Before he was the world's greatest action movie star, Arnold Schwarzenegger was the world's greatest bodybuilder, winning the Mr. Olympia contest seven times. Documentary Pumping Iron follows Arnold and his musclebound rivals as they prepare for Mr. Olympia 1975.

You don't have to be a roid junkie yourself, or even an Arnie fan, to enjoy this insightful documentary. The colourful characters it portrays and the unique world which they inhabit is so engrossing that even those who regularly get sand kicked in their face should have lots of fun with it. Arnold is obviously the big draw here, and he's as charismatic, amusing, arrogant and as driven as one might expect, but the other bodybuilders prove just as fascinating: Lou 'The Incredible Hulk' Ferrigno, who aims to be even greater than his idol Arnie; amateur Mike Katz, driven to seek physical perfection after being bullied as a child; Sicilian Franco Columbu, who makes up for his lack of stature by being able to blow up hot water bottles with his breath!

As strange as their obsession might seem to many of us, it's hard not to admire these men for the passion, dedication and sheer hard work they display in their pursuit of their dream: the perfectly proportioned body.

Every now and then a film comes along that changes cinema or an aspect of it. In the way Enter the Dragon changed films, in that almost all film fight scenes now have martial arts in them. Pumping Iron changed the attitude of many towards muscles and muscle men. It is true to say that before Schwarzenegger came along, men with muscles in film were often portrayed as stupid or slow. Arnold showed in this film that he had tons of personality, his charisma was as big as his chest and he made Bodybuilding seem cool. Look at films made since Pumping Iron, the lead actor often has to have muscle. Stallone, Van damn etc all owe a lot to Schwarzenegger for their success. Pumping Iron itself is an interesting exploration into the strange world of competitive bodybuilding and it successfully shows the variety of characters that exist within the 'sport'. Since it was made bodybuilders are even bigger and certainly more muscular today than they were in Arnolds day. Truth is his build would not win today but at the time he was the best their was. There were more muscular men ( Franco is much more muscular )but he had the ability to show his body to the best advantage, hiding weaknesses and pushing his strong parts to the fore. Certain sides of bodybuilding are omitted ( drug taking, homosexuality ) but the film itself is very entertaining and crams a lot into a relatively short film.

I recommend the DVD edition that others have mentioned as you get a lot more from it.

I watched this film a number of times when it first came out, and not again for forty years until catching it last night. What a blast down memory lane. I was a follower of bodybuilding back in the Seventies so the names were all familiar to me when the documentary was released. It was fun seeing muscle men like Mike Katz, Ken Waller, Franco Columbu, Serge Nubret and Lou Ferrigno in the story, but the center stage guy was Austrian strong man Arnold Schwarzenegger. I still remembered his put downs to Ferrigno and his father, meant to both demoralize and psych out his main opponent for the upcoming (1975) Mr. Olympia contest. It's comical to watch, but as part of Ah-nold's strategy, it worked to have it's effect on the second place finisher.

One thing I noticed today that didn't get my attention back in the day, was how the crowds at the bodybuilding shows mixed out pretty closely to fifty-fifty, men and women. You wouldn't think so, figuring most followers of the sport would be similar minded muscle heads (like myself), mostly men. I haven't followed the sport for almost as many years now as this film exists, but to my mind, there was one bodybuilder who might have been slightly better than Arnie in one of the early Olympia contests. That being Sergio Oliva, but he wasn't in this film.

I happened to catch Lou Ferrigno at a Chicago Comic-Con quite a few years ago, well after his heyday as a bodybuilder and star of the late Seventies/early Eighties TV series, "The Incredible Hulk". 'Louie' was signing autographs and trading stories with fans, still in great shape, and to my mind, with a build that looked a lot like the character he portrayed. It's good to see both Arnold and Lou still going strong today.