I've also been watching a lot of Mexican wrestling superhero movies lately, one of the strangest Crappy Movie genres. And there can be no discussing Mexican wrestling movies without El Santo, the most famous luchador of them all and one of the biggest movie stars in the country’s history.
Known as “the man in the silver mask,” Santo--who, like The Lone Ranger, was never seen in public without his face covered--graduated from the wrestling arena to the silver screen in the late 1950’s, when he played a supporting role in a pair of superhero adventures. It wasn’t until 1961 and the release of INVASION OF THE ZOMBIES (which Tolemite and I saw last weekend) that Santo became a leading man, kicking off a string of more than fifty wild-and-wooly motion pictures that sicced “El Enmascarado de Plata” against witches, Martians, stranglers, she-wolves, mad scientists and other colorful villains. Only a few of them played in the United States, dubbed into English with the hero’s name changed to Samson, as in SAMSON VS. THE VAMPIRE WOMEN (1962). However, many of them are available now on DVD, usually in Spanish with English subtitles.
If you're curious to know more about Santo, check out this clip. It runs just under two minutes and packs a lot of Santo-kickass-goodness:
Posted by Marty
at 1:03 AM CDT
