# Hercules Returns (1993)

### reviewed by
Mark Takacs

                             HERCULES RETURNS
                           A film review by Tak
                        Copyright 1993 Mark Takacs

Directed by David Parker ScreenWriter Des Mangan 35mm / color / 82 mins / Australia 1993 Rated: M+ (15 years and over - medium level course language) Tak rating: see it once, pay full price

TV-Guide(tm)-Review ------------------- When an *unsubtitled* Italian version of a hideously campy Italian muscle-man movie arrives at the Gala Opening of a new theatre, the three person crew redubs the movie *live* from the projection booth, with hilarious results.

Tak Thoughts ------------ I've done it. You've probably done it. You're sitting up late one night watching an incredibly *bad* movie of some sort, and you start throwing in your own versions of the lines -- "Don't shoot me yet, I neeed to flex first!", things like that.

Well, the team "Double Take" (Des Mangan & Sally Patience) has turned this concept into a hilarious and profitable business. It started March 1986 at an underground cinema in Sydney, Australia when they rescripted and redubbed ASTRO ZOMBIES live to a forty-person audience. A few months later they were playing in Sydney's arthouse theatre, sold out five hours before the show, and turned away 600 people.

Now director David Parker and producer Philip Jaroslow brings the "Double Take" team to the movies with HERCULES RETURNS. There's really only maybe fifteen or twenty minutes of "wrapper" -- the rest of the film is the old Italian movie with Double Take's redubs and occasional shots of the chaos going on in the projection booth as the characters bustle to provide the live dialogue.

The movie was quite a hit at the `93 Seattle Film Festival, and the audience I saw it with was laughing out loud throughout the movie. The general style makes me want to use adjectives like "madcap" and "zany"; it's certainly not a dark or intellectual comedy. The humor is definitely adult: Hercules grabs the queen's daughter, Labia, which prompts the queen to say "Get your hands off my Labia!" The original incredibly bad Italian sets (really fake looking leftover stuff) also adds to the fun.

The provides a good laugh, and does so in a refreshing and original style (I have a low tolerance for stupid/bumbling idiot and slapstick comedy). It's well worth your $6.50. (or whatever)

Press Summary Synopsis ---------------------- Frustrated by the uncaring style of his megalith employer, the Kent Cinema Corporation, film buff Brad McBain decides to take on the big boys by opening his own old style cinema. Cartoon shorts, usherettes with trays and much nostalgic razamatazz will accompany the Gala Charity Opening Night of the very same Sword'n'Sandal Italo-Spanish miniature epic which last graced the screen of the now revamped Picture Palace 30 years ago.

But super-egotistical Kent Corporation boss Sir Michael Kent will stop at nothing to crush opposition in "his" town. He sabotages McBain's big night by ensuring on all-Italian, *non*-subtitled versions of the 1964 sub-classic HERCULES, SAMSON, MACHISMO AND URSUS ARE INVINCIBLE is delivered, forcing McBain, his weird projectionist Sprocket and hard-hitting publicist Lisa to come up with entirely new dialogue and sound effects -- improvised on the spot from the projection booth.

In their new version, Hercules becomes a frustrated cabaret artiste from ancient Greece, desperate for a gig. Sent by Zeus to the Pink Parthenon nightclub in Climidia, he is forced to take on fellow iron pumper Samson (now a wimp who cries at the thought of violence). If victorious, Hercules will marry the nightclub owner's daughter, Labia -- and thus clench a permanent booking at the club. Problematically, Labia seems more romantically entangled with Testiculi. Ursus is now a drunken Scottish bouncer at a local bar. Multiple punch-ups ensue, along with much damage to paper mache columns, and poor Hercules' sexuality is deeply challenged along the way....

Brad's ex-employer and would-be nemesis Kent, on seeing the audience in an uproar of approval, is now even more determined to undo his upstart competitor. The insanity soon spreads from the projection booth into the cinema, and then onto the foyer for the big final showdown.

    Principal Crew
    --------------
    Director                            David Parker
    Screen Writer                        Des Mangan
    Producer                            Philip Jaroslow
    Executive Producer              Peter Winter
    Director of Photography            David Connell A.C.S.
    Production Designer             Jon Dowding
    Composer Contemporary Footage Philip Judd
    Editor                                    Peter Carrodus

    Principal Cast
    --------------
    Brad McBain             David Argue  (Gallipoli, Razorback, Going Down, etc)
    Lisa                        Mary Coustas (Mull, Acropolis Now, Nirvana Street Murder)
    Sprocket                Bruce Spence (Mad Max 2 & 3, Rikky & Pete, Newsfront)
    Kent                        Michael Carman (Raw Deal, Quigley Down Under, etc)

    Main Voices
    -----------
    Des Mangan              Hercules, Ted, Ursus, Machismo, Samson,
                                Stretch, Dad, Testiculi
    Sally Patience            Labia, Muriel, Fanny, Delilah
    Matthew King            Charlie

    Mark Takacs
    tak@hitl.washington.edu
    HITLab - Seattle WA
    .

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