Classical Masculinity and the Spectacular Body on Film

The Mighty Sons of Hercules

D. O'Brien

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781137384706
• eBook ISBN: 9781137384713
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Film & Video

The muscle-bound male body is a perennial feature of classically-inflected action cinema. This book reassesses these films as a cinematic form, focusing on the depiction of heroic masculinity. In particular, Hercules in his many incarnations has greatly influenced popular cultural interpretations of manliness and the exaggerated male form.

Part I

Men as Men Should Be

1

Hercules Unchained

The Hercules embodied by Steve Reeves forms part of a long and varied history of representation. Jaimee Pugliese Uhlenbrock suggests artistic depictions of Hercules, or Herakles, may date back to the eighth century BC, with more permutations than any other mythological figure, characterised variously as both tragic and comic, a lecher, a glutton, a romantic, a symbol of virtue, an intellectual and an embodiment of extraordinary physical strength (Uhlenbrock, 1986, pp. 7, 19). For example, as G. Karl Galinsky notes, Hercules is cited as a tragic hero in Chaucer’s ‘The Monk’s Tale’, from The Canterbury Tales (late fourteenth century), ‘a worthy, mighty man being overthrown by the caprice of Fortune’ (Galinsky, 1972, p. 200). Galinsky suggests Hercules’s evolving characterisation in Greek mythology and culture reflects the history of the country, progressing through primitivism and violence, rudimentary civilisation, individualism and humanism, and intellectual prowess: ‘Every age in Greece recast Herakles in its own image, and he thus became the incarnation of her history and aspirations’ (Galinsky, 1972, pp. 148–9). While this parallel may be criticised as simplistic, the progression outlined by Galinsky is evidenced in key myths, dramatic works and philosophical debates.

Early depictions of Hercules emphasised his sheer size and power. Alastair Blanshard argues that in Ancient Greece ‘people believed that size and heroism went together’ (Blanshard, 2005, p. 92). To be large was to be heroic, regardless of personal morality or conduct. As Galinsky notes, ‘physical strength is ambivalent. It can be used for a bad purpose’ (Galinsky, 1972, p. 3). Uhlenbrock concurs that many early depictions of Hercules highlight an ‘expansive and rather defiant character and his propensity for fits of rage and almost unbridled violence’ (Uhlenbrock, 1986, p. 10). Over time, representations of Hercules reflected ‘the transformation of the morally objectionable strong-man into an ethical ideal’ (Galinsky, 1972, p. 29). Hesiod’s Theogony offers an early glimpse of this process and in Aeschylus’s Prometheus Unbound (c480–410 BC) Hercules ‘had changed from the arbitrary perpetrator of excessive force to an ideally motivated and awesome advocate of justice’ (Galinsky, 1972, pp. 16, 42). In both Greek and Roman culture, he assumed at different times religious functions akin to those of a patron saint ‘who would help one overcome all imaginable difficulties of life’ (Galinsky, 1972, p. 127). The late fifth century BC saw the rise of an intellectualised Hercules, exemplified in Prodicus’s ‘The Choice of Herakles’, where the demigod opts for a life of toil and duty over ease and pleasure (Galinsky, 1972, p. 101). Galinsky notes: ‘The process of choosing…was an intellectual effort and intelligence thus became one of the hero’s attributes’ (Galinsky, 1972, p. 102). Blanshard offers an alternative reading of this fable that reflects less favourably on Hercules: ‘The pursuit of undying glory, rather than any abstract notion of goodness, is what ultimately drives the story of Prodicus’ (Blanshard, 2005, p. 38). However, the Prodican Hercules is generally associated with morality, duty, intellect and endeavour, while the adjective ‘Herculean’ is defined in similarly positive terms. For example, Webster’s Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language defines Herculean as ‘requiring the strength of a Hercules; very hard to perform’; ‘having enormous strength, courage, or size’ (1989, p. 664). It is this interpretation of the character that informs the Steve Reeves incarnation.

While Hercules (Francisci, 1958) is the first of the peplum cycle, the origins of the genre can be traced back to the silent era. Italian cinema produced a number of classical epics during this period, including Quo Vadis? (Guazzoni, 1912) and Cabiria (Giovanni Pastrone, 1914) (Bondanella, 2002, p. 3). As Jon Solomon notes, classical antiquity was a popular fixture in late nineteenth century theatre, literature and education in Europe, Britain and the United States (Solomon, 2001, p. 3). Film producers looking for ‘respectable’ source material were quick to see the potential of the ancient Greco-Roman world. This strategy proved effective, as Quo Vadis? and Cabiria were successful both in Italy and overseas, including the US market (Bondanella, 2002, p. 4). Several of these films included a muscle-bound man of action, often as a sidekick to the romantic hero. Quo Vadis? features Ursus (Latin for ‘bear’), who protects the heroine from various perils, including a rampaging bull. Maria Wyke cites Spartaco (Giovanni Enrico Vidali, 1913) for its muscular hero, who bends prison bars and ‘even stops momentarily to gaze on the taut bicep with which he effects his escape’ (Wyke, 1997, p. 44). Cabiria introduced Maciste (Bartolomeo Pagano), a freed Nubian slave of exceptional strength who aids his Roman friend and former master in rescuing the title character. Maciste proved popular with audiences, and Pagano reprised the character in a series of spin-off films. Peter Bondanella cites Maciste as an undoubted forerunner of the peplum genre (Bondanella, 2002, p. 6).

Few classical epics were made in Italy after World War I, when the industry was hit by an economic crisis (Bondanella, 2002, p. 6). By the end of World War II, the Italian film industry was in a moribund state. The domestic market had been flooded with US imports and there was, as Daniela Treveri Gennari notes, minimal demand for locally-produced films outside Italy (Treveri Gennari, 2009, p. 7). During the late 1940s and early 1950s, attempts were made to relaunch popular forms of genre cinema that emphasised production values, international stars, exotic locations and spectacle, anticipating aspects of the peplum formula (Treveri Gennari, 2009, p. 56). Fabiola (Alessandro Blasetti, 1949), an Italian-French co-production based on a novel by Cardinal Nicholas Wiseman, marked the return of the classical epic, and Wyke credits the film as a significant local hit for an otherwise depressed film industry (Wyke, 1997, p. 49). Wyke also suggests its commercial success in Italy launched a trend for remakes of popular silent epics (an earlier Italian film of Fabiola appeared in 1918), while conceding there were other factors at work (Wyke, 1997, p. 49). The late 1940s and early 1950s saw two developments in the American film industry that proved significant for the Italian cinema: the revival of the biblical epic and the relaunch of Hollywood production in Italy (Ben-Hur [Fred Niblo, 1925] began filming in Rome in 1923, though the troubled production relocated to the United States [see Bondanella, 2002, pp. 11–2]). Faced with a post-war decline in domestic audiences and the growing threat of television, US studios needed to rethink their production strategies. The success of Samson and Delilah (Cecil B. DeMille, 1949), both at home and abroad, suggested there was a market for large-scale epics that offered a level of opulence and spectacle impossible on the small screen (cf. Hall and Neale, 2010, p. 136). Around the same time, American studios looked for a way of reclaiming ‘frozen’ revenue from the Italian market which could not be repatriated under currency control laws (Nowell-Smith and Ricci, 1998, pp. 8–9). The solution was to shoot films in Italy, starting with Prince of Foxes (Henry King, 1949), a Renaissance-era melodrama that emphasised spectacle, followed by a remake of Quo Vadis (Mervyn LeRoy, 1951), which proved hugely successful.

Italian-produced epics of this period include Ulisse / Ulysses (Mario Camerini, 1954), a relatively rare pre-peplum adaptation of Greco-Roman mythology, which arguably anticipated some of the ‘ground rules’ for the peplum cycle that followed the success of Hercules. Importing an American lead, Kirk Douglas, the film reworked its classical source material, Homer’s Odyssey, into a series of spectacular set-pieces linked by the narrative thread of Ulysses’s long voyage home to his kingdom, wife and son. While Quo Vadis and Helen of Troy (Robert Wise, 1956) were American productions filmed in Italy, drawing on local resources and labour, Ulysses was an Italian-American co-production between Lux Film, Ponti-De Laurentiis and Paramount. The American stars, writers and head cameraman worked alongside an otherwise Italian cast and crew. If Hollywood had primacy over the Italian film industry in the production of classical epics, the latter could claim to have originated the genre and helped sustain it, albeit on an irregular basis. Hercules originated in the context of a cross-cultural cinematic tradition located principally within the Italian and American film industries, though neither existed independently of wider historical, social and economic contexts. While there is no definitive motivating factor in the creation of Hercules, a combination of elements in the mid-1950s made its production both viable and desirable. It should be noted that, while the film had clear antecedents in both Italian and American cinema, there had been relatively few features based around the character of Hercules. It is generally believed that the first Hercules film was the French-produced animated short Les douze travaux d’Hercule (Emile Cohl, 1910), released in the US as Hercules and the Big Stick (Solomon, 2001, p. 102). The character reappeared in animated form in the US-made Popeye Meets Hercules (Bill Tytla, 1948) and Greek Mirthology (Seymour Kneital, 1954), which casts Popeye as Hercules. One of the first Italian films to use the name is Il trionfo di Ercole (Francesco Bertolini, 1922), starring wrestler Giovanni Raicevich. Hercules would not (re)appear in an Italian-made film for thirty-six years, so it can be said with certainty that the Italian cinema had no tradition of Hercules films prior to 1958.

Hercules was shot at Cinecittá Studios, in Rome, from June to August 1957 (Lucas, 2007, p. 192). In some respects, it marked the continuation in modified form of an existing cycle of films rather than the start of a new genre. The director and co-writer Pietro Francisci had a background in historical adventure films that emphasised spectacle and action, including Il leone di Amalfi / The Lion of Amalfi (1950), La regina di Saba / The Queen of Sheba (1952), Attila (1954) and Orlando e i paladini di Francia / Roland the Mighty (1956). From an industrial and economic perspective, Hercules was a logical extension of the adventure film, incorporating a mythological element that Ulysses had shown to be commercially viable in the international marketplace.

A key component in the success of Hercules was the casting of bodybuilder Steve Reeves, winner of Mr. Pacific Coast (1946), Mr. Western America (1947), Mr. America (1947), Mr. World (1948) and Mr. Universe (1950). Anne Bolin defines bodybuilding as ‘working out with weights to reshape the physique by adding muscle mass and increasing separation and definition of the various muscle groups’, and the first major bodybuilding contest was held in 1901 in the UK (Bolin, 1996, pp. 50–4). This casting raises a number of questions, two of which I will address here. Firstly, to what extent is it significant that the role was played by an American rather than an Italian? Secondly, why was a bodybuilder cast as Hercules, rather than, say, an established actor, a promising newcomer or even a star name, as when Kirk Douglas played Ulysses in the 1954 film? The reasons may be reducible to expedience: the producers required a tall, good-looking and heavily muscled star to fit their conception—and anticipated audience expectations—of a heroic demigod. I suggest that, whatever the intentions, the casting of Reeves enabled a projection or performance of heroic masculinity while simultaneously contributing to its inherent instability.

The presence of an American film or bodybuilding star in an Italian production can be related to a wider context, namely the post-war Americanisation of Italy. The relationship between the two countries in the late 1940s and 1950s may be characterised as one-sided dependency. G. Warner argues: ‘the most important factor which determined the way in which Italy developed—politically, economically and socially—in the decade following the Second World War was her inclusion in the American sphere of influence as opposed to that of the Soviet Union’ (Warner, 1972, p. 30). As a defeated country with a struggling economy and infrastructure, Italy was both dependent on and vulnerable to the foreign policies of the dominant nations. In terms of Soviet influence, the US regarded Italy as being in a particularly exposed position, geographically and militarily (Warner, 1972, p. 55). As Treveri Gennari notes, there was a strong US presence in Italy, both economic and military, from 1943, and Italy became a signatory to the US-led North Atlantic Treaty on 4 April 1949, completing its integration into the Western camp (Treveri Gennari, 2009, p. 3; Warner, 1972, pp. 55–6). To counter and eliminate communist influence in Western Europe, US foreign policy promoted prosperity through productivity and consumption, Italy participating in the Marshall Aid programme (Treveri Gennari, 2009, p. 5; De Cecco, 1972, p. 177). The American presence in post-war Italy manifested itself on various levels, including those of popular culture and entertainment.

The casting of a Hollywood star in an Italian-produced film was by no means unusual at the time. The 1949 Fabiola features three French stars—Michele Morgan, Henri Vidal, Michel Simon—in lead roles. Clearly, neither the Italian film industry nor local audiences were notably resistant to imported stars, even if the film was set in Italy’s illustrious past. As Christopher Wagstaff notes, a shortage of Italian male leads for dramatic roles in the 1950s led to the use of American actors (Wagstaff, 1998, p. 76). A recession in Hollywood and increased American production in Italy made US stars both available and relatively inexpensive. The presence of a Hollywood ‘name’ also made the films more exportable (Wagstaff, 1998, p. 76). American actors working in Italy during this period include Kirk Douglas, Anthony Quinn, Henry Fonda, Broderick Crawford, Richard Basehart and Steve Cochran. The wider ramifications of this American ‘invasion’ lie outside the scope of this book; it is, however, arguable that these Hollywood stars served as standard bearers for the Americanisation of Italian and, by extension, European film production and, more broadly, European culture in general. Within this context, the casting of an American as Hercules was hardly remarkable in terms of industry practice or audience expectation, especially given Douglas’s recent appearance as Ulysses.

Though not a film star as such, Reeves had modest acting experience, including the MGM musical Athena (Richard Thorpe, 1954), a title with its own classical associations, which billed him as ‘Steve Reeves, “Mr Universe of 1950”’. His image as a ‘star’ bodybuilder was perpetuated largely by personal appearances and coverage in such specialist magazines as Strength & Health, Physique Pictorial, Muscular Development, Muscle Builder, Muscle Power, Mr. Universe, Athletic Model Guild and Body Beautiful. One of these magazines, Mr. Universe, and the forms of masculinity it promoted and perpetuated, is discussed in more detail below. As an American ‘star’ name, albeit in a field as yet unrelated to films, Reeves also had a greater potential international appeal than an Italian actor whose local popularity might not extend to other countries. A French poster for Hercules promoted Reeves as ‘le celebre “Monsieur Univers”’.

Reeves had competed outside the US, as in the 1948 Mr. World contest hel...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Part I  Men as Men Should Be
• Part II  Taming the Women with Love or Death
• Part III  This Thing of Darkness
• Bibliography
• Index