NekoHomey Purely Joyful Movie!

Supelice Dreadfully Boring

Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Delight Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

MartinHafer 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.

MARIO GAUCI 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!

aesgaard41 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.

Tails-5 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.