what a night.
I had planned to wake up in time to catch MEN in theatres, and as soon as I woke up I had a message from a friend inviting me over to watch this movie and hang out. we hung out in the pool, made our pizzas, and sat down in the backyard patio to watch this ridiculous movie. the movie itself isn't really worth talking about to much, but its production and legacy are crazy enough to deserve some discussion.
Hercules in New York is a 1970 American fantasy-comedy film directed by Arthur Allan Seidelman and written by Aubrey Wisberg. The divine Hercules is bored by his life on mount Olympus and asks father Zeus for a vacation on Earth. His request is denied, but by an accident with one of Zeus' lightning bolts he's thrown into New York. His inexperience with civilization and his arrogance lead into problems - until a college professor's daughter helps him to acclimatize. He starts to like living on earth and wants to stay for longer, even when father Zeus sends Nemesis to punish him.
Hercules in New York was the acting debut of Arnold Schwarzenegger, who was 22 years old. At the time he was living in Los Angeles and making ends meet by running a bricklaying business with fellow bodybuilder Franco Columbu, while weight training and participating in bodybuilding competitions. in the original release of this movie Schwarzenegger had all his lines dubbed by an uncredited voice actor due to his thick Austrian accent, although the Trimark DVD has an "Original English Dialogue" audio track with Arnold's voice. thankfully the original version is the one we were lucky enough to see, and almost all of this movie comedy comes from Arnolds performance. Really its only funny because of his extremely broken English, and its no to hard to see why. it went so far that Arnold had a clause inserted into any media interviews that if this movie is brought up in an interview without his prior permission then he can terminate the interview on the spot.
The best part about this movie is the other Arnold in this movie, Arnold Stang as a skinny little dweeb called Pretzie, named because he sells pretzels. The only scene in this movie that works on any kind of emotional level is the Finale, where Herc says good-bye to Pretzie over a radio after he disappears. thankfully Arnold Stang was the star of the film on it's release in 1970, known predominantly as the voice of "TC" in the hit children's animated series 'Top Cat'. In the UK the VHS release sleeve also mentions that supporting actress Taina Elg played a significant role in the 1959 re-make of The 39 Steps, so I'm glad this movie never seriously damaged anybody's career.
its honestly a fun as hell movie to watch with friends, so hopefully Arnold will forgive me for enjoying this movie so much.
i mean hey, we all do Bella Lugosi's Hungarian accent and nobody calls that racist
6/10
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