Hercules Unchained (1959)

Ercole e la regina di Lidia
Hercules and the Queen of Lydia

Cast:

Steve "White Warrior" Reeves is Ercole (Hercules)
Sylva Koscina is Iole, bride of Ercole
Sylvia Lopez is Queen Onfale, of Lidia
Gabriele Antonini is Ulisse, son of Laertes
Primo Carnera is Anteo, the giant

What the box says:

Hercules exercises poor judgement when he quenches his thirst from an enchanted spring en route to a diplomatic mission to Thebes. He promptly loses his memory and gets sidetracked in the pleasure gardens of Queen Omphale. Ulysses, his younger companion tries desperatley to help him regain his memory, but in the meantime the situation in Thebes is reaching a boiling point. To make matters worse Hercules' younger wife Iole faces imminent danger.

Plot:

Soldiers bring in some guy and stab 1 and keep the other for the queen, Onfale.

Elsewhere, Hercules and his wife, Iole, and Ulyssess head to Thebes.

Are you ready for the wrestling showdown? They leave their other Argonaut commerades behind. Keep on wagoning through the forest. Our group find King Oedipus who is living in a cave. He gave his city to be ruled by his son, Atachleus, for a year and then to let his other son, Polyneasus, who wants his year of ruling. Hercules wants to bring peace to keep Thebes from going to war.

Thebes, Hercules walks in to talk with Atachleus who claims he'll allow his brother to rule while he goes out to find a new animal trailer. Hercules and Ulysseus head back to the forest to tell Polyneasus about his ruling. Hercules accidently drinks from the Waters of Forgetfulness.

An army finds the amnesiac Hercules and Ulysseus (fakes being a deaf-mute servant of Hercules). Taken by boat to Queen Onfale's realm. We see that the queen has had her escort eliminated. Hercules awakens. Onfale claims that he is her husband and introduces him to royal power.

Get down and funky...

Back at Thebes, Iole is worried by not hearing about Hercules since he left 3 days earlier.

Ulysseus tells Hercules about who he truly is and tries to keep him from drinking more of the amnesia water. Later, Ulysseus spies and discovers that Queen Onfale has Egyptians to preserve her former consorts.

I wonder how I can hire Vincent Price to entomb people in wax. Hercules bends a lamppost and realizes his strength.

Ulysseus is able to send one of his homing pigeons to bring his father and the other Argonauts. They head out to Onfale's island.

Polyneasus wants to invade and conquer Thebes.

Atachleus is losing more favor with the city's peoples. The city gates are blocked to keep the country folk from entering.

Hercules regains his memory. Onfale orders her soldiers to attack the Argonauts. Let the swordfighting ensue when Hercules rushes in to start tossing things around.

I'm not paying for these damages... They find the secret wax chamber and reach the boat.

Onfale jumps into the wax preserving chamber.

On the ship, Hercules realizes that Polyneasus will attack Thebes and Iole's danger.

Why I'm not as evil as Joaquin Phoenix in Gladiator Thebes, Atachleus swears to make Hercules suffer and will throw Iole to the tigers when Hercules returns.

At Polyneasus's camp, a messenger from Atachleus is received to end the war witha duel between the brothers.

Hercules and the Argonauts sneak into Thebes. Atachleus manages to trap Hercules in the tiger pit, but Iole esacpes.

Atachleus and Polyneusus ready for their duel. It starts off as a chariot duel but the brothers end up on their feet to duel. They are mortally wounded and died. A general tells Hercules that he has Iole. Hercules leads the Theban army to attack the army and drive them away. Hercules apologizes Iole.

What I say:

Steve Reeves is the man that made Hercules something more than just the Greek mythological character that bored many students in literary classes. In fact, that Hercules made Hercules popular enough to keep making sequels...From the 1960s, the early 1980s with Lou Ferrigino, the 1990s with Kevin Sorbo, and onward...

Well, Steve Reeves was dubbed into English since this movie was filmed in Italy when it was released in the US. Later, Hercules's had to be dubbed into English when they had a hard time with English. After all, the Goventaor Arnie in Hercules in New York had to dubbed for the movie-watching populace.

It's kind of hard to keep track with the number of Greek mythological characters and Greek literary characters interacting. Maybe some sort of scorecard would explain how Ulysseus, Hector, Castor, Achilles, Oedipus would all be around... Even with all these characters, the Greek mythological gods aren't in this movie.

Amnesia is the ultimate illness from soap operas. This amnesia water in this movie doesn't cause perpetual memory loss.

Movies need more than just good heroes. Unfortunately, this movie does have a number of main villains, but they're not good villans. Onfale is a Grecian feale version of Bluebeard. Somehow, the queen runs her country and just disposes of her boyfriends. It only takes a few days for her to get tired of Hercules and plans to drop him in wax. Dueling evil brothers wanting to rule a Greek city-state. After the brothers are killed, Hercules has to contend with some evil general who kidnapped his wife. The general didn't make any appearance before this point and suddenly he's the new evil.

Quotable Dialogue
"Raise the oars, men!"
"You're married so drive carefully..."
"I don't care if he's Pluto. I'll knock that silly grin off his face."
"Either I am successful in overcoming the madness of these men, or I'll believe that I, Hercules, am deserted by the gods!"
"I'm beginning to like this place."
"So you've begun to betray me in your dreams."
Morals of the Story
Ancient Greece used boulders for ship anchors.
Ancient Greece had Conestoga wagons.
Synchronized interpretive dancing was very popular in Greece.
Tiger wrestling is a popular sport.
Grappling hooks are commonly used to topple siege towers.