Crazy Gary here with part two of our Sword and Sandal extravaganza…(see part one).
Summer, 1959, was a turning point for a lot of monsterkids. A movie opened which fired our imaginations and introduced us to a new type of movie. I’m talking about the movie Hercules which got a lot of us interested in weight training and classical literature, especially Greek mythology.
Starring an unknown –at least to us–actor named Steve Reeves, the movie was complete with heroes, beautiful scantily-clad women, fighting, adventures at sea, ape men, a dinosaur that roared like Godzilla, and many feats of strength. The music was awe-inspiring. And Steve Reeves…wow, was he built. Every guy wanted to look like him. Turns out he was a former Mr. America, Mr. World, and Mr. Universe.
I was only nine when I first saw it, and by the time it had finished its run in the second-run theaters, I had seen it twelve times. I even received the Hercules soundtrack record for Christmas that year.
In the summer of 1960, Hercules Unchained was released and I saw it many times, too. By then, Steve Reeves was a worldwide star and both movies were box office hits. Articles on Steve Reeves and his training methods regularly appeared in the muscle magazines of the time.
Reeves went on to star in several more “Sword and Sandal” type films and his last one, A Long Ride From Hell, was a western. By the end of his career, the term “sword and sandal” referred to any movie set in antiquity, primarily Rome or Greece. Within that genre there were two types of movies: one where the hero possessed great strength and went about righting wrongs. He could be Hercules, Samson, Ursus, Maciste, Goliath (see last week’s article about the two “Goliath” movies), or one of the Sons of Hercules. The other type was where the hero was a regular guy, often a great warrior or Roman soldier, but possessing no exceptional strength. Two of Reeves’ movies stand out in the latter category: Duel of the Titans, with Gordon Scott, and The Slave. …
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