The Loves of Hercules (1960) User Reviews

Great slabs of cheese (with a side order of cheese)

[lemon_magic · 3/10 · 8 May 2017]

Well.

Hercules style movies are normally, by convention, pretty silly and lightweight, but this one is juvenile and stupid and cheesy in a way that takes the genre to new depths.

Ever since I saw "Bloody Pit Of Horror", I've had a soft spot for Hargitay, but he and Mansfield (and, let's be fair,everyone else) are pretty bad here. Not horrible, mind you - the casting leans toward attractive and interesting looking people, and everyone in the cast acts at about the same level - but pretty bad.

In Hargitay's case, especially, the vocals (dubbing?) just suck. It's as if they used Tommy Wiseau (the epically awful actor from "The Room") to utter his lines, and Tommy had a bad migraine that week and couldn't be bothered to pay attention to what he was saying. Combine that with Hargitay's perpetually dopey, yearning expression and you have a screen portrayal that's at the opposite end of the scale from the gravitas and dignity you'd get from someone like Steve Reeves or Reg Park.

And Hargitay's blocking and fight choreography are off. For a strong man and body builder, Hargitay seems stiff, awkward and unconvincing. I know he can do better than this because he moved like a different person entirely in "Bloody Pit". The fight with the Hydra in the middle of the film is an especially egregious example of this - I've seen fights staged better at my local community theater productions.

Mansfield - well, I 've read that she was actually an intelligent and multifaceted person, but you'd never guess that from her role here. She stands around and pulls various tragic faces and, well, juts a lot.

Adding insult to injury is a screenplay that calls for the murder of Hercule's innocent wife in the first 5 minutes of the film, and then has the character (and the movie) forget all about her immediately afterwards. Seriously, she's never mentioned again. And there's a "plot" against Hercules that can only succeed if all the characters display less mental acuity than the girls in a junior high locker room. Which they do.

Oh, and there's a "trial" against the Queen that proves her innocence when Hercules throws 4 axes at her...and succeeds in MISSing her on purpose instead of hitting her. (You'd think that missing a woman who occupies less than 30% of a target area would be ridiculously easy for a demi-god and professional warrior, but here the movie acts as if it's a heroic miracle).

Hmmm, and the central plot point of the movie - where the queen of the Amazons decides to seduce our hero - just marks time for 20 minutes until Herc's shield bearer finds him and then he basically walks away without doing anything heroic whatsoever. (The queen gets killed by a tree. Really).

Boy.Take my advice and watch the Reeves or Parks or even Gordon Scott Hercules movies again, instead.

Fair Hercules Movie

[aesgaard41 · 4/10 · 12 May 2001]

SPOILER AHEAD: There are two things which endear this movie to me: the mythology aspect and Jayne Mansfield, one of Hollywood's lost goddesses. The movie is really substandard and campy fare with limited effects, and Mickey Hargitay does pull off a fair Hercules, but it is Jayne which makes this movie bearable. She plays Hercules' true love Deianeira, who you should know if you've seen the American 90s television series. When a female sorceress trying to vamp Hargitay as Hercules, she ends up transforming herself into Mansfield, and next you have Jayne's spectacular figure bound up in another costume as if it is about to explode.Much of the story, however is just filler until Hercules meets the Hydra, which is a major let down. The creature is too fake and there's not much real action. The dubbed-in voices are as obvious as the phony Hydra. I'd only really see this if you're a Jayne fan like I am.

A low point for the genre

[michael-3204 · 2/10 · 6 May 2016]

"The Loves of Hercules" was one of two peplum films featuring Hercules (the other being "Goliath and the Dragon") released in 1960, following the success of "Hercules" and its sequel both starring Steve Reeves. This marks American sex-symbol/actress Jayne Mansfield's only peplum entry, because, I guess, what to do when you have a hunky slab of bodybuilder beef lying around the house but cast him as the legendary strongman and play his main squeeze? It's a good idea on paper.

Mansfield and Hungarian bodybuilder Mickey Hargitay married in 1956 and this was the second film they made together. Both have been better elsewhere, but let's face it, their most enduring and worthwhile contribution to the performing arts was producing daughter Mariska. It certainly isn't this turkey, which sees Herc buffeted by a succession of women who do him wrong. Indeed, the theme here seems to be that musclemen should stick to slaying monsters and performing heroic feats because women will just mess with you. Hargitay, despite his build, is not very convincing in the role -- he has a round, boyish face that in this context makes him look more like a lost and confused lad than a god among men. Mansfield's performance is too self-absorbed and anachronistic to be anything but distracting. She has a dual role as the good Queen Deianira and the evil Queen Hippolyta and neither Hercules nor viewers can tell them apart. (Hint: her hair color changes.) Oddly, the two real life partners have no on-screen chemistry here.

None of the rest of the cast are particularly interesting, the set pieces are unremarkable, as are the set design and costumes. The tree-monsters the Amazons transform men into are a little spooky, and the large cast of extras look like they are having fun. Despite being filmed at Cinecitta, this looks as cheap as it probably was -- especially the monsters Hercules battles, which includes the paperiest of paper mache Hydras and an emaciated looking gorilla suit. The only energetic fight sequence is when Hargitay dispatches Mansfield's blowhard fiancé by picking him up, spinning him around a bit and throwing him across the room. This is the only moment the film manages to sell the idea that you shouldn't tangle with Hercules. This is only for Hercules and/or Mansfield or Hargitay completists -- everyone else can skip it.

"Hercules! Hercules! Put me DOWN!!"

[gregcouture · 29 April 2003]

Years ago I managed to catch this one on a Saturday morning TV broadcast and watched it through to the end, with an amused smile. As other comments here attest, it's definitely not one of the better sword-and-sandal epics and, if you're a fan of that genre, you'd better appreciate what Jayne Mansfield has to offer should you give it a look-see. Like so many others in this canon, it's one of the tombstones marking the declining careers of Hollywood expatriates.

A side note: In the early 1960s Carol Burnett, in a one-woman engagement, appeared at the Greek Theater (an outdoor ampitheater, northeast of downtown Hollywood in Griffith Park, which each year had a summer season of big-name acts, ballet companies, fully-mounted operas, etc.) and, as part of her show, she did a very funny bit in which she imagined Jayne Mansfield accepting her Academy Award as Best Actress in a Hercules extravaganza. In her acceptance speech Carol/Jayne recreated a scene and I can still remember her screeching: "Hercules! Hercules! Put me DOWN!!" Got a BIG laugh. Carol must have used this film as her inspiration, for in it there's a scene toward the end where Mickey is rescuing Jayne from some peril or other and he appears to be staggering under the totality of her considerable assets. Before they had left for Italy, Jayne and Mickey had frequently performed a stunt, well-documented in filmed interviews, in which Mickey effortlessly lifted Jayne overhead and paraded her around airplane-style. His seeming inability to recreate that feat in this movie is one of the film's comic highpoints for this viewer.

Not *that* bad

[culwin · 5/10 · 25 May 2020]

The monsters and effects are laughably ridiculous, which is actually a positive that makes this worth watching. Probably the best effect are the tree men. The funniest scene is the Hydra. Other than that, the plot isn't very interesting, just a bunch of convoluted Hercules mythology thrown together. At least the actors were trying. Mostly. Recommended for Jayne Mansfield and the aforementioned silly monsters, if you want to kill some time.

THE LOVES OF HERCULES (Carlo Ludovico Bragaglia, 1960) *1/2

[Bunuel1976 · 2/10 · 16 April 2008]

Perfectly awful peplum/Hercules-movie: you know you're in trouble when leading lady Jayne Mansfield's prominent bust (forever on the verge of bursting through her togas) commands greater attention than the plot, the action or the special effects!; of course, the fact that the muscular hero is played by her real-life husband – Mickey Hargitay – adds to the fun quotient (of the unintentional kind, that is)…for rarely has there ever been an actor so clueless as to how to approach this mythical part!

Usually seen as a blonde, Mansfield here dons a black and a red wig: she appears as a couple of sovereigns – the heroine and an Amazonian (though the latter is technically played by another actress who takes up Mansfield's appearance via a magic potion in order to ensnare Hargitay). Of mild interest is the fact that the latter has a penchant of disposing of her lovers by having them turned into living trees – as if one needed further proof of how wooden this thing could be, the plot here takes it to a literal level! The chief villainous role in this one is entrusted to Massimo Serato, often a reliable presence in this type of flick, but in this case sporting long curly hair – which only serves to enhance the film's overriding camp factor. Also in the cast, as one of Serato's advisors, is Giulio Donnini from the obscure peplum FRINE, CORTIGIANA D'ORIENTE (1953) – which I watched as part of last month's "Epic Movie Challenge" (in time for the Easter period); incidentally, I had intended to rent the 5-Disc/7-Film set among which this was included back then but it wasn't available.

By the way, THE LOVES OF HERCULES was also known as HERCULES VS. THE HYDRA: this monster, which appears fairly early on in the game, is one of the worst of its kind ever constructed – what's the point of having a three-headed menace if lopping one of them off kills it instantly! Indeed, the mechanical creation is so bulky that it can barely move and so obviously fake that one is liable to burst out laughing at the mere sight of it, as I did, thus effectively destroying the illusion of the entire scene! Another hilarious obstacle the hero has to overcome during the course of the film is a meek-looking cow absurdly sprayed black by the penny-pinching film-makers in a lousy attempt to pass it off for a menacing bull!

cheesy film...different versions/scenes...oohh maaann!!

[von-13 · 5/10 · 8 July 2000]

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

Other than a chance to see Mickey Hargitay appear with his wife, Jayne Mansfield, there isn't a lot to recommend this one.

[planktonrules · 2/10 · 3 June 2013]

The film begins with Hercules returning home after some time--only to discover that his lady love is dead as are just about everyone! It seems that the evil King of Ecalia and his armies are responsible and it's up to our hero to kick butt and right wrongs.

The fact that "The Loves of Hercules" was a terrible film should have come as no major surprise for me, as every Hercules/Maciste film I have ever seen from Italy have been rather bad. In the late 50s to about the mid-1960s, the Italian film industry produced a ton of these films. Most starred some foreigner (such as Steve Reeves, though there were GOBS of others, such as Peter Lupus and Mark Forest) and had otherwise all-Italian casts--with generally lousy dubbing in the English language versions I've seen. So why did I watch this bad film? Well, curiosity. I was curious to see the stars--Mickey Hargitay and his then wife, Jayne Mansfield. Mansfield plays two characters and Hargitay plays Hercules.

So what did I like about the film? Well, Miss Mansfield looked nice. I particularly liked seeing her in a brown wig for a change of pace. Now you know it's bad when this is the only thing I really liked! The acting was stilted, the plot was quite boring and for an epic, it sure was amazingly small and non-epic! Overall, it's no better or worse than any of the other films of the genre--which isn't saying much. My advice is see a couple, then you've pretty much seen them all. And, if you want to see the most enjoyable of these, see the much later film "Hercules in New York" (with Arnold Schwarzenegger). It is so incredibly bad that it's actually a lot of fun to watch! As for "The Loves of Hercules", it's forgettable and dumb--no more, no less.

Even Peter Lupus makes a better Hercules than Hargitay

[bensonmum2 · 3/10 · 19 September 2014]

I've seen dozens of Hercules (or Maciste or Atlas or whatever you want to call him) movies over the years, but The Loves of Hercules just might be the worst of the bunch. It's got so many problems, there's no way I can innumerate all of them. A few I'll mention:

1. Mickey Hargitay doesn't fit my image of Hercules at all. Guys like Steve Reeves, Reg Park, Alan Steel, Lou Ferrigno, and even (I can't believe I'm saying this) Peter Lupus are more suited to the role and better look the part. You know it's a bad sign when Herc's love interest physically dominates him. His acting is as stiff and unnatural as the Hydra he battles. And Hargitay wasn't helped by the dubbing choices made for the movie. The Shakespearian wannabe who voiced Hercules in this movie got it all wrong.

2. I just can't take Jayne Mansfield seriously. She has less believability in her role than Hargitay in his. She doesn't do drama very well.

3. The Loves of Hercules is also known as Hercules vs the Hydra. As I've already alluded to, the Hydra is horrible. It doesn't move! A boat anchor has more dexterity than this thing. To kill it, Hercules calmly walks underneath it, hits it with a few very weak and awkward looking ax blows, and the middle head just sort of falls off. End of the Hydra.

4. As the movie went on, I became frustrated with Hercules' motivations. At the beginning of the movie, he sets out to avenge the death of his wife (I think she was his wife). However, his motivation changes completely the moment he meets Deianira – his new one true love. The dead wife is all but forgotten. Next, the moment he meets the Deianira look-alike Hippolyta, he falls madly in love with her. Herc apparently falls for any woman with two legs in his immediate vicinity. What happened to being a good, upstanding guy with some sort of moral compass?

5. Herc's fight with the bull – nothing else needs to be said.

6. The big finale, the storming of the palace/castle, is about as lame as you'll see. Herc's big contribution is to carry a wooden wagon wheel over his head so he can presumably block the archers' arrows. Why not shoot around him? The wheel's not that big. Or, why not go low and shoot Herc's legs? He carries the thing so high that his head is about the only thing truly protected. Like I said, lame.

Other than Massimo Serato as the evil Licos, I can't think of anything else positive to say. I'm going to be very generous and give The Loves of Hercules a 3/10 for curiosity value if nothing else.

Jayne times Two...

[Flixer1957 · 3/10 · 17 August 2002]

**Possible Spoilers Ahead**

Former Mr. Universe Mickey Hargitay takes his turn as the top-grossing strong-man of the early 1960s. At the beginning of the film he goes gallivanting off and leaves his wife unprotected. Smart move, Herc. She's murdered and our muscle-bound, muscle-headed hero is out for revenge. The hydra of some titles turns out to be a giant, triple-headed dragon that guards the gate to the underworld. It has all the mobility of a washing machine and just sits there nodding its heads and looking stupid as Hercules runs up and kills it. The loves of another title are Queen Deinera (brunette Jayne Mansfield) and evil amazon queen Hippolyta (red-haired Jayne Mansfield). Hippolyta has the nasty habit of turning her lovers into talking trees when she's tired of them. The actors playing the tree-men, ironically, give the least wooden performances in the picture. Mansfield, a blonde in most pictures, manages to be equally dopey as a brunette and a redhead. However, on this production, there was plenty of dopiness to go around. Hubby Hargitay hardly comes across as a rocket scientist. The director, writers and whoever did the deplorable dubbing weren't too swift either. When this lulu aired on AMC in 1999 they followed it with 1960s Hercules cartoons, clips from drive-in intermissions and home-movie footage of Mansfield trying to touch her toes while wearing high heels. I don't know which was funniest.

Jayne and Hercules

[BandSAboutMovies · 4/10 · 13 August 2020]

Also known as Hercules vs. the Hydra, this Carlo Ludovico Bragaglia-directed peblum starts with Hercules' (Mickey Hargitay) empire being invaded by the villainous Licos (Massimo Serato, Don't Look Now, The Humanoid) and his bride killed by the army of Ecalia. Hercules goes wild and is only stopped when the king is murdered by an unseen hand and his daughter Queen Deianira (Jayne Mansfield!)

The rest of the film involves Hercules pining for the queen, who is already married, Licos trying to get with her and Hippolyta, queen of the Amazons, turns all of her lovers into trees and makes herself look exactly like Deianira to try and get with our hero. Oh yeah - there are also battles with a hydra and a bigfoot looking beast.

Filmed on location in Italy during the height of the sword and sandal era, Mansfield was offered the film while she was shooting The Sheriff of Fractured Jaw in Spain. She agreed as long as Hargitay got the lead. She was four months pregnant while making this movie.

Look, any movie where Hercules saves Jayne Mansfield from a mad bull by wrestling it is going to win me over.

Cheesy and delightful

[Leofwine_draca · 8/10 · 19 August 2016]

What a great film. What a great shame that it's so under-appreciated. Packed with some of the cheesiest monster effects this side of THE GIANT CLAW and lots of hilarious stilted acting and unbelievable dialogue, THE LOVES OF HERCULES is the peplum genre at its peak of unintentional hilarity. Fans of these bizarre Italian muscleman flicks will no doubt find this a hugely entertaining experience, even if the acting is poor and the dubbing is even worse. Seemingly every review I've seen comments on how "bad" this film is, but I've seen a heck of a lot worse. At least this is an action-packed experience, and one which is never boring.

Mickey Hargitay takes over the reigns from Steve Reeves as muscleman hero Hercules, his body packed with rippling muscles, his mind the size of a pea. Hargitay was of course Mansfield's husband which is probably the sole reason of him appearing in this film. As he is dubbed - by himself I think - it's difficult to assess his performance, but he does pull a lot of strange and amusing expressions along the way. Interestingly his character is given a strong Italian accent, whereas heroes of these peplum films typically have strong American accents - this difference makes things a little more genuine, don't you think? Jayne Mansfield is this film's biggest selling point. Her presence is so great that she has a dual role, that of a good queen and an evil queen. Mansfield isn't really required to act in the film, only scream occasionally and look as ravishing as possible at every moment. Also in the cast is the great Italian actor Massimo Serato playing the "baddie"; he's evil in the classic old-fashioned sense of the word (double-crossing friends, murdering off people all the time, being cruel, torturing and whipping those who oppose) yet still manages to be the gentleman at times (notice the way he protects Mansfield from a threat at the film's conclusion). The rest of the characters are either village idiots, simpering buffoons, or beautiful yet dumb women who amusingly scream "aaaah!" when they are killed. Oh, and the stuffy old courtiers who spend a lot of time talking but not actually doing much. The film is quite well made, and the low budget is disguised through some lovely crisp photography. One thing I particularly liked about this film was the score, which really helps to give it that historical, epic feel.

Hercules gets to show his might at various intervals during the film's course, from the expected picking up of incredibly heavy items (a cartwheel, a tree trunk, a rock) to fighting off nasty opponents in the form of a mountain ape man and a huge, fire-breathing dragon. The dragon fight scene is the film's centrepiece and, although the special effects aren't up to much, I found it very impressive. The dragon, supposedly the Hydra (although it's nothing like the Hydra of Greek mythology, for a start it has only three heads and doesn't grow them back after getting them cut off) is a gigantic puppet, okay it may not be very realistic but the sheer effort that they put into animating it is the impressive thing about it. For me, this is a sheer unmissable experience! The ape man turns up unexpectedly at the end, as a means to dispose of the villain (whom it strangles) and providing yet another cheap adversary for Hercules to battle. The ape man's appearance can be described in one word as "laughable", although I felt quite sorry for it. One minute its eyeing up a half-naked Mansfield, the next it gets crushed by a huge rock! There are plenty of other fantastic elements to keep this film interesting. One evil woman changes her appearance at will, helped by a black-cloaked witch who hangs around with her. She also kills all men in her kingdom after loving them, transferring their souls into trees where they remain trapped forever (in order to demonstrate this amazing fact, a minor characters breaks a branch on one of these trees and sure enough, blood spurts out!). This "trees of woe" scene is also pretty cool.

Lots of minor characters get killed off in this film, either getting stabbed or shot with arrows and stuff. A couple of people fall into a bubbling pit of acid for good measure at the end. There are a couple of big battles to enjoy, including an uprising for the film's finale, as well as mild torture (whipping seems to the preferred torture method for these guys). In all, it's pretty exciting. If you don't mind cheesy adventure flicks in the same tradition as JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS then this one is for you. See it to believe it!

Really enjoyable Hercules action film with great surreal set pieces

[sos12 · 7/10 · 22 April 2007]

HERCULES VS. THE HYDRA definitely ranks in the top 5 of the hundreds of Hercules films made in Italy in the 1960's (the others being HERCULES IN THE HAUNTED WORLD; the original Steve Reeves HERCULES; THE FURY OF HERCULES; the delirious THE WITCH'S CURSE; and the equally gonzo HERCULES PRISONER OF EVIL.) But back to HYDRA -- first, you've got Jayne Mansfield and Mickey Hargitay, and the fact that they eventually married, and that Mansfield died tragically, lends an undeniable poignancy to this movie. There's no way around it, it's part of Hollywood history, and it makes this a very melancholy portrait of two people falling in love. Second, there's Hargitay -- and dammit, he's a REALLY GOOD Hercules, possibly the best on a pure acting level (and Hargitay wasn't really an actor, so that's saying something.) He's dubbed (of course), but there's a real emotional yearning quality that comes across here, and he puts his heart and soul into almost every scene. Watch a bunch of the other Hercules actors and you'll see what I mean. Best of all, the movie veers off into delirious Alexander Ptushko territory about halfway through, when Herc encounters the three-headed Hydra in the land of the Amazons. Anyone who loves Ray Harryhausen type fantasy films will get a kick out of this one. The weird-ass forest of human trees is especially good. Definitely a winner.

Bad Italian Hercules flick

[Tails-5 · 2/10 · 17 July 1999]

The sound is terrible! Not until Dr. Zhivago did I ever hear such a hellishly awful soundtrack! Anyway, Jayne Mansfield plays a back-to-back role as a queen of Greece (in a red wig) and an evil Amazon queen (in a black wig.) Mickey Hargitay plays the burly demigod Hercules, who must save the good Jayne from the evil Jayne. Meanwhile, the villagers act like babbling simps. Overall I didn't care for it.

Brings back fond memories of my younger days.

[TxMike · 15 May 2013]

I came across this movie on Netflix streaming movies, with the title "Hercules vs The Hydra." I was curious for several reasons, and two of the biggest are because of Jayne Mansfield.

Jayne Mansfield was probably most noted for her very large breasts which when displayed next to actresses of "normal" endowment actually makes those actresses look flat chested. But as large as they were, Jane carried them very well. And, while she was often considered a "dumb blonde" she in fact was very smart, and was a fine actress. I remember when she died, in 1967, in a car wreck in Louisiana, not very far at all from where I was working on a post-graduate summer Chemistry project.

In this movie Jayne Mansfield is dark-haired Queen Deianira. When her husband, the King, is killed she becomes the sole ruler of the small kingdom. From some other battles with his people, Mickey Hargitay (who in real life was Mansfield's actual husband) plays the part of Hercules , seeking justice.

Massimo Serato is the traitor Licos , a member of the King's own inner circle, he had the King killed so that, once he romanced Deianira and married her, the kingdom would be his. But after a side trip, and an encounter with the Hydra, plus an encounter with an Amazon who made herself look like Deianira (Mansfield also played the seductress, Hippolyta, with red hair) to entrap Hercules, he made it back to Deianira and helped defeat the traitor Licos.

The ending was like an American Western, with Hercules and Deinira on a horse, riding into the sunset with lush music playing.

By today's standards this is not a good movie at all, the sets looks fake, most of the action looks amateurish, as well as most of the acting. But it is a good watch for Mickey Hargitay and Jayne Mansfield, icons of a bygone era, plus it shows how far production values have come in 50+ years.

Not Nominated For Academy Award For Special Effects

[boblipton · 3/10 · 20 September 2020]

Mickey Hargitay is Hercules in this go-around, with wife Jayne Mansfield playing a couple of roles in a movie in which all the women seem to be what Jane Russell called 'full-figured women' in those Playtex commercials. Hargitay rides around in a very short chiton that must have caused considerable chafing, speaks with an Italian accent in the dubbed version I saw, and fights a three-headed hydra that looks and moves like a carousel critter.

There's almost nothing positive to say about this movie, which looks like it was made for an audience of libidinous five-year-olds.

The mighty tedious Hercules.

[mark.waltz · 2/10 · 15 February 2022]

A poor print of a poor film is not one worth needing the time or money trying to fix up with restoration, and this entry in the "Hercules" series starring Mickey Hargitay and Jayne Mansfield unfortunately is one of the worst of the lot. Yes, there is a hydra and a monstrous talking tree, as well as Hargitay wrestling with a bison, as well as a witch who can turn herself in to Mansfield in order to try get Hercules for herself. Mansfield, in a black wig, shows off her buxom figure but that's pretty much all. There's the villainous Massimo Serato who wants Mansfield for himself, insisting that he loves her but obviously only wanting the power of the throne. Looking like something out of "Star Trek", Tina Gloriani as the younger witch (daughter of Olga Solbelli), comes on out of nowhere to start casting her spells, and dumb Hercules fast forward easily even though he has just cut off the heads of the very slow moving Hydra.

I'm not about to seek out a print with Better Sound and picture quality, but the one I found was very Kenny and painful to listen to. There are some majestic sets used, but for the most part, it's all very cheap looking, with recycled costumes and styrofoam buildings, with the scene of the Bison not at all intense because it's obvious that the Bison has been tranquilized in some manner. Hargitay and Manfield to generate some heat, and he is handsome while she is very pretty, but I wouldn't call what they do here acting. The highlight is the scene with the Hydra, but it's only on first glance that it is frightening, and I spend more time looking for the men with the ropes getting it to move the heads. I'll stick with the Steve Reeves "Hercules" films over this one, although most of these peplum films wear out their welcome after watching them halfway through.

This movie is great! Not because it's good or anything ...

[tseybert · 10/10 · 13 May 2006]

I love Italian movies, and the sword-and-sandal epics constitute a very special subset of this, the greatest of all national cinemas. There is something hysterical or nonsensical going on every minute. Don't blink your eyes, or you'll miss Jayne Mansfield with PURPLE HAIR. AT HER Fiancée'S FUNERAL! Then there's the Hydra, with only three heads, that can barely move, and Mickey Hargitay (as Hercules, natch) has to run around like an idiot and pretend to be crushed under its foot. Then he gets rescued by cave-dwelling, bird-headed Amazons who turn men into trees ... for some reason. And if that doesn't do anything for you, wait until you see Bigfoot! Jayne Mansfield has huge breasts, though. And she's really pretty. So we forgive her. (Did anybody see "Primitive Love"? Now that's a cult movie!) This movie cracks me up, even more than "Hercules Against the Sons of the Sun." I have to give it a TEN!

Such a Great Italian Adventure Film

[gavin6942 · 6/10 · 10 May 2013]

Hercules (Mickey Hargitay) must save his true love (Jayne Mansfield) from an evil queen.

First of all, that plot really has very little to do with the film. More or less nothing. Hercules is distracted from his love by the queen of the Amazons... but this is really just a subplot. But anyway, the hydra is awesome in its own silly way and these are awesome costumes. Everything about this film is awesome. Awesome. Awesome. I am using that word repeatedly on purpose, because no other word sums this up.

Yeah, it may be more than a bit cheesy, but the Italians had a way of taking the Hercules story and running with it. Mario Bava did, I think even Lucio Fulci did it. Why not Bragaglia? Luca Palmieri is my go-to source for Italian film reviews. All he has to say about this one is that Mansfield is "super-shapely". Great analysis, Luca.

(Upon my second viewing of the film, the cheesiness sort of outweighed the awesome. But it would not be prudent to change the review now just because my opinion changed somewhat, would it?)

"See To It That His Re-Awakening Is So Delicious, That He'll Think It's A Dream!"...

[azathothpwiggins · 2 July 2021]

In THE LOVES OF HERCULES, the titular titan (Mickey Hargitay) is vengeful after his wife is murdered. Herc goes on a quest that includes great tests of strength and feats of derring-do, complete with his toting of an enormous tree as if it was a toothpick, as well as senseless cattle slaughter.

Soon, Queen Deianira (Jayne Mansfield!) falls hopelessly in love with the big lug. A lot of time passes with no real action, though the mighty, shirtless one does glisten like a rotisserie chicken in the sun!

Then, Big H gets a chance to battle the hydra, which looks like a Rose Bowl parade float. He also gets captured by amazons, who look even better in mini-skirts than he does, though their cockatoo headdresses remain a mystery.

This isn't one of the more dynamic of its sub-genre. It mostly exists as an excuse to show off the physical attributes of Hunkules and Ms. Mansfield. So, don't expect a scintillating story line...