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 Hercules is rescued by Prince Maytha and his warriors from Atahualpa.
Atahualpa is the Inca king that is really just an "evil usurper" and is
trying to sacrifice Princess Yamara to the Sun God. Hercules and Maytha must
save her and defeat the "despotic king". "A special production filled with
action and thrills." 1964, 89 minutes, VHS
I don't know about you, but I like my Hercules to look really beefy and have a
well-groomed beard. I'm not real sold on these budget Hercules that are quite
hairless, only have moderately sized pecs and gaze wistfully at llamas. I'm
not saying that Mark Forest, who was essaying the role with minimal impact in
this film, couldn't get the job done in some other movie, provided he at least
grew some facial hair and would stay away from the farm animals, but this movie
had such a powered down version of Hercules, sometimes I just thought I was
watching an unremarkable body builder who was hoping to score some walk on role
in a gay porn movie. Now, I'm not here to run Mark Forest down, after all he
was elected to be our Hercules in 1960 and held that post through 1964 (when he
made a Herculean six films!) for a grand total of twelve Hercules and/or
Maciste movies. I'm just saying that maybe Mark was better suited to playing
Hercules' really close friend or something. All that being said, I will go on
record as saying that this has to be my favorite movie where Hercules fights a
bunch of Incas. I will admit to being a bit skeptical when I put on my linen
skirt and oversized leather suspenders, rubbed myself down with a healthy dose
of bronzer and settled in with six of my closest male friends I met at that gym
down on First Street earlier in the evening. I mean, I wasn't no archeologist
or astrologer or anything, but I was pretty sure that Hercules usually mixed it
up with Trojans (hehehe), Mongols, and assorted other sweaty barbarians. I was
quite relieved then when they explained that Hercules and his buddies had
angered the gods (probably Neptune according to Hercules) and gotten their
behinds shipwrecked in South America. Hercules was the only one that survived,
which makes sense since he was a demi-god and he quickly forgets his anguish
over his dead buddies once Prince Maytha shows up and becomes his new best
friend.  As soon as Hercules confirms that his longtime companion Diomedes is dead, Herc
gets attacked by a bunch of guys with bows and arrows. These would be the
soldiers of the evil king Atahualpa who, as they would constantly tell us, had
usurped (they used that word more times in this movie than I have heard
previously in my entire life) the throne from the rightful king, who just
happens to be Prince Maytha's father. Prince Maytha is living in exile in the
boonies with his loyal men and are just sitting around waiting for a white guy
to come and help them reclaim their kingdom. To make matters worse, this evil
king has the rightful king and Prince Maytha's sister, Yamara, prisoner. He
intends to sacrifice Yamara to the Sun God, explaining that the more noble or
royal the blood, the more the god will be appeased. Makes sense to me.
Hercules mentions that he would like to get back to his homeland sometime in
the near future (shooting on his next film begins in two weeks when he's set to
battle mole men or moon men or something) and Maytha agrees to build him a
boat, despite the fact that the Incas aren't seafaring people according to
Maytha, once he reclaims the throne. Hercules thinks that is a capital idea
and eagerly agrees to help Maytha out. Hercules gets a chance to demonstrate
his gargantuan strength in short order when a boy comes running, exclaiming
that a large rock has fallen on his mother! I hate when large rocks trap loved
ones and so does Hercules. He goes over and strains mightily to lift the rock
and is able to do so, though he barely lifts it enough to drag out the woman,
who really should have had her neck immobilized and should have been taken out
on one of those stiff boards that they always use to scrape NFL players off the
Astroturf with. I was hoping that Mark was just holding back when he performed
this feat of strength, because quite frankly, I've heard of old women that can
lift up cars in a pinch to save their grandkid or something, so barely budging
a boulder wasn't really what I was hoping for out of this son of a god.  When Hercules and Maytha return to the village, one of the guys in charge named
Chako hears of Hercules' abilities and is none too impressed. If I was Herc, I
would have told Chako that I wasn't too keen on his lazy eye and the fact that
all his people had Tonto's haircut, but Hercules obviously has higher self
esteem than I do (you can tell by the way he stands with his arms out in front
of him to give his muscles maximum effect) and he gladly agrees to a test of
strength with Chako. Chako has also laid out the insults pretty good by
claiming that Hercules must be a mountaineer to be as strong as everyone says.
Herc seemed to take some exception to this and immediately wanted to prove he
was no
mountaineer. I never did figure out what exactly a mountaineer was and why
anyone would concern themselves with being called that, but there was no time to
fret over the vagaries of Inca culture because the stick fight was on! As far
as tests of strengths go, this would rank way below arm wrestling a guy in a
pub or doing a lot of chin ups or something. All they did was press these two
big logs (whoa!) against one another and try to force the other guy to the
ground (double whoa!). Eventually Hercules beats Chako the Lazy Eye and is
readily accepted into the tribe so that he can help rescue Princess Yamara,
whom everyone suddenly remembers is about to be sacrificed down in the capital
city. Thank goodness the stick fighting didn't go into overtime! Hercules
tells Maytha to stay put and that he and some of the men will go get this woman
and bring her back. One of the guys says that they'll just take the secret
passage to the city, which I thought was convenient, and might make a good way
to attack and kill the king, but then I'm no Inca warlord am I? It is an
arduous journey over a rickety bridge and we have to watch Hercules grunt and
strain to move another rock, which pretty much bounces once he moves it. Then
they lurk around in the place where the big sacrifice was
going to be held. Unfortunately for us, Hercules is one of those guys who waits
around to pick his spot. This means we have to sit through the entire pre-game
show, which involves these archers dancing and leaping around in these outfits
with these gigantic blue feathered headdresses on that I could have sworn I've
seen Cher wear whenever she comes through my town on tour (that's me in the
front row with the "I'll be your Bagel Boy!" sign).  After these goofs get done dancing (and thankfully I didn't know at the time
that this would not be the longest or the worst dancing number) Hercules shows
up and rescues Yamara. Lots of poorly choreographed fighting ensues with
people getting stabbed, shot with arrows, and generally falling down an awful
lot. Hercules and his posse make their escape and Herc gives us another
demonstration of his mountaineer (don't tell him I said that) type strength.
He about busts a hernia trying to tear apart some column that holds up a wall
or something. He gets it ripped down and has to run out of the way so he
doesn't get himself trapped under a big rock (we know that's always a risk in
Inca country). I would also like to note that at one point during the battle,
Hercules shows his ability to command his troops by running away and shouting
"Hurry! To the secret passage!" Hey, his power is being really hunky, not
wisdom. When they finally get back to Maytha's village, Yamara gets all sweet
on Hercules and he pretends to be interested in her (I don't really have to
break out the whole "Hercules finally gets a beard" take again do I?). Their
love affair is marked by Hercules' strange obsession with llamas. Director
Osvaldo Civirani tells us more about our demi-god than he probably meant to
when he has them kiss (Herc and Yamara, not Herc and a llama) and instead of
cutting to missiles launching, volcanoes erupting, or a train going into a
tunnel, he cuts to a shot of a llama! Then, just to drive the point home,
after Herc and Yamara make out a little more, they cut to the next day (the
morning after, as it were) and Hercules is standing at the llama pen staring at
the animals with that twinkle in his eye! When Yamara finally drags him away
(Please! Just five more minutes! I think that brown and white one and me made
a connection!), Osvaldo lingers on the shot of the llamas in their pen (looking
mighty relieved I might add!). Why do I get the feeling that Hercules is going
to make a trip to South America an annual thing? To honor Hercules, Maytha has a big festival for him and this is where you get
about five solid minutes of natives doing the mashed potato. A terrible and
boring sequence that allowed me to go and shave (I just felt unmanly having a
five o'clock shadow when that paragon of testosterone, Hercules could get
shipwrecked and run around attacking palaces and never so much as have his jaw
darken - well other than with the copious amounts of bronzer he was wearing).
While
all this was going on, they cut away to Hercules for reaction shots and these
were obviously filmed at different times than the festival and you just had the
feeling that Osvaldo was just using footage of Mark Forest standing around on
the set looking for the catering truck or something. Once it's finally done,
they get down to business and decide that they need to attack the evil king and
maybe even rescue Maytha's dad (Don't bother - he spends his time locked up in
a dungeon talking to a bird and ends up taking the easy way out. I don't know
what happened to the bird). Hercules says that he'd like to introduce the
Incas to a little thing he likes to call the wheel and so it happened that the
wheel was introduced to the new world. They build some "war machines" and roll
them up to the walls of the city and start their big fight. What follows is a
pretty bad melee with people clutching arrows unconvincingly and stumbling
around before finally falling and dying. I even saw a guy weakly throw a spear
that barely made it over the wall he was standing on. It all ends with these
shots of mountains and llamas and we never do know if Hercules ever got back
home (or if he took any llamas with him). A movie that is pretty funny in
spots, but your enthusiasm is dampened by the lengthy dance sequences and
you'll
be amazed at how few feats of strength Hercules performs (he lifts two rocks
and pushes one column). Mark Forest isn't a very charismatic Hercules,
emanating none of the hairy personality of Steve Reeves or even a Reg Park.
Mark stands around grinning dumbly quite a bit and can't keep his eyes off the
farm animals. Jeesh! And Diomedes isn't even cold in the grave yet! Your
dubbing is predictably bad, with stern sounding guys providing all the voices
without even any accents to try and make it sound authentic. The dialogue is
as stiff as Mark's acting and things suffer from the lack of any great monsters
or tasks for Hercules to get busy with. Still, it's a nice change of pace to
have a bad Hercules movie set in South America instead of over in Asia or
Europe and you will no doubt be chuckling in spots, so you might want to check
it out. Especially if like Hercules, you've never met a llama you didn't
like.
Reviews © 2004
MonsterHunter
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