History Film / TheLovesOfHercules

While Hercules is away, his people and the woman he loves are killed by the king of Ecalia. Hercules goes to Ecalia to avenge his dead. When he arrives in Ecalia he finds that the king is dead and Queen Deianera reigns. He saves her and falls for her, but Deianera has been promised to Acheloo. His efforts then get entangled with a conspiracy led by Licos, the head of Deianera's armies, along with encounters with the Amazons, the Hydra and other monsters...

* ClearMyName: Hercules returns to Ecalia when he learns that he's being accused of Achelous' murder. He tells Deianera and Licos that he will fetch back Philoctetes to clear up the matter. He never actually does, of course, but by the time he gets back to Ecalia Licos is running the place into the ground and nobody cares about Achelous, least of all Deianera.

* DisposableFiance: Deianera's fiance Achelous is in the movie for all of two minutes before he's KilledOffscreen as part of Licos' ongoing scheme to seize the throne of Ecalia. Deianera herself doesn't seem to care about Achelous all that much, since she's not exactly discouraging Hercules' attentions before he shows up and is agonizing over having to turn Herc down one scene later, never mind that she's known the guy for a day.

* TheDogBitesBack: Hippolyta meets her end when one of her former lovers captures her in his branch-arms, and crushes her.

* MenAreBetterThanWomen: The villains frequently tell Deianera that as a woman, she is unfit to govern and only useful for being married off to a man who will inherently be better suited to the job. The movie doesn't ''exactly'' disprove this either, as her swiftly-murdered fiance was marrying her to be King, and her gender the sole reason why her own soldiers turn on her (thus requiring Hercules to save her.) She even agrees with this assessment of her gender in acquiescing to the need to get married so a man can help steady her rule.
* MsFanservice: Jayne Mansfield as Deianira / Hippolyta, naturally. She spends the movie in a series of low-cut, formfitting gowns and dresses that emphasize her [[BuxomBeautyStandard heaving bosom]] and [[LegFocus shapely legs]].

* TrialByOrdeal: Queen Deianera is subjected to the Trial of Themis: she's tied to a wall, and a champion must [[KnifeThrowingAct cut her free with throwing axes]], without injuring her. Licos, her treacherous General who set up the trial, fully expects Deianera to die, but Hercules volunteers to be the axe-thrower and successfully frees her.

** Licos. First he tries to get Hercules to kill the queen in a trial by ordeal. Then he launches various schemes to dispose of the queen's fiance and disgrace Hercules so he can marry the queen himself. When the queen realizes his treachery, he gives up on scheming and just uses the fact that the guards are more loyal to him than the queen to launch a palace coup. Given how easily that worked, he probably should have started there and not bothered involving Hercules at all. (Licos ''may'' have been sharp enough to foresee the whole DystopiaIsHard thing ahead of time, and sought to use Hercules as a sort of HateSink (since he was already involved, via his wife's murder) to make himself appear more appealing to the citizenry. Of course, Herc refused to play along, and once Licos's plan was [[WhatAnIdiot blathered out]] in front of a servant who promptly informed Deianera, a military coup was probably his only viable option.)

A 1960 Italian SwordAndSandal film directed by Carlo Ludovico Bragaglia, one of four films to star Hollywood power couple Creator/JayneMansfield and Creator/MickeyHargitay.

** Hippolyta, the Queen of the Amazons, disposes of each of her flings, as you'd expect. Rather than just having them killed though, she has them magically turned into dead trees for some reason.
* DamselInDistress: Deianera is pretty much incapable of taking care of herself, constantly needing rescue and at least once relying on blind luck in Hercules not killing her during her trial by ordeal. By the end of the film, Licos is dragging her off just because he can, and even a ''sasquatch'' wants her.
** While the script wasn't great about its female characters, a major contributor to Deianera's lack of being able to physically defend herself likely stemmed from the fact Jayne Mansfield was pregnant during filming and couldn't perform anything too physically demanding (this is also likely why the scene with Hippolyta being killed by a tree looks like he just gently massages her to death.)

* MsFanservice: Jayne Mansfield, naturally. She spends the movie in a series of low-cut, formfitting gowns and dresses that emphasize her [[BuxomIsBetter heaving bosom]] and [[LegFocus shapely legs]].

** Depending on which version of the Hercules myth you go with, his wife Megara should have either been killed by Hercules himself during a bout of a Hera-caused madness (leading to the famous twelve labors to atone for her death and the death of their children) or given to Lolaus after he left Thebes. Megara being killed as part of a mortal political plot is wholly an invention of the film.

* MsFanservice: Jayne Mansfield, naturally. She spends the movie in a series of low-cut, formfitting gowns and dresses that emphasize her [[BuxomIsBetter heaving bosom]] and [[ShesGotLegs shapely legs]].

* BlackWidow: The Amazon Queen Hippolyta takes on male lovers, then when she grows bored with them, {{Baleful Polymorph}}s them into trees. She has a whole grove of unfortunate exes, dubbed the Forest of Death.

* DiabolusExNihilo: Licos is set up as the main villain throughout most of the movie: he personally kills Hercules' wife, and afterwards schemes to take over the kingdom from Deianera. But rather than face off against the protagonist, he gets killed by a random sasquatch while hiding in a cave from Hercules. The monster - Alcione, set up by a brief scene early in the film in which he's mentioned as a scourge of the countryside, but not otherwise seen or in any way important to the plot - winds up as Herc's final opponent.

* BlackWidow: The Amazon Queen Hippolita takes on male lovers, then when she grows bored with them, {{Baleful Polymorph}}s them into trees. She has a whole grove of unfortunate exes, dubbed the Forest of Death.

** Hippolita, the Queen of the Amazons, disposes of each of her flings, as you'd expect. Rather than just having them killed though, she has them magically turned into dead trees for some reason.

* TheDogBitesBack: Hippolita meets her end when one of her former lovers captures her in his branch-arms, and crushes her.

* BlackWidow: The Amazon Queen Hyppolita takes on male lovers, then when she grows bored with them, {{Baleful Polymorph}}s them into trees. She has a whole grove of unfortunate exes, dubbed the Forest of Death.

** Hyppolita, the Queen of the Amazons, disposes of each of her flings, as you'd expect. Rather than just having them killed though, she has them magically turned into dead trees for some reason.

* TheDogBitesBack: Hyppolita meets her end when one of her former lovers captures her in his branch-arms, and crushes her.

* ComplexityAddiction: Licos. First he tries to get Hercules to kill the queen in a trial by ordeal. Then he launches various schemes to dispose of the queen's fiance and disgrace Hercules so he can marry the queen himself. When the queen realizes his treachery, he gives up on scheming and just uses the fact that the guards are more loyal to him than the queen to launch a palace coup. Given how easily that worked, he probably should have started there and not bothered involving Hercules at all.
** Licos ''may'' have been sharp enough to foresee the whole DystopiaIsHard thing ahead of time, and sought to use Hercules as a sort of HateSink (since he was already involved, via his wife's murder) to make himself appear more appealing to the citizenry. Of course, Herc refused to play along, and once Licos's plan was [[WhatAnIdiot blathered out]] in front of a servant who promptly informed Deianera, a military coup was probably his only viable option.

* SadlyMythtaken: The crew seems to have gotten their multi-headed monsters from Greek mythology mixed up. Here, the Hydra guards the Underworld, even though that's supposed to be Cerberus's job. It is also stopped once Hercules cuts off its middle head, instead of growing more in its place.

* WhyDontYouJustShootHim?: The Queen of the Amazons, naturally, disposes of each of her flings. Rather than just having them killed though, she has them magically turned into dead trees for some reason.

* GiantSpaceFleaFromNowhere: The movie climaxes with a fight against a sasquatch-like creature that appears out of nowhere and has nothing to do with the main tension of the story.

* ItsPronouncedTroPay: Hercules is praised for having slain "the heedra" in one scene.

** There's a random Big Foot.

A 1960 Italian SwordAndSandal film directed by Carlo Ludovico Bragaglia, one of four films to star Hollywood power couple Creator/JayneMansfield and Mickey Hargitay.

* GiantSpaceFleaFromNowhere: Licos is set up as the main villain throughout most of the movie: he personally kills Hercules' wife, and afterwards schemes to take over the kingdom from Deianera. But rather than face off against the protagonist, he gets killed by a random sasquatch while hiding in a cave from Hercules. The monster - Alcione, set up by a brief scene early in the film in which he's mentioned as a scourge of the countryside, but not otherwise seen or in any way important to the plot - winds up as Herc's final opponent.

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/the_loves_of_hercules.jpg]]

A 1960 Italian SwordAndSandal film, one of four films to star Hollywood power couple Creator/JayneMansfield and Mickey Hargitay.