Review: Hercules in New York (1970)

[CelticMuscle]

On the Internet Movie Database a viewer describes this film as:

A bad bad bad movie, yet hilarious. Who would have thought that dubbing Arnold could provide laugh after laugh? Hours of fun I tell you. And even better, the voice that they give him incredibly funny because we all know how he actually sounds. Watch this and see how far Arnold has actually come as an actor.

And whilst agreeing that there as some aspects that resemble a British pantomime (see Dictionary.com for definition), there is actually a story behind it. And quite an interesting one at that.

I'm sure we've all got bored with our hum drum existance once in a while and decided that it would be nice to go somewhere different for a change. Well that's exactly what Herc does and after giving a couple of old ladies on an aeroplane a scare (causing one to start seeing naked Greek statues) he lands in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean and gets picked up by a navy ship (whose captain gives him the temporary rank of Ordinary Seaman Zeus).

After having a minor disagreement about working conditions, the ship arrives in New York and Hercules decides to disembark. After another small discussion of the subject of going AWOL, he teams up with a pretzel seller and immediately wows him after the cabbie demands a two dollar fare from the docks to Central Park (this is 1970 after all) which of course he can't pay and so tips the cab on it's side for good measure!

Unfortunately due to the late hour this film was broadcast on BBC One (UK) yesterday, I was by now yawning my head off and as my video had also packed up resigned myself to missing the rest of it so that I could attend a meeting of my local political party this morning, so I have no idea what happened next.

[Muscleluvr]

I saw this movie when it was originally released in theaters. I bought a copy of it on VHS when it became available, and I now have it on DVD. This is one of those, "so bad it's good" type flix. Ahnuld is billed as "Arnold Strong" because it was believed no one would be able to pronounce 'Schwarzenegger'. His accent was pretty bad, so the flick, as released in the U.S., was dubbed - hilariously so. The DVD offers a secondary audio track where you can watch with Ahnuld's REAL voice - which is even more hilarious - Hercules, with a German/Austrian accent? Has to be heard to be believed.

Ahnuld's cohort in this film is the inimitable Arnold Stang - who sort of looks like a male version of the old woman who did those Old Navy commercials... he's a character actor that's appeared in countless dumb flix like this, and this is no different. There's a 'weightlifting' contest in the film against Tony Carroll who's character is called "Monstro". Dennis Tinerino makes a cameo as Atlas - but if you blink, you'll miss him.

There's lots of Ahnuld shirtless, a chariot chase through Manhattan, and a lot of other really stupid plot devices, but on the whole, it's a must-see for anyone who's an Ahnuld fan... Get the DVD, so you can see both versions!

Originally Posted by Muscleluvr

... Ahnuld is billed as "Arnold Strong" because it was believed no one would be able to pronounce 'Schwarzenegger'...

I remember the old muscle magazines from the 60's or 70's when Arnold was shown in advertisements for some stupid squarish looking thick heavy metal bracelets to tone your muscles when not in the gym. He was billed as Arnold Strong in those ads. I kept all those old muscle mags for years but they got discarded in one of my moves a while back.

Anybody remember what those old metal braceles were called?

[Muscleluvr]

Originally Posted by LeatherGryphon

Anybody remember what those old metal braceles were called?

Those were the Weider "Power" bracelets (how Gay is that?) - Roger Callard also did several ads for them, and even a magazine cover. Each individual weight (which could be removed) had one of the letters P O W E R stamped on them...