WARNING!: As always, this page may be extremely spoiler heavy... If you didn't want to know, then don't blame me that you looked!
A really surprising number of Phantom inspired movie seemed to come out in South America in the late 50's, to mid 60's, but these 3 really stand on their own. Incorporating the mega popular craze for masked wrestling with Phantom, the results really need to be seen to be believed. I can not recommend La Somba del Murcielago enough by the way. If your someone who thrives on off beat version of the story like Phantom of The Paradise, then this is the movie for you.
Other Phantom movies have been made south of the border other that the 3 that you will find below, but I felt that these 3 truly deserved there own section, because lets face it, when you add wrestling into the story, you get some pretty unique results.
Also an extremely special thanks goes to Oliver Haddo for alerting me to all of the films found in this section!
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(1965) Santo Contra El Estrangulador (Santo vs the Strangler)
Dir: René Cardona Wri: Rafael García Travesi Cast: Santo, Roberto Cañedo, Maria Duval.
More information at: IMDB
Thought to be a Lost movie up until not so very long ago!
I did the very best I could with the screen shots of this one... I know they are very sub par, especially with tat damn pause symbol at the top but hey, this was unfortunately the best I could do.
Most of the movie takes place in a theater, a picture of which can be seen below Its very obvious that this is not the actually theater that they shot in however, as all we ever really see of it, is this photograph. The movie starts off with 2 song and dance numbers... And I mean like, back to back here people. They have nothing at all to do with the rest of the movie. Then we cut to a scene of El Santo kicking the poop out of some guy in wrestling wring, which goes on for quite some time...
Then there's another 2 musical number (One of the songs is You Give Me Fever, but in Spanish!)... Pretty much no characters have yet been established. If you have no idea what's going on, I assure you that you are not alone. We keep on getting little shots of people that I suppose are supposed to be the main characters, but there has been little to no dialoged to give us any idea about why we should care about them....
Who the hell are these people?
THEN, another wrestling scene, though I think Santo is just fighting the same guy he was in the first fight scene.... THEN! *GASP!* Dialogue! Granted I have no idea what they are saying, but it was kind of refreshing. BUT!... Another musical number dashes all my hopes that the story has finally begun. I *THINK*, that at some point during this number, one of the girls tells her boyfriend, or man slave or whatever, to try and shoot the person singing on stage. But he doesn't get very far, because someone looks at him and he gets all nervous... THEN! DAILOGE! The young lovers, (Who ever they are...) get engaged behind stage. Wow, if I knew anything about them, I would be so happy for them! I believe at this point we cut to a scene where the manager, or cop or what every else he might be announces that someone has been killed. (Probably of boredom.) If my understanding here is correct, someone gets the brilliant idea what El Santo better get his bedippered butt over there and help them out. So after a while, someone goes and meets Santo after one of his fights, and tells him all about what's going on, ( wish someone would tell us!) to see if he can help. Now of course because Santo is such an all round awesome guy, I'm sure he tells them that he can. But first! More wrestling scenes! THEN! We enter El Santos laboratory!... We aren't there long. THEN!, Santo meets up with this guy who tells him more about the murder, who turns out to be about El Estrangulador. (The Strangler) The guy gives Santo a flower, which I guess was evidence from the murder... But that's just a guess. Then! Back at Santos lab, he pulls out his file ON... We actually never find out I don't think, lol. Then we cut to scenes of *I think* the young lovers, who are looking around back stage. We actually do see our Phantom here now and again, (Played by Roberto Cañedo) but only for a second or two.
When we do see him, he is always unmasked. I tried to get a photograph of him here but the picture was just to fuzzy. Anyway, he taunts the lovers a little bit, but for the most part nothing really happens. THEN! DRIVING!! At some point, El Estrangulador gets the bright idea to try and stab the Raoul type dude in his sleep. BUT! El Santo comes in before he can do anything. Santo chases our phantom like guy... And honestly I have no idea if he actually ever bothered to follow him for more than a block or so. Next thing we know we are, I think, in El Estranguladors lair, (Which has a lot of dresses in it by the way... Careful now, this will be an important 'plot' point later on.) were he's makes some threatening phone calls. Ok so, then a bunch of other crazy happens, and during the next fight, El Estrangulador shots some guy during one of the Santo wresting scenes! Then... OMG... A little boy named Milton shows up in the back of Santos car as he's driving home. From what I've read about this movie from other sources, this little boy is then immediately adopted by Santo....
THEN! Santo gives the boy new pajamas and the kid dances. THEN!... Another musical number.....
.....Frankly I'm loosing interest in relating the rest of what happens, so lets just say that there are a few more musical numbers, santos new little bastard gets kidnapped.... At some point its revealed that The Strangler was once a famous magician/master of disguise named Goudini who was disfigured. Oooooh but the absolute best part of this movie is the way that the Phantom is revealed in the end. Turns out that through out the whole movie, Mr. Estrangulador has been cross dressing as a very unattractive woman. Somehow Santo knows this, and unmasks him in front of everyone.
My absolute favorite part of the movie is the part where The Stranger takes a sec there, to kick off his high heels before he makes his get away, lol! Its so classic. El Strangulador runs away, but is very unceremoniously killed by falling off of a cat walk. Thus ends his misery.... And ours.
This movie is really a mess, and frankly even I who literately thrives on movies that make no sense, had a hard time putting up with it. I love El Santo movies, and Mexican masked wrestling movies in general, but this is really pretty dreadful. I suppose that there is a lot of coherency that I am missing here, because of the fact that I can not understand Spanish... Yet at this point I am failing to see how it would really help.
I will say this though! As a Phantom nut, I am a little tickled by the fact that they kept in the idea that The Phantom likes to strangle people. (No punjab lasso though, sorry folks). BUT!.... He really only strangles people once or twice. The rest of the time he shoots them or gets staby. Oh well.... They tried.
For more information, and to read a much more coherent review of the film than the one above, Please visit: The Films of El Santo
Where to Buy: http://www.santostreet.com/videopg.htm or Check E-bay!
WARNING: All DVD's will be in Spanish. No subtitled version is known at this time.
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(1966) El Espectro Del Estrangulador (Ghost of The Strangler or The Spectre of The Strangler or Santo vs. El Espectro del Estrangulador)
Dir: René Cardona Wri: René Cardona, Rafael García Travesi Cast: Santo, Roberto Cañedo, Maria Duval, Gerardo Zepeda, Milton Ray
More information at: IMDB
While this movie may not be so very great, it's sure a hell of a lot better than Santo Contra El Estrangulador a year earlier. This is the sequel to Santo vs el Estrangulador, and doesn't suffer from true incoherence quite as much as the first film....At least you actually get to see the Phantom in this one for more than 4 seconds...
The film opens with the body of The Strangler being carted away by an ambulance. Everyone thinks that he is dead, except for The Stranglers strong man, Tor (Who is played by Gerardo Zepeda, and did not appear in the first movie strangely enough.) knows that his master is alive. So he hops in his car to go visit the corpse. He bulldozes into the hospital, kills the doctors, takes the unconscious body, and the two of them drop into a man hole with the body like the good little ninja turtles that they are. And its off to the lair they go! THEN! WRESTLING! The inspector from the first movie shows up at the fight, I think to tell Santo that the body of the strangler has been stolen.
When we next see out Phantom, he's happily banging away on his organ, (Rather annoyingly I might add.) until Tor is ready to present with with this new cool mask that he made him! Tor is apparently something of a genius, who is an expert in making masks from the skin of the recently deceased. The Strangler often wears the mask that makes him look the actor Roberto Cañedo, (Shown Above). Unlike the first film, we actually do get to see The Phantoms disfigurement this time. It may be a little difficult to see exactly what the make up looks like from this picture, but I think its actually kind of cool looking. The bad eye almost makes him appear a little bit cat like.
THEN! A Song and Dance number. Then The Strangler and Tor, dig up a dead girl, presumably to make another mask from her face. Back in Santos lab, Santo tucks Milton into bed, awwww. *barfs* Santo also gives Milton a crazy wrist watch doo-dad, so he can call for help if he needs, as he did actually really get his little butt kicked by The Strangler in the first film. Then someone makes a threatening call to Santo. Santo records it, and Milton, (Whose supposed to be asleep the naughty boy.) freaks out because the caller was The Strangler. Santo does not report the call to the cops, but Milton, frightened as he is does. Santo goes to try and find The Stranger, but is unexpectedly attacked by Tor in the street. The Strangler watches on the whole time, nit really doing very much of anything. Tor really does seem to be getting the best of Santo, and at a critical point, The Strangler decides to help out and hits Santo over the head with a 2 by 4 really, really hard, knocking The Silver Masked Man out cold. Back at the Stranglers lair, Tor and The Strangler get Santo all hooked up to this insane smashy thingy, (which is actually very cool looking.) and the phantom laughs at Santos almost certain demise. BUT! Santo escapes from the machine before you can say Phantom of The Opera Rip off 3 times fast, and also be for the cops rush in and have to save his masked ass.
Then back at the lair, (Is this a different lair?) The Stranger is once again banging away at his organ.We also see more of Tor doing his work on some masks. I think he is turning human bodies into was statues? Its not completely clear if that's what he's doing or not. THEN! Back at the theater, Another FOUR musical numbers! Back to back! Once all that is finally over, we return back to Santos lair. He is notified of the new murder... But what's silly old murder, when you can wrestle!? Another really long wrestling sequence here. After that, Santo solemnly vows to get that nasty Phantom man! He meets both The Phantom and his helper dude at a cemetery as they dig up another corpse. The Phantom being the weak little piece of poop that he is, watches on as Santo and Tor duke it out.... After waiting a lot of time watching with a silly expression on his face, He dumps some chloroform (Or something of that nature.) onto a rag, and puts it over Santos mouth. Santo passes out. (Wow Santos nearly been killed twice by this guy!) The two goons then dump Santo into a coffin, and nail the lid shut. Santo actually ends up escapes the coffin extremely easily... Because I mean, this is El Santo here people. He's apparently feeling SO SO SO good to be alive after all that, that the first thing he does is, you guessed it, go right back to the ring for mooooore wrestling!!... Yay. All the while, Milton watchers the fight with an expression on his face like he's about to crap himself.
During the fight, his opponent in a black mask putts a rope around Santos neck and tries to kill him! The cops rush into the wring, but the two seem to want to work in out themselves by fighting some more. As the fight goes on, the guy in the black mask is finally unmasked by Santo, and it turns out to be Tor after all! The Strangler cuts the light however before Tor can truly be identified.
Latter on, Tor goes and kidnappers The Inspector, and makes a cast of his face so that the Strangler can wear it. THEN! A musical number! Only one this time amazingly! The Phantom dressed up as The Inspector, and goes back stage thinking he's got everyone fooled. But he acts more than suspiciously. The only one who doesn't seem to get it is Milton. Then Milton has his little song and dance number. Then, during the next dance number, The Phantom cuts down a Chandelier! It falls behind the pre former lady on stage. It hurts no one, but everyone totally freaks out and much running and screaming ensues.
Back at Santos lab, we find out that The Strangler, still dressed up as The Inspector, is kidnapping Milton from school. But nicely! When Santo finally finds the car that The Strangler used to kidnapped Milton, he finds Tor dead and Milton no were to be found. The Strangler has escaped and made his way back to the lair with Milton. Milton makes a desperate call for help to Santo on his wrist watch, and The Strangler slaps the hell out of him for doing so. So eventually Santo shows up, kicks the teeth out of The Strangler rather quickly , and then The strangler intimately gets lit on fire. Santo does little to help him, and you can hear the poor guy screaming like crazy for the outside of the building! Santo and Milton get away safe and sound it their cool sports car.
And that my friends... Is the end.
Over all, I actually thought it was fairly enjoyable, and Far far more coherent than the first film of the series. It may not be very clear in these photos, but in certain shots, The Strangler actually kind of looks like the ALW Phantom a little bit. The puffiness of the makeup on the one side, often makes it look like the half mask,even though its on the wrong side. The stance, the hat the face... It all has a very failure feel to it somehow. Gerardo Zepeda who plays Tor, also appears in a very similar role in La Sombra del Murcielago the same year. I always love seeing him in these movies, and this film is a rather rare opportunity to see him playing something other than a moron. And though we don't really see all that much of him, I really kind of liked Roberto Cañedo as The Strangler. I don't know all that much about him as an actor, but this movie really made me a little sad that we didn't get to see more of him in the first movie. His acting is certainly very genuine and I think he really made the best out of what they gave him to work with.
For more information, and to read a much more coherent review of the film than the one above, Please visit:The Films of El Santo
Where to Buy: http://www.santostreet.com/videopg.htm or Check E-bay! Or-
Below you will see the very latest legal-ish copy of this film... I think it might be a bootleg, I really have no idea.
WARNING: All DVD's will be in Spanish. No subtitled version is known at this time. I think at some point this was released as a home video by Something Weird, but I'll have to double check on that.
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(1966) La Sombra del Murcielago. "Shadow of The Bat"
Dir: Federico Curiel & Luis Enrique Vergara Wri: Jesus Velazquez & Luis enrique Vargara Cast: Blue Demon, Jaime Fernandez, Marta Romero, Rene Barerra, jesus Velazquez, Fernando Osés, Mario Orea and Gerardo Zepeda
More information at: IMDB
I FRIGGIN LOVE THIS MOVIE! One of the great gems in off beat Phantom movies in my humble opinion. The Strangler movies has their little moments here and there, but this one is just a great movie. I wish I could give a better description of the plot, though its a little hard to without begin able to understand the Spanish. Basically this is the story of a horrifically disfigured, ( Played by the very very awesome Fernando Osés) ex-wrestler/ musician, who takes up residence in a cave, to plot his revenge on the great Blue Demon, play his music, and woe the woman of his dreams from affair. Unfortunately at this time, the only copy of this film that I have died just after I took these screen shots. So rather than make some huge mistakes in retelling the plot to everyone, I am just going to make this a photo gallery for now to wet everyone's appetite, and will certainly add a full plot break down and description as soon as I can get a better copy. Sorry to disappoint!
Watching this movie, you really can't help but feel like this is 'The Bats' film, and not the Blue Demons. For one, this Phantom-like character gets most of the screen time, and he is pretty beautifully photographed through out most of it. Blue Demon on the other hand, doesn't even show up until a fairly good deal into the picture, and a lot of his scenes are shot in a comparatively disinterested fashion. The overly long wrestling sequences do little help this. Also, the fight scenes between The Bat and Blue Demon are awesome, and Blue Demon totally gets his ass kicked by The Bat once or twice. The Bat has a much more interesting fighting style then Blue Demon in my humble opinion. Its also obvious that they tried to play his character up as a very tortured, brooding guy, which also really great. Its obvious that the Lon Chaney classic was a big source of inspiration when then made this. Fernando Osés is wonderful, and is able to bring out a lot of complexity to a character I'm sure others would have written off. For the longest time, I actually wasn't sure why even had played The Bat in this movie, because even though he's in more scenes than anyone else in the film, Fernando Osés is given a very low billing. Jaime Fernandez plays the Raoul type character, and is barely in the movie, and yet his name is right next to Blue Demons because he was the bigger star.
You truly don't need subtitles to enjoy this one. You will be having so much fun with the bizarreness of it, that frankly you barely notice that you cant understand anything. Having said that though, I'm really hoping that someone will subtitle this at some point, just so that we can be more clear on what some of the names are.
I'll be putting up a lot more about this movie once I get my new copy!
FROM THE VAULTS: I don't have many collectibles from this movie, but I do happen to have one of the lobby cards. Check it out:
Where to Buy: Santo and Friends or http://www.santostreet.com/videopg.htm
WARNING: As far as I know, there are no DVD's of this movie that include subtitles. The film is entirely in Spanish.
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