Hercules And The Captive Women (1963) [The Film Detective Special Edition] [Blu-ray]

As usual, the fine folks at The Film Detective do a stellar job delivering a beautiful print of this Sword & Sandal classic. A definite upgrade from previous versions.

Great sword and sandal epic starring Reg Park as Hercules. It’s one of the better films of this genre. The 4K restoration looks fantastic. I can finally retire my old grainy dvd copy

If you like sexy beefcake mixed with some camp, you'll love this movie.

As the saying goes, mileage may vary when viewing this film. If you are viewing this film for the first time, the strange color tint shouldn't distract you too much..

Very satisfied with product.

2021 THE FILM DETECTIVELIMITED EDITION BLU-RAY(1,500 COPIES)NOTE: The proper pre-release price is $19.95, not $51. That number was erroneously posted by Amazon, not by The Film Detective.(For the astute reader, you will notice this review was made before the release date. I obtained an advance copy.)THE OVERALL PACKAGE:This is an extremely nice package. First, this is a pressed/stamped disc, not burned. The lithography on the disc itself is the same as the colorful, fun case-insert artwork. And it comes with a nice 10-page glossy booklet that provides the reader with behind-the-scenes stories about the film's creation process.THE HD TRANSFER:The picture has very good color for being originally filmed on, I imagine, a constrained budget. As I watched, I did not notice any film damage such as lines and speckles, etc. It was nice and clean. What I did notice was that often the picture looked a tad soft in focus, but seeing this was taken from an original film negative, that is how the picture had to be shot.The sound was perfect throughout-- even and clear.So once again, hats off to The Film Detective for doing a fantastic job. They also did a great job with "Eegah!" and "Giant from the Unknown", that they also released as stamped Blu-rays.THE MOVIE:This was the first time I really watched this film, so there's no nostalgia to color my opinion.First off, if you're thinking Hercules has, is around, or is even imaging having a collection of women, that is not the case. The title is a complete misnomer, most likely crafted to help sell box office tickets.This is the 1963 modified version of a 1961 Italian-French production. The original title was "Hercules and the Conquest of Atlantis", which is apt. The film contains a mixture of European actors, with the titular character played by a British body builder Reg Park.Like the famous spaghetti westerns, the voices are dubbed. For those westerns, I read that was done to save on production costs. It was cheaper to dub in post production, than to use microphones and booms, etc.BOTTOM LINE:Great movie. Great HD transfer from a phenomenal source. Great overall package. Just plain fun.Highly recommended for fans of this genre.5 STARS

I enjoyed this movie a lot. It moves at a good pace and has some interesting monsters that Hercules fights. The sets look great and the transfer looks pretty good. I’ve read about the overall red hue but I’ve seen movies where the film stock shifted completely over to red and that’s not the case here. Flesh tones seem normal enough, making me think the red color might have been a choice by the filmmakers as it seems to only affect sets and some costumes. In any case, I’ve never seen this film look better than it looks here and I’m glad I bought this Bluray.

For those of us who grew up in the 60s and 70s, those days when you were limited to three channels only on TV (4 of 5 if you lived near a city with independent stations) what we were able to view wasn’t much compared to now. In addition to that there were no VCRs, no DVRs and no streaming services to see your favorite movies on. It sound primitive to kids of today. In spite of that this made watching a movie more exciting and more an event than it is today. Today movies are as disposable as a tissue.Because of our attitude at the time when a movie came on TV we waited for it to come over the airwaves for us to enjoy. And in a time when corporate conglomerates weren’t racing to capture the rights to every movie out there, we had two special time to watch genre films. The first was late nights on Friday or Saturday when the local horror host unspooled the classic monster of yesterday. The second was Saturday afternoons when we had the chance to watch the Bowery Boys, Sherlock Holmes and the ever popular sword and sandal movies that had filled drive-in screens.It was on those Saturday afternoons when I caught my first glimpse of those sword and sandal movies. Each week Hercules or Samson or one of their many offspring faced off against tyrants and monsters. Most of these films were made in Italy and poorly dubbed but it didn’t matter. I was watching mythological heroes taking on the things I’d only read about.So why discuss all of this? Because it gives some background into why I was not only anxious but pleased when I watched HERCULES AND THE CAPTIVE WOMEN just released by The Film Detective. I didn’t recall this particular movie but there is the chance I saw it in my childhood. Watching it now brought back memories of seeing these films with my uncle after having mowed his yard and how I enjoyed them.The film opens with a catastrophic event affecting Greece. An argument among rulers leaves only Androcles with the intent to sail to the edge of the world to save them all. The only problem is no one will go with him, including his friend Hercules (British strong man Reg Park) who wants to do nothing more than settle down with his wife. So what does Androcles do? He drugs Hercules, hire an unscrupulous group of thieves and cutthroats and their boat and sets sail. In addition to that Androcles has brought along his trusted servant the dwarf Timoteo and Hercules son Hylas.When Hercules awakes he isn’t upset. He simply naps on the ship’s deck. Just to make sure he doesn’t get angry, Androcles has Hylas hidden in the lower part of the ship. When their water supply is sabotaged the ship stops at an island to replenish their water. In reality this was a planned mutiny with the crew planning to take out their passengers. Hercules takes out the crew and he and Androcles take over the boat and set sail. It is only then that he discovers Hylas onboard.A strange storm crashes the ship, tearing it apart and scattering those on board. Hercules wakes to find a woman encased in the rock formation near the beach of the island he lands on. Intended as a sacrifice to the monster Proteus, he defeats the monster and saves her. He learns that she is Princess Ismene, the daughter of Antinea, the queen of Atlantis.Returning to her mother Ismene introduced her to Hercules. Palace intrigue, the imprisoning of Hercules son and friends and plans to rule the world soon come to light. Can Hercules and his friends prevent this from happening?While watching this film I was honestly surprised at how good it was. And I’m not just talking about the quality of the production though that was impressive as well. What really surprised me was the story, dialogue and acting was far better than I remembered from these films. In the 80s these movies were popping up on video in terrible reproductions and perhaps that’s why I thought that. But this presentation not only showed me how quality a film it was but that it was entertaining and enjoyable as a film in itself. Maybe my taste in films as a child was better than I realized!The Film Detective has done and AMAZING job with this film. The look of the film is stupendous with a clarity of image that I’d never seen before in any of these films. In addition to that they’ve included some seriously wonderful extras. Those include “Hercule and the Conquest of Cineman: A Sword and Sandals Documentary”, audio commentary by film critic Tim Lucas, “The Duel of the Titans” a full color insert booklet with an essay by C. Courtney Joyner, an introduction by MST3K writer and co-star Frank Conniff and the full feature Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K) version of the film. Wow!After watching this my first thought was how much I enjoyed it. My second was hoping that The Film Detective has the chance to go back and rescue all of those wonderful sword and sandal movies that seem to be buried in the vaults around the world or found only in cheap, sloppy version rushed to make a buck. I would love to see the Steve Reeves Hercules films or the various sons of Hercules movies this way to truly appreciate them. Who knows, with the success of this release maybe they’ll do so.