bensonmum2 I've seen dozens of Hercules (or Maciste or Atlas or whatever you want to call him) movies over the years, but The Loves of Hercules just might be the worst of the bunch. It's got so many problems, there's no way I can innumerate all of them. A few I'll mention: 1. Mickey Hargitay doesn't fit my image of Hercules at all. Guys like Steve Reeves, Reg Park, Alan Steel, Lou Ferrigno, and even (I can't believe I'm saying this) Peter Lupus are more suited to the role and better look the part. You know it's a bad sign when Herc's love interest physically dominates him. His acting is as stiff and unnatural as the Hydra he battles. And Hargitay wasn't helped by the dubbing choices made for the movie. The Shakespearian wannabe who voiced Hercules in this movie got it all wrong.2. I just can't take Jayne Mansfield seriously. She has less believability in her role than Hargitay in his. She doesn't do drama very well.3. The Loves of Hercules is also known as Hercules vs the Hydra. As I've already alluded to, the Hydra is horrible. It doesn't move! A boat anchor has more dexterity than this thing. To kill it, Hercules calmly walks underneath it, hits it with a few very weak and awkward looking ax blows, and the middle head just sort of falls off. End of the Hydra.4. As the movie went on, I became frustrated with Hercules' motivations. At the beginning of the movie, he sets out to avenge the death of his wife (I think she was his wife). However, his motivation changes completely the moment he meets Deianira – his new one true love. The dead wife is all but forgotten. Next, the moment he meets the Deianira look-alike Hippolyta, he falls madly in love with her. Herc apparently falls for any woman with two legs in his immediate vicinity. What happened to being a good, upstanding guy with some sort of moral compass? 5. Herc's fight with the bull – nothing else needs to be said.6. The big finale, the storming of the palace/castle, is about as lame as you'll see. Herc's big contribution is to carry a wooden wagon wheel over his head so he can presumably block the archers' arrows. Why not shoot around him? The wheel's not that big. Or, why not go low and shoot Herc's legs? He carries the thing so high that his head is about the only thing truly protected. Like I said, lame. Other than Massimo Serato as the evil Licos, I can't think of anything else positive to say. I'm going to be very generous and give The Loves of Hercules a 3/10 for curiosity value if nothing else.

tseybert I love Italian movies, and the sword-and-sandal epics constitute a very special subset of this, the greatest of all national cinemas. There is something hysterical or nonsensical going on every minute. Don't blink your eyes, or you'll miss Jayne Mansfield with PURPLE HAIR. AT HER Fiancée'S FUNERAL! Then there's the Hydra, with only three heads, that can barely move, and Mickey Hargitay (as Hercules, natch) has to run around like an idiot and pretend to be crushed under its foot. Then he gets rescued by cave-dwelling, bird-headed Amazons who turn men into trees ... for some reason. And if that doesn't do anything for you, wait until you see Bigfoot! Jayne Mansfield has huge breasts, though. And she's really pretty. So we forgive her. (Did anybody see "Primitive Love"? Now that's a cult movie!) This movie cracks me up, even more than "Hercules Against the Sons of the Sun." I have to give it a TEN!

Greg Couture Years ago I managed to catch this one on a Saturday morning TV broadcast and watched it through to the end, with an amused smile. As other comments here attest, it's definitely not one of the better sword-and-sandal epics and, if you're a fan of that genre, you'd better appreciate what Jayne Mansfield has to offer should you give it a look-see. Like so many others in this canon, it's one of the tombstones marking the declining careers of Hollywood expatriates.A side note: In the early 1960s Carol Burnett, in a one-woman engagement, appeared at the Greek Theater (an outdoor ampitheater, northeast of downtown Hollywood in Griffith Park, which each year had a summer season of big-name acts, ballet companies, fully-mounted operas, etc.) and, as part of her show, she did a very funny bit in which she imagined Jayne Mansfield accepting her Academy Award as Best Actress in a Hercules extravaganza. In her acceptance speech Carol/Jayne recreated a scene and I can still remember her screeching: "Hercules! Hercules! Put me DOWN!!" Got a BIG laugh. Carol must have used this film as her inspiration, for in it there's a scene toward the end where Mickey is rescuing Jayne from some peril or other and he appears to be staggering under the totality of her considerable assets. Before they had left for Italy, Jayne and Mickey had frequently performed a stunt, well-documented in filmed interviews, in which Mickey effortlessly lifted Jayne overhead and paraded her around airplane-style. His seeming inability to recreate that feat in this movie is one of the film's comic highpoints for this viewer.

Flixer1957 **Possible Spoilers Ahead**Former Mr. Universe Mickey Hargitay takes his turn as the top-grossing strong-man of the early 1960s. At the beginning of the film he goes gallivanting off and leaves his wife unprotected. Smart move, Herc. She's murdered and our muscle-bound, muscle-headed hero is out for revenge. The hydra of some titles turns out to be a giant, triple-headed dragon that guards the gate to the underworld. It has all the mobility of a washing machine and just sits there nodding its heads and looking stupid as Hercules runs up and kills it. The loves of another title are Queen Deinera (brunette Jayne Mansfield) and evil amazon queen Hippolyta (red-haired Jayne Mansfield). Hippolyta has the nasty habit of turning her lovers into talking trees when she's tired of them. The actors playing the tree-men, ironically, give the least wooden performances in the picture. Mansfield, a blonde in most pictures, manages to be equally dopey as a brunette and a redhead. However, on this production, there was plenty of dopiness to go around. Hubby Hargitay hardly comes across as a rocket scientist. The director, writers and whoever did the deplorable dubbing weren't too swift either. When this lulu aired on AMC in 1999 they followed it with 1960s Hercules cartoons, clips from drive-in intermissions and home-movie footage of Mansfield trying to touch her toes while wearing high heels. I don't know which was funniest.