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There are many strange phenomena in trashmovie wonderland, but Santo
might still be one of the weirdest - at least if you're not into Mexican
wrestling or the lucha libre-phenomenon: Santo was not an actor (and originally
never planned to be one) but he went on to star in over 50 movies in more
than 20 years, in most of them as the lead, but he never showed his face
in any of his films (or any of his public appearances as a matter of fact
until very late in his life), and his voice was even dubbed at least most of the
time, yet he was extremely popular in his native
Mexico. And he was first and foremost a wrestler, yet his contributions to
trash-science fiction and -horror cinema are nothing short of priceless. Interestingly
enough Santo was neither the first Mexican wrestler to appear in films nor
the first to combine wrestling with horror and science fiction, and he
even turned down the first filmrole offered to him, based on his popular
wrestling character ... yet eventually, the man would go on to become a
legend.
Born Rudolfo Guzmán Huerta in Tulancingo, Hidalgo, Mexico in 1917 as
the fifth of seven children, Santo already at a
very young age was intersted in sports, first baseball and American football, eventually Ju Jitsu,
and ultimately classical wrestling. Sources vary as to when Rudolfo
Guzmán Huerta actually entered professional wrestling, but it was in
either 1934 or 1935, but be that as it may, by the second part of the
1930's, he was an established if not yet all that popular wrestler. By
then of course, Rudolfo Guzmán Huerta was not yet embodying his
character, Santo, or wearing his famous silver mask, but fought under a
variety of different names, including Rudy Guzmán (a rather obvious
choice),
El Hombre Rojo, El Demonio Negro and El Murcielago II,
the last in honour of then popular wrestler El Murcielago aka
Jesús
Velazquez. Rudolfo Guzmán Huerta really came into his own in 1942, when
his manager Don Jesús Lomelí wanted him to fight in a new team of
wrestlers he was putting together who were all dressed in silver and along
with his famous silver mask, his manager gave him his name: Santo, the Saint - and
thus at age 25, Santo was reborn as what would become the biggest wrestler
in all Mexico, ever. The new costume gave young Rudolfo Guzmán Huerta a
new boost of self-confidence, and before long, he had developed a
full-fledged wrestling character along with a personal style - and would
soon become a champion as a fighter as well as a favourite with the
audience. Soon enough, Santo proved to be in top form, and in
1943, he won his first titles, becoming both welter weight and middle
weight champion of the Comision de Box y Lucha Libre Mexico.
Interestingly he won the second title against El Murcielago Jesús
Velazquez, the man whose stage name he had once (for a brief time)
adopted. By the end of the decade, Santo had become the superstar
of wrestling, and it's in no small part thanks to him that wrestling had
become such a popular sport in Mexico. Plus, until very late in his life,
he never again removed his silver mask in public, earning him the nickname El
Enmascarado de Plata. (By the way, in Mexico, wrestlers' masks have
far greater meaning than in the USA, and if a wrestler is unmasked during
a match, his career is effectively ended - though he might reappear
wearing another mask.) By 1952, Santo was so big that a
comicbook-series bearing his name and likeness was published, that
eventually ran continuously until 1987 - which was three years after
Santo's death. Also in 1952, the production company Filmex
came up with the idea of producing a film based on the Santo-character
called El Enmascarado de Plata (René Cardona) which, like the
comicbook, would show Santo not only as a wrestler but also as a
crimefighter. Naturally, Santo was offered the lead part. By that time
however, Santo was less than convinced that the film could be a success
and turned down the part, leaving it for fellow wrestler El Médico
Asesino. The film turned out to be a reasonable success, and this film
and Huracán Ramírez (Joselito Rodríguez), also from 1952, but
released even earlier than El Enmascarado de Plata, helped to pave
the way for the lucha libre genre, a genre almost unique to Mexico
which comprises the films of and about wrestling heroes, as diverse as
they might be, from conventional sports drama (like Huracán Ramírez)
to crime drama (like El Enmascarado de Plata) to science fiction
and horror (like many of the later Santo-movies). (By the way, the
directors of both El Enmascarado de Plata - René Cardona - and Huracán
Ramírez - Joselito Rodríguez - would ultimately go on to make Santo
films, see below.) 1952 was also the year of what many still
remember as the greatest wrestling match of all time, Santo versus Black
Shadow, a 70 minutes mask-versus-mask match at the end of which Santo
defeated and unmasked Black Shadow. This triggered a rivalry between Santo
and Blue Demon, who was Black Shadow's brothers in arms in their team Los
Hermanos Shadow. Ultimately, Blue Demon, whose popularity almost
rivalled Santo's, beat Santo in two matches in 1952 and 1953, the last
costing Santo the World Welterweight title, which Blue Demon then held
until 1958. Despite their rivalry, Santo and Blue Demon would co-star in a
total of 9 movies in the 1960's and 70's, but allegedly Santo always saw
to it that he got top billing over Blue Demon as a sort of payback, and
outside the films, the two men never were close friends. Black
Shadow by the way also started a modest film career, but was mostly
reduced to doing supporting roles in Santo films.
Moving forward to the
year 1958: By this time Santo had obviously rethought his decision not to
star in films, probably due to the success of both El Enmascarado de Plata
and the Santo comicbook, and had himself being talked into going to
pre-Fidel Castro-Cuba
to shoot a couple of films, Cerebro del Mal and Santo contra
Hombres Infernales (both directed by Joselito Rodríguez). Both of
these films were cheaply made action flicks in which Santo actually only
played a supporting character, a masked police sergeant who's only
one of a team of investigators. Why Santo
wears a mask is never explained, and there is no reference made to him
being a wrestler. Santo - who's never called by that name in these films -
it seems just is, and the audience knowing him from wrestling and the
comicbooks is supposed to accept him. Neither film was a big success at
the box office, but given their modest buedgets, they might have made their
money back ... Santo's third picture though, the
Mexican-produced Santo contra los Zombies/The Invasion of the
Zombies (1961, Benito Alazraki) is what one could call the first real
Santo movie: Santo is established not only as a hero fighting for justice
but as an actual wrestler, and he is the undisputed lead of the film. As
for the plot: The title is a dead giveaway, when searching for a professor
who has disappeared after his return from Haiti, Santo runs into zombies,
and even gets to fight a zombie wrestler - played by Fernando Osés, who
co-scripted this film (like many later Santo-films as well) and
who also was in Santo's two Cuban adventures. Another (non-zombie)
wrestler Santo gets to fight in this one is actually above-mentioned Black
Shadow. Santo contra los Zombies actually set the tone for pretty
much all Santo-films to come: Santo was the wrestler in the silver mask
which he never removed (not even while sleeping) who did some crime
fighting on the side (and to this end had a handy crime-lab at his home),
and no matter if the opponents were natural or supernatural or even
extraterrestrial, Santo would always come out on top and save whatever
there is to save, be it a damsel-in-distress or even the world. And quite
a few times, at the end of the film, he would arrive at the sports arena
to fight and win yet another wrestling match ... now does any of this
sound silly ? Well, actually all of it. But if you can accept its
inherent silliness and are in touch with your inner child, the
Santo-formula is also easy to love, and the films are usually naive,
innocent and often a bit trashy genre films that are often unintentionally
hilarious or so-bad-they-are-good, and some of them are actually even
quite good in their own right. The films are reminiscent of B-pictures and
serials of the 1930's and 40's, with later films also adding 1950's
science fiction, James Bond-like espionage elements, martial arts and a
bit of sex to the mix. As for Santo himelf: He wasn't much of an actor,
and appeared a bit wooden even when hiding behind a mask, plus he was
routinely dubbed by another, real actor, but somehow thanks to his
physical presence he managed to carry his films nevertheless.
Other than Santo contra los Zombies,
Santo's next film Santo contra el Rey del Crimen (1961, Federico
Curiel) did not feature any supernatural elements, but it did feature an
origin-story (something most other Santo-films consciously avoided) in
which a little boy learns that his crippled father (René Cardona) once
was the legendary fighter for justice Santo, as have been the men in his
family for a good many centuries, and now dad hands over the Santo mask -
and the responsibility that comes with it - down to his son ... Years
later the boy has grown up to be a man, and has become a wrestler, and a
quite successful at that, but when he remembers his father's words, he
renounces his career, dons the mask (as a wrestler, he did not wear a mask
but could only be seen from behind) and becomes ... Santo. Soon enough,
he puts up shop in his Batcave-like hideout that's filled with
computers, gadgets (including the customary wristwatch radio) and other
things you might need while crimefighting. To carry the similarities with
Batman even further, Santo is in this film aided by his butler, as played
by Augusto Benedico. The rest of the film is a rather routine crime drama
about a group of gangsters rigging sports events, that is, until Santo
interferes. Of course that means that Santo, during the course of the
story, returns to being a wrestler, just to make sure there is some ringside action - among
others, Santo fights Fernando Osés once again in this one. (Note: In the brief bit in which
Santo plays the wrestler without a mask, there is no fight and - as
mentioned above - he is only seen from behind)
Santo en el
Hotel de la Muerte (1961, Federico Curiel) is an old dark house-style
murder mystery set in a hotel next to some pyramids, that once again lacks
any supernatural elements (even though it features a few macabre touches).
Actually, Santo is only a supporting character in this one, leaving center
stage to cops Fernando Casanova and Beto el Boticario and girl-reporter
Ana Bertha Lepe, all of whom have also played the same roles in Santo
contra el Rey del Crimen. Somehow the scriptwriters managed to squeeze
a wrestling match into the plot in which Santo defeats Black Shadow (once
again).
Fernando Casanova, Beto el Boticario and Ana Bertha
Lepe all return in their respective roles for the next Santo-film, Santo
contra el Cerebro Diabólico (1961, Federico Curiel), like the two
previous films produced by Peliculas Rodriguez, and again Santo is
reduced to supporting character status, leaving most of the plot and
action to the three of them while appearing as a sort of deus-ex-machina.
But of course, there is still a wrestling match squeezed into the plot
despite the fact that the plot concerns our heroes fighting a villain
mercilessly ruling a small desert town. The best scene has Santo
preventing a plane from taking off - bare-handed. (By the way, several
sources claim this film to be about a mad scientist, which is simply
untrue.)
While the previous three films were produced by Peliculas
Rodriguez, the next Santo-film Santo contra las Mujeres Vampiro/Samson
vs Vampire Women (1962, Alfonso Corona Blake) was, like Santo contra los Zombies
before it, produced by Filmadora Panamericana, and it showed quite
a change of pace to the previous trio: Santo was once again the primary
hero (even if he doesn't appear until relatively late in the film), gone
are any other ongoing characters, and the plot once again features
supernatural elements which noone cares to ever completely explain away. As for the
plot itself: the title pretty much gives it all away, Santo, crimefighter
and wrestler, is pitted against a cult of vampire women who are trying to
get their hands on one of his friends, played by María Duval. In the end
though it's not Santo but the sunrise that saves the day ... Lorena
Velázquez and Ofelia Montesco play the lead vampire women while Fernando
Osés, who also co-wrote this one, plays their male servant. Other
wrestlers in this film include Black Shadow (yet again), Lobo Negro and
Ray Mendoza. Santo contra las Mujeres Vampiro eventually turned
out to be one of the most successful Santo films and one of the films the
1960's import king K.Gordon Murray dubbed into English and brought to the
USA, where it became a hit with the kiddie crowd - for whom the film was
originally intended - and the midnight movie crowd alike. For some reason,
Santo was rechristened Samson in all of Murray's imports.
Santo
en el Museo de Cera/Samson in the Wax Museum (1963, Alfonso
Corona Blake), once again produced by Filmadora Panamericana,
followed hot on the heels of Santo contra las Mujeres Vampiro:
Once again, Santo is the upright crimefighter who is pitted against
supernatural foes and has to do a little bit of wrestling on the side.
This time Santo's adversary (not in the ring) is a mad wax sculptor (Claudio Brook) who
abducts visitors to his wax museum, turns them into monsters and puts them
on display in his museum - so naturally the gallery of monsters is the
highlight of his museum. Thing is, from time to time the monsters come to
life, and ultimately they kill their own master ... so this film doesn't
only show traces of Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933, Michael
Curtiz) and its maybe more famous remake House of Wax (1953, André De
Toth) but also of H.G.Wells' novel Island of Dr. Moreau - but that
doesn't keep Santo
en el Museo de Cera from being enjoyably silly
and entertaining in its own right ... Once again, the film was imported
into the USA by K.Gordon Murray. Santo's next two films were
produced by Alberto López - who also produced his Filmadora Panamericana-films - for Estudios América - which also
co-produced Santo en el
Hotel de la Muerte and Santo
contra el Cerebro Diabólico - and Cinemátografica Norte. The
films in question are Santo
vs el Estrangulador and El
Espectro del Estrangulador (both 1963, René Cardona), and both are a bit of a mess rather than anything else, mixing up a murder
mystery with some gruesome horror overtones, plenty of wrestling
(naturally) and quite a number of song-and-dance routines. Actually, some
of the musical and wrestling scenes seem so out of place in the films that
suspicion arises if they were not shot to stretch the footage Santo did
for only one film out into two films. Accordingly, both films are (rather
ill-adviced) Phantom
of the Opera-take offs, sharing most of the characters, sets
and even the narrative structure. After these two films for Estudios América
and Cinemátografica Norte, Santo parted ways with producer Alberto López for good and
moved on to Filmica
Vergara. López then tried to start another masked
wrestler-series, El Enmascarado de Oro, starring later
Mexican superstar Jorge Rivero (and non-wrestler) in his earliest role,
but the series just didn't catch on.
Filmica
Vergara was able to pay Santo about double the salary that López
was willing to pay him, however apart from that, the studio was strictly
small-time, which meant a lower budget and lower production values for
Santo's Filmica
Vergara-films - which did not necessarily work to the disadvantage
of these films. Santo's first appearance for Filmica
Vergara was nothing more than a cameo in a Blue
Demon-film, Blue Demon
vs. el Poder Satánico (1964,
Chano Urueta), which features a wrestling match between Santo and Fernando
Osés (guess who wins). Some time later Santo visits Blue Demon in his
dressing room and promises to support him whenever he needs help fighting
crime. When Santo leaves the dressing room again, he leaves the picture
altogether, and 5 years would pass before another Santo
and Blue Demon-team up. The four films Santo made
for Filmica
Vergara as a lead were Santo
en Atacan las Brujas/The
Witches Attack and El Hacha Diabolica/The Diabolical Axe
(both 1964, José Díaz Morales), Profanadores de Tumbas/Grave
Robbers and El Barón Brákola (both 1965, José Díaz
Morales). All four of them were rather cheaply made horror films, but the
lack of budget resulted in less extravagant but out-of-place scenes and
fancy but unnecessary gadgets and a plethora of supporting actors. Instead
we get stringent storytelling and atmospheric filmmaking to cover up the
budgetary restrictions.
- The best of the four films is probably Santo
en Atacan las Brujas, in which Santo saves a lovely young
woman (Maria Eugenia San Martin) from a witches' coven. Actually the
film is not so much a wrestling movie (even though it features a
wrestling match between Santo and - once again - Fernando Osés) as it
is a genuine horror film. That said though, it can't be overlooked
that the film at times borrows heavily from the earlier Santo contra las Mujeres
Vampiro
- which shouldn't come as too much of a surprise since writers Rafael
García Travesí and Fernando Osés worked on the scripts of both films.
- El Hacha Diabolica - like Santo contra los Zombies
before it - claims that the Santo mask has been handed down from
father to son for centuries, and now in the 20th century, a demonic
axe murder (Fernando Osés) from the 17th century wants to have his revenge. The film
also features a silly but funny time travel sequence.
- Profanadores de Tumbas
is probably the wackiest of the
four films, a story about a mad scientist hell-bent on creating life
from the dead - until he realizes he needs the heart of a superman,
Santo of course, to achieve his goals.
- El Barón Brákola once again takes us back in time, this
time to the year 1765, where one of Santo's forefather's, the Caballero
Enmascarado de Plata, fights crime and injustice. Other than the
Santo of today though he doesn't wear a full facial mask but a mask
rather in the style of Zorro
- except of course that the mask is silver. (Santo's forefather in
this one though is quite probably not played by Santo himself.) After
having spent some time in the past, the film returns to the present,
where Santo has to fight a vampire (Fernando Osés) the Caballero
Enmascarado de Plata killed all these years ago. The film might
not be great but at least it's hokey fun ...
Again for a higher salary, Santo left Filmica
Vergara in 1966, to join up with Producciones
Cinematográficas, where he remained for two films, Santo
vs la Invasión de los Marcianos/Santo
vs the Martians and Santo vs los Villanos del Ring (both
1966, Alfredo B.Crevenna).
Of the two films, Santo vs los Villanos del Ring
is decidedly
the duller one, a crime
drama with almost no supernatural elements (a fake spiritualist tries to
trick Santo's goddaughter out of her inheritance) that consists mainly of one
not that greatly-staged battle royale-style brawl after another both
inside and out of the ring.
Santo
vs la Invasión de los Marcianos on the other hand is something
else, maybe the single campiest of all Santo-films: In this one, Martians
- a bunch of blond musclemen and gorgeous girls in weird silver costumes -
want to invade earth, but they didn't take into account earth's single
most powerful defender, Santo, who defends the earth and defeats the
Martians with all their fancy sci-fi weapons and teleportation devices
(almost) with his bare hands. Interestingly, some of Santo's showdowns
with the Martians take place in the wrestling ring, including one match in
which the Martian unmasks Santo - but Santo, who has aticipated something
like that, wears another mask under his mask - which would be highly
unfair in real wrestling, but since Santo is wrestling Martians who try to
trick him I guess it's ok. It's interesting to note that in this film, the
Martians initially come to earth to bring peace, but we earthlings of
course will have nothing of it ...
For his next two films, which were co-produced by Estudios América
and Cima Film, Santo was teamed up with popular Mexican actor Jorge
Rivero - yup, the Jorge Rivero who started his acting career as Santo
clone El Enmascarado de Oro. The two films in question are Operación
67 and El Tesoro de Moctezuma
(both 1967, René Cardona, René
Cardona jr), and Santo and Rivero play James Bond-style
secret agents in both of them, with all the usual genre trappings like
gimmicks, gadgets, bikini-clad girls, plenty of action (besides the usual
wrestling scenes) and explosions, and stories about international intrigue
that might seem a bit silly - but that's a fate that espionage thrillers
of this kind usually have in common. The films were quite obviously made
on a higher budget than your usual Santo film, they feature higer
production values and look much slicker than expected. And they are
directed at a more adult audience ... there is even a bit of (topless)
nudity inserted into Operación
67 - which in later Santo films only
happened very rarely and primarily on the prints intended for export.
While Operación
67 and El Tesoro de Moctezuma were
obviously aimed at adults, Santo contra Capulina
(1968, René
Cardona) was strictly a kiddie-affair, pairing Santo with popular comic
Capulina, who was successful primarily with (young) children. The film,
one of the few in which Santo doesn't wrestle in the ring, has rather
little to go for it, but if you want to see something childish and silly,
you might as well watch it. It might be worth noting that one of Santo's
sons, Jorge Guzmán, the later wrestler and actor El Hijo del Santo, has a very
early role in this one - he was only 4 years old at the time.
Santo en el
Tesoro de Dracula/Santo
and Dracula's Treasure/El
Vampiro y el Sexo (1968, René Cardona) was Santo's first film for
Cinematográfica
Calderón, the studio that would produce many of Santo's
better-known films over the next few years.
The story of this one is silly and funny as hell: Santo has invented a
time machine (!) and sends a woman (Noelia Noel) back into a past life of
herself - a past life that weirdly enough strongly resembles that of Lucy
out of the 1931 version of Dracula
(Tod Browning).
And after this trip to the past, Santo and friends see themselves fighting
Dracula
(as played by Aldo Monti) in the present. Santo the inventor of a time
machine? I think not.
In 1969, Cinematográfica Sotomayor thought it a good idea to
bring together the two biggest wrestlers in Mexico, Santo and Blue Demon,
for a trio of films, a pairing that was already hinted at in
above-mentioned Blue Demon contra el Poder Satánico.
The first of these films was Santo contra Blue Demon en la Atlantida/Santo
vs Blue Demon in Atlantis (1969, Julián Soler), a pretty wild film in
which Blue Demon, in the middle of a wrestling match fighting Santo, is
taken to Atlantis, where he is drugged and turned evil by a bunch of
immortal Nazis. It's now up to his friend Santo to free him, turn him back
to good and blow up the undersea Nazi hideout, thus saving the world from
another Holocaust. Massive use of stock footage from Japanese monster
movies like Kaitei Gunkan/Atragon
(1963, Inoshiro Honda), Kaiju Daisenso/Monster Zero (1965,
Inoshiro Honda) and Nankai no Daiketto/Godzilla vs the Sea
Monster (1966, Jun Fukuda) was made to boost production values. That
said, the film is still trashy fun.
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The second film was Santo y Blue Demon contra los Monstruos/Santo
and Blue Demon vs the Monsters (1969, Gilberto Martínez Solares),
which has Blue Demon abducted by a mad scientist (Carlos Ancira), who
makes an evil clone of the wrestler and has him and his zombie army fight
Santo. Soon enough, the evil Blue Demon and the zombies are joined by a
handful of well-known monsters including Frankenstein's
monster (Manuel Leal), a mummy (Fernando Rosales), a vampire (David
Alvizu), a wolfman (Vicente Lara) and the Cyclops (Gerardo Zepeda). The
film is pretty much one monster brawl after the other, but is quite
entertaining at that.
The third Santo-and-Blue Demon film of 1969 was El Mundo de los
Muertos/The World of the Dead (Gilberto Martínez Solares). The
film starts in 1666 with the burning of a handful of devil worshippers by
the Inquisition - and apparently, the Devil has sent a certain Caballero
Azul (Blue Demon, wearing his mask even in the period footage) to take
revenge, but somehow the Caballero Enmascarado de Plata (Santo, in full
wrestling gear, including mask) can send him back to hell. Cut to present
times: Santo's girlfriend (Pilar Pellicer) is killed by some demonic
forces. Santo, who has noticed some demonic forces threatening himself
(like ghost wrestlers trying to stab him in the ring), decides to go to
the world of the dead to bring her back - but even in the world of
the dead, he is attacked by ghost wrestlers ... but saved by El Caballero
Azul/Blue Demon, who wants to make good for the evil he did 300 years ago.
Of course in the end, Santo gets his girl back ... As exciting this film
sounds, it was unfortunately grossly underbudgeted and thus never comes to
full swing - yet it's entertaining on a trashy level nevertheless.
What is apparent about these three Santo-and-Blue Demon films is that
Santo is the actual lead in all three of them, with Blue Demon being
degraded to supporting character, and at one point turning villain in each
of them, even if he turns back to good before the end of the film. Above
all else that demonstrates that Santo had more drawing power than his
colleague and still was the bigger star, even if at the time Blue Demon
was the more successful wrestler.
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Santo's next film, produced by Producciones Zacarías - the studio that
also made Santo contra Capulina - takes our hero to the Amazon
jungle: In Santo contra los Cazadores de Cabezas/Santo
vs the Headhunters (1969, René Cardona), Santo flies to South America to
save the daughter (Nadia Milton) of a friend (René Cardona) from the
Jivaros, descendants of the Incas, who want to sacrifice her to their
Gods. Interestingly, Santo has no ringside wrestling matches in this film,
but he is allowed to wrestle a jaguar and a crocodile. Unfortunately the
concept of Santo in the jungle does not translate as well to the
screen in this film as it sounds in writing.
The Spanish-Mexican co-production Santo frente a la Muerte/Santo
Faces Death (1969, Fernando Orozco) is a very routine crime drama
(well, very routine but featuring a masked wrestler) filmed in Colombia.
Add to this a low budget and sloppy direction, camerawork and editing and
you have one of the most boring Santo films there are.
Santo contra los Jinetes del Terror/Santo vs the Riders of
Terror (1970, René Cardona) is actually a Western more than anything
else, and while Santo seems a bit out of place in the film, it is actually
quite ok otherwise (for a B Western that is). The plot concerns a gang
of outlaws who uses a gang of lepers gone bad for their own evil ends -
and while this sounds wildly exploitative, the lepers are actually treated
with respect throughout the whole picture and are given a chance to redeem
themselves in the end.
Interestingly, the wirter of the screen story for that film was El Murcielago
Jesús Velazquez, the man whom Santo defeated to become middle weight
champion for the very first time in 1943.
Despite the title, La Venganza de las Mujeres Vampiro/The
Vengeance of the Vampire Women (1970, Federico Curiel) is not a sequel
to Santo contra las Mujeres Vampiro, one of Santo's earliest
successes. However, both films were co-scripted by Fernando Osés and both
films have Santo fighting vampire women (as the title readily suggests).
This one however goes one step further and includes a mad scientist
(Víctor Junco) who hides a monster in his basement.
Other than La Venganza de las Mujeres Vampiro, also a
co-production between Películas Latinoamericanas and Cinematográfica
Flama, Santo contra la Mafia del Vicio/Santo vs the Vice
Mafia (1970, Federico Curiel) is a straight crime movie that features
no supernatural elements whatsoever - but that doesn't essentially make
the movie a bad film. Actually it's kind of amusing to see Santo tackle
all-human heroes for a change. On top of the rather serious crime story
though, there are no less than four musical numbers included in the film.
Santo en
la Vanganza de la Momia/Santo
in the Vengeance of the Mummy (1970, René Cardona) was once again
produced by Cinematográfica
Calderón, which once again takes Santo to the jungle, this time
to find an acient mummy - which of course soon comes to life and starts
killing people, and by bow and arrow too ... before it is revealed to be
no living mummy at all but a villain in disguise. It should be noted that
this film was the last Santo-film that veteran René Cardona made
as a director, the man who
handled quite a few Santo films as well as films for other wrestlers - however, he would go on to appear in two more Santo films
(Santo
y Mantequilla Napoles en la Venganza de la Llorona/Santo
and Mantequilla Napoles in The Vengeance of the Crying Woman
[1974, Miguel M.Delgado] and La Furia de los Karatecas/The Fury
of the Karate Killers [1982, Alfredo B.Crevenna]) as an actor. Worth
mentioning is also that the film features another appearance by Santo's
son, the young Jorge Guzmán (the later El Hijo del Santo),
who is billed here as Nino Jorgito.
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Santo had to fight yet another mummy in his next film, Las Momias de
Guanajuato/The Mummies of Guanajuato (1970, Federico Curiel), a Películas Latinoamericanas
production. The film is not about an Aztec mummy like in Santo
en la Vanganza de la Momia but about the mummy of a wrestler (!?)
whom Santo's ancestor defeated 100 years ago but who has struck a deal
with the devil to have his vengeance on the Santo-family. However, Santo
only plays a supporting role in this one, only appearing in a flashback
(as his ancestor) and in the finale, while fellow wrestlers Blue Demon and Mil Máscaras - who was a
very popular wrestler in the 1970's and already had a few films under his
belt - handle the main story (and action). Although the film was at least in Mexico one of the
most successful Santo movies - maybe due to the appearance of in all three
popular wrestlers - it was not among Santo's best films.
Santo
contra la Hija de Frankestein/Santo
vs. Frankenstein's Daughter (1971, Miguel M.Delgado) is a typical
Santo-horror flick produced by Cinematográfica
Calderón: The plot is terribly contrived and highly derivative of
the Universal
horror-flicks of especially the 1940's, yet the addition of
typical Mexican flavour and of course a masked wrestler make this one good
fun nevertheless. This particular film is about Frankenstein's daughter
Freda (Gina Roman), who doesn't only hold up the family tradition of creating the occasional monster out of bodyparts, she also tries to find
the formula for a youth serum - and thinks that Santo is the solution to
it because of his remarkable cphysical onstitution. Of course all of this is silly
as hell and pure camp, but it's also highly entertaining and shouldn't be
missed by trash fans.
By the way, this film has a scene of Freda unmasking Santo, but his
face is not shown to the audience.
Other than Santo
contra la Hija de Frankestein, Santo's next movie, the Puerto-Mex
Films-production Misión Suicida/Suicide Mission (1971,
Federico Curiel) is another crime drama that lacks each and any
supernatural element, instead it is about Nazi scientists who are to be
turned into Soviet agents - until Santo arrives on the scene to save the
day. And while this film is certainly not as much campy fun as Santo's
horror flicks, and it does feature some badly executed action, as a low
budget James Bond
complete with gun-wielding babes, Misión
Suicida isn't too bad at all.
The Filmadora Chapultepec-production Asesinos de Otros Mundos/Murderers
from other Worlds (1971, Rubén Galindo) on the other hand is pure
science fiction schlock about a mad scientist (Carlos Agosti) and an even
madder all-out villain (Juan Gallardo) who want to blackmail and/or
conquer the world using a blob spawned by moonstone (!). Unfortunately,
the blob doesn't come across at all convincingly, but the rest of the film
is trashy fun ...
Santo y la Tigresa en el
Aguila Real/The Royal Eagle
(1971, Alfredo B. Crevenna), is an old dark house mystery set in a hacienda
in rural Mexico, spiced up with quite a few ranchera songs. Unsurprisingly Santo
seems a little out of place in this one, but otherwise it's not too bad a
film.
Santo's partner la Tigresa is actually Irma Serrano, who had
her film debut in Santo's very first Mexican film Santo contra los Zombies,
but who had since become more (in)famous for being the mistress of Mexican
president Díaz Ordaz. However, her notoriety led to many a film role and
a singing career - and to the nickname la Tigresa, apparently.
Interestingly, much later in life she was elected Senator for her home
state of Chiapas ...
For Santo
y Blue Demon contra Drácula y el Hombre Lobo/Santo
and Blue Demon vs Dracula and the Wolf Man (1972, Miguel
M.Delgado), Santo once again returned to Cinematográfica
Calderón, and he once again teamed up with Blue Demon, in another
horror movie that's reminiscent of the Universal
horror-flicks of old. This time the two wrestling friends
have to take on - as the title might suggest - Dracula
(Aldo Monti, who
also played the role in Santo en el
Tesoro de Dracula) and the Wolf Man (Agustin Martinez Solares) ...
guess who wins in the end. As most films Santo made for Cinematográfica
Calderón, this one's trashy fun.
Santo contra los Secuestradores/Santo vs the Kidnappers
(1972, Federico Curiel), a co-production between Oro Films, Puerto-Mex
Films and Jorge Camargo, is another one of those Santo movies that
lacks any supernatural elements. In fact the film is not so much a
Santo-film at all but a showcase for his co-star, popular comedian Evaristo
Ernesto Alban - and thus the film is a light crime comedy played mainly
for the laughs. Santo's ringside wrestling matches are however quite
impressive.
Santo contra la Magia Negra/Santo vs. Black Magic (1972,
Alfredo B. Crevenna), a co-production between Películas
Latinoamericanas and Cinematográfica Flama is a cheap voodoo
shocker shot in Haiti with a Mexican crew. For some reason the black
magic-plot though is spiced up with some science fiction and lots of
drumming and dancing - to less than satisfactory results. Still,t eh film
hits a few right notes on the so-bad-it's-good scale.
Las Bestias del Terror/The Beasts of Terror (1972,
Alfredo B. Crevenna) was shot in Miami for Películas
Latinoamericanas and featured another pairing of Santo-and-Blue Demon.
However, the two were only the nominal heroes of that film about a mad
scientist bringing the dead (all attractive young girls) back to life and
selling them as sex slaves, since most of the action is handled by César
del Campo, playing a private detective trying to track down one of the
girls. The film was not only scripted but also executive produced by
fellow wrestler Fernando Osés.
Santo vs las Lobas/Santo vs
the She-Wolves (1972, Jaime Jiménez Pons, Rubén Galindo) was a
cheaply made werewolf flick produced by Estudios Jiménez Pons Hermanos,
but despite its low budget and confusing script, it's rather atmospheric
and has a more adult look to it (yes, there is some gore in this one) than
earlier Santo-horrorflicks.
Like Santo vs las
Lobas, Anónimo
Mortal/Anonymous Death Threat (1972, Aldo Monti) was produced
inexpensively by Estudios Jiménez Pons Hermanos, but other than
the earlier film, this one has no supernatural elements and rather comes
across as a straight crime drama, in which Santo once again fights a Nazi
conspiracy. Interestingly, Santo's co-stars Armando Silvestre and Teresa
Velázquez play the same roles they play in this one in two Blue
Demon-films produced at around the same time, Noche de Muerte and La
Mafia Amarilla (both 1972, René Cardona).
Blue Demon
himself once again co-starred with Santo in his next film, Santo
y Blue Demon contra el Doctor Frankestein/Santo
and Blue Demon vs. Dr. Frankenstein (1972, Miguel M.Delgado),
another typical Cinematográfica
Calderón-production, if not one of the better ones. In the film,
a mad scientist (Jorge Russek) experiments with brain transplantation and
transrofms innocent people into zombies who relish in murdering their next
of kin (?!) - and for whatever reason, eventually the scientist realizes
he needs Santo's brain to make a more successful brain transplantation
(?!) ... right. Even for a
Santo-and-Blue Demon-shocker
the plot is a little far-fetched and downright silly - and furthermore
burdened with way too many subplots that seem to lead nowhere. Santo
contra el Dr. Muerte/Santo vs Dr.Death (1973, Rafael Romero
Marchent) was a Mexican/Spanish co-production produced by Cinematográfica
Pelimex, and was shot in Spain with an entirely Spanish cast and crew.
It is another one of these films that lack supernatural elements,
instead it transplants Santo into the Eurospy-genre and lets him fight a
clever art thief (Jorge Rigaud) who also happens to be a mad scientist
together with two fellow secret agents (Mirta Miller, Antonio Pica) -
while still presenting Santo as a championship wrestler. The results of this
are mixed at best. The 1974-film Santo en el Misterio de la
Perla Negra/Santo in the Mystery of the Black Pearl (Fernando
Orozco) is another crime drama without supernatural elements, instead it
has Santo running down some diamond smugglers (curiously, no pearl
smugglers, and despite the title there is not a single pearl, let alone a black one
in the film) in an adventure shot in Colombia, Venezuela, Panama, Puerto
Rico, Spain and of course Mexico. Actually the film might have been
produced way earlier than 1974 and back-to-back with Santo frente a la Muerte
(1969), with which it shares much of the cast and crew. The film might have been
released in 1971 in Spain as Misión Secreta en el Caribe.
Curiously, some of this fim's scenes found their way into a non-Santo
film, Campeones del Ring (1972, José A.Venegas), which might be
further proof that the film was produced at the beginning rather than in
the mid-1970's. Interestingly too, Santo en el Misterio de la Perla
Negra borrows footage from Sam Fuller's film Shark! (1969) in
the beginning, and if you watch sharply, you can catch glimpses of young
Burt Reynolds in this one.
The Cinematográfica
Calderón-production Santo
y Mantequilla Napoles en la Venganza de la Llorona/Santo
and Mantequilla Napoles in The Vengeance of the Crying Woman
(1974, Miguel M.Delgado) tag-teamed Santo with (real life) boxing champ
Mantequilla Napoles and pitted the two against La
Llorona, possibly Mexico's most prominent and most enduring
horror character, also known as the Crying Woman. The film is about and
old professor (Alfonso Cstano) whose family has been cursed by the Crying
Woman and who asks Santo and Mantequilla for help - but even they can't keep
the professor from being killed, but at least they save his grandchildren
- from both the Crying Woman and a gang of gangsters led by René Cardona
who are after the Crying Woman's treasure.
The film is silly of course and it carelessly throws elements of different
genres at each other, no matter if they fit or not - but that's also part
of the film's charm. And then there's of course the funky 1970's style
costumes all of the characters are wearing ... By the
mid-1970's though, the interest in the masked wrestler- or lucha
libre-genre has seriously faded, mainly probably because on a whole, the
films were all pretty similar, and there were only so much different
opponents that a masked wrestler could fight. Santo, who has been in the
movie business longer than pretty much all of his wrestling colleagues (at
least in a lead role), still continued to star in films and would do so
for a few more years, but even his productivity had slowed down: While he
made about four to five pictures a year in the early 1970's - with a peak in 1972
when he made 6 movies - he made only two in 1974, one of which was
probably made much sooner, and one in 1975. In 1976, there was not one
single Santo-film produced, which hasn't happened since 1960. Plus, with Santo
y Mantequilla Napoles en la Venganza de la Llorona, his successful
association with Cinematográfica
Calderón had come to an end, and he was now stranded with low
budget producers trying to milk the last drop out of a fading trend. 1975's
La Noche de San Juan: Santo en Oro Negro/Santo in Black Gold (Federico Curiel) is
set in Puerto Rico and is about terrorists sabotaging oil fields using robots - but of course Santo is on hand to save the oil ... not the
world anymore, interestingly. In this one, Santo for the first and only
time uses fake rubber faces to impersonate other persons. Since this film was shot in
Puerto Rico,
Puerto Rican wrestler Carlitos Colón is featured in some ringside action,
in a tag-team match with Santo. In all, it's one of the shoddier
Santo-movies though. The Texas-lensed Misterio en
las Bermudas/Mystery in Bermuda (1977, Gilberto Martínez
Solares) was the last team-up of Santo
and Blue Demon, and it also featured Mil Máscaras, who also
supported them in Las Momias de
Guanajuato from 1970. Misterio en las Bermudas features a
convoluted plot about the Bermuda triangle, a Princess (Gaynor Kote)
needing protection, a little bit of karate, and of course foreign spies and their sci-fi gadgets,
but this time around, the mix doesn't work too well. Interestingly, at the
end of the movie, all three masked wrestlers disappear from the face of
the earth, probably going up in an atomic blast - which might be seen as
symbolic for the lucha libre genre as a whole.
1979's Santo
en la Frontera del Terror/Santo
in the Border of Terror (Rafael
Pérez Grovas) might sound interesting in writing - it's a blend of sci-fi
elements and a story about Mexican illegal immigrants in US - but
as a movie it just fails to take off. It's about a mad scientist who lures
Mexican immigrants to the US just to turn them into his zombies, which
sounds great, but a too low budget and a careless directing job prevent
this film from developing its full potential ... In Santo
contra el asesino de la TV/Santo vs. the TV Killer (1981,
Rafael Pérez Grovas), Santo has to fight a villain (Carlos Agosti) who
always announces his crimes via television - and is confident enough about
his genius that he once even announces Santo's death ... but of course in the end, Santo triumphs over the baddie. Much
of the plot though is carried by Gerardo Reyes, then a popular
ranchera-singer who plays a popular ranchera singer who is also a
journalist, gouvernment agent and master marksman (talk about
far-fetched). As a whole, the film suffers from a highly convoluted and
contrived script as well as a bland direction. In 1981, Santo
also made a guest appearance in a film that was supposed to be a showcase
for his son Jorge, now a wrestler in his own right and known as El Hijo del Santo: Chanoc y el Hijo del Santo contra los Vampiros Asesinos/Chanoc
and el Hijo del Santo vs the Killer Vampires (Rafael Pérez Grovas).
In the film, Santo has to merely hand his mask over to his yet unmasked son
(who is then played not by Jorge but another actor) and ask him if he's
ready to fill his father's boots concerning crime-fighting. El Hijo del
Santo agrees and becomes Santo in a puff of smoke ... The rest of the film
is pretty much a bottom-of-the-barrel crime movie about gangsters posing
as vampires that doesn't feature any more Santo but his son, teaming up
with Chanoc (Nelson Velázquez), the diver-hero of a popular Mexican
series that had first hit the screen back in 1966 with the film Chanoc
(Rogelio A.Gonzalez) in which the title character was played by Andrés
García. Interestingly, El Hijo del Santo's sidekick Carlos Suárez, a
regular in Santo's films, played
Santo's own sidekick in Santo
contra el asesino de la TV and would go
on to do sidekicking duties in Santo's next (and last) two films ... Above
all else, Santo's last two films, El Puno de la Muerte/The
Fist of Death and La Furia de los Karatecas/Fury of the
Karate Killers (both 1982, Alfredo B.Crevenna) - the latter being a
sequel to the former - show how much time has passed since Santo's heyday: The films are a clumsy attempt to combine the then dieing down
lucha libre with the then blossoming martial arts genre in a convoluted
fantasy story. The films were shot in Florida and looked reasonably
glossy, but the magic quite simply was gone ... After these two films,
Santo - who was at the time nearing 65 and was getting a tad old for this
kind of films - quit acting, and seeing the two films as his swansong, one
figures he should have quit quite a while ago ... but that's besides the
point. In 1982, Santo also decided to discontinue his wrestling career
and leave the sport to the younger generation, including his son Jorge
(see above), who was only 19 at the time.
Though officially
retired, Santo continued to make the occasional public appearance, like in
the talk show Contrapunto, in which he without warning
removed his mask (this was reportedly the only time ever he removed his
mask in public), giving his many fans a first and last glance of his face.
The show was aired on January 26th 1984. Ten days later, Santo died froma
heart attack in Mexico City, leaving behind a wife (he was married twice)
and eleven (!) children (only one of whom, Jorge, became a wrestler) - and with
Santo died not so much a wrestler and
an actor but a cultutal icon. To leave the world in style, Santo was,
according to his wishes, buried in his silver wrestling mask.
Of
course, for the jaded eyes of a modern sophisticated audience, Santo
himself might seem a tad obscure and his films are easy to be ridiculed,
but his influence on pop culture as a whole cannot be overestimated: More
than anyone else, he made the masked wrestler/hero popular (and as a
reverse himself into an icon), and there are numerous references to him in
popular music and movies, most notably the Turkish film Uc
Dev Adam/Three Mighty
Men (1973, T.Fikret Ucak), for which the Santo character (not the
actual man) was imported into Turkey to
fight an evil Spider-Man
alongside Captain America
- the inclusion of these three popular characters in the movie was only
made possible by Turkey's extremely lax copyright laws.
And
then there's of course the animated series Santo Contra Los
Clones that Cartoon Network released in 2004 that was based on
Santo's classic movies and had the wrestler fighting a mad scientist and his
zombies.
Another sign for Santo's ongoing popularity is that most of his
films, bad as some of them may be, are now available on DVD, and at least
his better, more popular ones with English subtitles.
And then
there's of course Jorge, El Hijo del Santo, who still fights in the
ring, in a costume very closely resembling that of his father, and of
late, he has even dropped the "El Hijo" part of his wrestling name. El Hijo del Santo
is very popular with the audiences, and many think in
fighting he exceeds his father's abilities. On the screen however, he
proved less successful, but - in character - has made a handful of films
over the last 25 years that in their best moments resemble Santo's better
films: Besides above mentioned Chanoc y el Hijo del Santo contra los
Vampiros Asesinos there was El Hijo del Santo en Frontera sin Ley (1983,
Rafael Pérez Grovas) - which also starred Mil Mascaras -, El Hijo del
Santo en el Poder de Omnicron (1991, Miguel Rico), Santo: La
Leyenda del Enmascarado de Plata/Santo: The Legend of the Man in
the Silver Mask (1992, Gilberto de Anda) and Santo: Infraterrestre
(2001, Héctor Molinar). Of all these films, only the last two deserve
special mention: In Santo: La Leyenda del Enmascarado de Plata,
the silver mask is again handed down from father Santo (Daniel García) to
son (El Hijo del Santo) - but this time around, the son refuses the
responsibility the mask comes with (shades of Spider-Man here?) and continues to wrestle as El Hombre Rojo - that is, until he
is sucked into a crime plot and sees himself forced to fight for law and
order as his father's successor wearing his father's mask. (Note: The
handing down of the mask from father to son was also an integral part of
quite a few Santo-movies, beginning with Santo contra el Rey del Crimen.) While Santo:
La Leyenda del Enmascarado de Plata was pretty much a down-to-earth
crime drama, Santo: Infraterrestre is pure science fiction, about
aliens living under the earth's surface and El Hijo del Santo - who is
referred to in this one simply as Santo - using all kinds of sci-fi
gadgetsto fight them. And to properly translate the lucha libre formula into the 21st
century, all kinds of CGI-effects are used to bring the picture to life.
If masked wrestlers and computer effects are a bit at odds with each other
is left to the individual viewer's taste, and one or the other might argue
that the lucha libre formula as a whole is terribly outdated ... I for
one am happy that Santo (even if it's not the man himself) and the lucha
libre genre are still around, and hope that many others who don't take
their wrestling movies too dead seriously, are with me when I say: Viva
Santo!!! For this biography I'm deeply indebted to the
The Films of El Santo section on Dave Wilt's homepage https://terpconnect.umd.edu/~dwilt/santo.html
- which features comprehensive reviews of all of El Santo's movies.
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