Bristol Bad Film Club Screening: Hercules in New York

After their big screen week screening of Birdemic: Shock and Terror sold out, the Bristol Bad Film Club will be moving to the redgrave theatre next month to screen Arnold Schwarzenegger's first film - Hercules in New York!

Before he was The Terminator and the biggest name in Hollywood, Arnold Schwarzenegger was a champion body builder. During his time on the body building circuit, The Austrian Oak won the Mr Universe title twice and was crowned Mr Olympia EIGHT times.

However Arnie had loftier goals. He wanted to conquer Hollywood. We all know that he eventually did, but in terms of first features, none are as bizarre as Hercules In New York.

Arnie was just 20 years old when he starred in Hercules In New York, a cheap $300,000 ‘fantasy adventure’ that was filmed entirely in the Big Apple.

Because the producers were afraid that no one would be able to pronounce his name, he is billed as Arnold Strong – which was also meant to be an amusing play on words as his co-star is the weedy Arnold Stang.

Rumour has it that Arnie only got this role because his agent lied outright to the director, saying that Arnold was also fresh from the Shakespeare Company of Austria.

The director must have been hammered 24/7 to have believed that. Or just didn’t care. Once you see the film, you’ll probably go with the latter. 

The plot of “Hercules in New York” is simple. Hercules is exiled from Mount Olympus because he disobeys Zeus and gets into all sorts of hilarious hijinks on Earth. However all the situations are made at least 84% funnier because of Arnie’s accent.

In earlier versions, Arnie was dubbed over with a horrible generic American accent, but The Bristol Bad Film Club will be showing the version with the original Arnie dialogue, complete with his inability to form coherent sentences. Still, he tries…

He’s also massive. MASSIVE. You will not have seen Arnie this big before and just to remind you of this fact, he takes his shirt off a lot. You can even form a drinking game around it.

“You know a film is top quality bobbins, when you can not only tell that Mount Olympus is clearly Central Park, but you can even hear the traffic going by,” says club co-founder Ti Singh. “And then there’s the scene where Arnie wrestles the stupidest looking bear ever shown on screen…”

The screening will take place on 24th July and all profits will be going to Bristol Autism Society.

For more information, visit www.bristolbadfilmclub.co.uk or the club’s Twitter (@TheOtherBBFC) and Facebook page.