THE SONS OF HERCULES Thunder Through the Years

The mighty Sons of Hercules 

Once thundered through the years

These men of steel could never feel

The curse of a coward's fears

The Mighty Sons of Hercules

Were men as men should be

They burned with dreams

And turned their dreams

Into history!

 

A hundred giants, brave and bold 

They ruled the world in days of old!

The Mighty Sons of Hercules 

Were men as men should be

They took the world

And shook the world - The Sons of Hercules!

 

For many of us who grew up in the 1960s, these lyrics and their rousing guitar accompaniment loom as large as almost any other piece of music from that unusually rich and fecund era. This is both remarkable and unusual, considering that the song was never commercially released, nor were the recording artists ever publicly identified.

“The Mighty Sons of Hercules” was the opening theme song of THE SONS OF HERCULES, an Embassy Pictures TV syndication package composed of thirteen Italian sword-and-sandal features reconfigured into 26 hour-long, two-part, color episodes. According to newspapers.com findings, the series made its first bow in the Los Angeles market on KHJ-TV, Channel 9 beginning with MOLE MEN AGAINST THE SON OF HERCULES on Friday, 28 June 1964 in prime time, 8:00pm. This means that the show actually went to air for the first time only shortly after the last films in the package were theatrically released abroad. A huge factor in the program's prestige was that every single film in the package was in full color. Color was a huge ratings draw at the time. Of the three networks, only NBC was “full color” in 1964, with CBS and ABC following through in early 1966. It was such a novelty that they would be guaranteed a substantial viewing audience whether they were ordinarily interested in such material  or not. Joining the bandwagon in January 1965 were Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania’s Channel 3; Jackson, Tennessee’s WSM-TV, Channel 4; Fresno, California’s KMJ-TV, Channel 24; and KTVT, Channel 11 in Fort Worth, Texas. 

My hometown channel, Cincinnati’s WKRC-TV Channel 12, was somewhere between those two extremes. It began showing THE SONS OF HERCULES in January 1966 on Sundays at 12:00 noon. Devoted Saturday all-night movie addict that I was, I seldom saw Sundays at noon outside of holidays and funerals, so its position on the local schedule explains why my personal recollections of the show are so spotty. I can certainly remember the highlights, those of MEDUSA AGAINST THE SON OF HERCULES in particular, and the opening and closing songs are unforgettable - but my haziness about the show itself made me set out to learn more about it. 

When I turned to the newspapers.com archive in search of the order in which WKRC rolled the titles out, I was disappointed to find that our local paper didn’t start carrying anything more detailed than a simple channel grid and show title listing for the program the first seven months it was on the air – which couldn’t have attracted too much local attention, and may explain my own lack of eagerness about it at the time. In the fall of 1967, WKRC moved the show to 4:00pm on Sundays (sending up prayers of thanks from the devout) and it ran its final Part II on December 31, 1967. Remarkably, the package remained steadily in circulation at different stations around the US until March 1978, when a station in Danville, Kentucky brought the curtain down. In the 1990s, Turner Network Television (TNT) revived the series and ran them all again, as did many local stations around the country.

  

I was hoping to find a precise set order for the broadcasts, but they varied in every market, so the stations acquiring the package were evidently free to show them in whichever order they chose. The thirteen films – none of which had been previously released to theaters in the US – are listed below, first identified by its SOH title, then its original Italian title with English translation, it’s director’s name, its original Italian release date, and finally the name of its star, their original character name, and their SOH name. As the series had no set order of presentation, I’m listing the titles in the order of their original theatrical release abroad:

MOLE MEN AGAINST THE SON OF HERCULES  (Maciste, l'uomo più forte del mondo, "Maciste, the Strongest Man in the World"), directed by Antonio Leonviola. First released October 1961. Mark Forest as Maciste / Majestus.

TRIUMPH OF THE SON OF HERCULES (Il trionfo di Maciste, "The Triumph of Maciste"), directed by Tanio Boccia; 1961. Kirk Morris as Maciste.

ULYSSES AGAINST THE SON OF HERCULES (Ulisse contro Ercole = "Ulysses vs. Hercules"), directed by Mario Caiano. First released 3 February 1962. Mike Lane as Ercole / Heracles. 

FIRE MONSTERS AGAINST THE SON OF HERCULES (Maciste contro i mostri, "Maciste vs. the Monsters"), directed by Guido Malatesta, 25 April 1962. Reg Lewis as Maciste / Maxus.

VENUS MEETS THE SON OF HERCULES (Marte, dio della guerra = "Mars, God of War"), directed by Marcello Baldi. 24 June 1962. Roger Browne as Mars / Temenus.

MEDUSA AGAINST THE SON OF HERCULES (Perseo l'invincible = "Perseus the Invincible"), directed by Alberto di Martino. First released 1962. Richard Harrison as Perseus.

THE BEAST OF BABYLON AGAINST THE SON OF HERCULES (L'eroe di Babilonia = "The Hero of Babylon"), directed by Siro Marcellini. First released 1963. Gordon Scott as Nippur.

SON OF HERCULES IN THE LAND OF FIRE (Ursus della terra del fuoco = "Ursus in the Land of Fire"), directed by Giorgio Simonelli. First released August 1963. Ed Fury as Ursus.

THE TYRANT OF LYDIA AGAINST THE SON OF HERCULES (Goliath e la sciava ribelle = "Goliath and the Rebel Slaves"), directed by Mario Caiano. First released 5 September 1963. Gordon Scott as Goliath / Gordian.

SON OF HERCULES IN THE LAND OF DARKNESS (Ercole l'invincible = "Hercules the Invincible"), directed by "Al Wordl" = Alvano Mancori. First released 14 March 1964. Dan Vadis as Ercole / Argoles.

THE TERROR OF ROME AGAINST THE SON OF HERCULES - link is widescreen but in Italian only (Maciste, gladiatore di Sparta = "Maciste, Gladiator of Sparta"), directed by Mario Caiano. First released 24 March 1964.  Mark Forest as Maciste / Poseidon.

MESSALINA VS. THE SON OF HERCULES (L'ultimo gladiatore = "The Last Gladiator"), directed by Umberto Lenzi. First released 27 June 1964. Richard Harrison as Glaucus.

DEVIL OF THE DESERT AGAINST THE SON OF HERCULES (Anthar l'invincible = "Anthar the Invincible"), directed by Antonio Margheriti. First released 27 June 1964. Kirk Morris as Anthar.

Adding to the series' allure was the fact that none of the films included in the package had ever received a theatrical release in America, with the apparent exception of MESSALINA VS. THE SON OF HERCULES, for which there exists an MGM poster in English and Spanish for exhibition in select bilingual outlets.  It should also be noted that in 1996, a film called URSUS, SON OF HERCULES was introduced into TV circulation; this was a retitling of THE MIGHTY URSUS (Ursus, 1961) starring Ed Fury and featuring Soledad Miranda in a small role.

As I started preparing this entry, it was my intention or hope to include thumbnail reviews of all thirteen films, but there isn't enough free time in my schedule just now. I did watch the first three on my list and they were all illuminating in some way. MOLE MEN AGAINST THE SON OF HERCULES opens with a wonderful dreamlike scene (that appears to fade up already in progress) of Machestus (Mark Forest) laboriously pulling to shore a length of chain with which he's harpooned some kind of primordial whale. The film winningly pairs Forest (aka Lou Degni, who never won a world title) with Paul Wynter (1960 & 1966 Mr. Universe) in a story of friendship as well as adventure. There are some very silly aspects to this movie (including a race of subterannean dwellers who constantly bemoan their fate of living in an accursed darkness that is never less than brightly lit), but there are also some impressive set pieces. The standout finds the captive Machestus forced to bear the stacked weight of enormous stone slabs above him, his weakening limbs causing a set of suspended sword blades to inch closer to the vitals of his compatriots. Out of nowhere, this impressive scene plays remarkably like the legendary episode of Spider-Man trapped beneath a tonnage of fallen machinery in THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #33, only falling short of that comic's immense cathartic value by being either technically or financially unable to depict Machestus' overthrowing of the death device. New York City residents didn't start receiving the series until Secaucus, New Jersey's WOR-TV, Channel 9 began carrying it on December 19, 1965 - premiering with MOLE MEN AGAINST THE SONS OF HERCULES. As the comic is dated February 1966, it would have appeared on newsstands at roughly the same time, so there is no way Steve Ditko could have seen the film prior to plotting or drawing that particular issue; nevertheless, the suspenseful and emotional values of the two sequences are surprisingly alike. 

Moving on, THE TRIUMPH OF MACISTE features some surprisingly effective scenes of women being sacrificed to a Molloch-like machined altar. Within the framework of compositions that strongly recall moments in HERCULES IN THE HAUNTED WORLD, their uses of incendiary color and roiling smoke have a very definite Bava-like visual flair. 

And FIRE MONSTERS AGAINST THE SON OF HERCULES includes a few of Carlo Rambaldi's earliest mechanized monsters, including a couple of varieties of sea serpent and a great lumbering dragon. MEDUSA AGAINST THE SON OF HERCULES, of course, is a remarkable film of this type, featuring what some people - your humble blogger included - regard as Rambaldi's most imaginative creation: a gorgon in the form of a hideously Cyclopic tree that ambulates through a valley of men and women it has turned to stone through the centuries.   

THE SONS OF HERCULES made use of 16mm color prints and, since every film in the Embassy package had originated in a scope format, these were all pan & scan presentations that imposed entirely new and random cuts from one side of the wide frame to the other and back again, showing us only half of the image at any given moment and imposing editing rhythms on the movies that were never intended. These 16mm prints continue to turn up in circulation, largely in public domain DVD releases with unpredictable color levels. (Mill Creek Entertainment's 2006 DVD box set WARRIORS included half a dozen of the series entries in its mind-boggling assortment of 50 features.) Happily, there now exist options - on such convenient services as YouTube - allowing us to access the films in their original languages and aspect ratios, as well as some remarkable fandubbed versions that create hybrids of the films as our eyes and our hearts want to see them.  

One gets the sense from the series' identity that it was conceived to make commercial use of films that were not released here and had aged past their playdate; however, those last four films listed were likely in production at a time when Embassy already had the series in pre-production. Though their names do not appear on the syndication prints, I suspect that American International's James H. Nicholson and Samuel Z. Arkoff, along with Fulvio Lucisano of Italian International (from whom AIP had been acquiring product since 1958, beginning with the film that became GOLIATH AND THE BARBARIANS), had something to do with providing Embassy with its already English-friendly materials. Before becoming a film producer and founding Embassy Pictures, Joseph E. Levine had run the Boston branch office of AIP.  

Bret Morrison.

All thirteen of the films were dubbed into English overseas before Embassy ever got their hands on them. However, each film required some alterations before they could be syndicated as part of this package. To this end, Bret Morrison - a former radio actor best known for playing The Shadow and his alter ego Lamont Cranston after Orson Welles abandoned the roles - was hired to narrate each film, which began with much the same recital:

"Through the centuries, in olden times, there lived... the Sons of Hercules! Heroes supreme! They roamed the earth, righting wrongs, helping the weak and oppressed... and seeking adventure! They were the mightiest of mortal men - the Sons of Hercules! One of them was... [fill in name Maxus, Tempus, Perseus, Glaucus, Poseidon, Argocles, etc.]! It is of his deeds we tell now..." 

Furthermore, on slightly less than half of the films - namely, those whose heroes were renamed to suit Hercules' mighty offspring - Morrison was called upon to loop those specific lines in which the main actor was addressed by name. At times, such as in FIRE MONSTERS AGAINST THE SONS OF HERCULES, the sonic attempts to replace Maciste with Maxus, are quite funny.

 

Now that I've given you the background, here is what I've learned about its delightfully infectious theme song:

Not too long ago, I was stunned to learn that "The Mighty Sons of Hercules" was released on record - albeit as only a white-labeled, Promo Only 45rpm EP. Performed by The Herculons on the Hercules Records label, “A Division of Embassy Pictures Corp.”). To disclose the particulars, Side A included “The Mighty Sons of Hercules” (2:00) and “Sons of Hercules” (the show’s closing theme, 1:45), while Side B featured an instrumental version of “The Mighty Sons…” credited in big capital letters to Vinnie Rogers (1:45, entirely different to the other cues on the record), as well as an untimed “Instrumental & Vocal” version of the same. As you can imagine, being some 56 years old and having never been commercially released, this record is extremely rare and pricey when you can find it - but I knew I had to have it. At the time I'm writing, the internet site discogs.com lists only one previously known sale at $170, with another copy being presently offered for $225. I was fortunate enough to claim mine for less than this, but it was still costly for four tracks, each under two minutes.

  

As far as I know, no one has ever been able to crack the mystery of who the musicians heard on this record or the composers of this music actually were. Fortunately, this scarce promotional disc presents us with just enough information to lead us to some solid answers.

  

Thankfully, the single credits the songs’ composers by their surnames: Whitcup – Lehrman - Reiner. This intel, followed up with a quick perusal of the Library of Congress’ Catalogue of Copyright Entries, Third Series, allowed me to identify the composers of “The Mighty Sons of Hercules” - or should I say "unmask them," since at least one of them was working under an alias that was known within the industry. The composers were and are: Leonard Whitcup (1903-1979, whose other published songs include the standard “Bewildered,” introduced by Tommy Dorsey and His Orchestra); Theodore H. Lehrman (1930-2010, who was the song’s most likely lyricist as he’d also served in this capacity on the tunes collected on Soupy Sales’ 1965 novelty album Spy With a Pie); and Peter Reiner (1935 - ). Peter Reiner is the ringer, and you probably know him best under his real name Peter Schickele - he's the American composer, orchestrator, and broadcaster best-known for his comic lectures and compositions related to the fictitious composer P.D.Q. Bach, “the youngest and the oddest of Johann Sebastian Bach’s twenty-odd children.” Schickele’s (or rather, Reiner’s) partnership with Lehrman went back several years before this recording. In 1962, they had collaborated on another theme song, “No Man Is An Island” - this one for a Universal-International film starring Jeffrey Hunter. With its lyrics adapted by Lehrman from a 1624 poem by John Donne, the song proved fairly popular and was covered by numerous artists including Joan Baez and The Lettermen.

 

Sons of Hercules!

Sons of Hercules!

And wherever they've been

Wherever they'd give

Their heart, their might, their strength

So that men could live... free from tyranny

Sons of Hercules!

They are there 

When the need arrives

There to show that might and right still survive!

On land or on the sea…

As long as there is need… 

There'll be Sons of Hercules!

There'll be Sons of Hercules!

To my knowledge, only the second verse of the show's closing theme “The Sons of Hercules” was ever heard on the program. Even in its supposedly complete form on record, it sounds like the closing remnant of an otherwise discarded contender for the main theme. The EP credits the piece to Bill E. Williams, Sibelius Williams, and Peter Reiner – quite an interesting lineup. In addition to the anonymous Peter Schickele, Sibelius Williams is another alias - for Malcolm Williams, who under his performing name Malcolm Dodds was an accomplished recording artist, composer, and arranger  known for his background vocal arrangements for various recordings by Nina Simone, Neil Sedaka and Brook Benton, as well as his own 1950s doo-wop group The Tunedrops, 1960s gospel congregation The Malcolm Dodds Singers, and solo backup group Dodd’s Little Acre. Vocally, each of Dodd's choral groups are distinguished by tenor voices, so it’s unlikely that any of them doubled as The Herculons. However,  given Dodds' background, the virile, stirring vocal arrangements on both songs were most likely his contribution. As for Bill E. Williams, “The Sons of Hercules” is his only copyrighted compositional credit. The surname he shared with Malcolm Dodd's birth name suggests that he could have been a family member, a brother, father, or other relative of Dodd’s.

  

Vinnie Rogers, given an "all caps" credit as the instrumentalist on the B-side's opening track, is the only identified performer on the EP. He was a nimble-fingered session musician remembered by his contemporaries for creating his own uniquely Frankensteinian electric guitar with quadrophonic outputs, assorted buttons and dials enabling him on the spot to produce a variety of unusual string tones. A native of the Bronx, Rogers made his first solo recording for Columbia Records in 1960, an instrumental single, “Mandrake” b/w “The Witch’s Twist.” Though accepting compositional credit as “V. Rogers,” he recorded the record under the alias Mandrake. The following year, Mandrake released a second single on Columbia, “Lost Love,” which Rogers performed on a custom-made six-string electric bass. It was picked up by the Australian label Coronet Records and enjoyed some minor radio success there. In 1962, he recorded one last single, this time for the obscure Duel Records label, consisting of “Flash Flood” b/w “Dreams of Love.” It couldn’t have been very long after the “Mighty Sons of Hercules” session that Rogers suffered a fatal heart attack and died at the age of only 31.

Before hearing it, I had assumed that Rogers' cut would position his lead guitar solo over the existing background track, but it actually sounds like Rogers playing lead over his own acoustic rhythm track with some additional rudimentary percussion more akin to a thumped box than an actual drum.  Here you can actually hear Rogers switching out his string tones between the verses. It was never heard on the show and its inclusion on the single is a mystery, unless Embassy Pictures was hoping that an instrumental cover in the vein of a Duane Eddy tune might actually cross over and score the company a hit.  T'was not to be.

Would you believe there was also a Milton Bradley board game? 

By the way... Further up, where I presented the information about the various films in the series, I have linked to the best quality presentations of the films I could find on YouTube. Believe me, this took some doing! Just click on the highlighted title and it's showtime. The three unhighlighted titles indicate the films I could not find at this time, at least not in complete for viewable form.

My thanks to Ron Strong and Steven Smith for helping to fine-tune an earlier draft of this article.  

   

  

(c) 2021 by Tim Lucas. All rights reserved.

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