Hercules (1958)

Trivia for
Fatiche di Ercole, Le ("Hercules") (1958)
• This was the first film shot in Italy in the French Dyaliscope anamorphic widescreen system.

• The roar of the dragon guarding the Golden Fleece is actually Godzilla'a roar from Gojira (1954) (U.S. title: "Godzilla, King of the Monsters"). Joseph E. Levine had acquired and released that film three years earlier.

• Joseph E. Levine acquired the U.S. distribution rights to this film, which he retitled "Hercules", for $120,000.

• To take maximum advantage of the extensive (and expensive) television and radio campaign launched to promote the film in the USA, Joseph E. Levine pioneered the technique of "saturation booking" by using over 600 prints of this film. This was an unheard-number of prints for a U.S. release in the days of full-size movie theatres (not the small multiplexes we know today).

• This film was passed over by the major U.S. distributors. An employee of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer told former exhibitor Joseph E. Levine about the film. Levine flew to Italy to view the film for the first time and later acquired the U.S. rights. It bacame a smash hit and started the craze for Italian-made musclemen spectacles.

• Writer-director Pietro Francisci was having trouble finding just the right person to portray Hercules. The problem was solved when his daughter suggested American bodybuilder-turned-actor Steve Reeves whom she had seen in the MGM musical Athena (1954)

In the days before home video, this film and its sequel, Ercole e la regina di Lidia (1959) (U.S. title: "Herucles Unchained"), continued to have successful re-releases to theatres through the mid-1970s, even after they had appeared on network television and in television syndication.

Among the merchandise tie-ins for this film was a comic book published by Dell. It had an initial order of 500,000 copies.

This is the film that started the craze for films about muscle-bound mythological heroes. By the time the genre had run its course in 1964, 170 such films had been produced in Italy. This represented approximately ten percent of Italian film production during this period.