Weirdhouse Cinema: Hercules (1983)

a almost perfect subgenre, well suited to two. I think our sort of knowledge bases and and tastes and and one of my favorite things about the leather diaper movies of the eighties is yes, they you know, they have a basis in the sort of Conan thing. You'll have a strong guy with muscles wearing a loincloth. He carries a sword or an axe, or maybe he just wrestles

or something. But what I love about the movies like this from the eighties is that they so will often start mixing genres in a in a bizarre, haphazard, almost blindfolded way. So the pinnacle of this, I think I've mentioned on the show before is a movie called Your Hunter from the Future, in which a Conan type guy muscle dude in leather diaper uh does battle at the end of the movie with Darth Vader. But this one we're going to be talking about today is in fact

a Hercules movie where Hercules fights robots. Yes, this is um okay, so it's definitely a sword in Sandals muscleman movie. But it is also very spacey in a way that that doesn't quite uh, it doesn't go so far as to say this is science fiction Hercules. Um it. It's still grounded in some sort of mythic sensibilities and in an idea that we're we're in antiquity, but everything is

also just totally Oh I was thinking of it. It's like, what if Hercules in stories of Hercules were just totally Italian space disco, but without the Italian space disco music, but just that sense of like glittering, sparkling cosmos and sweat and uh yeah it's in sexuality and and so forth.

That's that's what this movie feels like. It also has that Italian disco sci fi sense of it's a movie where they don't even try to hide the strings and the special effects shots, so you'll see, like, you know, there's the jar from which all creation emerges when it explodes in space. And so they have a special effects shot where there's a jar floating in the starfield and then it blows up, but then you see pieces of it are just dangling from strings and they leave it

in the shot, and yeah, I high five for that. Yeah. The the effects in this film are ambitious but often imperfect, but in a way that has a real charm to it. You know. Um, I won't say that many of the effects in this movie look great, but I did enjoy them. Yes, they're very enjoyable there, and they're often different from like you go into a film like this and you expect, uh, you know, special effects that don't quite knock it out of the park. But but this one, it goes in

some directions you don't really expect. There's a lot of sort of transparencies and a lot of things sparkling and sort of exploding with electronic synth that you you're not expecting to explode like that. It's uh, it's a lot of fun. Oh but there's another thing we haven't even mentioned yet. So so this is Hercules three, starring lou Ferrigno as Hercules. Uh, you might know from from playing the Hulk on the old TV show, though I never

saw him in that. I think I know him mainly from the movie Pumping Iron, which is a documentary in which he just plays himself at a like the you know, the weightlifting competitions, and in that he's sort of the underdog character and he's squaring off against Darnald Schwarzenegger and they're both pumping and explaining why they pump better. And uh. But anyway, so this is Hercules starting loufer Rigno. But this is also a Canon Films picture. This is a

Golden Globus movie. Uh. And so whenever you see the Cannon Films logos, certain things that suggests something about the flavors that are going to follow. You know. Canon Films is famous for in this period in the eighties, making movie after movie that are in the genre that I would call poster. First, you have a poster before you have a script. And the poster is almost always a guy with a machine gun and then some other things in the background, right right, Yeah, there's often a very

very macho feel, a very just just all things eighties. Uh. Wound up in again a Cannon film, and I can't remember if we've actually covered a cannon film on here before. Um, but I'm sure if this is the first, it won't be the last. Oh surely not. Oh but okay, so, yes, hercules three cannon films. It is at its heart, Yes, it is a muscle guy movie, absolutely a shining jewel

and the long cinematic tradition of muscle man movies. The basic principle of these films is, of course, you usually have just a a bare chested muscleman hero who must battle evil and save the day, generally with just his brute strength. Um. The flavor is generally mythic, you know, sword and sandal, comic book stuff. Uh. You know, sometimes it goes in more of a sci fi direction. For example, uh movies we have covered on Weirdolt Cinema, Hands of

Steel and Arena. Those are both, to a certain extent muscle man movies we both have, especially Hands of Steel. But but for the most part we're dealing with stuff that's more more sword and sandals, sort of strongman uh shenanigans. You cast a bodybuilder and then you just watch the movie come to life around that. Zeke right, Um, I do agree that that is the heart of it is like a character who must use their brute string in order to defeat the villain. So they're swinging a sword,

or they're wrestling, or they're wielding a hammer. You know, it's the barbarian type, the Hercules type. But there was a strange phenomenon in the eighties. I'm sure you'll know immediately what I'm talking about, where the Muscleman movie and the guy with the machine gun on the poster movie

sort of merged. A great example of this is Commando starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, where the premise of the movie is that the hero is a man who shoots guns at the bad guys, but they also just get a bodybuilder to play him. So the main characteristic of the hero is that he is, you know, eight hundred pounds of stiff beef, but he also just like you know, uses guns. Yeah yeah. And it's important to to note the sort of bodybuilder turned actor thing, the the sort of non

actor that's brought into play the character in these roles. Um. I feel like it is really vital to the whole recipe for success here. Like you you don't want uh, you know, too much of a as being in there, no matter how muscular they are. You know. That's why I just I could only be so interested in the idea of the Rock playing Hercules, and the more recent Hercules movie, The Rock is great. Dwayne Johnson is a is a really really solid action star, and he's huge.

He's huger now than ever before physically. But I feel like he's too good of an actor to play Hercules. You know that that's kind of yeah, that's a good point. Um. I think you could make a case that Arnold Schwarzenegger also, though, has a lot of natural screen charisma. But one thing about this movie, uh, that I like is that so you got lufer Igno as Hercules, and he I don't

want to be mean, but he's not good. He's not acting really in this and but he works in the role because I think somehow, the worst the actor is like, the less screen charisma they have, the easier it is for them to come off like an underdog, even though

they are eight hundred pounds of hard beef. So this guy, you know, he's just a wall of muscle, and he might look kind of like a bully beating up on the bad guys, except that he's kind of awkward and and doesn't say his lines in a very natural way, and that gets you on his side somehow. Yeah, you don't want him to be too confident or you know, to have that confidence actually shine through in the performance.

So yeah, a lot of these don't mention a few examples. Yeah, a lot of these movies come about with a non actor muscle man. It's you know, pulled out of generally out of the bodybuilding world, and and is you know, they strapped the rockets to him, and sometimes they assent like Arnold as an example of that. Arnold, I guess arguably gets better at acting as his career uh proceeds.

But I was looking back at Michael Weldon's um in the Psycontronic video and film Guides his right up for the original Conan movie, and he referred he he kind of pans it. He's kind of like, it's you know, it's it's it's it's another Dino film. It's you know, it's all excess. It's um, it's non actor Arnold Schwarzenegger punching a camel. And that's the only memorable moment in

the film. I mean, it is hard to forget the camels yeah, I mean, ultimately, ultimately I disagree with with with Welton in this, but he was looking at it like more or less around the time of the release too. But but another great thing about Hercules is that it doesn't require the hero to do much acting. I mean, Hercules doesn't really need to say a lot in this movie.

Many of the scenes are him sort of being led around by other characters and and instructed to do things, and then he does them right, you know, usually brute strength pretending to pick up a giant syrophone boulder, but doing so in a way that really like shows off the muscles and uh. And of course as a director you have to make sure all those muscles are are are lit and and oiled appropriately, so there's a real

art to it. What was the lotion budget for this movie? Yeah? Um. Now, if you're interested in a deeper dive into the history of muscle than I have to recommend a book I was looking at. I didn't get a chance to to to pick it up and read it and do a

deeper dive. But it's titled Descended from Hercules, Biopolitics and the Muscled Male Body on Screen by film scholar Robert a Rushing, Um, this looks like a really interesting read because I think it it looks like it gets into a lot of the questions, not only the history of these movies, but also what does it mean when you take a body like this and you you you you put it on the big screen and you make it be like the center of like truth and justice and

you know, all admirable qualities in hypertrophy. Very tas Yeah, alright, So the muscleman movie eventually grows to include such films as Conan the Barbarian Beast Master. H three hundred would be a more recent muscleman movie. It's not centered so much around one muscle man, but like all muscleman I guess, uh, and you might well guess that. Well, I guess all of this began with the mythic Hercules, right, I mean he's been a popular figure, uh you know since antiquity.

I mean he was he was you know, a Roman sensation. He's the equivalent of the Greek Heracles. But the interesting thing, um, and this is something that the Rushing points out in his book, of course, is that muscleman movies begin actually with another figure, one that I'd never heard of. Until I started reading Michael Weldon's psychatronic film Guides, and that's um uh Machista this, um this, This is the original

Italian cinema muscle man. So a lot of the movies that I've always thought of as Hercules movies were actually uh Maschist or mashi ste movies that were like retitled for American audiences with with Hercules or they give him some other muscleman name like Sampson or something. Right, Yeah, but Motista was the original. And apparently this just means it's kind of like machiese mo, you know, so it

basically means the macho man. The film that apparently kicked all of this off was nineteen fourteens Uh Ken Area. This was directed by Giovanni Pastrone. This is an epic set during the Second Punic War, based loosely on Gustav Laberts eighteen sixty two novel Uh Salambo, which I've never read. I have a beautiful paperback copy of it on myself that I've never actually read it. Oh interesting, some nineteen fourteen.

This goes way back. This goes way back. This is like, this is legitimately one of the oldest and most popular figures hero figures in cinematic history. So this wouldn't make sense though, that muscle man movies would go back to silent film times or even this far back. But you know, back to a time when I mean in the early days of film. A lot of what they were putting on film was not like dialogue driven narratives, but it

was something that they thought would be interesting to look at. Yeah. Yeah, Now, this first film, though, um Caberria, was apparently a huge hit and was also highly stylish. You look at you can look up skills with this or even footage of it, I believe where you see like these epics sets. It was a true sword and sandals epic that influenced a number of different filmmakers of the silent era. It's regarded

as a Silent era classic. But it also had this character who I don't even think it's like the central character, but he's the He's the huge muscular slave to the Roman spy of Fulvious who is on a spying mission to Carthage. I believe in this film, and uh, and people really connected with this here, like who is this big muscular guy. He's the breakout character. He's the Boba fette of this movie. It's like I want, I want to know more about Mashi Stay. I want the muscle guy,

so Maschi Stay in. This was played by um um Barto Lomeo Pagano who lived eighteen seventy eight through ninety seven. Um he was a stevedore who was like discovered, Like they see him and they're like that guy that is our our machis day. Uh. They hauled him in and they cast him in the role, and he goes on to play Machies Stay almost exclusively for the rest of his career. All told, we're talking thirty films in which he plays ms she Stay out of a thirty two

film filmography over the course of fourteen years, I believe. So. Also, when this guy hits it big, no previous acting experience, right, no previous acting experience, and and he just started like he stuck with what works here, I'm seeing a trend of like nearly a century now. Yeah. So uh, Pagano becomes get those muscles in front of the camera. So Pagano he becomes an international film starck. These ma She Stay films are a big hit, though they're often retitled

in foreign markets. So the character becomes known, at least for subsequent films as Hercules or Samson, you know, the the biblical character or the other Biblical character that you might think of when you think of intense physical strength Goliath. That's a strange choice because wasn't Goliath the villain of the story in the Bible that he was the philistine and soldier who David had to defeat. Even though David was smaller, he beat him by using his wits by like,

I mean weakness. It's only one of the you know, the most famous um like Old Testament stories, right, I mean, it's always makes for a great great illustrations and works of art, cinematic treatments. George Eastman played Goliath and one adaptation we might remember huh, but so but it didn't matter, like, oh yeah, Goliath, he's our hero now, yeah, yeah. I mean when a character is that muscular, I guess, and that's strong, how can he be anything other than the

hero of a picture. By the way, this also reminds me of how in so many of the Al Santo movies were were relabeled as Samson for foreign markets. So just I don't know a strong name, I don't know if they just won't want to get people in there. Now, the character machis Day would live on long after Pagano retired, appearing throughout the sixties and even the seventies. I think he shows up in some Jeff Franco movies. But Machistay w basically just going to fight various villains and monsters.

He doesn't need to be part of a more epic plot. He's just here to do good and fight evil. He travels to the underworld. Like I think, there's basically a much he Stay Inferno movie. I don't know how much um of of Dante's original text is actually involved there and in that, but but he he apparently goes to the inferno. But he's often played in subsequent films by bodybuilders turned actors. Now as far as the muscleman movie

Timeline goes. I could be wrong about this, but I remember having an impression that these got huge in Italy and then subsequently around the world and like the sixties. Am I right about that? Yes, And that's where we actually see the first Hercules movies where it's not just a retitle at Hercules, but let's make a movie about Hercules. Um So you have you have an actor who had also played Muchi's stay, Mark Forrest take on the role in nineteen sixties Revenge of Hercules, and this was an

Italian film. And after that, more and more herk movies get made, including oh, this one is attractive given all that we've talked about. Nineteen sixty four's Hercules, sampson Um Machista and Ursus the Invincibles. So you get like four different strong men all teaming up to battle evil. And that one and this was sixty four. It is the

Expendables of nineteen sixty four. Yeah, And of course from then on we have various actors up, generally like very very often bodybuilders turned actors playing the role Alan Steele, Steve Reeves already mentioned, Mark Forrest, uh and various others. You know, Brian Thompson would go on that would would plaim at least once. This is of course, the big muscular dude who was one of the Punks and Terminator and also played Shao Khan in the second Mortal Kombat movie.

Um oh, that one was good. You get you get Kevin Sorbo of course playing him on screen. You get the rock taking a shot at it, and also it should be should be noted Arnold Schwarzenegger. Oh yeah, so this was an interesting coincidence we were pointing out. So in this movie, Hercules is played by Luferigno, and I'm right in saying this is his first movie. This was Luferrigno's first feature film, I believe. So, yes he had of course, he had done Hulk already, so he'd done

Hulk in various TV appearances. But this was this was the rocket that was going to propel Luferignou into the cinematic stratosphere. And also Arnold Schwarzenegger's first screen role was playing Hercules in the nineteen seventy movie called Hercules in New York, which I have seen but I remember almost nothing about except that it was almost unwatchable boring. Did have Robert England in it? Am I remembering that? Correct? That?

If so, I've forgotten about that. I watched this in college and I remember it being like hard to hear what anybody was saying in it. But yeah, but oh, but the premises, Arnold Schwarzenegger is a muscle guy and he's Hercules, and the gods send him down to New York for some reason. So he's just running around in modern New York at the Fish out of Water, Fish out of Time, Shenanigan's inside. I'm sure. Yeah, all right, Well, shall we go ahead and hear the trailer for Hercules.

From the depths of Space comes the Strongest Man on Earth in the super adventure Odyssey, Hercules. The Incredible Loon for Rigno is Hercules in the battle with unearthly teachers. Hercules, the superhuman human with the strength of an army, Hercules facing love and the bewitching forces of evil. The Incredible Moon for Rigno is Hercules. Go Lion Globus production from the Kinnon Group. This is a pretty good trailer. I have to admit, I don't think I actually watched it,

so I don't know what you just heard. We'll take my word for this one. This one is Zeus approved. Well, if it's the Zeus in this movie, I don't know if it's going to be that hard to get approved. Because this is a kind of a kind of groovy, hands off Zeus who who may be about to take a nap? Yeah, yeah, this is a this is a snoozer of a Zeus. All right, let's start at the

top with this one. Uh. The writer director on this one is Luigi Cotzi, writer and director still making films today, Italian director, probably best known for this film and also it's sequel, as well as his frequent work with Dario Argento. I did not know this movie had a sequel. Is lufer Igno also in it? Yes? And I was reading like mixed counts on whether he was like sort of tricked into doing a sequel, Like they were filming stuff for another film and they're like, let's make it a

sequel sequel. I'm not sure. I can imagine them just repurposing his shots from this movie and and making a sequel around them, because a lot of the scenes with Louferigno in this movie primarily feature Luferigno doing reaction shots rather than talking. Uh so you so it's another character talking and then him just making a blank face into the camera. Yeah. So I'm saying you could use that

with pretty much anything. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. He looks at something, he reacts, he runs down a tunnel, and then he lifts something. Um now, uh, let's talk a little bit more about Cozy here. His first film was the nineteen six nine low budget adaptation of Frederick Paul's novella The Tunnel Under the World, which apparently got Dario Argento's attention, and he subsequently worked with our Gento on Four Flies

on Gray Velvet, earning a story credit. He also has a story credit on Argentos three action comedy The Five Days. He goes on to direct his own Jalo film with ninety five The Killer Must Kill Again. But then from there he really goes on to cement his place in cinematic history, writing and directing such epic Italian B movies as of course this, uh, but also nineteen seventy nine Star Crash in nineteen eighties contamination. Oh, I did not make the connection to Star Crash, but that makes so

much sense. This movie has extremely powerful Star Crash flavor, just waves of Star Crash aroma wafting off of it. Even in the scenes where they talk about raise, I was repeatedly reminded of Star Crash. Uh. You know, there were at least like five dialogue moments that were that were akin to uh, you know, nothing can stop these

deadly rays. These deadly rays will be your death. Yeah, there's a lot of shared DNA between this film and Star crash Um Now Coacy also worked in various other roles on other Argento projects, so you just seems to be a frequent collaborator and helper uh to Argento. But he was also second assistant director on the notorious klas Kinski Nosferatu sequel. So this is the sort of unofficial sequel to Werner Herzog's nos Ferrato movie titled Vampire in Venice.

This is the one where basically Kinski reportedly like showed up. He was supposed to have had his head shaved to play Nosferrato, and he says basically no, I'm not shaving my head. And also I am directing this film now. So I've never seen it, but it has something of a reputation. Well, I bet that would have in a roma all of its own, a somewhat different one. Yeah,

all right. The star of this film is, of course, as we've mentioned, louver Rick no born nineteen fifty seven, former professional bodybuilder um uh and pumping iron contemporary of Arnold Schwartzenanger seen here at what feels like just peak condition and just peak mass. He is voluminous in this movie. He is just he is just an absolute Skyscraper of meat. Yes, uh yeah there, And like I said, they do a lot of showing off of his physique and and you know,

you hear jokes about people skipping leg day. For Regno did not skip leg day. He has just legs, like just muscular tree trunks. I feel like this movie has a lot of scenes of like close ups of those uh you know in the I guess somebody's got big muscles and low body fat in their veins are just poking out through the skin and while they're flexing. There's

a lot of that. Absolutely now Ferregno again is probably best known to many as the original green skinned Hulk from TV is The Incredible Hulk, which began as a two hour pilot in nineteen seventy seven and ran five seasons eighty episodes until two and was then followed by three TV films, one of which featured Thor and another one had the character Kingpin and it played by John Reis Davies. Um Anyway, for Farigno played the Hulk in

all all of those as well. He ultimately didn't achieve the same level of fame as Arnold, but he still played hercules in this film and its sequel, and he also played Sinbad in Zog Castellari Sinbad of the Seven Seats. So uh, there we get we get a double dipping of the mythic there. Oh wow, I've never seen that one, And that's funny because I have a deep appreciation for the for the in many ways quite bad but in other ways wonderful. Uh Ray, Harry Housing sindbad movies which

have had great stop motion monsters in them. I did not know that Frigno was in any later Sinbad adaptations. Definitely a later Sinbad, not the not the classic Harry Housing. I can only imagine this seems like it would probably be bad. Now, every every hero needs a villain, and so we have one in this film. And if you're going to choose a villain out of the catalog of of Greek mythology, I feel like this is a good choice.

They'd decided to go with King Minos. Oh yes, and he makes it a wonderful villain in this movie, though mostly what he does is apparently stand around on the moon talking about which robots will next be sent to kill Hercules, yes, and explaining the plot a little, explaining his plans, and sometimes just just asking that the the evil robots that are gonna be sent down be made bigger just so he can look at them. Yeah, can

you make it a little bit bigger. He's more of a he's a bit more of a project manager in many ways. But anyway, fun villain played by the actor William Burger, who lived Austrian American actor who pops up in a lot of spaghetti westerns uh and just plays a lot of villains in general in eurocinema. Um. He he appears in the films of such directors as Jess Franco and Zogi Castellari, Mario Bava, Lomberto Bava and and

also ron O'Neil. Uh So he's yeah great in this As the evil King Minos, he has one of these um uh you know, mustache lest beards that looks particularly evil on his face. For some reason, it could in another context look rather Mennonite, but no, in his context it does look like a beard of of ill intent. Yes, all right. And then playing the daughter of King Minos, we have the we have the character Adriana played by Sybil Danning, who is another Austrian American actor of note.

Born nineteen fifty two. She was an actor and model, best known for a whole string of B movies in the seventies and eighties. Some of her probably most famous roles include Roger and Roger Corman's Battle Beyond the Stars from eighty. She's also in Howling to Your Sister Is a Werewolf from five. But but she she appears like randomly and just films you wouldn't expect her to, Like she's pops up in the Musketeer films from the seventies, the ones that you know had like Michael Yorke and

Oliver Read and Christopher Lee and them. So she's a villain in this Mostly she she sort of walks around, scheming and whispering in people's ears to get them to do bad things. I read I don't know if this is true. I read that in an earlier version of the script she was maybe going to be hercules love interest, but like that she and lou Ferrigno did not get along and the script was rewritten so that she was a villain. Did you read that? I didn't read that.

I had read that an early version of the script was was more provocative, and that Luferigno especially it was like, Nope, I'm not filming this. It needs to be cleaner, and so they made what is it essentially a G rated film. Like one of the reasons I ended up putting this on was that it was you know, it was a long weekend. There was you know, some some snowy weather, and I was like, I need something that I can play with the family moving around the house. And this

looks like a good selection. Yeah, I mean, I think it was a rated PG. It's in some areas I think they're pushed in it. Well, in some areas they're really pushing these outfits. Uh, these outfits are pushed to

the limits by the various male and female actors wearing them. Yes, Like at one point it seems like that they went out of their way to put like when Luferrigno is first birth out of the Cosmos and they show him floating in space in his ideal form, it looks like they went out of their way to match the color of his speedo to his skin tone so that it was exactly the same. Yeah. I have to say another thing about Lufigno in this is that he pretty much has the physique of one of the old masters of

the universe. He Man Toys. So I remember catching parts of this on like TBS or t n T back when I was a kid, and this just felt natural because I'm like, well, yes, that that is that there it is. That is the body of a he Man action figure. I have a whole bunch of these in a in a box, so it makes sense that this is our hero. But wait, I have a I have a note about Sybil Danning's character. Okay, so this character's

name is all over the place. When when I watched the movie, I watched on HBO Max, And so the character that Sybil Danning is playing, and this corresponds to

the actual mythology, is Ariadne or Ariadna. That's usually spelled A R I A D n E. Then in the movie, it seemed like the characters were saying her name out loud as Arianna, like it would be A R I n A. And then in the in the subtitles and some text for promoting the movie, her name is Adrianna or a D R I A n A. So there's like three different versions of what her name is, and the movie itself doesn't seem to agree. I don't know,

maybe that's nitpicking. But well, not not the first or last time we've encountered, um, you know, pronunciations being all over the place for a character. Well, and spellings. But never mind. All right, let's move on to some of the supporting characters here. UM. We have, of course, the the god Zeus, pops up frequently in this played in this film by Claudio Casanelli, who lived five You might remember him from our discussion of the post apocalyptic film

Hands of Steel. He is the actor who played one of the villains in that film that died in a tragic helicopter crash during the filming of Hands of Steel. Now he was a frequent UM. He was frequently popped up in in various Italian films, often playing Uh. I think kind of kind of villains here and there. Um. Now, when you cast it an actor as Zeus, I mean,

that's a that's a big acting ask. I mean, to my mind, I instantly think of of Laurence Olivier playing Zeus in the Clash of the Titans, which came out a few years before this, and I think definitely UM influenced uh this film in some ways that will discuss. I think of Liam Neeson's playing Zeus in the remakes

of the Clash of the Titans films. You know, so there's a there's a grandiose presence that needs to be there to be Zeus, and you think about like who's who's is in the mythst like he's a powerful and dangerous figure, Like you don't want to get on the bad side of Zeus. Uh. The Zeus in this film

is a different experience, Yes, yes, totally. You want that combination of like authoritative and irresponsible, somebody who is simultaneously like when he talks, everybody turns and listens and people are afraid of him, but also he's unpredictable, undependable and dangerous. Right in this he's more a little sleepy. Yeah. Well, but also the actor who plays him. Once I noticed this, I couldn't unsee it, and he just looked like him in every single shot. He looks like Jon Stewart of

The Daily Show. He looks like Jon Stewart in a Santa Claus wig and beard. Yes, and he I didn't, I did. I didn't put this together to you, you interning. You sent me this picture and I'm like, oh my god, he does and he looks like he's doing that sort of John Stewart um sort of shock confusion face that he often pulls in bits, so totally looks like a John Stewart bit. It looks like it's like John Stewart

playing a satirical take on Zeus. So will be fuddled Zeus. Right, Um, let's see who else do we have in this we have we have King a Gs played by Brad Harris. Harris live thirty three through two thousand seventeen, American bodybuilder turned actor uh turned European acting mainstay, and he played a lot of strong men in his career, including Goliath and Samson. So this few kind of feels like like like a wink to the muscle man um cinema fans

of the day. M Uh. Then we have um an Israeli actor by the name of Jehuda Ifrani who plays the character dor Con, who is I believe the uh, the advisor to the to to this King. He's an Israeli actor again who player appeared in nine Phantom of the Opera starring Robert England. This is the Robert the Nightmare on the Elm Street inspired Fantom of the Opera film. Uh. He pops up in the Delta Force American Ninja three. Uh. And in the film The Omega Code. Oh, The Omega Code.

That's a Christian apocalypse movie, one of my favorite genres. Yeah. Starting with Michael Yorke, I think was a villain in that, right he was. He plays the Antichrist. And it also has Michael Ironside as a hinchman of the Antichrist and Casper van Deen as like a self help author who in the end he gets converted and becomes a good guy. Uh. Let's see who else is in it? I think those are all the main Oh, Katherine Oxenberg is in it. She was in like Lair of the White Worm and stuff.

All right. Um, now we have the character Cassiopeia is essentially the damsel in distress in this film, and she is played by Ingrid and Sin born nineteen sixty American actor making her film debut here. She mostly did television after this. Another important female character in this is um is Searcy Cerci is of course the witch, the sorceress. Uh. And in this she has played by Marella D'Angelo born

n six Italian actor whose credits also include Caligula and tenebrae. Oh. She She's actually pretty great in this, especially because when we first meet her, she's in like um, she's in the krone form. And then she drinks hercules Is blood. Am I right about that? She like cuts him and drinks his blood so she can rely like regain her youth and strength and magic powers. Uh. And then there's like a long middle section of the movie where it's

just like Searcy bossing Hercules around and it's great. He's following her around doing everything she tells him to do. She's like, I need you to reach inside this glowing egg and he's like, okay, it burned my hand. He's like you must reach He's like no, no, it's freezing my hand. It's it's a great state. Oh your hands in there again. Yeah. So Sarcy is great in this, and it's definitely one of the many characters who's who's again wearing their outfit to the absolute limit. Oh my

god that the tassels on her outfit or hilarious. Alright, another character, So we mentioned King Minos. Now we have Minos, we have Minos's daughter, uh, and yet we have no maze or labyrinth in this film, and we have no Minotaur. So don't get excited about the prospect of either of those standard um uh features of a King Minos story

popping up. But we do have the character who is of course credited uh in in the in the various myths as creating the Labyrinth and creating various other works of of of of artistry and technical craftsmanship in h in the mythological canon, and that is the character data Us. Now in this movie, Daedalus is not a human craftsman.

She is like a figure who is birthed out of the chaos of the universe and then like takes form and where's this strange costume that has these big ears uh and and talks about how she hates magic and hates the gods and only love science, right, yes, And they're plotting, let me basically plotting the destruction of the gods via science. They're talking about how much better than than the gods science is. Uh, it's it's pretty fabulous. This is where the robots come into play. They are

the the the automatons of data list here. Yeah, she makes the robots that Minos greedily begs her descend against Hercules. Yes, so, in in this film, Datus is played by Eva Robbins, transgender Italian actress, model, and activists who appeared in Dario Agento's Tenebre as Women on the Beach. She played the famed inventor of Greek mythology in both of the coatsy

Hercules movies. So she does pop up in the sequel, and I should mention dressed in a just absolutely bonkers costume here that feels like part comic book villain from space and also part Christmas tree ornament. Yeah. I was trying to her helmet. Yes, I don't know how to do. It's like it's a little bit Planet of the Vampires but spray painted gold and then with these big ears

popping off of it. It reminded me a little bit of some of the like diamond shaped ear ornaments popping off of I think I remember from the acrobats in the Star Wars Holiday special to pop up in the hologram. Yeah, yeah, that's a fair comparison. Robbins continued to act in European indie films after this, uh, sometimes appearing alongside such actors as Charlotte Rampling. So um so she apparently wanted to have quite an interesting career well, I loved every one

of her scenes in this movie. The Minos datalst scenes are are highlights of the film. Yes, um oh, this is a character who sadly doesn't really do much, but we have this character show up at one point to challenge Hercules by the name of Kings and Odama uh and it in. This character is played by Big Bobby Rhodes born from Demons. Yes, black Italian actor who pops up in a number of Italian action in B movies.

Probably best known yeah for playing Tony the Pimp and Hank the gym instructor in Lomberto Baba's Demons and Demons Too, but he can also be found in the Island of the Fishmen a k a. Screamers. Uh. He was in Sergio Martino's The Great Alligator, which features a story credit by Georgie Eastman, and he also did stunts. He's credited with underwater stunts in the underwater monster movie Leviathan. So he's great, but he's kind of wasted in this film. Oh well, yeah, he's He plays a small role. He

plays like the king who uh he what is it? He? Um? Hercules and Cercy needs something from him and in order to get it, Hercules has to has to like grow huge and then like push apart the the street of Gibraltar, the pillars Hercules. Yeah, and basically, um Bobby Rhodes character just watches on from a litter and it doesn't really do anything but just actimized. At this I thought they

were going to fight or something. I was getting excited. Well, the litterally that he's being carried in, though, is a mammoth skeleton that was pretty so he's like within the ribs of a mammoth um. The mammoth skeleton made me think of now Wolf in Santa Fe. And I have to say that several of the sets in this movie just feel like now Wolf, Like I'm just straight up back in now Wolf and except there are various Greek

gods standing around. Alright, one more credit on this before we move onto the plot, and that is, of course, coming back to the music here. The music is by Pino Donaggio Borne. The music here is rather traditional for the most part, but Pinot is a rather big name, noted for working with such directors as Joe Dante, Uh, Luccio fulci Uh, Terence Hill, Charles band Uh and probably

most famously Brian de Palma. He worked with Diploma on eight different films, carry Home Movies, Dressed to Kill, Blowout, Body, Double Raising, Cane, Snake Eyes, Passion, and Domino Wow. I honestly gotta say, I don't remember much about the music in the movie. It didn't It didn't really strike me one way or another. I mean, it's it's one of those scores that I feel like it did the job.

It did exactly what it needed to do. It doesn't stand out, It certainly doesn't doesn't overshadow anything going on with the Farigno's muscles on the screen, so it's in a perfect supporting role. All right, Well, let's dive into the plot of this baby. All right. Well, I think this is one where we're not going to do the whole story beat by beat, but focus on some sections that were interesting to us. And I do want to start right at the beginning, because I love the way

this movie begins. I love a movie that where the prologue goes all the way back to the beginning of the universe, or actually, in this case, before the beginning of the universe, because it starts off just by showing you slow motion fireworks exploding, and then it says, in the beginning, before creation, there was darkness. Uh. And then we learned that from the primordial explosion emerged the fire of chaos, and then the chaos merged with the darkness,

and from this union were born the elements. Rob, do you have a notepad ready to record what the elements are? Okay, let's go. There's four of them. Okay. The elements are night, day, matter, and air. Okay. Oh, and I like that when it's telling us this, So the you know, the chaos merged with the darkness, there is like a uh, it's just this long series of sort of cause vaguely cosmic looking special effects shots, and this one is something that's on fire,

bathed in red light, moving toward the camera. Yeah. Yeah, we're we're in just total cosmic mode for for several minutes here. There are no humans, there's just space stuff going on, right. Okay. So, so we got the four elements, night, day, matter, and air. And then after this we find out that out of the misty radiance of the cosmos there came forth a jar, golden and glittering Pandora's jar. But then it shows us the jar and it looks like a spaceship.

It's got different like multicolored windows. Yeah, it's pretty fair like it's is. It's as close to looking like a spaceship as it could be without just blatantly being a space like they I think like they manage it rather nicely, like they're you know, they're they're they're not going too far with the sci fi, but they're going right up to the line. Uh huh. We we find out it is filled with the essences both good and evil, of

life itself, and then we see the jar explode. It's clearly this is one of the parts they talked about where like they kind of don't even care with the special effects, where so it explodes and then you just see a couple of parts of it don't fly off and fall fall down there like hanging from threads. But then we learned that from the fragments of the jar.

Remember this was the jar, Pandora's jar that contained all of the essence of life, both good and evil, And from the fragments of that jar, it says that the planets and the Solar System were formed. And then you see the jar fragments zooming through space like like the fighter ships on Battlestar Galactica. And so it starts explaining

planets to us. It's like, here are some of the planets. Uh. It tells us about Saturn, the world of mystic Rings, and then it says other fragments became the flaming Energies, gave shape to Mercury. Yet another fragment gave birth to the colossus Jupiter, the Titan of the Skies. Any Greek mythology nerds want to pick a bone with that one, I'll leave it there. But then it goes on. So

we're getting closer to Earth. It says the worlds of the universe were created along with the moons that accompanied them, and then Earth, and then it says, and on Earth there was life everywhere. And then we get like a zoom in shot to what looks like a like a satellite photo of one of the shores of Michigan or something. But then finally, okay, we need we need some some beings to populate these worlds, right, So it says that the first beings that the Creation brought forth were not men.

They were of the Supreme essence and became gods. They claimed the moon as their home. So In this version of Greek mythology, the gods were the first creation, not not the Titans, so that it doesn't do the multiple generations. Uh, they were the first creation. And they live on the moon. Yeah, there's no Mount Olympus, it's the moon instead. Instead of this this planet that's filled with life, they're gonna live

on this just desolate moonscape. And what do the gods do there on the moon, Well, there are only three of them. There's Zeus, Hera and Athena, and and they sit there on the moon. And it says they decide the ultimate fate of mankind and of all that lived. Yeah, they're simplifying the pantheon somewhat here, right, And so the thing about the gods in this movie is that they

are severely on drugs. When when we get zoom ins of all three of the gods, I would say especially Hera and Athena, but all three of them really seem to be in a kind of potent pharmaceutical realm. Like their pupils are a mile wide, right, and they're yeah, they're they're they don't have a lot of emotion in

what they're saying and what they're doing. They don't really have the the the characterizations that you're you're more accompanient, you're more accustomed to with say um Zeus and then uh, and then also Athena are just not going to be found here. I would say the one that actually feels the most out of character of all three of them is Athena. Athena, I feel like should be a a sharp and powerful presence. She is she You know, there's

so much that Athena is. Athena's wisdom, Athenas warfare, Athenas all these things in this movie. She is zonked. She's just kind of aerily delivering lines as if I'm not even sure if she's aware whether anybody is listening or not. And really, these whole sequences kind of feel like sportscaster sequences, like let's let's go back and hear the commentary and uh, and here they are just sort of very, very detached, talking about a game happening, you know, somewhere else across

the city. That's right. So they're in this They're in this set that has these weird pillars coming up off the surface of the moon. And then Zeus says, Okay, Pandora's jar has been broken. The forces of evil have been let loose. The world of mortal men is facing its our decision, it will go down to destruction or else it will survive. And then Harra says, of course, Harra is always making kind of a nasty face. I mean, Hara is often the villain of of these stories. Certainly

she's the enemy of Hercules. That that is true to the myth, I think. But Harra says, this is their moment of trial. They have to show themselves worthy of everything we gods have given them. But it hasn't made clear that they've given them anything. But anyway, here is so Finally Athena comments, She's like, but evil is dark and strong. It may be that the scales of fate are not equally balanced. H So Zeus takes all this into consideration and he decides that there needs to be

a way to equalize both sides of the struggle. It's not entirely I think this means the sides of the struggle are on one side it's humans and on the other side it's the destruction of humans. Uh. So he's like, Okay, we need to make this air. So he asks Athena, like, how can we make it fair? How can we do it? Yeah? And it was Zeus, again known for his fairness, right. Uh.

And so Athena has an amazing idea. She says, if you don't want to increase the powers of all men, why don't you increase those of one so that he may fight for all the others. What a weird capitalist approach to um to orchestrating the affairs of men. Uh. But Zeus his reaction, he's clearly enthralled by this idea.

It's like, uh, if you ever seen when somebody mentioned, you know, somebody's really hungry, and then somebody else suggests a delicious food they could eat, and then their eyes sort of like go off somewhere like they're just imagining it. That's the way Zeus reacts. He's really grooving with it. He goes a man who is stronger and more intelligent than all other men, just gazing like at his lap.

So anyway, they decide, yeah, that's what we'll do. We'll get a hero, as they say, it will be a hero with the body forged in the furnace of a thousand sons, a body capable of undergoing every labor, every pain, practically invincible, made from the purest of all energies light. I like how he kind of totally spaces on the idea of the superior intellect and just focuses on the body, which is again what you want in a Hercules movie. Right.

So they start off as saying that this will be a man who is stronger and more intelligent than all other men. This is not a comment about about lou Ferrigno. This is like in the script, there's really not much to indicate that this Hercules is even of average intelligence. And again that's that's just part of it. I mean, yeah, Hercules in the midst you do have more of a like there's the cunning of Hercules, but we don't really see the cunning of Hercules in this film. It is

the brute strength of Hercules. And when cunning things need to be done, well, that's where Circe or some other character is going to apply some some some cunning thought. Like multiple of the labors of Hercules involved not brute strength, but him coming up with like an outside the box solution to a problem. Uh, now you know he does come up he does. They do actually reflect one of the cunning moments of Hercules in this um, but that's true.

The cleaning of the stables, yeeah, theah, the agean stables, which, of course is this this whole sequence in the it's it's, it's it's fascinating because I was, I want, I watched the film and I had to to quiz my my wife and son. I said, you guys know the the Trials of Hercules, Guess which one they did in this film? And I think I quiz you the same way, like, which is the ultimately the last one you would choose for for for a cinematic portrayal. You know, it doesn't

feature a monster. It just features the cleaning of some just awful, um poop filled stables. That's the one that they choose. Though. It's a great sequence as well, because the stable, like everything in this film, the stables look like they are on another planet, Like every location in this film feels like a different cosmic location. That the stables look like horses, like these twin horses, and uh and and he diverts the whole river to flood it. It's a it's it's a great scene. It is, yeah,

but but that comes much later. We're still the phase here where they're they're talking about sending this being made of light to Earth, and then it shows him, so it like fades in on Hercules wearing a speedo, posing, flexing his muscles amidst the stars. Yes, uh, greased and and and lit from above. And I guess the problem is that they can't send him to Earth like this. You're I don't know why they can't, but they just can't, you know, you know, he can't arrive at Earth as

an adult being made of light. Instead. I think the deal is they have to slot his his her soul, which is made of light, into the body of immortal baby. And then that makes me wonder, Wait, what happened to the baby's original soul? I mean, maybe there was no original soul like this one was already slotted for this vac they like they they they birthed a soulless baby in preparation for inserting the hercules soul, the muscle soul made of light from the stars into the baby. Yeah, okay,

well anyway, lou ferrig No, he goes down. He possesses a baby. This baby is this part I think is sort of according to the myth, is the child of Infitrion. And alca Many and uh, and this is at the City of Thebes. It tells us this is the City of Thebes and the Bronze Age four thousand years from this moment. But then I'm like, wait, is Thebes also on the moon? Because they show Thebes and it looks like it's in space. It's this stone city with these

big walls. I mean, it looks kind of like a I don't know, a cross between a medieval castle and like Chattel Hoyak. But it's in space with like comet sipping around. Oh yeah, it's like that with with every location, isn't it. Like later on we go to Atlantis and it's like green. It looks like another at it, And then I was asking myself, is this supposed to be

another planet? And then they showed the sky and it has like three moons or something, and they're also they're traveling through space at various times to get from one location to the other. Um so very cosmic without characters actually coming out and and and referring to these as

different planetary locations. Yeah, I did not know what to make of that, but you know what it I enjoyed looking at it, so okay, but immediately Hara is trying to kill this baby, because you know that's what Harrod does. She doesn't like Herchiles and she wants to destroy him, so she sets events in motion to uh to lead

to the death of baby Hercules. UH. And then we get an escape in infancy narrative, you know, like the I mean, I guess this is there in some of the original Hercules myths, but it's also like you know, the stories of Moses or Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew, where like there's uh, there's a chosen baby and then like the forces are aligned against to him and he

has to be secreted away. So in this case in Thebes, there's like there's a usurper king who comes in and he kills herciless parents, and he's trying to kill Hercules. He's being urged on by one of the recurring villains of the movie played by Sybil Danning, who is the She plays the daughter of the wicked king Minos of Thea who will get to in just a minute. But so there's like a rebellion against the king's forces and

it's the narrator comes in. I think it says like and the wicked rebels turned thebes into a war zone, and it just shows you know, fire and a bunch of people going. Meanwhile, I should also say, like when we see the soldiers and stuff in these scenes, it is just a feast of weird fake gold armor and cod pieces. Oh and there's also a thing this actually

turns out to be important later. I mean, we're not gonna try to explain every in and out of the plot, but there is an important theft at the beginning where like a thief sneaks into a temple and steals a sacred sore this kind of sword in the stone, he pulls it out of its resting place, he kills a couple of guards and with some hilarious bow and arrow action, right, and then that Yeah, that sword is basically never mentioned again for the rest of the film till we get

to the very end, and then it becomes extremely important and it's re established. Yeah, And so little Hercules gets taken away by a nursemaid to protect him from from the evil rebels, and she puts him on a river, puts him on a boat and sets it down a river,

and then Harrod tries to kill him multiple ways. I think at one point he's going over a waterfall, but then Zeus, in this hilarious special effect, reaches out and catches the boat from the waterfall, and you see this giant, pale hand reaching out from the water that gets the boat and then pulls him to the moon where he's like this tiny little thing in his hand and shows Zeus looking at the boat. He's like, oh, and then he him back in the river. Here is like, you

can't do that, that's cheating. You have to put him back in the river. And then he does, but he puts him downstream of the waterfall and he's like, you didn't tell me which part of the river to put him in. But then also Hara tries to send a couple of snakes to kill Hercules, and baby Herk just strangles them. Oh yeah, it's a great sequence because they're super fake monster snakes and uh and this this baby is not a good actor and just not very convincing

at all, So it makes for hilarious sequence. One thing I wanted. And so of course Hercules gets rescued by by a nice old couple and they take him in and raise him, and uh, you know, they're very sweet they're sweet pastoral lists and uh, and we get a montage of him growing up and growing stronger. And how do you think so, Conan the Barbarian came out in two, this movie came out in night three. How do you think they're gonna show young Hercules growing and getting stronger? Oh?

You to strap him to that millstone? That's right, So they have a montage of him turning a millstone. The relation. The fun thing about this, though, I was reading, is that there is a millstone scene I think in the first Motista movie. So I believe Milius was may have actually been referencing the history of muscleman movies by including that ian Conan the Barbarian. Well, that would make sense. Okay,

I'm back on board now, every every movie should have it. Then, it's just that they're all calling back to the original. How else are you getting to know that he's strong and that time is passing, like this is the logical way to do it, one of the things. So once he grows up, he is of course lufer Igno then and we get to see him being very strong, you know, chopping wood, pulling trees up out of the ground with his arms and Uh. One of the great scenes once

he's finally an adult is the bear scene Robbed. You could you describe the bear scene? So it is your basic bear wrestling scene, and I think it possibly reuses some bare footage from another movie. I forget which one, but you know, it's Hercules versus a bear. You know who's gonna win. It's gonna be Hercules. Um, but but what what do you expect to happen when Hercules defeats

the bear? You think he might just you know, either he whips the bear and says, all right, go back to the wild you or you know, or puts a sleeper hold on it and just you know, just puts it to sleep and walks off. No, that's not good enough, that's not epic enough for this Hercules. Well, first of all, also so yeah, it intercuts between stock footage of a real bear and then one of the worst bear suits

I've ever seen on a in film, like unbelievable. It's it's worse than the than the wicker Man remake bear suit. I didn't even notice that. I mean, I don't know, I didn't think too long and hard about it being a fake bear. I mean, it's it's a guy wearing a bunch of carpet samples basically, but he grabbed but he so he defeats the bear. Oh and the bear kills his kills his father him. Yeah. Uh, so he

kills that guy. That guy's laying dead on the ground, and Hercules is like, oh, you bear, and then he grabs him and he throws him into space. Yes, it's a great sequence because it's just as goofy as it sounds. But oh but of course, uh, of course the bear thrown into space by Hercules. You know, here's your mythic connection thrown up into space by Hercules and becomes the constellation Ursa that you know, the bear in the sky,

the first of many constellations, right right right? Well yeah, actually, because so after this, Athena and Hara like taunt each other. Athena's like, ha ha, all your heroes are going I guess this means Harris sent the bear. She's like, all your heroes are going to end up getting thrown into space. Is like, don't worry, I have many other are people waiting to fight for evil? Uh and here's oh, here's the part where we get into one of my favorite

things in the movie my favorite recurring characters, Minos and Dadalus. Uh. Now, I can't remember what we already said about where Minos is where they are in this scene. I don't know how to even begin to describe where they are what is happening, But it looks like they are. Minos is like in space in a I don't know, on the Moon or on some other planet, standing among a bunch of rocks on top of a giant stone head that has a mustache and is glowing from the inside. Yeah,

it's it's ball. I have no idea what you're supposed to be. I think they're in space somewhere, I guess, which is weird because we get the impression that he's based on Earth, right, like why the island of theory? Yeah? Yeah, So I don't know if he's come out here to meet data list like you have to meet data is halfway or what I really I don't know, but this

is where they meet and scheme. Right, So Minos calls out Minos is like dattle Us, embodiment of knowledge, reasoning, curiosity, great genius of invention, master of science, I King Minos of the calling you to step into time and space that's great, materialize out of chaos. So he tries that looks around no datals. So then he tries again and he goes daddle and then she finally does appear. Is she wearing a cellophane cape? Uh? It does have some

some clear Yeah, it looks cellophane. And then there's like this netguard that is like clear plastic. It's a it's a lot this costing. Well, there's immediately conflict between them because Dadalus is afraid that Minos wants her to serve the gods, but she hates the gods, so nothing to do with them. And she's like, one day, Minos, you will have to choose between the gods and science. And he says, you know me, I'm dedicated to science. I do not believe in the gods, but doing them a

little favor can't hurt, can it. And uh so he you know, he's gonna be working for hera because she's bad. And this is setting up one of the major themes of the movie, which is truly deeply bizarre. It makes no sense whatsoever in the context of this story, and it makes no sense on its own terms, but it's the science versus magic theme. I think this is basically a dynamic like we saw in the Thing from Another World. It's like a Jocks versus Nerds movie, with the Jocks

representing magic and goodness and the Nerds representing science and evil. Yeah, so it's like it it seems like in some respects it's a weirdly anti science movie. It's just like like like God's rule, science rules kind of a thing. Well, and it's not an argument over like whether science is good or not. It was it's like, yeah, science of course is evil, and that is why we support it

because we like evil. Yeah, it is interesting, how like I feel like a less imaginative film might have gone with this and been like, okay, we'll have data List being here, and you know, Data's will be just kind of like a mad scientist, you know, a well established trope clearly by this point in cinema. Yet they didn't go in that direction at all. Instead, we have this data Lists agent, embodiment of chaos who doesn't even live in our normal space time, kind of appearing to minos Um. Yeah,

like an ambassador of another world. Very strange step into time and space. But anyway, Datalyst is eventually like Okay, I've already kept stepped into time and space. We can kill lufer rig No, that is that is doable. Uh. And she says, this is my solution to Hercules, and then she pops up three like Erector set toys. Yeah, these director sets are a good reference. They're these very

very interesting looking small automatons. There's a dragon looking creature, there's a sort of bug looking creature, and there's a kind of a center looking creature and um they Yeah, they're strange looking. There's a definite, uh, definite direction here in in the way they decided to portray these I wonder to what extent they were clearly influenced by Clash of the Titans, which had come out, you know years before, that had some you know ahead of the mechanical owl

in it. That's just a real, a real hoot, uh, certainly one of the fun parts of that film. And they're like, well, we one mechanical owl, we can have three mechanical villains, and maybe it'll simplify the whole stop motion monster thing. Like we're not going to really be able to bring the full hairy house and game to this film. Uh, so maybe we can do something that is a little less fleshy but also cool to look at, right, so Minos oh, but he reacts by being He's like,

such a small solution to such a big problem. And then he looks sadly directly into the camera. But Dadalus is like, uh, Minos, my dear size like time and space is relative um, and then he's he realizes he's like, oh, relative to atmospheric conditions, right, and on hitting Earth's atmosphere it will grow big, huge, immense, terrifying. Is he programmed to destroy Hercules? They talk to these little mechanical toys. They talk about the colossal exterminator that you really are.

So they send a giant robot B to kill Hercules, and then Hercules defeats it by poking it with a stick. To be fair, he pokes it very hard and multiple times. But he does defeat the giant robot by poking it with a stick. Oh, and at this point her well. So his father has been killed by a bear, his mother is killed by a giant b robot during the giant b robot out attack, and Hercules is just bereft.

So he must strike out on his own to answer the riddle of his life, which and there's a great moment where he looks off in the distance and says, why am I stronger than other men? Uh? So? Here? Yeah, here he goes onto a series of adventures and labors that will of course end with him facing the evil King Minos and his wicked daughter Sybil danning to to kill science once and for all and save the world. And along the way, they're all kinds of weird adventures

and encounters. Again, we're not going to hit all the points on there, but rob are there are there any ones that you want to mention in particular? I maybe it would be good to start with the contest of strength and tire. What do you think, Oh, that's a great sequence because there's um like he he wrestles like a dozen men who have a log. He battles like multiple swordsmen, I think. And then he goes up against two chariots with blades on the on the on this

like spokes of the wheels. And this was a sequence. I remember seeing this on TV for sure. I don't think I've ever seen this film and its entirety before, but I remember this part because the chariots make two swipes at him, the first time they come at him, we go to a side view and he super Mario jumps over them, and and then when they come back to get him the second time, he just stands there and the blades break against the just the brutal beef of his of his legs like this, so muscular that

blades cannot cut him. And then he like grabs the chariots and pulls back defeats So you know, four horses with his with his awesome strength. Right, the most important thing about a warrior is that he have indestructible shins. That's what we learn from this. And uh and of course Hercules wins the contest. He is the greatest warrior competing entire and so the uh oh, the whole thing is that the winner of this contest is going to

be given an important mission. So Hercules wins, and he finds out what the mission is, and so the king comes up to him and he's like, okay, you won. So your mission is you have to take my beautiful daughter Cassiopeia to Athens and you have to protect her along the way, because he explains there is a whole lot of evil and mischief about out on the roads and this is due to the wicked king minos from the isle of theory, like monsters are coming from the island. Uh,

and because of his evil daughter Sybil Danning. But but then I love, we get the intervention by the king's scheming advisor. Who is this stammering nerd named dor Con. Yes, yeah, kind of a kind of a Donald pleasancy um uh presence to this guy. Oh yeah, he's got a really great objection. So that the king is like, yes, you will escort my beautiful daughter. And then the advisor is like, this man is a great warrior, yes, but how can we be sure he isn't part of the evil and

mischief you mentioned. The King's like, oh, that's a good point. We can't. But so they they decided to test him further, and this is where we get the famous you know, labor of Hercules, the cleaning of the stables, and it's the Stables of Sibilly. Oh but so if if you're not familiar with the myth, rob what's what's the basic

outline of the Cleaning of the stables labor? Well, this is this is a clever Herk moment where you think, oh, well, this is just gonna be a whole bunch of shovelin poop for old Hercules, and surely he's up for it. But there's a time constraint here. Even Hercules can't shovel this much poop. Well, what Hercules does instead is he diverts the rivers through the stable and uh and clears

out all the poop. And this is truly This would not have been my first pick for a cinematic portrayal of one of the Trials, but it's pretty awesome because again, the stables look otherworldly and weird, and they look pretty foul. He diverts the river through it, and it's just you know, it's one of those great shots where you have the miniaturized set but full scale water, so everything looks looks a little fake. Uh. And then and then we get

the before and after. Right, here's water going through these these awful looking stables, and then when the waters are done, everything is just sparkling white right. Uh. Yeah, yeah, it looks like a like a locker room or something. Oh. And of course along the way, Herchiles falls in love with Cassiopeias. You might imagine he's like, uh, and he he gets her to agree he's like, um, hey, if I get all the poop out of these stables, you're gonna agree to marry me. And she's like, well, okay uh.

And then he does it and they kiss, and then Zeus shoots lightning out of his head and makes them fall asleep. Don't I don't recall why if Zeus explained why he did that. I think he just wanted to move the plot along, right, So he shoots the lightning, the forehead lightning at them. They they're knocked out, and then they get captured by the bad guys and at

this point they're split up. Cassiopeia is taken off to the evil island of Theora to be a human sacrifice, and Hercules, oh, they're they're like, oh, take him out to the ocean. I think it's Sybil Danning who's like, we'll throw him in the ocean. He'll be eaten by sharks. But come on, he's hurt, he's fine. He just swims for a week and then gets to shore. It doesn't even encounter a shark for a second. Here, it feels like, oh, we're gonna get hurt at risk of a shark. Now,

they don't even mess with him. Oh, and here's where we get that series of adventures with Hercules and the sorceress Cercy. Uh. Well man, that's a tongue twister sorceress Cercy. But anyway, when we first meete her, she's in like gnarly witch form. But then she regains her her youth

and vitality by drinking some of HER's blood, which is great. Uh. And then we get all this backstory of how she lost some of her powers because the evil King Minos of Thea took away her magic and she's got to get hurt to help her, I think I don't like recover some artifacts or something that will give her power back.

But there's just one screenshot I pulled out for you to look at, Rob here, because it's just an example of one of the many side splitting lee unfortunate reaction shots of lufer Igno where some other character is talking, but it's just showing us Lufigno's face. And I'm not sure if anybody was actually talking when they filmed this,

because he's not reacting. Yeah, but even when he's not reacting again, there is a certain charisma to Ferrigno in this, and it it does shine through, but not in a way that makes the character feel too confident, right, No, it's more of a Forigno in this movie. I think is likable, but like we said earlier, it's and somehow it grows more out of his lack of screen charisma.

He's just kind of he's kind of all buddy, yeah, And just even though he is created by the gods and has all this power, yeah, he's up against some really scheming elements here. He's up against evil kings and and the manipulations of rival gods and beings from outside of space and time, and and of course three giant robots. Um there are going to be two additional robot battles. All of them basically have the same energy of her,

like poking things that are not on screen. It really may to you value even more just how amazing the work of Ray Harry How's it was. You know, he could have these amazing models that had this life to them, but also they were able to shoot these sequences in ways where it felt like human beings and monsters were occupying the same space. You never get that illusion in this picture. No, the effects in this movie are not good, but I do think they're fun despite being bad. Uh.

And so there's more. There's more scheming by Minos and Dadalis leading up to the next big robot battle. Uh. Dadalists, I think this says like, well, we're gonna kill Hercules with my three headed metal metal monster, and Minos is like, oh another robot. Huh, well the last one didn't do too great. The dentalist is like, this one spits cosmic rays of deadly fire. And then uh oh and she says do you know what that means? Oh? And he's very impressed. He's like, oh, cosmic rays of deadly fire.

Well in that case, great. She's like do you know what that means? And then he says they will be they will be eliminated, disintegrated, not a trace, Yes, yeah they Darth Vader says no to disintegrations, but Minos is like, yes, let's have some disintegrations. Oh and this is one of the funny parts where Minos is for some reason, he just wants to see the monster grow just a little bit. Yeah,

He's like, I'm paying for it. I want to see the monster go a little bit before we send it down to Earth where naturally, again, we kind of skipped over this but entry into Earth's atmosphere will cause the robot to grow, because that's just that's just the natural order of things. That's that's science, and these guys love science. Oh but so Hercules and Cercy have to face off against this monster and so they sort of defeat it with something akin to the Perseus method going up against Medusa.

They use a reflective shield to shoot the deadly cosmic rays back at the robot. And I think this is one where this is Hercules, this is not Herk's own cleverness. Cearcy has to tell him what to do. Yeah, but you have a lot of cool flashing lights in this sequence. It's very very visually appealing. Yeah, they're in a cave. There's a big three headed metal dragon attacking them, shooting

rays and he's using the shield to reflect them. But anyway, after they win that battle, um, they get Oh, they end up moving on to what is one of my favorite visual moments in the movie, which is when Herk and Cercy have to cross the river Sticks to go to the Temple of Eternity, which is this giant skull mountain with caves for eyes and a mouth, and so you get the river, the boatman Karen, who's this creepy skull face? This scene I thought was actually pretty atmospheric

and effective. Yeah. I mean our characters are going to hell here, they're going to hades, and uh it feels it feels good. Like a number of sequences here could be a you know, like a straight up metal album cover after this. Let's see, there are a number of other adventures. There's the one where Herchilles has to push the pillars of the now so called pillars of Hercules

apart to to open the Mediterranean. See. Uh, there is there's a great scene of bootstrap physics where they somehow access a a chariot that I think would be pulled by a pegasus, but the pegasus isn't there. So Hercules, well what does he do? Oh this is great? Yeah? They yeah, they strap uh what a boulder to the to the chariot, and then Hercules heaves the boulder through space. They jump into the chariot and and the boulder that Hercules just through pulls the chariot that they're now riding

through space. Brilliant. I love it. Oh, and also so they they like fly through space and then they fall in an ocean and then they swim to the harbor of theory the Bad Guys Island, and the harbor there has what looks like a robot Colossus of RhoD bestride the entrance to the harbor. So if you like zoom in on it, it's it's like the colossus. Um. I think the actual colossus probably was not straddling the entrance to the harbor, but it's often shown in art straddling

the entrance. Uh, and so it's doing that in this image here. But it's a robot, yes, and their pyramids back there and everything's green. It looks like we're at the like on the Necron home world or something. It's it's trippy and they're like again like three moons or or suns in the sky in the background. So uh it is this is clearly not even Earth. I don't know. This movie is very vague again with where things are happening. But this does not feel at all like our planet. No,

but I do love the way this part looks. And so we get a bunch of final confrontations. Hercules has to battle the third robot, which is like a robot centaur. I don't remember that battle being all that notable except that poking. Yeah. Unfortunately, Searcy is unceremoniously killed and she has one of those really funny lucid death things where she's like, oh, I'm dying and then she just lucidly delivers some some final dialogue and then goes, oh, yeah, well,

remember she was depowered. She lost her powers, because when a sorceress falls in love, they lose her powers. So ultimately it's it's Hercules is fault for being just so lovably handsome. And there's a final confrontation where Herchiles has

to rescue Cassie Upeia. He has to go into a volcano and fight the evil king Minos, so that sword comes back into there's oh my god, this sequence is so great because they're fighting on like a platform over the volcano where a phoenix is said to be captured, and Minos whips out like a rainbow light sword with which to murder Hercules and at the time and he's also like, also, hey, that's the sort of thieves back there. It's holding the phoenix in place, no b at touch it.

It's super important. So of course Hercules draws the sword of Thieves, and then they get the sword fighting up there. Who do you think wins? I mean, of course Hercules wins. And then who is it who like ages rapidly and then turns into dust like in the Last Crusade? Is it Cibil Danning? It is civil Danning? Yes, because after Minos is defeated, she's like, you may have one, but I'll kill you. And she's gonna throw a spear, but

instead her throws throws the sword. Uh, she's impaled, falls and we get that yet that that slow motion disintegration sequence, which is nice. Oh yeah, but it's such a happy ending because Hercules rescues Cassiopeia. Uh, they kill Science once and for all, and then they escape from the burning island of Theory and it's happily ever after. Yeah, they embrace on the shore and then they become a constellation

in the sky. It's perfect, absolutely perfect. Take that Science, all right, Well, this one, this one was super fun. And yes, this is a very viewable film if you subscribe to HBO Max, at least in the States. I'm never sure how these things work. You can currently find the first Hercules movie, uh, the one we watched on HBO Max and all of its beautiful, colorful Glory. Uh. It has also come out on Blu Ray in recent years. Uh So there's a very nice looking Blu Ray edition

of that. And I think you can also still pick up a Hercules double feature DVD that includes both this film and the sequel, both lutherig No Hercules films, uh in one DVD package. Wait, if he already turned into a constellation, what's he gonna do in the second one? Just twinkle? I think they have to battle all the same characters again like it had. Basically has the same cast minus Sybil Danning. So I'm not sure exactly how it goes down, but I have to bet I'm kind

of interested to check it out now. All right, well, we're gonna go ahead and close it out here, but we'd love to hear from everyone out there, your thoughts on Hercules, your thoughts on oh, just any Hercules movie or muscle Man movie in general, the legacy of muscle Men movies, all of that is fair game. If you would like to check out other episodes of Weird House

Cinema that publishes every Friday. In the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast feed were primarily a science podcast with episodes core episodes coming out on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but we do listener mail on Mondays. We do an artifacts short form episode on Wednesdays, and on Fridays we put most of the serious concerns aside and just talk about

a weird film. Um I tend to blog. I blog about these episodes at smooda music dot com and if you use Instagram, I have set up in an Instagram account for Weird House Cinema is just Weird how Cinema, so you can follow it there. Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get in touch with us with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest a topic for the future, or just to say hello, you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind

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