(1956) FIRE MAIDENS FROM OUTER SPACE vs MST3K

Posted on 2010/09/18 by Ruadhán McElroy

First off, I want to make it clear that this peplum/MST3K joint series has made me seriously appreciate with Joel Hodgeson and Mike Nelson, and the rest of the MST3K team have made their life’s work. While I found Hercules Unchained bad, no doubt about it, Hercules Against the Moon Men was so soul-crushing that I temporarily forgot any semblance of joy in my life and momentarily forgot why I’m doing this: Because there is a LOT of media out there that may appeal to Hellenic polytheists, and some of you may not be prepared for it.

Fire Maidens From Outer Space is an odd little film. It pre-dates the peplum craze by a couple years, but clearly shares much of the sword-and-sandal aesthetics. It also dares to blend with the then-craze for cheap sci-fi, and the then-teen fad that rediscovered Universal’s “classic monsters”. This film tries to be many things, and fails at all of them.

We open with a narrator describing an impending expedition, “Project 13″, a joint between the US and the UK, to send a manned expedition to the newly-discovered (but then, in real life, still undiscovered) 13th Moon of Jupiter. The expedition, contrary to what Wikipedia states, includes one British astronaut, one Texan, and three other men of indistinguishable US accent, so probably a mix of Southern California and East Midwestern. The Texan, Luther Blair, our hero, is a nuclear physicist, because I guess that’s exactly what you need when you’re heading off to explore a planetoid that you’ve inexplicably determined is potentially habitable. Forget about ecologists and geographers — you need a nuclear physicist for this, and unlike George W Bush, this Texan can pronounce “nuclear” properly.

As the men leave for the 13th Moon, we’re given a bunch of amateurish and slow shots that are probably intended to heighten suspense, but at least it’s paced evenly enough that you quickly forget that the greatest “action” is a pan shot to give you a good look at the faces of everybody else on the Earth station, yes, the faces of characters you know absolutely nothing of and therefore couldn’t care less about. Then there’s a meteor shower, which I guess adds a milligram of tension, but might have added more if it wasn’t obvious that you were looking at B&W shots of somebody throwing popcorn in front of a black-painted panel. Fade to black, then fade back in and the characters are talking about reaching the end of their three-week journey, and nobody has shifted position from before, then we get a voice-over claiming to be from the planet they’re about to land on — a man’s voice, apparently human, and somehow… able to control their ship… from the ground…

While they’re in space…?

I know this is science fiction, but you’d think with a nuclear physicist on board, they’d understand that physical science doesn’t work that way!

When they finally get to land, they notice a beacon tapping out Morse code(??? I don’t get that, either — how the hell would anybody on a forign planet know Morse code, much less English?) telling them “head for trees at signal”. When the men get there, they comment that the structure of the beacon is bronze and resembles a lighthouse (it really doesn’t ‐ it’s a statue, probably a Hellenic deity) and suggest that maybe the plain used to be covered with water (an idea that is never come back to again, because the history of this space colony is very unimportant to the writer). They then notice one of the Pretty Girls™ that seem to be the excuse to make this film attacked by a werewolf-thingy-guy; see, we’re not exactly sure what it is or where it’s from or how it came into existence. It’s only referred to as “the man with the head of a beast” or, more commonly, “the beast” or “the creature”. In some shots, it looks like cheap werewolf make-up, in others, it’s a little more obvious that they just smeared a bunch of liquid latex and black greasepaint on his face. They fire their gun at the werewolf, but this doesn’t really do anything, and he leaps away, so then the Pretty Girl™, who changes actresses between the distance and close-up shots you get a few of in the span of ninety seconds, motions for them to follow her into a … cave? You know, I’m not sure where she’s led them into — nearly everybody calls it “the cave”, and from the first shots, it looks like it very well could be a cave made from a hollowed-out mountain — but there’s a wall around it, and within the wall is a garden, and motion-sensitive garden screens for doors, and I’m not really sure what this dwelling is, but she takes two of them, Luther Blair and “Captain Larson” inside, leaving The British Guy™ and the two others to stand guard, and then she wanders away.

After she leaves, one guy says to the other (because they look that much alike) that the interior architecture looks “late Minoan” (which it doesn’t, in fact the paintings on the wall strike me as late-classical Attic) as they stand staring at a painting of Aphrodite (you can tell from the scallop shell) that, I swear, looks like the predecessor to those sparkly New Age posters that adorned every teen girl’s room in the mid-1980s. They are then interrupted by the voice-over from earlier, saying “not Minoan, late Atlantean, but the two peroiods are often mistaken for each-other. Welcome to New Atlantis!”

WHAT?? How did that make any sense?

You know what, I will plod on, because the idea of sci-fi-and-sandal is just too weird to pass up.

So, yeah, the guy identifies himself as Prasus, the last survivor of Atlantis, and points at the painting and says, “she was my mother’s mother” and then is panned into the background shouting some prayer I couldn’t make out while the astronaut and nuclear physicist discuss the man’s presumed sanity. Prasus then introduces them to his daughter, Hestia, Princess of Atlantis, and gives her away to Luther Blair, cos he was one of five men who saved her from the creature, so yeah, that makes sense. He then has her fetch drinks and she returns with over a dozen other Pretty Girls™ who pour some wine and then dance all Isadora Duncan-like, complete with Vivaldi — in fact, for a film about a Greek colony (basically), there’s an awful lot of Vivaldi and Alexander Borodin’s “Gliding Dance of the Maidens” (a.k.a. “Stranger In Paradise”), in this film. So, surprise surprise, the wine was drugged, and the sleeping men are carried off to separate rooms wherein the only apparent doors are these motion-sensitive garden screens, but they’re apparently only accessible from the outside, which explains why the men don’t leave. Hestia briefly takes Luther out of the earshot of spies and explains to him that what Prasus spoke was true, but elaborates that all the women are veritable prisoners in the… cave-valley-area-ish-place…

You know, the series of events is internally consistent (at least up to this point), lame and predictable, but overall, it makes sense some sort of way, but the geography and architecture in this film seriously doesn’t make any sense in any way.

The other three men leave the shuttle again to go see why the two named guys have been out all night, and then Blair is finishing up a conversation with Prasus about rebuilding New Atlantis (another idea nobody ever comes back to); Hestia then switches the drinks when Prasus turns around to praise Aphrodite some more, and when he returns, he gets drugged and… for some reason, Blair returns to his room.

When the other three men get back to the cave-thinger-place, the beacon is gone and the entrance is sealed — cos yeah, it totally makes sense that that could have happened in a few hours — and they decide to go search for Blair and Larson. In their search, they discover the wall, and then discover that somehow a stone and clay wall is electrified(???), so they decide to go under the wall rather than over it — because I guess the laws of electrical grounding don’t matter on Jupiter. Somewhere in there, Hestia is captured by her sisters who then prepare to sacrifice her as punishment for drugging Prasus — hey, just cos it’s internally consistent doesn’t mean it has to make sense. Then the Pretty Girls™ capture The Other Three, and Blair figures out how to leave his room (move a chair, and you open a secret panel! these men will never figure that out! Wow, a super-advanced society that discovered space-travel before anybody else, that can somehow radio-in on Earth to learn English and Morse code, and they can’t figure out that people move chairs all the frackin’ time), and then, through the walls, tells Larson how to break free. The Named Two wander around trying to find a way out, or Hestia, or both (no, I’m not sure), and they hear the Other Three after the Pretty Girls have captured them; The Pretty Girls™ then hear that Larson & Blair have escaped and they leave The Other Three alone with Hestia in a ritual room for a few minutes.

When we return with The Pretty Girls™ to the ritual room, the eldest daughter of Prasus, who is angry that Prasus decided to marry off Hestia first, is doing a Duncan dance, but this is interrupted because The Beast has found his way in through the hole, killed Prasus (who had since awoken), and then broke in to the ritual.

Blair kills the monster by throwing a gas grenade, which somehow only kills the monster and no-one else, and then everybody pairs off. Around the space shuttle, Hestia appoints some-one else temporary leader of New Atlantis, and she’s the only one leaving with the men, but they promise to send more expeditions so that the rest of them can get married off.

The MST3K cut aired in 1992. The sketches are only partly concerned with the film, and the rest of the time, they’re concerned with a dark spectre named “Timmy”, who is causing mayhem on the Satellite of Love. The sketches that do concern themselves with the film include Joel telling the Bots about Double Entendre, referencing an early scene in the film, and also goofs on the fact that the spaceship is apparently controlled by two parallel levers that “do everything”, earning Joel’s nickname “The Twin Screw Universal Controller”. From the beginning, the crew comment that this film has Cy Roth written all over it, as his name saturates the opening credits, and Crow also points out that the scene with the rocket landing on New Atlantis is the same process shot clip used for a similar set-up in Burt I. Gordon’s 1955 film King Dinosaur — as I had King Dinosaur also recorded on this tape, I was able to confirm that it is, in fact, the same clip. Tom Servo also noted what I did, that the astronauts all look a lot alike, but in general, most of the jokes are about how incredibly “padded” the film feels when you consider that, in spite of the pacing, not a whole lot of action is actually happening in these scenes — or, as Crow puts it at the end, “he had to pad out the film just to get to the parts that had more padding!”

The “Timmy” story in the sketches begins with the very first sketch and Crow T. Robot introduces a matte-black version of himself, and stating “I prayed for a friend and he came! His name is Timmy.” Timmy, in his time on the Satellite, attacks Cambot, repeatedly gets Crow in trouble with Joel, and finally attacks Servo in the theatre, which culminates in an elaborate spoof of Alien. This is one of the more memorable “meta plot” episodes of MST3K.

Honestly, no, honestly? I really want to like this film (but then again, I guess anything seems good after SANDSTORM). I kind of like some of the basic ideas here: Lost colony of Atlantis found in space, their leader is an actual descendant of an Olympian deity, and Earth explorers just wander in on some pre-existing tensions. If you took those ideas and got some skilled writers to manage it, it could work; maybe as no more than a popcorn film, but it’s really no stupider than most of the shit sci-fi that’s out there. This film’s biggest problem is that it had no idea what it wanted to be, and the writing was pretty incompetent. I’ve seen grade-schoolers churn out sci-fi that made a little more sense and had more comprehensive back-story, hell, AXE COP has a more comprehensive back-story; Fire Maidens From Outer Space relies too heavily on suspension of disbelief to work as-is, and the acting is often pretty wooden, which kills any possibility of that suspension. I like the idea of this film, it’s just too weird for me not to, but the execution has barely more attention given to it than Plan 9 From Outer Space, and only half of the “glorious train-wreck” appeal on its own; I’ve also seen better MST3K treatments, as well, but it’s definitely an enjoyable MST3K experience.

It’s nice to see a sci-fi film that pretty much confirms the existence of the gods, even if it makes one of their descendants kind of a jerk-ass; but then, Akhilles was a bit of a jerk-ass, and Prasus isn’t dragging somebody’s body around behind a chariot — he just wants his daughters to rape these men and re-populate the colony. It’s almost noble. The portrayal of “ancient Greek religion” is pretty obviously written with no research at all (human sacrifice had ended many centuries before Hesiod, so presumably this was at least a few more centuries before the approximate dates for Atlantis’ fall), and apparently exists as little more than an excuse for Pretty Dancing Girls™ — but it’s also portrayed as vaguely as possible, and the preposterousness of this film makes the glaring lack of research almost excusable, in an absurdist sort of way, because I doubt even Fred Phelps would take this shit seriously, it’s so stupid.

Neither version of this film appears to be available commercially, which is a shame for the MST3K cut, since this really works for MST; like I said, the meta-plot is pretty funny and the film with commentary is enjoyable. I suggest PirateBay or Cinemageddon or another film torrent site, or try your luck picking up a VHS copy on eBay.

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Timberlake Wertenbaker – The Love of the Nightingale (Play)

Posted on 2010/09/06 by AingealOreiad

This play was commissioned for the Royal Shakespeare Company and first performed in 1989. It is a feminist retelling of the Greek myth of the rape of Philomela. In 2007 it was adapted into an opera of the same name

In the myth, Philomela and her sister Procne are the daughters of Pandion I, King of Athens. Procne is married to Tereus, King of Thrace in return for his help with a war against Thebes. She has a great deal of difficulty adjusting to this new land and customs, so begs Tereus to allow Philomela to come to Thrace. He relents, but on the trip from Athens to Thrace, he becomes jealous and lustful when Philomela and the ships captain fall in love. Convinced he is in love with her, Tereus tries to convince her that Procne has died waiting for their return. When he fails in his lie, he rapes Philomela. Fearing her defiant nature and determination to tell Procne what happened, Tereus cuts out her tongue and locks her in a cabin in the woods; he tells Procne that her sister has died during the voyage.

Five years go by, during which the silent Philomela is creating life-size dolls in her lonely cabin; the only people she has seen are Tereus and her two servants. The annual Dionysian festival comes, and Philomela is able to leave her cabin due to the chaos of the festivities. During this festival, she uses her dolls to act out the story of her voyage, rape and subsequent capture, allowing Procne to discover the truth. In revenge, Procne kills her son and feeds him to Tereus. Enraged, he chases the sisters to kill them both, but they are all turned into birds by the Theoi: Procne into Swallow, Tereus into a Hoopoe and Philomela into a Nightingale.

Wertenbaker’s adaptation tells of the dangers that come from silence, both chosen and forced, as well as dangers that come from making someone into an “other.” The silence that comes over Philomela after her attack is only the obvious one. Procne is isolated in her new home because of the many differences between Athens and Thrace. These differences force Procne into silence, often asking “where [had] the words gone?” as those around ignore her. The Chorus stands outside of the play and makes many observations about the happenings on stage, but is unable to interfere. Even Philomela’s servant Niobe is unable to be vocal about her knowledge that Tereus is going to prove a danger. The audience is remiknded over and over that, even though no one is discussing something (the rape, Philomela being alive, Procne being ostracized), they are still happening. And that, by being part of the silence, you are being part of the problem.

The sober theme of the play doesn’t mean there is no light-heartedness and humanity. The character of Niobe is described by one critic as having “looked, moved, and even sounded a little like she had walked out of a Monty Python sketch into the play” (Beck Holden, 2007). Now, this is the version I have seen, so cannot guarantee that Niobe is always portrayed as humorous, but I cannot imagine her role being much more serious than described above. And there was a pair of soldiers that also provided comic relief amongst the chaos happening around them. Even the role of Tereus is not without an element of humanity–rather than kill Philomela, he provides for her as “a caged bird”–whatever monstrous acts he has done, he still has a human heart. Yet that element of humanity does not condone what he has done, and he is still subject to retribution and punishment.

This play is obviously something that has triggering elements, which the viewer should be aware of beforehand. The set is meant to be minimalistic, so the chances of there being a lot of props of scenery is nil, baring the director taking a lot of creative license. This minimalism allows the viewer to truly get into the story rather than focus on a lot of scenery changes and flashy props. It is a well-written play with deep meaning and emotion.

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HERCULES AGAINST THE MOON MEN (1964) vs MST3K

Posted on 2010/08/30 by Ruadhán McElroy

This is a film that hates its audience.

But before I extrapolate on that, some background:

In the original Italian, this is NOT a Herakles film — it’s a “Maciste” film. I discovered this because, before I went into it, I looked it up on Wikipedia. In the review for 1958′s Hercules starring Steve Reeves, I mentioned that the original title of this one was Maciste e la regina di Samar, and assumed that since this was an Italo-French joint production, that “Maciste” was some convoluted French-Gaulish syncretic name for Herakles. I was wrong.

It seems “Maciste” is an Italian cinema character, and possibly the longest-running character created especially for cinema. Now, Maciste’s name comes from an epithet for Herakles, which may be evidence of a local deity merged into the Heraklean mythos, and the writer of the original Maciste film had renamed the character from “Ercole” (the modern Italian form of “Hercules”), but Maciste of the movies is technically not Herakles, but also in this weird technically kinda-sorta-maybe the same area. Though most of the Maciste films are set in ancient Hellas, the Roman Empire, or a similar and far vaguer time and place, some are (as a still on his Wikipedia article indicates) obviously set in a modern era. Basically, Maciste is a time-travelling, globe-trotting, strongman, “champion of the people” type; his films kinda peter out by the end of the 1920s, but her gets revived during the peplum/sword-n-sandal fad of 1959-1965-ish. His plots seem pretty stock — city or other large group of people are in trouble, a pretty girl is sent to fetch Maciste, as he is a renowned muscle-man who can help them, pretty girl and Maciste fall in love, maybe a plot twist happens to temporarily slow him down, and the people are saved — maybe he and the pretty girl will ride off into the sunset to save other people in other lands, but the rest of that is the general gist of of these films, at least if the plot summaries for a handful i looked up at random can be believed. The reason Maciste got re-dubbed into English as Hercules (and also, sometimes, Samson, Atlas, and “Colossus”) was because the importers were afraid that an English-speaking audience would be uninterested in seeing films about a character they’d never heard of (you know, despite the fact that people do that all the time — I’d really like to know how many people had heard of Spartacus before the film, and that’s become a film damned near everybody has seen at this point).

This knowledge helped buffer the big Mediterranean mythological mish-mash throughout the film, most of which I cannot point out (Wikipedia assures me that some elements are from Egyptian mythology, but damned if I can figure out what), but at least I knew it wasn’t Hellenic.

First off, this film’s plot and writing was stupid. Not painfully stupid, just kinda hackneyed and silly, like the Twilight series; it probably seems like a “good” story if you’re twelve or simply have the mentality of one, and it can pass for “good enough” if you can power-down your brain for about an hour and continue to remind yourself that it was probably never intended to be more than a popcorn matinee flick for bored teens. The writing team very obviously understood the basics of plot execution and such, but they only threw darts at any sort of character development; the classic Disney “golden age” films, like Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty feel better-developed than these characters, but intriguing characters with a meandering plot is kind of why Truman Capote’s work had to be re-worked to the point that he all but disowned it to make for good film, this is why you can do far more intriguing things with plot and character in novels than you can with films — films rely on visuals and pace more than literature does (though that’s not to say that pacing and “visuals” are completely unnecessary for a good read — nay, they are, indeed, necessary, just in different ways, but that’s another story for another time). Hell, Steve Reeves’ two Hercules films had better character development than this one does.

Boil down Maleficent from Disney’s Sleeping Beauty to her most basic elements, add aliens instead of magic (no shit), and you’ve got Queen Samara. She’s just kind of power-hungry, occasionally spies on characters through a lackey or technology, and she doesn’t care if she destroys everybody in her path. And she has aliens to do it with.

Agar, the pretty girl? Yeah, she’s pretty much just there to be pretty and occasionally aid Hercules/Maciste, but she’s no-where near as capable as Iole from the first Steve Reeves film.

Hercules/Maciste himself? He’s, just, well… A big strong champion-of-the-people type, he’s a tiny bit smarter and better informed than Queen Samara realises, but these sorts of films rely on that, so it’s not very interesting, unless your taste in films is kind of naïve.

From start to finish, the film follows a pretty basic story formula:

It opens with a quick few scenes and a narrator giving the story of how Samar was once hit by a meteor, and this brought The Monsters of the Mountain, who demanded a human sacrifice of the town’s children every full moon. Then it cuts to the queen of Samar (inventively named “Samara”, which I misheard as “Tamara” through most of the film) getting news from her… royal adviser? His position in the palace is never made clear, but his name is Claudius, and he’s telling Samara that the people are fed up with the Monsters and they wish to send for a man who may stop them. She quickly becomes incensed and sends him away, then one of her guards tells her that Claudius withheld from her, the people have already sent for (wait for it) HERCULES!

Herc is then seen riding into town, but he’s held up by a mob that might be trying to kill him, but it’s poorly choreographed, so maybe they’re just trying to teach him to dance?

Then we seen Samara’s bedroom, which fills with a green glow, and then an alien with a face like a cross between a robot and a luchadore mask vaporises in, and tells her the trap for Herc has failed, and that she still needs to kill Hercules, so that they can sacrifice Princess Billis, so they can revive Selene and Samara can be the most powerful woman in the world.

Then we get a scene of Billis and Prince Darix lamenting how Samara won’t let them marry, and it’s revealed that Samara is listening in on them through a sort of primitive speaker in a giant Bastet in the garden that has its other end coming through something in her own room that looks like a cross between Pan and a garden gnome.

Then Agar, most unconvincingly “disguised as a boy” (and she’s only wearing a hooded cape, but apparently that’s supposed to make her look like a boy), well, she’s Claudius’ daughter, and she’s sent to fetch Hercules and sneak him into the palace. That’s when Claudius tells Herc that the “bandits” that wanted to frot with him on the way into town? Oh, see, those were the Queen’s guards… He tells Hercules some stuff to advance the plot, and then they sneak off through a secret panel, and that’s when Agar notices that Samara has been spying on them through a hold in the opposite wall. One thing that really hits me about the rest of this speech of Claudius’ is that he’s establishing everything for Hercules that has been previously established for the audience, except he claims that these sacrifices happen “every third New Moon”, even though every other description from every other character states they are “every Full Moon”. Claudius is then assassinated as the two make their way through the apparent labyrinth of caves beneath the palace, and Herc is dropped through a trap door in the floor, and the pit he drops into immediately starts to fill with water.

By the way, drowning? Unless you’re holding the dude’s head below the surface with your hands and he himself is handcuffed — really ineffective murder attempt, the human body will just naturally try to save itself, which is why even drowning accidents are always accompanied with something like a weakened state or a storm.

…so yeah, in the most inefficient booby-trap ever, Hercules manages to break free cos of some loose bricks that sets him right in front of some kind of monster with an overbite. When Agar catches up with him, she’s in tears over her assassinated father and informs Hercules that Samara was spying on them. Still, he goes off to join the resistance and Samara, who has overheard this, tells her guard to go stop Hercules.

Herc meets up with the resistance, stuff is said, but it’s largely unmemorable and only serves to establish more stuff to advance the plot. Agar then returns to her father’s room, and Samara is there; some catty stuff is said and Agar coyly suggests Samara had Claudius assassinated.

Then Darix and Billis say good-bye as Darix leaves for a mission for Samara, but it’s a trap set up by Samara, so Hercules goes to rescue Darix, which he does, and this scene is choreographed a bit better. While this is happening, Samara has Billis taken from the palace and then Hercules goes to the tavern he was at before with Darix, and the tavern keeper warns Hercules that Samara keeps a magic powder that makes me fall in love with her in a locket around her neck.

Next is a scene of citizens, all women aged maybe 16-22, rounded up for the sacrifice by palace guards (which kind of makes you wonder how this has been going on for several generations, as has been established by the introductory narration and by other characters, but I guess that didn’t occur to the writers). Hercules beats the guards off from taking the tavern keeper’s daughter, and goes off to save Billis, and we get three minutes of watching the women being led up the mountain before Hercules catches up and realises the woman he was led to believe is Billis really isn’t, and he’s trapped.

Then we see Selene lying on an altar and Tamara and Billis standing before it, and the alien from before explains that Billis was needed because she looks so strikingly like Selene, and Billis is outraged that her own sister would sacrifice her like this, but this outrage is short-lived, as the Moon Man sends his rock golems to… surround her very closely, which I guess has the power to subdue people. Then the Moon Man explains the sacrifice to Samara and tells her that she has to kill Hercules to bask in all the power and glory she was promised.

Cut to Agar trying to rescure Hercules, but to no avail, cos he tells her to protect Billis. Then we jump to Tamara with Hercules in this bear-trap-like device shown in the film poster. Again, she’s a fan of inefficient executions — cos this one also fails, and she decides to take Hercules back to her room, presumably to slip him some powder and yep — that’s exactly what happens, but Herc is prepared and dumps his water out when her back is turned. When she finally leaves, she banished Agar (in hopes of locating where Darix is being protected), and yep, that works, so the two are sent to Samara where she asks Hercules what to do and, in order to gain her trust, suggests putting them to a starvation execution.

Hercules finally gets Samara alone and finds out where Billis is, then reveals his betrayal and goes to save Agara, Derix, and Princess Billis. After a big fight scene with the soldiers, we encounter:

SANDSTORM!

What is “SANDSTORM!” you may ask? It’s basically thirteen minutes with few interruptions (a hair under ten minutes without interruptions — I took timestamps) of… characters, fighting their way through a sandstorm. The interruptions don’t really advance the plot, either. Seriously, before this, the plot was insipid, but it was well-paced — then the film decided to remind you that you were sitting there for an hour and fifteen minutes.

When SANDSTORM! is finally over, Billis and Darix have reunited, Samara and the Moon Men have been defeated, and Hercules and Agar ride off into the sunset.

Mystery Science Theatre 3000: Hercules Against the Moon Men is part of MST3K box Vol 7, along with Hercules Unchained.

The MST3K cut opens with Dr. Forrester and TV’s Frank telling Joel that their “invention exchange” for this week is “SANDSTORM!” and is the first instalment of a new brand of experiment they call “DEEP HURTING!” Joel’s invention exchange is the Super Freak Out kit, which is largely unnotable, but it segues nicely into Forrester’s like “Rock Climbing [from the film Lost Continent] was a cool groove compared to Sandstorm!”

The jokes through the film are mostly about the hokey costuming and Hercules’ pecs, but the sketches are consistently about elements of the film — from Claudius’ execution via spikes that sprang out from the wall, to Hercules’ short loincloth that inspired “The Pants Song”.

Was this film as bad as its inclusion on MST3K may lead one to believe?

The good points of this film are that the costuming is gorgeous, the sets are pretty well detailed, and for the first hour-and-fifteen, it’s fast-paced enough that you almost forget that it’s kind of stupid. You know how Star Wars: A New Hope was fast-paced enough that you didn’t realise you sat on your hinder for two hours and pennies? This film’s pacing isn’t quite that good, but it’s about as good as something without Star Wars‘ vision, talent, or budget can hope for. It’s also not so awful for the first hour-and-change that the fast pacing feels like torture-via-speeddating or something; it’s watchable for the first hour, not necessarily good, but watchable — but after they plop you down in SANDSTORM, it feels like the infamous driving scene from “Manos”: The Hands of Fate. I felt like I was slowly becoming stupider just by watching that scene in its entirety without commentary from Joel and the Bots.

It’s one of the better MST3K episodes, but only barely watchable otherwise. It’s formulaic and predictable, but well-paced until it becomes gratuitously padded. I can’t even fathom what mythologies most of this story comes from, but I liked the novel approach of the villain being minions of Selene — which feels like an almost welcome change since, at some point in the mid-1980s when some big-wig executive decided that any film based on Hellenic mythology had to have Hades as the villain because I guess “Hades = Satan”, even though there are Hellenic deities who were bigger dicks than Hades; this is why I can sit through the Harryhausen Clash of the Titans, despite its ridiculous re-imaginings of Perseus mythology, because its villain is Tethys who, in classic Hellenic mythology fashion, is just kind of annoyed.

Hercules Against the Moon Men deserved everything that the MST3K team threw at it; it starts, and through most of the film, is, a fast-paced formulaic peplum action flick that’s… just kiund of stupid. And then the film throws you into a sandstorm for absolutely no reason, only to just kind of end it with possibly the most formulaic ending imaginable. This film gave me a newfound appreciation for Hercules Unchained, which at least has the train-wreck quality to keep your eyes glued to the screen.

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HERCULES UNCHAINED (1959) vs MST3K “Hercules Unchained”

Posted on 2010/08/22 by Ruadhán McElroy

For those of you who haven’t yet read the first chapter in this Sword & Sandal / Peplum and MST3K double series, I refer you to the first part, which is especially important if you’re still unfamiliar with the power and glory of Mystery Science Theatre 3000.

For everybody else, feel free to read on….

As has been noted in the annals of film criticism, the sequel is rarely as good as the original. This is no exception.

In fact, where the first Hercules film starring Steve Reeves took liberties with the mythology, Hercules Unchained (original title, Ercole e la regina di Lidia, “Hercules & the Queen of Lydia”) gang-rapes the mythology its based on.

The film is very loosely based on the legends of Herakles and Omphale (a noble woman of the island of Lydia; possibly a local Earth-mother deity whom the Hellenes, oddly, did not recognise, not even in syncretism), but what the opening credits did not tell us was that this also combines elements from The Seven Against Thebes and Oedipus at Colonus. The end result is something that plays out like an episode of, say, The Sarah Silverman Program, where you have these two totally unrelated plotlines, save for a single character that manages to connect the two in the vaguest way possible, and when it’s over, you’re somehow curious if it was really just as weird as you think you remember it. Except it’s about four times as long as Sarah Silverman, and no-where near as funny.

On the good side, it has Steve Reeves as Hercules, so if you can turn down your brain for an hour-and-a-half, you can get through it like I did, even though you’re still going to be aware that this isn’t even half as good as the first one. Reeves as Hercules may be perfect, but that’s hardly enough to carry an entire film, cos Reeves may look the part, but his acting abilities are still kind of lacking. — though to his credit, he gives one of the least painful performances in this one.

The film opens with a body being taken in on a stretcher into this… palace of some sort, and then the scene shifts to a boy and (who we later learn is) Omphale. There’s a large Buddha head in her room, which I thought was odd, if only on historical grounds — after all, this is presumably set long before Alexander opened up trade with India, and further presumably, before the founding of Buddhism (which, as per Wikipedia, was around 600BCE, or just after Homer and Hesiod); but hey, this was one of four peplum films starring Steve Reeves released that year, so obviously they didn’t have the time or money for some pretty basic sense of accuracy in the sets — they just had to establish that this palace is East of Hellas, and what better way to do that than… I dunno? Stick Buddhas all over? It’s bad when we’re not five minutes into this and i can already tell it’s going to be ridiculous.

So, the boy tells Omphale that her soldiers have come back, she goes over to the body they’ve brought in, and then her guards or soldiers… kill the boy.

Yeah, that makes sense.

This is going to hurt.

Now we get the credits! Yay! The credits fade in over Hercules and a bunch of other guys from the first film on a ship… headed somewhere… Then the next scene opens with Hercules and Iole loading up a caravan with a pair of horses hitched to it, and the narrator tells us:

This is the land of Attika, part of ancient Greece. What adventures await Hercules in this, his native land? …

Ow.

OW!

OK, mythology aside, this is a sequel to the last film, yes? It was established in the first film that Hercules is Theban, which is in Boeotia — not Attika. Therefore, this is not his native land. Unless they just figured those watching the English dubbing would neither know nor care about the geography. Still, even with my brain turned down a bit, this hurts. I somehow felt compelled to replay that line three times just to make sure I heard it right, and it stung harder each time. I think this officially makes me suicidal in some states.

Many months ago, he set out alone, now he returns with Iole, his bride. Accompanying Hercules and Iole to the city of Thebes would be the young Ulysses, son of Laertes. Now they must bid farewell to their comrades, who have shared their dangerous adventures for the last two years.

I generally don’t mind this narrated intro, bringing the audience up to speed, on the chance that there are people in the audience who didn’t catch the first one. Sometimes I wish more sequels did something similar.

So then we see Laertes give Hercules some carrier pigeons and tell Hercules and Iole to take care of Ulysses, and before they’re sent off, they give Iole a gift lyre from Orpheus — guess which gift is going to be a plot point later?

The three shuffle off, Ulysses driving, so Hercules decides to nap in the back of the caravan and Iole sings “Evening Star” by Mansetti and Parish, which is lyrically irrelevant, so it plays out as kind of gratuitous padding. After Iole’s song finishes, they encounter Antaeus. While I can’t deny that Antaeus is expertly cast by 6’6″ Italian heavyweight boxing champion Primo Carnera (in his last film role, and looking damned amazing for being fifty-three), I’m here wondering why, on a trip that’s theoretically heading somewhat NNW-ish (from somewhere in Attika to Thebes), did these three take a Southwest-ish detour to Libya for Hercules to take on the labour of Antaeus? More importantly, …

No, wait, this is going to end up longer than the last review if I nit-pick the small stuff like this. Long story short, the fight scene between Hercules and Antaeus is pretty cool, at least it is if you like watching old wrestling matches. Yeah, Athene’s role in Hercules’ besting of Antaeus is replaced with Ulysses suggesting it, but then She is his patroness, so it makes some sense, if you’re feeling generous enough to give the writers that much credit. And the guy doing the English overdub for Carnera has this pompous spark to his voice acting that makes the character about as enjoyable to watch as Steve Reeves as Hercules, but only for that one scene, which is maybe five minutes long and ends less than fifteen minutes into the film.

(As an aside: My flat-mate suggested that Antaeus actually encountered them en route to Thebes, sans tripping through space, because Antaeus is on vacation and, being a son of Gaea, all valleys are thus “his” valleys, and for fun, being a giant, he likes to engage in random thuggery. This really doesn’t help things make any more sense, but he promised I could have the last Ghiradelli muffin if I mentioned this.)

Then it starts to rain and Hercules, Iole, and Ulysses fall back through that wormhole to get back on the road to Thebes, and no sooner do their molecules settle back into place, but they get cut off by Argive soldiers. Despite the fact that they’re all wearing the same armour (oh yeah, the costumes in this one aren’t nearly as good as they were in the first one), Hercules can tell that their captain is Theban — I guess when you’re Theban, you can smell your countrymen. Then it starts to rain, so the three decide to pull over and, despite having a perfectly good caravan to take shelter in, they dismount and head for a cave — cos if they took refuge in their caravan, they wouldn’t have met Oedipus and Polynices, who were hanging out in there.

Apparently, Oedipus and Polynices are hanging out in the cave cos Polynices’ brother, Eteocles, won’t give up the throne, like he promised. Now Hercules has walked in on the Seven Against Thebes plot, and it kind of hurts, cos apparently Herc is one of those guys who thinks he can solve everybody’s problems with the power of his own awesome. Granted, Hercules loves his city, hates seeing this turmoil, and so has a personal interest in this, but really, we all saw this coming from a mile away. Then the soldiers enter, and Polynices declares war on Thebes if his brother doesn’t surrender the throne; Polynices and the soldiers leave, and then we get a cut of the sky and a voice-over that says:

The time has come, Oedipus. The gates are opening for you.

…and then Oedipus walks down into a pit.

O_O

I really don’t know what else to say to that. I really don’t.

Executive transvestite!Then Hercules goes storming the palace and we see Eteocles (and every time I see this actor, I’m reminded of Eddie Izzard), who is playing with his pit of tigers. I don’t know why, but this bothers me — but no, I promised, I’m going to stop nit-picking details.

So, yeah, Eteocles gives Hercules and Ulysses a scroll to give to Polynices, presumably to negotiate a truce, but the two comment on how Eteocles has gone mad as they leave to meet Polynices again. As the two stop to eat, Herc drinks from the fountain of forgetfulness and then hallucinates Iole’s song; he pushes over a boulder, and then faints. Ulysses realises that they’re surrounded by soldiers unknown to them, so he pretends to be a deaf-mute, and the soldiers assume him a slave. Now we see Hercules carried off on a stretcher to the same palace as the first scene and a boy fetches Omphale, and the next action is Hercules waking in a room with a wall open to the palace garden. Herc wakes to find he has no memory, and Omphale tells him that he is the king of this land; enter gratuitous dancing girls and Hercules proclaiming that he likes being King — but wait, says Herc, I don’t even know my name? Omphale replies “to me, your name is Love!”

Ow.

For those unfamiliar with the Herakles and Omphale mythos, Herakles was remanded by decree of an oracle to be enslaved to Omphale’s service for one year for the Iphitus’ manslaughter; in fact, a common variation of this legend is that Herakles was also ordered to wear women’s clothing while Omphale wore the skin of the Nemean lion, making it clear to ancient Hellenes that this was no picnic, so yeah, this was hardly a holiday for Hercules with the only drawback being temporary amnesia. This deviation hurts me somehow.

Next we see Iole wondering where Herc is, and an old guy whose name I didn’t write down in my notes assures her that Hercules is fine, they’ve only been gone for three days.

Next, we see Ulysses in his cell, sending out a pigeon — because for some reason, these weren’t sent with Hercules… You know, I’m not going to ask this shit to make sense any-more, it just gives me tiny headaches. Then Ulysses is fetched to give Hercules his morning massage, and servant girls bring in breakfast. Ulysses notices the water they’re pouring for him, and after they leave, he dumps it over and refills the cup from the fountain in the garden. As Hercules drinks the refilled water, Ulysses tries to remind Hercules who he is, but since this isn’t going very far, we cut to the pigeon returning to Ithaca, where Penelope recognises it and the message gets to Ulysses’ father. We then learn that Iole has tried to run away to find Hercules, and Eteocles declares war, cos I guess that’s what you gotta do when you look like an Executive Transvestite.

Then presumably a few days back at Lydia have passed, cos Ulysses is getting new water for Hercules again, and Ulysses tries to explain the statues to Herc. What statues?

Well, you see, Omphale has these Egyptians working for her, who dip strong men into milk and dry ice for her, and when they come out, they are perfectly preserved “statues”. Why she’s doing this is anybody’s guess, as is when Egyptian mummification got that ridiculously simplistic. I really want to know when Omphale became a Batman villain, cos this is about as ridiculous as some of Mr. Freeze’s schemes.

So then Hercules suddenly remembers… something, but apparently not who he is, cos in the next scene, there’s a rescue party from Ithaca in the main room, and as Hercules stumbles in, people recognise him, but he has no idea what they’re talking about, so the men are kind of snarky about it, only for everything to suddenly come together for him a few hours later. They all escape and Omphale throws herself off a cliff all Sappho-like, and into a vat of milk and dry ice, but not before we see some really scary close-up shots of how much mascara they put on this actress.

Now it’s time to stop the war on Thebes — cos that’s what you do when you’re Hercules. Eteocles plans to execute Hercules’ family, and manages to throw everybody off the city wall except Iole, whom he decides is to be saved for the tiger, cos everything up to this point made too much sense, I guess. As the men return from Lydia, Hercules gets trapped n the tiger pit, and he defeats the tiger, as if we didn’t expect it. Then there’s a duel between Oedipus’ sons and they both die. Just when you think it’s going to wrap up, it seems a soldier has captured Iole, and he threatens Hercules with keeping her, and then there’s a big battle scene, which is kind of disappointing.

Then there are funerary rites for the brothers, and I like that the actor playing the priest is using proper prayer stance (but mostly I’m surprised by it, at this point), and the film ends with Iole saying “The Gods will be kind if we just love one another.”

The MST3K cut was the first Hercules film that aired on Mystery Science Theatre. I’d seen this about a dozen times or more long before watching the uncut version for review, and it’s available commercially as part of MST3K Box #7. Honestly, maybe it’s the running commentary throughout the film, or the way that it’s been cut (unlike 1958′s Hercules, the scenes MST3K cut from Hercules Unchained don’t really add anything, however minor, to the film), but it just never struck me how goofy this film was until watching it uncut.

The MST3K cut opens with host sketches; its the annual wash-n-wax day for the Bots (see Hercules review, or at least check Wikipedia), and Joel and Dr. Forrester are doing their invention exchange (a remnant of the days when Joel Hodgeson was a half-bit prop comic). I didn’t mention the invention exchange in the previous review because 1) it’s a feature that ended after Joel left the show, and 2) it rarely has any relevance to the film, it’s just something silly that’s somehow one of the few venues for prop comedy to actually work. This one is only peripherally relevant to the film: As Dr. Forrester and TV’s Frank (yes, that’s the character’s full name) show off their Swatch Roaches (a goof on the sometimes absurdly colourful Swatch™ watches that were popular from approximately 1986-1992), handyman Steve “Hercules” Reeves (played by head writer Mike Nelson) finds one of their would-be escaped roaches; Joel’s invention is The Steve-O-Metre (no relation to Steve Reeves) because “There is the Known, the Unknown, and What Steve (Allen) Knows”, and this machine is calibrated to detect things comedian/writer/actor/game designer/songwriter/etc… Steve Allen has thought of. As Forrester and Frank fight over their roaches, Steve Reeves is encouraged to introduce his second film, Hercules Unchained.

The first pre-credits scene has been cut because, really, I can’t think of anything that added to the film besides initial confusion, since it takes another good half-hour for the film to come back to Omphale. The majority of the jokes from the first segment revolved around Reeves’ pecs, the idea that all body-builders are on steroids, Iole’s song, and pointing out the sometimes stupid dialogue and shoddy costuming (Antaeus seriously looks like he’s wearing a bathroom rug, but otherwise the actor/boxer looks perfect in this role). When Hercules, Iole, and Ulysses encounter Oedipus and Polynices in the cave, Joel and tom’s comments goof on the idea that the trio have inadvertently walked in on another film set, which it really kind of felt like watching it uncut.

Now to Eden... Yeh, brothers..!

Now to Eden... Yeh, brothers..!

I'm the Hellenistic ideal!

I'm the Hellenistic ideal!

The second sketch features Gypsy’s “Greek Song” with set and costumes. Seriously, that song deserved it; lyrically irrelevant, stylistically very 1950s, it was just completely gratuitous excuse for a musical number.

The MST3K cut also left out the big almost too-long introduction of Eteokles and his tiger pit, because we already knew where Hercules was headed, so simply cutting to Hercules getting the scroll from Eteokles is fine. And really, while it wouldn’t have hurt me to see Hercules storming the palace a second time, I’m not sure how much more of Eddie Izzard as Caligula as Eteokles I could take.

The third sketch goofs on The Fountain of Forgetfulness by introducing us to:

  • The Carob Shake of Pretentiousness
  • The Blizzard of Lonliness
  • The Fruit Stripe Gum of Stability
  • and The Green Bean Casserole of Happiness

…I’m not sure how funny two of those four would be if you’re not from the American Midwest.

After the third sketch (and for the first time, oddly) it hits me that the relatively capable and somewhat independent, if infatuated Iole of the first film has been replaced by a damsel-in-distress sort of pod person who wants nothing more than to escape Thebes to go find Hercules. Where the Iole of the first film probably would have eventually found him, this pod person repeatedly gets captured by Eteokles’ guards, who return her to him as his hostage — for some reason it suddenly hits me has never been made exactly clear.

The fourth sketch sheds some light on the fact that the Bots have a sort of parent-child type relationship with Joel (after all, he did create them), as they repeatedly ask Joel what Hercules and Omphale do alone when they’re “snuggling and kissing and the scene fades out”. While MST3K may have aired on cable, it aired during prime time and was largely marketed as a family show, so that’s pretty much the real reason Joel doesn’t just come out and tell the Bots (and the audience) that Hercules and Omphale are probably “making the squishy” (as one of my best friends once put it), but in the end, it seems kind of silly that a film with gratuitous titillation in the form of dancing girls would stop so short of implying sex; after all, this was only a couple of years before The Children’s Hour, starring Audrey Hepburn, implied same-sex love all over the place, and we barely see Omphale’s bare back — and this was filmed in Italy which, despite its rampant Catholicism, had a much more relaxed film code than the American industry.

The last segment of the film leaves in all the really relevant parts of the uncut version and the episode ends with Joel and the bots discussing the socio-philosophical “needs” this film, and others in the peplum sub-genre of action films filled in the late 1950s — or, more accurately, Joel, Crow and Gypsy are discussing this, while Tom Servo is quick to point out that they were simply cheap imports brought in to North America in hopes to turn a quick profit.

So, is this as bad as its inclusion on Mystery Science Theatre 3000 would imply?

Yes.

To its credit, again, Reeves as Hercules and Primo Carnera as Antaeus, but when compared to the first Hercules vehicle for Steve Reeves, it has incompetance written all over it. The costumes aren’t half as good as they were in the first film, the writing is a complete mess, and the changes to the mythology involved are easily comparable to watching an hour-and-a-half of the love-starved Amazon Sirens from the first film. It’s really obvious that this was made in half the time as the first one, and that the majority of the budget was probably Steve Reeves’ guarantee.

I pretty much only recommend seeing this in its MST3K cut, but if you have a perverse love of train-wreck films, you can probably find a cheap copy of the uncut version at Big Lots or Dollar General, as its lapsed into the public domain and really isn’t worth more than a couple bucks; if you’re on Cinemageddon (my favourite torrent site), seeds come up periodically, as well. I found this on a DVD at Big Lots for $3, and also on the DVD was the first Hercules film, so it was like paying $3 for the first one and getting this stink-burger for free. The MST3K cut manages to buffer some of the absurdity with the running commentary, and it gives you breaks with the sketches, which I gladly welcomed by the time they came.

Posted in films, series: herakles, series: mst3k, series: sword & sandal | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Mythology: Greek Gods, Heroes, & Monsters (Ologies Series) – “Lady Hestia Evans”

Posted on 2010/08/20 by AingealOreiad

Candlewick Press, Edited by Dugal A. Steer; 2007

ISBN: 9780763634032

Lady Hestia Evans is the original author of this book, which was written in 1825. She was highly inspired by Lord Byron, and wrote this book as she followed in his footsteps across the ancient Greek sites. She gave a copy to John Oro, an English nobleman as he did the same trip, asking him to collect treasures and artifacts to be placed in a museum another friend of hers is building in Greece. The edition that has been printed by Candlewick Press is a facsimile of the old damaged copy that John had used, including his personal notes and inserts. Unfortunately, poor Mr. Oro became selfish and met with a terrible fate…

The Ology books are a series of books geared towards children between 9 and 12 on a variety of subjects. One of the biggest appeals to these books is the inclusion of games, tokens and other “authentic” objects related to the book’s theme. Also of interest is the fact that all of the books are “written” by fictional experts.

I wanted this book from the first time I saw it in a bookstore. Even after I got a copy, I was not disappointed, and just wish the company had been able to turn this into the money-making gem that some of the other Ologies became. For a 32-page book, it is well-written and provides a fairly unbiased (although very brief, thus limited) view of the gods. It is not written like a textbook, but is a collection of brief snippets of information with many pictures and inclusions (what I’m calling the games, notes and supplemental material). I have to applaud the “editor” for maintain a fairly accurate description of Hades (both the God and Underworld), although the picture drawn of them leaves a lot to be desired.

No book on Greek mythology is complete without touching upon stories of the Hero’s, including Herakles, Theseus, and the battle of Troy. Again, the entire book is only 32 pages, so the 4 pages devoted to these myths only provides a brief look and can help guide the reader to learn more.

One of my favorite inclusions is a deck of Knowledge Cards, one for each of the Olympians plus Hades (this book follows the story that Hestia stepped down for Dionysos to become one of the Olympians). They have extremely basic information, but for an interested child, these cards make a great portable learning tool, or can even act as representations for worship if someone doesn’t have the money or room for statues. There is also a fun “oracle” made of paper oak leaves, with an explanation of Dodona and the oak tree found there (as part of the Zeus & Hera page–Hera as usual got a bad rap which sucks, but sadly expected). Some of the inclusions (like the “Golden Fleece) were hokey, although I can see the appeal to a child.

The fate of John Oro is sadly predictable, but it’s amusing the way his story was presented in the margins and to see how it was going to ultimately play out. This feature kept the book from reading like JUST an anthology and provided a plot to follow. The inclusions (some of which came out of the book entirely and some that were attached pop-up style) allowed the adult or advanced reader to slow down and really go through the book and experience it more than one might otherwise do.

Posted in children & young adult, literature | Tagged , , | 5 Comments

Highway to Hades: Hermes Psychopompos and the Economy of Death

Posted on 2010/08/16 by KayleighAnnyikha

Several years ago, I found a story in Vestal Review, a literary journal for short fiction, called “Over the River.” Now that this series on depictions of the underworld has begun, I revisited the story and was surprised at the amount of nuance I found. If you would like to read the story before jumping into critical analysis, please click here. If not, there will be another link at the bottom.

Sonya Taaffe’s “Over the River” is a deeply personal work of flash fiction that explores the newly dead’s relationship with Hermes Psychopompos, the aspect of the God who brings the dead to the underworld — the Guide of Souls. On another level, though, it characterizes the relationship between mortals as immortals as one between haves and have-nots in society. Unlike other literary texts (such as Anaïs Mitchell’s rock opera Hadestown), Taaffe makes no overt judgment about the economic elites, preferring to merely use the language to codify the separation between mortals and immortals.

Words of economic privilege appear in the first line when Hermes comes for the speaker’s soul. Coming ”was not stealing” because “the price had been paid, in cold coin under my tongue.” This language identifies the speaker — well, its ψυχή (psychê) — as a commodity that can be taken without its consent. The idea of a struggle against the Guide of Souls does not even appear in the narrative. The soul passively accepts the call, following Hermes down into the Undergloom. However, a hint of resentment is communicated through the speaker’s word choice and subject matter. As it travels down, the distinction between immortals and mortals is portrayed as a distinction between”… those who eat immortality and those whose lives gutter out.” Mortals are fundamentally separated from the Gods because they die. They end up in Hades, whereas the Olympioi and the elect mortals deified by them live in relative comfort and ease. This isn’t just a taboo against upward social mobility — it is something fundamental. After all, we’re talking about the divine.

The imagery of wealth as something belonging to life and the soul’s bitterness at losing it comes up again when we follow the soul’s journey down to the ferryman at the Styx. They travel “under the earth and all that was rich in it,” signifying a letting go of the transient goods people have during their lifetimes. The soul owns nothing and cannot even control its own destiny. Even the money in the soul’s mouth does not belong to it. The soul just carries it, and even that must pass away: At the close of the story, it represents the final connection to life, wealth, and power — something it must give up to pass into the realm of shades beyond the River Styx:

You had held my hand when my breath had gone, when all I carried in my mouth was the charge of my crossing; you were as certain and untrustworthy as the turn of every season, even in this place where there are no seasons and no change, and when you were gone from the shore I spat the coin into my hand, your votive, and turned to meet the ferryman with a smile.

The God leaves them just when she must finally give the wealth up, showing that even the one who has kindly watched over them on the journey must leave as they sink down into death.

Hermes proves the sole God who can mediate between these haves and have-nots. Hermes’s aspect as the guide who can travel between worlds (Hermês Psychopompôs) is crucial to the workings of the story. In the first second of the second paragraph, the speaker reveals his position as the last person to see the ones whose lives “gutter out.” He can provide enough comfort and familiarity to souls that they will follow him even into the darkness.

Everything about his abstract appearance indicates warmth and safety. He is that “golden flicker in the darkness, the shadows of the world seen from the underside, the sideways slip and double of a lamp-flame burning on my sight to guide me as the fixed stars lead the sailor,” that being with hands “warm as sunlight” who helps the soul complete its journey into death. She links him to piled stones and mentions his plucked music, which is reminiscent of the situation in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes in which he steals the cattle of Apollon, but he always remains that abstract creature of light and hands — “the word unspoken on everyone’s tongue.”

Going between Gods and the dead always carries an element of the transgressive. The same God who guides souls and works in the barn with Hekate steals people’s livelihoods on the open road. His transcendence of boundaries make him less observant of the boundaries between ownership, as when he decided to just steal the offerings from other temples for his own in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes. In the story, Taaffe expresses this as a latent distrust. He is “certain and untrustworthy,” making the soul disbelieve the “word spoken in solemnity.”

All of these elements combine to create a very powerful story about death, trust, and power. While it does not delve deeply into the resentment of or desire for wealth and the hatred of poverty, it provides something very beautiful: a modernized relationship between mortal and immortal that even people without knowledge of mythology can read and understand on a very deep, primal level.

And she does this without ever even mentioning the name Hermes.

Links

Taaffe, Sonya. “Over the River.” Vestal Review, 2003. http://www.vestalreview.net/overtheriver.htm
Vestal Review (Main Site)
Hermes on Theoi.com
Homeric Hymn to Hermes, Perseus Project. Trans. Hugh G. Evelyn-White.

Posted in series: highway to hades, short stories | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Shriekback – SACRED CITY

Posted on 2010/08/15 by Ruadhán McElroy

World Domination Records, 1992

Before I begin, I want you all to know that this wasn’t my original choice for review today — no, that was originally going to be an Ataraxia album that is now being put off for later. Maybe I was “instructed” to review this one instead, cos all I know is that, aside from the car ride to and from MichiCon at Oakland University last night, I’ve been listening to this album for the larger part of three or four days (not all of which has been logged on Last.FM), and even when I’ve been listening to other things, this is what I hear with my mind’s ear.

Shriekback are probably one of the most delightfully intelligent pop-rock bands in existence. Think of what Roxy Music could have been in Brian Eno had stuck around and they absorbed Gary Numan at some point — or maybe that’s just my fantasy? Or maybe I’m cutting Numan a little too much credit?

Now, you may be asking why I’m reviewing this one, after all, Oil & Gold has the song about Nemesis; most likely, though, you’re probably not asking yourself that, and I’m just geeking out. The plain truth is, this is not only one of my personal favourite Shriekback albums, it is my personal opinion that this is probably their most spiritual album.

Most of Shriekback’s albums are just different enough from each-other that each can possibly pass for a concept album, and many really do have loose lyrical themes connecting most of the songs, in which case, Sacred City is an experimental art rock album with songs about spirituality and the city of London.

Much like some of the songs from Oil & Gold, the instrumentation on much of Sacred City is apparently influenced (at least in part) by the same sort of pan-Mediterranean folk music that Dead Can Dance seems to have made their careers on, but unlike Dead Can Dance, the apparent electronics drive this into a set of rock rhythms that evolved from the proto-”post-punk” sound that came from XTC (the band Shriekback frontman Barry Andrews was a part of before Shriekback); don’t get me wrong, Shriekback very much has their own sound, and it’s also obvious how and why they were influential on what would later become techno-industrial (especially their first two studio albums), but the jangling guitars and stealthy bass-lines don’t leave Shriekback out-of-place in a record collection featuring Love & Rockets and Japan.

Of especial note on this one are:

“(Open Up Your) Filthy Heart (To Me)”, a literal love song to the city. The tempo is between ballad and lullabye and addresses the city as an ancient entity, something that has had many expectations placed on it, but rarely, though occasionally, loved for what it is — not just its history and majesty, but its very essence, its soul.

“Beatles Zebra Crossing?” is about the cross-walk featured prominently on the cover of The Beatles’ album Abbey Road. Seems an odd choice of topic for a song, but that little patch of land contains so much history, both personal and communal, back to the era of the Roman Empire.

“Hymn To the Local Gods” probably has the most broad appeal to the Hellenic community, if only because it both paints a romantic portrait of culture-wide polytheism in general, and portrays the Gods as living and very much still alive, suggesting that “they never died, we only lost their number”, and even encourages to “leave a fire in the window, Pour the wine under the underpass” and renew worship and libations, ask back the local Gods.

Album ender, “Every Force Evolves a Form” is a very close runner-up to “Hymn To the Local Gods”, and the message of the lyrics is pretty much the title, but orchestrated in a full-bodied piece ripe for dance.

Again, I admit, this one probably doesn’t have as broad appeal for the Hellenismos community as the album I had originally intended to review today, and if anybody gets disappointed with that I apologise, but really, it could have been worse — my tastes are just varied enough that I can say that, eventually, I’m going to review something of no interest to anybody else reading this, and most of you will probably hate it. But I don’t feel I’m wrong to recommend this one; it has apparent potential appeal to pagans and polytheists, and anybody seeking the sacred amongst the cities.

Sacred City lyrics
Shriekback on Amazon

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HERCULES (1958) vs. MST3K “Hercules”

Posted on 2010/08/11 by Ruadhán McElroy

As both a sucker for old sword-n-sandal action, and (as loathe as I am to admit, especially with my English grandparents probably watching from the Underworld) somewhat of a product of the American Midwest, I realised that I had to produce a review series involving Mystery Science Theatre 3000, and even the latest project from Mike Nelson (head writer for MST3K for nearly every season), Kevin Murphy (the voice of Tom Servo), and Bill Corbett (Observer/Brain Guy and the voice of Crow during the Sci-Fi Channel series), RiffTrax. When I can obtain an “unriffed” version of the film (whether by rental or from the bin of $3 DVDs at my local Big Lots — or even, if I simply can’t find it any other way, from a film torrent site), I will compare them, if only to see if the title in question really is as bad as Joel Hodgeson (creator), Mike, Trace Beaulieu (Dr Forrester and the voice of Crow in the Comedy Central series), Kevin, and Bill’s wise-cracking commentary may lead one to believe; and, because I’m what’s known as a hardcore “MiSTie”, I will make it very clear if I’m reviewing a Mystery Science Theatre episode that has not yet had a commercial release (despite the show’s huge cult following, episodes have been slow to release due to rights issues and negotiations with the copyright holders of the original film; on the other hand, the people behind MST3K themselves have always encouraged tape/DVDR-trading among fans, and will knowingly turn a blind eye to fans selling DVD-R copies on sites like iOffer, as long as the price is not for an apparent profit; on rare occasion, you can also find unreleased episodes on YouTube).


The first film I’m going to add to this series of both sword & sandal flicks and of MST3K/RiffTrax treatments is 1958′s The Labours of Hercules, the International English title. I know it was originally shot in Italian, which I have never seen, and which I imagine can’t be much better, as the film’s star, Steve Reeves, was an American of largely Scottish descent (so I can’t imagine him having the firmest grasp of any Latinate dialect), a bodybuilder who once held the Mr. Universe title, and I find it telling that his IMDb biographies would rather mention his fifty-two inch pecs before his acting abilities. I have never seen this film in its uncut-for-MST version prior to this review, and MST-featured films in their original state tend toward boring me to sleep, so I go in with a prayer to Hypnos and to Herakles himself, because if this film did nothing else right, it can at least say that Steve Reeves looked the part in every way, so it already has something on every other Herakles film.

When you think of Herakles of Thebes, you don’t (or at least I don’t) think of Disney’s toothy animated pretty-boy-on-steroids. While I liked that Hercules: The Legendary Journeys had Kevin Sorbo, well, not try to look like Reeves, I don’t think of Sorbo’s Hercules as “really Herakles”; well-built and believable for the material and Sorbo’s abilities? Sure, I’ll even argue that Sorbo is debatably a better actor than Reeves, but he’s not really close to what I think of when I think Herakles. Steve Reeves, on the other hand, looks plucked from an ancient vase painting, a veritable animated statue of the God Himself that no other depiction of Herakles before or since could quite chisel out right. Have there been Heraklean actors of adequate appearance and presence? Sure, but even a pretty good Herakles seems a bit dime-a-dozen; Reeves, on the other hand, looked perfect in this role and all who disagree will be asked if they use that mushy grey stuff between their ears for something more than keeping their skulls from caving in.

I also admit that I have the scantest familiarity with the poem this is based on, The Argonautica by Apollonius of Rhodes, as it’s been years since I’ve read it, and hard copies are easier on my eyes than eBooks on my desktop monitor (I won’t turn down a Nook from an aspiring sugar daddy, though), so I will abstain from commenting on its apparent “faithfulness”, except where things seem especially bizarre for Hellenic mythos.

As I sit down with my big bowl of cheese-dust coated popcorn, a cat hoovering behind me on the back of the couch and expecting a tribute of cheese popcorn, I’m forgiving the dust and scratches left over from a well-used archive print of the film, and I’m forgiving the harsh, often grainy colour idiosyncratic of cheap digital “restorations”, and I’m liking the wider aspect ratio of this film better than the familiar MST3K cut, which was presented in a cheap pan-and-scan edit for television — but widescreen presentation does not a good film make, so I regain composure, because all this indicates is that they didn’t have the budget for Cinemascope. Still, a poor restoration is evidence of nothing more than a low budget for the DVD.

After the opening credits typical of the period, we get a scrolling prologue that reads:

Immense and immortal was the strength of Hercules,
like the world and the Gods to whom He belonged…
Yet from lesser men he learned one eternal truth —
that even the greatest strength carries with it
a measure of mortal weakness…

Despite some stylistic quibble characteristic of the genre — “ruins” during a story that pre-dates Hesiod, women’s hair and make-up styles anachronistic to the late 1950s, mostly — the film has good framing throughout, and even the costuming is probably the closest to “accurate” for ancient Hellas that I’ve seen in these late 1950s/early 1960s sword-and-sandal epics. The costuming on this film is rich with colour, and even some fabric painting and embroidery (though not much), the sandals and armours are well-detailed, for the budget this was filmed on, and the sets for the palace of Iolcus make up for what they lack by skilled framing to distract from this relatively minor flaw.

Iole, the daughter of Pelias, is pretty strong and capable for an ancient Hellenic woman of her approximate age and class (though the actess is considerably older than the typical marrying age of ancient women, this is forgiven due to modern sensibilities), and in her first scene, is shown attempting to repair her own chariot, and quickly it’s revealed that Hercules can’t fix it, either. Score a point for people who care about that sort of thing in their films.

As Iole gives Hercules some background about the theft of the Golden Fleece, I’m immediately struck by a scene that MST3K left out, most likely due to time and its minor relevance, at best, to the plot — this is a scene where Iole and her brother are very young and sneak off with Jason to see and touch the Golden Fleece. I understand why MST3K left it out, but I think, due largely to Iole’s narration, it adds to some of the background and majesty of the fleece, despite it being a visually unimpressive scene. The flashback ends with Iole describing the sight of the slain king, and the shock at the missing fleece, and for 1958, there is a LOT of blood in this scene.

Just moments prior to Iole and Hercules’ return to Iolcus, we get a scene with King Pelias receiving a prophecy from an oracle woman directly. I could quibble about this, after all, the visions of oracles were often cryptic, and often relayed through priests trained in deciphering what they spoke of, but if I recall correctly, recent studies suggest that this may not have been a constant figure, and some oracles may have spoken directly. On the other hand, despite the bad dubbing (which really is steeped throughout this film), the actress does an adequate job of being kinda “spooky” in her portrayal of this oracle; she stands inhumanly erect, when compared to other characters on the screen, and has this intense and feline quality to her face, a face framed in a thick lock of long dark hair (as the rest is wrapped in a scarf behind her head), large eyes, chiselled-looking features. Her costuming is also apparently chosen to stand out amongst all other characters she shares a frame with, which probably aids in giving her an other-worldly quality. Pelias, in this scene, is portrayed as very pious, scolding his son for insulting the oracle for being “not even pretty”, and explaining to him that the oracles are “the Gods’ mouthpieces”. She warns Pelias of a stranger who will greet him wearing a single sandal the second before Hercules walks in — and quickly, the camera pans in just enough to reveal that Hercules…

…is indeed wearing both sandals.

The next major scene, if I didn’t know better, I would swear is one of the most splendid yet transparent excuses for beefcake in a film; it’s hard to avoid beefcake in a Herakles film, it really is, and it’s not like this one goes to lengths to avoid seeming gratuitous, when compared to scenes in, say, Troy that seem almost over-dressed. There’s a reason “old Steve Reeves movies” were mentioned so lustfully by Dr Frank, through the song “In Just Seven Days (I Will Make You a Man)” in Rocky Horror (Picture) Show, and maybe it’s cos I’m inclined toward my own gender, myself, but when a scene opens with a bunch of oiled men in perizoma leaping, sprinting, and almost frolicking into the frame, it’s really hard not to see how this could be a hit with gay men.

When Ulysses introduces himself to Hercules, he says:

My father said you put strength ahead of everything, but I know you want us to use our forces only to serve our intelligence.

Forgive me for failing to remember if this is something actually taken from Argonautica, but regardless, I think it’s possibly the most important lesson of Heraklean mythos — after all, what good is physical power when you lack the intelligence to use it best? Big, stupid strongmen are a dime-a-dozen, and often make a nuisance of themselves, or worse.

Hercules quickly bests Iphitus in both archery and discus, which manages to spook everyone there but Iole, who scoffs at the other men being intimidated. Soon afterward, Hercules kills a lion which had already delivered fatal wounds to Iphitus. I admit that I’m a bit uncomfortable with these animal effects, but considering the time, I’m not sure if there was much in the way of choices here without it looking too cheesy — which they already sometimes are. There are moments when you have to suspend disbelief that Reeves is wrestling a skin from a Victorian trophy room, and there are moments where you can tell the lion and bull that just got beaned are high on tranquillizers, and it’s impossible to tell if Reeves is holding back much, if at all. The animal effects have no middle ground, and while I really want to forgive this cos of the limited technology available, watching Hercules battle the lion and the Cretan bull in this film make me rather uncomfortable, and this is as somebody who gladly had a burger for lunch.

Speaking of the Cretan bull, MST3K omitted that, as well, again, probably for time and its reduced relevance to the story of the film.

How is this importance reduced? Well, one of the major changes I can definitely say is apparent in this film was how the screenwriters expanded the role of Herakles in the return of the golden fleece; in traditional Heraklean mythos (and, according to Wikipedia, the Argonautica, specifically, as well), Herakles’ role in this quest is minimal, and he leaves the others pretty early on after Hylas becomes lost. Hylas is absent from this film, at least in name; the first image from the first scene is of a youth with goats playing a pan flute, and this may be there to imply that Herakles’ abandons Hylas early on in the film’s story. This is all speculative, as that youth is unnamed, and only appears in that very brief few seconds in the first scene. The de-facto role of Hylas is replaced by the character of Iole, but I don’t mind this so much because she’s pretty well-done.

Soon after the bullfight, i encounter another MST3K-cut scene, that of Herakles and Jason about to cross a river on horseback, but they are stopped by a woman with her daughters, and she asks the men to help them across. As they help the woman and girls cross the river, Jason loses a sandal; when the woman points this out, he laughs about it and says “that’s alright, I can get a better pair in Iolcus.” Hercules then remembers the King’s degree that all men entering Iolcus wearing only one sandal shall be put to death, so after Jason heads out on his own, Hercules follows.

As Jason and Hercules and a band of men set out by ship to retrieve the Golden Fleece and prove Jason’s status as heir, the actor playing Orpheus is singing in Italian (the film’s original language, and the only segments left without an overdub), a lovely tenor, as the rest of the men sing in chorus as they row. Soon after, they hit the storm, and there’s another scene MST3K cut — the details of the statue of Poseidon falling, cracking through the top floor of the ship, and then the storm subsiding as soon as its erected again.

When the men encounter the Amazons (something that doesn’t seem to feature at all in the mythos of the Golden Fleece) in hopes of gathering provisions on an island they assumed deserted, I’m stricken by the fact that the Amazons’ costuming is about as goofy as it is scant. I’m willing to forgive the filmmakers the fact that the Amazons have both breasts (after all, binding both breasts is hard enough, it wouldn’t surprise me if manoeuvring around one to strap down the other is all but impossible, and films have not only budgets, but deadlines), but this costuming looks like a cross between a Roman guard, an art nouveau painting, and a Playboy bunny, it’s hard to believe these women can hold their own in battle, and this is one of those things where I simply can’t suspend disbelief. Contrasting the ridiculously titillating Amazon warriors, we have Queen Antea, who gives a reasonably commanding presence to her role, but this may be helped by the fact that she doesn’t look nearly as ridiculous. Further removing the potency of the Amazons from mythology, there are plenty of gratuitous cheesecake shots of “Amazon” women frolicking through their gardens, feeding the men grapes, and swimming underwater — as beautiful as the underwater scenes are shot (and they seem to be some of the best-preserved scenes in the whole film), I really can’t forgive any of it because Come. The Fuck. On. We’re talking about Amazon warriors here, and this looks like a G-rated cut of Caligula or something. Then there’s the romance between Queen Antea and Jason, which is thankfully very brief, but nonetheless exists despite the queen’s orders from an ageing priestess of the island that the men should be put to death later that evening; Ulysses overhears this and drugs their wine with poppyseed so that when Hercules finally comes ashore to fetch the men, they can all escape. As the men flee the scene, we see Amazons on the shore, doubling as sirens and singing their names, waving at the ship — and you can tell this is still the Amazons, because we see the face of Queen Antea gazing longing into the distance, probably preparing to throw herself off the cliffs, like Sappho, for her One True Hot Todger.

As they leave the island of the Amazon Sirens, Orpheus sings loudly and plays his lyre to drown them out, and Hercules accompanies on drums, which he beats with his club — of note, Reeves manages to snap the club in half during this scene, but keeps beating, anyway.

Now the men have FINALLY gotten to where the Golden Fleece had been hidden years before, and there’s the monster guarding it. Honestly? Gamera looked better than this dragon, which is also pretty obviously a guy in a rubber suit, but again, we have to remember the year this was filmed, the budget it was on, and other potential factors — well-done stop-motion would have probably looked better, but it would have taken longer and probably cost more, depending on the skills of the animation team and puppet builders. A guy in a rubber suit, comparatively, look OK-enough, and is much cheaper, and will get the scene filmed much sooner.

Upon returning with the fleece, Eurysteus betrays the men and steals the fleece to take to King Pelias. Hercules figures this out and threatens to expose this, after signalling to his men to come ashore, only to then have the floor released from under him, dropping him into a dungeon cell. Jason confronts Pelias, who then falsely accuses Jason of being an imposter, and a fight breaks out. As the fight is starting, Iole is informed by one of the young women in the palace (presumably servant girls) that Hercules has, indeed, returned, but that he’s in the dungeon. Iole breaks in and, effectively, sets Hercules free to charge up to the main room where the fight has broken out, and then the fight sequences get really fucking cool-looking. Seriously, when Steve Reeves is swinging heavy chains, it looks absolutely awesome.

Iole runs to her father’s quarters to see that King Pelias has poisoned himself, and as he’s dying, he confesses his wrongs to Iole, and begs forgiveness of the Gods, surrendering the throne to Jason. The film ends with Hercules and Iole sailing off into a mountain-studded sunset, in another perfectly iconic frame.

For those unfamiliar with Mystery Science Theatre 3000, this was a show that premièred on Comedy Central in the early 1990s after a brief season on Minneapolis-local UHF station KTMA. The premiese of the show was similar to several local “creature feature” series on local stations of the time (like The Ghoul Show out of Detroit, and Svenghouli out of Chicago [which, as of 2005, I knew from personal experience, was still running]) and previous periods (like Vampira in the 1950s and Elvira in the 1980s, both originally out of Los Angeles), but with a twist: Like the other shows, MST3K had host segments that often talked about and sometimes goofed on the film they were playing, this was nothing new; but unlike the other shows, MST3K had running commentary during the film itself, which was something previously unheard of in 1988/89, when it first premièred on KTMA — this commentary was even completely unlike later DVD commentaries in that it was given while silhouettes of the MST3K cast sat in cinema seating at the bottom on the screen. While MST3K presentations partially obscured the film’s visuals, this usually wasn’t significant, and it often provided for visual gags by the MST3K cast.

MST3K’s cast main characters consisted of at least one “mad” (there were often two) operating from Earth, one “test subject” marooned in space, and two robots (puppets voiced and operated by cast members), and the premise of the earlier seasons was that of a mad scientist who has trapped a co-worker (later a company temp) in space and is forcing him to watch bad films from a satellite in Earth’s orbit (to prevent his escape) in the name of science; to keep the test subject company, there are several intelligent “bots” on the satellite (created by Joel’s character), two of whom (Tom Servo and Crow) accompany him to each film, and one of whom (Cambot) serves as an explanation for the tendency of the host segments to “break the fourth wall” and talk to the television audience (a fourth, Gypsy, rarely appears in the theatre, and this is explained by her internal software being necessary to “perform the higher functions of the ship”, though she often features in the host sketches).

This concludes the necessary background for MST3K, and hopefully will make this and future MST3K reviews less confusing to those who are unfamiliar with the show.

The MST3K cut of 1958′s Hercules is not the first Hercules film from this series that they showed, in fact, I believe it was the third, after Hercules Unchained (the second starring Steve Reeves) and Hercules Against the Moon Men (original title Maciste e la regina di Samar, which is literally translated as Hercules & the Queen of Samar; I believe this is the third in the series, and the first Franco-Italian joint production, and the first to star Italian actor, Sergio Ciani [as Alan Steele], presumably because Steve Reeves was commanding too high a salary, as he had become the highest-paid actor in Europe at the time), and this fact of disjointed continuity is noted in the first host segment by Dr. Forrester. Unfortunately, MST3K’s cut of Hercules, despite an apparent lapse into public domain, remains unreleased, commercially, so I had to watch this on a VHS tape, recorded off Comedy Central circa 1993, judging not only from the copyright year at the end of the episode, but also by the advertisements for Last Action Hero during the commercial breaks. (Also of note, though completely irrelevant to the review, this particular VHS is “inherited” from a friend and starts out with an ex-girlfriend’s “video letter” sent to him while away at Michigan State University. It probably says a lot about me that I find how “normal” this girl is practically obscene, her appearance and personality are so plain and uninteresting. I thus advocate averting normality, lest you become perverse with it, as this poor girl has — the irony of this preceding a tape of three episodes of MST3K is not lost on me.)

During the opening credits animation, Joel and the Bots goof on the constellations, and after Herc rescues Iole, Joel points to the scenery in the background and exclaims “hey, there weren’t ruins yet in ancient Greece!” Again, not necessarily something that makes it a bad film, but definitely betrays the film’s budget status as low. This does seem to be some of the most vicious commentary for this episode, but the kind of playful snark that dominates this MST3K treatment is very typical of the “Joel seasons”, though this may have as much to do with the quickly declining quality of the films when Mike took over the “experiment” character as much as it has to do with Joel’s approach to the films.

Further in, after Hercules meets Pelias and the oracle, Pelias is unsure that this is really Hercules and asks for proof, reasonable enough, until he says “I simply can’t trust the eyes of a girl,” Tom Servo quips “Because I’m a pig!” immediately showing disdain for the film’s occasional sexisms. This display of sexism wasn’t lost on me watching the uncut film an hour-and-a-half prior, but in seemed unnoticeable in contrast to Iole’s apparent competence.

Then there’s a sketch where Crow asks Joel about the constellations. See, Crow can’t make any sense out of the constellations, except for Orion, so Tom steps in to say that the reason Crow can’t see the pictures in the constellations that the ancient Greeks saw is because the culture has shifted so far from the ancient Greeks. Tom then suggests new constellations — such as “Ham Sammich”, “New Christy Minstrels“, and Picasso’s Guernica“. Crow has his own suggestion “two dots — look, it’s a Pencil! The eraser’s almost gone!” a suggestion dripping in sarcasm.

When Joel and the Bots return to the theatre, it’s time for the beefcake scene, Tom comments “It’s a Gore Vidal fantasy!” After Iphitus arrives, it’s noted how much the actor looks like Tom Jones. The MST3K cast are also quick to call out the scene where Hercules kills the lion as cruel and how silly the Amazon costumes are.

The episode ends with Tom and Crow discussing how easy they think they’d have it if Amazons took over the satellite, but Joel comes in and explains that the writers of the film falsely made the Amazons titillating — he also described the film as based on “ancient Greek history”, which subtly legitimises the mythology as potentially based on historical events, which is cool. Of course, in the middle of Joel’s explanation, he and the Bots get a call on the hex-monitor from a pair of semi-retired Amazons in a space ship of their own, and looking, acting, and speaking like stereotypical Midwestern housewives, which Joel comments on after they leave.

The other sketches included Crow in a parody of Match Game, playing the host and all six celebrity contestants; Crow and Tom asking Joel about the 1970s pop group Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds. After regular and repeated viewing of episodes of MST3K, I can say that sketches that have little or nothing to do with the actual film are characteristic of episodes that have better films.

In conclusion, was this as bad as its presence on MST3K could make it seem? Not really. It’s not the best Herakles film ever cast to celluloid, and it takes sometimes ridiculous liberties with the mythos, but to be blunt, most of what it changes is at least in-spirit with the source material. I have no problem with replacing Hylas with Iole because looking through a list of the loves of Herakles, it’s pretty clear that the God is bisexual, and expanding Herakles’ role in the quest for the Golden Fleece really doesn’t majorly alter the original versions of the story all that much — after all, Jason fights the monster on his own, and returns to his rightful throne with, in reality, little assistance from Herakles; Hercules is just… kind of there, doing stuff that he does to help out. While I feel there’s really no excuse for what they did with the Amazons, that’s really the only thing I can complain about; seriously, if they were going to merge this concept with the Sirens, anyway, then why not just expand the role and presence of the Sirens? It may not have been exactly in sync with ancient mythos, but it would have made some sense.

It’s telling that this is one of the episodes of MST3K that has more playful commentary, most of it along the lines of humming “Yakkety Sax” to a fight scene and running commentary about Reeves’ pecs and references to The Incredible Hulk. While the Joel episodes are known for having a more playful nature than later seasons with Mike, episodes with films like Mitchell (which resulted in its star, Joe Don Baker, threatening the MST3K writers) and American Ninja and even every Sanday Frank Productions film they ever tackled show that Joel can be mean, if the film truly deserves it. Seriously, the Godzilla and Gamera films imported to the United States via Sandy Frank Productions were so eviscerated by Joel, with a climax that included “The Sandy Frank Song“, and though these episodes have been preserved by former cast and crew for eventual release, Frank has put a stop to this repeatedly, because these are honestly some of Joel’s meanest moments. And dare I forget that “Manos”: The Hands of Fate was also a Joel episode? Even the “mads” were apologising for that one. While Mike will be mean to a movie even over something that doesn’t need it (he’s too quick to reference Glen of Glenda when an actress is especially tall, for example), don’t let Joel’s typical good-natured ribbing of a film fool you. Hercules is a decent effort, it could have been better, but it’s probably among the best films to earn a feature on Mystery Science Theatre.

If I were to give 1958′s Hercules a letter grade, I’d give it a strong C+ and not a B or B- simply because some scenes can drag on a little more than they should, and the dubbing is bad enough in places that it can be a little distracting, especially if you’re not getting into it, but in general, it’s not that bad. Worth checking out if it’s scheduled for a local network’s Sunday afternoon feature, and worth adding to any respectable beefcake and camp film collection, but I wouldn’t call it necessary viewing for Hellenic polytheists.

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Rhea’s Obsession – INITIATION

Posted on 2010/08/04 by Ruadhán McElroy

1996; re-issued 2001, Metropolis Records

As an ex-Goth, I’d previously only been familiar with Rhea’s Obsession through a string of songs they’ve recorded for compilations, usually tribute albums that tend to be really hit-or-miss to begin with, and probably since it was other people’s music, there wasn’t a whole lot about their music that really stood out for me — after all, there’s only so much of your own sound that can be added to a cover before it stops being a re-imagining of the song and starts becoming a butchering, at least with rare exception (in my not-so-humble opinion).

Initiation, on the other hand, is Rhea’s Obsession; pure, unadulterated Rhea’s Obsession, and I can see why the mother of Zeus may obsess on this band. The album opens with a lush neo-mediaeval piece, “Memento Mori”, that I myself would definitely find suiting to ritual use; the vocals are expertly layered and the instrumentals are a strong example of minimal world folk beats. “Waves (Take Me Alive)” is another really stand-out song, opening with a Love & Rockets like guitar jangle met seconds later by Sue Hutton’s voice and delicate percussions. Hutton’s voice is one of the best suited for the kind of eclectic darkwave that she performs with her band; she has a smooth and dramatic mezzo-soprano that will take leaps into notes and has a splendid grasp of vibrato — her voice can tremor, warble, and downright quake at the most appropriate moments, only to just right back to steady notes once again, unphased. Complimenting this are Jim Field’s understated rock guitars. You get the impression just from listening that he’s been in punk and metal bands before joining forces with Ms Hutton, and that this filters a primal energy into the music, keeping out anything that would overpower Hutton’s sometimes-delicate voice while sifting in just enough of something wild and necessary from the Great Mother Kybele often associated with the band’s namesake.

“When I Was In My Prime” is one of the other truly stand-out pieces on this record. It’s a brilliant opus of fuzzy guitars, blended experimental and Mediterranean percussions, brilliant use of feedback to sound like the sounds of a storm (turn it up high enough, it sounds like the steady curtains of rain I heard just outside my window last week), and more of Ms Hutton’s layered, piercing, sometimes tremorring vocals, and carefully selected electronics and samples of wildlife.

Another favourite of mine is their “Hymn to Pan”. Opening with crunchy guitars and lilting drum cymbals, Hutton’s voice comes in with stylised vocal affectations and processed through echo effects reciting wholly original erotic verse seemingly influenced by the poetry of Jim Morrison and Rozz Williams in addition to occasional syncretism that suggests familiarity with Orphic verse. Closing out the record is “Tsunami”, with Hutton’s soaring sustained vocalisations, water percussions, and guitars distorted to sound reminiscent of frogs chirping.

My favourites aside, the album as a whole is completely worth every penny spent on it (if you can find an original run; I don’t even know where mine came from, which is odd), or Metropolis’ reprint, re-titled Re:Initiation due to the addition of bonus tracks (fourteen compared to the ten on my own) and expanded album art.

Metropolis artist page
album page on last.fm
lyrics
Rhea’s Obsession on Amazon

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Mary Zimmerman’s Metamorphoses

Posted on 2010/08/03 by AingealOreiad

I would love to assume that most of those reading this have read, or are at the very least familiar with Ovid’s Metamorphoses. For those that aren’t, I highly recommend it, despite it’s Roman overtones, if only for the fact that so many major literary figures have used it for inspiration.

In 1996, it inspired Mary Zimmerman to write Six Myths, which premiered at Northwestern University, of which she is an alumna and currently a professor. By 2002 when it premiered on Broadway, she had lengthened the play by adding several more vignettes from the poem  and changed the title to Metamorphoses and won the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play (it was nominated for Best Play).

I saw the production very much off Broadway in 2008 when it came to Boston’s American Repertory Theater, and I was very happy with it. The entire play is done as a series of  11 vignettes, with a total of 14 characters, most of whom were played by the same actors. It revolves around a large pool, which takes up most of the stage, and plays various roles from a bathing pool to the River Styx. The vignettes are as follows:

  • Cosmogony
  • Midas
  • Alcyone and Ceyx
  • Erysichthon and Ceres
  • Orpheus and Eurydice–this is an interesting vignette because it is done twice, from the point of view of both Orpheus and Eurydice
  • Narcissus
  • Pomona and Vertumnus
  • Myrrha
  • Phaeton
  • Eros and Psyche–A word of advice to purists: the final version of the play includes the story of Eros & Psyche, which is from Lucius Apuleius’ novel Metamorphoses–also called The Golden Ass–NOT Ovid’s poem. She included it because, “I love it so much I just had to put it in.”
  • Baucis and Philemon

Mary Zimmerman, on why she chose to write a play based on stories thousands of years old says, “These myths have a redemptive power in that they are so ancient. There’s a comfort in the familiarity of the human condition.” Each vignette, and the play itself, is about change, which one can surmise from the title. These changes however are all related to love, which takes on many forms and leads the bearers to many things, both good and bad. In the end, even Midas is redeemed and is reunited with his daughter who had been turned to gold by his former love of money and power.

“[Metamorphoses] makes it easy to enter the heart and to believe in greater change as well… that we all can transform.”  – Mary Zimmerman

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