Wizards of the Lost Kingdom

In the year 1970 Roger Corman created with “von Richthofen and Brown” his last directing work for two decades. With his production company New World Pictures, which in 1983 was rebranded under the name Concorde – New Horizons Corp., he appeared exclusively as a film producer. He created movies like 1972 “Boxcar Bertha” by Martin Scorsese, 1975 “Capone” by Steve Carver or 1978 “Piranha” by Joe Dante. In the year 1990 he returned to the director’s chair for a short stint with “Frankenstein Unbound“. After that he continued his activity as a producer to realize such successful movies as the “Death Race“-series. Altogether Corman produced more than 200 movies.

Among the movies in which he appeared himself are the thriller “Silence of the Lambs” (1990), the social drama “Philadelphia” (1993) or “The Manchurian Candidate” (2004). In 1998 he was honoured with the first award for a producer at the Cannes film festival and in 2010 he received the Honorary Oscar Award for his life’s achievements. Roger Corman is married to Julie Ann Halloran with whom he has four children. 

About Bo Svenson:

Bo Svenson was born on 13 February 1941 in Gothenburg, Sweden, as the son of the singer Lola Iris Viola and the royal bodyguard Birger Ragnar Svenson. At the age of 17 he emigrated to the USA, where he enrolled in the US Marine Corps for six years until his honorable discharge. The beginning of his remarkable acting career was marked in 1965 by the popular familyTV-series “Flipper“. Until the beginning of the 1970s television remained his home and especially in the adventure series “Here comes the Bride” he often appeared as “The Big Swede“. In 1975 he finally took over his first big role and replaced Joe Don Baker in the sequel and the TV series of the successful movie “Walking Tall“. One year later followed one of his probably best known roles as Michael McBain in Bob Clark‘s “Breaking Point“, which led to further role offers for film and television. Especially worth mentioning is his role in Enzo Castellari‘s “The Inglorious Bastards” from 1978, one of Quentin Tarantino‘s favorite movies. Tarantino‘s Inglorious Basterds from 2009 may not be a remake of Castellaris’ classic, but it does refer to it; including a cameo by Svenson as an American colonel.

With a size of 1,97m Svenson was cast primarily as the Northern or Eastern European bad guy, for instance as the Russian agent Ivan in an episode of the TV series “Magnum” (1982). Svenson continued his career with various TV and film roles and was not limited to any specific genre. In 1984 he played the law enforcer in “Man Hunt“, took the sword as a clever warrior Kor in Héctor Oliveras fantasy movie “Wizards of the Lost Kingdom” (1985) and stood in front of the camera in “Delta Force“(1986) alongside Chuck Norris and Lee Marvin. His ambition in sports, including as a judoka at the World Championship, gave him a good positioning as an action actor, and he was also successful in other sports such as ice hockey and car racing. In 1985 he was appointed to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and is still a member today. In the mid-1990s he tried his hand at directing and in the early 2000s as a screenwriter, but it is still his work in front of the camera, with 127 film and television roles alongside over 100 Oscar winners and nominees, that has established him as a multi-faceted actor. Important film awards and outstanding leading roles have been denied him to date, but Svenson himself says about his work as an actor:

“I never cared about who played the lead role, who was the second banana, or where I stood. Was I banana number five? Anyway, I had a lot of fun! My career was never very important to me, it was all about life!”

Swords, Wizards, Barbarians – Fantasy Cult of the 1980s

In 1982, a genre emerged that would flood the cinema screens with pure testosterone for a decade and well into the 1990s: The Barbarian Film. Probably the best-known representative of the genre is “Conan the Barbarian” from 1982, which marked Arnold Schwarzenegger’s breakthrough in the film industry, was continued two years later and was remade in 2011. And after Arnold Schwarzenegger took the sword of the god Krom to oppose the evil snake cult with thief Subotai and warrior Valeria, dozens of wild men and women, mostly scantily clothed, conquered the cinema screens and TVs. The dazzling trashy low-fantasy pearls of the 1980s gave testosterone fans (master-) works such as “Ator – The Fighting Eagle” (1982), “Red Sonja” (1985) or “The Barbarians” (1987).

Roger Corman also contributed his part and in 1985 handed over the directing assignment for “Barbarian Queen” to Héctor Olivera. Here Lana Clarkson as Barbarian Amethea stirred up ancient Rome. This was followed by “Wizards of the Lost Kingdom“, in which Bo Svenson and Vidal Peterson performed in the leading roles. In the film the young Simon sets out to gain a ring of power and defeat an evil magician. Even though the film is little appreciated today and is regarded by some as one of the worst representatives of the genre, it was considered at the time to be a slight improvement on Roger Corman‘s barbarian films.

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