'Conan the Barbarian' was filmed in Spain in 1981 and almost 43 years later, the legend gains muscle after the appearance in perfect condition in a municipality of Salamanca of the iconic Rueda del Dolor (The Wheel of Pain), the torture device with the one that starts the famous sword and sorcery movie, that Hollywood hit that catapulted Arnold Schwarzenegger to global stardom.
Once the film was completed, the original wheel was dismantled and stored in a warehouse near Solosancho, the town of Ávila where that first and impressive scene was recorded. It remained there for several decades until in 2007 a private collector contacted the person who was guarding it to acquire it and reconstruct it as it appears in the film. To refresh the memory of moviegoers, the wheel, a kind of rotating mill that the prisoners have to push in an endless sentence, is the place of torment where the Herculean Conan is forging his biceps from the moment he is captured as a child until he As an adult, a slave trader buys him and frees him from the diabolical machinery.
Last November, the Sad Hill Cultural Association – dedicated to recovering film sets in the province of Burgos, including the fictitious cemetery of the final duel of 'The Good, the Bad and the Ugly' – received a call from this individual who provided the possibility of exposing the restored wheel to the public. «A couple of weeks ago we went to see it and we were amazed. “It was the authentic and original Wheel of Pain!”, says enthusiastically Joseba del Valle, one of the spokespersons for Sad Hill and to whom the mythomaniac collector has asked to remain anonymous. “Seeing the wheel in perfect condition… it's impressive!”
The device is now safely stored in a warehouse near Ciudad Rodrigo (Salamanca). Its owner contacted the members of the association after learning that they were working on creating a museum linked to Sad Hill. The facility will house part of the props and filming material from 'The Good, the Bad and the Ugly' provided by the family of set designer Carlo Simi, who designed the cemetery and costumes for Sergio Leone's legendary western starring Clint Eastwood. The financing of the future museum, by the way, is advancing steadily after the Regional Government of Castilla y León approved on Thursday a subsidy of almost 145,000 euros for the project.
1. Joseba del Valle, next to The Wheel of Pain. 2. General view of the machinery in the Salamanca facility where it is kept. 3. Arnold Schwarzenegger, in a still from the film.
Del Valle wants the public exhibition of The Wheel of Pain to be linked to the museum and its location in Burgos, in the Arlanza region, which includes tourist enclaves such as Covarrubias and Santo Domingo de Silos.
A video in English
For now, and with the idea of making “this fabulous find” known internationally, the association has prepared a video narrated in English and lasting three minutes in which they tell the story of how “the news” of the existence of the wheel has reached them. This Monday, January 1, they will upload it to their social networks for dissemination, especially in the United States, where not only are there a legion of geeks and followers of Conan but there are numerous strength sports competitions where the participants, among others, tests, they must measure the power of their muscles by pushing Wheels of Pain inspired by the one that appears in the film.
The members of the association “dream” that the video will at least reach the ears of the great Arnold. “Hopefully we can unite the names of Schwarzenegger and Eastwood in this corner of Burgos,” Joseba adds at the opportunity to bring together these two titans of cinema on the banks of the Arlanza. And that would be outrageous.
Nadiuska, Jorge Sanz and the Spanish settings of Conan
The Avila town of Solosancho was the setting for the filming of The Wheel of Pain, at the beginning of the film, but 'Conan the Barbarian' visited many other places in Spain. For example, numerous sequences were filmed in the Enchanted City of Cuenca or in Madrid, specifically in Colmenar Viejo, where the Atlantean sword appears and where Conan is chased by supposed wolves (they were trained dogs), “and one really bit Arnold.” », recalls Joseba del Valle, a big fan of the film or, as he defines himself, «a super geek» of Conan. Cimmeria, the devastated town where the warrior grew up, and where Nadiuska's head was cut off, was also recreated in Valsaín. The child Conan, by the way, is played by a 12-year-old Jorge Sanz, who had to go through a casting with 400 other kids. In addition, the province of Almería hosted several locations such as the final scene of the Temple of Thulsa Doom in El Ejido, the dunes of Cabo de Gata-Níjar, the Tabernas desert or the Alcazaba complex, in the capital of Almeria. And Del Valle does not want to miss that at the beginning of the film one of the best-known clubs in Fuente Dé, in Cantabria, also appears in a small and quick fragment.
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