Conan the Barbarian (1982)

Last week, I went to see John Milius' original Conan the Barbarian (1982) at the Texas Theatre on a troublesome but still highly rewarding 35mm print. 
-

-

I had never seen it before (outside of a vague childhood remembrance), but the film is certainly an intriguing 80's sword-and-sorcery treasure, one of the few of its kind (alongside John Boorman's Excalibur) that has echoes and passages of a really cunning, illustrious piece of work. 
-
Obviously Conan was made with the intent of being one of these shamelessly burly muscle-bound action fantasies, like the Peblum films the Italians used to make in the 60's with Hercules and Maciste. 
-
Nevertheless, the film, with its quiet, wordless passages and a stirring, classical Dino De Laurentiis score, is somewhere wedged between schlocky, boorish fantasy and gruff, austere revenge saga. [B]