aka Il Mondo di Yor

• Directed by “Anthony M. Dawson” (Antonio Margheriti)
• Written by Robert Bailey and “Anthony M. Dawson” (Antonio Margheriti), based on the novel by Ray Collins and Juan Zanotto
• Starring
  • Reb Brown
  • Corinne Clery
  • John Steiner
  • “Alan Collins” (Luciano Pigozzi)

Ka-Laa, Yor’s love interest, repeatedly asks her adopted father Pag, “Why is Yor so different?” Hmm, maybe it’s because, in contrast to the men of your own tribe who have yet to think of combing their scraggly dark beards and hair, Yor is blond, clean-shaven, and apparently is the first person in this neo-barbaric future to re-invent body waxing. (Funny that Ka-Laa should have such trouble with the concept — she apparently has single-handedly rediscovered perms and eyeliner.)

Yor is a wandering hunter who rescues Ka-Laa (the accent’s on the second syllable, if you please) and Pag from a triceratops-stegosaurus blend while hunting. He is invited back for the celebration, but then they’re attacked by an even more barbaric tribe. (My guess is that thet’re a neo-Pictish tribe, given that the patchy blue makeup covering their skin is just too amateurish to denote actual blue skin.) Yor and Pag rescue Ka-Laa, and together they go on a quest to find the origin of the strange brass medallion around Yor’s neck. (Although I don’t know what everyone is oohing and awing about — it looks like the kind of beaten metal trinken that any neo-Neanderthal would be wearing in the far-post-apocalyptic world.)

The great worst thing about this incredibly bad movie is that it keeps changing settings, plotlines, etc., with dizzying speed (probably because it was trimmed down from a four-part Italian TV series, for which I would pay good money). Things move at such a clip that, instead of showing emotion through character, the actors are forced just to blurt out, “I feel something for you” or other equally baldfaced statements.

Oh yes, the actors. Most of the cast is Italian, naturally, but the lead is Reb Brown as “Yor” (whose only other real claim to fame is the title role in the two 1979 Captain America TV-movies). With his blond locks, his perfect and perfectly-hairless body, and his Keanu Reaves demeanor, he owes more than a little to 1980s Flash Gordon.

In fact, this movie owes a lot to Flash Gordon, from its heroic trio (boy, girl, bearded sidekick) to its travelogue format which allows them to visit several different people (the nice tribe, the evil neo-Picts, the rag-wrapped desert dwellers, the fisher-people, and the lone band of technologically-advanced survivors), to the bad-for-the-sake-of-wearing-black heavy who wants to to control the world, to the godawful rock score that makes the Queen score for Flash Gordon look, well, good.

Most ridiculous scene: To rescue Ka-Laa, Yor must get into a large guarded cave. So he takes Pag’s bow and arrow, shoots a pteranodon-thingie, and uses its carcass as a hang-glider to coast over the heads of the guards.

And by the way, it was filmed in Turkey. There’s a moral in there somewhere…

A Notable Quotable:

“You’ll rule a world of puppets! Is that your goal in life?”
“Yes!”

-Yor and the Overlord