The Comeback: the posedown with Arnold Schwarzenegger

'In October 1980, the finest professional bodybuilders in the world assembled at the Sydney Opera House for the most prestigious event on the bodybuilding calendar, the Mr Olympia contest.’ So begins Kit Laughlin’s 1981 film The Comeback, which details Arnold Schwarzenegger’s hijacking of the competition.  

The ‘Austrian Oak’ had won the Mr Olympia title – open only to ex-Mr Universe winners – six times in a row before retiring from competitive bodybuilding in 1975. In 1980, after just eight weeks of training, he re-entered the contest. When Schwarzenegger claimed the title over better-prepared rivals, the reaction was furious, with suspicions that the competition had been rigged.  

In this scene from The Comeback, we see the ‘posedown’: a line-up of the finalists that allowed the judges and audience to assess them side-by-side. Laughlin’s camera lingers over their hyperbolic musculature. Arnie, shown playfully jostling his neighbour, certainly holds his own – but is he the muscliest of them all? You be the judge.  

Schwarzenegger shrugged off the controversy on his way to becoming an action-film star. ‘It's all funny, being “the best-built man in the world”,’ he said. ‘Very funny.'