Hercules and the Captive Women comes to Blu-ray for the first time through The Film Detective with a new film restoration and a fine selection of bonus features.
Hercules and the Captive Women
— Special Edition —
(1963)
Genre(s): Adventure, Fantasy
The Film Detective| NR – 95 min. – $24.95 | April 13, 2021
Date Published: 04/10/2021 | Author: The Movieman
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The Film Detective provided me with a free copy of the Blu-ray I reviewed in this Blog Post.
The opinions I share are my own.
PLOT SYNOPSIS |
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King Androcles of Thebes (ETTORE MANNI) commands a ship searching for a threat to Greece predicted by oracles. Hercules (REG PARK) is part of the crew, but the strongman falls overboard in a thick fog. Washed ashore, he saves a young girl, Ismene (LAURA ALTAN), from a shape-shifting creature. She takes Hercules to Atlantis, where he discovers that her mother, the evil Queen Antinea (FAY SPAIN), has captured Androcles. Hercules schemes to rescue him and thwart Antinea’s dream of world conquest. |
SPECIAL FEATURES – 3/5 |
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There’s a fair amount of bonus material, for this type of film anyway, and includes an Audio Commentary with film critic and screenwriter Tim Lucas; a Hercules and the Conquest of Cinema (19:28) featurette on the rise of Hercules on film; an Intro (3:02) by MST3K writer and co-star Frank Conniff; and last the Mystery Science Theater 3000 version (1:31:59) from 1992. Inside the case are also Liner Notes by author and historian C. Courtney Joyner. |
VIDEO – 3¾/5 |
| Hercules and the Captive Women debuts on Blu-ray, presented with a 2.20 widescreen aspect ratio, restored in 4K from the original 35mm camera negative. The picture here doesn’t look fantastic with colors that are a bit drab and detail only modestly sharp. However, and without comparing to any previous releases on DVD, I would expect this is a fine upgrade. |
AUDIO – 3½/5 |
| The disc comes with a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 track. For the most part the lossless audio sounds fine, dialogue comes across well enough although there was plenty of hissing throughout the film, perhaps reflective of a poor sound design and outside of some extensive, and expensive, restoration, can’t they could’ve done much better |
Check out some more 1080p screen caps by going to page 2. Please note, these do contain spoilers.