Thompson Hotels

Sean Connery in the 1974 summer blockbuster that…wasn’t

In the realm of cinema’s greatest “What Were They Thinking?” moments–such as Beatty and Hoffman as desert cut-ups in Ishtar–somehow Zardoz isn’t given its due. Directed by the great John Boorman (The Emerald Forest), and co-starring (we kid you not) Charlotte Rampling, this $1-million-budgeted bomb could give Conan the Barbarian and Thor braggers’ rights. Perhaps Sean Connery had tired of 007 tuxes, or was drawn in by the merits of the director, who in 1972 had made the Oscar-nabbing, man-vs.-nature classic Deliverance. It isn’t just the costumes, thrown together with all the theatrics of Flash. It’s the dialogue too. Connery, a savage killer from a time, long, long ago, IS, simply, Zed.