Hercules in New York

Hercules in New York
February 25, 1970
RAF Industries
Comedy, Fantasy, Action
VHS
B-

Arnold Schwarzenegger's first film is shared with a then more famous Arnold, Mr. Stang, who plays Pretzie the pretzel vendor.  Although Hercules has an onscreen girlfriend, the movie is actually more about the bromance between the two Arnolds.  Schwarzenegger is credited as "Arnold Strong," and in the version I taped off TV (and on initial release) he's badly dubbed.  The movie is sometimes known as Hercules Goes Bananas, and there is a continued debate within the film over this "Greek peasant's" sanity.  Of course, the real world of late '60s New York doesn't come across as any more believable than that of Mount Olympos.  The professor and his daughter (Herc's mortal main squeeze) are given dialogue that's even more stilted than that of the gods and goddesses, so it feels like the whole movie was translated.  That might explain why Samson (not Greek) and Atlas (who's supposed to be holding up the world) show up to assist Hercules in the big fight scene.  He's temporarily lost his "divinity," which means he can't lift more than 750 pounds.

I know, don't try to make sense of this movie.  Don't ask why a hot dog vendor chases Pretzie across the city to give him the sauerkraut for his hot dog.  Don't ask why Zeus has a foggy crystal ball, or why all the machinations of the gods and goddesses are explained at length and yet still make no sense.  Don't ask why Pluto (who has an offscreen Cerberus) rules a rather Christian hell and acts like a fop.  Don't ask why Mercury takes a helicopter, and then later flies on his own.  Don't ask why Nemesis has a Finnish accent.  Don't ask why the weight-lifting contest is televised in front of a yellow curtain, much expense spared (as throughout this movie.)  Don't ask why the gangsters are straight out of the '30s.  Don't ask why no one notices that Pretzie steals a pulp nonfiction book, or why a man forgives Hercules breaking his ribs.  Don't ask why there's an obvious panty shot and a drug joke in what IMDB categorizes as a "family film."  Don't ask why all the mortals have been directed to indicate surprise with dropped jaws and bugged out eyes.  And please don't ask why Hercules is fighting a man in a very obvious bear costume.

Dennis Tinerino, who plays Atlas, would be one of the musclemen in Americathon.  Schwarzenegger obviously went on to bigger and better things.  But this is probably the peak of Stang's career.

Hello Down There

Hello Down There
June 25, 1969
Paramount
Comedy, Musical, Sci-Fi, Action
VHS
B+

No, I didn't grow up with this one, but I wish I had.  Even discovering it in my early 20s, I couldn't believe what I was seeing and hearing, and I still don't.  It's not exactly a kids' movie, too much drug humor and sex humor, although pretty mild by post-1972 standards.  And, yet, just like Did You Hear the One About the Traveling Saleslady?, it could pass for a '60s sitcom pilot if you squint a bit.  I mean, look at this cast!  Tony Randall, Ken Berry (as Randall's rival), Arnold Stang (as Berry's stupider [!] assistant, and like in Skidoo he dies, or at least his character is left for dead and forgotten), Jim Backus (Howelling up a storm as Randall's boss), Backus's wife as a concerned parent,  Charlotte Rae (as a wacky maid, there's a stretch), Harvey Lembeck (as a radar technician), Merv Griffin as himself, Janet Leigh, Richard Dreyfuss-- wait a minute.  Janet Leigh and Richard Dreyfuss?  What are they doing here?  Well, like everyone else, they are both embarrassing themselves and playing to their strengths, respectively screaming and being sarcastic.

This was an Ivan Tors production, so we get a lot of shots of dolphins and other sea critters frolicking around the underwater home that Randall, wife Leigh, forgettable blond kids, and the kids' friends (Dreyfuss and the comic relief one named Marvin) live in for somewhere between two weeks and thirty days.  (The movie ends in media res, with Navy parachutists attacking.)  The house is called the Green Onion, even though it's white, so the band that the teens are in is renamed from Harold and His Hang-Ups to, yes, the Green Onion.  There's also an orange submarine that becomes yellow.  Continuity is not this movie's strong point, as seen in the fact that Leigh's character is established as a writer (of Forty Nights in a Harem), and then this is forgotten for over an hour.

The script is co-written by Tors, Art Arthur (who also co-wrote Birds Do It), and a couple other people.  The director is Jack Arnold, who did a lot of TV, including Gilligan's Island.  Obviously, this adds to the TV feel.  But in an attempt to be more contemporary than television, we get McDowall sort of reprising his Tony Krum character in The Cool Ones, this time as "boy millionaire" record producer Nate Ashbury.  (I never said this movie was subtle.)  As in The Cool Ones, there's a computer that determines the potential success of a rock band, this time one that's operated by Catwoman: Lee Meriwether as a miniskirted computer scientist.  The songs are, well, wonderful, in an absolutely cheesy way.  Not only are they worthy of the Archies, but they're quite obviously lip-synced (except for Randall's serenade of Leigh).  No wonder Rae, who drinks tonic that she worries is spiked with LSD, can't resist shaking her groove thang.

I'm still marveling over the cast.  I mean, there's a moment where Merv Griffin translates McDowall's hip slang for Backus, and they're not even the ones stealing the scene.  A couple less familiar faces:  Jay Laskay, Philo here, was Willie in Birds Do It; Janine King, age unknown, plays a crying baby and would turn up as a carnival patron in Scavenger Hunt.

This is, incidentally, the 100th comedy I've reviewed, although I'll admit my genre tags are somewhat arbitrary.  Clearly, this one isn't just a comedy, but, man, is it hilarious!

Pinocchio in Outer Space

Pinocchio in Outer Space
December 22, 1965
Belvision/ Universal
Children's, Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Musical
VHS
C+

As the title suggests, this Belgian kiddie flick is an odd, very '60s blend of Collodi's antihero (whom the Blue Fairy has changed back to a wooden puppet after some misbehavior) and the space age.  This doesn't really explain why the Cat of the Fox and Cat pair has become a stuttering "catnik" named Mr. Groovy, but oh well.  The sci-fi element isn't bad, combining actual facts about the planets with genuinely scary creatures like Giant Radioactive Salivating Crabs from Mars.  However, the music is pretty awful, especially that "Goody Goody Morning" dreck.

The "star" of the movie is Arnold Stang as Nurtle the Twurtle, although I'll always prefer him costarring with another Arnold in Hercules in New York.  One of the other voices is Norman Rose's, and he'd be the voice of one of the title characters in Love and Death.  Writer Fred Laderman (later Fred Ladd) would write a couple of the Pippi movies.