Copyright 1957 by Embassy Pictures. Presented by Joseph E. Levine. Released in the U.S.A. through Warner Bros: July 1959. New York opening at neighborhood cinemas: 22 July 1959. U.K. release through Archway: May 1959. London opening at the Cameo-Royal. Australian release through Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer: 26 March 1959 (sic). Running times: 9,987 feet, 111 minutes (Aust), 105 minutes (UK), 103 (USA). Original Italian title: "Le Fatiche di Ercole".NOTES: 4th to "Auntie Mame", "The Nun's Story" and "Rio Bravo" as Warner Bros top-grossing domestic release of 1959. By way of contrast, the movie did virtually no business at all in Australia. After deducting modest advertising and distribution expenses, M-G-M actually lost money on the deal. The U.K. figures are midway between the Australian disaster and the American runaway success. (A DVD was available from EDI Video. Rating: 7/10. This is not a wide-screen print.)COMMENT: The movie that started the craze for Italian sword-and- sandal pictures, was actually one of the funniest pictures to reach U.S. screens in years — although the humor of course was not deliberate. True, a tongue-in-cheek style may have helped to make this nonsense even more amusing, but we doubt it. One of the movie's assets is that everyone on screen seems to be taking all this lumbering rubbish so seriously. A sort of Homeric Tarzan, heavy on sex and mixed-up mythology, "Hercules" also proved the biggest surprise box-office smash in Hollywood's memory. Most of the movie is grounded in muddled mythology, jumbled with snips of The Iliad and a couple of chapters from the Bible. The scriptwriters spare no pains to throw everything into the melting pot. In the process, they seem to get Hercules mixed up with Samson, the Amazons with the ladies of Lemnos. But no matter. Like a white-washed Samson, good scout Herc topples pillars on horses and men, breaks iron chains as if they were zippers, and routs a whole army single-handed. What more could you ask of a pseudo Homeric/Biblical hero?The American distributor, Joseph E. Levine, paid only $120,000 for the U.S./Canadian rights, yet cleaned up $4.7 million at domestic ticket-windows alone.

Brave and honest legendary strongman Hercules (perfectly embodied by the brawny and handsome Steve Reeves) joins the noble Jason (solid Fabrizio Mioni) and his Argonauts on a perilous quest to find the golden fleece. During their dangerous journey Hercules and company encounter a tribe of beautiful, yet lethal Amazons, a bunch of savage apemen, and the lumbering dinosaur that guards the golden fleece. Director/co-writer Pietro Francisco relates the absorbing story at a steady pace, handles the fanciful subject matter with admirable respect and sincerity, maintains a serious tone throughout, and stages the action scenes with reasonable gusto (a lively climactic large scale battle is especially exciting). Reeves as Hercules makes for a touching and sympathetic hero as he wishes to be mortal and have human emotions so he can win over the favor of fair maiden princess Iole (the lovely Sylva Koscina). Hercules' feats of incredible strength are pretty nifty and stirring; highlights include wrestling both a ferocious lion and an equally vicious bull, pulling a tree out of the ground by the roots, and knocking over enormous pillars. The good acting by a competent cast qualifies as another substantial plus: Giana Maria Canale as ravishing Amazon queen Antea, Ivo Garrani as the weak and pathetic King Pelias, Arturo Dominici as the evil, treacherous Eurysteus, Gabriele Antonini as the eager Ulysses, and Mimmo Palmara as the arrogant Iphitus. Mario Bava's gorgeous widescreen cinematography gives the picture an impressively expansive scope. Enzo Masetti's robust, rousing score likewise does the trick. A fun flick.

Basically this a movie about Hercules falling into the one adventure after the other, without some times feeling an obvious connection between those events. It makes this a pretty disjointed movie to watch at times. If this movie was being made this present day in exactly the same way it would be an absolutely terrible movie but the fact that this was made in 1958 makes it a good and defining one for its genre.It's sometimes laughable how fake this movie is looking, for instance when Hercules is fighting a lion and later a buffalo, who are both obvious puppets in the close-up scenes with Steve Reeves. You can call it part of the charm of these old type of adventure movies but it still looks ridicules, regardless.But besides that all it's a rather good looking movie, with its sets costumes and of course settings. It's an Italian movie, so it features lots of beautiful landscapes.The story is simple and perhaps not as action filled or fast paced as it could had been but it still is an adventurous one. The swashbuckling and adventure genre had pretty much died already when it was 1958. This is a movie that obviously tries to revive a genre, with some new more 'modern' changes and elements in it. After this 'historic' and mythological movies such as "Jason and the Argonauts". "The 7th Voyage of Sinbad and "Spartacus" were made. It's hard to say if this movie influenced any of those movies but fact is that this movie was a popular one at its time, also in America. Therefor it's a really thinkable that this movie played at least some part in redefining the genre.Not great, most especially not by todays standards but considering the time it was made, a good genre movie that is adventurous and therefor also has entertainment value in it.6/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

This is actually two stories in one: the first is about Hercules trying to find his niche in the world as a rugged adventurer and champion of the oppressed, the 2nd is about Jason and the Argonauts and Herc looking for the Golden Fleece.Longer and slower than some of the successors and with quite possibly less fight scenes, these are still the best due to the respect and attention given to the characters. Reeves, looking like a pumped up Jonathan Frakes, is probably still the best of the lot, though we only got to see him fight lions, tigers, bulls, monkey people and Primo Carnera as opposed to monsters, but maybe it was better this way. Made things more serious and real world like.So in other words, don't count this one out!