Santo vs. el estrangulador
[Santo vs. the Strangler]
(Estudios
América--Cin. Norte, 1963) Prod:
Alberto López; Dir: René Cardona
[Sr.]; Scr: René Cardona [Sr.]; Story: Rafael García Travesi; Photo: Alfredo Uribe Jacome; Music Dir: Enrico C. Cabiati; Prod Mgr: Luis García
de León; Asst Dir: Tito Novaro; Film Ed:
José J. Munguía; Art Dir:
Arcadi Artis Gener; Camera Op:
Roberto Jaramillo; Makeup: Antonio
Ramírez; Sound Engin: Consuelo P. de
Rendón; Music Rec: Heinrich Henkel; Union: STIC
Cast: Santo (himself), María Duval (Laura
Montes), Roberto Cañedo (Goudini, the Strangler), Carlos López
Moctezuma (Insp. Villegas), Ofelia Montesco (Lilián), Begoña
Palacios (Irene), Alberto Vázquez (Javier), Eric del Castillo (Jerry
Marcos), Emma Arvizu (Claudia), Julián de Meriche (Julián
Fiorelli), Milton Ray (Milton), Mayte Carol, Gloria Chávez, Julio
Ahuet (police agent), Manuel Dondé (suspicious man), José Cora,
Guillermo Bravo Sosa (theatre caretaker), Salvador Terroba, Edith Barr
(singer), La Sonora Santanera (musical group), Nothanael León
"Frankestein" (hired killer), Jesús Gómez (policeman),
"Picoro" (ring ancr), Benny Galan and Fernando Osés (Santo's
ring opponents)
Notes:
both this film and the sequel, El
espectro del estrangulador, are odd patchworks of musical numbers,
wrestling matches, and a horror-mystery plot.
Wait, you may say, isn't that what most
wrestling-hero movies are like? Well,
yes and no. Santo vs. el estrangulador doesn't have one or two musical numbers
tossed in, it has NINE songs. Fortunately,
five (including Alberto Vázquez singing “16 Tons” in English, and Begoña
Palacios doing “Fever”) of them are crammed into the first 20 minutes or so
(Santo doesn't appear, except in two ring segments, until 27 minutes have
passed!), so a judicious use of the fast-forward button will get you into a
more plot-heavy section of the movie.
Someone has been strangling female
performers at the Teatro Variedades.
When a stagehand (assistant director Tito Novaro in a cameo) spots
another employee, Marcos, aiming a pistol at star Laura, naturally Marcos
becomes a suspect (he was just trying to eliminate the competition for singer
Lilián, whom he loves). Police
inspector Villegas asks Santo to help.
The Strangler leaves a gardenia for each of his victims, and Santo says
"this flower has two meanings--love and death."
While Santo investigates, singer
Javier and his girlfriend Irene (Laura's sister, and a performer herself) try
to solve the mystery. Although he
normally kills only women, the Strangler decides to make an exception in
Javier's case and sneaks into the singer's bedroom to stab him but Santo bursts
in and foils the attempt. The Strangler
escapes but, irritated, calls up a thug and orders a hit on the silver-masked
man. Santo is lured to a remote
location, but the assassin (and two henchmen) foolishly attack the superhero
with their bare hands rather than shooting him from ambush. Santo thrashes them all; the police arrive
and shoot two of the men (one, just before he--having belatedly remembered he's
carrying a dagger--tries to stab Santo in the back). The third assailant truthfully says he doesn't know who hired
him.
Lilián rebuffs Marcos because he
failed to knock off Laura. Marcos (a
former wrestler, established earlier) returns to the ring to try and impress
her. His opponent? El Santo (what a coincidence! Apparently Santo is willing to wrestle just
about anybody on short notice). The
Strangler sneaks into the rafters of the arena and tries to shoot Santo, but
misses and kills Marcos instead (this type of scene appears in several other
wrestling movies of the ‘60s and ‘70s).
Leaving the arena, Santo discovers a young boy, Milton, in the back of
his car. Milton says he's an orphan and
he's chosen Santo to be his new father.
Ooooh kaaayy--this is really ridiculous! Santo finally agrees to adopt Milton,
although he says the boy will have to stay in a boarding school during the week
and visit Santo on weekends (he comes right out and says he doesn't want the
kid hanging around the secret Santo laboratory all the time).
Although Inspector Villegas had
ordered the Variedades closed, manager Claudia gets an injunction and the
theatre reopens. The Strangler's next
victim is Lilián (this is the only murder shown in its entirety, without squeamish
cutaways). After a couple of more songs
(including Javier singing "Cuando calienta al sol" and Milton doing a
Spanish-language version of "Blame It on the Bossa Nova"), Santo and
Villegas meet to set a trap for the Strangler.
Laura is nearly strangled in her dressing room by the killer, but Santo
arrives and scares him away.
The cast assembles in Claudia's
office. Villegas tells them the
Strangler is a former performer named Goudini, a quick-change artist and
impressionist who made a speciality of seducing his female co-stars, until a
showgirl threw acid in his face. The
actress was murdered and Goudini vanished--but he's been living in the
catacombs under the Teatro Variedades ever since. Santo yanks a lifelike mask off Claudia's face, revealing Goudini's scarred visage (this is a
surprise, I was betting on director Julián, although Claudia is kind of
butchy looking). The transvestite
murderer escapes through a secret passage but is tracked down and shot by the
police, falling to his death from the rafters of the theatre.
As Santo speeds off in his white
convertible sports car, Laura asks Villegas: "Who was he?" Villegas replies: "He's a man--or
rather, a legend--in the service of good and justice."
Once you get past the first 25
minutes of this movie, it actually becomes a mildly entertaining Santo
adventure. But exactly who was the intended audience for this
picture—wrestling fans, horror movie fans, or fans of musicals? Or all three? It doesn’t seem like any of the three types would have
been completely satisfied. Not too many
of the Santo movies pit him against just one man—usually a gang is involved,
and the “hired killers” sequence here seems to have been included just to give
Santo somebody to fight. He never
really confronts the Strangler, who’s pretty successful (until the very end) at
lurking and fleeing.
The cast is solid, and the script
tosses in a few tidbits of characterization (Lilián’s rivalry with Laura,
Laura’s relationship with her sister Irene, Irene’s romance with Javier, dopey
kid Milton). One of the best
performances comes from Julián de Meriche as the wise-ass theatre director, who
smirks and sneers when Insp.Villegas calls him a suspect. Ofelia Montesco as the sultry Lilián is also
very good, as is Eric del Castillo as her slavish would-be lover.
The production values are
adequate. There are a number of nice
shots of Santo driving his sports car on Mexico City freeways at night (you
wonder what the other motorists thought, or maybe they were used to it).
This
page created 16 Jan 2003 by D. Wilt.