X2: X-MEN UNITED (2003)

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *good*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, psychological, sociological*

Seventeen years after the fact, X2 remains the Gold Standard among live-action X-Men movies. To be sure, one can also see in Byran Singer’s second outing many of the same mistakes that plagued later entries in the series. Most of the “problem areas” arise not from any intrinsic faults of Singer, though.

In an ongoing comic-book series, it rarely matters whether or not every character in a super-group gets a defining moment in a given episode. In the graphic novel GOD LOVES, MAN KILLS—a major source for the script of X2—the nature of the story places so much emphasis on the conflict between mutant terrorist Magneto and religious fanatic William Stryker that the starring heroes are somewhat sidelined. Readers of such serials, though, don’t necessarily expect Cyclops or Storm don’t act as much more than spear-carriers, for they’re invested enough in the series to expect that eventually the creators will devote more time to Cyclops, Storm, or whoever.

A big-budget movie franchise, however, may not have a sequel for another two or three years. So if, say, Storm doesn’t get a defining character-moment in her first two live-action films, there’s every chance that she never will—and indeed, the Fox series never succeeded in capturing the resonance of the X-Men’s foremost heroine.

Rogue is another fan-favorite who suffered a downgrade in importance. The youthful mutant garnered a great deal of empathy in the first film thanks to her interactions with Wolverine. But because her powers are downgraded to the simple ability to drain the powers of others—rather than being able to use them herself, in contrast to the comics—Rogue just doesn’t have a lot to do here. To an extent, she’s used to set up the introduction of another “classic X-Man,” the Iceman. However, he too is limited with respect to his importance to the script, remembered mostly for the camoflagued pro-gay joke, “Have you tried not being a mutant?” X-MEN set up a possible conflict between Wolverine and Cyclops over their mutant love interest Jean Grey, but, as if to herald the series’ growing fetishization of Wolverine, Cyclops’ status as team-leader is played down, and his most forceful scene takes place when he’s under the control of one of the villains, attacking Jean with his eye-beams.

On the plus side, the script—from which many other characters and concepts were cut-- does give good scenes to Jean Grey, Wolverine (of course), Professor Xavier and new addition Nightcrawler. The latter’s opening scenes, in which the mind-controlled mutant attempts to assassinate the President of the United States, provides an excellent display of Nightcraeler’s atheletic abilities, and Cumming’s heavily accented Teutonic mannerisms never descend to the level of parody. Like its predecessor, X2 continues to explore the mystery of Wolverine’s origins, but the revelation is once more postponed. However, the villain Stryker uses his knowledge of those origins to offer Wolverine a devil’s bargain-- so that when Wolverine nobly refuses, the audience is put in the position of experiencing something of the character’s fictional frustration.

In a sense Professor Xavier is placed in the centermost position. As the mentor to the X-Men and the founder of the School for Mutants, he takes a meliorist position with respect to the ongoing conflicts of mutants and humans. As such, the professor becomes the focus of attacks from both sides—one from the pro-mutant faction, including earlier foes Magneto and Mystique, and the other a proponent of a “humans only” attitude. This version of Stryker, who’s responsible for all the mind-control missions seen herein, is more of a military hawk than a religious fanatic, but the script keeps the character’s reasons for mutant-hating essentially the same, as well as building up the role of Stryker’s mutant son Jason. Both factions seek to use Xavier’s technology to ace out the competing species, which brings back into focus the Holocaust imagery invoked in the first film. Indeed, in contrast to certain progressive works, such as US, Singer scrupulously avoids demonizing “normals” in order to prop up his vision of the alienated other.

Though many subsequent X-films talked the talk about reaching some rapprochement between humans and mutants, X2 proved a hard act to follow, both in terms of theme and heady special FX. By and large, most of the follow-ups fell into the bad habit of simply introducing new X-characters willy-nilly, with no long-term plans as to how the newbies would fit into the cinematic X-verse. Thus, instead of building on the Nightcrawler character with a new actor (Alan Cumming having refused to return), the next entry simply brought in versions of the Beast and the Angel, who also didn’t take on any consequential significance in the franchise as a whole.

Still, when X2 first came out, it seemed like it opened new cinematic doors. Instead, the nature of big-budget filmmaking just kept opening the doors and closing them again, as would be evident with the parallel problems of the MCU’s AVENGERS films.

THE CONQUEROR OF ATLANTIS (1965)

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

CONQUEROR is at least one of the more flamboyant offerings during the waning years of the first peplum-cycle.

Despite the hero (Kirk Morris) sporting the genuinely Greek name of “Herakles,” he doesn’t have any obvious mythological aspects (though he does swear to the Greek gods once), and his level of strength seems uncanny rather than marvelous. For some reason this Herakles finds himself shipwrecked in the deserts of Egypt, but he’s rescued from permanent sunstroke by a princess with the un-Eastern name of “Virna.” Virna explains that her tribe has been warring with that of the chieftain Karr, who’s been abducting her subjects. However, later Herakles stumbles across Karr, and he levels the same accusation at Virna.

After roughly twenty minutes of dull desert-forays, both Herakles and Karr are abducted by the real villains, the survivors of ancient Atlantis. Head scientist Ramir—who appears to be the only male in the hidden city—has been abducting nomads and using super=science to transform the tribesmen into obedient, golden-skinnned androids. The Atlanteans—most of whom are hot-looking warrior-women—also abduct Virna, but for a different purpose. Their old queen Ming, though still looking pretty comely, is about the reach the end of her life, and she wants a brainwashed Virna to succeed her. Herakles, though not gifted with super-strength, nevertheless has to vanquish such super-threats as ray-guns and killer androids, and the Atlanteans’ ultimate project to conquer the world.

Director Alfonso Breccia would later become well known to cult-film lovers for a handful of goofy SF-films, but he doesn’t really unleash his inner clownfish here. The most interesting aspect of this dimestore lost city is the unexplained nature of its inhabitants. Certainly one can imagine some raunchy rationale behind the city consisting of one old scientist and several hot babes. But although there is one moment where two of the hotties try to get busy with Herakles and Karr—only to be killed by Queen Ming—the script never bothers to toss in even a half-baked explanation.

THE INCREDIBLE PARIS INCIDENT (1967)

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

With a name as contrived as “Argoman,” I’m moved to speculate that the producers of this film were having fun with the name of a slightly earlier European superhero, Superago. The latter character, a costumed wrestler with no super-powers like Mexico’s “El Santo,” had recently appeared in the first of two low-budget Italian films. I don’t know if the first SUPERARGO film reaped big box-office or not, but regardless, it’s quite possible that the real target of any spoofery was the American teleseries BATMAN, which rose to meteoric success in early 1966. Strangely, though, Argoman doesn’t follow the model of either Batman or any masked wrestler, but that of Superman, if Superman divided his time between stopping crimes and committing them.

In this modus operandi, Argoman resembles yet another “saintly” predecessor: that of gentleman-thief Simon “the Saint” Templar. Following a quick action-sequence, the audience sees Argoman (Roger Browne) in his secret ID as rich guy Reginald Hoover. Reggie tells his butler Chandra (Eduardo Fajardo) about some of his recent deeds, like switching out the Mona Lisa for a clever fake.

It wasn’t clear to me whether or not the general public, and officials like police inspector Lawrence, had any awareness that Argoman was both a superhero and a super-thief. However, a budding world conqueror, Jenabelle (Dominique Broschero) checks out Reginald in his skyscraper apartment from the vantage of a sky-ship. Reginald promptly uses his powers to force her ship to land. After a little cat-and-mouse foreplay, they have sex and Jenabelle leaves.

Yes, you heard right.Not that one sees any direct depictions of sex, but here we have the hero making love to his hottie nemesis at the film’s beginning, rather than postponing any possible encounter toward the film’s end. Since there’s even less characterization in this film than in the average peplum, my theory is that, because director Sergio Greco knew that he didn’t have a big budget, he decided to fascinate male audiences with the best “special effect” he had: the sultry Miss Broschero (who appears in a wide variety of bizarre but comely outfits).

Having given away the milk for free, though, the rest of the film isn’t able to up the ante. For a superhero film, it’s very talky. Though there are some nice sets and super-villain gimmickery (Jenabelle plans to conquer the world with robot doubles, including one of Argoman), the pace is flaccid and there are too few fight-scenes, causing me to wonder if fight-choreographers were left out of the budget. Additionally, since Argoman has no origin, he just pulls any power he wants-- x-ray eyes, magnetism, and so on-- out of thin air.

Despite the attempt to make the hero a bit of a Fantomas-style rogue, there are no prominent areas of camp or satire here. It just seems like a wonky, tongue-in-cheek attempt to exploit the success of the sixties breed of American costumed heroes. Roger Browne, better known for his superspy adventures, tries to give his character some insouciant qualities, but the script doesn’t really get how to do either a straight or satirical superhero adventure, and so remains little more than a footnote in the genre’s cinematic history.

HERCULES IN THE HAUNTED WORLD (1961)

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical*

I recently pointed out the shortcomings of the first two HERCULES films of the fifties, drawing attention to their mixmaster approach to archaic mythology. A couple of years after HERCULES UNBOUND, cult film-director Mario Bava concocted a much better rendition of Greek myths, though it too is not without some peculiar re-arrangements.

As played by Reg Park, this Hercules is still physically close to the Steve Reeves model. Additionally, the hero is unquestionably tied into a mythological framework, rather than just being some muscleman sent to fight pirates or Mongols. That said, though he’s the son of Zeus, he also pals around with the Athenian hero Theseus, who in the real myths had his own myth-arc and didn’t associate with the Theban strongman. For good measure, the two heroes are also accompanied by a comic foil, who for no good reason is named Telemachus, same as the goodguy son of Odysseus.

Hercules is summoned to the palace of the Princess Deianira by her guardian Lico (Christopher Lee). This sinister fellow—whose name might be derived from Lycaon, one of mythology’s first werewolves—shows the hero that Deianira has succumbed to a malady that leaves her without memory. Lico says that the only cure for the malady is the Stone of Forgetfulness, but this is located in the underworld of Pluto. Hercules and his two accomplices can only gain access to the Land of Death by acquiring the Golden Apple of the Hesperides, and accordingly the heroes set out to follow the guardian’s instructions, little realizing that Lico has his own plans for Deianira.

The heroes reach the underworld without great trouble, but once there various creatures and hostile environments imperil them. Perhaps the most interesting menace is Procrustes. In Greek myth he’s an eccentric brigand who invites travelers to his inn, and then “adjusts” their bodies to fit his beds. The movie makes Procrustes a sort of shaggy monster with the same habit, which is at least a novel take on a little used myth-figure.

The explorers find the magic stone, but they’re only able to escape the underworld with the help of Persephone (here the daughter, rather than the wife, of the death-lord). She returns to the living world as well, having forged a romantic bond with Theseus. Hercules uses the stone to return Deianira to normal, but now the underworld menaces the living world, as Pluto demands his daughter’s return. Hercules, though grateful for all that Theseus and Persephone have done for his beloved, must now deny Theseus his amour, for the greater good. Persephone provides the hero with a little help by wiping Theseus’s memory for him, which seems a bit of a cop-out.

In the end, Hercules contends with Lico, whose object is to drink Deianira’s blood at a certain time, and thereby obtain immortality. (The English translation is ambivalent about whether this act will just kill the maiden or make her into some vampire-like creature.) Hercules fights Lico, Hercules wins, the end.

Bava’s visual style is far more refined than most of the other peplum, exploiting his gifts for horrific atmosphere. The script, however, never manages to elaborate its own resonant take on the archaic stories, even though the plot comes close to treating Deianira and Persephone as inverse reflecftions of one another: one who escapes the world of death, and one who does not.

LOGAN’S RUN (1976)

HENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *sociological*

I’ve not read any of the three novels written about Logan and his world by William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson, but I wouldn’t have any trouble believing the statement that the movie doesn’t borrow much from them but the bare situation. In every way, the film LOGAN’S RUN seems like a bad imitation of the better dystopian novels found in prose science fiction.

RUN puts forth an idea that was well-traveled even in 1976. Following a nuclear catastrophe, a group of human beings take refuge in a city where their entire destiny is controlled by a computer. In order to maintain the city’s fragile ecosystem, the computer or its long-deceased programmers have engineered a “Big Lie” to prevent overpopulation. At the age of thirty, all citizens must participate in “Carousel,” in which their bodies are destroyed but their souls are later reincarnated. The other citizens watch the spectacle and cheer as if witnessing arena-fights, possibly because the old bodies of Carousel-victims appear to get blown up. Nevertheless, most citizens believe that their fellows will come back renewed—though there are a few unbelievers.

Said apostates, called “Runners,” seek to evade their fate in the ritual by escaping the borders of the city. While one might think the city-computer would welcome such desertions to get rid of surplus population, apparently the machine has been programmed to persecute such dissidents by sending enforcers called “Sandmen” to execute the Runners. Two such enforcers are Logan (Michael York) and his buddy Francis (Richard Jordan). In addition to genuinely believing in their mission, the two city-cops enjoy all the privileges of sybaritic life, which includes swanky living-quarters and getting hooked up with potential temporary mates, actual marriage being unknown. Logan makes an attempt to hook up with a young woman named Jessica (Jenny Agutter). When she doesn’t come across like most city-women, Logan is mildly intrigued by Jessica’s refusal.

Not only does the computer not want any dissidents escaping its reach, it keeps tabs on the beliefs of the Runners. The computer enlists Logan for a special assignment, to find the place called Sanctuary, to which refuge many escapees have supposedly migrated. To sell the idea that Logan wants to be a Runner, the hapless Sandman’s own life-cycle is cut short, so that he can infiltrate the dissidents and locate Sanctuary. The Runner-ranks just happen to include Jessica, who despite her earlier refusal is quite taken with Logan and helps him make contact with the “underground.”

Sadly, the script’s idea of the Runner-underground is even more poorly worked out than the rationale behind Carousel. Logan and Jessica experience an assortment of disjointed adventures—one of which includes Farrah Fawcett, prior to her star-making breakout on CHARLIE’S ANGELS—and eventually, with no real help from other Runners, the two fugitives succeed in escaping the city. However, Logan’s comrade Francis hasn’t been let in on the deception, and he relentlessly pursues the escapees, intending to terminate both of them. Passing over some of the more pretentious experiences of the fleeing couple, eventually the two of them return to the city and liberate all of the gullible citizens from the computer’s control.

To misquote John Lennon, LOGAN’S RUN sports enough plot-holes to fill up Albert Hall. Such inconsistencies don’t automatically doom a film, though, and I can find various plot-problems with the 1968 PLANET OF THE APES. Yet in RUN’s case, the only thing the movie has going for it is its (rather minor) ability to conjure with the audience’s fears of such fantastic eugenics-programs, and that appeal is cancelled out by the script’s artless coincidences and dramatic posturing. Actors York, Jordan and Agutter all project utter sincerity in their thinly-drawn roles, but none of them are able to infuse life into the ramshackle structure.

Arguably, though RUN was not quite the last of the “didactic sci-fi problem films” that proved popular in the sixties and seventies, the movie may represent a temporary culmination of the form for that time-period—or maybe a burnout case, since RUN is in no way equal to the best of that tradition. By the next year, STAR WARS temporarily became a major, if not exclusive, model for big-budget science fiction films. Perhaps coincidentally, STAR WARS’ careful attention to physical detail—whether with respect to space battles or comical robots—makes LOGAN’S RUN seem even more hackneyed, especially when the post-STAR WARS viewer gets a look at “Box,” RUN’s extremely cheesy version of a mouthy robot.

HOUSE OF USHER (1960)

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *good*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *psychological*

Edgar Allan Poe’s stories are almost never adapted accurately by the cinema, and for good reason. Many of them, including THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER, are strong on mood but weak on the sort of narrative drive that commercial movies require. Thus it’s no surprise that when director Roger Corman and screenwriter Richard Matheson attempted to do a tony rendition of Poe’s “sort-of-haunted-house” story, they changed many aspects of the original tale. Given Corman’s reputation for having never met a dollar he didn’t like, it’s surprising that from the standpoint of production values, the Corman USHER looks extremely good. Even more startling, the script shows a great deal of care regarding what Matheson kept from Poe and what he replaced with material more accessible to movie audiences.

One concession to such expectations was that when most moviegoers went to see a haunted house film, they expected to see one or most potential victims constantly harried by unseen, often deadly forces. In the Poe story the forbidding appearance of the house symbolizes the decayed nature of its occupants, but the house itself doesn’t do anything to anyone. One sizeable change is that throughout Matheson’s screenplay, the house seems to menace viewpoint character Philip Winthrop. To Matheson’s credit, he never explicitly attributes the Usher house’s poltergeist-like activity to ghosts as such, even though Winthrop is given some reason to suspect the existence of ancestral specters.

Winthrop himself usurps the place of the nameless viewpoint character of the Poe story. The narrator is a nearly disinterested observer, whereas Winthrop follows in the tradition of the earnest young man seeking to win a young woman from a tyrannical family. Further, Matheson inverts the narrator’s relationship to the two main characters. In the prose tale, the narrator knows nothing of Roderick’s sister Madeleine, but was acquainted long ago with Roderick when the two men went to school together. In the movie, Winthrop comes to Usher House knowing nothing of Roderick, having met Madeline when she, for unspecified reasons, lived for a time in Boston. Whereas Nameless Narrator arrives at Usher with no foreknowledge of Roderick’s current ailment, Winthrop shows up with no inkling that Madeline or her brother suffers from assorted congenital problems.

In the prose tale, the emphasis focuses on Roderick’s amplified senses, which are linked to his nature as a cultured aesthete, rich in literary and musical knowledge. The narrator barely sees Madeline at first, almost as if she were Roderick’s shadow, and indeed the two are said to be twins. Matheson’s Madeline makes more of a show of independence, implying that she may've sought to avoid the death of the Usher line by finding an exogamous mate in Boston. Yet the script never gives an outright reason for her return to her brother’s side. Roderick comes closest to explaining the discontinuity when he tells Winthrop that neither he nor his sister dare marry, precisely because they possess so many degenerative illnesses.

Poe never attributes the frailties of the Usher line to that usual suspect, inbreeding, though it’s impossible not to read some subconscious incest-vibe in the relationship of the siblings. Poe, given his love of rarified aesthetics, might well have accepted inbreeding as the necessary consequence of keeping the line pure. Poe would have had even less interest in the notion of the Usher family being degenerate due to “the sins of the fathers,” and it seems likely that Matheson borrowed this “sins of the fathers” trope from another famous quasi-haunted manse, Hawthorne’s HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES. Matheson’s Roderick ties in the degeneracy of his ancestors to the prevalent illnesses of his family, and though Winthrop intellectually rejects this notion, it’s he who dreams of the ancestors rising up to prevent him from rescuing Madeline.

But one can forgive all the digressions from the original, given that Matheson ably captures the essence of the interdependence of Roderick and Madeline with regard to that favorite Poe-trope, the fear of being buried alive. The prose tale and the movie have this much in common: that Roderick entombs Madeline because he perversely wants to see the Usher line perish with the two of them. Matheson was perceptive enough to keep Roderick’s perversity more intellectual than sexual, eschewing the Freudianisms that later crop up in PIT AND THE PENDULUM. And the film’s big climax also involves making Madeline more overtly vengeful for her burial. In the Poe story, though she somehow claws her way back to the living world, the author is circumspect about the way that she kills Roderick, almost as if they perish in a mutual paroxysm. Matheson is careful to mention early on that the mad Usher line can sometimes manifest fantastic strength, leaving no doubt as to the forces unleashed when the petite Myrna Fahey falls upon and strangles towering Vincent Price.

Putting aside one spear-carrier figure, the film is essentially a drama between the three principals. Mark Damon and Myrna Fahey are decent in their roles, but Price is clearly the centerpiece of the story. The actor may have foreseen the challenge of Roderick, for Price’s performance is at once mannered and restrained. Though a purer version of the Poe story is certainly conceivable, the Corman HOUSE OF USHER is unlikely to be overshadowed any time in the near future.

HERCULES (1958), HERCULES UNCHAINED (1959)

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical, sociological*

Though the Italians had already established their own “muscleman film” tradition dating back to the silent cinema years, these two spectacles put the genre of the peplum on the world map as never before. Because so many imitators stemmed from these two films, both starring chisel-chinned Steve Reeves as the Greek demigod, it would be nice to say that one or both were at least small masterpieces of their subgenre. Sadly, only stronger production values really separate the two Reeves films from dozens of bargain-basement Italian adventure-flicks. Just as contemporary superhero films often mix and match elements from disparate comic-book stories, the scripts of the Reeves films jumble together tropes from various unrelated classical myths.

HERCULES has more script-problems than HERCULES UNBOUND, but the first film has better action-scenes and better sexual byplay. After the demigod enjoys a leisurely meet-cute with Greek princess Iole (Sylva Koscina), he goes to work for her father Pelias, little suspecting that Iole’s father murdered his brother to attain the throne of “Julco” (Iolcus). Of course Pelias belongs properly to the story of Jason and the Argonauts, which did involve Hercules as one of the ship’s heroic crewmen. Here, Hercules precedes Jason into the lair of his enemy, who then sends Jason off to seek the Golden Fleece in the hope that the young hero will lose his life. The involved backstory of Jason’s relation to Pelias is passed over quickly, the better not to take the focus off Hercules. The demigod then joins Jason and other heroes on their quest. It’s forgivable that the film doesn’t follow the epic in writing Hercules out of the main story. What’s not redeemable is that the movie drags for a long time, having the Argo’s crew delayed by an ardent Amazon tribe, and then quickly wraps up the quest by fighting a dragon to acquire the fleece. (For the time, the dragon looks pretty good, but he barely interacts with the human actors.) Having produced this dumbed-down version of Jason’s quest, the film somewhat redeems itself at the climax. Hercules and company return to Julco and fight the forces of the evil Pelias, during which scene Reeves performs his most noteworthy feat. Chained to a pair of pillars, Hercules not only pulls down the pillars, he uses the chains hanging from his wrists to lash any soldier fool enough to attack the indomitable demigod. One of the standout anachronisms is that Jason’s crew includes a teenaged version of Ulysses, who, according to the ILIAD, was not born until several generations after Hercules’ life.

HERCULES UNBOUND takes place a little after the first film, in that now Hercules and Iole are married. Accompanied by Teen Ulysses, the trio set out for Hercules’ traditional home of Thebes, though the hero has been away so long that he still thinks King Oedipus is on the throne. On their way, the travelers are beset by a robber named Antaeus (celebrity wrestler Primo Carnera), and Hercules has a good prolonged struggle with a man who can regain his strength every time he touches the earth.

The film never discusses the scandalous events that caused Oedipus to lose his kingdom—perhaps not wanting to offend officious parents—but at any rate, Oedipus (seen briefly, as if he’s on the brink of either dying or being translated to heaven) has been succeeded by his two sons, who are supposed to alternate their rule of Thebes. Thus the film sets up the main action as a retelling of the “Seven Against Thebes” narrative, with Hercules injected as a possible mediator between the two opposed brothers.

However, the hero accidentally drinks from a river containing “forgetfulness water” (traditionally, a characteristic of an underworld watercourse), and he’s then seduced by a mysterious queen, Omphale. Thouigh traditionally this character is queen of the country of Lydia, the movie-version seems more like a character out of Celtic faery, or from the European stories of "the Venusberg." The latter trope probably influences Omphale’s tendency to preserve her discarded lovers in wax (by one account, the medieval goddess preferred ice). Teen Ulysses justifies his existence by helping Herc restore his memory. Once Hercules fights free of Omphale’s kingdom, the distraught ruler can’t cope with rejection herself, and consigns herself to a vat of hot wax. Hercules and his allies rush back to Thebes, but despite lots of soldiers fighting, and a few Herculean stunts, the two sons of Oedipus kill each other. The film doesn’t trouble itself with laying out the complicated history of Thebes’ next ruler, and contents itself by having a final romantic reunion of Hercules and Iole.