Hercules Returns
Encyclopedia
Hercules Returns is a 1993 Australia
n comedy film
directed by David Parker
, starring David Argue
, Michael Carman
, Bruce Spence
and Mary Coustas
. The film has a cult following
in Australia and other countries. It has been released in DVD format (Region 4, format 16:9
).
. The Double Take show, which began in Sydney in 1986, is part of the dub parody genre, in which ostensibly serious films are deliberately re-voiced in a satirical or spoof manner. Well-known examples of this genre include the 1960s Jay Ward
TV series Fractured Flickers
and Woody Allen
's What's Up, Tiger Lily?
(1966). The Double Take concept is similar to the Los Angeles-based club show (later transferred to TV) Mad Movies with the L.A. Connection, which was popular in the USA in the 1970s and 1980s.
Double Take was very similar in style to (and may have been partly inspired by) two sketches that featured under the banner "Europa Productions" in the popular Australian TV comedy series The Aunty Jack Show (1972–73). In these pre-recorded sketches the Aunty Jack team satirically re-voiced an Italian Hercules film (renamed "Herco the Magnificent") and the 1952 Robert Newton
swashbuckler Blackbeard the Pirate
(renamed "Gidget Goes Tasmanian"). Like these TV sketches, Double Take performances featured distinctly Australian voicings (often with exaggerated "Ocker
" and ethnic Australian accents) and many local humorous references, but unlike the L.A. Connection shows — which often used heavily edited versions and excerpts of films — the films that the Double Take team sent up were presented in their entirety and the scripts were carefully tailored to follow the original sequencing of the movies.
Mangan and Patience
gained a strong following around Australia with their Double Take shows, which were performed live in a cinema. Typically seated at the back of the auditorium, using microphones plugged into the cinema's sound system, the Double Take team performed live comedic voice-overs of movies such as the American B-grade sci-fi film The Astro-zombies
and the 1960s Italian low-budget 'Sword and Sandal
' epic Ercole, Sansone, Maciste e Ursus gli invincibili. Of necessity much of their voice-over performance was tightly scripted, but working live also allowed the team some scope to occasionally insert topical jokes and references.
The film version came about after businessman Phil Jaroslow saw a Double Take performance of Hercules Returns in Melbourne. He was so impressed that he purchased the rights to both the original Ercole film and Mangan's script, hired cinematographer and film maker David Parker
to help write a story to wrap around the Double Take routine, and financed the project with his own funds. Although it was his first film as a producer and Parker's first as a director, the project came in on time and on budget at a cost of less than A$1 million, and shooting was completed in just eight days.
The lead actors who appeared on screen were well-known to local audiences. Bruce Spence has been one of Australia's most prominent stage and screen actors since the early 1970s; Coustas was a member of the popular "Wogs Out of Work" team, where she created her Greek-Australian character "Effie", and she co-starred in the popular TV sitcom Acropolis Now
; Argue was well known from his many live comedy, TV and film appearances. Director David Parker has had a long association with writer-director Nadia Tass
and they have collaborated on many popular films including Malcolm
. The film is also notable as the last screen credit for veteran actor Frank Thring
(who performed the voice of Zeus) and there are also cameo appearances by Australian film critics David Stratton
, Margaret Pomeranz
and Ivan Hutchinson. Ironically, the 'real' stars of the film, Mangan and Patience
, do not appear on screen and their voice-overs are in fact mimed by Argue, Spence and Coustas.
chain, The Kent Corporation, quits his job and decides to set up and re-open the Picture Palace, a palatial disused cinema in St Kilda
, Melbourne
to show classic old films in the old-fashioned style.
As a gimmick
he chooses the last picture that the cinema featured, Samson and His Mighty Challenge
(an Italian film, originally released in 1964 as Ercole, Sansone, Maciste e Ursus: gli invincibili). When the print
arrives at the grand gala opening they discover that it is in unsubtitled Italian
, and Brad suspects that his old boss, Sir Michael Kent (Carman), has in some way sabotaged the delivery.
This calls for desperate measures and McBain, his projectionist
Sprocket
(Spence) and his publicist
Lisa (Coustas) are forced to improvise voice overs for the entire film with hilarious results. Kent (Carman), also attends the screening, hoping to see it fail. As he realises that the crowd is enjoying the film, he storms up to the projection box. He and McBain fight just as the film reaches its climax; McBain breaks the fourth wall
several times so that the fight in the projection box corresponds with the fight on the screen. Kent is knocked out, and the film is a huge success.
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n comedy film
Comedy film
Comedy film is a genre of film in which the main emphasis is on humour. They are designed to elicit laughter from the audience. Comedies are mostly light-hearted dramas and are made to amuse and entertain the audiences...
directed by David Parker
David Parker (director)
David Parker is an Australian cinematographer, film producer, screenwriter and film director.Films written by Parker include Malcolm, Rikky and Pete, The Big Steal, and Amy. He has directed two films, Hercules Returns and Diana and Me.He is married to Nadia Tass-External links:* at...
, starring David Argue
David Argue
David Argue is an Australian actor. He is most known for his role in the 1993 film Hercules Returns.-Television:*The Restless Years *Winners *Raw Silk *Pirates Island *Cluedo...
, Michael Carman
Michael Carman
Michael Carman is an Australian film, television, and theatre actor. He attended Swinburne Film and Television School from 1971 to 1974.- Filmography :*Max's Dreaming as support*A Waltz Through the Hills as Sgt Rawlins*Hercules Returns as co-lead...
, Bruce Spence
Bruce Spence
Bruce Spence, born September 17, 1945 is an actor, having spent most of his career performing in Australia. Bruce attended Henderson High School in West Auckland....
and Mary Coustas
Mary Coustas
Mary Coustas is an Australian television personality. Originally from Melbourne, Coustas often performs as the character "Effie": a stereotypical second-generation Greek Australian...
. The film has a cult following
Cult following
A cult following is a group of fans who are highly dedicated to a specific area of pop culture. A film, book, band, or video game, among other things, will be said to have a cult following when it has a small but very passionate fan base...
in Australia and other countries. It has been released in DVD format (Region 4, format 16:9
16:9
16:9 is an aspect ratio with a width of 16 units and height of 9. Since 2009, it has become the most common aspect ratio for sold televisions and computer monitors and is also the international standard format of HDTV, Full HD, non-HD digital television and analog widescreen television ...
).
Background
Hercules Returns is a screen adaptation of the popular Australian live comedy show Double Take, conceived and performed by Des Mangan with Sally PatienceSally Patience
Sally Patience is an Australian actress and one of the country's most prominent voice-over artists. She was born in Melbourne and grew up in the city's south eastern suburbs. She attended the Victorian College of the Arts where she trained as a dancer...
. The Double Take show, which began in Sydney in 1986, is part of the dub parody genre, in which ostensibly serious films are deliberately re-voiced in a satirical or spoof manner. Well-known examples of this genre include the 1960s Jay Ward
Jay Ward
J Troplong "Jay" Ward was an American creator and producer of animated television cartoons. He produced animated series based on such characters as Crusader Rabbit, Rocky & Bullwinkle, Dudley Do-Right, Peabody and Sherman, Hoppity Hooper, George of the Jungle, Tom Slick, and Super Chicken...
TV series Fractured Flickers
Fractured Flickers
Fractured Flickers is a live-action syndicated half-hour television comedy show that was produced by Jay Ward, who is otherwise known for animated cartoons. The pilot film was produced in 1961 , but the series wasn't completed until 1963...
and Woody Allen
Woody Allen
Woody Allen is an American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, jazz musician, author, and playwright. Allen's films draw heavily on literature, sexuality, philosophy, psychology, Jewish identity, and the history of cinema...
's What's Up, Tiger Lily?
What's Up, Tiger Lily?
The soundtrack album to What's Up Tiger Lily? was released in 1966. It contains music by The Lovin' Spoonful. It was re-released on CD along with You're a Big Boy Now, the Spoonful's soundtrack for the 1966 Francis Ford Coppola film. It reached No...
(1966). The Double Take concept is similar to the Los Angeles-based club show (later transferred to TV) Mad Movies with the L.A. Connection, which was popular in the USA in the 1970s and 1980s.
Double Take was very similar in style to (and may have been partly inspired by) two sketches that featured under the banner "Europa Productions" in the popular Australian TV comedy series The Aunty Jack Show (1972–73). In these pre-recorded sketches the Aunty Jack team satirically re-voiced an Italian Hercules film (renamed "Herco the Magnificent") and the 1952 Robert Newton
Robert Newton
Robert Newton was an English stage and film actor. Along with Errol Flynn, Newton was one of the most popular actors among the male juvenile audience of the 1940s and early 1950s, especially with British boys...
swashbuckler Blackbeard the Pirate
Blackbeard the Pirate
Blackbeard the Pirate is a 1952 Technicolor adventure film made by RKO. The film was directed by Raoul Walsh and produced by Edmund Grainger from a screenplay by Alan Le May based on the story by DeVallon Scott.-Plot:...
(renamed "Gidget Goes Tasmanian"). Like these TV sketches, Double Take performances featured distinctly Australian voicings (often with exaggerated "Ocker
Ocker
The term "ocker" is used both as a noun and adjective for an Australian who speaks and acts in an uncultured manner, using a broad Australian accent...
" and ethnic Australian accents) and many local humorous references, but unlike the L.A. Connection shows — which often used heavily edited versions and excerpts of films — the films that the Double Take team sent up were presented in their entirety and the scripts were carefully tailored to follow the original sequencing of the movies.
Mangan and Patience
Sally Patience
Sally Patience is an Australian actress and one of the country's most prominent voice-over artists. She was born in Melbourne and grew up in the city's south eastern suburbs. She attended the Victorian College of the Arts where she trained as a dancer...
gained a strong following around Australia with their Double Take shows, which were performed live in a cinema. Typically seated at the back of the auditorium, using microphones plugged into the cinema's sound system, the Double Take team performed live comedic voice-overs of movies such as the American B-grade sci-fi film The Astro-zombies
The Astro-Zombies
The Astro-Zombies, aka Space Zombies aka The Space Vampires, is a 1968 science fiction horror film starring John Carradine, Wendell Corey and Tura Satana. It was written, directed, and produced by Ted V. Mikels...
and the 1960s Italian low-budget 'Sword and Sandal
Sword and sandal
The Peplum , also known as Sword-and-Sandal, is a genre of largely Italian-made Historical or Biblical Epics that dominated the Italian film industry from 1957 to 1965, eventually being replaced in 1965 by the "Spaghetti Western"...
' epic Ercole, Sansone, Maciste e Ursus gli invincibili. Of necessity much of their voice-over performance was tightly scripted, but working live also allowed the team some scope to occasionally insert topical jokes and references.
The film version came about after businessman Phil Jaroslow saw a Double Take performance of Hercules Returns in Melbourne. He was so impressed that he purchased the rights to both the original Ercole film and Mangan's script, hired cinematographer and film maker David Parker
David Parker
David Parker may refer to:* David Parker , current manager of Birmingham City Ladies* David C. Parker, theology professor and textual critic* David Parker , North Carolina politician and attorney...
to help write a story to wrap around the Double Take routine, and financed the project with his own funds. Although it was his first film as a producer and Parker's first as a director, the project came in on time and on budget at a cost of less than A$1 million, and shooting was completed in just eight days.
The lead actors who appeared on screen were well-known to local audiences. Bruce Spence has been one of Australia's most prominent stage and screen actors since the early 1970s; Coustas was a member of the popular "Wogs Out of Work" team, where she created her Greek-Australian character "Effie", and she co-starred in the popular TV sitcom Acropolis Now
Acropolis Now
Acropolis Now was an Australian sitcom set in a Greek bar of the same name that ran for 63 episodes from 1989 to 1992 on the Seven Network. It was created by Nick Giannopoulos, George Kapiniaris and Simon Palomares, who also starred in the series. They were already quite well known for their comedy...
; Argue was well known from his many live comedy, TV and film appearances. Director David Parker has had a long association with writer-director Nadia Tass
Nadia Tass
Nadia Tass is a film director, producer and actress, originally from Macedonia, northern Greece, who moved to Australia in the 1960s. She began her career as an actress appearing in the television series Prisoner. Ms...
and they have collaborated on many popular films including Malcolm
Malcolm (film)
Malcolm is a 1986 Australian cult film, written by David Parker and directed by Nadia Tass. The film stars Colin Friels as the titular tram enthusiast who becomes involved with petty crime. The film won the 1986 Australian Film Institute Award for Best Film.At the start of the film Malcolm is...
. The film is also notable as the last screen credit for veteran actor Frank Thring
Frank Thring
Frank William Thring was an Australian character actor.-Early life:Thring was born in Melbourne and educated at the Melbourne Grammar School. His father, Frank W. Thring, was the head of Efftee Studios, in Melbourne, in the 1920s, and is said to be the inventor of the clapperboard...
(who performed the voice of Zeus) and there are also cameo appearances by Australian film critics David Stratton
David Stratton
David James Stratton is an English- Australian film critic and television personality.-Life and career:Born in Trowbridge, Wiltshire, England in 1939, Stratton was sent to Hampshire to see out the war years with his grandmother, an avid filmgoer, where he was taken to the local cinemas regularly...
, Margaret Pomeranz
Margaret Pomeranz
Margaret Pomeranz AM is an Australian film critic and television personality.-Early life:Pomeranz was born in 1944 in Waverley, a suburb of Sydney, and was educated at the Presbyterian Ladies' College, Sydney in Croydon, the then newly opened Macquarie University, and the Playwright's Studio at...
and Ivan Hutchinson. Ironically, the 'real' stars of the film, Mangan and Patience
Sally Patience
Sally Patience is an Australian actress and one of the country's most prominent voice-over artists. She was born in Melbourne and grew up in the city's south eastern suburbs. She attended the Victorian College of the Arts where she trained as a dancer...
, do not appear on screen and their voice-overs are in fact mimed by Argue, Spence and Coustas.
Synopsis
Film buff Brad McBain (Argue), a frustrated employee of Australia’s largest cinemaMovie theater
A movie theater, cinema, movie house, picture theater, film theater is a venue, usually a building, for viewing motion pictures ....
chain, The Kent Corporation, quits his job and decides to set up and re-open the Picture Palace, a palatial disused cinema in St Kilda
St Kilda, Victoria
St Kilda is an inner city suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 6 km south from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the City of Port Phillip...
, Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
to show classic old films in the old-fashioned style.
As a gimmick
Gimmick
In marketing language, a gimmick is a unique or quirky special feature that makes something "stand out" from its contemporaries. However, the special feature is typically thought to be of little relevance or use. Thus, a gimmick is a special feature for the sake of having a special feature...
he chooses the last picture that the cinema featured, Samson and His Mighty Challenge
Samson and His Mighty Challenge
Samson and His Mighty Challenge is an Italian sword and sandal film, released in 1964. Its original title was Ercole, Sansone, Maciste e Ursus gli invincibili .-Synopsis:...
(an Italian film, originally released in 1964 as Ercole, Sansone, Maciste e Ursus: gli invincibili). When the print
Release print
A release print is a copy of a film that is sent to a movie theater for exhibition.-Definitions:Release prints are not to be confused with the other types of print used in the photochemical post-production process:...
arrives at the grand gala opening they discover that it is in unsubtitled Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
, and Brad suspects that his old boss, Sir Michael Kent (Carman), has in some way sabotaged the delivery.
This calls for desperate measures and McBain, his projectionist
Projectionist
A Projectionist is a person who operates a movie projector. In the strict sense of the term this means any movie projector and therefore could include someone who operates the projector in a home video show or school. In common usage the term is generally understood to describe a paid employee of...
Sprocket
Sprocket
A sprocket or sprocket-wheel is a profiled wheel with teeth, cogs, or even sprockets that mesh with a chain, track or other perforated or indented material. The name 'sprocket' applies generally to any wheel upon which are radial projections that engage a chain passing over it...
(Spence) and his publicist
Publicist
A publicist is a person whose job is to generate and manage publicity for a public figure, especially a celebrity, a business, or for a work such as a book, film or album...
Lisa (Coustas) are forced to improvise voice overs for the entire film with hilarious results. Kent (Carman), also attends the screening, hoping to see it fail. As he realises that the crowd is enjoying the film, he storms up to the projection box. He and McBain fight just as the film reaches its climax; McBain breaks the fourth wall
Fourth wall
The fourth wall is the imaginary "wall" at the front of the stage in a traditional three-walled box set in a proscenium theatre, through which the audience sees the action in the world of the play...
several times so that the fight in the projection box corresponds with the fight on the screen. Kent is knocked out, and the film is a huge success.
Cast
- David ArgueDavid ArgueDavid Argue is an Australian actor. He is most known for his role in the 1993 film Hercules Returns.-Television:*The Restless Years *Winners *Raw Silk *Pirates Island *Cluedo...
as Brad McBain - Michael CarmanMichael CarmanMichael Carman is an Australian film, television, and theatre actor. He attended Swinburne Film and Television School from 1971 to 1974.- Filmography :*Max's Dreaming as support*A Waltz Through the Hills as Sgt Rawlins*Hercules Returns as co-lead...
as Sir Michael Kent - Mary CoustasMary CoustasMary Coustas is an Australian television personality. Originally from Melbourne, Coustas often performs as the character "Effie": a stereotypical second-generation Greek Australian...
as Lisa - Bruce SpenceBruce SpenceBruce Spence, born September 17, 1945 is an actor, having spent most of his career performing in Australia. Bruce attended Henderson High School in West Auckland....
as Sprocket - Voice of Des Mangan HerculesHerculesHercules is the Roman name for Greek demigod Heracles, son of Zeus , and the mortal Alcmene...
, SamsonSamsonSamson, Shimshon ; Shamshoun or Sampson is the third to last of the Judges of the ancient Israelites mentioned in the Tanakh ....
, MachismoMachismoMachismo, or machoism, is a word of Spanish and Portuguese origin that describes prominently exhibited or excessive masculinity. As an attitude, machismo ranges from a personal sense of virility to a more extreme male chauvinism...
, Ursus, Testiculi - Voice of Sally PatienceSally PatienceSally Patience is an Australian actress and one of the country's most prominent voice-over artists. She was born in Melbourne and grew up in the city's south eastern suburbs. She attended the Victorian College of the Arts where she trained as a dancer...
Labia, Muriel, Fanny, DelilahDelilahDelilah appears only in the Hebrew bible Book of Judges 16, where she is the "woman in the valley of Sorek" whom Samson loved, and who was his downfall... - Voice of Matthew King as Charlie
- Frank ThringFrank ThringFrank William Thring was an Australian character actor.-Early life:Thring was born in Melbourne and educated at the Melbourne Grammar School. His father, Frank W. Thring, was the head of Efftee Studios, in Melbourne, in the 1920s, and is said to be the inventor of the clapperboard...
as the voice of Zeus