HERCULES AND THE CAPTIVE WOMEN (1961)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *metaphysical*

This film, whose Italian title was "Hercules and the Conquest of Atlantis," was cut for American release, and I imagine that this was the version I saw on the DVD pack WARRIORS. What I've heard about the cuts don't sound like they made a lot of difference to the narrative, which is a slow and often incoherent follow-up to the first two raucous Steve Reeves films.

Italian director Vittorio Cattafavi, who's listed as one of the writers of CAPTIVE, opted for a very slow buildup to the latest adventure of the son of Zeus. In contrast to the previous two films and almost all other films with "Hercules" in the title, this time the hero has settled down somewhat, being married to Princess Deianeira, probably the best-known of the Greek champion's lady loves. This Hercules also has a teenaged son named Hylas. This proves an odd choice of names, since in the Hercules canon the name is only used for a young companion of the hero in the ARGONAUTICA. In the Greek epic, Hylas, who may or may not be the hero's lover, suffers death, and Hercules is so broken up by the youth's fate that he deserts the Argo's voyage. In CAPTIVE, Hylas is just a young guy yearning for adventure, trying to persuade his old man to desert the family hearth and go looking for trouble.

Some vague presentiments of danger cause King Androcles of Thebes to mount an investigative expedition. The king wants Hercules, Hercules doesn't want to go, so Androcles, with the help of Hylas, drugs the hero and takes him onto the voyage. Strangely, the demigod just takes his abduction in stride, reminding one of the somewhat lazy Steve Reeves characterization in HERCULES UNCHAINED.

The ship gets wrecked at sea, and Hercules is separated from the crew, including Hylas and Androcles. He finds his way to a remote island, and beholds a woman who seems to be merged with a big rock on the beach. (This young women, name of Ismene, is the only "captive woman" in the film.) When Hercules seeks to free the woman, he's attacked by a shapechanging magican named Proteus. It's a pretty good battle, as Proteus attacks the hero in forms like a lion, a hawk and a man-sized bipedal dinosaur, and even some budgetary problems (when Hercules hurls the lion away, it turns into a lion rug) don't ruin the scene. When Proteus is slain, Ismene is released from the rock-- and unfortunately, the film enters tedium.

Hercules takes Ismene to her home on the island, which is apparently either Atlantis or a colony thereof. The city is ruled by Antinea (Fay Spain), who takes her name from the imperious queen of the 1919 novel ATLANTIDA. Antinea welcomes the return of her daughter Ismene, but it eventually comes out that Antinea and her counselors sent the young woman to Proteus as a sacrifice. They believe that their city is doomed to be destroyed if Ismene is not sacrificed-- but this will be difficult now that Hercules is hanging around. 

Hercules mooches around, somehow convinced that he ought to be able to find Androcles and Hylas on the island-- and in fact, Antinea does have Androcles squirreled away for some reason. Hylas is wandering around free, though, and at some point in the film-- I no longer remember details-- he crosses paths with Ismene and they starts cooing love songs. Since this Hercules was married, that may be why the hero doesn't get to romance the younger woman, though he is ceaselessly pursued by her mother. 

The aforementioned "vague presentiments of danger" bear fruit when it's revealed that Antinea possessed a magical stone, "the Blood of Uranus," which is vaguely connected to the Father of the Titans, one of whom was the father of Zeus and many other Olympians. Antinea is currently experimenting on her own people with the stone's magic, and though some citizens get turn into semi-deformed wretches, others become super-strong warriors. (They're mostly seen in helmets, but in one scene they take off their headgear and are revealed to look just like Antinea's main counselor-- which might have made more sense in the Italian original.) Antinea plans to use these super-soldiers to conquer the entire world, and of course Hercules, Hylas, Androcles and Ismene unite to stop her. Given the prophecy of Atlantis's destruction, any viewer can probably guess how Antinea's scheme works out.

Despite a few decent action scenes, CAPTIVE is weakly plotted and the characters are flat. giving the actors little to work with. I've seen a few sources claim that the plot draws upon Pierre Benoit's prose novel ATLANTIDA.  I have not read the book myself, but I've read summaries and seen one film adaptation, and the name of the queen is pretty much the only similarity. CAPTIVE's plot seems more indebted to the Cassopeia-Andromeda storyline from the Perseus cycle of stories, in which a queen mother, intentionally or otherwise, sets up her nubile daughter to be sacrificed. This could have yielded some good psychological drama even in a sword-and-sandal picture, but Cottafavi blows any such potential, and what's left is just a middling peplum adventure with a few good scenes.