#010 - Santo and Outskirts vs. The Evil Cinema Canon

This week on the Outskirts Film Podcast, we slip on the silver mask and enter the gloriously low-budget universe of El Santo, eternal protector of Mexican cinema and unquestionably the greatest luchador-film star of all time. Spooky castles, mad scientists, mind-controlled zombies, sexy vampire women, and bravura international art heists: a whole, wide world of Santo - folk poet of lucha libre - awaits you.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:17

In this skin, the Tulancingalgo, el Enmascarado Plata, el Ero de Doctors, el Icono del Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre, El Santo. Instagram, I'm your podcast host, Alonso Aguilar. I'm joined by my fellow co-host.

SPEAKER_05 0:32

Hi, I'm IQ. I'm Christopher.

SPEAKER_00 0:33

And perhaps by that introduction, you can assume that we'll be talking about perhaps the greatest sports person to be featured in film, which is uh El Santo, Roberto Rodolfo Guzmán Huertemunz, as uh he was later known as, who is not only perhaps the most iconic like Mexican wrestler of all time and synonymous with like Lucha Libra itself, but also is one of the main icons of what like Mexican popular culture is in the 20th century. His career started in the 1940s, when like Mexican wrestling was starting to become a thing, thanks to Consejo Municipal Lucha Libri. And Santo, by the 1950s, had a run as like a comic book character, which basically cemented his place in like the milieu of like a Mexican popular culture, uh, which is interesting as well because it came like in a moment where like the so-called golden age of Mexican cinema was starting to decline, and Lucha Liberty became this kind of like new thing, which was also very frowned upon. But Santo transcended borders, transcended like qualifiers of taste, and just became unbeatable and unquestionable in how it ingrained itself into like the mixed thing of popular culture and beyond. Perhaps people didn't really saw like Lucha Liri, but he knew about Santo because again, he's like not only like a wrestler, he's like a superhero, he's like a magic detective, he's like an interpol agent, he's a ladiesman, he's like the friend of the children. So Santo is basically like the patron saint of Mexican cinema, I'll say. So to start off, correct perhaps I wanted to ask you more in general about like the Santo figure itself as a pop culture icon, not necessarily in cinema. Because in Latin America, like seeing Santo is almost like something that all a generation really like knows of, despite not knowing where he came from. It's just like this manifestation of like pure Mexican head.

SPEAKER_05 2:06

I don't think as a British person there's a huge amount of Santo idolatry in our pop culture. But it's kind of something that I suppose sort of peripherally I sort of understood as something that existed. You and I, Alonso, I guess were at the same screening in Locarno of uh Santo versus the vampire women. Now, in retrospect, it's easy to see how much of a perfect introduction to Santo that was, because in in many ways, I mean I don't think in this podcast we're gonna talk too much about classical perfection, but if there is a Santo film that has a kind of classical perfection of its style, I think it's that one. Um and I was just watching the intro this morning just to remind myself because I haven't seen it in a few years, and it's just like this amazing kind of gothic mise en scène, um and this whole kind of cinematic world that's suggested even before Santo appears in the film. So I think it's it's a it's a like a perfect introduction to what Santo is, not only because of what he does in the film, but the film that's around it, and also the amount of time it takes to actually get to Santo, which is something that you see again and again in these films, uh, that maybe like the first 25 minutes of the film will not feature Santo, will not feature Mexican wrestling, uh, will even be set 150 years ago, and then at some point somehow some kind of plot twist comes along, and uh yeah, lucha libre is here to save the day.

SPEAKER_01 3:39

When you think of like these popular culture figures that might allow you to like enter a universe, I think wrestling is a tough one. Like when you have spy films, genre films, uh you already have a um given universe representations that uh allows you to enter and feel familiar about it. But in my case, I think wrestling or sports films in general wasn't the case. So when you think of my experience with Santo, even knowing his uh existence, I kind of felt like that's not my thing. But once you start watching them, you understand that it's not never always about the sports itself. It's just an auxiliary or maybe like an accessorized with within the film that showcased so many things about genre elements that you can find in different films. So I think there's this resistance uh that one person can experience uh when exposed to Santo because the idea that you have of him is so different than what you find once you start watching them.

SPEAKER_00 4:43

In that sense, I think like wrestling is perhaps like the best, the best like sports translation to cinema, because I I don't want to sound like that too corny, but I think wrestling itself is kind of like cinematic in a way itself, that you have like characters, you have like a missing sand, you have like again, like some sort of script that's going on. Uh, don't want to spoil like the cafe for like those uh out there, but uh yeah, that's how wrestling works. And I think that that element also of like the specificity of like the Santo films, despite having this like wide appeal, these kind of like psychotonic mixtures of like general elements, are something that I sometimes find difficult to describe to people that haven't seen them because they're essentially just like deeply rooted like in Mexican uh popular culture in the 1950s, 1960s. So getting to like as Oyuka was saying, like not only understanding like wrestling itself, but also what lucha libre means to like local communities, because again, it's like at this moment in time it was very like frowned upon like sport, and uh even like that is kind of related to like how the filmmaking itself, just to get some context of the history, uh, started doing these films. Like uh as the Santo comic books were starting to like roll out in the 1950s, you saw like the start of like some sort of like a first approximation to like uh to recording like wrestling films. There were like a little bit more like I guess like they were trying to like get the craze, but also from like uh some sort of attachment, like they didn't make like the the wrestlers themselves, like the stars of the films. They were kind of like um jumping on a trend of like exploiting the settings. So you've got like a Channel Reta's Lost the Ring, uh TikTok Avison's Fully Ring, René Cardona's La Love of the Ring, which was all about like putting the ring as this kind of like salacious element of like, oh, you'll see a lot of like low-culture working class people and all their like dealings and the backroom kind of like style of like people just wrestling each other, and eventually that kind of led to this um like taste for these kind of films. Because again, in 1955, the Mexican government decided to ban like the TV broadcast of wrestling because they thought they thought like that influenced badly on the well-being of the Mexican children. And actually, at that moment, basically, essentially what happened to like uh like put like into the Provision Era, that was the opportunity for the film industry to say, like, okay, so TVs can't broadcast like uh wrestling matches. So we create films around the figures that people want to see on wrestling uh matches. So basically what started out, and it actually wasn't like Santo himself, who was like the first one, but just like a funny bit, is like that the first uh one of the first like Mexican wrestling films is called El Enmascado Plata, but for contractual reasons they couldn't get Santo, so the actual Enmascarado Plata in that film is El Medico Asesino, which is another like uh uh Consejo Mundial Chaliuri kind of like icon of that era. I guess I wanted to also uh ask you like how was like the that first experience itself, just like watching these films in terms of their amalgamation of elements, and as Chris was saying, perhaps the like the early ones in particular have this some remnants, so what's like the like uh classical precision of the golden era of Mexican cinema?

SPEAKER_05 7:30

Yeah, I was thinking af actually after what Oko was just saying, um I was thinking about the process by which you accept Santo as the protagonist of these films. Um because for me, by the by the end of this process watching uh 8 for this podcast, I had fully accepted him as just the kind of normal protagonist of these films and just enjoyed seeing him and so on. And I watched uh Santo vs Dr. Death uh on an airplane. I was kind of self-conscious of the people who might be looking over my shoulder because only then did I realize ah yeah, Santo is you know, he's always wearing a mask. He's wearing a mask in every scene of this film, and I was trying to imagine what these people might be thinking that I was watching, which is essentially this kind of early 70s spy like James Bond ripoff, but the protagonist is like uh Lutador wearing a mask in every single scene, including procedural scenes, which I think gets to the idea of kind of buying into this image in a way, which you know, watching a lot of these films I was able to do personally. You know, I know that the kind of reception and rediscovery of these films to some extent outside of Mexico and outside of Latin America was built around how ridiculous the basic concept is, you know, which is famously uh as Oiko has been screenshotting quite extensively, uh Santo sitting at a desk wearing his mask. Sorry. Yeah, but these scenes, you know, these scenes where Santo is kind of doing like civilian activities, but he's wearing his mask. But also in the later films when he's making out with beautiful women and he's still wearing the mask. Uh there are these um I think it's these things that that have given these films some longevity outside of Latin America. But when I watch them now, that's becoming less and less part of the experience, and more the Santo element is just something that I buy into, you know, that he's this kind of like weird recurring figure in all these films, no matter what time period they're set in, no matter what the plot is, no matter if it's you know a gothic horror or a kind of universal horror ripoff or a spy comedy or a film with lepers, a western with lepers, you know, um, which I think you know if I wanted to sound high for Lutin is kind of gets to the idea of like a cinophile obsession in a way, you know, and like believing in the image somehow, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 10:06

Actually, like the like the earliest Santo films, uh, and again it's something that perhaps it's important to say, um, is like despite how much uh enthusiasm we might have for like the Santo figure and these films, uh the reality is like uh perhaps just like the Dorish Wishman films, they were done like in a very cynic way by Mexican film studios. They were just like, okay, we have to like make them as quickly as possible, like uh like with as low as a budget as possible, just like get them out as as soon as we can. And actually, like during like 1960 to 1968, like 63 films were made with different like Mexican wrestlers, which like the 38, I think 23, 38% of them are just like Santo films. So he basically composed like more than a third of like the whole production. This like a sub-genre of Mexian wrestlers, wrestling films. Uh but the early ones actually, it's kind of like you can see them kind of like um testing in real time, like what these films could be. Because uh, I know you you guys didn't see them, but like uh the first two, like Santo contra el Cerebro del Mal and Santo contra el Sombres Infernales, uh Evil Reigns and Infernal Men, they were both shot in 58 in uh pre-revolutionary Cuba because it was like uh like they could evade some taxes there and it was like easier to them. And they were shot simultaneously because they basically got some like pillow shots of like the Cuban like uh people just walking on the port and they were like, Yeah, yeah, this will work. And if you see those both of both of those films, you can actually see like the same shots one uh over and over again used in in both of them, despite having different um plots. Like one of them is just like a mobster film, and the other one is kind of like a like mad scientist film. But in those films, actually, Santo isn't really he's kind of like a guest the guest appearance because uh Joaquin Corotero, which is like a kind of like a classic uh golden era Mexican like hard rock character, he's kind of like the main like doctor detective kind of character, and Santo is kind of essentially like a Deus Ex Machina that's just like, oh, what can we do now? And there's like Santo appears and solves like the solves whatever is going on, and also in that case, uh you have to kind of put like the uh parallelism of what was going on like in the Mexican film industry, because again, like the golden age of Mexican cinema is from basically from like the late 30s to like uh mid-50s, and when they start doing these like Santo films, uh like the Mes Lucha films in general, it's like a period of like a lot of like decadence because like TV became a thing, and so we're like, okay, so we'll keep doing this like as cheaply then as possible. We just like start to embarking on like B films, even before like the like the Santo films, uh as we perhaps saw in like the Locano Retrospective. These kind of like uh erratic filmmakers like Reno Cardona, Benito Lazaraki, uh all these guys like basically started out like during like the decadent period of like the Mexican film industry, and those is when when we start seeing like the golden age of like lucha films, is uh ironically where like the film industry was kind of like agonizing, so you can get away with this like kind of like yeah, yeah, just like throw Santo in there and like throw some zombies.

SPEAKER_05 12:48

But it makes sense as an introduction, no? I mean that that that makes a lot of sense that you know he would start off as a kind of sidekick because in a way he doesn't have any of this kind of shading of a traditional protagonist. You know, I think it would be against common sense to you know cast him as the lead. But then quickly, I guess they realize that's what people were drawn to in some way, no? Santo Control of Zombies is like it's interesting that that's kind of the third film because to me that's also quite a fully formed and perfect expression of like a certain moment in this the kind of Santo cycle because that one is so I mean so good, also, you know, that's like a point there's a point where yes it's cheap, but it's you know, like they there was a certain kind of um Baroque quality to those images. I think you compared it to Tornot, and it is kind of like this sort of secondhand Tono, uh uh which is like quite effective, and like it's still using you know Mise en Sen in the way that the later films had sort of you know cast cast by the wayside, but you know, there's like these kind of long camera movements through spaces, there's silence and so on, and then at some point Santo appears to like uh beat up the zombies. And also it's uh you know it's interesting, also we I mean we can get into this later, but there there is an interesting tension in the Santo character himself that he is both kind of this kind of mythable Superman-like figure and also he gets beaten up a lot. You know, it it's it's is he he is this in the end, of course, he's a Superman, but you in a lot of these movies you see him get his ass kicked, including in uh Santo contra los zombies, like there's a scene where outside the the zombies uh I think rob a bank or some kind of like safe deposit box and Santo appears and they're outside the the building and these zombies beat up the security guards and then they beat up Santo and then this is this kind of long shot of the grass where Santo is just lying completely unconscious for 20 seconds, and I'm like, oh okay. Because both you know, that's like very characteristic of these films that both those elements can be true within the same film, that he's both a Superman and someone who's kind of you know uh constantly getting slapped around. And uh in the later films, I mean you see him often wrestling with people who like really beat him up for a long, long time.

SPEAKER_01 15:20

I also noticed that he always receives the first blow. Maybe that's a generalization, but I I from the scenes I remember I started to like memorize, I started to like look carefully if it's the case or not. But um I can say that most of the part he always gets the first blow, and then like to to a certain extent this keeps uh ongoing and then like uh the holy spirit of the luchadores maybe just come and help him, and then he just reversed the action. But also I think that tension uh is inherent to the person his personality itself because um there's this I mean El Santo, it's the holy quality, right? The protector of the society, there's this virtues that are associated with him, and he's often portrayed as the representation of the good. But then you also have the scenes, it's in Dr. Death, I think. Um he meets with a girl, he already has a girlfriend in the film, but then he meets with a blonde and they go on a ride, and then that he immediately starts kissing him. So it's not a very virtuous thing to do.

SPEAKER_05 16:35

On one hand, these are completely unself-aware films, and on the other hand, they are quite aware of their own sort of postmodern tendencies, because like this each film is able to contain like contradictions that I mean uh like when you try to explain them to someone, it doesn't really make sense, like you just have to kind of believe it. Like either you have faith in these films or you don't. I mean, to me, even more than Santo himself, like the fact that he's in a silver mask no matter what he does. The most incongruous elements of these films I think are those wrestling matches because it's almost kind of pornographic in a way, you know, it's like like watching like hardcore pornography because you're watching a story and then you say, Ah, okay, now it's this part. Even in the films by the better directors, the directors who have more of a sense of style, it doesn't matter when the wrestling match is there, you know, it's shot in the most kind of pedestrian clear way possible because it's just trying to give people it's trying to tick the box of something that they wanted when they went to the cinema, you know. So, and and and we you know we've joked also that you know it's like a 75-minute film and there's three wrestling matches, and each one is 10 minutes. So, you know, but somehow like the films are able to sustain that, and that's also part of the the weird spell of these films is that they like are able to like combine all those elements and still somehow hold together.

SPEAKER_01 17:58

And I think one of the interesting parts of the entire films that we watched is the way in which different filmmakers or different films try to incorporate through gimmicks the wet wrestlers and the wrestler matches, because there's always someone who either embodies the wrestler, like a Martians brainwashed a wrestler, or they have this crazy machine that they replicate Blue Demon. So there are several ways in which a filmmaker can incorporate a wrestling match, and these strategies, even though they're quite incongruous, as you said, I like the effort and I like seeing the threads or similar threads uh traveling, uh navigating from one film to another. Because even how no matter how many directors there are, I think there are some uh Asanto Canon that makes you once you watch more and more um makes you recognize these elements and enjoy them more.

SPEAKER_00 19:01

Like a stealing wrestler is kind of like uh energy, it's kind of like a thing that has been like ripped up multiple times. Like the first one that did it was like Ladón de Cadáveres in 57, which is a Fernando Mendes film uh of the El Vampiro fame, if you know that you're a Mexican B-Cinema. Uh and that one actually was like a pre-Santo film, so the wrestling stars in that one are like Clox Alvarado and Wolf Rubinsky's. But just talking about the filmmakers itself, you can really tell about like which filmmakers kind of like align themselves more with like the spirit of the Santo films better, because the first one were done with uh Jostelito Rodriguez, which was kind of like a like melodrama filmmaker from the golden that kind of phase of the golden era. And you can see that tension of he doesn't really know what to do with Santo. Uh he had like a film with Urekan Ramirez, which was like another like uh emblematic like wrestler of the 1950s, but it was done more so in like an earnest melodrama of like uh our wrestling family, and he's like teaching his kid to like wrestle, and like there's like the social hardships, and then he comes to Santo films and it's like okay, so so there's none of that here. And then you start seeing uh because uh as Chris mentioned, like the elements of like Santor to the zombies and how he has like this kind of like uh archaeological pictures kind of like like gothicness about it. That's because it was done by Benito Lazaraki, which is uh known for like uh classic B movies like uh Muñecas Invernales and Espiritismo. So you he already had this kind of way of like basically this way like this came like, okay, so I know how to do this, and then I just need to find a way of like getting Santo in this city. In sixty-two, just to like a transition to perhaps like the best known of these films, uh Santo contra la mujer vampiro, Santo against the vampire. You can also see that in Alfonso Corona Lake, because I think despite him having also kind of like a journeyman career, as most of these filmmakers did, I think he like the way he kind of like he and Santo kind of like aligned is something that's very, very difficult to replicate. After I mean this film happened very early on. We r rarely got to that same like the heights of this film later on.

SPEAKER_05 22:06

It's an interesting one because of course the protagonists in that film are women, vampire women. So you see all the ways that the filmmaker that uh Alfonso Carona Blake wants to find a way around just showing Santo beating up women, which I think like would wouldn't necessarily play well with the audience. So in that film, it's almost like the the plot kind of resolves itself besides Santo, you know, like it and and that's one of the weird things about that film to me is that it's like such a great film, like such an amazing object, and yet it's really like kind of two films, you know, in a way that even Santo Control Zombies isn't. Each of these filmmakers like finds different ways to resolve that, and sometimes they don't even resolve it. That's the fascinating thing. Sometimes they just leave it as is, and somehow it works. Somehow there's like a weird logic to this universe that it doesn't really matter, you know.

SPEAKER_01 23:02

While I was watching these films, I thought about Scooby-Doo.

SPEAKER_05 23:05

Big time.

SPEAKER_01 23:07

Because Scooby-Doo uh itself is inspired by serials, obviously, and this also goes back to serials, but um from the structure, the way we watch these films, feels like that Santo was actually a serial, and then we have these central plots that are not necessarily related to him, but through his quality of superhero or superpowers, or this is in his intelligence, his knowledge in in the with the supernatural world or with the intelligence, uh spy intelligence, he just becomes involved with them. And once you get this perception of continuity, you're on board. You it's fine, and it doesn't bother you as much as not seeing him until almost half of the film. There's also a similarity, maybe which doesn't work in Diabolical X, because that film also has an ex extensive world building as uh vampire woman, because we have this whole lore with the moon, with the vampires. So the film wants you to like understand that background to finally get in the action. And I think Diabolical X also tries to extensively explain why all these people are coming together.

SPEAKER_00 24:24

Yeah, in that sense, they kind of tried a lot of times to kind of like give them some sense of like lore building and kind of structure. Actually, they tried to make Santo serial, uh particularly with the Federico Curiel films in the early 1960s, which are three films uh which Santo has some sort of sidekicks in like a detective and like a journalist. There are um things you didn't see them, but it's like Rel Bay del Crimen, Lotel de la Muerte, and Santo contra el Cerebro Diablo. And they're I mean they aren't really like that formally inventive. They you can really see these were kind of like thought about as like second half, like, yeah, just put them on TV at some point and just pay there. But then those kind of structures immediately collapse because the filmmakers then didn't have like resources and there's like a lot of like erratic like uh issues, things happening with like where Santo like eventually a lot of film studios in Mexico where like as soon as they could, they just like offer Santo a lot of money, or like some sort of like decent money, or like just open the other bits so that he can like switch to their studio so they can make money out of his figure. So actually you can see that when they uh he does like uh Against a Viper Woman in 62, goes to this series of like uh films, I think, all in 62-63. And in 63 he goes back to another film with uh Benito Alazraki, which is uh against in the Wax Museum. So he tries the serial route and then he's like, okay, or the film producer are like, okay, we this didn't work, we'll go back to like Gothic Santo, and they'll do Wax Museum and Acha Diabolica. And you can see as essentially, as I was mentioning earlier, just like this back and forth of like film studios starting to like see in real time so what sticks, what's making money, yeah, we'll just get Santo on that train.

SPEAKER_05 25:47

El Acha Diabolica is like the kind of there's there's a s sort of kind of repeat quality to that one. Maybe I just need to see it again, but to me that was kind of like uh a sort of third-generation gothic version of those earlier films because those films are quite um, despite their cheapness, quite opulent in some way. Whereas by the final 30 minutes of um of the La El Gia Diabolica is like um Santo in these like bear rooms walking around like searching for some kind of clue, you know. Which is also like a certain taste in these films that maybe like the more of these films you watch, the more you like get affection for scenes of Santo walking around bear rooms. Um but I think like the opening of that film is like so amazing, so like weird also. It's like one of the great weird moments of a Santo film that it's set, I think, in is it 1603?

SPEAKER_00 26:45

That's like colonial like Mexico.

SPEAKER_05 26:48

Yeah, and you and you see these uh like monks in the mountains carrying uh a dead body, and then you realize that the dead body is Santo. Which I don't know if that's the first time in these movies that it's hinted that Santo is like kind of an eternal presence and like is also an eternal presence in the sense that he's like wearing his glittered cape and his like silver mask.

SPEAKER_01 27:11

I think in I think in Vampire Woman also, he he's referred as this descendant of this man who has who had superpowers in the past. So maybe they're connected.

SPEAKER_00 27:22

Yeah, well in El Reidal Crimen tried to give him a backstory as well, which immediately is dropped off where he's like, oh, he's just like he was called Roberto and he put on a mask and then he dedicated his life to fighting crime, which yeah, doesn't work with the mythical figure that they were going for.

SPEAKER_05 27:35

I mean you and you you see it in these like these films that are set in various stages of the past that like Santo still has his mask, he still has his cape in um lepers and sex. I mean it's hard to say exactly when that film is set, but I think you know early 20th century at least. And Santo is wearing this kind of like blue corduroy shirt. It's like and there's no there's no effort to I mean acknowledge or to like integrate that somehow that he's like a time traveler or whatever. I mean they kind of just accept him, diabolical acts as the film, like that that opening is like for me one of those like great weird moments in a Santo film that's like okay, this is like this is where this franchise is going. Like it's a it's a jump the shark, as they say.

SPEAKER_00 28:19

Well, there's plenty of moments like that in the in the Santo uh filmography.

SPEAKER_05 28:23

Yeah, well it's interesting that they jump the shark within two years.

SPEAKER_01 28:28

And and what do you think of the blue uh demon and monsters film? Because that's also an interesting uh object of a UFO. Uh you have the monsters, but they're quite colorful. Um, they're quite campy in their appearances, so we don't have that much of a gothic scare or uh atmosphere in that film. Kind of had at in the beginning a hard uh time entering to the to the atmosphere, to the feeling of it. Whereas I think it's it's more uh it's felt more similar to the Turkish uh ripoff than because you have all these like uh uh archetype archetypical figures of horror cinema. Mummy, vampire woman, wolfman, this like it's the Avengers of um Gothic heroes.

SPEAKER_00 29:22

Yeah, uh well, talking about blue demon, also just to give that context, uh Santo the Santo was perhaps the first one that made it big in these films. So naturally, like uh all the students were like, okay, quick, what's the second biggest star? Okay, we got like blue demon there, we got Milmascaras. We had actually before that, also they got Neutron, which was not was a uh persona created for Wolf Rowinski to be like a lucha or superhero as well. And that's where Federico Curial comes from in his like a wrestling film uh expertise. So actually in the first Blue Demon film, they kind of like try to have Santo guest appear and tell like the audience, like, you see, Blue Demon can also do this, he'll also be fighting crime, so please go watch his films as well, essentially, during the film, uh, which is uh Blue Demon against uh El Poe Satanicu, which the Blue Demon films also kind of like basically became intertwined with the Santo films as the like the film studios were like again like agonizing and thinking like a game, well Santo films are getting stale with the audience, we need to throw something in. And by the end, actually, you see like Santo with like various different figures, and that happens throughout his like the film career. Even before that, uh Fernando Osez, which was another like a wrestler, he appears in some of the like early 60s films. I don't think anyone oh yeah, in El Lacha de Olica, that's supposed that was supposed to be like a start-started cast because you got Santo, you got Lorena Velasquez, uh, which was of like La Luchadora's fame, and one of like the uh like like figures of like the Mexican golden age, uh particularly the rumberas, like Jarman, and Fernando's which was uh luchador, and it was like, yeah, this definitely be like a hit, and it kind of wasn't. So then immediately switched to this kind of like more as you can see this period particularly that what was referring to like this transition in the late 1960s to the more like erratic and psychotronic like Santo films where like the gothic elements are this like kind of like the last repnants of like the technical prowess, I guess, of the golden age are like clearly gone by now. So you'll see also this change to color uh as they like like quickly edited. You can see like uh random cuts, you can see like a lot of like very stiff acting as well, uh particularly in like the leopards and sex, which we'll get into that. But yeah, talking specifically about Contra los Monstruos, that that one is one of my favorite ones actually, but particularly because it's like just such like difficult to describe because it's just like these sequences, so they're just like beating up like this like kind of like all all all all cast like uh secondhand like Universal Monsters, uh, on these like stiff suits, and each different like universal monster has like their own way of appearing on the screen, and they just like find their way of like okay, so we need them to be in the same like frame with Santa or Blue Demon. So, how can we do that? And the the answer isn't necessarily that that uh exciting all the time, but just like the iconographic power of these films, which is something that Chris was alluding to, always gets to me. Uh, even in Lachedaolica, just seeing Santo like roaming around like colonial like architecture, I'm like, yeah, I mean this is cinema, you know, or like in Santor and Blue Demon, like the crash zooms they do with the Cyclops in particular, I'm like, yeah, you know, this is what's going on. Uh but in this period as well, um, talking about like uh against Los Monstruos and also the other kind of like going back to its like esoteric realm of like gothic horror figures, I think we also you also vote so against um the Martian invasion.

SPEAKER_05 32:18

Yeah, I mean I think actually maybe that's how I would answer the Los Monstruos as well, is that to be clear, you know, I'm talking about eight movies here out of so many, so I'm sorry for the generalizations and like misin-misrepresentations that are kind of inevitable in that sense. But this this kind of late 60s period, of which I think Santo vs The Martian Invasion was like for me the kind of archetypical film of that moment. That's where I'm like less interested in a way because I see like that's the that's the part where they're they they haven't their commercial instincts haven't pushed them to something else yet, but they're still kind of running the wheels on what they were trying to do three years before. Um because uh Control is Monstros, it's like to me, as you said, I mean it's like perfectly just succumbed to all of the like terrible traits of the 70s that I love. Um, and it's just like shot in this completely like televisual style, like there's zero mise en scène. Uh it's just like kind of but it's giving me everything I want from a Santo film, you know, and like I I I enjoy that movie so much like for its like purely like base commerciality, because in a way it seems like designed for me in some ways. Um whereas the Martian Invasion, like that's that's yeah, they're still kind of stuck in the mud a little bit, and I see how it's like you know, had the Martian Invasion been made like maybe three years before, it would have been kind of an amazing film, but in that period it's like very stark in some way, like very spare. Um there is the like obviously amazing goofy elements that like you can talk about, like why, for example, these Martians, like these tall, muscular, blonde people, and like why do they wrestle Santo rather than just like disintegrate him like they do with everyone else? Like, you know, there are there's like those kind of camp elements that you could talk about, but the film is like quite Spartan in some way, and not so like it it it's kind of for me at least like the worst middle between like the opulent gothic like style of those early films and then the no-style 70s, which I also love, you know. So it's just it's it's like trying to find a middle route that I can't quite like wrap my head around in some way.

SPEAKER_01 34:38

So it's taking itself way too seriously than it should and trying to heat up the nachos of the early 60s santo whereas whereas uh monsters is just like sheer full-blown chaos and campiness.

SPEAKER_05 34:55

And also like it has like these crazy camp moments, like you know, both the Dracula and the Wolfman like kill people by biting them on the neck, so it's like hard to distinguish those two. Or like the amazing scene where there's like this uh tracking shot across all the monsters is they're in this like brain machine like with attached to their head, and like some of the monsters are much shorter than the others, so they barely fit in the machine, and then it gets and then it gets to the Cyclops, who's like so much bigger, and he's kind of kind of crammed into this machine, and like you know, like it's beautiful. Like to me, that's like perfection.

SPEAKER_01 35:29

My favorite one was Cyclops because you definitely see uh production design working so hard on creating that monstrosity. But I felt that uh Dracula always got us like a special treatment in the film because we have the in the in the end, no spoilers, but we get an extensive, uh like long scene of how they destroy Dracul Dracula. Whereas other monsters, we never see them what happens, like they just like disappear. But with Dracula, maybe it's as like a even in other films, Dracula comes back, it's like a nemesis.

SPEAKER_05 37:36

In the way that in frankly better-made films you don't notice those things. Um, but also it's interesting, like to me as a Mexican cinema fan to see a lot of these kind of directors who have made amazing, amazing films make some of the worst Santo films, or the films that I like the least. Santo vs. the Martian Invasion is directed by Alfredo B. Crevena, who directed uh Muchachas de Uniforme, which I think is like one of the best Mexican films. Uh but I also see that he also directed Santo's penultimate film, The Fist of Death. I think it's the last Santo film that even has like any personality, but it's not well regarded at all. So you know it's just like you see that, you see Alfonso Corona Blake, you see uh Renny Cardona, the like workhorse of Mexican cinema. Um like you just see all these these guys who like sometimes would make really amazing films, like would be really switched on, would be like amazing. I wouldn't say visionary, but like something close to visionary stylist, and then they would make this film and it's like you know, uh medium shots in like flatly lit rooms. So it's like but it I think that's beautiful in a way, like you know, it's like that's really tuning into a moment, uh seeing how they deal with the fact that they, you know, maybe they made these like gothic horror vampire melodramas, whatever, and then they suddenly have to deal with a guy who's like in a mask and has like no personality uh beyond like his nobility and uh fearlessness, and they have to like find a way to deal with that. They have to like find a way to juggle these elements, and some of them do it really well, some not so much. Some of them do it really well in one film, and then they do it badly in the next film. You know, it's like very fascinating to me.

SPEAKER_00 39:23

Speaking of three different things you just mentioned, which are like Renek Cardona, these reputable films, and Oigos mentioned in vampires. Uh, I think those all three things collide in uh El Vampiro y El Sexo, which is perhaps more one of the most controversial entries in the whole like Santo canon. And also Cardona is interesting because again, like Chris was saying, it's supposed to he's one of like the work workhorses of like the thrashing Mexican cinema, and he's done like a lot of films I love, even like like wrestling films I love, like particularly his Lower del Ring series, I think is like his best work in like the lucha genre. Then he always seems kind of off with Santo because I've also seen like um El Tesoro Montezuma, which I I can see why, like I can see like the first instances of like a sexy Santo film in there, because that one features uh Jorge Rivero, which was his kind of like a magazine stud of like a 1960s Mexico, and in that film he basically has a self-plot of just like seducing women and making out with like hot blonde woman, and there's like Maura Monti as well, which is just uh like a female spy, uh Maura Monty of like uh the bad woman fame. So you can see that those started like the 60s like sex plotation and like a kind of this lazy film kind of getting in in the Santo realm, and that leads into like the again, like the infamous El Vampiro del Sexu, which was released in Mexico as El Tesoro de Drácula, because again, in Mexico there was no way you could release like a Santo film with sex in it, despite Santo not being part of sex, because again, like the mystique of this, like they take it very seriously, like the mystique of like a luchadores and their persona in ring, particularly Santo was still performing in in Arena, Mexico, uh, which again is like the cathedral of like a lucha libre in the world. El Consejo de Lucha Libre is has the banner of like the series and stable, which is basically they uh unlike the American wrestling and even European wrestling that basically start like diverging into more like uh spectacular ways of like storytelling, like Consejo de Lucha Liberi has a very like a strict way of no lucha libre is only this, it's only like technical wrestling, it's only like this like kind of like almost like non-descript characters with different masks, and that's all it should be. And I mean that's a very controversial thing, but they managed to like succeed all these years. And that one of their figures, that their like moneymaker, Santo, would appear in like a trashy film with sex, it's just like there's no way you can do that simultaneously, and then try to sell tickets for like Domingo Familiar, which is like the family, uh the family like lucha events. So in Mexico was this release at El Tesoro de Drácula without the sexy elements, and in Europe it was like actually released at El Vampiro del Sexo, uh Elijo el Santo, which uh as the name suggests is Santo's son. He's he's better known like by hardcore wrestling fans because he he made was more like a serious wrestler, he didn't do a lot of films and things like that. He actually denied the existence of these like sexy santo films for a lot of years. He said, like, no, those films don't exist, don't like taint the legacy of my father, I'll actually sue you if you like screen these films, which was the case when they restored El Vampiro del Sexu. He it was supposed to show in Guadalajara and Leo Santo made like a whole campaign of like no, you can't show this film because it'll like again like taint the legacy of like the purity of Santo and Michelle Yuri.

SPEAKER_05 42:15

Yeah, I I read actually that there was it was a kind of um because the I think at this point like the Santo film started to get made by the Calderon brothers again, which I think was also the early films, like those exploitative uh uh Cuban films, uh the the earliest ones, and then I think like they were moving throughout different studios. Um but I understood that Santo himself had a kind of like gentleman's agreement with uh Guillermo Calderon uh that like okay, you can make uh the this like more softcore version, but like you cannot show it on the territory of Mexico. Uh El Vampiro y los sexos, and also then like uh uh Los Leprosos y el sexo. Like can you get like a more blunt title than that?

SPEAKER_01 43:09

It's as if someone asked, like, what's in this film? And it's just lepers and sex.

SPEAKER_05 43:14

But like somehow vampires and sex makes more sense. That sounds like kind of a Jess Franco or Jean Rollin film, but like lepers and sex it's like really rubbing in the neck. Yes. Well, it's and when you watch that film, I mean, which was made, I mean, I think there's like two golden years in Santos output, as far as I can see, which is like 1961 and 1970, where it's like especially in 1970, like holy shit, like there were so many films, like very different. I mean, like also the Los Monstruos, I think, is 1970 as well. So, like you have in the same year, uh, like the Ultimate Camp Santo film, which is like cheap, exploitative, ripping off all these like monsters you see. Santo engaging in this like fight with the Cyclops, where the Cyclops clearly can't see through the costume, so it's just like swinging, and it's like the most pathetic fight in all these films. And then, like in uh lepers and sex, it's that kind of like a didactic western in a way, you know, like characters like pausing throughout the film to like say like we should treat people with leprosy like human beings.

SPEAKER_01 44:23

Compassion and mercy.

SPEAKER_05 44:25

Yeah, and it's like I mean, it's I wouldn't say well shot because it looks like yeah, like this TV, like long-lanes TV style, but like it's got it's got something. It's got something in those. So like you see, like within the space of one year, there's like this softcore like leprosy film, and then also like the monsters, and I'm sure others that I'm forgetting as well.

SPEAKER_01 44:46

I think, yeah, as you said in vampire in the vampire in the treasure of uh Dracula film, like sexuality is kind of inherent to Dracula's uh mythology. So maybe I understand that it caused scandals, but I think Los Replos is even more scandalous than because the the the disease itself is quite serious, and then you just like cut to a scene. I'm I think we're talking about the same scene, like he one of the bandits, he just like goes into barges into a room and he take hostage, take hostage one of the women, and then they just like she resisted, resisted, and then she's like, Okay, well, what the hell? Sure.

SPEAKER_00 45:32

Yeah, you can see like the the musical cue that kind of changes, it's like like uh like the tense like uh abduction sequence, and as soon as like they start like getting into it, it's like music changed to like this like smooth, like sultry jazz. Like it's like that that I remember I saw that film actually in the cinema in Rotterdam when they premiered that that that restoration.

SPEAKER_05 45:53

It was one of the most uncomfortable like sequences ever, just seeing that life with an audience because kind of like in in lepers and sex, like I was thinking about Wishman because particularly um Let Me Die a Woman, in the sense that that film was like this kind of supposed like sort of like affectionate, not love letter, but like a kind of gesture of like affection to these people. But then when you watch the film, it's like horribly exploitative and like just combining like sympathy and exploitation in one gesture. And this film is like that, you know, like it's simultaneously like scolding you to treat lepers like humans, and then just like cutting to these like leering shots of their like wounds, and how horrible they look, look how ugly they are.

SPEAKER_01 46:36

And then yeah, and then it's like and then there's a love story involving one of them.

SPEAKER_05 46:41

Yeah, there's a love story involving the lepers, and there's also this like weird like straw dog style rape slash she was into it thing, like with as you said, like this weird music cue, like this movie like somehow contains it all, and then we're not even we haven't even mentioned the fact that it fucking stars Santo, which is like so weird, you know, like all everything we've just said has nothing to do with Santo, but about like halfway through this like leper-themed western, they're like, Oh, there's this guy. You don't have a friend, yeah. And it's like, wait, isn't this set in the early 20th century? Like, what the hell's going on? And so Santo comes, and then like this is this like obviously obligatory wrestling sequence, and then he's in the story, then it's Santo's story, you know, and it's like, and as I alluded earlier, it was kind of weird to me because I think it's the only film where I notice people making fun of Santo a little bit. Like when he arrives, people say, Oh, what is that silver mask that you're wearing? It's like, wow, oh my god, someone's acknowledging that this guy is not just a normal character, because in the other films nobody ever acknowledges that. It's just like, oh yeah, of course, he's like uh he's Santo. Everybody knows that.

SPEAKER_00 47:51

I like to think that Lenin Cardona really like uh getting into like the mystique of like the Western genre of this like out-of-town character that then comes to save the town, but his first like a kind of like the the town folk are skeptical of him because he doesn't look and he doesn't speak like the other characters. So in a way, I see like there's some like tradition there of Cardona and his uh pure cinophilia showing in there. And then also this period in the 70s, uh 1970 itself, also, just to mention like a couple of other like extra films. Uh there's actually my favorite Santo film, which uh I know you guys didn't see because it doesn't have like any kind of subtitles uh subtitles, which is uh El Mundo de Muertos, which I I think the only comparison I can think of is like um Hercules in the Haunted World, the Marihua film, if it started like Santon Blue Demon. So it's basically them going to hell. Uh so a lot of like Celo Cachal in there as well, which you get a lot of these hell, like colorful hell sequences with these like wrestlers, and I find that like just like again like beautiful and like uh just a pure visual level. And in 70 also they kind of tried to like hunt down like the nostalgia for the success of like against the vampire woman, and then you have like the vengeance of the vampire woman, which um was done by Federico Curiel again, which was one of the early Santo serials uh films, and he also did like Momento Guanajuato. So in 1970, he has like I think like eight films, and this is supposed to be like after the prime of the golden age. This this year was like kind of like when all these productions were kind of getting out, and you can really see them slow down afterwards because they weren't actually that successful anymore, and they just released like seven or eight of them in the same year, so like audiences were like, I think um we might be good with this like whole Santon Devour.

SPEAKER_01 49:24

And can we talk about uh increase in the violence? Because I think uh Leopers and Sex had quite a lot of violence compared to the ones I watched, like maybe the most violent one with the like and even also the like the antagonist character itself was quite evil compared to some some other evils, villains that that are not necessarily that much of an evil, whereas here it's like a pure, uh bad faith, evilness, and yeah.

SPEAKER_05 49:49

It's also I think it's like the the film that I've seen, like definitely the Western that I've seen where people get shot in the back the most. It's like a crazy trope in this film. I think there's like five people who get just like violently shot in the back as they're running away. So it's true that like there's this like Santo, the saint, who's like unimpeachable, and he's like in a world of just absolute evil, like amoral violence, and it's like somehow those two can coexist in the same film. But yeah, you're right, it's like in that film it's really weirdly shocking.

SPEAKER_01 50:22

Yeah, because we're also like accustomed to Santo not using any guns or any knives, so he just like wrestles he or he tries to like win through his own willpower on his own force. Whereas here we have this world that everything is uh settled through guns. But but I I also want to go back to Zedoka show because I feel like they're just like the exact opposites of each other, as but who would win?

SPEAKER_00 50:51

Oh Santo, I mean Santo has the technical grapping skills, like no, no nobody can match like a good old old-fashioned map wrestling, you know.

SPEAKER_02 50:59

Santo machos, porque esta es tierra de hombres, amiguito, no podemos con esos asesinos. Usted no es capaz de vencer a un hombre como yo. Ni siquiera como este. Y ahora que me acuerdo, tapada porque anda oyendo de la justicia. O es usted one of the leprosos. No, señor. Ni me persigue la justicia, ni soy un leproso. Pues fíjese, pichon. Me gustaría quitarle la carnetta para ver si me hace.

SPEAKER_05 52:21

This is a bit of a like digression, but wasn't there kind of beef between Santo and Blue Demon originally? Wasn't that like the the start of the mythos together?

SPEAKER_00 52:30

In character, like in Kfabe, as they say, which is like the wrestling like narrative world, that they are kind of antagonists. Like Blue Demon used to play heal in Arena Mexico. Healed means like the villain. Uh actually that goes with to what Oiko was mentioning, which uh uh I wanted to um acknowledge as well, which is that the structure of the matches in uh wrestling is when you have like a heroic character or like a babyface, as they call, uh technico in Mexico, they start out like getting getting like beat down because then you can like hype the crowd as they make their comeback. So you can really tell that in the like the how they structure the fights in the early Santo films. Because again, Santo is like, oh no, how can Santo overcome this? And they'll he'll naturally overcome it, but then you you get that sense of like uh of sitting down on the dust, and it's like, yeah, go come on, Santo, you can do it. And that's like what gets a crowd in Anamehiko hyped. So they that same like structure of the match, it's interesting to see like superimposing film. Um Blue Demon, yeah, originally he was like Santo's biggest rival, but in the films they used to just like show up as bodies. Uh actually, I think that's also one of the main elements I enjoy about like uh Against the Monsters, which is like despite being like uh mind controlled and anything, you get to see some like Santom Blue Demon action, which isn't necessarily as um um as usual as you will think in these films. You don't really get a lot of like other like wrestling characters like wrestling each other, and then has to do a lot of like uh the business of wrestling, which is this idea of like um protecting a wrestler. So if you're a big star, you don't really want to get like even I know it sounds ludicrous, but like even if you're like fighting like monsters and things like that, wrestlers think and promoters think that that will affect their persona, that the pain audience will think less of them if they get beat down like by any sort of like monster or all the wrestler. So I don't want to get that. They only sign up, okay, let me make sure that I'll win this match, even if it's in this like ludicrous like exploitation film. Like they have like these big eagles that need to maintain because that's like their like well-being as well.

SPEAKER_01 54:20

I mean, you clearly see that it's important because in Dr. Death, like the Interpol comes to him and he says, like, you got you got a mission, you have to like track these people down in Madrid, and he says, like, no, I got a match. I have I have a contract, I have to. So it it clear it's clear that it's important. By the way, I I was curious that if whether there are fanfictions of Blue Demon and Santo, but there are no there's no no heated rivalry. But maybe someone will listen to this episode and decide to explore that domain.

SPEAKER_00 54:57

Um my friend uh Karina Solorsano has a great piece about that. Actually, she wrote for like the Mexican Retrospective Locarno. She compares like uh Rumbera films, which are these kind of like uh cabaret dancers and um in Mexican film and how they're approached in their their bodies, and also how wrestling films kind of like accidentally do that, particularly in the early stage, and when you have like figures like Wolf Rowinski and like Fernando's and just like these films kind of like trying to make their physique imposing, and they kind of get to this element, so it also makes sense to me, like eventually they went like the sexy route as well. It's like a lot a lot of like uh heated tension was there regardless, I think.

SPEAKER_05 55:31

But like in those kind of soft core films, like the sex is kind of something separate in a way. Like there's like the wrestlers, there's the men, and there's wetty and hunky and like grappling with each other, and then the sex is like in another room with another man and the naked woman, and like it's a different kind of world. Like, and the two the two like you never see Santo fucking in these movies, that's pretty like Oh no no, that will never happen.

SPEAKER_00 55:56

That will never people will get shot, literally if that happened. There were like like riots on the streets.

SPEAKER_05 56:03

Yeah, like should we talk about Dr. Death? I mean that that was a movie that I chose literally just because um I realized there was a huge gap in my like planned viewing because there was uh 1970, like this like sort of golden year that we mentioned. Um and then in my list there was after that nothing until 1979. So I kind of just plucked this movie, like I think I saw Alonso gave it four stars, which is like huge recommendation from Alonso. So uh but I didn't really know what to expect. Like the title and the poster don't really like suggest anything specific. And I was really shocked to find like kind of a well-made movie. Uh it's fucking great. It's so good, and it's like and it's also like you know, I love many of these movies, but it's like it's obviously I'm saying well-made in quotation marks, but like it's well made in the way that none of those earlier films are, in the sense that it like integrates the kind of Santos story quite well, and it like functions basically as this sort of loungy spy comedy, or like light comedy sort of spy thriller, and it's like smooth and yeah, uh really bordering on respectable in some ways, but like despite that, I I really like I really liked it.

SPEAKER_01 57:22

This is a film you can recommend to your normal friend.

SPEAKER_00 57:26

Well, yeah, if they can get over the fact that it's like a mask wrestler is the protagonist, yeah, too.

SPEAKER_05 57:31

Which is which is of course very funny that there's this like elaborate art heist involving um like a sort of sleight of hand by um restorationist who wants to like keep the original paintings and is like whatever. So it's like an international art heist movie, and like the Mexican police like to solve this send Santo, like the famous wrestler. And of course, as with everything, he proves quite adept at uh solving this like mystery of the artist.

SPEAKER_00 58:03

So it's beautiful because it has this kind of like uh like international mystery kind of like style, very 1970s, I thought, and just like beautiful character names as like Dr. Robert Man, and like like naturally the villain lives in this like uh like Spanish castle that just happens to be his own, and all these like genre mannerisms in there, but also as Chris was saying, like it's like surprisingly like it doesn't feel as makeshift as like particularly like the early 70s Santo films, which because they were kind of struggling. Um I know we didn't see those films, but they were kind of struggling spiritually with what they wanted to be. Because in 69 they tried to make Santo like a family film figure with Santo uh versus Capolina, which Capolina is kind of like um slapsy comedian, like uh Cantinflash. And then actually they bring that same year, actually, the same year that Santo versus Dr. Dead, they bring uh Miguel Delgado, which is better known as basically directed a lot of like most famous Cantinflash films like El Padrecito and El Valero Raquel. So we were kind of trying to reframe Santo as some kind of like more like family-friendly Saturday morning kind of character, and then you get out of nowhere. This like random Spanish filmmaker, by the way. He's uh Rafael Romero Marchent, who directed this film, was kind of like better known for doing like this kind of like C tier Spanish westerns, uh like um Santana Kills them all, and Garringo, and like a lot of like this like films were made in Spain during this like the Franco dictatorship because they were kind of like um easier to make there, and not a lot of questions were being asked, uh kind of like post-Paghetti Western, and then you see him like tackle this like like mystery Santa film, and I think he does that very, very, very successfully, and it's also very colorful, not only like the visuals themselves, but like how it flows, as Chris was saying, like this loungy feel, despite being one of the longest Santo films, actually, which is I think it's 97 minutes, and it just flows like seamlessly. I think some of the 70 minutes films, despite me loving them, uh sometimes kind of drag a little bit when you get like these like insertions of like full matches in them. Yeah, it was kind of discovery because this one I hadn't seen. I I knew it was like uh one of the favorites for other like Santologists. Uh yeah, I was like, I think that that's one of the like the pure the best encapsulations of the 19th mid-1970s like Santo.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:08

Throughout the whole episodes we did, we all have this film that kind of catches you and transcends the homework that we do here and uh while watching the films. There are films that just kind of transcend. I think that was Wandering Gin Gins a butterfly for me with Meiko Kaji, and this was also the one with just like you watch it for Santo, but you also watch it for like a pure pleasure, and it just I think at some point you stopped caring, like uh because I always watch like taking notes or like not noticing details, and then it just becomes a fully transparent narrative. You're like, Yeah, I'm enjoying this, and that was the Dr. Death for me. It's very well shot as well. Like the opening sequence of the in the museum, the high scene is it's uh it's masterful, I think, the way he just like dangles in air, the the window panes and um the colourful window panes. Like there's a quite an aesthetic pleasure pleasure you have while watching those scenes. Um, but at the same time, I I also thought the intrigue itself was quite interesting. The the whole plot involving women like injecting them estrogen together, like a tumor. Who thinks like that? Like who had this idea? This is crazy. So elaborate for a Santo film. So I like those elements as well.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:36

Yeah, it also is interesting in Santo versus Doctor Death that this like if you look at the wrestling matches, like they are like much better integrated. Um I mean of course, also like part of this process is that like we have just watched many Santo films at this point, but I do think that is one kind of measurable difference in this film to the earlier films, is that like here, you know, like they're shot from like besides the ring, looking up, like there's more like that they're looking for more kind of cinematic angles to shoot the wrestling. So it doesn't it doesn't have the same like exhibition like quality that the earlier films have. Like it was like much like of course there's Santo in the film, so there has to be wrestling, but we can you know we can shoot it, like we can stage it, we can like find interesting angles, like it can be better integrated. And like I I don't want to make it sound like this film is respectable, like by any means. Like it is still uh like exploitative and like messy film, but like in a really beautiful way. And as you said, there's like the the Doctor Death element of the film, which is this like art collector who's like um yeah, extracting things from these like women who he's uh imprisoned and then like throwing them into this vat of what is that, acid or something? Which of course Yeah, so it has like this kind of like really like pulpy quality as well, and of course, like when things are going to hell in the end, other characters accidentally fall in the a the vat of acid and so on and so on. So like it still has all of the stuff that you want, it's just like a little bit more polished.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:16

Like that by this point in time, like some of the Santo films already played in Europe, particularly, they kind of became their own like cult icons, uh, particularly in the in the this this they contextualize and in the B-movie kind of sphere. Uh I don't think they were like as respected as well, uh, because eventually you also get like the as as uh think we mentioned at the start, like the Samsung the Samsung like the dubbing of the character, which was like perhaps how American uh audiences first experienced it, also like through like mystery uh science theater 3000, which was making fun of the films. So a lot of relations also kind of like changed over time, but I think in the 1970s there was clearly also like the expectation of like okay, these films could be internationally like accepted, and I think like Santo Dr. Dead is more aware of that, at least tries that, uh, which isn't the case for the latter ones. Although this like international spy film, like uh like loungy, like uh tone. I think it's what basically like starts being like the norm for these films afterwards. Not as successfully, I'll say, but uh I think we can also talk about but I think it's also one of the most successful examples of this. I think of Chris briefly says, which was like a mystery in Bermuda.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:17

I think this like one two punch with with Dr. Death really like helped me understand like this later period of Santo. I think my my instinct tells me that I was just lucky and I just like happened to land on two like two of the better ones. Mysterio in Las Bermudas is like uh If that if Doctor Death is a bit like relaxed, this one is like the fully like hoaxian like Atari vibe because it's just I I think it was shot in South Florida, again, connections to Mr. Wishman. Like it's reached a point in the series where the film's just it kind of acknowledging that you just want to like hang out with your buddies, Santo, Blue Demon, and Milmascaras, and it's like that's the movie, you know, like they it has like a preposterous plot that's like of course is like very funny, which is like to do with like the Bermuda Triangle and evil scientist and uh also there's like this like princess from Irania who's like also a karate master. Oh my god, it like has this absolutely absurd plot, which also like the scientist is like using the Bermuda Triangle myth to like disappear famous things, da da da da da. But like when you watch the movie, like you're basically just like spending the whole time hanging out with your buddies, you know, and it's like it's it's like the wrestlers, some beautiful babes that they're hanging out with. There's like a scene where they go to the gym, which is like amazing to me. Like one of my favourite scenes in a Santo film because you just like see the guys going to the gym and they're like they're still in shape, but they have like 60 year olds' bodies. So they're just like working out in the gym, hanging out with each other. It's like Bliss to me. Something that we didn't acknowledge, I think, is that Santo was born in 1917. So like and I think he started wrestling in the mid-30s, and then he became Santo in like the early 40s. So like this period that we're talking about. Even those like first films, like the the like the Las Mujeres Juan Peters, like that that like Santo at that time was what 40? So like his like earliest flowering as a film star was when he was 40 years old. So by the time of 1979 and Misterio and Las Balmuras, it's like how old is he then? Late 50s. Late 50s. And like he's looking and he's looking good. Like I'm I don't want to uh disparage him, like he's very fit, but he has like an older man's body. Um and so just like this, like and the filmmakers like of course they kind of understand that, so they just want to give you the the space to just hang out with him, and he's like with these beautiful women who are like in very loose-fitting clothes, and they're just like going to the beach, they're drinking margaritas, and there's like this like ambient crime plot. It's like there's like this like both barely acknowledged and also like really detailed. And I don't want to like well, I can't have to spoil the ending, but like it's not kind of immaterial, but like it ends in nuclear holocaust. What? Which for a movie that like has essentially no like no propulsion to its plot, uh, it's like again, it's just like basically like these guys hanging out, doing martial arts, beating up bodyguards, throwing people in the Florida Bay, and it's like this kind of like very loose plot, and then suddenly like at the end, it's like there's this framing device, it goes back to these like I think father and son who are talking about like the myth of Santo, and they turn and they look over the horizon, and then an atomic bomb blows up and just like wipes everything up.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:59

I mean, I I I I kept telling you there's a connection between the nuclear uh panic and Santo, and there you go, there you go.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:08

There's something there actually. Um also in this film, uh uh there's like I don't know why Gilberto Martinez Torales, who's actually also one of like a better better known, I don't know, better known, but he's also kind of a cult figure in like a Mexican like uh decan period of like golden age, which he uh he's done some like Stintan films, uh most famously El Rey del Barrio. But he also is better known by Satanico Pandemonio, which is kind of like a cult classic, like uh of like a non-exploitation in Mexico. So I think he's also very well suited to like the Santo films, particularly late Santos. So actually he did from what I've seen of his Santo films, I think he did like my favorite ones, which are like Versailles Monstruos, Rey de Mundo Muertos, and Misterio Bermuda's. And he also he has also some blue demon films. But the way he shots like the sea to me is incredible in this film as well. For some reason, I don't know if it's just like padding the the the like the the duration, but like this the film starts almost like uh Jan Epstein film. My god, I just see like it's like crashing waves on screen, and then you just have this like like poetic voiceover of the myth of Santa. I'm like, oh yeah, there's like this is like pure poetic cinema, and then you get like this the this like just like vibes film of like people like the the the three greatest Mexian wrestlers of all time just like hanging out like out of like out of their prime. It feels like this kind of like a like like the summer summer like the summer film to me encapsulated is just like this film. Actually, something that was happening, I think it was also given the fact that we were like trying to find exotic locations to record so they can like find something new to Santo, because they also have like a film in Puerto Rico around this time which I haven't seen, uh called uh La Noche de San Juan, Santo and Oro Negro, which about like some like it's robot terrorists, which are kind of sabotaging oil supplies in Puerto Rico. Like the early 80s, you got films which I haven't seen, which I even like Santologists kind of like look down upon, which are like Frontera del Terror, which is some weird like immigrant um uh mind control thing, which uh sounds um uh probably uh not not the greatest. And then like again, the the TV killer and the famous like double build that ended his career, which was again directed by Alfredo Piavena, which is El Pono de Muerte, and uh La Furos Karatecas, which are supposed to be once again like kind of like a serial, like slow, like a like a two-part kind of like same story. But I I don't understand Santo in those films. Uh he's like barely like he's present in those films, but like he his action has like really slowed down by then because he retired from ring wrestling in '82, so it's like the same year he was like doing these films, he was already like the on the like dawn of his career. In 83, he does like his last screen appearance, which was Chanock and Elijo el Santo contou los Vampiros Asesinos. So once again, the vampires come back one more time to like mess with the Santo family. Or in this case, he was trying to like kickstart his son's career in film Elijo el Santo, which I think I talked about earlier. But Elijo el Santo, despite being like one of the best regarded like technical wrestlers in Mexican history, he took his wrestling career a little more seriously. So he actually didn't engage with like film starring that much, and also because like the Mexican industry at this point has was kind of like over like the luchador genre, it was kind of over like a diminishing returns. So afterwards, actually, these luchador films, which I think is something interesting to perhaps to uh briefly discuss, is like even for like Mexican like cinemals that I know of. They grew up like no like these films showed everywhere in TV all the time, but basically like this is regarded as just like thrash films and like uh just like this like Saturday cartoon almost kind of things, and they show like this in Latin America. Actually, sometimes I joke that um like Latin American dads have a better uh sense of cinema because they know of these films, while contemporary cinemaphiles are just like watching this like I don't know, horrible uh art house films. But yeah, in a way these films never really didn't get their due until I also they're starting to be more like uh like uh reappraised like the contemporary Cinephilia a little bit more, like showcasing these like genre elements and like this this like esoteric realm of filmmakers. But throughout their like careers, even when they were released, they were commercially successful, but they weren't discussed as we're doing in this podcast. Like they were never never really like taken seriously as art.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:05

Because I think they're like part of the marketing or the uh film industry logic that obviously the head of institution wouldn't like recognize or want to promote to national cinema because you don't like even though the that logic exists to promote or to talk about art house cinema, you have to like degrade or like debase those films to elevate the other films, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:31

After Santo did his like last uh stretch of films in '83, in '84, once he was like retired from the ring and films, he went to this interview uh with uh I think it's called uh contrapunto, which is the famous like Mexican like uh interview program with uh Jacob Sarudovsky. And he basically was finally uh unmasked, uh partially unmasked, uh which again we I just I don't know how to translate this to any other cultural context, but it's just like if like Jesus wore a mask and he was unmasked. I'll say that it's kind of like the resurrection, essentially, like the Easter resurrection, that's what happened with Santo Unmasked. Because again, in Mexican wrestling, uh like people don't know the wrestler's names, and like unmasking is like really like a traditional thing. So like a mask versus mask match is one of the highest stakes matches you can have because one of them will be not only on mask and show their faces, but that's when their identity, like civil identity, is revealed to the world. So if you go see like a mass versus mask match, then they're on mask and they literally like denounce it, goes to a ring with a microphone and tells, and so this person is called this name, they live here, like they've like grown up in this place, they finally like their present persona goes based basically is like exposed in a way. So yeah, to a figure like Santo, which was never on mask in Ring, because I mean that would again like create riots on the streets. This was the moment when he finally had like a human face, but even then, like this like it is very easy to search that, but it's the only image that's available, like Santo unmasked ever. And once he actually died the following year after this uh this happened, uh he had like a uh like a heart attack, and as you can imagine, when his funeral was uh celebrated, it was like a thousand, like I think 10,000 people was supposed to be like that attended, just like Sant's funeral. Because again, he was not only like a wrestling figure, he wasn't only like this like actor and like icon of cinema. He represented like Mexic, like Mexican yet, essentially, which was like a very particularly in the last part of the 20th century, like a very like heavy thing of like how uh Mexico, Mexican identity can be constructed. And wrestling lucha libre itself was always this kind of like working class, like frowned upon, like uh lows, like low, lowest of the lows, kind of like uh spectacle. In that sense, that it was reclaimed in that way and that Santo became like the bastion figure of it. It's kind of like beautiful in how after all these years, it's still like going back to Santo and seeing Santo films, kind of like Transcend Cinema in a way, because it's kind of like embracing some part, even like someone that's not from Mexico, just like seeing these films, clearly something special in how people relate to it. I don't know of any comparisons to that, at least.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:06

Santo, yvel me conusted.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:40

It's the única alegría de los peligros cuando han pasado.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:49

So, what have you guys been watching this week outside Santologic canon?

SPEAKER_00 1:15:55

I actually uh stumbled on one like one of the screenings I've been to in ages, which was uh very random screening of like uh Thundercrack, uh Kurt McDowell film, uh famously also like uh co-produced by uh George uh Kushart. If you don't know what it is, it's essentially like an almost three-hour-long kind of like sexploitation porno film. Well, George Kushar is kind of like a very like famous and like uh iconic like figure in like sex exploitation, like sex films and like amateur film and underground film in the spirit. Uh, I'm not that well versed in his souve, per se. And I know Cody McDowell also collaborated in a lot of these films, uh very like taboo films and things like that. And Thundercrack again is like kind of this like roadhouse kind of film, which has like an intermission like within like the film uh film itself, and it's in a way it's kind of like all dark dark house, kind of like arc. It feels also kind of like going back to archaeological pictures, kind of feels like an archaeological picture plot. If it had just like a lot of like 1970s like freewheeling sex, uh hardcore sex as well. Um, so seeing that also in the theater was kind of like an experience, and I saw it at BFI, which isn't the sexiest of places. So the the hardcore elements of the film are kind of like I'll say that they don't start out that successfully, but uh just so you see like this like kind of like voyeuristic side of like this like old lady that owns this house, and just seeing like these young horny people just like going at it. But eventually it becomes more and more like intertwined and the sexual tension in the house, and there's some taboo elements as well involving uh a gorilla uh in a suit, like a gorilla suit as well. Uh, but there's a lot of like uh flowing sexuality, it's kind of like it's kind of like a secretly a queer film as well, in in many ways. And again, like the fact that it's like to almost three hours long and has an intermission, so even like the sex, like on similarity, sex itself kind of becomes almost like goes beyond the point of just like being like there for exploitation and arousal and because something else. Because there's this like mystery plot around like uh almost like a horror film itself, and the second half uh half of the film barely has any sex. So it kind of like it's funny to see how it has these like incredibly like black and white um sequences of just like shadows in this house and like uh looming sounds and figures, and then cuts to like also very inspirely like shot. I also like on summated sex scenes, like the way it frames particularly the torsus in this films. In this film, it's quite like stunning. And it finds like always new ways, I guess also given the fact that it's like almost three hours long to like like uh frame like the human body in like uh I guess like in alluring ways. So I was quite quite stunned by this film. I really want to uh get more into like Kurt McDowell and uh George Pichard's films.

SPEAKER_05 1:18:23

It's part of this like trash cinema series, no? I I saw that they were doing that.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:27

Yeah, it's part of like the trash cinema series they're doing at the BFI, which so I was kind of surprised they were going on with this because they they're also showing another uh Kurt McDowell film. Uh I think it's a Sparkle Starring. So they're really like actually doing their due diligence with embracing like the trash cinema like uh canon. What about you guys?

SPEAKER_05 1:18:44

To be honest, I don't actually have such a good answer this week because I've been mostly just kind of uh immersed in Santo. Uh I was trying to find two examples of things that I've seen that are very unsanto-like. Um and maybe from two two extremes, one of them is uh La Strada by Fellini. Uh which I mean Fellini, there's kind of two filmmakers who are like Uber canonical who have never really explored beyond a few films. One is Fellini and the other is uh Truffaut, who have maybe just seen two or three films from each of them. La Strada was kind of an interesting film. I I think I saw Alonzo, the you're not a fan on Letterboxd. I can see why in some ways, because this is like a very difficult film to take on some level because it has this like overt sentimentality, and this character played by Giulietta Massina is like very doe-eyed and sweet.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:42

Gil Somina, Gil Somina.

SPEAKER_05 1:19:45

Exactly. It's like a kind of like chaplin, echo of chaplain thing, like a sort of baby-like sentimentality. But what works for me in this film is like that combined with like this sort of like old school melodrama, it's almost like a melodrama from a silent film. It's like very ugly and very brutal with Anthony Quinn, it's like this kind of monstrous figure. So, and there's also like a lot of depth to Fellini's images, so there's there is like movement, there's openness, like it was an interesting start for me. I know I was very afraid of such a canonical title, but I I found my way through it. And then the other thing I just wanted to mention, because it's again very unsanto-like, was this like second uh Nathaniel Dorski and Jerome Hyler screening that I went to. There was like two parts, um, and that kind of it was one of the highlights of this second series was the film Numa, um, which was a film that Dorsky made between 1977 and 1983, um, which I'd always wanted to see because it's like this kind of path not taken by Dorsky. Um, it was a period when he had really, really intense depression, and the film is made of kind of um odds and ends of other films, unlike uh misfirings on his camera and so on and so on. So it's a structural film in a way that no other Dorsky is really, and you just see like one sequence or image of I don't know, whatever, after another, which is image less. So you're just seeing emulsion uh scratches, um just like texture of the image. But it's somehow like as a silent film, like you can be really, really absorbed by this because like this vortex of grain and scratches and dust somehow like I think does get at the experience of depression in some way, you know, like this great like void, this great like numbness in a way. So that was a very special screening, and also this like you know, it's a twenty it's one of the longer Dorsky films, I think it's 28 minutes. Obviously silent. And uh just before the end, this kind of guy wandered in from the street and he kind of stepped into the room and looked around and saw this room full of like experimental freaks staring at kind of a vortex of grain in silence. Uh, and he just came to the front row and he started singing lullabies, which was very strange and was like quickly escorted out. But it was like, I don't know, this like really nice moment somehow to to bring this film back to the real world. What about you, Oiko?

SPEAKER_01 1:22:25

I've been trying to find my way through uh Nikatsu Roman Porno's films, but it's really hard because there's so many of them. So I'm just like going through letterbooks and like reading synopsis and trying to find like films that are that kind of kind of look interesting. And I watched this film uh Called Flower and Snake by Masuru Kunuma. I think it's I think this was the extreme one of the extreme limits that I can probably will I will probably find in Roman Porno films because it's it's hard to watch these BDSM very hardcore BDSM films that have disgusting elements as well about some some kinks. And I'm like, where is this going? Where is this going? I don't know, but it's it was hard to watch, to be honest. I kind of feel like I'm alienated in a way to pornography in cinema. Like I think I've seen all everything. No, but like I'm I'm I'm exaggerating. Obviously, there are probably things I don't want to see yet. But yeah, it was uh it was an important step in in my journey in Nikatsu canon. But other uh other than that, um we we've been watching Santo a lot, and I felt the responsibility to go and check this fake uh exported Santo, um imposter Santo uh in that appeared in Turkey in '73 uh in a film called uh Three Giant Men. Um I mean I knew about this film uh through a documentary called Remake Remix Ripov about the copy culture in Turkish cinema. So this was one of the films that mentioned uh that was mentioned in the film because in in the 70s uh the Turkish cinema was just copying everything, popular culture, and especially in America, and which is why we have a lot of superhero films and we have Star Trek ripoffs and a lot of things. And this film has uh features Captain America teaming up with El Santo to stop uh Spider-Man. It's referred as Spider in the film, not Spider-Man, uh to stop his crime organization operating in Istanbul, but also um involving money laundering schemes uh internationally. But um our heroes, Captain America and uh Santo comes in normal uh civilian clothing, so he's more than half of the film he's not wearing a mask, which is outrageous.

SPEAKER_05 1:25:19

Shameful.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:20

He's outrageous.

SPEAKER_05 1:25:22

I mean, I can take Spider-Man being a criminal, murderer, and a money launderer, but Santo with no mask is disgusting.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:28

And um he goes to a karate studio at some point and he just like vibes with the guys doing karate there, and at some point he's wearing a jacket uh you know on which in the back of the jacket we have like an Indian uh figure. Like, why why is this this man wearing this jacket? Like, there are so many questionable questions, there are so many questionable things in that film, and uh it's bad. I wouldn't recommend uh but if you're really curious of what uh a Turkish Santo looks like. He also has long hair. Um yeah, it's a shame to to real Santo canon, but it's it's still an interesting that because I know I know that karate films, kung fu films had a lot of uh like uh audiences in Turkish uh context, but I don't know if Santo is well as as well known as to be included, maybe through comics. So that should be something to investigate because I think at that time I don't think Captain America or Spider-Man had like that much of popularity through uh audiovisual media in internationally. So I think it's through comics that they probably like want to export import them in Turkish context.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:51

I actually saw came across I didn't mention it because uh I don't know what the sources, but a lot of the different articles I read mentioned like the Santo was apparently well known for some reason in Turkey and Lebanon. I'm not sure why or how, but apparently that was a thing. So it kind of makes sense that he was kind of like rip-up in this film.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:07

I'm gonna track that down and learn why to be continued.

SPEAKER_05 1:27:10

So thank you very much. That was Santo. Next week we are tackling someone from the other extreme of cinema, the extreme of high taste, that is Mr. Edward Yang. And we're looking forward to digging into those three plus hour films in contrast to the 75-minute Santo films and the 75-minute Doris Bushman films, etc. etc. etc. Uh, so looking forward to that. And as usual, if you have any comments, feedback, whatever, you can send it to us at outskirtsfilmmagazine at gmail.com. And yes, we will see you at the next episode.

unknown 1:28:00

Um