Arnold Schwarzenegger. Way before he was Governor of California. Way before he was the Terminator. Before Conan. And yes, even before Pumping Iron. As a matter of fact, this was even before Arnold won a single Mr. Olympia, and was still only Mr. Universe. Arnold, age 23, is Hercules. In fact, he isn't credited as Arnold Schwarzenegger, but as "Arnold Strong". This movie, intentional or not, is one of the funniest, if not THE funniest movie of all time. The movie is extremely low budget, has horrendous acting, mind-blowingly sub-par special effects (even by the standards of 1970), and an overly-redundant soundtrack. Let's take a closer look.
Hercules is bored with life on Mt. Olympus. The movie starts off with Hercules complaining to Zeus, and telling him that he wants to leave. After a few minutes of back and forth arguing, Zeus gets angry enough at Hercules to throw one of his lightning bolts (which look like they were welded together in a junk-yard) at him, and in a puff of smoke (cheap special effects) he disappears. Turns out he has fallen to earth, somewhere in the middle of the ocean. On his way down, he passes by an airplane, on which an extremely crazy lady with a funny voice and an even funnier hat sees him as she looks out the window, and has a fit.
Here, he is picked up by a freighter, and tells the captain that "no man is superior to Hercules". He spends the rest of the voyage picking fights with the crew for no apparent reason. It is during this scene that John Candy makes his first ever (uncredited) appearance in his movie career. When the ship reaches New York, Hercules goes ashore, and is attacked by a group of hobos, who he takes care of with a wooden plank. This is where he meets "Pretzi", played by Arnold Stang. They hitch a cab ride, only to find out that Hercules has no money, because "Hercules needs no money". The cabbie tries to beat up Herc, who yells the hilarious line of "HOW DARE YOU TOUCH HERCULES!", throws him in the bushes, and flips over his taxi.
Herc and Pretzi run off, and somehow end up in a playing field with college students training in discus, javelin, and far jump. Herc says "Zoze men don't ssrow it faaar enuff" and proceeds to humiliate the college students in all events. One hilarious part is when he takes his shirt off and does a titty-dance before throwing the javelin.
After this, Herc and Pretzi are invited to a college professor's house and are sitting in the living room with his smoking-hot daughter (Deborah Loomis). At this point, her friend comes in, and after an exchange of words, he punches Herc in the gut, to which he replies "YOU have strucked Hercules!" and hoists the young man into the air.
Hercules and the hottie end up dating. It is during their first date that they encounter an "escaped bear from the zoo", which is actually (quite conspicuously) a man in a bear costume. Herc pounds the bear into submission, with his girlfriend screaming in the background. This scene has to be one of the funniest in cinematic history. During one of their outings, Herc sees a poster of a Hercules movie, and in his outrage rips off his shirt in the middle of the street, starts posing, and demands to know "who gave zees imperzonator permission to imitate Herkooles!" Before long, Herc becomes a wrestler. Long story short, Pretzi is threatened by the mob to sign Herc over to them, and he does as he is told. Eventually, Herc goes up against "Monstro the Magnificent" in a weightlifting match, which he loses because Juno took away his powers. He gets jumped by the mob, and then its Atlas and Samson (yes, the biblical Samson) to the rescue. In the end, Herc goes back to Mt. Olympus.
For one to fully appreciate this movie, it must be watched with Arnold's real voice, although the dubbed version is great for laughs too. This movie is an absolute jewel. It is so horrible that it's great. It has an innocent charm to it as well, and one can't help but love it. Arnold's acting is virtually nonexistent, and he exhibits less emotion than when he played the Terminator. This is balanced out by Arnold Stang's constant over-acting. Deborah Loomis is smoking-hot, but her acting skills are below average. Hell, everyone's acting in this movie is below-average. This movie contains literally dozens of hilarious one-liners by Arnold. The Mt. Olympus scenes are all filmed in Central Park, and traffic can be heard in the background. You know what? I'm just going to stop here. There are too many hilarious things to list. Go watch it!