Pumping Iron

'Pumping iron is a great feeling... like coming, but coming continuously,' smiles Arnold Schwarzenegger, relaxed in the confidence that he's demolishing another popular prejudice against bodybuilding. Pumping Iron in fact starts knocking preconceptions sideways in its opening moments - with a sequence showing Schwarzenegger taking ballet lessons to improve his posing style - and it goes on to demonstrate convincingly that bodybuilders are as 'normal' in their vanities, foibles and rivalries as any other group of nuts. The movie is a very shrewd mixture of documentary and realistic fiction, put together with both eyes and ears on entertainment value; it has, for example, an extremely agreeable LA session-rock score. Its strongest card is the outrageously charismatic Schwarzenegger, but its view of musclemen and physique contests in general has a charm not unlike Rocky.