novels. Harry Alan Towers co-produced and co-wrote the script.

The initial setup follows the novel reasonably closely. It begins in the present day. Tarl Cabot (Urbano Barberini) is an American college professor who is obsessed by a rather wild theory. He believes that a Counter-Earth exists. It’s a planet within our solar system but due to the particular nature of its orbit it has remained undiscovered. It is a very Earth-like planet and its inhabitants are human (in the novel it is explained that the people of Gor came originally from Earth). Tarl has a ring given to him by his father. He believes it is the secret to reaching Gor. And indeed Tarl does find himself on Gor.

It is a planet at roughly the cultural level of the Bronze Age. There is no modern technology. Warriors use swords and bows. There are countless tiny city-states. And there’s a megalomaniac who wants to absorb all the city-states and create an empire. This villain is Sarm (Oliver Reed).

Tarl joins up with a small group of rebels. One of his motivations is the fact that one of the rebels is a very attractive young woman warrior, Talena (Rebecca Ferratti). Sarm has sacked their city and stolen their home-stone (which has immense religious significance to them). Tarl has to learn how to become a warrior. The ultimate objective is to reach a forbidden mountain range where Sarm has his stronghold, destroy Sarm, retrieve the home-stone and free the city-states that he had conquered.

This small band has lots of misadventures along the way. There’s plenty of action, including a girl-fight between Talena and a slave-girl. It all builds to a reasonably OK action finale.

Not surprisingly Oliver Reed is by far the best thing in this movie. Oliver Reed as a sinister, cruel, power-crazed, sexually depraved super-villain - what’s not to love?

Urbano Barberini is an adequate but rather colourless hero. Rebecca Ferratti is OK and she certainly looks great in skimpy warrior-woman outfits.

Don’t get too excited about Jack Palance’s name in the credits. He gets about two minutes of screen time. His brief appearance is a teaser for the second movie (Gor 2: Outlaw of Gor) in which he plays a major role.

The first problem with this movie is that the low budget made it impossible to include one of the coolest features of the novel, the tarns. These are gigantic birds of prey which warriors ride into battle. Dropping them from the story was a wise idea - in 1987 you would have needed a fairly substantial budget to do them convincingly.

With his Gor novels John Norman was certainly trying to write popular entertaining adventure tales but he was trying to do a whole lot more than that. Norman is a philosopher by profession. He used the Gor novels to engage in all kinds of philosophical, political, social and cultural speculations. This meant that the world-building was a lot more important than the action-adventure plots. Norman created a fictional human society radically different from our own in all sorts of ways. The society of Gor is alien, shocking and totally fascinating. None of that makes it into the movie. The movie is a stock-standard barbarian warrior adventure tale.

A major problem is that this movie is ludicrously tame. There’s one mildly shocking scene (a slave-girl being branded) but overall the violence is very subdued. There’s zero sex. There’s zero nudity. There’s zero sexiness. Even the cat-fight between Talena and the slave-girl is very very tame. This is a movie based on a novel with BDSM overtones set in a society in which female slavery is a central component of that society and it’s clear that the producers were terrified of such subject matter and decided to ignore it.

In fact they ignored every single element that makes the novels fascinating and provocative. This movie has absolutely zero connection to the novels.

And unfortunately as a stock-standard barbarian warrior adventure tale it just doesn’t have enough sufficient pace and energy.

I admit I’ve only read the first three novels but they’re actually extremely interesting and deal with touchy subject matter in a complex and intelligent way. They’re provocative, but in a good way. Norman offers both titillation and food for thought. He’s challenging us to think about how societies work.

I can’t help thinking that this movie would have been a whole lot better with someone like Jess Franco directing, or even Joe D’Amato, or even perhaps Lucio Fulci.

Gor just doesn’t make the grade.

The German release offers both Gor movies on Blu-Ray and DVD, with both German and English language options.

I’ve reviewed the first three Gor novels and I recommend them - Tarnsman of Gor, Outlaw of Gor and Priest-Kings of Gor.