Hercules in New York

Arnold's campy disasterpiece

My first blog was about movies. I started watching terrible ‘80s movies, then got more serious and my long-form reviews were often featured on the front page of the Internet Movie Database. This is from my attempt to watch ALL of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s movies, which I failed because his output after Eraser went down the crapper, and it stopped being fun. But this one, his first, was a blast. It’s not exactly good, but it was entertaining as hell then and I hope it is for you, now. It has been rewritten almost entirely….

I’ve seen most of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s movies. I’ve been a big fan ever since seeing Conan the Barbarian on HBO, and every morning I read his newsletter, the Pump Club, which is very positive and helpful. Arnold is also an enormous goofball, as evidenced in Pumping Iron or when he is filling potholes dressed as The Terminator. Or on his podcast, when he’s trying very hard to be serious when talking about whether sex is a workout or not:

His very first film credit was in Hercules in New York, a very low-budget movie from 1970. He was credited as Arnold Strong, in case his surname scared people off, which seems odd since this was a beefcake flick meant to appeal to gay men, many who surely knew him from bodybuilding mags.

The movie begins with amusing narration as the camera pans over some mountains, then zooms in to bring us to Mount Olympus:

Far in the dim past, when myth and history merged into mystery, and the gods of fable and the primitive beliefs of man dwelt on ancient mount Olympus in antique Greece, a legendary hero walked godlike upon the Earth, sometimes…

The set is a public park; you can hear cars going by in the original audio track, which I highly recommend. Arnold’s accent was so thick that he was dubbed for the theatrical release, and while the dubbed track is amusing—a generic voice coming out of Arnold’s mouth—the movie is much more entertaining with the original dialogue. Arnold was a young man who came to make his fortune in America and you can catch glimpses of the future in his eyes.

“Chariot Driver: Zumday a real rain is going to come and clean up zis place.”

The movie is pretty cheesy, but that didn’t stop me and my friend Johnny from watching it in its entirety. Take one of those Italian Hercules movies starring Steeve Reeve—one of Arnie’s heroes—and mix it with Midnight Cowboy, and you have Hercules in New York. There are moments of unintentional hilarity and copious cheesiness, and there is a lot of campy fun and banter between “Herc” and “Pretzie,” his sidekick, played by one of my favorite character actors, one you’ll recognize from It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World and Saturday Morning Cartoons from the ‘70s.

Hercules is bored on Olympus and wants to go to Earth and “browse around a bit.” Zeus wants none of it. He gets sick of Herc’s insolence and hurls a lightning bolt—made lovingly out of silver-painted rebar by some prop designer—which sends his son tumbling to Earth to teach him a lesson.

Unidentified Flying Olympian

Two little old ladies see the demigod fall past their Pan Am jetliner and are overcome with the vapors over so much beefcake tucked in a toga. Herc gets picked up by a ship full of sailors, and ends up getting in a shirtless wrestling match with the first mate because he refuses to take orders. I think the reason Arnie disowns this movie is not because it’s bad, but because it’s a campy beefcake movie. Sylvester Stallone did porn to get his start (not that there’s anything wrong with that) and I think Arnie is just disappointed that his only Hercules movie isn’t a Steve Reeve sword-and-sandal homage, when his rival Lou Ferrigno made many of those.

Pretzie is extra salty.

When Herc jumps ship, he’s rescued by Catfish from Jabberjaw. Arnold Stang, who also voiced the cartoon Top Cat, plays “Pretzie,” a bespectacled New York nebbish peddling—you guessed it—pretzels, by the shipyard. They hop in a cab uptown, but not before Hercules grabs a forklift and tries to ride it.

“A fine chariot, but where are the horses?”

As the camp increases to a fever pitch, it became clear that Arnie’s first movie was not really a Hercules movie like the Italian ones, or meant to capitalize on his status as Mr. Universe, but was crafted on the cheap to make a quick buck in gay theaters. My uncle, who managed gay bars such as The International, told me Midnight Cowboy was so popular that they showed stolen prints in the back room for years. Pretzie sounds a lot like Ratzo Rizzo, and I was surprised to learn that Dustin Hoffman’s legendary performance was partly based on Arnold Stang’s stage persona—probably best evidenced in It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World as the gas station attendant with the Coke-bottle glasses. Instead of Jonathan Winters tearing things up, this time he has to deal with Mr. Universe:

And instead of pimping his new pal like Ratso Rizzo, Pretzie gets Herc involved in mob-sponsored wrestling matches. According to IMDb, Arnie got the part because his agent said he had a lot of “stage experience,” meaning posing on stage for bodybuilding competitions, which was mistook for work in theater. I think that’s apocryphal, or as we say, “bullshit.” This was twelve years before Conan, and seven years before Pumping Iron. Arnold’s acting improved exponentially in those years. If you thought his over-acting was funny in Conan the Destroyer, just wait until a skinny little sailor tries to strangle him:

His over-emoting spawned one of my favorite internet gifs of all time:

The plot thickens as Zeus realizes that Herc likes it among the mortals, and won’t come home. He sends Mercury to get him, who gets rebuffed. I have no idea what Hercules likes so much down here; he spends most of his time talking to a girl in a sweater played by Deborah Loomis, who’s biggest credit is three episodes of “Dark Shadows.” She’s the daughter of a professor played by James Karen, most famous for being “The Pathmark Guy” in commercials, and the boss who built houses on a graveyard in my favorite haunted house movie, Poltergeist.

Next, Zeus sends down Nemesis, who slips Herc a mickey that denies him his godlike strength. This makes Herc lose a strongman competition against Monstro, who is played by Tony “Mr. World” Carroll, another bodybuilder.

Pluto even tries to lure him back, though he acts more like Satan in his dapper suit. There are a few goddesses in togas up in Olympus, but the filmmakers know their audience is here for Austrian beef. When mobsters show up to clobber the now-vulnerable Herc, both Atlas, and somehow Samson—on loan from the Bible, I guess—appear to save him.

“Atlas, how ’bout we go for a nosh?”

For me and Johnny, the best part of the movie was the car chase around Central Park, set to frantic Greek zither music. We accompanied them on the conga drum and ipu gourd. With enough beer and random percussion, the movie is quite fun. It’s from another time, when myth and history merged into B movies that you only went to see because the theater had air conditioning.

Now we know how Zeus got Samson- he’s actually a rabbi.

The ending is cute, because Zeus likes what he hears about New York so much that he goes for a look himself. Which sets up a nice visual gag for New Yorkers in the audience!

If you want to watch “the best parts” as chosen by YouTube, you can watch them here:

Arnold’s next screen appearance would include zero speaking parts and a ridiculous mustache, in Robert Altman’s masterpiece, The Long Goodbye. If this type of camp isn’t your thing, I wrote a loving review of Altman’s polarizing adaptation of Chandler’s classic novel for Criminal Element, and I’m glad history has come around to vindicate me. Or maybe it’s just crime fiction nerds who don’t like it? Here’s Arnold’s scene:

And if you like Arnold so much you want to hear some awesome rock songs about him and his movies, I suggest listening to ArnoCorps.

Here they perform one of my favorites, “Junior,” the one where Arnold carries a baby to term:

And with that I leave you… next week, something new!