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Actress Mitzi Gaynor being escorted by her entourage at a party for Pietro Francisci's film Hercules Unchained at The Beverly Hills Hotel - 1960

#mitzi gaynor #hercules unchained #beverly hills hotel #1960 #hollywood #old hollywood #classic hollywood #60s #pietro francisci #old movies #classic movies

(via HERCULES UNCHAINED - Steve Reeves - Sylva Koscina)

#HERCULES UNCHAINED #Steve Reeves #Sylva Koscina #film #vintage #peplum

MST3Knitathon, knitting while watching every episode of the fan-voted 100 best episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000 continues with

A list of the Top 100 Episodes of MST3K was compiled based on a survey taken of backers of the Bring Back MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000 campa

61. Episode 408 Hercules Unchained

Content warning: insensitively feigned deafness in the film EDIT: omg, and dubious consent because of the whole forgetfulness water thing, I can't believe I didn't warn for that at first! The implication is that Hercules is acting of his own will with the information that he has, but that he would NOT be sleeping with other women if he remembered that he was married or that he was on a quest, and the evil Queen lady knows and is intentionally taking advantage of this. I don't think I would have overlooked this so easily if the genders were reversed, so this is a reminder to check my assumptions.

Summary: After completing the Quest for the Golden Fleece in the first movie, Steve Reeves’s Hercules comes home to Thebes with his new wife Iole and a very young Ulysses (Odysseus, if you’re Greek) who’s going to stay with them for a bit to “learn maturity.” But Hercules and family find themselves dropped into the brewing crisis of the Seven Against Thebes: while Hercules was gone, wise but troubled King Oedipus abdicated the throne so his ambitious sons could share it by taking turns ruling in one year stints. But now the first year is up and Brother 1 won’t yield the throne, so Brother 2 has raised an army with their warlike neighbors to take it by force. To prevent civil war, Hercules threatens the princes into getting along - but as he travels to take the treaty from one to the other, he accidentally drinks from a spring with the waters of forgetfulness, and is captured by a wicked queen who lives to seduce men for her pleasure and kill them when she tires of them. Clever Ulysses pretends to be Hercules’s deaf servant so that he can spy in the queen’s palace unsuspected. But can he restore Hercules’s memory in time to prevent civil war in Thebes?

Well obviously not, or else we wouldn’t get a huge battle scene where Hercules single-handedly destroys siege engines. But luckily, wise Creon takes the throne after the princes slay each other in battle. Ulysses writes a letter to Penelope as Hercules and Iole gaze into the sunset and pray for future kindness from the gods.

MST3K lore or notable moments: We learn that the bots get an annual wash and wax, and in a rare pre-movie guest appearance, “actor Steve Reeves” (really Mike Nelson in a muscle suit) visits Deep 13 as part of his new career as an exterminator.

What do I think about it’s place on the list? I don’t have much to say about this one - I just really like it! Like the Gameras, the Godzillas, and the “Russo-Finnish” films, Steve Reeves’s Hercules movies are a little bit classics in their own right in addition to being deeply cheesy. I like that these ones are at least loosely based on Greek myths (unlike some other “Hercules” movies MST3K covers), and have enough production value to deliver on some of the spectacle they promise. (Though it is mostly spectacle - it’s interesting how these movies use the time period as an excuse to have attractive people run around seducing each other with magic forgetfulness water in *very* skimpy outfits.) And the episode around it takes full advantage - I’m trying to decide if my favorite part is GPC bashing her mouth into harp strings to “play the lyre” like Iole in the movie, or Joel eating of “the Hot Dish of Happiness” and going on a long ramble about how much he loves living in Minnesota.

I’m about to go on vacation, so we’ll be on hiatus for at least a week.

#mst3k #mystery science theater 3000 #mst3knitathon #Hercules unchained