The Loves of Hercules (1960)

It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

Well.Hercules style movies are normally, by convention, pretty silly and lightweight, but this one is juvenile and stupid and cheesy in a way that takes the genre to new depths. Ever since I saw "Bloody Pit Of Horror", I've had a soft spot for Hargitay, but he and Mansfield (and, let's be fair,everyone else) are pretty bad here. Not horrible, mind you - the casting leans toward attractive and interesting looking people, and everyone in the cast acts at about the same level - but pretty bad.In Hargitay's case, especially, the vocals (dubbing?) just sucks. It's as if they used Tommy Wiseau (the epically awful actor from "The Room") to utter his lines, and Tommy had a bad migraine that week and couldn't be bothered to pay attention to what he was saying. Combine that with Hargitay's perpetually dopey, yearning expression and you have a screen portrayal that's at the opposite end of the scale from the gravitas and dignity you'd get from someone like Steve Reeves or Reg Park.And Hargitay's blocking and fight choreography are off. For a strong man and body builder, Hargitay seems stiff, awkward and unconvincing. I know he can do better than this because he moved like a different person entirely in "Bloody Pit". The fight with the Hydra in the middle of the film is an especially egregious example of this - I've seen fights staged better at my local community theater productions. Mansfield - well, I 've read that she was actually an intelligent and multifaceted person, but you'd never guess that from her role here. She stands around and pulls various tragic faces and, well, juts a lot. Adding insult to injury is a screenplay that calls for the murder of Hercule's innocent wife in the first 5 minutes of the film, and then has the character (and the movie) forget all about her immediately afterwards. Seriously, she's never mentioned again. And there's a "plot" against Hercules that can only succeed if all the characters display less mental acuity than the girls in a junior high locker room. Which they do. Oh, and there's a "trial" against the Queen that proves her innocence when Hercules throws 4 axes at her...and succeeds in MISSing her on purpose instead of hitting her. (You'd think that missing a woman who occupies less than 30% of a target area would be ridiculously easy for a demi-god and professional warrior, but here the movie acts as if it's a heroic miracle). Hmmm, and the central plot point of the movie - where the queen of the Amazons decides to seduce our hero - just marks time for 20 minutes until Herc's shield bearer finds him and then he basically walks away without doing anything heroic whatsoever. (The queen gets killed by a tree. Really). Boy.Take my advice and watch the Reeves or Parks or even Gordon Scott Hercules movies again, instead.

What a great film. What a great shame that it's so under-appreciated. Packed with some of the cheesiest monster effects this side of THE GIANT CLAW and lots of hilarious stilted acting and unbelievable dialogue, THE LOVES OF HERCULES is the peplum genre at its peak of unintentional hilarity. Fans of these bizarre Italian muscleman flicks will no doubt find this a hugely entertaining experience, even if the acting is poor and the dubbing is even worse. Seemingly every review I've seen comments on how "bad" this film is, but I've seen a heck of a lot worse. At least this is an action-packed experience, and one which is never boring.Mickey Hargitay takes over the reigns from Steve Reeves as muscleman hero Hercules, his body packed with rippling muscles, his mind the size of a pea. Hargitay was of course Mansfield's husband which is probably the sole reason of him appearing in this film. As he is dubbed - by himself I think - it's difficult to assess his performance, but he does pull a lot of strange and amusing expressions along the way. Interestingly his character is given a strong Italian accent, whereas heroes of these peplum films typically have strong American accents - this difference makes things a little more genuine, don't you think? Jayne Mansfield is this film's biggest selling point. Her presence is so great that she has a dual role, that of a good queen and an evil queen. Mansfield isn't really required to act in the film, only scream occasionally and look as ravishing as possible at every moment. Also in the cast is the great Italian actor Massimo Serato playing the "baddie"; he's evil in the classic old-fashioned sense of the word (double-crossing friends, murdering off people all the time, being cruel, torturing and whipping those who oppose) yet still manages to be the gentleman at times (notice the way he protects Mansfield from a threat at the film's conclusion). The rest of the characters are either village idiots, simpering buffoons, or beautiful yet dumb women who amusingly scream "aaaah!" when they are killed. Oh, and the stuffy old courtiers who spend a lot of time talking but not actually doing much. The film is quite well made, and the low budget is disguised through some lovely crisp photography. One thing I particularly liked about this film was the score, which really helps to give it that historical, epic feel.Hercules gets to show his might at various intervals during the film's course, from the expected picking up of incredibly heavy items (a cartwheel, a tree trunk, a rock) to fighting off nasty opponents in the form of a mountain ape man and a huge, fire-breathing dragon. The dragon fight scene is the film's centrepiece and, although the special effects aren't up to much, I found it very impressive. The dragon, supposedly the Hydra (although it's nothing like the Hydra of Greek mythology, for a start it has only three heads and doesn't grow them back after getting them cut off) is a gigantic puppet, okay it may not be very realistic but the sheer effort that they put into animating it is the impressive thing about it. For me, this is a sheer unmissable experience! The ape man turns up unexpectedly at the end, as a means to dispose of the villain (whom it strangles) and providing yet another cheap adversary for Hercules to battle. The ape man's appearance can be described in one word as "laughable", although I felt quite sorry for it. One minute its eyeing up a half-naked Mansfield, the next it gets crushed by a huge rock! There are plenty of other fantastic elements to keep this film interesting. One evil woman changes her appearance at will, helped by a black-cloaked witch who hangs around with her. She also kills all men in her kingdom after loving them, transferring their souls into trees where they remain trapped forever (in order to demonstrate this amazing fact, a minor characters breaks a branch on one of these trees and sure enough, blood spurts out!). This "trees of woe" scene is also pretty cool.Lots of minor characters get killed off in this film, either getting stabbed or shot with arrows and stuff. A couple of people fall into a bubbling pit of acid for good measure at the end. There are a couple of big battles to enjoy, including an uprising for the film's finale, as well as mild torture (whipping seems to the preferred torture method for these guys). In all, it's pretty exciting. If you don't mind cheesy adventure flicks in the same tradition as JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS then this one is for you. See it to believe it!

I've seen dozens of Hercules (or Maciste or Atlas or whatever you want to call him) movies over the years, but The Loves of Hercules just might be the worst of the bunch. It's got so many problems, there's no way I can innumerate all of them. A few I'll mention: 1. Mickey Hargitay doesn't fit my image of Hercules at all. Guys like Steve Reeves, Reg Park, Alan Steel, Lou Ferrigno, and even (I can't believe I'm saying this) Peter Lupus are more suited to the role and better look the part. You know it's a bad sign when Herc's love interest physically dominates him. His acting is as stiff and unnatural as the Hydra he battles. And Hargitay wasn't helped by the dubbing choices made for the movie. The Shakespearian wannabe who voiced Hercules in this movie got it all wrong.2. I just can't take Jayne Mansfield seriously. She has less believability in her role than Hargitay in his. She doesn't do drama very well.3. The Loves of Hercules is also known as Hercules vs the Hydra. As I've already alluded to, the Hydra is horrible. It doesn't move! A boat anchor has more dexterity than this thing. To kill it, Hercules calmly walks underneath it, hits it with a few very weak and awkward looking ax blows, and the middle head just sort of falls off. End of the Hydra.4. As the movie went on, I became frustrated with Hercules' motivations. At the beginning of the movie, he sets out to avenge the death of his wife (I think she was his wife). However, his motivation changes completely the moment he meets Deianira – his new one true love. The dead wife is all but forgotten. Next, the moment he meets the Deianira look-alike Hippolyta, he falls madly in love with her. Herc apparently falls for any woman with two legs in his immediate vicinity. What happened to being a good, upstanding guy with some sort of moral compass? 5. Herc's fight with the bull – nothing else needs to be said.6. The big finale, the storming of the palace/castle, is about as lame as you'll see. Herc's big contribution is to carry a wooden wagon wheel over his head so he can presumably block the archers' arrows. Why not shoot around him? The wheel's not that big. Or, why not go low and shoot Herc's legs? He carries the thing so high that his head is about the only thing truly protected. Like I said, lame. Other than Massimo Serato as the evil Licos, I can't think of anything else positive to say. I'm going to be very generous and give The Loves of Hercules a 3/10 for curiosity value if nothing else.

The totally rare Danish videorelease of this "trashy" film is full screen running 96.00 mins precisely. Italian tv channel RaiUno showed a letterboxed print(1: 1.70 cirka) the other day running ½ a minnute shorter. The 2 versions features a whole bunch of scenes filmed from different/alternative angles and many are diff/alternative takes. Quite "interesting" to compare actually...if you are into this sort of movie-watching. One scene found only in the Danish version shows Miss mansfield (hidden behind some see-through cloth)covering her naked body with some clothes. Extremely...uuhuuhhh...daring!!!!! I give it 5 out of 10.....but "reflecting" on it afterwards is worth a good laugh and....10 !!! Cheers sandal-genre comrades!!!