The Conan Completist

SOURCES: Envisaged, David C. Smith, The Gift off Fury.
AUDIO COMMENTARY: Not.
NOVELIZATION: Yes.
COMIC BOOK: Not.
FILMED?: Most probably.
EXTRAS LAST UPDATE: ---

First sequence of the film to be directly inspired by one of the original stories from Robert E. Howard, the scene of the Tower of the Serpent is derived from the novel "The Tower of the Elephant".[1] In this text, Conan projects to steal the Heart of the Elephant, a fabulous jewel pertaining to Yara the magician who lives withdrawn of the world at the top of an immense tower. With this intention, he teams up with Taurus, the prince of the thieves, met by chance in the gardens which surround the building ("You are not a guard. You are a thief, like me!"). The tower is watched by lions, released each night. Taurus gets rid of some of them by making them breathe a mortal poison: the Black Lotus. At the top of the tower, Conan wants to pick up some invaluable stones encrusted in the walls, but Taurus quickly persuades him to give it up, because, in truth, how much are they worth in comparison with the famous Heart of the Elephant? In the apartments of the magician, Taurus is killed by a giant spider which Conan will have to terminate. Later on, our hero finally finds the treasure they came to seek, guarded by a deformed being with elephant head. [2]

The sequence of the theft of the jewel appears in the first versions of the script written by Oliver Stone. Taurus is still there, but this time he is killed by a "mutant guard". The treasure is kept by a giant snake; the Heart of the Elephant became the "Stone of Set".

A drawing from Ron Cobb (who, as we know, also illustrated the Stone script, before the multiple revisions done by Milius), present in the "Conan Files" on the Special Edition DVD, seems to correspond to the fight which opposed Conan to the mutant guard (picture 1).

When rewriting the Stone script, Milius deletes the Taurus character (replacing him with Valeria, the "prince of thieves" thus becoming the "queen of thives") and adds the Subotai one (met, a little earlier, by Conan at the Wolf Witch's). From now on, the Stone of Set is called the "Eye of the Serpent".

At one time, Milius seems to have wanted to re-use the lions from the original novel, as Ken Bruzenak suggests it in Prevue ("Without any knowledge of the Black Lotus, Conan disposes of a lion when falling on it.") but one can imagine that he very quickly had to give up this idea.

He nevertheless preserves the idea of the monstrous guard met at the top of the tower (an idea which is supposed to justify that the gardens crossed by our three heroes are deserted): it will be the "Beast with Three Eyes", initially brought down by Conan.

The scene appears in this form in the novelization:

  In a sigh, Conan is restored over the parapet, but whereas it was dropped on the covered way inside the rampart, an enormous silhouette, of hardly human form, but with arms length of those of a monkey, precipitated on him. The creature - man, demon or anthropoïde, Conan did not know exactly - struck a blow to him until it did not wait and which sent it to swell on the pavement.
  Recovering on foot from a roulade and decladding its scraping-knife, it saw that, whereas its adversary was wrapped of a cape and its head of a hood, its hands discovered were covered with brilliant scales. Instead of being on the point of completing its antagonist, the creature was leaning above the embrasure, seeking with touch the hooks of the hook in order to throw to bottom the cord to which Valéria was clutched.
  Conan leaps on the back of the thing and stabbed on several occasions it. The torn fabric was split to let appear a fungiform outgrowth which exceeded base of the neck, between the shoulders with the thick muscles. The size bouffie deviated frankly and a scarlet eye appeared, dazzling. In a spasm of horror, Conan struck, extinguishing the orbit. Squirting wound, a liquid splashed the chest with the barbarian. And when it removed its weapon to strike again, the creature whirled and of the hands enormous, scaly, were closed again on the throat of Conan.
The barbarian knocked violently the head obscene against the parapet and plunged his dagger in the belly of the monster. Spitting its blood, the creature subsided against the crenels, slackening its throttling. Taking again its breath, Cimmérien had under the eyes an emerged being depths of a nightmare. The blind pupils, from where ran out of mucus, rolled in major orbits, the gash of the mouth, broad, without lips, yawned a such clamping plate, starting from crumplings of a leprous skin. Accroupissant itself like a leopard about to leap, Conan étreignit the inert form and, using of all its talents of fighter, was raised brutally to balance it over the parapet encrusted with jewels. A moaning decreased little by little by intensity, follow-up of a heavy noise chechmate.

But right from the second draft of the Milius script (quoted by David C. Smith), it is not however Conan who kills the Beast any more, but Subotai:

Also cut from their break-in of the tower is an encounter with a three-eyed "hell-thing" that Subotai kills.

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The scene was obviously filmed (even if it does not appear in the comic book movie adaptation): there is indeed a photo of the creature (picture 2), with the set of the top of Tower seen in the background (one can well recognize the snake-shaped crenel behind the Beast [see picture 3]). Akim "Goose" Bischoff was detailing the contents of this scene on his website, as well as attempting to find some explanation of the reasons why Milius discarded it:

Cut from the final print of CONAN THE BARBARIAN, this menacing scene with the Beast with Three Eyes took place when Conan, Valeria & Subotai thieved their way up the Tower of the Set, to steal the Eye of the Serpent. Subotai reached the top of the structure first, only to find a creature guarding the grounds of the tower, facing the opposite direction. When Subotai sneaks up behind the beast to slay him, an eye in the back of the creature's head opens up, and spots Subotai! The monster's ferocious attack begins, only to be slain by the the master archer! It is believed that this scene was cut because it ultimately created a SINBAD type of atmosphere, something John Milius felt it was crucial to avoid.

While meticulously studying the final cut, one can see that shots are now missing: at the time when Valeria and Conan arrive at the top of the Tower, Subotai still has his hand on the handle of his sword, as if he had just used it. As for Valeria, she is carrying hers in her back, but, in the next shot, she is holding it in her hand, then putting it back in its sleeve (picture 4)! The explanation of this last continuity error/bad cut is simple: the end of the scene is, again, missing, during which Valeria was using her tulwar. Recycled from the Howard novel, one can find this short passage in the novelization:

  The hands of Valéria cherished the invaluable stones encrusted in the crenels.
  - There is for a fortune, here! says she, the brilliant eyes. To believe that it awaited only us!
  Decladding its dagger of its sleeve, Valéria tried to remove a large sapphire of the mortar which enchased it. Subotai left its arc without cord its case, while placing an end on the flagstones coarsely cut and the encorda. It observed Valéria then.
  - Of you escrimer on these pretty stones, my lady Stops, says it. They represent only one starvation wage compared with what is below. Moreover, you will blunt your blade and you risks to need some soon.
  - Al, grogna Conan, before a priest or a guard does not surprise us.
  Valéria poured the handle of jewels which it had released in a double sack with its belt. [3]

ConanCompletist 2004