Dino De Laurentiis made this so he could make a quick buck and then make Total Recall. De Laurentiis would eventually file for bankruptcy and sell the rights to Carolco Pictures, who would make the movie with Arnold, who Dino never saw as the lead in that Phillip K. Dick story.

As for Schwarzenegger, if he made this, De Laurentiis would finish out his contract.

I keep thinking back to Roger Ebert’s review* of this: “This plot is so simple (and has been told so many times before), that perhaps the most amazing achievement of Raw Deal is its ability to screw it up. This movie didn’t just happen to be a mess; the filmmakers had to work to make it so confusing.”

That’s true. All they had to do was watch Yojimbo. Or A Fistful of Dollars. Or Django. Or Il conto è chiuso. Or The Warrior and the Sorceress. It’s a simple story that can be told in any way, but this one, well…

At least it has Arnold.

Blair Shannon protects a mob informant with his life, a fact that causes his father — FBI Agent Harry Shannon (Darren McGavin) — to want only one thing: revenge. The object of that pound of flesh retrieval will be Sheriff Mark Kaminski AKA Joseph P. Brenner (Schwarzenegger), himself a former FBI agent who was kicked out for beating the life out of a suspect who sexually assaulted and murdered a young girl. The man who ruined his career — Marvin Baxter (Joe Regalbuto) — is now a special forces prosecutor looking into the same crime family who killed Shannon’s son.

Like some 70s paperback action hero, Kaminski “dies” in a chemical plant explosion and is reborn as the crook Joseph P. Brenner, ready to infiltrate the family — as an Italian it is my duty to inform you that the mafia does not exist and has been created by the mass media as a slander against my people — and has to keep up his fake identity which gets compromised nearly at the cost of Shannon’s life.

It’s a movie filled with character actor tough guys — Ed Lauter, Steven Hill, Dick Durock, Robert Davi and Sven-Ole Thorsen — but the amazing thing is just how brutalized Arnold is by every woman in the cast, in particular his wife Amy (Blanche Baker, Molly Ringwald’s sister in Sixteen Candles and also the daughter of Carroll), who has taken to their isolated small town life with bottle in hand. Yet Arnold remains devoted to her, not giving in to the urge to fall in love with gangster moll Monique (Kathryn Harrold, who was menaced by bats in Nightwing and a large opera singer in Yes, Giorgio).

Directed by John Irvin (Next of Kin — the one with Swayze, who was almost in this) from a script by Luciano Vincenzoni (For a Few Dollars More, Miami Supercops), Sergio Donati (Once Upon a Time In the West, the original Man on Fire) and Gary DeVore (Running Scared), this film seems like a rest stop on the way to Arnold owning Hollywood. However, Arnold has also said that he learned a lot here, referring to Irvin as “a real actor’s director.”

*Meanwhile, Gene Siskel said “it has essentially the same story as Cobra,” which is so wrong.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This article originally was on the site on January 29, 2019. It has been updated for Arnold week.

You know what they say. If you can’t get John Milius, grab the dude who directed Mandingo, Soylent Green and the Neil Diamond remake version of The Jazz Singer, Richard Fleischer. That’s exactly what Dino and Raffaella De Laurentiis did here. It makes sense, though, as Fleischer had also directed The Vikings, one of the films that had inspired Milius as he created Conan the Barbarian.

This time, however, gore was out and humor was in. That said, the original story is by Roy Thomas and Gerry Conway, the comic book writers who were behind so many of Conan’s Marvel Comics stories.

Conan (Schwarzenegger) and his companion, the thief Malak (Tracy Walter, Bob the Goon from Batman) are tested by Queen Taramis (Sarah Douglas, Ursa from Superman II). She has a quest for him and should he succeed, she will bring Valeria back from the dead. He must escort Jehnna, the queen’s virginal niece, to restore the horn of the dreaming god Dagoth (yes, Conan and HP Lovecraft aren’t far removed).

Our heroes are joined by basketball star Wilt Chamberlain as Bombaata, the leader of the royal guard, who has orders to kill Conan as soon as the gem is secured. To combat the wizard who has the gem, Conan brings back Akiro the Wizard (Mako) from the last movie. And soon, they save Zula (Grace Jones!) from some villagers and she joins their quest.

They come to the castle of Thoth-Amon, who is played by former pro wrestler “Judo” Pat Roach. Roach is in a ton of movies that you know and love and you know exactly who he is, but may not know him by name. He’s the flying wing mechanic in Raiders of the Last Ark, the bouncer in A Clockwork Orange and General Kael in Willow. He turns into a giant bird and kidnaps Jehnna and then turns into a monkey man inside a hall of mirrors. His death destroys the entire castle. This whole sequence makes the movie!

When they return, Taramis’ guards attack (Sven-Ole Thorsen, who played Thorgrim in the first film is one of them, this time called Togra), but Bombaata claims to have no idea why. Jehna starts to fall for Conan, but he explains his devotion to Valeria to her. Soon after, they learn that Jehna will be sacrificed to awaken Dagoth, who is played by Andre the Giant!

Everything works out for Conan and he decides to leave his companions behind for further adventures. Sadly, despite years of promising, no new Arnold starring film has reached the silver screen.

Despite this being a toned down film, it’s packed with great scenes. If only it was all as awesome as the sequences where Conan battles Thoth-Amon, including the mirror battle. Still, it’s way better than Red Sonja and any Conan project that would follow.

Seven In Sight was directed by Pedro Galindo III, who also made some other great movies you should track down right now like Vacaciones de Terror 2, La Muerte del Chacal and Trampa Infernal. It was written by Carlos Valdemar, who has 200 scripting IMDB credits like Zindy the Swamp Boy and Cyclone, and Gilberto de Anda who has a hundred and was the man who write Mi Fantasma y Yo and Tijuana Jones.

It’s pretty much a western but instead of a ruthless gang that has just come into town on horseback, they all have facepaint and mohawks and ride motorcycles and I’m in love with this. The sheriff (Mario Almada, who made a million or more movies where he appears on the cover brandishing a gun) tries to treat Vikingo and his Zulu gang like human beings and tells them to just keep moving. They don’t — one of them assaults and accidentally kills a woman — so one of the deputies steals a gun from a mechanic, kills the suspect and doesn’t let on that he just led an innocent man to jail. The bikers demand justice and take a bar and a school — I mean, what else is important in a Texas border town? — and threaten to kill everyone unless they get their hands on the mechanic. And then the townspeople go nuts and demand the death of the bikers. It falls to the sheriff and his brother Marcos (played by Mario’s brother Fernando) to beat, shoot and bullwhip this gang seemingly from a post-apocalyptic future into the ground.

Intrepidos Punks and its sequel La Venganza de los Punks are obviously better versions of this same story, but just like how seven different Mexican regions offer different twists on food that all just called Mexican food north of the border, this has notes and flavors worth experiencing and savoring, like a scene where a hostage is introduced to steel fan blades face first.

The next movie gets even wilder, but there’s lots to like here.

You can watch this on YouTube.