Athena (1954)

Very best movie i ever watch

Did you people see the same film I saw?

It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

I watch this movie on an average of twice a week and still find it as delightful as the first time. The teaming up of Vic Damone & Debbie Reynolds was a wonderful choice, they certainly compliment each other both in voice as well as temperament, they are a delight to watch. Edmund Purdom is absolutely priceless with his dry wit & pompous superior air, and the bantering dialogue between him & Vic Damone lends an extra dimension to the movie. Always a pleasure to watch him on screen. Charles Purdom was correct when he said Edmund was a natural on stage. What can one say about Jane Powell, always a delight to watch and her voice needs no comment from anyone, it is always superb and a joy to listen to. Louis Calhern & Evelyn Vardin are well matched again as in "The Student Prince". What I do not understand is that everyone seems to forget "Miss Seely", Kathleen Freeman, what a delight it is to watch her as the ever willing secretary to Adam Calhorn Shaw, even to chomping away at a carrot to fit in with his new health regime. Lets not forget about "Roy", Henry Nakamura, also a little gem & a delight in his movies. I wonder what happened to him as he seemed to have had a very short movie career. All told, this may not have been a box office hit, but will always remain one of my favourite movies to watch.

The robust smash hit of 7 Brides For 7 brothers literally spawned this star struck mini musical of 1954....and if one has a closer look in reels 1 2 and 3 (instead of 4 5 and 6) one can almost hear the board room pitch quoting the 7 Brides box office as the excuse to rush ATHENA into production: "That what they want! healthy boys and girls with an appetite for life living on some farm. The boys flex their muscles and the girls tend their.......er......garden." and so we have what is a lively and funny musical for the 20 year olds market that was called the teen market very soon after........quite rightly predating the AIP Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello frolics ten years later in Muscle Beach Party etc. Athena is good fun and well made. The muscle contest at the end to the tune "Jealousy" is well coded with beefcake antics....and all filmed from what might be called the bulging cossie angle. Hilarious! I would be fascinated to see the missing ten minutes as reported on the IMDb that the original running time was 115 minutes as opposed to the 95 mins only now available. I wonder was edited out and where can the footage be seen?

What! burgers, fries, steaks, chops aren't healthy? You must be some kind of freak! After we just kicked Jap ass in WWII, how dare you suggest that Japanese interior design may be superior to good old American--what are you some kind of commie?It's all here: free love, numerology, astrology, organic diets, and most subversive--exercise! Well, the hippies abandoned the exercise and took up with drugs, and the music was a lot better--but these guys were the first.Jane Powell is marvelous as the woman who is way ahead of her time as being all to free with her body with the man she is "destined" to be with.Jane Powell and a young Debbie Reynolds in short shorts are a real delight in this one, although it is all to brief.

Bodybuilding had a disreputable allure in the Eisenhower and Kennedy years. Few would admit to its hold on them, but how else could you explain the box-office success of movies like "Hercules Unchained" and subsequent gladiator trash with a fleet of amply-endowed stars like Gordon Scott, Mark Forrest, Dan Vadis, Mickey Hargitay, and Brad Harris bulging flagrantly in front of the camera?The premiere member of this elite group was a former Mr. Universe--the dark, statuesque Steve Reeves. Before the days when he was sporting a leather loincloth, chained at the wrists, tensing his biceps, and literally bringing the house down, Reeves was introduced for the public's delectation in the 1954 musical "Athena." In it, he plays Ed Perkins, the prize stallion of a stable of physical culturalists groomed by the barrel-chested Louis Calhern--handlebar moustache, bluster and all--as Ulysses Mulvain, a septagenarian who espouses to a neo-Spartan approach to life, replete with vegetarian diet, and plenty of fresh air and exercise. Reeves vies for the affection of the title character, Mulvain's granddaughter (Jane Powell), who, much to the chagrin of the "stars," has eyes for a stuffy, young lawyer (played by the impossibly handsome Edmund Purdom--if there ever was an actor with a silky-milky-white complexion, it's him), himself being primed and tweaked for a U.S. senate seat. Reeves settles for a supporting role in his first major outing on the screen and sits on the sidelines while Powell charts her inevitable course with Purdom glowering at her incessantly. The body beautiful has his big scene with taking the title at a re-creation of the Mr. Universe contest that for insiders must have seemed pretty hokey.That aside, if you're willing to go with it, "Athena" can be fun--a kind of stilted mixture of numerology, prurient interest, and music--all served up by the not-so-discerning minds of writers William Ludwig ("The Student Prince"), Leonard Spigelgass, and the by-then renowned songwriting team of Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane. Their classic "The Boy Next Door" changes sex with Vic Damone singing it, and their "Love Can Change The Stars" is just syrupy enough for the sweet tooths of hopeless romantics. (My favorite is the spry "I Never Felt Better.") But none of these compares with the grandeur of blazingly blonde Powell's rendition of "Chacun Le Sait" from Donizetti's "La Fille du Regiment." It's full of passion and indignation and fire, and Powell has never achieved so high a note of glory on screen as she has in these few much-too-short minutes.Also on the sidelines--Debbie Reynolds as Athena's sister Minerva, and, descending from the clouds of Hollywood movie mysticism, Evelyn Varden as Salome Mulvain, grandmother of the nymphs, greeting everyone with something that sounds like "Namari gongo par" and coming out trances every so often to bestow upon her loved ones the will of the stars.