The incredible adventures of Hercules

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Movie
German title The incredible adventures of Hercules
Original title Le fatiche di Ercole
Country of production Italy
original language Italian
Publishing year 1958
length 90 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Pietro Francisci
script Pietro Francisci
Ennio de Concini
Gaio Frattini
production Ferruccio de Martino
music Enzo Manzetti
camera Mario Bava
cut Mario Serandrei
occupation
chronology

Successor  →
Hercules and the Queen of the Amazons

The incredible adventures of Hercules (original title: Le fatiche di Ercole ) is a mythological adventure film that was shot in Italy in 1957 . His overwhelming success in Europe and the United States started a wave of antique films and laid the foundation for Italian genre production that lasted until the mid-1980s.

content

The story mixes elements of the legendary stories about Hercules and Jason: After Hercules helpfully saved his daughter Iole from danger, Pelias, King of Iolcus, entrusts him with the education of his son Iphitus; this loses his life in the fight against the Nemean lion. But since Hercules is becoming more and more popular with the people, the scheming Eurysteus ensures that he has to fight the Cretan bull. During this adventure Hercules meets Jason, who is the actual ruler of Iolcus, but who has to procure the Golden Fleece. Jason, the Argonauts and Hercules meet amazons and ape-men in his search, kill the dragon that guards the fleece in Colchis and are cheated out of their wages by Eurysteus. Ultimately, however, Hercules’s sheer unbelievable muscular strength causes temples to collapse, Eurysteus 'death under his sword blows and Pelias' desperation that ends in suicide. Hercules leaves the new ruler Jason with Iole.

criticism

“The basic structure is the same that would make Bud Spencer a success less than fifteen years later : the beating comic. With concentrated biceps power, Hercules rolled down entire hosts, tore arm-thick chains from the wall and brought temples to collapse - the ideal embodiment of pubescent power fantasies. "

- Hahn, Jansen, Stresau: Lexikon des Fantasy-Films, Munich 1986, p. 530ff

"Undemanding entertainment between harmless amazement and grotesquely amusing fun."

- Lexicon of international film .

Remarks

The film's real success came after Joseph E. Levine bought the film , who made it a $ 20 million success in a hitherto unprecedented marketing campaign in the United States alone. The film not only rehabilitated its investor, but also re-established the Italian film industry, which until then had only sporadically produced genre films; until then, Italian entertainment films were essentially limited to comedies and melodramas, which could hardly be seen outside of the country of origin.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The Incredible Adventures of Hercules. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  2. ^ William Goldman: Adventures in the Screen Trade; Grand Central Publishing, 1989

Web links