The film that launched a thousand sets of muscular pecs and biceps and made a household name of American bodybuilder-turned-actor Steve Reeves, "Hercules" (original Italian title: "Le fatiche di Ercole," "The Labours of Hercules") was an international box-office smash that spawned several dozen imitators in the mid-20th Century known as "peplum," for the tunics characters often wore. Collectively, these films were a return to silent-era commercial successes of Italian cinema -- the original Peplum films featuring Italian folk hero Maciste that were popular from the mid-1910s through the mid- 1920s -- and were an attempt (successful, as it turned out) to capitalize on the popularity of American-financed sword-and-sandal epics like "Quo Vadis," "Spartacus," and "Ulysses." Reportedly, director Pietro Francisci had wanted to make a Hercules film for several years but couldn't find a leading man until his daughter spotted Reeves in the film "Athena." Reeves wasn't necessarily an actor of particular subtlety or nuance, but he was incredibly handsome and had a championship physique that set the standard for mid-century bodybuilding. His imposing physical presence and blustery he-man forcefulness made him the perfect actor to embody the legendary strongman and Reeves makes the most of the role. He sets a high bar for portraying the mythological hero and in many respects has never been equaled, though a few actors like Dwayne Johnson have successfully managed to play off Reeves's legacy by modifying the direction of the character. The rest of the cast doesn't fare so well, in part because of the blunt English dubbing and also because the story is a mish- mash of myth that doesn't gel into anything particularly coherent. It's as if Francisci, who's credited with the adaptation, put "Hamilton's Mythology" into a blender and layered in the odd legendary labor wherever it could conceivably fit. We get Ulysses as an eager protégé, Jason's quest with his Argonauts as background, and a confused princess Iole as sometimes enthusiastic and sometimes reluctant love interest. (I'm not sure Sylva Koscina really knew what to make of this role.) Still, the scenery is beautiful and is matched by the attractive cast, and some of the action is amusingly low-tech in an endearing manner. I do feel bad for the drugged lion (never identified in the English-dubbed version as the Nemian Lion) Reeves has to tangle with, and bad for Reeves when it's clear in some shots that he's wrestling a stuffed prop. Had PETA been hanging around Cinecitta in the late 1950s, I suspect film history would be quite different. Despite its clunky storytelling and questionable treatment of animals, there is a lot of entertainment value here still, almost 60 years after it single-handedly spurred a renaissance in Italian epics. If you want something visual that's not too abysmal, you could do a lot worse than this old Steve Reeves movie, though this is one case where the direct sequel, "Hercules Unchained," surpasses the original.
Review of Hercules
