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Santo vs el Estrangulador

Santo vs the Strangler

Mexico 1963
produced by
Alberto López for Estudios América, Cinematográfica Norte
directed by René Cardona
starring Santo, Alberto Vázquez, María Duval, Begona Palacios, Ofelia Montesco, Roberto Canedo, Carlos López Moctezuma, Eric del Castillo, Milton Ray, Nathanael León, Julián de Meriche, Julio Ahuet, Emma Arvizu, Guillermo Bravo Sosa, Gloria Chávez, Manuel Dondé, Salvador Terroba, Gerardo Zepeda
written by Rafael García Travesi, music by Enrico C.Cabiati

El Santo

review by
Mike Haberfelner

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A mysterious strangler  is murdering his way through the cast of a musical revue, and it soon becomes apparent that the strangler must be one of the cast or crew ... but the question is, who?

Inspector Villegas (Carlos López Moctezuma) is quick to identify wrestler-turned-stagehand Marcos (Eric del Castillo) as his prime suspect, as he has actually made an attempt on the leading lady Laura's (María Duval) life to get his own girlfriend Lilian (Ofelia Montesco) her role, but when he comes up with an alibi for the last murder, the inspector is left clueless - so he asks his friend, wrestler and crimefighter Santo (Santo) for help.

When Santo arrives on the scene, the strangler starts to panic, and he soon enough tries to lure Santo into a trap - which only gets his henchmen arrested, though. Later, he tries to shoot Santo during a wrestling match, but only manages to hit and kill his opponent - who of all people turns out to be Marcos.

After the last murder, the show was shut down by the police, but now it reopens under heavy police protection - and yet, the strangler manages to kill another actress, Lilian. This prompts Santo to the conclusion that the theatre the show plays in must be full of secret passageways, secret panels, sliding doors and the like, and it also leads him to the conclusion that the strangler must be a prominent master of disguise from yesteryear (Roberto Canedo), whose face was horribly disfigured by an actrtess - and now he has dedicated his life to killing actresses. And obviously, leading lady Laura is the next on his list. So Santo and the inspector decide to announce to shut down the theatre for good, but after one final show - in which the strangler simply has to turn up to kill Laura. He sure enough does, but Santo steps in to save Laura's life. Then he calls everyone working on the show into Laura's dressing room, to identify the strangler to be ... Claudia, the theatre manager. (S)he sheds her disguise to get away, though, but the Strangler falls to his death having almost made it away ... only to show up again in Espectro del Estrangulador, anohow.

Milton Ray plays an orphan who forces himself on Santo to become his ward, but he has no narrative function whatsoever.

 

A very routine backstage murder mystery with shades of Phantom of the Opera, with maybe a few too many musical numbers thrown in to keep its pace at all times. Santo seems a bit out of his league in this one, as a story like this does not really need a masked wrestler with a crime lab, but somehow he works in the context nevertheless, if less than perfectly. Only Santo's scenes with his ward-to-be Milton Ray are lacking in every possible way (including that of narrative necessity).

In all, a totally watchable murder mystery (as long as you can accept Santo in a film like this), but nothing special, really, and as a Santo-film it's ok but not the kind of movie he's best remembered for.

 

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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In times of uncertainty of a possible zombie outbreak, a woman has to decide between two men - only one of them's one of the undead.

 

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special appearances by
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directed by
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written by
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produced by
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