Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 3: This is Rob Lamb and this is Joe McCormick. And
Speaker 3: today on Weird House Cinema, we are going to be
Speaker 3: talking about the nineteen sixty one Italian sword and sandal
Speaker 3: movie Hercules in the Haunted World, directed by show favorite
Speaker 3: Mario Bava, starring English bodybuilder redg Park as Hercules and
Speaker 3: also starring show favorite Christopher Lee as the evil King
Speaker 3: Leco in what I must say is one of the
Speaker 3: most underwhelming Christopher Lee performances of all time, but otherwise
Speaker 3: really really fun, great if low budget fantasy movie.
Speaker 2: That's right, I mean with a Mario Bava film as well,
Speaker 2: no doubt be discussing most of this episode. There are
Speaker 2: certain expectations in place, and this film meets those expectations.
Speaker 2: You know that it is going to look glorious. You
Speaker 2: know that you are going to be entering a phantasmagorical
Speaker 2: whirl of color and smoke and strange, surreal landscapes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, whatever the genre, whatever the budget, you pretty much
Speaker 3: always know a Mario Bava movie is going to look
Speaker 3: fascinating and you will feel the mood with your eyes.
Speaker 3: They tend to be have very well composed shots. Each
Speaker 3: shot is kind of like a painting in some way.
Speaker 3: It's always kind of interestingly staged or framed. And he's
Speaker 3: a big fan of things like mist and fog and
Speaker 3: colored lights. So in scenes that in other movies might
Speaker 3: just be lit with what comes off as realistic lighting
Speaker 3: to the audience, in Abava movie, yeah, you'll have red
Speaker 3: lights coming from one side of the room, green and
Speaker 3: blue coming from the other, and pink lights on the subject,
Speaker 3: and it just infuses everything even more realistic scenes with
Speaker 3: a sense of magic.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And they're almost always going to be sequences
Speaker 2: that feel kind of hypnotic, and this film is no exception.
Speaker 2: There are some there are some sequences that have a
Speaker 2: hypnotic vibe to them.
Speaker 3: So Hercules in the Haunted World has been known by
Speaker 3: other names, as many Italian movies have lots of names.
Speaker 3: It's been known as Hercules at the Center of the
Speaker 3: Earth and also some variations on Hercules versus the Vampires.
Speaker 3: I don't think that really describes the movie at all.
Speaker 2: I was reading about the various titles for this film
Speaker 2: in Robert A. Rushing's descended from Hercules, a book that
Speaker 2: I'll refer back to, and he mentions that, like the
Speaker 2: literal translation of the original Italian title is essentially Hercules
Speaker 2: in the Center of the Earth. But yeahs, mostly it's
Speaker 2: known as Hercules in the Haunted World, which I think
Speaker 2: is a pretty great title. There's at least one title
Speaker 2: for the film that is with Hercules to the Center
Speaker 2: of the Earth, which is a little more confusing, but
Speaker 2: fair enough if you get the basic idea Hercules is
Speaker 2: going inside the planet.
Speaker 3: As you might guess from some of the titles for
Speaker 3: this film, such as Hercules versus the Vampires, even though
Speaker 3: there aren't really any vampires in it. This is a
Speaker 3: somewhat rare genre crossover that might be called peplam horror.
Speaker 3: Peplam is of course an originally derisive I think, term
Speaker 3: for the sword and sandal genre, So that's your standard
Speaker 3: genre of movies about figures like Hercules. These you know,
Speaker 3: like strong figures from ancient Greece or Rome that run
Speaker 3: around doing heroic deeds, So that's peplam, and Hercules in
Speaker 3: the Haunted World is one of a small number of
Speaker 3: films that have been said to be an attempt to
Speaker 3: cross that stream with the trappings of gothic or supernatural horror.
Speaker 3: So your prototype example might be a story set in
Speaker 3: an archaic time period about an immense gentleman of beef
Speaker 3: who wields a magic saber to defeat an army of
Speaker 3: the blood drinking undead.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and in the case of this film, like obviously,
Speaker 2: they're bringing in Christopher Lee, who as a major player
Speaker 2: in a gothic horror of the time period, So you know,
Speaker 2: it's it's it's rather obvious what they're doing here.
Speaker 3: That said, I was kind of expecting there to be
Speaker 3: more horror in this movie. There are definitely scenes that
Speaker 3: are horror, and the final showdown involves hercules fighting in
Speaker 3: an army of zombies, so I think that definitely gets
Speaker 3: you there. But for a lot of the film, it's
Speaker 3: much more like a traditional sword and sandal movie where
Speaker 3: there aren't really any monsters. I don't think anything really
Speaker 3: counts as a vampire. Probably the closest you get is
Speaker 3: that Christopher Lee is in it, and he plays a
Speaker 3: vampire in other movies.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he kind of wants to become a vampire. But
Speaker 2: that's about it, really. Yeah, you know that that there
Speaker 2: maybe we're going to cash in on some of that
Speaker 2: that that vampire fame. Yeah, there's there are whole sections
Speaker 2: of the movie that you might not even recognize as Bava,
Speaker 2: that you basically before they enter the surreal world beneath
Speaker 2: the earth. Uh. And and to your point, yeah, there's
Speaker 2: there's not much in a film that you might identify
Speaker 2: as horror outside of like the visual trappings of Bava's style.
Speaker 3: Right right. I mean, I think I would identify this
Speaker 3: as Bava throughout because of the way it looks, but
Speaker 3: maybe not so much because of plot elements earlier on.
Speaker 3: So I was trying to think if I had ever
Speaker 3: before seen a movie that would be considered peplam horror.
Speaker 3: And while I don't think I've seen any of the
Speaker 3: ones that usually get highlighted from like the late fifties
Speaker 3: early sixties, we have seen on weird house cinema Luccio
Speaker 3: Fulci's Conquest, which certainly has a sword chopping muscle man.
Speaker 3: It's set in an archaic time period, and it has
Speaker 3: zombies and were wolves and other straight supernatural horror elements.
Speaker 3: But I was wondering, does this count is Conquest peplam
Speaker 3: or is it too post Conan to count as peplam, Like,
Speaker 3: I don't really know what film historians would usually consider
Speaker 3: the cutoff there. Does peplam only refer to these earlier
Speaker 3: movies about ancient Greece and Rome and stuff, or does
Speaker 3: it also include the more often gory, somewhat sleazy, r
Speaker 3: rated Barbarian fantasy films that came after, like Millius's adaptation
Speaker 3: of Conan.
Speaker 2: Well, I turned to Rushing for this because this is
Speaker 2: the book to find the answer, and Rushing does identify
Speaker 2: Barbarian films as the third wave of peplam, so he
Speaker 2: breaks everything down into five waves. So the first wave
Speaker 2: consists pretty much entirely of the Michiste cycle, the Machiste
Speaker 2: films from nineteen fourteen through nineteen twenty six, all starring
Speaker 2: Bartolomeo Pagano as the titular Roman strongman Machiste. And I
Speaker 2: believe you were actually looking at one of these the
Speaker 2: other day. You were in the mood for a sword
Speaker 2: and Sandals film and you were looking at a silent film.
Speaker 2: I believe this is one of the Pagano films.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, that's right. And in fact, I came across
Speaker 3: a movie from this era that has the same one
Speaker 3: line plot summary as the movie we're covering today. So
Speaker 3: Hercules in the Haunted World, you know, the elevator pitch
Speaker 3: is Hercules goes to Hell. And fun fact, there is
Speaker 3: actually a word in Greek for stories in which the
Speaker 3: hero goes to the underworld. It's called katabasis. This is
Speaker 3: a common enough type of story, and there are of
Speaker 3: course scenes from the big Greek and Roman epics where
Speaker 3: characters go into the underworld. Happens in the Odyssey. There's
Speaker 3: a katabasis where Odysseus goes to the underworld and talks
Speaker 3: to talks to dead people. There's a passage in the
Speaker 3: Aeneid where I think the heroes go to the underworld,
Speaker 3: which just talked about recently on the show. Actually, so
Speaker 3: there's a long tradition of stories in which the epic
Speaker 3: hero takes a journey to Hell for some reason. But
Speaker 3: this Bava movie from sixty one that we're talking about
Speaker 3: today is not even the first Hercules goes to Hell
Speaker 3: film in the twentieth century. I came across a nineteen
Speaker 3: twenty five Italian silent film called Meshista in Hell, which
Speaker 3: looks awesome. Rob I've attached the poster for you to
Speaker 3: look at here. It has some kind of I don't
Speaker 3: some like bride of Hell kind of figure on it
Speaker 3: who's wearing like a dress with a golden calf theme.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, very art deco.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, but she looks like she will indeed invite
Speaker 3: you straight into Hell. And I think the basic premise
Speaker 3: of Mashista in Hell is that you know, he's not
Speaker 3: only strong, he's the most virtuous man on earth, and
Speaker 3: the demons of Hell are like, okay, we got to
Speaker 3: trick him into sinning so that he'll come to Hell,
Speaker 3: and I think they have a difficult time trying to
Speaker 3: get him to sin. I haven't seen this movie in full,
Speaker 3: but it looks like it would be worth a watch
Speaker 3: if you want to sit through a full length silent film.
Speaker 2: All right, so first wave nineteen fourteenth through the nineteen
Speaker 2: twenty six then, according to Rushing, interestingly, there's kind of
Speaker 2: a break here. So Peplham popularity dies out during the
Speaker 2: fascist and post war period in Italy, which initially I
Speaker 2: was kind of confused by. And I'm still very interested
Speaker 2: in how this occurs, because you think of what a
Speaker 2: Hercules movie, or know Peplam movie is and it centers
Speaker 2: around a literal strong man. Yeah, and then what is fascism?
Speaker 2: It is It is just, in very simple terms, someone
Speaker 2: at least putting on the act of being a strong man,
Speaker 2: you know, that is going to you know, lead you
Speaker 2: and solve all your problems for you. And on one level,
Speaker 2: I would think, well, wouldn't they just go hand in hand?
Speaker 2: But I'm not going to get into all the points
Speaker 2: that are that are the explorers in the book. But
Speaker 2: he basically highlights that there's kind of some back and
Speaker 2: forth here, Like, on one hand, yes, there is there
Speaker 2: are some fascist elements to the idea of a Hercules
Speaker 2: or Samson or any of these other figures that are
Speaker 2: explored in these films. But on the other hand too,
Speaker 2: there are certain anti fascism elements to it, like, for example, Hercules.
Speaker 2: Even in this film, Hercules is not saying put the
Speaker 2: crown on me. Hercules doesn't want rewards. He's in it
Speaker 2: out of the goodness of his heart.
Speaker 3: Yes, he explicitly is not power seeking in the film.
Speaker 3: And when I think at certain points has sort of
Speaker 3: given the chance to assume power and he sort of
Speaker 3: shies away from it.
Speaker 2: All right, the next wave we have of Peplam, according
Speaker 2: to Rushing, is the mid century Peplam, that's nineteen fifty
Speaker 2: eight through nineteen sixty five, and this period stars almost
Speaker 2: exclusively bodybuilders such as Steve Reeves, Gordon Scott, and Rech Park. This,
Speaker 2: of course is the period that we're discussing here with
Speaker 2: Hercules in the Haunted World. And according to the extras
Speaker 2: on the Kinoclassics disc which I'll mention again here in
Speaker 2: a bit, this film and Mario Bava in particular, had
Speaker 2: had a very important role in the resurgence of peplam
Speaker 2: during this period, and also the cementing of Hercules's place
Speaker 2: at the center of it instead of Mitchieste or the
Speaker 2: biblical Samson or any other character. So like this is
Speaker 2: where things become more like Hercules movies as opposed to
Speaker 2: various figures that fit the mold.
Speaker 3: Okay, now, I think the grimier peplam comes in the eighties, right,
Speaker 3: sort of in the wake of Conan, which was what
Speaker 3: like nineteen eighty one.
Speaker 2: Yeah. He highlights the third wave as eighties Barbarian movies,
Speaker 2: a broad category that includes everything from Conan the Barbarian itself,
Speaker 2: to the Attor films to Fulg's Conquest, which he discusses
Speaker 2: in this wave, is also notable for featuring more sex,
Speaker 2: more violence, at least compared to everything that he had
Speaker 2: come before. Now, the fourth wave that he highlights is
Speaker 2: the nineteen nineties TV wave, typified by Hercules, the Legendary Journeys,
Speaker 2: and various other shows of that sort. I guess this
Speaker 2: leads into Zena. If you watched any TV in the nineties,
Speaker 2: you know exactly this whole realm of shows we're talking about.
Speaker 3: You know, I haven't really gone back and revisited these,
Speaker 3: but I do remember watching both Hercules and Zena on
Speaker 3: TV when I was a kid, and they had a
Speaker 3: great feeling. There was such a pleasing corniness about them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know what you mean. I never I never
Speaker 2: really religiously watched them, but I would catch them on
Speaker 2: and you know sometimes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know, I'd have to go back and
Speaker 3: check them out as an adult. But I think these
Speaker 3: shows did have a pretty strong sense of irony about them,
Speaker 3: Like they didn't. They have like Bruce Campbell as a
Speaker 3: recurring guest character, and he was hamming it up real good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah. You had a number of either talented
Speaker 2: actors of the time or actors that would go on
Speaker 2: to become more prominent on those shows. All right, then finally,
Speaker 2: fifth wave peplam according to Rushing here, contemporary peplam concerning
Speaker 2: pretty much everything that comes in the wake of Ridley
Speaker 2: Scott's two thousand film Gladiator. So that includes the two
Speaker 2: thousand and six film three hundred, it includes the Spartacus
Speaker 2: TV show. And I do want to note that the
Speaker 2: book in question here came out in twenty sixteen, so
Speaker 2: I'm not sure where Rushing would consider us now like
Speaker 2: our We have Gladiator two coming out this year for
Speaker 2: Middley Scott, so I don't know if that is going
Speaker 2: to cap off this period of peplam, or is it
Speaker 2: going to birth a new period, or how we might
Speaker 2: figure out where we are in this legacy of sword
Speaker 2: and sandals cinema.
Speaker 3: I'm having a hard time believing that they're actually making
Speaker 3: a Gladiator two.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, the first one made all the money
Speaker 2: in the world, so I mean that's also a really
Speaker 2: Scott film. But anyway, you catch my.
Speaker 3: Money, what we do in life franchise is in eternity.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but that's a quick overview if you want to
Speaker 2: a deeper look at Peplam. Do pick up that book.
Speaker 3: It sounds interesting, and I'm sure there is a lot
Speaker 3: to excavate in terms of the sort of the historical
Speaker 3: context and the social and psychological connotations that are flowing
Speaker 3: through this oiled up genre. Now, to situate the movie
Speaker 3: we're looking at today within the history, we're saying it's
Speaker 3: in that middle period during sort of a pep revival,
Speaker 3: Like there had been a Peplam low tide for several decades,
Speaker 3: and now this is early sixties, late fifties, early sixties.
Speaker 3: Peplam's coming back, and it's coming back by mixing with
Speaker 3: other genres like horror.
Speaker 2: That's right, And eventually there're gonna be some sci fi
Speaker 2: Peplams as well, Yeah, which we might come back to
Speaker 2: on the show.
Speaker 3: So, from what I've read, Hercules and the Haunted World
Speaker 3: was a relatively low budget picture, but like most Mario
Speaker 3: Bob movies, it, you know, it looks a lot better
Speaker 3: than what it cost. Apparently. I do want to single
Speaker 3: out a genuine crime in the creative choices of this movie,
Speaker 3: which is that they cast Christopher Lee as the villain
Speaker 3: and then, as best I can tell, did not use
Speaker 3: his actual voice at all, like he is dubbed by
Speaker 3: another actor. I don't. I couldn't confirm this, Rob. Maybe
Speaker 3: you have more insight into whether that's the case for sure,
Speaker 3: But it does not sound like him on the Italian
Speaker 3: track I heard, and from what I understand, it's not
Speaker 3: his voice in English either.
Speaker 2: That's my understanding. I think there Christopher Lee did some
Speaker 2: international pictures in which his voice was dubbed, and I
Speaker 2: think there's maybe one German production where he did his
Speaker 2: own voice acting for the German language version. I'm not
Speaker 2: one hundred percent on that, but I think it's the
Speaker 2: case as far as I can tell. There's just no
Speaker 2: audio of at least surviving of Lee's lines here. In
Speaker 2: all likelihood he did his lines in English, but yeah,
Speaker 2: they're dubbed by an Italian speaking actor for the Italian version,
Speaker 2: dubbed by a non Christopher Lee actor for the English dub,
Speaker 2: and on from there. It was common practice in a
Speaker 2: lot of these lower budget European films that they wouldn't
Speaker 2: even have live sound. Everything would be dubbed anyway, and
Speaker 2: that sometimes meant international cast members just doing their lines
Speaker 2: and their own language, and they'd just work it all
Speaker 2: out in the dub later on. I think I've mentioned
Speaker 2: before that Spanish be cinema legend. Paul Nashy almost never
Speaker 2: did his own vocal performance. Even for the Spanish, it
Speaker 2: would be somebody else. But I agree, it's a shame
Speaker 2: we don't get to hear Christopher Lee here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so it seems like it's probably not a you know,
Speaker 3: a particular choice of this movie, but it's just how
Speaker 3: movies in this time and place were done. You just
Speaker 3: didn't have live sound, and a lot of times it
Speaker 3: was not the original actor recording the audio.
Speaker 2: But it's a shame that they had decades to write
Speaker 2: this wrong. And Christopher Lee lived a long time and
Speaker 2: was active for the rest of his life. Even if
Speaker 2: you'd gone in and gotten a much older Christopher Lee
Speaker 2: to come in and do a little voice work for this,
Speaker 2: it would have been I think it would have been
Speaker 2: worth it. I don't know if it was actually worth
Speaker 2: it to anyone who's gonna put the money down for it,
Speaker 2: but there you go.
Speaker 3: I'm just saying, if you're going to hire Christopher Lee,
Speaker 3: you better go out of your way to get his
Speaker 3: voice on tape.
Speaker 2: Agreed.
Speaker 3: Another thing I want to address before we actually get
Speaker 3: into the cast in the plot, which is did you
Speaker 3: notice that hercules solution to nearly every puzzle and problem
Speaker 3: in this film was to lift a large object over
Speaker 3: his head and throw it. Yes, most often the large
Speaker 3: object is a rock. At least like four or five
Speaker 3: major problems in the movie are solved by throwing a rock.
Speaker 3: But sometimes it is a wooden cart, or sometimes it
Speaker 3: is a monster made out of rocks. So it's like
Speaker 3: the moral of Hercules in the Haunted world is that
Speaker 3: there's almost no problem which cannot be solved by guerrilla
Speaker 3: pressing and throwing an object of sufficient mass.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this film is one chunking objects at his problems.
Speaker 2: And yet I have to say that these scenes are
Speaker 2: also well crafted, the lighting, the physical acting, the props
Speaker 2: and effects that I buy it in ways that I
Speaker 2: rarely buy a boulder eating scene in a motion picture.
Speaker 3: I never wanted to stop. I was like, yeah, throw
Speaker 3: rocks at that too, throw some more.
Speaker 2: I mean, if we were gonna get picky, we might say, well,
Speaker 2: in the actual you know Tales of Hercules, he's he's
Speaker 2: not only using rocks to solve problems, He's not only
Speaker 2: throwing things. He gets he can be rather devious at
Speaker 2: times in the way that he overcomes his various challenges,
Speaker 2: but in this it's mostly throwing stuff.
Speaker 3: Well, it's supposed to be the character that Hercules is
Speaker 3: not only strong, but he is clever. He comes up
Speaker 3: with ingenious solutions to unsolvable problems. You know, how does
Speaker 3: he How does he clean the stables that have accumulated
Speaker 3: the filth from all the years? Like he he can't
Speaker 3: even with all his strength, He can't do it with
Speaker 3: a shovel, but he diverts a river, so you know,
Speaker 3: so he comes up with clever solutions like that, and
Speaker 3: I think the movie is trying to show him doing
Speaker 3: that at times. He like faces a problem and he
Speaker 3: has to come up with some outside the box solution,
Speaker 3: but it's always throwing a rock.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's true. He's like, all right, I need another
Speaker 2: another approach to this problem. Should I throw a rock
Speaker 2: at it?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 2: I should rock at it?
Speaker 3: Okay, the elevator pitch. I've already given one version, which
Speaker 3: is Hercules goes to hell. You could shorten that even
Speaker 3: to just Helcules nice, but I guess the longer version
Speaker 3: is that the only way the noble Hercules can save
Speaker 3: his beloved Danira is to retrieve a magic stone from
Speaker 3: the underworld of the dead, but a dubbed Christopher Lee
Speaker 3: with a Prince valiant haircut has other plans.
Speaker 2: All right, So where can you watch Hercules in the
Speaker 2: Haunted World? Well, it's out there. And this is another
Speaker 2: one of those films where I feel like you got
Speaker 2: to be a little picky about where you get it.
Speaker 2: I initially did the lazy thing and I was like, Okay,
Speaker 2: I don't really want to get up. I'm just gonna
Speaker 2: rent this on Prime. And then I rented it and
Speaker 2: the quality was not optimal. It even featured a watermark.
Speaker 2: So I did what I should have done to begin with.
Speaker 2: I drove over to Atlanta's own Videodrome video rental store
Speaker 2: and I rented the two disc Kinoclassics Blu Ray release.
Speaker 2: It is excellent. It feature there's multiple cuts of the film,
Speaker 2: you know, the UK cut, Italian cut, US cut, as
Speaker 2: well as some extras, and so you know, we generally
Speaker 2: encourage everyone to watch these films and the best quality available,
Speaker 2: and this is especially true of Mario Bava. I don't
Speaker 2: think my wife really understood why I was leaving the
Speaker 2: house to go rent a movie that I just rented.
Speaker 2: But it's like, you just can't watch a Mario Bava
Speaker 2: film unless it is in just as high of quality
Speaker 2: as is possibly available.
Speaker 3: I agree, and specifically because some of the streaming options
Speaker 3: I came across it seemed to me that they were
Speaker 3: not only like lower resolution, kind of grainy, but also
Speaker 3: they were desaturated in terms of color, and I want
Speaker 3: all the color. Yeah, so yeah, so you want to
Speaker 3: get the good version of this one. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So I'm not saying don't use Prime, but I'm just saying,
Speaker 2: be choosy about where you get this film, because I
Speaker 2: don't think all the streams are equal here. All right,
Speaker 2: let's get into the folks involved in the making of film. Oh,
Speaker 2: we've been talking about him already, but Mario Bava is
Speaker 2: credited as the director, one of the writers, the cinematographer
Speaker 2: of course, and also has sound effects credit. Sound effects,
Speaker 2: we should also mention, are often a real hallmark of
Speaker 2: Mariobava films as well, especially with the film like Planet
Speaker 2: of the Vampires.
Speaker 3: I wonder have we done more Mario Bava movies than
Speaker 3: any other director on Weird House, because we did Planet
Speaker 3: of the Vampires we did Danger Diabolic, We did Black Sabbath.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I think it was Sabbath. I put Sunday
Speaker 2: in the notes, but yeah, it would be that the
Speaker 2: color when not the black and white one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and maybe another one or I don't know.
Speaker 2: I think that's all the Bava we've directly done on
Speaker 2: the show thus far, but we'll probably come back. I
Speaker 2: know there are a couple other Bava films that are
Speaker 2: on my radar, all.
Speaker 3: Of them incredibly strong. I think today's movie might be
Speaker 3: the one out of all the Bava movies we've done
Speaker 3: that I liked the least, but I loved all of them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean unmistakable obsessive emphasis on visual composition nineteen
Speaker 2: fourteen through nineteen eighty. You mentioned the films we've We've
Speaker 2: already mentioned the films we've covered already. But so far
Speaker 2: we've covered a Bava Gothic horror, a space ar, a
Speaker 2: sixty super criminal movie, and it feels right that we're
Speaker 2: dealing with the Peplam film.
Speaker 3: Now, did he do every genre? Did he do Westerns?
Speaker 3: I think he did.
Speaker 2: I think he did. Interestingly, this wasn't his only outing
Speaker 2: with Hercules. He had served as cinematographer and special effects
Speaker 2: artist on the previous nineteen fifty eight Hercules movie, as
Speaker 2: well as the nineteen fifty nine sequel to that film,
Speaker 2: Hercules Unchained. All Right, the writing credits on this First
Speaker 2: of all, we have Sandro Continenza, who lived nineteen twenty
Speaker 2: through nineteen ninety six, Italian screenwriter, best known for such
Speaker 2: films as sixty one's Valley of the Lions, seventy eight's
Speaker 2: The Inglorious Bastards and really just a long list of thrillers,
Speaker 2: action movies, horror movies, comedies and more. We previously mentioned
Speaker 2: this writer on the show because they were one of
Speaker 2: the screenwriters on Let Sleeping corpses Lie Kaya the Living
Speaker 2: Dead at Manchester morg Oh.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was fun. I don't think this. I don't
Speaker 3: think the screenplay is the strongest suit of this movie.
Speaker 3: It's a. It's a it's partially by numbers, but it
Speaker 3: gets the job done.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the other two. In addition to Baba as well,
Speaker 2: we have Francesco Prosperi, who lived nineteen twenty six through
Speaker 2: two thousand and four Italian film director and screenwriter, active
Speaker 2: between between the mid nineteen sixties and the early nineteen eighties,
Speaker 2: perhaps best known for nineteen sixty six is The Hired Killer,
Speaker 2: in nineteen sixty three is The Evil Eye. And then
Speaker 2: we have Duccio Tassari nineteen twenty six through nineteen ninety four,
Speaker 2: Italian director and writer who work on a number of
Speaker 2: sixties peplam films, and as a director he directed such
Speaker 2: movies as eighty five's Texts and The Lord of the Deep.
Speaker 2: That's a Western of some sort, and nineteen seventy one's
Speaker 2: The blood Stained Butterfly.
Speaker 3: Texts and The Lord of the Deep.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I believe it was based on an Italian comic. Okay,
Speaker 2: now getting into the actors here, we have to start
Speaker 2: at the top, of course, with Hercules himself. Reg Park,
Speaker 2: who lived nineteen twenty eight through two thousand and seven
Speaker 2: aka Read the Ledge.
Speaker 3: Spelled like Reg the leg but it's Reg the Ledge,
Speaker 3: so incredibly confusing. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Anyway, He was a Leeds born British football player turned
Speaker 2: professional bodybuilder, one time Mister Britain in forty six and
Speaker 2: three time Mister Universe So fifty one to fifty eight
Speaker 2: and sixty five, among many other titles. At this point
Speaker 2: in his life, he I believe he'd already moved to
Speaker 2: South Africa with his wife, but he received this offer
Speaker 2: to temporarily move to Rome to start in at least
Speaker 2: a couple of Hercules movies. He accepted, and that gave
Speaker 2: us this film and Hercules and the Captive Women, both
Speaker 2: released in sixty one. In sixty four, he returned for
Speaker 2: Hercules Prisoner of Evil, and he also fit in a
Speaker 2: mitcheste movie mitches ste In King Solomon's Minds, and then
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty five would mark his final film and his
Speaker 2: final appearance as Hercules. Hercules the Avenger.
Speaker 3: Now he is huge in this movie. His muscles are massive.
Speaker 3: And one thing I noticed. I don't know if you'd
Speaker 3: agree here, but it seemed to me that his physique
Speaker 3: was almost identical to the other big twentieth century movie muscleman,
Speaker 3: Arnold Schwarzenegger. It's like you could swap their heads and
Speaker 3: you wouldn't realize there was a difference there. I don't know,
Speaker 3: their bodies just look incredibly similar.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I don't know much about the specifics of bodybuilding,
Speaker 2: but apparently reg was one of Arnold's heroes and they
Speaker 2: knew each other to some extent, and Arnold really admired him.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I don't know if you can like really
Speaker 2: sculpt your body to look like someone else's body, but certainly,
Speaker 2: certainly there is a physical resemblance in it, like the
Speaker 2: way that they're built.
Speaker 3: But you know what, I like this muscleman. Reg does not.
Speaker 3: He does not portray a very complicated Hercules. He portrays
Speaker 3: Hercules as a quite simple and surface level man. But
Speaker 3: I think it.
Speaker 2: Works absolutely five out of five stars for this Hercules
Speaker 2: from me, I do not want an overly charismatic actor
Speaker 2: in these roles. I don't want to see the wheels turning.
Speaker 2: I think I think a Hercules role befits a greener actor,
Speaker 2: which typically lines up with the fact that filmmakers are
Speaker 2: casting bodybuilders in these roles, thus greatly narrowing the talent field.
Speaker 2: But yeah, in this film, I can't speak to the others,
Speaker 2: but I feel like Reg feels a little stiff, but
Speaker 2: never too stiff. He's outwitted by a cerebral villain at times, sure,
Speaker 2: but not to a agree that it tarnishes his hero status.
Speaker 2: Like he doesn't. He doesn't seem you know, like a
Speaker 2: like a dufiss out there, and and he just kind
Speaker 2: of has like a he feels comfortable in the scenes.
Speaker 3: You know, yeah, he's charming, but not in a way
Speaker 3: that could possibly imply any kind of scheming or machiavellianism.
Speaker 3: Like he is just so he comes off as so
Speaker 3: simple and straightforward, and his likability you just don't suspect
Speaker 3: there's anything under it.
Speaker 2: Right In the extras on that Keno Classics disc, there's
Speaker 2: an older interview with an actor I'll get into here
Speaker 2: in just a second, George Artisan. He remarks that while
Speaker 2: Reg wasn't as handsome as Steve Reeves, I mean, I
Speaker 2: don't know, it seems like he's as handsome, or at
Speaker 2: least in the same like handsomeness orbit as as Steve Reeves.
Speaker 2: I don't know. He says that Reg was really laid
Speaker 2: back and easy to work with. He also stresses that
Speaker 2: he didn't just look strong, he was strong. There's a
Speaker 2: there's a scene that we'll get to where they have
Speaker 2: to traverse this rope hanging over a lava pit in Hell,
Speaker 2: and of course they're not you know, they didn't actually
Speaker 2: film it over lava, but they really did have to
Speaker 2: hang from a rope, and Artisan is like, I only
Speaker 2: lasted like a minute, my arms were killing me. But
Speaker 2: Reg was hanging from that thing for like eight to
Speaker 2: ten minutes at a time and didn't seem particularly phased.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: But then again, in this interview, an elderly artisan also
Speaker 2: insisted that Reg was picking up and throwing real rocks,
Speaker 2: a real bombers.
Speaker 3: No, so I don't know.
Speaker 2: I mean, this film makes me feel like real boulders,
Speaker 2: but truly not. No, I can't. I can't accept that.
Speaker 3: No, those are props, obviously. So I was digging up
Speaker 3: old muscle magazine covers that have redg Park on them,
Speaker 3: and I found some really fun, funny ones. My favorite
Speaker 3: was the one It's called It's from a magazine called
Speaker 3: Muscle Builder, and it's got a picture of him standing there, flexing,
Speaker 3: pushing his chest out, and the article title that it's
Speaker 3: promoting is get big husky muscles fast. I've never heard
Speaker 3: muscles described as husky before. That's good.
Speaker 2: But he's weird seeing him on these covers because he
Speaker 2: doesn't have the beard like in the movie he has
Speaker 2: the Hercules beard. Here he is clean shaved, and in
Speaker 2: one of the images looks kind of like Don Draper.
Speaker 3: Oh, I can see that. Yeah, Also, how fast are
Speaker 3: you going? To get him. You can get big husky
Speaker 3: muscles like I don't know.
Speaker 2: You don't want to get him too fast, all right,
Speaker 2: Moving on to the rest of the cast, we have
Speaker 2: already mentioned Christopher Lee, who with nineteen twenty two through
Speaker 2: twenty fifteen plays the villain King Leco. This film was
Speaker 2: made during his Hammer years, one of five films of
Speaker 2: his release in sixty one, and one of numerous mainland
Speaker 2: European films that he did over the years, which also
Speaker 2: encompassed Germans, Spanish and Italian productions and co productions. To
Speaker 2: position this film between his better known works, consider that
Speaker 2: Hammers the Mummy had come out earlier in fifty nine,
Speaker 2: and he'd go on to act in sixty six's Dracula
Speaker 2: Prince of Darkness. Though to be clear, he was working
Speaker 2: quite a bit during this period, so there are no
Speaker 2: real breaks here for him. He's just doing picture after picture.
Speaker 3: He plays the Mummy in Hammers the Mummy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, So this is prime pier for Lee for sure.
Speaker 2: Now it's worth highlighting that this was the first off
Speaker 2: I believe to Mario Baba films that he did, the
Speaker 2: other being the sixty three Gothic horror film The Whip
Speaker 2: and the Body, But in neither film do we actually
Speaker 2: get to hear Lee's voice. I believe both of those
Speaker 2: are the same, and that the English dub makes use
Speaker 2: of a different actor.
Speaker 3: That is really inexplicable. And I do stand by I
Speaker 3: think I said this earlier, but this may be the
Speaker 3: most underused Christopher Lee has ever felt in a film.
Speaker 2: To me, yeah, I would agree.
Speaker 3: I mean, he's not bad, he's fine, but you could
Speaker 3: have imagined doing so much more with him as this
Speaker 3: sort of evil wizard king.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, let's get into the sidekicks. We have
Speaker 2: not one, but two of them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, multiple sidekicks. We got the handsome guy and we
Speaker 3: got the the I don't know, scaredy cat guy.
Speaker 2: Yeah we have Yeah. The first of all, we have theseus.
Speaker 2: I think he's also at Tessio. It depends on what
Speaker 2: what credits you're looking at.
Speaker 3: In the Italian hercules is Ercole and theseus is they
Speaker 3: say you or something?
Speaker 2: Yeah, And this is the character played by George Artisan.
Speaker 2: He's also Georgio Artisan, Italian actor who lived nineteen thirty
Speaker 2: one through twenty fourteen. So this character is Hirt's lady
Speaker 2: chasing blonde sidekick, classically handsome and by all reasonable measures
Speaker 2: in really good shape. But you know, good luck to
Speaker 2: anyone who has to stand opposite Redge in these scenes, right.
Speaker 3: Theseus is a fan of dating.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he likes the ladies. The ladies like him. I
Speaker 2: would say that artisan definitely. He gets in in on
Speaker 2: a lot of the action. He has stunts and action
Speaker 2: sequences throughout, but as the obviously more seasoned actor, he
Speaker 2: gets to do all of the heroic emotional heavy lifting,
Speaker 2: while Redge gets to actually lift stones and throw them
Speaker 2: at villains.
Speaker 3: That's right. So basically all of the emotional conflict that
Speaker 3: it might usually fall on a hero to have in
Speaker 3: a story like this goes to Theseus. He gets to
Speaker 3: be He gets to be the one who's like conflicted
Speaker 3: over you know, his relationship and all that. And you know,
Speaker 3: Hercules just stands there and says, you should you should
Speaker 3: do good?
Speaker 2: Yes. So Artisan was a mainstay in various Italian sword
Speaker 2: and sandals and adventure films, including Mario Boba's nineteen sixty
Speaker 2: one Swashbuckler. You know, throw another genre on the barbie there,
Speaker 2: Eric the Conqueror alongside Cameron Mitchell. So I was reading
Speaker 2: a little bit about about this this movie in particular,
Speaker 2: but also like in general Hercules movies in that Robert A.
Speaker 2: Rushing book descended from Hercules, and the author points out
Speaker 2: that a lot of Peppelin movies in general give the
Speaker 2: central muscle character a quote moody, morose or lethargic sid
Speaker 2: sidekick in order to emphasize the strong man's optimism and energy.
Speaker 2: H and and that's we do see that with this character.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I guess he doesn't come off as moody
Speaker 3: or morose early on. That's only when he has his
Speaker 3: his love conflict later in the movie. Earlier, I was thinking, like,
Speaker 3: is there enough distinction between these two guys. It's just
Speaker 3: like two handsome, muscly guys who are good friends, and
Speaker 3: they you know, they like hanging out.
Speaker 2: But they work it in. You know. It's like, you know,
Speaker 2: when we get into the details of their love life,
Speaker 2: you'll see this division's and and it apparently just follows
Speaker 2: like some traditional tropes of peplam. Rushing points out that
Speaker 2: in mid century peplam movies like this, when the sidekick
Speaker 2: usually has an impossible love that Hercules either helps him
Speaker 2: obtain or dissuades him from and he also stresses that
Speaker 2: sometimes the sidekick is purely for comic relief and that
Speaker 2: his physique may serve to contrast hercules muscular perfection.
Speaker 3: Okay, so this movie took that took that sidekick character
Speaker 3: and broke him into two different parts. So we get
Speaker 3: the muscly happy sidekick here, but we also are going
Speaker 3: to get a weak, cowardly comic relief sidekick.
Speaker 2: That's right, and that's where Telemachus comes in, played by
Speaker 2: Franco Giocabini who lived nineteen twenty six through twenty fifteen.
Speaker 2: So this is just a straight comic relief character and
Speaker 2: his guy ultimately a sidekick to both Herk and Theseus
Speaker 2: and also gives us like a baseline human body in
Speaker 2: there alongside these other two. So this actor often played
Speaker 2: comedic roles for Italian TV and film had but he
Speaker 2: had a long career on stage, apparently in both comedic
Speaker 2: and dramatic roles. This was his second time working in
Speaker 2: a film with Christopher Lee, though I don't think they
Speaker 2: have any scenes together in this, but he had been
Speaker 2: in the nineteen fifty nine movie Uncle Was a Vampire,
Speaker 2: and he also pops up in Bava's Eric the Conqueror.
Speaker 2: He'd work in a Lee film again for nineteen sixty
Speaker 2: two Sherlock Holmes and the Deadly Necklace that was an
Speaker 2: Internet co production directed by Terrence Fisher. Oh and the
Speaker 2: actor here also was in nineteen sixty seven's Ok Connery
Speaker 2: aka Operation Kid Brother. That was the Bond knockoff film
Speaker 2: starring Neil Connery.
Speaker 3: Subject of a Mystery Science Theater episode.
Speaker 2: I believe, yeah, okay, we have to mention the ladies
Speaker 2: the love interests here as well. There's the Princess Vianira
Speaker 2: played by Leonara Rufo. She lived nineteen thirty six through
Speaker 2: two thousand and seven. Again hurts love interest, but she
Speaker 2: has some issues with her blood and or her mortality.
Speaker 2: Rufo was an Italian leading lady of the fifties and sixties.
Speaker 2: Her films include nineteen sixty one's Goliath and the Vampires
Speaker 2: and the stylish sci fi film Star Pilot from nineteen
Speaker 2: sixty six. I was actually looking at this one just
Speaker 2: a few weeks ago when I was eyeing some various
Speaker 2: like euro sci fi films. This one is supposed to
Speaker 2: be rather stylish and sort of like a post two
Speaker 2: thousand one sense.
Speaker 3: You know, a scene where I think Ruffo really stands
Speaker 3: out in the movie is early on when when Hercules
Speaker 3: first comes to meet her after being away on an adventure,
Speaker 3: and there, of course they're you know, they're in love
Speaker 3: and their betrothed to be married. I guess he's been
Speaker 3: away for a while and he returns and finds that
Speaker 3: she has fallen ill. There's some kind of madness or
Speaker 3: illness that has that has overtaken her. And Hercules goes
Speaker 3: to meet her out in the garden of the palace
Speaker 3: and she's wandering around like she's sleepwalking or in a dream,
Speaker 3: but with her eyes open, and she's kind of muttering
Speaker 3: these slowly muttering these lines that are expressing her thoughts.
Speaker 3: But it's like she's speaking from within within a dream.
Speaker 3: And so, you know, Hercules goes up to her and says, oh,
Speaker 3: you know, now we're reunited, but she doesn't believe it's
Speaker 3: really him. She says something like, I see my love,
Speaker 3: but it is only an illusion he has. He is
Speaker 3: dead deep within the sea, never to see my love again,
Speaker 3: Never to see my love again. And the way she
Speaker 3: mutters the lines is so spooky. I think it's a
Speaker 3: fantastic scene. It is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's a testament to this film because otherwise,
Speaker 2: I mean, she is a princess in danger that must
Speaker 2: be rescued by Hercules, and that's that's pretty much her
Speaker 2: role in the picture. But she does get to have
Speaker 2: these moments where she stands out, so that's hurts love interest.
Speaker 2: But then Theseus's love interest is this mysterious character that
Speaker 2: he meets and where he meets there should be a
Speaker 2: red flag.
Speaker 3: I just want to flag he has more than one
Speaker 3: loving Well.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes he does. It just depends on what day
Speaker 2: it is. But to no one's surprised he did. Allops
Speaker 2: a new love interest during their journey through Hell.
Speaker 3: Right, so he's got a girlfriend back home, which is
Speaker 3: the witch Jacosta, who she seems really cool, but he's like, no,
Speaker 3: I'm going on vacation. We're you know, we're going to
Speaker 3: Hell and I'm gonna I'll probably meet some women there,
Speaker 3: so you know, we'll see if we're still together when
Speaker 3: I'm back. And the woman he meets in Hell, yes,
Speaker 3: is how do you say her name? Miositodi or something?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeahid yeah, some of these names.
Speaker 3: Really.
Speaker 2: I watched it in the Italian with the English subtitles,
Speaker 2: and so some of the names kind of flew past me.
Speaker 2: But she is a seems to be a denizen of
Speaker 2: the underworld, but seems like a nice gal. Played by
Speaker 2: Ida Golli born nineteen thirty nine, Italian actress. Her other
Speaker 2: credits include sixty threes, The Whip in the Body, sixty
Speaker 2: four's Wore the Zombies, sixty six's Django Shoots First, seventy
Speaker 2: five Footsteps on the Moon, and Luccio Fulci's nineteen seventy
Speaker 2: seven thriller The Psychic.
Speaker 3: I would characterize her performance as quite muted. She doesn't
Speaker 3: display like her Her character is written as one that
Speaker 3: has like a great longing, but she plays it in
Speaker 3: a way that's very restrained.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and especially some of the revelations that we end
Speaker 2: up having about the true nature of her character. It
Speaker 2: seems like there were more opportunities here. Maybe those opportunities
Speaker 2: weren't in the script, you know, But so he shouldn't
Speaker 2: you know, shouldn't really blame her for it, but character wise,
Speaker 2: I feel like there could have been more here as well,
Speaker 2: all right, And then a quick note about the music.
Speaker 2: The score is by Armando Traviajoli, who lived nineteen seventeen
Speaker 2: through twenty thirteen. This is kind of what you'd expect
Speaker 2: from a Hercules movie of this period. It's epic, it's
Speaker 2: sweeping to Trevadoli was an Italian composer and sometimes actor.
Speaker 2: His scores include seventy seven's A Special Day, seventy two's
Speaker 2: The Italian Connection, and he also scored Uncle Was a Vampire.
Speaker 3: I'm not sure I'm understanding Uncle was a vampire. Is
Speaker 3: that like Papa was a rolling Stone?
Speaker 2: I'm yeah, I'm not sure. All I know is that
Speaker 2: I think it's like a comedy. They've got Christopher Lee
Speaker 2: somehow involves a vampire. I don't know. I didn't look
Speaker 2: into it too closely.
Speaker 3: Well, for the moment we're on the music, I want
Speaker 3: to say I thought it was actually pretty good, especially
Speaker 3: in some of the darker, moodier scenes, like well, like
Speaker 3: the guard and scene that I was just talking about
Speaker 3: with Leonora Rufo, you know, giving that kind of that dreamy,
Speaker 3: cursed muttering performance there. There is a spooky, haunting music
Speaker 3: that flows through that scene that I think is quite good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I may not be given enough credit. It
Speaker 2: kind of comes back to the fact that I guess
Speaker 2: if a score is doing what it's supposed to. Sometimes
Speaker 2: it is invisible and and and if you're in an
Speaker 2: engage in a film like this, it's so you know,
Speaker 2: hyperly visual. You know, sometimes you can you can forget
Speaker 2: that it's there at all. So yeah, yeah, it does
Speaker 2: nothing wrong. It does a does a does a good job.
Speaker 2: It's just not maybe not something I would seek out
Speaker 2: in isolation. All right, Well, let's go ahead and get
Speaker 2: into the plot of Hercules in the Haunted World.
Speaker 3: All right, Well, I understand there are different cuts of
Speaker 3: the movie and that affects which opening you get, But
Speaker 3: the version I saw, I believe is the Italian cut,
Speaker 3: so I'm gonna start there. So we open on a
Speaker 3: mound of earth, surrounded by blue green fog and dead
Speaker 3: gray trees. And on the mound there is a circle
Speaker 3: of large stone figures that look only kind of vaguely
Speaker 3: human shaped, kind of like big wizards with beards, but
Speaker 3: we get to see them again later, and I'm not
Speaker 3: sure that's what they are. They might just be sort
Speaker 3: of like, you know, bubbly rippling stones. There is a
Speaker 3: stone slab bench at the center of the green on
Speaker 3: top of this mound, and we get lightning flashing without sound,
Speaker 3: and instead there's just this eerie dissonant cord and reverby
Speaker 3: drum beats, and the camera pans and we see a
Speaker 3: woman lying down in the dirt on the edge of
Speaker 3: the mound, wearing a sort of ancient Greek dress, and
Speaker 3: she has blood on the side of her neck and
Speaker 3: she's sort of writhing in the dirt as if she's
Speaker 3: in pain. Then we pan up to see standing over her,
Speaker 3: Christopher Lee, dressed like the way I was thinking of this.
Speaker 3: He's dressed like kind of like a minnite Darth Vader,
Speaker 3: like it's Vader but no helmet and no electronic parts
Speaker 3: and so and the Prince Valiant haircut, and he's got
Speaker 3: the dark cloak and the studded black leather belt. This
Speaker 3: is not chrispher Lely's best look ever. I think it
Speaker 3: is certainly not his best haircut. But he begins to
Speaker 3: address a mass of figures. It's almost like he's talking
Speaker 3: to a crowd of as symbol the zombies that are
Speaker 3: on this hillside above, who are mostly hidden in shadow,
Speaker 3: and the bits of their bodies that are illuminated are
Speaker 3: in like dark blue and green light. They're covered in
Speaker 3: these cloaks. Some of them look like they might be
Speaker 3: kind of like old long Beard type figures, and chrisp
Speaker 3: Rely says in Italian with the subtitles, the time shall
Speaker 3: come when days shall turn tonight and night shall rule
Speaker 3: our lives. Their cries shall sound like music. The wailing
Speaker 3: and screaming we hear now shall be songs that soothe us.
Speaker 3: The time shall come when the moon, devoured by the
Speaker 3: great dragon, shall bring eternal darkness. I shall be the
Speaker 3: master of darkness and light. When the sun ravages the
Speaker 3: earth and the rivers run dry, and every mortal soul
Speaker 3: freezes in death, then she'll evil triumph, the absolute master
Speaker 3: that she'll dominate the earth.
Speaker 2: All right, So we get a taste of it here,
Speaker 2: and we learn a little bit more later on. But basically,
Speaker 2: Christopher Lee's character serves dark, nameless gods that may even
Speaker 2: exist outside the Greco Roman pantheon I'm not sure, ye.
Speaker 2: And he has powers over the undead and or alliances
Speaker 2: with the undead.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's almost as if the setting is Greek mythology. Otherwise,
Speaker 3: but Christopher Lee is a devotee of Satan.
Speaker 2: Really, like he walked out This character walked out of
Speaker 2: a gothic horror film and into a Hercules movie.
Speaker 3: Out he's from Hammer Horror and he stepped into the peplum. Yeah,
Speaker 3: And so we see black smoke pouring across a blue sky,
Speaker 3: and then there are these stone boxes that have these
Speaker 3: lids on them. We'll see them several times in the movie,
Speaker 3: and like the lids lift up and they have these
Speaker 3: slime soaked cobwebs that stretch like bubble gum between the
Speaker 3: lid and the boxes. It's a very gross looking, cool
Speaker 3: physical effect. And these clawed, bony hands like reaching out
Speaker 3: and touching the spider silk that holds the box lids
Speaker 3: to the boxes. And then we get the credits and
Speaker 3: come back on the action over like a rushing river
Speaker 3: and a waterfall, and here's Hercules standing over the waterfall
Speaker 3: cleaning his body with the strigel. Just a brief historical note.
Speaker 3: The strigil is a real historical artifact. It looks kind
Speaker 3: of like a hooked metal shoehorn. It was used for
Speaker 3: hygiene in the ancient world. So if you go into
Speaker 3: a Roman bath, you might rub oil on your skin
Speaker 3: and then you would scrape the oil, along with any
Speaker 3: accompanying dirt off of your skin with a strigel. It's
Speaker 3: kind of like a squeegee for the body.
Speaker 2: I should also note I forget the name of these waterfalls,
Speaker 2: but this is this is like a noted filming location
Speaker 2: in Italian cinema. And I think even today a lot
Speaker 2: of people get their like wedding photos taken here.
Speaker 3: Oh that's funny, wedding photos at the Herk fall. So
Speaker 3: Hercules is when we first see him. He's like shown
Speaker 3: from below with the camera tilting up toward him, and
Speaker 3: it's like climbing up the stream of the waterfall. And
Speaker 3: this does give him a very epic, postured good way
Speaker 3: to first meet him. He is, of course shirtless, and
Speaker 3: his muscles are gigantic, and he calls out to his
Speaker 3: friend Theseus, and we cut to the loft of some
Speaker 3: kind of open sided barn structure. It's like this open
Speaker 3: wooden loft covered in hay where Theseus is making out
Speaker 3: with a gorgeous witch named Jocosta, and she is really
Speaker 3: into Theseus. She says, every time I kiss you, I
Speaker 3: feel the earth trembling, the sky changes its color, taking
Speaker 3: on the color of your kisses. So I think she
Speaker 3: likes him. And then and meanwhile just over the hill
Speaker 3: there is a gang of nasty bandits and they are
Speaker 3: organizing an attack on Theseus and Hercules, but they don't
Speaker 3: know that the people they're supposed to attack are Theseus
Speaker 3: and Hercules. They explain that a king has offered them
Speaker 3: a lot of gold to kill two men. Whoever they are.
Speaker 3: Their names are not important, so they go and they
Speaker 3: say they're going to attack them one at a time.
Speaker 3: They attack Theseus and Theseus begins to fight them off,
Speaker 3: and it's a very breezy, lighthearted, swashbuckling fighting styles, kind
Speaker 3: of Robin Hood, you know, swinging from the rafters to
Speaker 3: kick them out of the barn, and Jocosta helps by
Speaker 3: tossing Theseus a log to use as a club. But then,
Speaker 3: finally to end the fight, Hercules arrives on the scene
Speaker 3: and he lifts an entire wagon over his head and
Speaker 3: throws it into the barn, making the barn collapse. The
Speaker 3: effect looks very good. I watched this a couple of
Speaker 3: times and I'm still not quite sure how they accomplished it.
Speaker 2: There are a lot of effects like this in this
Speaker 2: movie where I'm not sure how they they pulled it off,
Speaker 2: but it looks really good as a tremendous job to
Speaker 2: hear by Baba and his crew. Everything that throws looks
Speaker 2: believable to my eyes.
Speaker 3: Yeah. After this, of course, the bandits realize that their
Speaker 3: targets are Theseus and Hercules. If they had known that,
Speaker 3: they never would have taken the job, so they run
Speaker 3: away in fear. I did notice some funny continuity errors here, like,
Speaker 3: for example, a Jocasta to escape the fighting, she jumps
Speaker 3: into a river, and then as soon as the bad
Speaker 3: guys run away, she comes out of the water. And
Speaker 3: then in the next shot she's bone dry, like completely,
Speaker 3: her hair and her clothes are totally dry.
Speaker 2: She's a witch.
Speaker 3: Oh, I guess it's magic. Yeah. So Theseus and Jocasta
Speaker 3: speculate that the attackers were probably hired by a wannabe
Speaker 3: suitor of Hercules's beloved dan Era, who's jealous of their
Speaker 3: upcoming marriage. And speaking of Hercules, who's just come off
Speaker 3: some other adventure, he's ready to go to the palace
Speaker 3: and reunite with dan Era, his beloved, And so then
Speaker 3: we get a view of the city, and oh, man,
Speaker 3: what an establishing shot. So when we first see the
Speaker 3: city they're going to, I think it's called Acalea. It
Speaker 3: is a very moody and foreboding vision. It's Greek architecture
Speaker 3: with columns and marble buildings nestled into the contours of
Speaker 3: these rocky hills. But instead of the sunny Mediterranean weather
Speaker 3: that you would usually see in like an ancient Greek movie,
Speaker 3: the buildings are surrounded by dark, swirling clouds, and the
Speaker 3: light from the sky is this mix of colors. It's
Speaker 3: blood red from the west, royal blue from the east,
Speaker 3: and they're mixing so that the light over the palace
Speaker 3: is pink and purple, and it's it's beautiful and unsettling.
Speaker 3: And I love the way that the just the use
Speaker 3: of color like this bold, sort of unashamed use of
Speaker 3: color just fills the movie with emotions.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and it's a it's a great sign of
Speaker 2: things to come. While the previous action scene was very
Speaker 2: much set outside in the real world, we are going
Speaker 2: to progressively be dealing with surreal landscapes and interiors and
Speaker 2: more to the point, from the filmmaking standpoint, sets that
Speaker 2: Baba has one hundred control over.
Speaker 3: That's right. So inside the palace we once again meet
Speaker 3: Christopher Lee. Now he is seated on a kingly throne
Speaker 3: on a raised red pedestal, and he's surrounded by hop
Speaker 3: lights with spears and shields. And down below the king,
Speaker 3: groveling on his knees, is the leader of the bandits
Speaker 3: who we saw attacking our heroes earlier, and Christopher Lee
Speaker 3: is chewing him out real good. He failed in his mission.
Speaker 3: He's no good. And the guy tries to explain, but
Speaker 3: the king orders him to be quiet, and then he
Speaker 3: leads the bandit chief back into another chamber and locks
Speaker 3: the door behind them, and then the king is like,
Speaker 3: even though he was just chewing him out for failing,
Speaker 3: he's like, you deserve a reward. Look over there at
Speaker 3: that suspicious pile of gold treasures and trinkets surrounded by
Speaker 3: green light. Go and get your wages that stash while
Speaker 3: I stand back over here. And so the guy's like,
Speaker 3: oh goodie, I'm gonna get some gold. And so he
Speaker 3: goes up to the pile and then Christopher Lee like
Speaker 3: presses a button that triggers a spear trap that that
Speaker 3: gets the guy, and the bandit chief just kind of
Speaker 3: spits out blood and slumps over. He doesn't really scream
Speaker 3: or anything.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it's a good trap. It kills instantly,
Speaker 2: there's no time for the scream.
Speaker 3: Then we follow King Leco as he goes down a
Speaker 3: secret passage into an underground cavern which seems full of
Speaker 3: evil occult magic, and he stands in front of a
Speaker 3: bunch of those stone boxes we saw earlier, and he says,
Speaker 3: dan Era, that's, of course, the name of the woman
Speaker 3: who's going to marry Hercules. And slowly one of the
Speaker 3: stone boxes opens and a blonde woman in a white
Speaker 3: gown rises out of it like Dracula. Like her body
Speaker 3: is rigid, it's straight as a plank, and it sort
Speaker 3: of levers up from this otherworldly slumber. And then she
Speaker 3: approaches King Leco like she's sleepwalking, but her eyes are open.
Speaker 3: She's in some kind of trance. In the next scene,
Speaker 3: Hercules comes into the city and he's greeted by adoring fans.
Speaker 3: He's like the beatles of ancient Greece. Everybody's swarming around him, screaming,
Speaker 3: happy to see him. And he meets this old guy.
Speaker 3: I think the guy's name is Caros. I think he's
Speaker 3: some friend of his, and Karos explains the situation. He says,
Speaker 3: dan Era, the princess should have become queen and ascended
Speaker 3: to the throne, but she hasn't because there's something wrong
Speaker 3: with her. No one can see her, and she's confined
Speaker 3: to a secluded wing of the palace, and so Hercules
Speaker 3: has to go figure out what's going on, and he
Speaker 3: goes into the palace and meets with King Leko, who
Speaker 3: is Danira's uncle who has been reigning while she is
Speaker 3: not capable. And it's a very awesome looking throne room scene,
Speaker 3: by the way, it's sort of like open to this blue, pink,
Speaker 3: purple sky, has these red columns and flaming braziers everywhere,
Speaker 3: and it's like a long, deep room. Very cool.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, Yeah. So many of the stills from this movie,
Speaker 2: like other Bob still like it looks like you could
Speaker 2: lick them and get the various candy flavors out of it.
Speaker 3: You know, Oh, I know exactly what you mean. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So Leko explains the situation and says, you know, she's
Speaker 3: there's something wrong with her, she's been ill, and I've
Speaker 3: been protecting her. I've been keeping her away from public
Speaker 3: view until she is healed. So Hercules goes to the
Speaker 3: garden to see her and This is the creepy scene
Speaker 3: I was talking about earlier, where she's standing there staring
Speaker 3: at a fountain, looking like she's in a trance, muttering
Speaker 3: about how she will never see the man she loves again,
Speaker 3: and Hercules is standing right there, but she's talking in
Speaker 3: a dreamy voice that and saying she must be imagining him,
Speaker 3: he no longer exists. And she says, my love is
Speaker 3: dead in the deep sea, and never again while I
Speaker 3: see my love, never to see my love again and again.
Speaker 3: The spaced out performance is really great here, very spooky,
Speaker 3: and it's sort of shot from a distance as she
Speaker 3: wanders away repeating these melancholy lines.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's pretty great. And I have to say the
Speaker 2: previous scene is one of multiple scenes in the film
Speaker 2: where Hercules interacts with Leco and is like and afterwards
Speaker 2: is like, yep, that checks out, you know, obvious villain
Speaker 2: Christopher Lee. Yeah, yeah, that sounds good. I'm glad you're
Speaker 2: on it, sir. I'm going to go onto my next mission.
Speaker 3: Christopher Lee in the Prince Valiant haircut, within the dark cloak,
Speaker 3: surrounded by the soldiers. He's the stand up guy. I
Speaker 3: believe everything he just said. So Hercules meets again with
Speaker 3: his friend of Kiros, who says something is wrong in
Speaker 3: the land. It's not just dan Era. Evil mists have
Speaker 3: come down from the mountains and poisoned the air. People
Speaker 3: hide in their homes and feel that a terror is
Speaker 3: upon them. And Danira's madness is not ordinary. There is
Speaker 3: some wicked force behind it, and it's the same force
Speaker 3: that is oppressing Acalea. And he more or less sys like,
Speaker 3: your mission, Hercules, should you choose to accept it as
Speaker 3: to save Danira and Achala from this evil force?
Speaker 2: And of course he's gonna accept He's that's the kind
Speaker 2: of stand up guy Hercules.
Speaker 3: Is, of course. Oh and then this feels kind of, uh,
Speaker 3: I don't know, kind of superfluous. But then Hercules goes
Speaker 3: back to this same guy's room later that night, and oh,
Speaker 3: there he is. He's been murdered. Who did this?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, he was gonna get more details, right, He's like,
Speaker 2: I can't talk to you too much here, but come
Speaker 2: back to my place where it's safe. He shows up
Speaker 2: and of course dude is.
Speaker 3: Dead, right, And Christopher Lee is there, but.
Speaker 2: He like walk He's like in the hallway behind.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's lurking.
Speaker 2: And then Hercules is like, oh good.
Speaker 3: You're yes, yeah, So he comes in and starts explaining
Speaker 3: things to Hercules. He's like, you know, long ago, before
Speaker 3: dan Era's father took the throne, the forces of evil
Speaker 3: reigned in this land. But dan Eur's father or maybe
Speaker 3: her grandfather, I don't remember, which banished those evil spirits
Speaker 3: to Hades, the land of the dead. And now they
Speaker 3: have put the spirits have put a curse over the land.
Speaker 3: The curse will only be lifted once the royal line
Speaker 3: is destroyed. And Hercules is like, there must be some
Speaker 3: way to fight them, And Leko is like, are there
Speaker 3: ways of fighting against shadows, against wind, against bolts of lightning?
Speaker 3: Can one fight the raging storms that batter the earth?
Speaker 3: And Hercules says, I know what to do. I'm gonna
Speaker 3: ask the gods for a weapon to fight the evil. Thanks, Leko,
Speaker 3: You've been a big help. So he's gonna go consult
Speaker 3: the Sybil, the you know, the oracle send who can
Speaker 3: get messages from the gods to him. Now, this is
Speaker 3: another wonderful set and composition. Here the Sybil I think
Speaker 3: the character is named Medea, is sitting at the end
Speaker 3: of a clear still reflecting pool, surrounded by fires and
Speaker 3: braziers with a kaleidoscope of colored lights falling over her.
Speaker 3: She's got green, red, and blue lights on her. She's
Speaker 3: in this spider like posture that's very creepy, and she's
Speaker 3: wearing a white mask over her face, with a frowning
Speaker 3: mouth and closed eyes. And the Sybil tells him that
Speaker 3: the forces of evil have bound her to silence and
Speaker 3: she cannot speak of this subject. But Hercules is like,
Speaker 3: you gotta help me, and so he ends up praying
Speaker 3: to Zeus, remember Zeus as Hercules' father. He's like, Dad,
Speaker 3: help me, And so he says he will offer up
Speaker 3: his immortality in exchange for help with this quest, my
Speaker 3: life for dan Erez. Let the Sybil speak, and it
Speaker 3: seems like this works. The sybyl asks if he is
Speaker 3: willing to go into the underworld, and you can almost
Speaker 3: kind of hear Hercules gulp. Here he says, no man
Speaker 3: has ever gone there and come back. But she says,
Speaker 3: a stone is shining in the depths of the earth,
Speaker 3: far beyond the garden of the Hesperides, a stone hidden
Speaker 3: in the river sticks. Only there where death dwells can
Speaker 3: be found. Life for your woman and then lightning flashes,
Speaker 3: and she says, thus, has Zeus spoken through me? So
Speaker 3: it seems like we have our quest.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I got to go to the underworld get a
Speaker 2: special stone and bring it back out again.
Speaker 3: Not the most earthshakingly new type of story. He's got
Speaker 3: to go get a magical item from the underworld. We
Speaker 3: may have heard one like this before, but you know what,
Speaker 3: it's a classic for a reason.
Speaker 2: Is Yeah.
Speaker 3: So now it's time for Hercules to gather allies. Of course,
Speaker 3: he's gonna take his hunky best friend theseus along, maybe
Speaker 3: in case they need to win any beauty contests along
Speaker 3: the way. But he also ends up taking a weird,
Speaker 3: cowardly little guy named Telemachus for comic relief purposes. If
Speaker 3: Hercules is El Santo, Telemachus is his Perry co.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and Telemachus is legitimately funny throughout most of the picture. Like,
Speaker 2: I am glad he came along on this adventure. He's
Speaker 2: It's an over the top performance, but not not too
Speaker 2: over the top. I don't know if it felt like
Speaker 2: the right balance for me.
Speaker 3: I can easily imagine a similar Italian movie like this
Speaker 3: going way overboard with the silliness of this character.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the actor here, I think, has he reminded me
Speaker 2: a little bit of Rowan Atkinson.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's mister Bean.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a little bit of mister Bean to the perform.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's some slight bullying by Herk, but it's kind
Speaker 3: of good natured. He like, at one point, Telemachus is like,
Speaker 3: I'm guarding the bridge. I can't let you go see
Speaker 3: Theseus because he and he and Jocosta are making out,
Speaker 3: and Hercules is like, I'm his friend, and Telemachus won't move,
Speaker 3: so Hercules kind of lifts him up by his hair
Speaker 3: to get him out of the way. But it's it
Speaker 3: seems to be good natured, like he he also protects
Speaker 3: Telemachus later.
Speaker 2: And I guess Telemachus helps out like he basically comes
Speaker 2: around along because he wants to come along and you know,
Speaker 2: more importantly to be comic relief for the film.
Speaker 3: So yeah, Theseus is busy kissing Jocosta when Hirk shows up,
Speaker 3: and Herk is like, hey, get your weapons, it's time
Speaker 3: for an adventure, and Theseus is like, oh great, I
Speaker 3: was getting bored, and Jocosta only looks a little bit offended,
Speaker 3: and so you know, they're they're gonna they decide they
Speaker 3: need to get a ship because they're gonna have to
Speaker 3: travel across the sea. They have to get a golden
Speaker 3: apple from the Garden of the Hesperides, which is the
Speaker 3: only way they can get to the underworld alive. And
Speaker 3: the Garden of the Hesperites is at the edge of
Speaker 3: the Kingdom of Eternal Night, where the sun never rises.
Speaker 3: And then Theseus is like, oh, the Hesperites they're all women,
Speaker 3: aren't they. I should not have any trouble getting them
Speaker 3: to give us what we need. And then we cut
Speaker 3: to Jocosta looking skeptical, but Telemachus tells herk and Theseus that, oh,
Speaker 3: I know this guy Sunnis who can let us borrow
Speaker 3: a ship. I'll convince him to let us borrow his ship,
Speaker 3: and then cut immediately to that not working out so well.
Speaker 3: Soon he's like a big guy in red with an axe,
Speaker 3: and he's like, got Telemachus tied up to these teams
Speaker 3: of horses.
Speaker 2: Yeah, about to pull him in half. It's legitimately hilarious
Speaker 2: cut here because he's like, I got it taken care of.
Speaker 2: Oh I'm about to be pulled in half.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So like the horses. I don't, he explains, like,
Speaker 3: I'll let you borrow my ship if you survived the
Speaker 3: test of my horses.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: But then his muscly friends come to the rescue. Hercules
Speaker 3: comes in and like grabs hold of the ropes that
Speaker 3: are holding the horses, and so he just with his
Speaker 3: muscles holds them together until they can free Telemachus. Meanwhile,
Speaker 3: theseus goes and fights Sooness on the beach. Our heroes
Speaker 3: prevail and they take the ship, while Sooness runs off
Speaker 3: after his horses. So our three adventurers journey across the
Speaker 3: ocean to the domain of the Hesperides, and the lighting
Speaker 3: on this sea voyage is once again insane. There's like
Speaker 3: swirling mist in the sky, black clouds, a red sky.
Speaker 3: The heroes somehow all become magically sedated and they fall
Speaker 3: irresistibly into sleep while they're traveling over the ocean, and
Speaker 3: this dark cloud comes up over them, and the ocean
Speaker 3: opens up and reveals a deep passage and realms below,
Speaker 3: and when they wake up, they are somehow transported off
Speaker 3: their ship into a cave where mist sits over the
Speaker 3: floor and these shadowy women are watching them while they sleep,
Speaker 3: So they wake up and they're greeted by an agent
Speaker 3: of the Hesperides who says that they're Queen Arethusa wants
Speaker 3: to meet with them. I like the Hysparites costumes. They're
Speaker 3: like just sashes upon sashes, like you made if you
Speaker 3: made a whole dress out of like fifty silk scarves.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this, by the way, is Marisa Belly, who lived
Speaker 2: nineteen thirty three through twenty seventeen.
Speaker 3: Queen Rthusa, yes, yeah, and so Hercules greets her courteously.
Speaker 3: He's he's a gentleman and a gracious guest. But Queen
Speaker 3: Rthusa already knows of him and knows why he has come.
Speaker 3: She says she's willing to help, but she issues a warning.
Speaker 3: He can attempt to claim the apple, but it's all
Speaker 3: or nothing. If he goes after the fruit and fails,
Speaker 3: he will die. And of course, you know, her accepts
Speaker 3: he's not afraid, so she tells him where to find it.
Speaker 3: It's in a sacred tree, far from the eyes of
Speaker 3: any greedy soul. So we go there, and our heroes
Speaker 3: are sort of separated here that the Hesperites tell Telemachus
Speaker 3: and theseus that like, oh, here are some beds for
Speaker 3: you to sleep on while Hercules is getting the apple.
Speaker 3: You just stay here on these beds, and they're like okay.
Speaker 3: And then Hercules goes to this tangled, tangled tree with
Speaker 3: these big exposed roots, this bathed in blue light. The
Speaker 3: set is very eerie and the music matches with these
Speaker 3: low wobbling woodwinds. And the queen goes with him to
Speaker 3: the base of the tree and you know, tells him
Speaker 3: good luck, and Hercules climbs and climbs, but he encounters trouble.
Speaker 3: They're like tangled branches, thorns, and then when he gets
Speaker 3: very high, there's lightning and thunder and wind whipping at him,
Speaker 3: and at one point he falls, but he catches hold
Speaker 3: of a lower branch. There's like fire pouring out of
Speaker 3: the upper branches at him, Like I guess maybe they
Speaker 3: were struck by lightning.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, So it's quickly becoming obvious that this tree
Speaker 2: is just inaccessible to climbing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he can't get up to the apple by climbing it,
Speaker 3: but he's going to think outside the box. So he
Speaker 3: comes back down to the base of the tree and
Speaker 3: he gets a boulder he like puts it in a
Speaker 3: sling made out of the ropes tying some horses, and
Speaker 3: he like throws the boulder at the tree and a
Speaker 3: branch falls and it has the apple on it. He
Speaker 3: claims the apple clutches. The apple great solution. Meanwhile, elsewhere,
Speaker 3: Theseus and Telemachus are sleeping in their designated cave on
Speaker 3: the on the iron beds that the Hesperities led them to.
Speaker 3: And uh oh, a monster that looks like it's made
Speaker 3: out of iron rail spikes and filthy rags comes out,
Speaker 3: and then Theseus wakes up and tries to hit it
Speaker 3: with a sword, but it's clear that that's not doing anything.
Speaker 3: This monster is hard as a rock, or maybe even
Speaker 3: made of rocks. I think maybe made of rocks.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's like it's kind of like a stone
Speaker 2: column or something.
Speaker 3: I love this monster design. He looks like he's having
Speaker 3: a bad day, like his mouth is hanging open in anguish.
Speaker 2: Yeah, who's sleeping on my slabs?
Speaker 3: So we cut away from that to Herk and Arthusa
Speaker 3: now in a happy, sunny garden instead of a gloomy,
Speaker 3: cursed one, and Arthusa explains that the Hesperites were cursed
Speaker 3: by Pluto to live in darkness, but they were originally
Speaker 3: daughters of the Sun, and now that they've been freed
Speaker 3: from the curse by Herk's retrieval of the apple, they
Speaker 3: can return to the Sun. And she also reveals that
Speaker 3: all this time, while they've been cursed by Pluto, they
Speaker 3: have been forced to kill you. See, they have been
Speaker 3: slaves of Procrustes. Procrustes was a figure who was like,
Speaker 3: I think, a bandit in Greek mythology. Who's the story
Speaker 3: is that he had these like iron beds, and he
Speaker 3: if you weren't the same size as the iron bed
Speaker 3: that he puts you on, he would either crush you
Speaker 3: or stretch you to make you fit on the iron bed.
Speaker 2: Oh well, that explains the scene that's about to happen here.
Speaker 3: Yes, so Arethusa apologizes to her. She's like, I'm sorry
Speaker 3: your friends, Theseus and Telemachus, they had to be the
Speaker 3: last sacrifices we were giving to Procrustes. But she says,
Speaker 3: if you destroy Procrustes, the gates of the underworld will
Speaker 3: open for you. And Herk of course, rushes to protect
Speaker 3: his friends. We see the monster like explaining to theseus
Speaker 3: that he needs to stretch him out until he's the
Speaker 3: exact size of his iron bed. He says, you will
Speaker 3: be as thin as the ropes that bind you. Then
Speaker 3: I will tie you in a knot that no one
Speaker 3: can untie. But then Hercules runs in and he's I think,
Speaker 3: he says, of stone, you are made only by stone?
Speaker 3: Can you be unmade? And he lifts him up and
Speaker 3: throws him into the wall, and like every like all
Speaker 3: these rocks just crumble, so like for Krusty's breaks apart
Speaker 3: into pieces, and the wall crumbles and it reveals the
Speaker 3: gate to the underworld. Very funny, by the way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but also really really cool, like it is like
Speaker 2: the gates of the underworld are opening, and in descended
Speaker 2: from Hercules. The author points out that, like there's a
Speaker 2: lot of like rock imagery with Hercules in these films.
Speaker 2: Like Hercules is of course always throwing rocks, He's always
Speaker 2: being strapped to rocks. He's battling creatures made of rocks,
Speaker 2: and his physiology is very rock like as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I think they leave Telemachus behind, but Hercules
Speaker 3: and theseus they go on through the underworld. They encounter
Speaker 3: some illusions as they go. There's like a vision of
Speaker 3: a beautiful woman chain to a rock and she's not real.
Speaker 3: It's like an illusion to trick them. And there's a
Speaker 3: vision of like a valley of flames and that's not real.
Speaker 3: It's actually just water. And then there are all these
Speaker 3: vines that they have to cut their way through, and
Speaker 3: when they cut the vines, they hear these screams and
Speaker 3: the vines bleed blood, so they're like human vines.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, But eventually they come across a shining stone in
Speaker 3: the distance and Herk says, that is the stone that
Speaker 3: could save Dayanira's life. It seems you could just reach
Speaker 3: out and take it, but the boiling lava makes it difficult.
Speaker 3: So they've got to get over the lava somehow. How
Speaker 3: are they going to do that? Well, they come up
Speaker 3: with an idea. We're gonna throw a rock. Yep Hercules
Speaker 3: he ties some of the the screaming vines by the way,
Speaker 3: which are like screaming as he cuts more of them
Speaker 3: to the rock, and then he throws the rock and
Speaker 3: this creates like a I don't know what you call this.
Speaker 3: I was one to say zipline, but they're not ziplining,
Speaker 3: like like a rope across the chasm over the lava.
Speaker 3: That they can climb to cross it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're gonna have to sort of like monkey across it,
Speaker 2: I guess, you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So there's a long climbing over the lava scene
Speaker 3: and then oh, Theseus falls and he sinks into the lava,
Speaker 3: our beloved hunk. You think he's dead for a moment.
Speaker 2: Yeah, my jaw dropped. I was like, oh my goodness,
Speaker 2: we lost him, you know.
Speaker 3: I couldn't believe it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it becomes then I'm like, he's probably
Speaker 2: coming back. Right, this is a place full of illusion.
Speaker 3: Right, this is not the end for Theseus. He suddenly
Speaker 3: appears elsewhere, unconscious in a cave with a woman we
Speaker 3: have previously not met, caressing his face, and she introduces
Speaker 3: herself as one of the shadows of the underworld. There's
Speaker 3: some ambiguity like are she and theseus dead or alive?
Speaker 3: But anyway, within about five lines of dialogue, Theseus is legit.
Speaker 3: You're the love of my life. I will never leave you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's uncertain at least at first, whether this
Speaker 2: is magic or this is like literally every relationship he
Speaker 2: has with a woman, like one minute in head over
Speaker 2: Heels in love.
Speaker 3: Meanwhile, Hirk is getting the magic stone, he sort of
Speaker 3: has to like bash it out of an incrustation, and
Speaker 3: then he's just wandering back to the ship with the
Speaker 3: magic stone that he got and he runs into Telemachus
Speaker 3: and he's like, Theseus is dead. The lava of Haiti
Speaker 3: swallowed him. And then Theseus jumps out from behind a
Speaker 3: rock and he's he says, actually, I'm fine, and Herk's like,
Speaker 3: oh cool.
Speaker 2: I thought this was going to be an illusion at first,
Speaker 2: because I thought Telemachus was back on the ship and
Speaker 2: wasn't coming in, and I wasn't sure what was going
Speaker 2: on with Theseus, and I was like, oh goodness, he's
Speaker 2: about to be led astray and have to kill another monster.
Speaker 2: But no, they were just legitimately like it's time to go, Hirk,
Speaker 2: let's go, and they do.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a little bit lucy goosey plotting at this part,
Speaker 3: But so they all go back to the ship and
Speaker 3: they're sailing home and Theseus has brought along a stowaway.
Speaker 3: It's his dream woman from hell. She is riding in
Speaker 3: the cargo hold of the ship. Even though they talk
Speaker 3: about how she knows that Hercules would have said, no,
Speaker 3: you can't take someone from Hades with you back with you,
Speaker 3: but theseus hides it from Hercules. So Storm comes up
Speaker 3: and Theseus goes down to talk to this woman from Hades,
Speaker 3: and she says Pluto is angry and he's trying to
Speaker 3: stop them from leaving the underworld, and she begs theseus
Speaker 3: to throw the golden apple into the sea, so he does,
Speaker 3: and when Hercules sees this, he is furious. That was
Speaker 3: their ticket out of Hades. But suddenly the sky clears,
Speaker 3: sun comes out. Seems like it worked, but something isn't
Speaker 3: quite right. So they get to shore and Herky is
Speaker 3: returning to Akalia on horseback and he's passing smoldering fields
Speaker 3: of smoke and bleached cattle bones and people are trudging
Speaker 3: around hopelessly, and one man explains to him that someone
Speaker 3: must have a the gods because things have been bad here.
Speaker 3: Heavenly fire and disease descended and the people have been ruined.
Speaker 3: So Hercules arrives back at the city and people here
Speaker 3: are blaming him for the calamity. It must be his
Speaker 3: fault because he went to the underworld and he returned.
Speaker 3: And meanwhile at the palace we get a scene alone
Speaker 3: with Theseus and his dream woman from Hell, and she
Speaker 3: reveals her true identity. She is a Mayazotide, the daughter
Speaker 3: of Pluto. So woo, this is a this is a
Speaker 3: goddess and she wasn't supposed to leave Hades.
Speaker 2: Oops yep.
Speaker 3: She says, you and your people are going to be
Speaker 3: punished for bringing me here. Our love is doomed, but
Speaker 3: Theseus won't accept it. He says he'll do anything to
Speaker 3: protect their love, even if he has to kill Hercules
Speaker 3: and then the kiss. Meanwhile, back to like dean Era
Speaker 3: for the first time, she awakes and she has sort
Speaker 3: of a conscious reunion with Hercules. She's back to herself,
Speaker 3: now healed by the power of the magic stone from Hades.
Speaker 3: But the hers on the land continues and Hercules and
Speaker 3: Danira's love is blamed, so Hercules has to go back
Speaker 3: to the Sibyl to learn how to stop it. Meanwhile,
Speaker 3: he's like, Uncle Leco, you know you're you would be
Speaker 3: great to keep watch over dan Era and make sure
Speaker 3: she's safe while I do this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolute faith in Uncle Leco here.
Speaker 3: Yes. Perfect. So Herk goes to the Sybil once again,
Speaker 3: and she reveals they have angered the gods and Theseus
Speaker 3: has to renounce his love, and herk balks. He's like, uh, oh, no,
Speaker 3: you're never going to get a man to renounce his
Speaker 3: love for a woman. But the Sibil says, when you
Speaker 3: learn who she truly is, you will bid him renounce her. H. Meanwhile,
Speaker 3: back at the palace, Leco's doing Leco stuff. He like,
Speaker 3: he reveals that he was the one behind Danira's illness,
Speaker 3: and he murders her lady in waiting, and she like
Speaker 3: runs away from her from from him, screaming.
Speaker 2: Oh, now is this the scene where we get the
Speaker 2: blood pool on the floor and ooh, And she looks
Speaker 2: down and we see uncle Lecos, we see Christopher Lee's
Speaker 2: reflection in the blood puddle.
Speaker 3: Yes, oh beautiful, excellent. Yeah, and now she knows, now,
Speaker 3: she knows it was him all along. Meanwhile, we got
Speaker 3: Hercules confronting theseus. You know, theseus confesses to Hercules about
Speaker 3: who his lover is. Yep, she's a goddess. Yep. Pluto's
Speaker 3: really mad at us, and we're going to be cursed
Speaker 3: until she goes back. But I will not give up
Speaker 3: my love for her. She's staying here with me. And
Speaker 3: they argue, and theseus draws his sword. He's like, I
Speaker 3: will fight you to the death over this, and they fight,
Speaker 3: but Hercules refuses to kill him. Of course, Hercules is
Speaker 3: going to win the fight. So Theseus is kind of
Speaker 3: knocked unconscious, and then the goddess comes to him and
Speaker 3: she says, Hercules, this was all about idea. I'm going
Speaker 3: to peace out.
Speaker 2: Wow, isn't it like the gods and goddesses They're just
Speaker 2: kind of like waltzing through human affairs, causing absolute chaos
Speaker 2: and then they're just like I'm done, I'm out.
Speaker 3: Yes, But she also does do a kindness to Hercules
Speaker 3: before she leaves. She fills him in. She's like, by
Speaker 3: the way, that the king Leko, who you think is
Speaker 3: really great, who's like watching your fiance right now, he's bad.
Speaker 3: He's the one behind the curse.
Speaker 2: Not Leko, Like he's shocked to his course.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And Herk is like, oh wow, thanks for the info.
Speaker 3: So this leads to the final showdown. Herk has got
Speaker 3: to go rescue Danira from Leco. He goes down into
Speaker 3: Leco's secret passageways. I think Leko's getting ready to do
Speaker 3: some kind of ritual sacrifice of Danira to usher in
Speaker 3: a great age of evil and darkness.
Speaker 2: Yeah, his dark master's told him that he needs to
Speaker 2: drink her blood, and his blood needs to be in
Speaker 2: her like some sort of like you know, typical vampire
Speaker 2: shenanigans need to take place, and then he'll get to
Speaker 2: live forever and rule over a world of darkness.
Speaker 3: Right. But when Hercules goes down into the catacombs, he
Speaker 3: gets attacked by zombies. And here's where it really becomes
Speaker 3: peplam horror for a while. I love these zombies. They're
Speaker 3: not super We don't really get a a close look
Speaker 3: at their flesh. They're kind of coming in and out
Speaker 3: and kind of obscured. But I really like their designed anyway.
Speaker 3: I think they look great. It's implied that they're gross.
Speaker 3: They're covered in these rags and they're actually pretty scary,
Speaker 3: and some of them can fly. They're like zombies that
Speaker 3: without legs, that are just upper bodies that fly through
Speaker 3: the air.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they look great. We don't get a close enough
Speaker 2: look at them to really tell like is this a
Speaker 2: grave shroud or is this like some sort of a
Speaker 2: weird birth call over them? Like everything is like, you know,
Speaker 2: lit to the nines. It looks amazing. I was totally
Speaker 2: in on all of these Bava zombies.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, absolutely. And then there's this one sequence that's
Speaker 3: so strange. I don't know what to make of this,
Speaker 3: but it's great. It's like Herk is fighting the zombies
Speaker 3: inside a stone trash compactor.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like the walls start closing in and he's and
Speaker 2: he's moving towards us, towards the camera with the you know,
Speaker 2: the walls closing zomb zombies in inside that tunnel, with
Speaker 2: him trying to slow him down and cause him to
Speaker 2: be crushed by the rocks, but of course it's Hercules.
Speaker 2: He manages to get out, but just in the nick
Speaker 2: of time.
Speaker 3: Right, just in time to stop Leko from from stabbing
Speaker 3: Danira with this like bone hand dagger. It's like a
Speaker 3: skeleton's hand as a dagger.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's it's pretty gnarly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So Herk comes to the rescue and then this
Speaker 3: kind of surprised me. It's a physical fight and Leko
Speaker 3: is sort of able to hold his own for a
Speaker 3: while in physically fighting Hercules.
Speaker 2: Yeah, without any obvious nods to him having some sort
Speaker 2: of enhanced supernatural powers here, it's just more of like
Speaker 2: a straight up brawl. I mean, the end's not really
Speaker 2: in question, but you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, of course herk wins. Hey, do you want to
Speaker 3: guess how Hercules defeats the evil wizard king in the end.
Speaker 2: Oh, let's let's give everyone out there a second to
Speaker 2: consider the possibilities.
Speaker 3: It's a good old rock toss, perhaps one of the
Speaker 3: standing stones, and it's just he's hirk smash. He smashes
Speaker 3: him with the rock. Oh, it's so good. Oh. And
Speaker 3: then after that, do you want to guess how he
Speaker 3: defeats the waves of zombies that continue rushing the altar?
Speaker 3: He throws another boulder, and then he throws another boulder,
Speaker 3: and then another boulder.
Speaker 2: He uproots all of the stones one by one at
Speaker 2: this ancient but probably on holy site. Yeah, and just
Speaker 2: keeps yeating them into the zombies, one after the other,
Speaker 2: just smashing them.
Speaker 3: And then the eclipse ends. Oh, there's all this talk
Speaker 3: about like a great dragon devouring the sun or the moon,
Speaker 3: maybe devouring the moon. I think this is imagery of
Speaker 3: an eclipse. It ends, and then Leco catches on fire
Speaker 3: and disappears.
Speaker 2: Yeah, simply like to by modern standards, I guess, a
Speaker 2: simple effect, but perfectly executed right. Like so many things
Speaker 2: in this movie, and I think other Bava films, it's
Speaker 2: like it's just like everything is is carried off, carried
Speaker 2: out seamlessly.
Speaker 3: Mm hmm. And then we get a very happy ending
Speaker 3: for everybody. So Danira is sayfe she and herk are
Speaker 3: reunited and happy. I guess they're married at the end,
Speaker 3: or they're gonna get married, and so they're happy. Hercules
Speaker 3: also makes up with his friend. He goes to Theseus,
Speaker 3: and Theseus only vaguely remembers his time with the woman
Speaker 3: from Hell. He remembers it as if it's a dream.
Speaker 3: And he's finally back together with Jocasta, which is great
Speaker 3: because they're a great couple. I feel kind of bad
Speaker 3: for Jocasta just being left behind all this time, and
Speaker 3: oh they see they seem great together.
Speaker 2: But she initially shows up with Telemachus and he's like, hey,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna marry her, and then she's like like, actually no,
Speaker 2: now I see Theseus, I'm gonna go to him.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So they're back together, and then and then we
Speaker 3: get some some platitudes about love to play us out.
Speaker 2: That's right, love is passionate, says Hercules, but often inconsistent.
Speaker 3: Hmm, think on that one. Yeah. Anyway, Hercules and the
Speaker 3: Haunted World a thumbs up from me, six boulders up.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, Yeah, this one was a lot of fun. I've
Speaker 2: watched a lot of Hercules movies and Hercules adjacent movies
Speaker 2: over the years, and I think this one may be
Speaker 2: the most visually appealing, though I also really liked the
Speaker 2: visual flare of the Lufarigno Hercules movie that we watched
Speaker 2: earlier on Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that one felt less like the product of a
Speaker 3: single director's artistic vision.
Speaker 2: I would say, absolutely. I remember it having some very
Speaker 2: janky stop motion effects in it, but also some very
Speaker 2: like spacey lights at times.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but was very fun.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this one is definitely more like structurally complete. Yeah,
Speaker 2: all right, Hercules in the Haunted World. Hey, everyone out there,
Speaker 2: if you've seen this movie, or if you have thoughts
Speaker 2: about various other Poplin movies we've talked about here Hercules
Speaker 2: movies and their many derivatives right in, We would love
Speaker 2: to hear what you have to say. Will remind you
Speaker 2: that Weird House Cinema. This is the Friday episode in
Speaker 2: the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast. Feed our core
Speaker 2: science and culture episodes. Ac're on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but
Speaker 2: on Fridays we set aside most serious concerns to just
Speaker 2: talk about a weird film. If you want to see
Speaker 2: a long list of the movies that we have done
Speaker 2: over the years for Weird House Cinema, go to letterbox
Speaker 2: dot com. It's L E T T E R B
Speaker 2: O x d dot com. You'll find our username there
Speaker 2: it's weird House and on our profile page there's the list.
Speaker 2: Check it out see what we've been up to, and
Speaker 2: sometimes there'll be a hint or more than a hint.
Speaker 2: I guess just there's the post. Here there's a listing
Speaker 2: of the movie that we're covering next.
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Jjposway.
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
Speaker 3: you can email us at contact. That's Stuff to Blow
Speaker 3: your Mind dot com.
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