Copyright 1957 by Embassy Pictures. Presented by Joseph E. Levine. Released in the U.S.A. through Warner Bros: July 1959. New York opening at neighborhood cinemas: 22 July 1959. U.K. release through Archway: May 1959. London opening at the Cameo-Royal. Australian release through Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer: 26 March 1959 (sic). Running times: 9,987 feet, 111 minutes (Aust), 105 minutes (UK), 103 (USA). Original Italian title: "Le Fatiche di Ercole".
NOTES: 4th to "Auntie Mame", "The Nun's Story" and "Rio Bravo" as Warner Bros top-grossing domestic release of 1959. By way of contrast, the movie did virtually no business at all in Australia. After deducting modest advertising and distribution expenses, M-G-M actually lost money on the deal. The U.K. figures are midway between the Australian disaster and the American runaway success. (A DVD was available from EDI Video. Rating: 7/10. This is not a wide-screen print.)
COMMENT: The movie that started the craze for Italian sword-and- sandal pictures, was actually one of the funniest pictures to reach U.S. screens in years — although the humor of course was not deliberate. True, a tongue-in-cheek style may have helped to make this nonsense even more amusing, but we doubt it. One of the movie's assets is that everyone on screen seems to be taking all this lumbering rubbish so seriously.
A sort of Homeric Tarzan, heavy on sex and mixed-up mythology, "Hercules" also proved the biggest surprise box-office smash in Hollywood's memory. Most of the movie is grounded in muddled mythology, jumbled with snips of The Iliad and a couple of chapters from the Bible. The scriptwriters spare no pains to throw everything into the melting pot. In the process, they seem to get Hercules mixed up with Samson, the Amazons with the ladies of Lemnos. But no matter. Like a white-washed Samson, good scout Herc topples pillars on horses and men, breaks iron chains as if they were zippers, and routs a whole army single-handed. What more could you ask of a pseudo Homeric/Biblical hero?
The American distributor, Joseph E. Levine, paid only $120,000 for the U.S./Canadian rights, yet cleaned up $4.7 million at domestic ticket-windows alone.
NOTES: 4th to "Auntie Mame", "The Nun's Story" and "Rio Bravo" as Warner Bros top-grossing domestic release of 1959. By way of contrast, the movie did virtually no business at all in Australia. After deducting modest advertising and distribution expenses, M-G-M actually lost money on the deal. The U.K. figures are midway between the Australian disaster and the American runaway success. (A DVD was available from EDI Video. Rating: 7/10. This is not a wide-screen print.)
COMMENT: The movie that started the craze for Italian sword-and- sandal pictures, was actually one of the funniest pictures to reach U.S. screens in years — although the humor of course was not deliberate. True, a tongue-in-cheek style may have helped to make this nonsense even more amusing, but we doubt it. One of the movie's assets is that everyone on screen seems to be taking all this lumbering rubbish so seriously.
A sort of Homeric Tarzan, heavy on sex and mixed-up mythology, "Hercules" also proved the biggest surprise box-office smash in Hollywood's memory. Most of the movie is grounded in muddled mythology, jumbled with snips of The Iliad and a couple of chapters from the Bible. The scriptwriters spare no pains to throw everything into the melting pot. In the process, they seem to get Hercules mixed up with Samson, the Amazons with the ladies of Lemnos. But no matter. Like a white-washed Samson, good scout Herc topples pillars on horses and men, breaks iron chains as if they were zippers, and routs a whole army single-handed. What more could you ask of a pseudo Homeric/Biblical hero?
The American distributor, Joseph E. Levine, paid only $120,000 for the U.S./Canadian rights, yet cleaned up $4.7 million at domestic ticket-windows alone.