Movie Monday: Hercules, Samson, & Ulysses











Hercules, Samson, & Ulysses (Ercole sfida Sansone, dir. Pietro Francisci, 1963) with Kirk Morris as Hercules and Richard Lloyd as Samson

Hercules: I've never met such strength as yours. Why don't the two of us join forces?
                                                                        Samson: I was thinking the same thing.

I saw this movie in a theater in 1965, a Saturday matinee as I recall, with only schoolboys and young enlisted men in attendance.

The Italian title literally translates as "Hercules Challenges Samson," alluding to the climactic confrontation excerpted above. It's still one of my favorite scenes in any movie ever, and it occurs early enough in the movie that the swelling in my pants subsided before the houselights came back on. The memory is vivid.

As a bible-believing Baptist at the time, I knew I should root for the Israelite, but my heart already belonged to the Greco-Roman. After this four- or five-minute battle, Hercules and Samson team up to defeat the evil Philistines at Gaza (even then the Gaza Strip was contended territory). The idea of fighting as male bonding goes back to The Epic of Gilgamesh, composed about a thousand years before a historical Samson might have lived. In earlier films, guy-time fights can be seen in the war and western movies of William A. Wellman and Howard Hawks.


Comments

  1. Hallelujah Hollyghetti!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Kirk Morris was very hot!

    The fights ( just restored to his from first guts!) in the sword-and-sandal flicks were frustrating because they were usually short, but not particularly brutal. I'd wait and wait for them, but then they were over.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Love when fighters remove their clothing and are already wearing fight gear underneath!! Hot!!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Yes this was the kind of movie and shirtless fight scene that always drove me wild as a young viewer, although I don't recall ever seeing this particular one (I'd've remembered THAT!) I liked seeing the airplane spin and the foreign object (iron bar) -- using pro wrestling moves always spices up a movie fight scene. I think the armbar hold is meant to resemble that Greek statue of two wrestlers that you see everywhere.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I was impressed that the movie so smartly alluded to that great classical work of sculpture.

      Delete
  5. I have always wished for a good Gilgamesh/Enkidu movie.

    ReplyDelete
  6. For some reason my original viewing was in still screen-caps. Morris in motion is even more spectacular. Thanks TOR these GIFs, Joe!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular Posts

Archive

Show more