“I have nothing to say, I just want to eat my cake.”

Drake’s rating: Do you even lift, bro?

Drake’s review: Strongman competitions have long been a part of society, dating back to at least ancient Greece and continuing throughout history in carnivals, the Olympics, and the WSM (World’s Strongest Man) championship. And the premise is usually fairly simple: The guy who lifts the heaviest stuff wins.

But in 1901, a strongman named Eugen Sandow promoted “The Great Show,” which featured muscular men flexing and posing rather than lifting things, and it was a resounding success. Further such exhibitions followed, and although they ebbed in popularity, by the 1950s there was a resurgence of interest in bodybuilding, with Mr. Universe winner Steve Reeves becoming the best-known Hercules of the big screen and going on to have a very successful film career.

Fast-forward to the 1970s. Bodybuilders are still competing in a variety of competitions, but even the biggest names in bodybuilding are generally unknown to the public-at-large. Trainer and promoter Joe Weider had big plans for a man named Dave Draper, a blonde American who won the 1970 Mr. World competition. But Draper wasn’t interested in stardom, and in fact never competed again after his 1970 win. So Weider turned his attention to an Austrian immigrant named Arnold Schwarzenegger and, needless to say, the gambit paid off.

Pumping Iron shows Schwarzenegger at the end of his bodybuilding career — and just as his Hollywood star is about to take off. He was dominating the Mr. Olympia competition at this point, having won five straight titles. At 6’2” and competing at 235 lbs., Schwarzenegger was an impressive figure on the stage. But in the previous year’s Mr. Olympia, the second-place finisher was a veritable hulk, standing nearly 6’5” and weighing in at 268 lbs. Bigger, younger and hungry, Lou Ferrigno (The Incredible Hulk Returns) was looking to deny his Austrian rival a sixth title.

Taking place in the months leading up to the 1975 Mr. Olympia competition, Pumping Iron focuses on the competition between Schwarzenegger and Ferrigno by highlighting the differences between the two men. Arnold is gregarious and talkative, working out in Southern California and happily giving interviews to the filmmakers. Whether he’s giving advice to bodybuilding hopefuls in the gym or posing at an exhibition at a prison, he’s a fount of charismatic energy. Ferrigno, on the other hand, is shown training alone in New York, surrounded by family rather than bikini-clad models when he’s not in the gym. It’s very much the story of the popular star versus the lonely outsider.

There are a few minor subplots in Pumping Iron. One involves amateur bodybuilders Mike Katz and Ken Waller competing for the Mr. Universe title, while another focuses a bit on Italian boxer-turned-bodybuilder Franco Columbu. But this is otherwise Schwarzenegger’s first real starring role (if you don’t count Hercules in New York, that is). And the “Austrian Oak” makes the most of his screen time, chewing the scenery with all the vigor of a Republic serial villain.

Ostensibly a documentary, I’ve avoided using that term for Pumping Iron as many of the events were fabricated for the film to enhance the spectacle. For example, the filmmakers asked Lou Ferrigno to stay in New York and train there, even though he had planned to train in Southern California, to enhance the discrepancies between him and Schwarzenegger. Ferrigno’s father Matty is also injected into the film as a trainer and advisor to his son, even though the older man was never really involved in his son’s bodybuilding. And then there’s the completely fictionalized Mike Katz/Ken Waller t-shirt incident…

None of that harms the film, however. The inclusion of the scripted elements enhance what could have otherwise been a very dry film. Pumping Iron could have been an easily-dismissed flick about freakishly large men lifting heavy weights for no other purpose than to don swimming trunks and flex their muscles. Instead, it’s a fascinating look inside what many consider to be the golden age of bodybuilding and the film’s title itself has become a universal term for weightlifting. Pumping Iron humanized the bodybuilders themselves, popularized the practice of bodybuilding and started Arnold Schwarzenegger on the path to mega-stardom.

Not bad at all for a little film that literally ran out of money before it was completed.

Intermission!

• Eugen Sandow is known as the father of bodybuilding. He was instrumental in popularizing the activity, even appearing in early Thomas Edison-produced films showing off his physique. He can be seen in a few seconds of footage at the beginning of the film.
• Schwarzenegger did win a seventh Mr. Olympia title in 1980, a result which was, to say the least, highly controversial. A commentator for the competition for CBS, Schwarzenegger infuriated the other contestants by announcing his entry one day before the event. In good shape, of course, but still far from his bodybuilding prime, he nevertheless won the title. The audience who had cheered his appearance booed his victory, several bodybuilders boycotted the following year’s event, at least one competitor retired in disgust and CBS, which had agreed to broadcast the next three Mr. Olympia competitions, shelved their footage and broke off their relationship with the International Federation of Bodybuilders (IFBB).
• Controversy also plagued Schwarzenegger’s 1971 win, as he was the sole entrant. A change in the IFBB rules disqualified everyone else. Basically, the IFBB, under president Ben Weider (Joe’s brother) decided that anyone competing in a non-sanctioned event would be suspended from IFBB competition for a full year. This ruling disqualified everyone but Arnold, who had stayed away from the non-IFBB events.
• 1981 saw yet another (say it with me now) controversy, as Franco Columbu, the 1976 winner, returned from a horrific knee injury suffered in the 1978 World’s Strongest Man competition. Although understandably lacking definition in his legs, Columbu won the event. This time fans not only booed, but threw their programs and other objects at the judges and at the stage. The contentious back-to-back events damaged the reputation of what should have been bodybuilding’s premiere event, and it could be argued that it’s never recovered.
• Pumping Iron did run out of money, but a posing exhibition at the Whitney Museum in New York by Schwarzenegger, Frank Zane and Ed Corney raised enough cash to get it completed.
• Lou Ferrigno never did win Mr. Olympia. Turning his attention to Hollywood for several years, he nonetheless returned to the competition in 1992 and 1993, placing a very respectable 12th and 10th in his early forties.
• My spell-check is A-OK with Schwarzenegger. It gives Ferrigno the dreaded red line, however. How can you dis The Incredible Hulk like that?