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HERCULES VS. THE HYDRA
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| Not Rated
| | Copyright 1960 Contact Organisation
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Reviewed by Andrew Borntreger on 18 December 2007
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Hercules' wife is killed as part of a complicated plot to seize control of Arcadia. Obviously, getting on the bad side of a man who can push continents apart is not smart. The main conspirator, Leko, reports the killing to the king of Arcadia and then assassinates him. When Hercules arrives at the city, he is faced with a problem. The guilt for the murder automatically passes from the king to his daughter, Deianeira (Jayne Mansfield). She must pass a test or be forsaken by the gods (and lynched by the populace). The woman is bound to an altar and Hercules throws big axes at the swooning female target until he either plants one in her skull or severs the ropes! Fortunately, the Greek hero succeeds in freeing the Queen without splitting her wig.
Having axes chucked at you must be an aphrodisiac, because the Queen falls in love with Hercules, but there is one little problem: she is already promised to another man. When Hercules learns of the arranged marriage, he immediately leaves. Leko kills the husband-to-be and blames the missing hero. To prove his innocence, Hercules chases after a conspirator and ventures near the gate to the underworld. Instead of what you might expect him to find, a three-headed dog, Mr. Muscle encounters a three-headed hydra that looks like a giant carnival prop. He defeats the monster, but is grievously wounded. The Amazon Queen, Hippolyta, takes him in and changes her body to look like Deianeira, so that Hercules will become her lover.
Hippolyta has some kind of crazy STD that makes any man who falls in love with her turn into a screaming human-shaped tree (they look more like Gumby, but you get the idea). The big stud barely avoids that fate because a friendly Amazon warns him of the danger. With Deianeira locked in a dungeon and Leko in control of Arcadia, it's up to Hercules and his oiled pectorals to save the day.
There are a lot of good sets and costumes, and I had forgotten how nicely Jayne Mansfield was shaped. Between her body and her demeanor, the woman would have made a good choice to play Deja Thoris in any film adaptation of Burroughs' Barsoom series.
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| Things I Learned From This Show: | |
|  | Real men do not wear flimsy curtains.
| | | The birthplace of rodeo is not Texas, nor even Wyoming; it is Greece.
| | | The Amazonian Empire eventually split; one branch became the International Red Cross, while the rest formed the "Plant a Man Foundation."
| | | Tree hugging can be dangerous.
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| | | 13 mins - This is why nobody in Greece thinks that knock-knock jokes are funny.
| | | 39 mins - What are a pair of female Muslim mimes doing here?
| | | 50 mins - I am not sure why the Amazons keep calling the god Jupiter. Maybe the Amazons were Roman.
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