Star Gazers #1246

Leonid Meteor Shower! The Nemean Lion is going to jizz all over!

Woah, I just unintentionally reminded myself of this picture:

Story of the Leonid Meteor Shower:

At Olympos, Herakles showed His various items to the other Theoi and Hemitheoi, and when Eros saw the skin of the lion, He seized it and put it on.

“Who told you that you could kill it? They belong to My wars, they protect My cities.”

“I had to. To redeem myself.”

“Your redemption laid in removing the people from immediate danger, your kill order was from mortal tongue.”

“How do you suppose I should have down that, then, without killing it? This particular cat was enormous, monsterous; some believe it was born of the Khimaira, some of those who do are even your Thespians. The beast was out of control, it had to be done, and Your pet, the Most Honourable Hera, even put it amongst the stars.”

Taken aback, Hera smiled wryly at Eros and suggested, “Why don’t you give the infant his robe back, now? He’s only been Immortal a very short time; he doesn’t understand the etiquette.”

Eros removed the skin, but before handing it back, slammed the jaw on the head shut, knocking its teeth out, then cast them from the Olympian palace, one at a time. From Earth, the argument translated as a sprinkle of meteors from the centre of the Leo constellation.

“I may be small, Theban half-breed, but don’t dare challenge me. You will not win.”

Notes on Hekate of Boeotian mythos

In Thebes, there was a woman named Galinthias. She was a midwife who delivered Herakles from the womb of Alkmene, her childhood friend. Alkmene’s pregnancy offended Hera, and cursed the young woman’s birth pains to never cease. Galinthias, worried her friend would be driven mad, first appealed to Hekate, who concluded that the curse was placed by another Deathless One, and She could not remove those, but perhaps appealing to the right Deity would earn the sympathies of the one Who could. Deciding No-One higher up than the Moirai, for even the other Theoi were bound to Their tapestry, Galinthias then appealed to the Moirai, Who Themselves were becoming exhaused by the sound of the laborous woman’s screaming, and removed the curse in order to hear Themselves think.

When Hera realised Alkemene had given birth to a son, Herakles, She spoke up that Her own curse had become removed because a silly girl took advantage of the Moirai in Their confusion. The Moirai concluded that Hera was technmically correct (the best kind of correct) and it was decided that Galinthias’ fate was to be transformed into a ferret, a creature that looks most absurd in mating and birth labour. Hekate, though, was sympathetic to Galinthias and the girl’s desires to remove Hera’s curse, and did not fault the girl for failing to discover that it was Hera who cast the curse, and therefore only Hera who could be appealed to lift it. Out of kindness, Hekate made the ferret one of Her sacred workers on Gaia’s face, and in Thebes, the animal was held in esteem as the nurse of Herakles, their native Heros.

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By Hesiod’s account, Ouranos and Gaia begat Koios (the Titan Theos of the North, also “the Inquirer”) and Phoibê (the “Bright”, the Titan Theon of prophecy); Koios and Phoibê begat Perses (the Destroyer) and Asteria, the Titan Theon of the Stars, astrology, and necromancy. It is Perses and Asteria Who are the parents of Hekate.

As per the playwright Aeschylus, Phoibê is regarded as the previous oracular deity of Delphi, later succeeding Her reign and bestowing Delphi as a gift to Apollon, Her grandson via Leto. Phoibê is also associated with the moon. Asteria, after the Titan war, was pursued by Zeus, but She did not want Him, and so first transformed to a quail, then lept into the sea, swam out, and became the island of Delos, where Apollon was born.

It is through Asteria that Hekate inherited the gift of necromancy and oracles from the dead. Some ancients also may have believed that Asteria was also worshipped as a goddess of prophetic dreams.

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Though Hesiod names the mother of Kirke as Perseis (Destroyer) and Her father as Helios; Diodoros Siculus names Kirke’s parentage as that of Hekate and Aeëtes. Some also regard Perseis as an epithet of Hekate, though it seems Hesiod gives Perseis a genealogy distinct from Hekate, and Perseis’ mother is Tethys (“Nurse”) and Okeanos. It’s therefore easy to see Perseis and Hekate as one-in-the-same, as these themes are recurring and may be considered too lofty for an Okeanid. Light bearing. Destroyer. Nurse. Sight.

If one is to syncretise Kirke then as a daughter of Hekate Perseis, this undoubted maintains Hekate’s associations with practising witchcraft rather than merely casting spells and curses Herself for the mortals who supplicate Her.

By Hesiod, Kirke is the mother of Odysseus’ immortal son Latinus, father/ruler of the Tyrsenoi, who have since been identified with the Etruscans, and also Telegonos, Whose story is the subject of the now-lost Telegony, which only exists in summary.

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The Scholia of Pindar seem to identify Hekate and Perseis with the name Khariklo (“Graceful Spinner”) who is identified in these notes as the daughter of Perses and Okeanos — and also a daughter of Apollon. Even without meditating on this, this gives the appearance of further linking Hekate and Apollon.

These notes also revive previous themes, as Khariklo is identified as the wife of the Centaros Kheiron, the mentor of a young Dionysos and also Asklepios.

Why my birthday is amazing and yours is not

22 July is a day of many things — of shoes and ships and ceiling-wax, of cabbages and kings. Here are some amazing facts about my birthday!

*The year I was born (according to HMEPA), 22 July was 7 Hekatombion (Attic calendar) or 7 Ippodromios (Boeotian) — the seventh day of the Lunar month being sacred to Apollon.
*My actual “due date” was ten days previous, on the first day of Hekate’s Deipnon.
^I was born in one of the years that 22 July is in Leo rather than Cancer; both signs have mythology related to Herakles (of note, two of my best friends are Gemini)
*I share a birthday (though a different year) with Rufus Wainright — our forenames both mean “red-haired”, though neither one of us really is (my natural colour is auburn, not ginger).
*Birthday also shared with Oscar de la Renta, Terrance Stamp, Alex Trebek, George Clinton, David Spade.
*If you’re Catholic, this is the feast day of Mary Magdelene; intriguingly, Mary Magdalene is commonly portrayed with red hair.
*This year, is on the 20th day of the Lunar month, also sacred to Apollon.
*By modern tradition, birthstone for July is the ruby, by zodiacal tradition, for Leo it is Onyx.
*Flower for July births is Delphinium Larkspur, the sacred flower of Hyakinthos.

30 Day Paganism Meme: Day 15 ~ Pantheon – Every-One Else

I’m at a loss for words on this one, so I’m going to do a run-down of as many Theoi and Titans as I can think of, and a quick line or two (or possibly three) on how I see Them, my thoughts, etc…:

Zeus: Mythologically, He’s the God who puts his dick in everything. In real life, He’s a multi-faceted Father God who can be The Stern, Mean Judge one minute, and then crack bad Dad Jokes the next.
Hera: She’s a goddess of marriage, of fidelity, and of traditions. I get the impression that She’s more of a monarchist than Zeus.
Athene: Athene is like the Cool Older Sister who goes to political rallies and fights for civil justice. People who aren’t close to Her also seem to think She’s “kinda butch”, but I get the impression that She doesn’t see Herself that way. I tried to forge something with Her, but it was never meant to be that deep, apparently.
Aphrodite: As I said in my Eros post, I see Her bond with Eros as familial in spirit — They share a lot of common ground, but I’ve never seen them as mother-and-child deities. In fact, that one picture I added to yesterday’s post, with Eros comforting an exhausted Aphrodite, I think that says a lot.
Hermes: A god of the in-betweens: Travellers, story-telling, commerce — which is the exchange of money rather than the acquisition of said. A protector of thieves, but specifically those who are so out of necessity, not sloth.
Dionysos: Patron of theatre, wine, and all in life that proves delicious.
Hephaestos: God of smiths, craftsmen, labourers, the blue-collar working classes. A patron of those who overcome obstacles.
Ares: God of war, fighting for self-protection (rather than sport), and machismo.
Poseidon: Rules of the seas, bringer of earthquakes, creator of horses. A protector of many Hellenic cities.
Demeter: Goddess of the corn (grains), harvest, agriculture. She who prepares for the changing of the seasons.
Artemis: Goddess of the hunt, archery (for necessity, rather than sport — which is Apollon’s domain), protector of children (especially young girls) and all wild things. Always struck me as a bit of a wild thing, herself, and the glimpses of Her I’ve had, She struck me as all but feral.
Hestia: Goddess of the hearth and home; “the rock” that holds families together. Her givt to humanity are the domestic arts, especially cooking and baking.
Hades: Lord of the dead and ruler of all places inside and under the face of Gaea. Perhaps not the cuddliest deity, but certainly not the Hollywood “substitute Satan”.
Persephone: Goddess of changes. She turns winter into springtime, She transforms girls into young women.
Asklepios: Son of Apollon the Healer, and patron God of medicine and doctors; according to legend, He was the first.
Pan: God of shitting in the woods. God of wild things, shepherds, mountains, primitive musics. Consort of Kybele.
Herakles: Steve Reeves. Theban heros. By Thespian tradition, He is the father of all fifty grandsons of legendary first king of Thespiae, Thespius, by each of Thespius’ fifty daughters. By the account of Parthenius of Nicaea, He is also the father of the Keltoi via the daughter of “Bretannus” (though this story is apparently one of backward-etymology, considering that Hellenes had referred to the British Isles [including Ireland] as “Βρεττανίαι (Brettaniai)” for about three centuries prior to the appearance of this story). Herakles is a deity of responsibilities, physical greatness (as opposed to mere fitness), and obstacles.
Ganymedes & Hebe: God and Goddess of youth. Cup-bearers of Olympos.
Moirai: The fates. They Who spin the threads of each individual’s life and then weaves it into an immense tapestry of humanity.
Horai: Two sets of goddesses; the eldest keep the seasons, and the youngest keep the hours
Kharites: The three goddesses of Beauty, Merriment, and Festivities.
Hekate: Goddess of magics, witchcraft, ghosts, nighttime, necromancy; and according to Hesiod, “Hekate whom Zeus the son of Kronos honoured above all. He gave her splendid gifts, to have a share of the earth and the unfruitful sea. She received honour also in starry heaven, and is honoured exceedingly by the deathless gods”. Protector from bad omens and harmful spells. Eternally youthful, but mother of
Kirke: Goddess pharmakeia — often translated as “witch” or “sorceress”, but is the root for “pharmacy” and means “user or giver of drugs and medicines”. Wife of Odysseus. Her cult seems to have been rooted in herbal magics and medicines.
Hypnos: God of Sleep, protector of insomniacs. Older brother of
The Oneroi: The givers of dreams and omens. Older, but only very slightly, than
Thanatos: Bringer of death, typically a peaceful death.
Helios, Eos, Selene, The Asterea: Celestial Titans of The Sun, Dawn, The Moon, and the Stars.

I may add to this later, but for now, will close with a quote from my favourite science fiction series:

“Gods by the bushel! Gods by the pound! When every day is a fight for survival, you need all the gods you can get.” — Londo Mollari, Babylon 5

List behind cut:

30 Day Paganism Meme: Day 5 ~ Beliefs – Sacred Sexuality

OK, I’m going to weenine out on this one and make it even less about my own spiritual beliefs and practises than the last one. Long story short, while my practises include a fair amount of less-than-chaste communique I’m less inclined to put this into terms more coherent than, well, this post. Don’t get me wrong, I have little shame about sex, probably even none, but this, for me, is less sex and more akin to a level of prayer, for lack of a better word — it’s very intimate, and not something that is easy to put into coherent language for others.

That said, I can see little ways in which my path has influenced the expression of my sexuality, much less how I think of it. For starters, I pretty much identify as “gay” out of convenience, because as a man who has had an overwhelmingly dominant sexual attraction an experience with men, this placates an audience that desires to compartmentalise human sexuality. The ancient Hellenes had no such terms, and as such, any subculture surrounding those of similar experience to myself was probably far more subtle than it is today. There were terms to describe behaviours, and it was generally accepted that most people would experience sexual relations with both sexes¹ — though, interestingly, it should be noted that it was often the case (as acceptance varied with region) that those who experienced exclusive heterosexuality, or nearly so, were better-accepted than those experienced exclusive homosexuality. While acceptance of near or exclusive homosexuality varied with region, the apparent status quo that can be deduced from surviving texts show a disproportionate acceptance of exclusive heterosexuality. On the other hand, life in the BCE was far harsher than it is now, stillbirths and deaths in childbirth were far more common, as was the probability of death from common ailments that seem trivial today — such as chickenpox or measles. In other words, there was a reason that it was far more commendable to breed than to ostensibly not breed.

My love for Eros, though, has led me to learning about the mating habits of birds, for they are all His, and it’s been observed that even male-male homosexual pairings in many bird species will adopt abandoned nests, or simply steal them, or in lieu of this, adopt a rock of appropriate size, and nurture it. Outside the human world, it’s evident that even same-sex couples are perfectly capable of aiding in the growth of a culture — and indeed, in swans, it’s has been observed that cygnets of either sex that are nurtured by two males have a higher rate of survival than cygnets raised by a male-female pair; it may, in some ways, be beneficial to be oriented toward one’s own gender, for both one’s own soul and for one’s community.

I also believe that men and women have inherently different energies, as do those who are IS or socially androgynous, gender queer, or “gender-free”. I also believe that “butch” and “fem” are a spectrum that the majority of men and women fall at varying points on, and that this produces another difference in energy, maybe even the stronger difference than the gender itself. This probably has an effect on how we relate to the Theoi, and this may differ among deities — I don’t get the impression that Eros is too picky about gender, but I do get the feeling that Artemis especially is, like to the point that certain expressions offend Her. Now, I do also believe that formalised ritual weddings between two people should vary based on sex and gender, so obviously there are even some queer Hellenes who may be at odds with me on the topic of same-sex marriage and Hellenismos, but I also believe that the ritual should be separate from a civic marriage — which is what ancient marriage really was, a civic formality that may or may not have been followed with a ritual ceremony. The civic definition of marriage has changed enough, even in modern Hellas, so that procreation between the two joined parties is no longer then goal of marriage, as it was in ancient agreements, after all, infertile and elderly couples can legally marry, so this, by logic, should be extended to people who are of the same sex. Whether or not a homosexual union should have the same terminology as a heterosexual one, on the other hand, is something that I’ve always personally felt should only be kept or altered to reflect the couple getting married, even if the couple is man-and-woman. After all, if this is a union where they know one or both of them has a condition leading to infertility and plan to adopt, well, you can say that the language about “legitimate offspring” is therefore symbolic — and so logically, it can be extended that a pair of women uniting with the same intent to adopt should be free to use the same symbolic language, after all, legally, that child would be legitimately theirs. On the other hand, if a het couple has decided before marriage that they have no intentions to make babies or adopt, be they fertile or not, then why should their ritual be obligated to use that language?

Ancient marriages were hardly one-size-fits-all, either; there were marriages for political alignment (at least one of Alexander’s brides was such an arrangement), marriage for status, and among slaves and the lowest free classes, marriage out of affection was far more common because daughters were to poor for dowries and sons had nothing to lose (and after all, the girls they could gain from were likely betrothed long before they came to a marrying age). At the tomb or cult centre of Herakes’ beloved, Iolaus, it is also reported by Plutarch that male-male couples would pledge themselves to each-other, so obviously even the concept of a ritual same-sex union is an ancient one.

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Footnotes:
1: Yes, by the standards of many Teansgender and Intersex groups, there is either no such thing as biological/reproductive sex, or there are far more than two, but firstly, I am speaking of ancient Hellas, where this was definitely the line of thinking, even if those such a the Gallae offer evidence that there were certainly more than two accepted genders

List behind cut:

HERCULES UNCHAINED (1959) vs MST3K “Hercules Unchained”

For those of you who haven’t yet read the first chapter in this Sword & Sandal / Peplum and MST3K double series, I refer you to the first part, which is especially important if you’re still unfamiliar with the power and glory of Mystery Science Theatre 3000.

For everybody else, feel free to read on….

As has been noted in the annals of film criticism, the sequel is rarely as good as the original. This is no exception.

In fact, where the first Hercules film starring Steve Reeves took liberties with the mythology, Hercules Unchained (original title, Ercole e la regina di Lidia, “Hercules & the Queen of Lydia”) gang-rapes the mythology its based on.

The film is very loosely based on the legends of Herakles and Omphale (a noble woman of the island of Lydia; possibly a local Earth-mother deity whom the Hellenes, oddly, did not recognise, not even in syncretism), but what the opening credits did not tell us was that this also combines elements from The Seven Against Thebes and Oedipus at Colonus. The end result is something that plays out like an episode of, say, The Sarah Silverman Program, where you have these two totally unrelated plotlines, save for a single character that manages to connect the two in the vaguest way possible, and when it’s over, you’re somehow curious if it was really just as weird as you think you remember it. Except it’s about four times as long as Sarah Silverman, and no-where near as funny.

On the good side, it has Steve Reeves as Hercules, so if you can turn down your brain for an hour-and-a-half, you can get through it like I did, even though you’re still going to be aware that this isn’t even half as good as the first one. Reeves as Hercules may be perfect, but that’s hardly enough to carry an entire film, cos Reeves may look the part, but his acting abilities are still kind of lacking. — though to his credit, he gives one of the least painful performances in this one.

The film opens with a body being taken in on a stretcher into this… palace of some sort, and then the scene shifts to a boy and (who we later learn is) Omphale. There’s a large Buddha head in her room, which I thought was odd, if only on historical grounds — after all, this is presumably set long before Alexander opened up trade with India, and further presumably, before the founding of Buddhism (which, as per Wikipedia, was around 600BCE, or just after Homer and Hesiod); but hey, this was one of four peplum films starring Steve Reeves released that year, so obviously they didn’t have the time or money for some pretty basic sense of accuracy in the sets — they just had to establish that this palace is East of Hellas, and what better way to do that than… I dunno? Stick Buddhas all over? It’s bad when we’re not five minutes into this and i can already tell it’s going to be ridiculous.

So, the boy tells Omphale that her soldiers have come back, she goes over to the body they’ve brought in, and then her guards or soldiers… kill the boy.

Yeah, that makes sense.

This is going to hurt.

Now we get the credits! Yay! The credits fade in over Hercules and a bunch of other guys from the first film on a ship… headed somewhere… Then the next scene opens with Hercules and Iole loading up a caravan with a pair of horses hitched to it, and the narrator tells us:

This is the land of Attika, part of ancient Greece. What adventures await Hercules in this, his native land? …

Ow.

OW!

OK, mythology aside, this is a sequel to the last film, yes? It was established in the first film that Hercules is Theban, which is in Boeotia — not Attika. Therefore, this is not his native land. Unless they just figured those watching the English dubbing would neither know nor care about the geography. Still, even with my brain turned down a bit, this hurts. I somehow felt compelled to replay that line three times just to make sure I heard it right, and it stung harder each time. I think this officially makes me suicidal in some states.

Many months ago, he set out alone, now he returns with Iole, his bride. Accompanying Hercules and Iole to the city of Thebes would be the young Ulysses, son of Laertes. Now they must bid farewell to their comrades, who have shared their dangerous adventures for the last two years.

I generally don’t mind this narrated intro, bringing the audience up to speed, on the chance that there are people in the audience who didn’t catch the first one. Sometimes I wish more sequels did something similar.

So then we see Laertes give Hercules some carrier pigeons and tell Hercules and Iole to take care of Ulysses, and before they’re sent off, they give Iole a gift lyre from Orpheus — guess which gift is going to be a plot point later?

The three shuffle off, Ulysses driving, so Hercules decides to nap in the back of the caravan and Iole sings “Evening Star” by Mansetti and Parish, which is lyrically irrelevant, so it plays out as kind of gratuitous padding. After Iole’s song finishes, they encounter Antaeus. While I can’t deny that Antaeus is expertly cast by 6’6″ Italian heavyweight boxing champion Primo Carnera (in his last film role, and looking damned amazing for being fifty-three), I’m here wondering why, on a trip that’s theoretically heading somewhat NNW-ish (from somewhere in Attika to Thebes), did these three take a Southwest-ish detour to Libya for Hercules to take on the labour of Antaeus? More importantly, …

No, wait, this is going to end up longer than the last review if I nit-pick the small stuff like this. Long story short, the fight scene between Hercules and Antaeus is pretty cool, at least it is if you like watching old wrestling matches. Yeah, Athene’s role in Hercules’ besting of Antaeus is replaced with Ulysses suggesting it, but then She is his patroness, so it makes some sense, if you’re feeling generous enough to give the writers that much credit. And the guy doing the English overdub for Carnera has this pompous spark to his voice acting that makes the character about as enjoyable to watch as Steve Reeves as Hercules, but only for that one scene, which is maybe five minutes long and ends less than fifteen minutes into the film.

(As an aside: My flat-mate suggested that Antaeus actually encountered them en route to Thebes, sans tripping through space, because Antaeus is on vacation and, being a son of Gaea, all valleys are thus “his” valleys, and for fun, being a giant, he likes to engage in random thuggery. This really doesn’t help things make any more sense, but he promised I could have the last Ghiradelli muffin if I mentioned this.)

Then it starts to rain and Hercules, Iole, and Ulysses fall back through that wormhole to get back on the road to Thebes, and no sooner do their molecules settle back into place, but they get cut off by Argive soldiers. Despite the fact that they’re all wearing the same armour (oh yeah, the costumes in this one aren’t nearly as good as they were in the first one), Hercules can tell that their captain is Theban — I guess when you’re Theban, you can smell your countrymen. Then it starts to rain, so the three decide to pull over and, despite having a perfectly good caravan to take shelter in, they dismount and head for a cave — cos if they took refuge in their caravan, they wouldn’t have met Oedipus and Polynices, who were hanging out in there.

Apparently, Oedipus and Polynices are hanging out in the cave cos Polynices’ brother, Eteocles, won’t give up the throne, like he promised. Now Hercules has walked in on the Seven Against Thebes plot, and it kind of hurts, cos apparently Herc is one of those guys who thinks he can solve everybody’s problems with the power of his own awesome. Granted, Hercules loves his city, hates seeing this turmoil, and so has a personal interest in this, but really, we all saw this coming from a mile away. Then the soldiers enter, and Polynices declares war on Thebes if his brother doesn’t surrender the throne; Polynices and the soldiers leave, and then we get a cut of the sky and a voice-over that says:

The time has come, Oedipus. The gates are opening for you.

…and then Oedipus walks down into a pit.

O_O

I really don’t know what else to say to that. I really don’t.

Then Hercules goes storming the palace and we see Eteocles (and every time I see this actor, I’m reminded of Eddie Izzard), who is playing with his pit of tigers. I don’t know why, but this bothers me — but no, I promised, I’m going to stop nit-picking details.

So, yeah, Eteocles gives Hercules and Ulysses a scroll to give to Polynices, presumably to negotiate a truce, but the two comment on how Eteocles has gone mad as they leave to meet Polynices again. As the two stop to eat, Herc drinks from the fountain of forgetfulness and then hallucinates Iole’s song; he pushes over a boulder, and then faints. Ulysses realises that they’re surrounded by soldiers unknown to them, so he pretends to be a deaf-mute, and the soldiers assume him a slave. Now we see Hercules carried off on a stretcher to the same palace as the first scene and a boy fetches Omphale, and the next action is Hercules waking in a room with a wall open to the palace garden. Herc wakes to find he has no memory, and Omphale tells him that he is the king of this land; enter gratuitous dancing girls and Hercules proclaiming that he likes being King — but wait, says Herc, I don’t even know my name? Omphale replies “to me, your name is Love!”

Ow.

For those unfamiliar with the Herakles and Omphale mythos, Herakles was remanded by decree of an oracle to be enslaved to Omphale’s service for one year for the Iphitus’ manslaughter; in fact, a common variation of this legend is that Herakles was also ordered to wear women’s clothing while Omphale wore the skin of the Nemean lion, making it clear to ancient Hellenes that this was no picnic, so yeah, this was hardly a holiday for Hercules with the only drawback being temporary amnesia. This deviation hurts me somehow.

Next we see Iole wondering where Herc is, and an old guy whose name I didn’t write down in my notes assures her that Hercules is fine, they’ve only been gone for three days.

Next, we see Ulysses in his cell, sending out a pigeon — because for some reason, these weren’t sent with Hercules… You know, I’m not going to ask this shit to make sense any-more, it just gives me tiny headaches. Then Ulysses is fetched to give Hercules his morning massage, and servant girls bring in breakfast. Ulysses notices the water they’re pouring for him, and after they leave, he dumps it over and refills the cup from the fountain in the garden. As Hercules drinks the refilled water, Ulysses tries to remind Hercules who he is, but since this isn’t going very far, we cut to the pigeon returning to Ithaca, where Penelope recognises it and the message gets to Ulysses’ father. We then learn that Iole has tried to run away to find Hercules, and Eteocles declares war, cos I guess that’s what you gotta do when you look like an Executive Transvestite.

Then presumably a few days back at Lydia have passed, cos Ulysses is getting new water for Hercules again, and Ulysses tries to explain the statues to Herc. What statues?

Well, you see, Omphale has these Egyptians working for her, who dip strong men into milk and dry ice for her, and when they come out, they are perfectly preserved “statues”. Why she’s doing this is anybody’s guess, as is when Egyptian mummification got that ridiculously simplistic. I really want to know when Omphale became a Batman villain, cos this is about as ridiculous as some of Mr. Freeze’s schemes.

So then Hercules suddenly remembers… something, but apparently not who he is, cos in the next scene, there’s a rescue party from Ithaca in the main room, and as Hercules stumbles in, people recognise him, but he has no idea what they’re talking about, so the men are kind of snarky about it, only for everything to suddenly come together for him a few hours later. They all escape and Omphale throws herself off a cliff all Sappho-like, and into a vat of milk and dry ice, but not before we see some really scary close-up shots of how much mascara they put on this actress.

Now it’s time to stop the war on Thebes — cos that’s what you do when you’re Hercules. Eteocles plans to execute Hercules’ family, and manages to throw everybody off the city wall except Iole, whom he decides is to be saved for the tiger, cos everything up to this point made too much sense, I guess. As the men return from Lydia, Hercules gets trapped n the tiger pit, and he defeats the tiger, as if we didn’t expect it. Then there’s a duel between Oedipus’ sons and they both die. Just when you think it’s going to wrap up, it seems a soldier has captured Iole, and he threatens Hercules with keeping her, and then there’s a big battle scene, which is kind of disappointing.

Then there are funerary rites for the brothers, and I like that the actor playing the priest is using proper prayer stance (but mostly I’m surprised by it, at this point), and the film ends with Iole saying “The Gods will be kind if we just love one another.”

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The MST3K cut was the first Hercules film that aired on Mystery Science Theatre. I’d seen this about a dozen times or more long before watching the uncut version for review, and it’s available commercially as part of MST3K Box #7. Honestly, maybe it’s the running commentary throughout the film, or the way that it’s been cut (unlike 1958’s Hercules, the scenes MST3K cut from Hercules Unchained don’t really add anything, however minor, to the film), but it just never struck me how goofy this film was until watching it uncut.

The MST3K cut opens with host sketches; its the annual wash-n-wax day for the Bots (see Hercules review, or at least check Wikipedia), and Joel and Dr. Forrester are doing their invention exchange (a remnant of the days when Joel Hodgeson was a half-bit prop comic). I didn’t mention the invention exchange in the previous review because 1) it’s a feature that ended after Joel left the show, and 2) it rarely has any relevance to the film, it’s just something silly that’s somehow one of the few venues for prop comedy to actually work. This one is only peripherally relevant to the film: As Dr. Forrester and TV’s Frank (yes, that’s the character’s full name) show off their Swatch Roaches (a goof on the sometimes absurdly colourful Swatch™ watches that were popular from approximately 1986-1992), handyman Steve “Hercules” Reeves (played by head writer Mike Nelson) finds one of their would-be escaped roaches; Joel’s invention is The Steve-O-Metre (no relation to Steve Reeves) because “There is the Known, the Unknown, and What Steve (Allen) Knows”, and this machine is calibrated to detect things comedian/writer/actor/game designer/songwriter/etc… Steve Allen has thought of. As Forrester and Frank fight over their roaches, Steve Reeves is encouraged to introduce his second film, Hercules Unchained.

The first pre-credits scene has been cut because, really, I can’t think of anything that added to the film besides initial confusion, since it takes another good half-hour for the film to come back to Omphale. The majority of the jokes from the first segment revolved around Reeves’ pecs, the idea that all body-builders are on steroids, Iole’s song, and pointing out the sometimes stupid dialogue and shoddy costuming (Antaeus seriously looks like he’s wearing a bathroom rug, but otherwise the actor/boxer looks perfect in this role). When Hercules, Iole, and Ulysses encounter Oedipus and Polynices in the cave, Joel and tom’s comments goof on the idea that the trio have inadvertently walked in on another film set, which it really kind of felt like watching it uncut.

Now to Eden... Yeh, brothers..!

I'm the Hellenistic ideal!

The second sketch features Gypsy’s “Greek Song” with set and costumes. Seriously, that song deserved it; lyrically irrelevant, stylistically very 1950s, it was just completely gratuitous excuse for a musical number.

The MST3K cut also left out the big almost too-long introduction of Eteokles and his tiger pit, because we already knew where Hercules was headed, so simply cutting to Hercules getting the scroll from Eteokles is fine. And really, while it wouldn’t have hurt me to see Hercules storming the palace a second time, I’m not sure how much more of Eddie Izzard as Caligula as Eteokles I could take.

The third sketch goofs on The Fountain of Forgetfulness by introducing us to:

• The Carob Shake of Pretentiousness
• The Blizzard of Lonliness
• The Fruit Stripe Gum of Stability
• and The Green Bean Casserole of Happiness

…I’m not sure how funny two of those four would be if you’re not from the American Midwest.

After the third sketch (and for the first time, oddly) it hits me that the relatively capable and somewhat independent, if infatuated Iole of the first film has been replaced by a damsel-in-distress sort of pod person who wants nothing more than to escape Thebes to go find Hercules. Where the Iole of the first film probably would have eventually found him, this pod person repeatedly gets captured by Eteokles’ guards, who return her to him as his hostage — for some reason it suddenly hits me has never been made exactly clear.

The fourth sketch sheds some light on the fact that the Bots have a sort of parent-child type relationship with Joel (after all, he did create them), as they repeatedly ask Joel what Hercules and Omphale do alone when they’re “snuggling and kissing and the scene fades out”. While MST3K may have aired on cable, it aired during prime time and was largely marketed as a family show, so that’s pretty much the real reason Joel doesn’t just come out and tell the Bots (and the audience) that Hercules and Omphale are probably “making the squishy” (as one of my best friends once put it), but in the end, it seems kind of silly that a film with gratuitous titillation in the form of dancing girls would stop so short of implying sex; after all, this was only a couple of years before The Children’s Hour, starring Audrey Hepburn, implied same-sex love all over the place, and we barely see Omphale’s bare back — and this was filmed in Italy which, despite its rampant Catholicism, had a much more relaxed film code than the American industry.

The last segment of the film leaves in all the really relevant parts of the uncut version and the episode ends with Joel and the bots discussing the socio-philosophical “needs” this film, and others in the peplum sub-genre of action films filled in the late 1950s — or, more accurately, Joel, Crow and Gypsy are discussing this, while Tom Servo is quick to point out that they were simply cheap imports brought in to North America in hopes to turn a quick profit.

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So, is this as bad as its inclusion on Mystery Science Theatre 3000 would imply?

Yes.

To its credit, again, Reeves as Hercules and Primo Carnera as Antaeus, but when compared to the first Hercules vehicle for Steve Reeves, it has incompetance written all over it. The costumes aren’t half as good as they were in the first film, the writing is a complete mess, and the changes to the mythology involved are easily comparable to watching an hour-and-a-half of the love-starved Amazon Sirens from the first film. It’s really obvious that this was made in half the time as the first one, and that the majority of the budget was probably Steve Reeves’ guarantee.

I pretty much only recommend seeing this in its MST3K cut, but if you have a perverse love of train-wreck films, you can probably find a cheap copy of the uncut version at Big Lots or Dollar General, as its lapsed into the public domain and really isn’t worth more than a couple bucks; if you’re on Cinemageddon (my favourite torrent site), seeds come up periodically, as well. I found this on a DVD at Big Lots for $3, and also on the DVD was the first Hercules film, so it was like paying $3 for the first one and getting this stink-burger for free. The MST3K cut manages to buffer some of the absurdity with the running commentary, and it gives you breaks with the sketches, which I gladly welcomed by the time they came.

HERCULES (1958) vs. MST3K “Hercules”

As both a sucker for old sword-n-sandal action, and (as loathe as I am to admit, especially with my English grandparents probably watching from the Underworld) somewhat of a product of the American Midwest, I realised that I had to produce a review series involving Mystery Science Theatre 3000, and even the latest project from Mike Nelson (head writer for MST3K for nearly every season), Kevin Murphy (the voice of Tom Servo), and Bill Corbett (Observer/Brain Guy and the voice of Crow during the Sci-Fi Channel series), RiffTrax. When I can obtain an “unriffed” version of the film (whether by rental or from the bin of $3 DVDs at my local Big Lots — or even, if I simply can’t find it any other way, from a film torrent site), I will compare them, if only to see if the title in question really is as bad as Joel Hodgeson (creator), Mike, Trace Beaulieu (Dr Forrester and the voice of Crow in the Comedy Central series), Kevin, and Bill’s wise-cracking commentary may lead one to believe; and, because I’m what’s known as a hardcore “MiSTie”, I will make it very clear if I’m reviewing a Mystery Science Theatre episode that has not yet had a commercial release (despite the show’s huge cult following, episodes have been slow to release due to rights issues and negotiations with the copyright holders of the original film; on the other hand, the people behind MST3K themselves have always encouraged tape/DVDR-trading among fans, and will knowingly turn a blind eye to fans selling DVD-R copies on sites like iOffer, as long as the price is not for an apparent profit; on rare occasion, you can also find unreleased episodes on YouTube).

The first film I’m going to add to this series of both sword & sandal flicks and of MST3K/RiffTrax treatments is 1958’s The Labours of Hercules, the International English title. I know it was originally shot in Italian, which I have never seen, and which I imagine can’t be much better, as the film’s star, Steve Reeves, was an American of largely Scottish descent (so I can’t imagine him having the firmest grasp of any Latinate dialect), a bodybuilder who once held the Mr. Universe title, and I find it telling that his IMDb biographies would rather mention his fifty-two inch pecs before his acting abilities. I have never seen this film in its uncut-for-MST version prior to this review, and MST-featured films in their original state tend toward boring me to sleep, so I go in with a prayer to Hypnos and to Herakles himself, because if this film did nothing else right, it can at least say that Steve Reeves looked the part in every way, so it already has something on every other Herakles film.

When you think of Herakles of Thebes, you don’t (or at least I don’t) think of Disney’s toothy animated pretty-boy-on-steroids. While I liked that Hercules: The Legendary Journeys had Kevin Sorbo, well, not try to look like Reeves, I don’t think of Sorbo’s Hercules as “really Herakles”; well-built and believable for the material and Sorbo’s abilities? Sure, I’ll even argue that Sorbo is debatably a better actor than Reeves, but he’s not really close to what I think of when I think Herakles. Steve Reeves, on the other hand, looks plucked from an ancient vase painting, a veritable animated statue of the God Himself that no other depiction of Herakles before or since could quite chisel out right. Have there been Heraklean actors of adequate appearance and presence? Sure, but even a pretty good Herakles seems a bit dime-a-dozen; Reeves, on the other hand, looked perfect in this role and all who disagree will be asked if they use that mushy grey stuff between their ears for something more than keeping their skulls from caving in.

I also admit that I have the scantest familiarity with the poem this is based on, The Argonautica by Apollonius of Rhodes, as it’s been years since I’ve read it, and hard copies are easier on my eyes than eBooks on my desktop monitor (I won’t turn down a Nook from an aspiring sugar daddy, though), so I will abstain from commenting on its apparent “faithfulness”, except where things seem especially bizarre for Hellenic mythos.

As I sit down with my big bowl of cheese-dust coated popcorn, a cat hoovering behind me on the back of the couch and expecting a tribute of cheese popcorn, I’m forgiving the dust and scratches left over from a well-used archive print of the film, and I’m forgiving the harsh, often grainy colour idiosyncratic of cheap digital “restorations”, and I’m liking the wider aspect ratio of this film better than the familiar MST3K cut, which was presented in a cheap pan-and-scan edit for television — but widescreen presentation does not a good film make, so I regain composure, because all this indicates is that they didn’t have the budget for Cinemascope. Still, a poor restoration is evidence of nothing more than a low budget for the DVD.

After the opening credits typical of the period, we get a scrolling prologue that reads:

Immense and immortal was the strength of Hercules,
like the world and the Gods to whom He belonged…
Yet from lesser men he learned one eternal truth —
that even the greatest strength carries with it
a measure of mortal weakness…

Despite some stylistic quibble characteristic of the genre — “ruins” during a story that pre-dates Hesiod, women’s hair and make-up styles anachronistic to the late 1950s, mostly — the film has good framing throughout, and even the costuming is probably the closest to “accurate” for ancient Hellas that I’ve seen in these late 1950s/early 1960s sword-and-sandal epics. The costuming on this film is rich with colour, and even some fabric painting and embroidery (though not much), the sandals and armours are well-detailed, for the budget this was filmed on, and the sets for the palace of Iolcus make up for what they lack by skilled framing to distract from this relatively minor flaw.

Iole, the daughter of Pelias, is pretty strong and capable for an ancient Hellenic woman of her approximate age and class (though the actess is considerably older than the typical marrying age of ancient women, this is forgiven due to modern sensibilities), and in her first scene, is shown attempting to repair her own chariot, and quickly it’s revealed that Hercules can’t fix it, either. Score a point for people who care about that sort of thing in their films.

As Iole gives Hercules some background about the theft of the Golden Fleece, I’m immediately struck by a scene that MST3K left out, most likely due to time and its minor relevance, at best, to the plot — this is a scene where Iole and her brother are very young and sneak off with Jason to see and touch the Golden Fleece. I understand why MST3K left it out, but I think, due largely to Iole’s narration, it adds to some of the background and majesty of the fleece, despite it being a visually unimpressive scene. The flashback ends with Iole describing the sight of the slain king, and the shock at the missing fleece, and for 1958, there is a LOT of blood in this scene.

Just moments prior to Iole and Hercules’ return to Iolcus, we get a scene with King Pelias receiving a prophecy from an oracle woman directly. I could quibble about this, after all, the visions of oracles were often cryptic, and often relayed through priests trained in deciphering what they spoke of, but if I recall correctly, recent studies suggest that this may not have been a constant figure, and some oracles may have spoken directly. On the other hand, despite the bad dubbing (which really is steeped throughout this film), the actress does an adequate job of being kinda “spooky” in her portrayal of this oracle; she stands inhumanly erect, when compared to other characters on the screen, and has this intense and feline quality to her face, a face framed in a thick lock of long dark hair (as the rest is wrapped in a scarf behind her head), large eyes, chiselled-looking features. Her costuming is also apparently chosen to stand out amongst all other characters she shares a frame with, which probably aids in giving her an other-worldly quality. Pelias, in this scene, is portrayed as very pious, scolding his son for insulting the oracle for being “not even pretty”, and explaining to him that the oracles are “the Gods’ mouthpieces”. She warns Pelias of a stranger who will greet him wearing a single sandal the second before Hercules walks in — and quickly, the camera pans in just enough to reveal that Hercules…

…is indeed wearing both sandals.

The next major scene, if I didn’t know better, I would swear is one of the most splendid yet transparent excuses for beefcake in a film; it’s hard to avoid beefcake in a Herakles film, it really is, and it’s not like this one goes to lengths to avoid seeming gratuitous, when compared to scenes in, say, Troy that seem almost over-dressed. There’s a reason “old Steve Reeves movies” were mentioned so lustfully by Dr Frank, through the song “In Just Seven Days (I Will Make You a Man)” in Rocky Horror (Picture) Show, and maybe it’s cos I’m inclined toward my own gender, myself, but when a scene opens with a bunch of oiled men in perizoma leaping, sprinting, and almost frolicking into the frame, it’s really hard not to see how this could be a hit with gay men.

When Ulysses introduces himself to Hercules, he says:

My father said you put strength ahead of everything, but I know you want us to use our forces only to serve our intelligence.

Forgive me for failing to remember if this is something actually taken from Argonautica, but regardless, I think it’s possibly the most important lesson of Heraklean mythos — after all, what good is physical power when you lack the intelligence to use it best? Big, stupid strongmen are a dime-a-dozen, and often make a nuisance of themselves, or worse.

Hercules quickly bests Iphitus in both archery and discus, which manages to spook everyone there but Iole, who scoffs at the other men being intimidated. Soon afterward, Hercules kills a lion which had already delivered fatal wounds to Iphitus. I admit that I’m a bit uncomfortable with these animal effects, but considering the time, I’m not sure if there was much in the way of choices here without it looking too cheesy — which they already sometimes are. There are moments when you have to suspend disbelief that Reeves is wrestling a skin from a Victorian trophy room, and there are moments where you can tell the lion and bull that just got beaned are high on tranquillizers, and it’s impossible to tell if Reeves is holding back much, if at all. The animal effects have no middle ground, and while I really want to forgive this cos of the limited technology available, watching Hercules battle the lion and the Cretan bull in this film make me rather uncomfortable, and this is as somebody who gladly had a burger for lunch.

Speaking of the Cretan bull, MST3K omitted that, as well, again, probably for time and its reduced relevance to the story of the film.

How is this importance reduced? Well, one of the major changes I can definitely say is apparent in this film was how the screenwriters expanded the role of Herakles in the return of the golden fleece; in traditional Heraklean mythos (and, according to Wikipedia, the Argonautica, specifically, as well), Herakles’ role in this quest is minimal, and he leaves the others pretty early on after Hylas becomes lost. Hylas is absent from this film, at least in name; the first image from the first scene is of a youth with goats playing a pan flute, and this may be there to imply that Herakles’ abandons Hylas early on in the film’s story. This is all speculative, as that youth is unnamed, and only appears in that very brief few seconds in the first scene. The de-facto role of Hylas is replaced by the character of Iole, but I don’t mind this so much because she’s pretty well-done.

Soon after the bullfight, i encounter another MST3K-cut scene, that of Herakles and Jason about to cross a river on horseback, but they are stopped by a woman with her daughters, and she asks the men to help them across. As they help the woman and girls cross the river, Jason loses a sandal; when the woman points this out, he laughs about it and says “that’s alright, I can get a better pair in Iolcus.” Hercules then remembers the King’s degree that all men entering Iolcus wearing only one sandal shall be put to death, so after Jason heads out on his own, Hercules follows.

As Jason and Hercules and a band of men set out by ship to retrieve the Golden Fleece and prove Jason’s status as heir, the actor playing Orpheus is singing in Italian (the film’s original language, and the only segments left without an overdub), a lovely tenor, as the rest of the men sing in chorus as they row. Soon after, they hit the storm, and there’s another scene MST3K cut — the details of the statue of Poseidon falling, cracking through the top floor of the ship, and then the storm subsiding as soon as its erected again.

When the men encounter the Amazons (something that doesn’t seem to feature at all in the mythos of the Golden Fleece) in hopes of gathering provisions on an island they assumed deserted, I’m stricken by the fact that the Amazons’ costuming is about as goofy as it is scant. I’m willing to forgive the filmmakers the fact that the Amazons have both breasts (after all, binding both breasts is hard enough, it wouldn’t surprise me if manoeuvring around one to strap down the other is all but impossible, and films have not only budgets, but deadlines), but this costuming looks like a cross between a Roman guard, an art nouveau painting, and a Playboy bunny, it’s hard to believe these women can hold their own in battle, and this is one of those things where I simply can’t suspend disbelief. Contrasting the ridiculously titillating Amazon warriors, we have Queen Antea, who gives a reasonably commanding presence to her role, but this may be helped by the fact that she doesn’t look nearly as ridiculous. Further removing the potency of the Amazons from mythology, there are plenty of gratuitous cheesecake shots of “Amazon” women frolicking through their gardens, feeding the men grapes, and swimming underwater — as beautiful as the underwater scenes are shot (and they seem to be some of the best-preserved scenes in the whole film), I really can’t forgive any of it because Come. The Fuck. On. We’re talking about Amazon warriors here, and this looks like a G-rated cut of Caligula or something. Then there’s the romance between Queen Antea and Jason, which is thankfully very brief, but nonetheless exists despite the queen’s orders from an ageing priestess of the island that the men should be put to death later that evening; Ulysses overhears this and drugs their wine with poppyseed so that when Hercules finally comes ashore to fetch the men, they can all escape. As the men flee the scene, we see Amazons on the shore, doubling as sirens and singing their names, waving at the ship — and you can tell this is still the Amazons, because we see the face of Queen Antea gazing longing into the distance, probably preparing to throw herself off the cliffs, like Sappho, for her One True Hot Todger.

As they leave the island of the Amazon Sirens, Orpheus sings loudly and plays his lyre to drown them out, and Hercules accompanies on drums, which he beats with his club — of note, Reeves manages to snap the club in half during this scene, but keeps beating, anyway.

Now the men have FINALLY gotten to where the Golden Fleece had been hidden years before, and there’s the monster guarding it. Honestly? Gamera looked better than this dragon, which is also pretty obviously a guy in a rubber suit, but again, we have to remember the year this was filmed, the budget it was on, and other potential factors — well-done stop-motion would have probably looked better, but it would have taken longer and probably cost more, depending on the skills of the animation team and puppet builders. A guy in a rubber suit, comparatively, look OK-enough, and is much cheaper, and will get the scene filmed much sooner.

Upon returning with the fleece, Eurysteus betrays the men and steals the fleece to take to King Pelias. Hercules figures this out and threatens to expose this, after signalling to his men to come ashore, only to then have the floor released from under him, dropping him into a dungeon cell. Jason confronts Pelias, who then falsely accuses Jason of being an imposter, and a fight breaks out. As the fight is starting, Iole is informed by one of the young women in the palace (presumably servant girls) that Hercules has, indeed, returned, but that he’s in the dungeon. Iole breaks in and, effectively, sets Hercules free to charge up to the main room where the fight has broken out, and then the fight sequences get really fucking cool-looking. Seriously, when Steve Reeves is swinging heavy chains, it looks absolutely awesome.

Iole runs to her father’s quarters to see that King Pelias has poisoned himself, and as he’s dying, he confesses his wrongs to Iole, and begs forgiveness of the Gods, surrendering the throne to Jason. The film ends with Hercules and Iole sailing off into a mountain-studded sunset, in another perfectly iconic frame.

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For those unfamiliar with Mystery Science Theatre 3000, this was a show that premièred on Comedy Central in the early 1990s after a brief season on Minneapolis-local UHF station KTMA. The premiese of the show was similar to several local “creature feature” series on local stations of the time (like The Ghoul Show out of Detroit, and Svenghouli out of Chicago [which, as of 2005, I knew from personal experience, was still running]) and previous periods (like Vampira in the 1950s and Elvira in the 1980s, both originally out of Los Angeles), but with a twist: Like the other shows, MST3K had host segments that often talked about and sometimes goofed on the film they were playing, this was nothing new; but unlike the other shows, MST3K had running commentary during the film itself, which was something previously unheard of in 1988/89, when it first premièred on KTMA — this commentary was even completely unlike later DVD commentaries in that it was given while silhouettes of the MST3K cast sat in cinema seating at the bottom on the screen. While MST3K presentations partially obscured the film’s visuals, this usually wasn’t significant, and it often provided for visual gags by the MST3K cast.

MST3K’s cast main characters consisted of at least one “mad” (there were often two) operating from Earth, one “test subject” marooned in space, and two robots (puppets voiced and operated by cast members), and the premise of the earlier seasons was that of a mad scientist who has trapped a co-worker (later a company temp) in space and is forcing him to watch bad films from a satellite in Earth’s orbit (to prevent his escape) in the name of science; to keep the test subject company, there are several intelligent “bots” on the satellite (created by Joel’s character), two of whom (Tom Servo and Crow) accompany him to each film, and one of whom (Cambot) serves as an explanation for the tendency of the host segments to “break the fourth wall” and talk to the television audience (a fourth, Gypsy, rarely appears in the theatre, and this is explained by her internal software being necessary to “perform the higher functions of the ship”, though she often features in the host sketches).

This concludes the necessary background for MST3K, and hopefully will make this and future MST3K reviews less confusing to those who are unfamiliar with the show.

The MST3K cut of 1958’s Hercules is not the first Hercules film from this series that they showed, in fact, I believe it was the third, after Hercules Unchained (the second starring Steve Reeves) and Hercules Against the Moon Men (original title Maciste e la regina di Samar, which is literally translated as Hercules & the Queen of Samar; I believe this is the third in the series, and the first Franco-Italian joint production, and the first to star Italian actor, Sergio Ciani [as Alan Steele], presumably because Steve Reeves was commanding too high a salary, as he had become the highest-paid actor in Europe at the time), and this fact of disjointed continuity is noted in the first host segment by Dr. Forrester. Unfortunately, MST3K’s cut of Hercules, despite an apparent lapse into public domain, remains unreleased, commercially, so I had to watch this on a VHS tape, recorded off Comedy Central circa 1993, judging not only from the copyright year at the end of the episode, but also by the advertisements for Last Action Hero during the commercial breaks. (Also of note, though completely irrelevant to the review, this particular VHS is “inherited” from a friend and starts out with an ex-girlfriend’s “video letter” sent to him while away at Michigan State University. It probably says a lot about me that I find how “normal” this girl is practically obscene, her appearance and personality are so plain and uninteresting. I thus advocate averting normality, lest you become perverse with it, as this poor girl has — the irony of this preceding a tape of three episodes of MST3K is not lost on me.)

During the opening credits animation, Joel and the Bots goof on the constellations, and after Herc rescues Iole, Joel points to the scenery in the background and exclaims “hey, there weren’t ruins yet in ancient Greece!” Again, not necessarily something that makes it a bad film, but definitely betrays the film’s budget status as low. This does seem to be some of the most vicious commentary for this episode, but the kind of playful snark that dominates this MST3K treatment is very typical of the “Joel seasons”, though this may have as much to do with the quickly declining quality of the films when Mike took over the “experiment” character as much as it has to do with Joel’s approach to the films.

Further in, after Hercules meets Pelias and the oracle, Pelias is unsure that this is really Hercules and asks for proof, reasonable enough, until he says “I simply can’t trust the eyes of a girl,” Tom Servo quips “Because I’m a pig!” immediately showing disdain for the film’s occasional sexisms. This display of sexism wasn’t lost on me watching the uncut film an hour-and-a-half prior, but in seemed unnoticeable in contrast to Iole’s apparent competence.

Then there’s a sketch where Crow asks Joel about the constellations. See, Crow can’t make any sense out of the constellations, except for Orion, so Tom steps in to say that the reason Crow can’t see the pictures in the constellations that the ancient Greeks saw is because the culture has shifted so far from the ancient Greeks. Tom then suggests new constellations — such as “Ham Sammich”, “New Christy Minstrels“, and Picasso’s Guernica“. Crow has his own suggestion “two dots — look, it’s a Pencil! The eraser’s almost gone!” a suggestion dripping in sarcasm.

When Joel and the Bots return to the theatre, it’s time for the beefcake scene, Tom comments “It’s a Gore Vidal fantasy!” After Iphitus arrives, it’s noted how much the actor looks like Tom Jones. The MST3K cast are also quick to call out the scene where Hercules kills the lion as cruel and how silly the Amazon costumes are.

The episode ends with Tom and Crow discussing how easy they think they’d have it if Amazons took over the satellite, but Joel comes in and explains that the writers of the film falsely made the Amazons titillating — he also described the film as based on “ancient Greek history”, which subtly legitimises the mythology as potentially based on historical events, which is cool. Of course, in the middle of Joel’s explanation, he and the Bots get a call on the hex-monitor from a pair of semi-retired Amazons in a space ship of their own, and looking, acting, and speaking like stereotypical Midwestern housewives, which Joel comments on after they leave.

The other sketches included Crow in a parody of Match Game, playing the host and all six celebrity contestants; Crow and Tom asking Joel about the 1970s pop group Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds. After regular and repeated viewing of episodes of MST3K, I can say that sketches that have little or nothing to do with the actual film are characteristic of episodes that have better films.

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In conclusion, was this as bad as its presence on MST3K could make it seem? Not really. It’s not the best Herakles film ever cast to celluloid, and it takes sometimes ridiculous liberties with the mythos, but to be blunt, most of what it changes is at least in-spirit with the source material. I have no problem with replacing Hylas with Iole because looking through a list of the loves of Herakles, it’s pretty clear that the God is bisexual, and expanding Herakles’ role in the quest for the Golden Fleece really doesn’t majorly alter the original versions of the story all that much — after all, Jason fights the monster on his own, and returns to his rightful throne with, in reality, little assistance from Herakles; Hercules is just… kind of there, doing stuff that he does to help out. While I feel there’s really no excuse for what they did with the Amazons, that’s really the only thing I can complain about; seriously, if they were going to merge this concept with the Sirens, anyway, then why not just expand the role and presence of the Sirens? It may not have been exactly in sync with ancient mythos, but it would have made some sense.

It’s telling that this is one of the episodes of MST3K that has more playful commentary, most of it along the lines of humming “Yakkety Sax” to a fight scene and running commentary about Reeves’ pecs and references to The Incredible Hulk. While the Joel episodes are known for having a more playful nature than later seasons with Mike, episodes with films like Mitchell (which resulted in its star, Joe Don Baker, threatening the MST3K writers) and American Ninja and even every Sanday Frank Productions film they ever tackled show that Joel can be mean, if the film truly deserves it. Seriously, the Godzilla and Gamera films imported to the United States via Sandy Frank Productions were so eviscerated by Joel, with a climax that included “The Sandy Frank Song“, and though these episodes have been preserved by former cast and crew for eventual release, Frank has put a stop to this repeatedly, because these are honestly some of Joel’s meanest moments. And dare I forget that “Manos”: The Hands of Fate was also a Joel episode? Even the “mads” were apologising for that one. While Mike will be mean to a movie even over something that doesn’t need it (he’s too quick to reference Glen of Glenda when an actress is especially tall, for example), don’t let Joel’s typical good-natured ribbing of a film fool you. Hercules is a decent effort, it could have been better, but it’s probably among the best films to earn a feature on Mystery Science Theatre.

If I were to give 1958’s Hercules a letter grade, I’d give it a strong C+ and not a B or B- simply because some scenes can drag on a little more than they should, and the dubbing is bad enough in places that it can be a little distracting, especially if you’re not getting into it, but in general, it’s not that bad. Worth checking out if it’s scheduled for a local network’s Sunday afternoon feature, and worth adding to any respectable beefcake and camp film collection, but I wouldn’t call it necessary viewing for Hellenic polytheists.