Hercules (1958)

i must have seen a different film!!

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

If I had seen this one first, I may have been a bit kinder to it. It does look all right considering it was made in the 50's, but by the time I watched this one I had seen three other Hercules films from this era and after watching this one I can honestly say, they are about all the same. They all follow the same basic flow and have almost the same plot points as I do believe there is always a strange interlude where the heroes are captured or something by beautiful ladies. This one does do some things differently than the other films in that Hercules does not factor in to a lot of the scenes. There is a part where a fairly decent looking monster arises, but Hercules is nowhere to be found. He also is not one of the men who ends up charmed by the island of lovely ladies. Of course, this is not necessarily a good thing as I would have liked to see him and his awesome strength battle the monster. No problem with him not being enchanted by the ladies, saw that way too much in the other films.The story has Hercules saving a girl who turns out to be a princess of the man he is coming to assist, who may or may not be behind the murder of a king and whose son lost the golden fleece and something or another. Like other Hercules films, a lot of stuff is going on in the plot while not all that much stuff is going on as far as action on the screen. Hercules agrees to train the acting king's son and soon finds himself holding the man's son as he is killed by a lion which enrages the king, but soon Hercules finds the king who was murdered son and they embark on a quest to find the golden fleece that will reveal the identity of the killer. Meanwhile, they stop at an island for Amazon women by chance and Hercules has a strange relationship with the acting king's daughter.I saw this movie on Mystery Science Theater 3000 and I have to say they edited this one almost too much. I know there are time constraints, but man it was hard following this one at times due to the cuts. It was also an okay episode, but nothing special as I have already seen three other Hercules riffed by the gang on the satellite of love and like I said right from the beginning it follows the exact same formula as other Hercules films so we are getting similar jokes. I notice that Joel did a lot more sequels and such during his run as the shows human hostage than did Mike as he also did nearly all the Gamera films and Master Ninja I and II and a couple of others. It made for a funny episode, but nothing I have not seen before.This was the best of the Hercules films, even with the cuts one could tell more effort was put into this one than the others. It was the first one so that is understandable, back in the day when a sequel was made it had a lower budget as the series progressed with films like these as they usually saw diminishing returns. Sure, there were exceptions like the James Bond films, but for the most part sequels never did quite what their predecessors did. Unlike today where the sequel for a hit gets a larger budget. It had its moments, but like all the other Hercules films there just is not enough action going on to keep me entertained for its entire running time.

Everybody who enjoyed this larger-than-life, but straightforward mythological adventure epic should know that "Attila" director Pietro Francisci's "Hercules" spawned what came to be derisively known as the sword and sandal genre. These films constituted a sub-genre of the Hollywood historical movie and the plots occurred either during classical antiquity in Greece and Rome or Biblical times in other Mediterranean locales. Basically, these European produced films featured a brawny, footloose warrior as the protagonist who performs incredible feats of strength that enabled him to destroy supernatural monsters, topple evil tyrants, and free enslaved peoples. Sometimes, the hero was a gladiator like Kirk Douglas in "Spartacus." Often, the hero's name varied when these films arrived in America. The muscular champion was called Hercules, Samson, Goliath or he was a son of Hercules with an entirely different name. In Italy, however, the strongman hero was always called Maciste. Although "Hercules" was the first of some 300 sword and sandal sagas to follow until the Spaghetti western eclipsed the genre around 1964, the Italians had been producing sword and sandal movies long before "Hercules." One of the first major silent films, director Giovanni Pastrone's "Cabiria" appeared in 1914 and concerned the abduction of the eponymous little girl that pirates kidnapped during an eruption of Mount Etna during the third century B.C. A Roman spy and his mesomorphic muscle-bound slave Maciste rescued Cabiria. Aside from revitalizing a moribund genre, Francisci's "Hercules" is notable not only for its star, bodybuilder Steve Reeves of "Mr. Universe" fame, but also for lenser Mario Bava whose widescreen pictorial compositions as well as his atmospheric lightning. Reeves went on to star in several more pepla, and Bava later helmed "Hercules in the Haunted World." "Hercules Unchained" with Reeves and co-star Sylva Koscina followed "Hercules."Aesthetically, "Hercules" qualifies as a serviceable effort. Francisci and his scenarists derived their screenplay from Apollonius of Rhodes' Greek epic poem "Argonautica" that dealt with Jason and his quest for the Golden Fleece. In Francisci's film, Hercules literally usurps Jason as the hero when in reality the son of Jupiter played a peripheral role in the exploit. British director Don Chaffey helmed the best cinematic version of the Golden Fleece myth in 1963 with his exciting "Jason and the Argonauts" that boasted the superb stop-motion animation of Ray Harryhausen. One of the problems with "Hercules" is Jason recovers the fleece rather too easily from a giant reptile that sleeps near the tree where the fleece dangles. Reeves has a few uncomfortable moments when he goes on the rampage, literally blowing his cool, and sounds a mite unbelievable. Mind you, this was the bodybuilder's first starring role so he can be pardoned. Francisci plays almost everything straight down the line so nothing appears campy. Of course, some of the hand-to-hand combat scenes where Hercules tangles with livestock, like a lion and a bison, looks staged. Typically, the animal trainer would substitute for the star or the director would orchestrate the fights so ersatz animal heads and paws could be deployed. Consequently, while it is an entertaining bit of hokum, "Hercules" isn't as much outlandish as later strong man sagas. "Hercules" unfolds with a surefire scene straight out of a traditional western. A beautiful woman, Princess Iole (Sylva Koscina of "Michael Strogoff"), shatters the afternoon calm as she struggles to restrain a pair of runaway horses hauling her chariot helter-skelter through the landscape. She scatters a herd of goats. Dramatically, Francisci cuts to a close-up of a tree uprooted and then shows Hercules (Steve Reeves of "Jailbait") slamming the tree down in front of the horses. "I thank the gods for providing me such a strong man when I needed him," Iole says. Carrying her away from the chariot in his arms, Hercules sets her on a rock. "I'll admit that the sight of those runaway horses had me worried about you." Hercules suspects Iole is royalty from the standard on her chariot. Indeed, Iola is the daughter of King Pelias of Iolcus (Ivo Garrani of "Roland the Mighty"), and our hero is in route to train Pelias' son Prince Iphitus (Mimmo Palmara of "Attila") in the art of warfare. Iphitus hates Hercules from the moment he lays eyes on him. Iole furnishes Hercules with the history of her father's suspicious rise to power and the death of his brother the king. Afterward, Hercules accompanies her back to the palace. Hercules humiliates Iphitus in front of everybody when the Theban shows Jason, considerably weaker than Iphitus, how to shoot an arrow and strike bull's-eye. Later, Hercules hurls the discus farther than Iphitus. When a lion terrorizes the court and kills five people, Hercules pursues the beast. A boastful Iphitus interferes, and the lion kills the Prince before Hercules can dispose of the beast. A grief-stricken Pelias tells Hercules the only way he can redeem himself is to kill the Cretan bull. Later, Pelias gives Hercules three months to retrieve the stolen Golden Fleece to prove that Jason is the rightful heir to the throne. A sea voyage follows and Jason reclaims the Golden Fleece after an encounter with a fakey dragon."Hercules" proved to be a blockbuster during its North American release and the success that the film enjoyed in the United States can be attributed to Joseph E Levine. After every Hollywood studio passed on Francisci's film, Levine bought it for a modest $120,000, dubbed in English dialogue, and abbreviated the title from "The Labors of Hercules" to simply "Hercules." Levine's folly wound up raking in a veritable fortune from its U.S. release and sequels that followed. Levine pioneered the practice that is now known as 'saturation' booking and opened "Hercules" in 600 theaters. According to the Turner Classic Movies website, this method of opening a movie was "unheard of" in the 1950s. Levine relied on radio and television advertising to arouse the public's curiosity and he succeeded beyond his wildest dreams.

Being the film that really cemented the appeal of the peplum subgenre – to say nothing of the reputation of one of its most popular icons, the muscle-bound Steve Reeves – this film has much to answer for but, unfortunately, I have to say that the archetype (and its sequel) didn't exactly live up to expectations! I had watched both Hercules adventures as a kid on Italian TV and this recent re-acquaintance came via the R1 Goodtimes DVD, which presented the American-dubbed version (as prepared by Joseph E. Levine) in a washed-out, lamentably panned-and-scanned print! Mind you, the film is still enjoyable along the way but also rather juvenile and uninspired – centering as it does around the famous mythological tale of the search for the Golden Fleece (whose definitive screen rendition remains the splendid Ray Harryhausen extravaganza JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS [1963], a personal childhood favorite of mine, where Hercules was portrayed by Nigel Greene!). Two other Italian adaptations of Greek legends, both originally by Homer, proved altogether more satisfactory – the template for HERCULES was clearly the lively ULYSSES (1954), an Italian/US venture involving the likes of Kirk Douglas and Anthony Quinn among the cast and Ben Hecht and Irwin Shaw as co-writers (that film's titular figure actually appears here as a brash youth!), while THE Trojan HORSE (1961) gave Steve Reeves himself a more mature role in Aeneas and survives as possibly his best vehicle.Throughout the course of the film, our 'immortal' hero is seen performing several athletic feats (the original title, in fact, translates to THE LABORS OF HERCULES), romances "Euro-Cult" favorite Sylva Koscina, resists the temptations of the Amazon women (led by Gianna Maria Canale from I VAMPIRI [1957]), fights a lion, a dragon and a tribe of monkey men(!), routs the traitor among his shipping crew (BLACK Sunday [1960]'s Arturo Dominici) and, finally, brings down a temple by pulling at its columns a' la Samson (thus paving the way for Jason to assume his rightful place on the throne).

Don't look for an Oscar moments here as the acting is wooden for the most part and the special effects a bit far-fetched, but this is a film that can be enjoyed by everyone.Mr. Universe 1950, Steve Reeves became a star with this film. People didn't come to see acting, they just wanted him to take his shirt off. He would be the role model for future Hercules like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Lou Ferrigno, who gave him his due.After performing all the stunt he is famous for, he saves the day for Jason (Fabrizio Mioni, who went on to a long TV career in America) and rowed off into the sunset with Croatian beauty Sylva Koscina.This is the stuff epics are made of.