Hercules in New York (1970)

User Rating:

2.7/10   

Director:

Arthur Allan Seidelman

Writer:

Aubrey Wisberg (written by)

Release Date:

25 February 1970 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Comedy | Family | Fantasy

Tagline:

See Him Topple Two Ton Newspaper Rolls! See Him Toss Tough Men Like Toothpicks!

Plot:

Hercules (Schwarzenegger) is sent to Earth where he finds true love and starts a promising career in the bodybuilder business.

Plot Keywords:

Zeus | Olympus | Hercules | Mount Olympus | New York

Cast

Arnold Schwarzenegger	...	Hercules (as Arnold Strong 'Mr. Universe')
Arnold Stang	...	Pretzie
Deborah Loomis	...	Helen Camden
James Karen	...	Professor Camden
Ernest Graves	...	Zeus
Tanny McDonald	...	Juno
Harold Burstein	...	Rod Nelson (as Howard Burstein)
Merwin Goldsmith	...	Maxie
George Bartenieff	...	Nitro
Taina Elg	...	Nemesis
Michael Lipton	...	Pluto
Jan Adams
William Bass
Rudy Bond	...	Ship Captain
Lane Carroll

Also Known As:

Hercules - The Movie
Hercules Goes Bananas

Runtime:

75 min | USA:91 min (original version) | UK:91 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Finland:K-3 | Australia:PG | Iceland:L | Canada:G (Quebec) | Canada:PG (Manitoba) | UK:PG | USA:G | West Germany:6

Filming Locations:

New York City, New York, USA

Company:

Filmpartners

Trivia:

To help Arnold get the role, his agent said he had years of "stage" experience, implying theater, but Schwarzenegger had only appeared on bodybuilding stages.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: The bear is obviously a man in a suit, and in one shot you can see shoes on the bear.

Quotes:

Mercury: You could do great harm.
Hercules: Ahm To Oom?

Movie Connections:

References Easy Rider (1969)

Remarkable.

This may on one hand actually well be the worst movie I've seen, on regular movie basis that is, because on the other hand it's also the funniest movie I've stumbled across since I saw "Monty Python and the quest for the holy grail".

I've always thought Arnold Schwarzenegger has been wooden in his acting, but none of his other movies even come close to the extreme amount of talent vacuum he possesses in this movie. I had a really hard time understanding whether he was supposed to resemble a retard or a tree, either way he did a fine job, since it all seemed perfectly natural. For him, that is. The character Hercules is anyway the most testosterone-filled man caught on camera. This guy has a constant urge of ripping off his shirt everytime he either has to do something or everytime he's bored. He even has the great ability of killing actors dressed as bears by lifting them up in the air and throwing them around, destroying cabs because he's angry and impressing ladies by ripping off his shirt in front of them. Now that's at least three dimensions! In one character! Kudos to the excellent scriptwriters who managed to write this amazing piece of art during their part-time job at Dairy Queen! Long live the underdog!

Then we have main supporting character Arnold Stang, an actor which has exactly two different looks: one of utter confusion, probably because he's wondering about what the hell he's doing in the movie in the first place and one look of not so utter confusion, which he often uses when Hercules flexes his muscles for him.

Besides these two main actors we have Zeus, played by someone named Ernest Graves, a man who does a great job of looking mad in every scene. Zeus meets a woman and becomes mad. Zeus talks to Hercules and gets... mad! Zeus get to know something about sabotage and he get's, wait, I got it on my tongue. Oh yeah now I know it, mad!

Then we have lots of characters played by actors I have no reason whatsoever of giving away the names of. But as far as characters go, the goddess of beauty is a really pug-ugly woman/dog/gorilla with a stuffed bra and all, Pluto has the incredible ability of turning out all the lights in a plastic version of New York, Atlas and Samson helps Hercules by throwing punches a few meters in front of bad guys, probably to stun them with their utter uselessness or possibly showing off their godly talents that doesn't even require them to hit people to hurt them. The old fool Samson is a part for himself, since he doesn't even seem understand he's from the Bible and has nothing to do with Greek mythology. But then again I have a feeling many people involved in this movie weren't quite sure of what they were doing.

Other intriguing parts here are that some of the scenes are so incredibly badly done and edited you actually can't understand what's happening. The fight in the stairs really had me puzzled about what was going on. After I saw it ten times in repeat I understood that there actually was a hidden door somewhere and that it actually made sense in a surreal "Hercules in New York" kind of way.

Then we have Olympus, not only home of the Gods but also home of the big evil city traffic, you can hear cars driving by and honking every second. This is maybe one of the director's more intriguing ideas, were he want's to show us that time doesn't stand still even in Olympus and that they actually have cars there. Wait a minute that doesn't make any sense. OK maybe it's supposed to be there just because no-one ever even thought about editing the sound and that reality works that way: what you don't alter is most likely to stay the way it is. Yeah, thats more like it.

I have only listed a few of the errors in this movie here, since I won't spend the entire day of writing this review but I think the fact that Arnold Scwarzenegger actually managed to not only have a movie career but also got elected as a senator has to rate as the biggest of the lot. Only in America folks. Only in America.

Be sure to watch this even if it may be on of the worst movies made. If there ever was a movie so bad it's funny, it has to be this one.

1/10