The Empire of Dracula/El imperio de Drácula (1967)

‘They are living dead, bloodthirsty beings.’

With her final breath, a sick woman tells her son that his father died while ridding their castle of a nest of vampires many years earlier. He doesn’t believe her story, and takes possession of his ancestral home after her death anyway. However, the undead will not sleep quietly…

Another cinematic riff on the familiar Dracula story from South of the Border, directed on this occasion by Federico Curiel. For once, Bram Stoker’s name appears in the opening credits, but the author would not recognise a great deal in this adaptation beyond the central concept and a couple of nods to his original novel.

Attending the deathbed of his aged mother (Rebeca Iturbide), young engineer Luis Brener (César del Campo) receives an unexpected legacy. Unfortunately, it’s not a family heirloom or a secret map to hidden treasure, but a true life horror story. Iturbide tells him that his long-dead father (Víctor Alcocer) met his end while destroying the vampire, Baron Draculstein (Eric del Castillo). The young sceptic doesn’t credit her tale, of course, and takes wife Patricia (Lucha Villa), her sister Lily (Robin Joyce) and servant Diana (Ethel Carrillo) along for the ride when he reclaims his ancestral home.

However, as predicted by Iturbide, the time of Draculstein’s resurrection is fast approaching. Recently deceased servant Igor (Fernando Osés) is still galivanting around the countryside in a coach and four, running down unsuspecting sightseers. Kidnapping the better half of the couple concerned, he suspends her over del Castillo’s coffin and uses her blood to bring him back to life. After all those centuries dead, he’s a might peckish and sends a driverless coach out to collect del Campo and his party when their own vehicle cracks an axle. After his order of ‘Meals on Wheels’ rolls up at the castle, the Baron selects servant Carrillo off the menu. Meanwhile, the spate of recent deaths in the district has the local Police Inspector (Mario Orea) baffled. At the same time, his friend, Dr Wilson (Guillermo Zetina), believes them to be the handiwork of a ‘Vampire-Man’.

Horror was a highly popular genre in Mexican cinema in the late 1960s and an almost sure winner at the box office. So it is perhaps inevitable that some examples lack quality in the flood of productions that reached theatres at that time. Curiel’s film is little more than a scribble of a movie, trotting out the familiar vampire tropes via a slapdash script from industry newcomer Ramón Obón. There is insufficient establishment of the story’s basic set-up, logical inconsistencies, and several elements that feel unfinished. The most obvious example of the latter revolves around Joyce’s character being mute. The only discussion of her condition is some passing dialogue delivered by del Campo to the effect that a change of scene may encourage her to speak again. No cause for her impairment is ever given, and it has almost no impact on the plot whatsoever.

Aficionados of Hammer Studios will also recognise a couple of obvious lifts from ‘Dracula: Prince of Darkness’ (1966) in the story as described above. The arrival of the driverless carriage and Osés’ method of resurrecting his undead master are the most direct. There is some effort to create new lore, though, with mandrake substituting for garlic and the crucifix as a weapon to fight evil. Helpfully, Alcocer had planted a garden with it before his death, but holding out a fistful of drooping greenery to ward off the undead is somewhat less impressive cinematically than using a holy relic. There’s also the unusual conceit of the vampiric Carrillo passing through a mirror to move between chambers in the castle and a nice callback to Stoker’s original novel in the film’s final scene.

However, where the project really falls down is in the execution. In the flashback sequence at the start of the film, we see Alcocer and del Castillo in the throes of their climactic deathmatch. Despite being bereft of garlic, holy water, crucifix or mandrake, the portly, older man repeatedly fights off the vampire as they grapple around the castle, even pushing him to the ground at one point. Eventually, the dying Alcocer tears down a curtain and bathes the room in sunlight. Rather than attempt to escape, del Castillo cowers in the corner under his cape, waiting to be staked! Later on, after his resurrection, he flees from an altercation on the road. Rather than escape by changing into a bat or vanishing in a puff of smoke, he runs off into the woods in a shot that Curiel holds for far too long. All of this doesn’t really sell him as an overwhelming supernatural threat.

First-billed Villa (playing the hero’s wife, in case you’ve forgotten) is entirely surplus to requirements, with her character fulfilling no role apart from occasional exchanges of inessential dialogue. Del Campo’s hero is wonderfully stupid, simply dismissing every supernatural occurrence with a smile and a shrug of the shoulders before doing a complete 180 after a five-minute chat with Van Helsing stand-in Zetina. Also, puffing smoke in front of a model of a castle does not make it look any less like a model, although it has to be acknowledged that it’s a long way from the worst miniature in film history. But perhaps the biggest talking point of the film is why has ‘Dracula’ become ‘Draculstein’? It’s not down to the English subtitles; the Spanish dialogue is clearly using that name. It would be tempting to put this down to a legal issue of some kind; only the film’s Spanish title uses the original name. Perhaps shooting took place before the necessary permissions had cleared.

The film’s only quality element proves to be an outstanding score by composer Gustavo César Carrión. Opening with some appropriately brutal gothic piano, elsewhere, he favours a minimalistic approach that evokes the atmosphere completely lacking in Curiel’s flat direction. The orchestra bursts into life during the action scenes in an attempt to inject some urgency into the rather flaccid proceedings, and, if not totally successful, it’s a valiant effort. Carrión had an output that rivals legendary workaholic Ennio Morricone, with almost 350 film scores to his name, over 100 in the 1960s alone. Other work included ‘The World of the Vampires/El Mundo de los vampiros’ (1961), ‘The Witch’s Mirror/El espejo de la bruja’ (1962), ‘The Brainiac/El barón del terror’ (1962), ‘Blue Demon Versus the Infernal Brains/Blue Demon contra cerebros infernales’ (1968) and ‘Santo and the Blue Demon vs. the Monsters/Santo el enmascarado de plata y Blue Demon contra los monstruos’ (1970) as well as other more mainstream projects.

Curiel began his career with ‘Neutrón, el enmascarado negro’ (1960), one of the earliest pictures to pit a masked wrestler against the forces of evil. Subsequent projects included more in that series and some projects starring the nation’s favourite warrior of the square ring, El Santo. These included some of his more grounded earlier adventures, such as ‘Santo in the Hotel of Death/Santo en el hotel de la muerte’ (1963) as well as more outlandish escapades like ‘The Vengeance of the Vampire Women/La venganza de las mujeres vampiro’ (1970). Screenwriter Obón also featured in the future of wrestling’s ‘Man in the Silver Mask’ contributing scripts for the rather embarrassing ‘Santo vs. the Killers from Other Worlds/Santo contra Los asesinos de otros mundos’ (1973), the far better ‘Santo vs. the She-Wolves/Santo vs. las lobas’ (1976) and working on late entry ‘The Fist of Death/El puño de la muerte’ (1982). He also wrote several films featuring other well-known luchadors, including Blue Demon, Mil Mascaras and La Sombra Vengadora.

A weak and disappointing effort, enlivened by an excellent musical score but not much else.

La Invasion de los Vampiros/The Invasion of the Vampires (1962)

‘You do not make tribute to the hospitality of Mr Marqués disturbing his habits.’

An alchemist is sent by his master to a remote region to investigate reports of vampires. When he arrives, he finds the populace in thrall to tales of the spirit of the murdered Contessa Frankenhausen, who lures young men from the nearby village down to the lagoon of death…

This is a direct sequel to writer-director Miguel Morayta’s previous film ‘El Vampiros Sangriento/The Bloody Vampire’ (1961). Abel Salazar’s ‘El Vampiro’ (1957) was a recent box office bonanza, and Mexican movie theatres rang with the cries of ghosts, monsters and werewolves, but, most of all, with vampires.

The full moon rises and brings with it not the howl of the werewolf but the ghostly shade of the Contessa Frankenhausen (Erna Martha Bauman) in a see-through nightgown. Young bucks in the local village seem unable to resist following her down to the isolated shoreline where she disrobes, and they end up dead with a telltale love bite. Handsome young occult scientist Dr Ulises Albarrán (Rafael del Río) arrives just in time to see the latest would-be lothario being carried back home by torchlight, a pale, lifeless cadaver.

Our young hero is a disciple of the Count Cagliostro, who has sent him to the region to investigate these strange happenings. He comes with a letter of introduction to local bigwig, the Marqués Gonzalo Guzmán de la Serna (Tito Junco), an old friend of his master. Junco lives in the rambling ‘Villa of the Spirits’ with old retainer Frau Hildegarda (Bertha Moss). Some years before, he married his daughter Eugenia (Erna Martha Bauman) to the mysterious Count Frankenhausen (Carlos Agostí). The newlyweds left for the city as soon as their daughter Brunhilda was born, leaving the child in Junco’s care. Recently they returned, but Agostí vanished, and Bauman’s corpse was found at the lagoon. Since then, she’s haunted the woods nearby, and villagers have been dropping like flies.

Further investigations convince del Río that the family hacienda holds the key to the mystery, especially after he encounters Bauman one night in the library. Junco tries to put him off but eventually comes clean; the supposed apparition was the grown-up Brunhilda (Bauman again, of course). She’s kept under lock and key because he fears she has inherited some unfortunate tendencies from her father. Meanwhile, Moss keeps a comfy coffin available for Agostí in a secret room in the hacienda, where he rests in his animal form as an outsized rubber bat.

Despite the familiar setup, Morayta adds a few welcome wrinkles to vampire lore, although they are mainly carried over from the first film. Victims of the vampire remain in a cataleptic state, only rising after their master is staked. Something may have been lost in translation because this doesn’t fit with Agostí’s talk of conquering the world with his hordes of the undead. This expansion of the vampire’s usual mission statement beyond drinking the blood of village maidens is a tiresome cinematic cliché now, of course. Still, it’s refreshing to see it expounded in such an early example of the genre.

Most pleasingly, del Rio proposes to defeat the vampires using science, or what passes for it anyway. Explaining that staking a vampire isn’t always enough, he clashes with the village priest, Father Victor (Enrique García Álvarez), when he proposes to burn the bodies of all Agostí’s victims. Threatened with ex-communication from the church, the alchemist backs down and decides to inject them with Boric Acid instead. This chemical can be synthesised from black mandrake, a rare variation of the plant root that ‘grows only on Vampire Lands’. No explanation is offered as to why it only grows there, and this is confusing when it stands in for the more traditional garlic later on in the film. Credit to Morayta for his new ideas, but a little clearer definition would have helped.

The film’s other strong aspects include Morayta’s ability to conjure a spooky atmosphere, especially with the fog-wreathed exteriors early on. The scenes where the vampires (with stakes in place!) wander about and surround the hacienda at the climax are also oddly reminiscent of George A Romero’s ‘Night of the Living Dead’ (1968). The sound design is excellent, too, with Luis Hernández Bretón expanding on his work in the first film and delivering a score with even more emphasis on discordant music. The music helps to reinforce the separate, other-worldly feel of the drama and the isolated location where it takes place.

There are a few less impressive aspects of the production, however. Agostí’s animal form bears a passing resemblance to Lugosi’s ridiculous creature from ‘The Devil Bat’ (1940) and is about as convincing. Agostí also gets far less screentime. Whether this was due to problems with the actor’s availability or was an effort to heighten suspense is unclear, but he does seem strangely absent from the action at times. Our hero is also saddled with the inevitable ‘comedy sidekick’ in the form of a cowardly villager, Crescencio (Fernando Soto), although his presence is thankfully limited. Curiously, several of the principal cast from the first film do not make an appearance. Villains Agostí and housekeeper Moss are present and correct, Bauman plays her original character’s daughter, and mute servant Lucero is here, but none of the heroic protagonists. Ultimately, this is a good thing as del Rio makes a far more convincing leading man than his equivalent in the first film, and Bauman is a more appealing heroine.

The original film did an excellent job of foreshadowing the events of this sequel, but Morayta assumes a little too much prior knowledge of the story here. An audience unfamiliar with the first chapter could be forgiven for being a little confused by the setup here, particularly regarding Junco’s relationship with granddaughter Bauman. Apparently, he’s been keeping her hidden in the hacienda for her entire life and, in a passing aside, mentions that he’s been feeding her on a diet of blood! This history is never developed further, beyond an inference that Boric Acid can wash away her dodgy inheritance. All I can say is that she seems like a remarkably well-adjusted young woman, given that kind of an upbringing!

Overall, this is a stronger film than the original with more depth to the conflict, even if the ultimate brawl between del Rio and Agostí falls prey to some laughable monster FX. Why Agostí needs to hypnotise Bauman to pose as her mother and act as a honey trap for him is also a puzzle. Is he too lazy or incompetent to hunt down his own victims? Considering that his housekeeper procured servants to become his brides in the first film, perhaps he is that hopeless.

Bauman was a former beauty queen who had a short career on the big screen before switching television in the late 1960s. However, her credits include several notable genre pictures, including René Cardona’s take on the legend of ‘La Llorona’ (1960) and ‘El mundo de los vampiros/The World of the Vampires’ (1961). She’s also assigned an uncredited bit in Cirio H Santiago’s ‘Vampire Hookers’ (1978), but, as that was filmed in the Philippines and she was all but retired by then, it’s quite possibly a misidentification.

Another tale of Vampires South of the Border with enough interest points to engage a receptive audience and stand out from the crowd.

El Vampiros Sangriento/The Bloody Vampire (1961)

‘Ah, and a bit of Venus’ navelwort, so they have good dreams.’

Count Cagliostro studies vampires in secret, always searching for the family of Frankenhausen, whose bloodline is cursed with the taint of the undead. Meanwhile, the housemaids of a neighbouring Count are prone to sudden disappearances…

After Abel Salazar’s ‘El Vampiro’ (1957) was a runaway success, Mexican film producers hurried to embrace the supernatural, particularly stories involving the undead. Few of the wave of vampire movies that followed strayed far from the 1931 Lugosi template, which Salazar had adopted, but occasionally some new flourishes and ideas emerged.

Meet Count Valsamo de Cagliostro (Antonio Raxel), a descendant of the original occult scientist whose fame spread throughout the royal courts of Europe in the 18th Century. Although history doesn’t record his run-in’s with the undead, it was a large part of his work, particularly after his second wife was burned at the stake after an encounter with the notorious ‘Vampire of the Moon’. Raxel has dedicated his life to tracking down this creature, establishing that vampirism is a curse passed down to each first-born son of the House of Frankenhausen. Aiding him in his quest are his own ‘Scooby Gang’; daughter Inez (Begoña Palacios), her betrothed, Dr Riccardo Peisser (Raúl Farell) and chamberlain, Justus (Pancho Córdovam, here billed as Francisco A. Cordova).

One of their near neighbours is Count Siegfried von Frankenhausen (Carlos Agostí). He has kept his invalid wife, Countess Eugenia (Erna Martha Bauman), locked up in the house since their marriage and return from the country, leaving daughter Brunhilda behind to be raised by her grandfather. But getting good help seems to be their main problem as housekeeper Frau Hildegarde (Bertha Moss) spends most of her time procuring new housemaids from tavern owner Lupe (Lupe Carriles). The only qualifications they need to possess are good looks and no close family ties. No red flags there, then.

Coincidentally, it turns out that Córdovam’s best drinking buddy is Lazaro (Enrique Lucero), the personal servant of Countess Bauman. When she has a funny turn one night, he fetches Doc Farell, and the gang realise that Agostí just might be the vampire that Raxel’s been looking for all these years. Unfortunately, the occultist is off on a trip somewhere, so they decide to investigate themselves. Fortunately, Córdovam and Lucero drink in Carriles’ bar (it’s a small world!), and it’s an easy job to get Palacios installed as the Frankenhausen’s new housemaid.

Writer-director Miguel Morayta was a veteran filmmaker with no prior credits in the horror genre. However, he does bring some new ideas to the table. There are two kinds of vampires; the ‘living’ and the ‘dead.’ Agostí is an example of the ‘living’ kind, active and feeding. The ‘dead’ are his victims, laying in their graves in a cataleptic state, rising only when their progenitor is despatched. This is an interesting concept if a little awkward. Despite having less than a handful of vampire brides, Agostí talks of wiping out humanity with his army of bloodsuckers. Yes, I guess everyone has to start somewhere, but given that his followers can only take up arms once he’s been finally staked, it seems strange that he’s so enthusiastic about the idea.

Raxel also advocates a scientific approach in eliminating the waiting dead. According to his research, their blood contains a substance called Vampirina that destroys red blood cells, which need to be replenished for the creature to survive. This substance can be eradicated with Boric Acid, made from the roots of the black Mandrake. This notion is a neat tie-in to folk myths about the plant, addressed in the film’s opening sequence when the Scooby Gang harvest the roots from the ground beneath a hanged man. None of this informs the main action in any significant way, but it’s nice to see such attention to detail in the script and an effort to put a new spin on such familiar lore.

What drags the film down is the second act when Palacios goes undercover in the Frankenhausen household. The gang spend an awful lot of time trying to establish Agostí’s bloodsucking credentials. This is a problem because the audience knows he’s the vampire from the get-go, and it’s not that exciting waiting for our heroes to catch up. Also, it’s so blindingly obvious! Bauman as good as tells them so, but Farell prefers to entertain Agostí’s contention that his wife is mad. And just how many ‘Frankenhausen’ families are there in Mexico? Is the name the country’s equivalent of ‘Smith’ or ‘Jones’ then?

Morayta excels when sowing the seeds for the sequel ‘La Invasion de los Vampiros/The Invasion of the Vampires (1962), providing just the right amount of information, so it’s not clumsy or obvious, but pays off in the next film. There’s also good cinematography from Raúl Martínez Solares, which helps mount an impressive introduction to our supernatural antagonist. While on their expedition to collect the roots, our heroes are interrupted by the passage of Agostí’s horse-drawn coach. The vehicle passes in slow-motion and silence; not an original idea by any means, but stylishly handled, and Morayta doesn’t make the mistake of returning to the device again and again. There’s also an unusual soundtrack from Luis Hernández Bretón, who mixes discordant music with passages of choral singing to produce an unsettling effect.

Morayta began his directorial career in the 1940s but hit his stride with the social commentary of ‘Vagabunda/Tramp’ (1950) and biblical epic ‘El mártir del Calvario’ (1952). Work in many other genres followed, such as comedy, romance, adventure and musicals before entering the horror arena. Later on, he delivered the memorable escapades of ‘Dr. Satán’ (1966) and horror-comedy ‘Capulina contra los monstruos’ (1974) featuring the popular Mexican comedian. He left the industry in the late 1970s and died in 2013 at the age of 105.

While it may observe genre conventions pretty faithfully, moments of invention and professionalism make this offering a definite cut above many of its contemporaries.

The Witch’s Mirror/El espejo de la bruja (1962)

‘The satanic rays of the moon will return to death what belongs to death.’

After killing his first wife, a handsome doctor remarries, unaware that his housekeeper knows the truth and is planning vengeance. She invokes the victim’s spirit, and the subsequent supernatural occurrences culminate in a horrific accident to the murderer’s new wife, sending him further down the path of crime and punishment…

A rollercoaster of horror from director Chano Urueta that brings to the brew a heady mixture of witchcraft, murder, grave robbing, satan worship, animal transformations, premature burial, a mad scientist and ghostly visitations over 75 minutes of glorious madness. Although some Mexican genre pictures of the period could be accused of being a little light on plot, that’s certainly not the case with this screenplay by Alfredo Ruanova and Carlos Enrique Taboada.

The film opens with Voiceover Man doing his best to convince the audience of the immemorial existence of witches and their powers. This helpful information is relayed over drawings that look rather like they’ve been executed by Heironymous Bosch. It all proved a tad too strong for the US distributor who cut this prologue entirely, flinging us straight into the action. Concerned young wife Elena (Dina de Marco) has gone to godmother and old family retainer Sara (Isabela Corona) for some advice, knowing that she is a witch with the power of prophecy. Our first clue that the housekeeper may have moved beyond such commonplace talents is the size of her scrying glass. Rather than a shard or sliver, it’s a full-length dress mirror that fills with smoke and a weird, demonic figure.

De Marco is aghast when Corona explains that someone is trying to kill her, and things get worse when she’s shown the culprit in the mirror: her husband, Dr Eduardo Ramos (Armando Calvo). At first, she refuses to believe it but fears the worst when he prepares her a nightcap. Staring into his eyes, she drinks the poisoned milk and falls dead to the floor. In short order, he brings home wife number two, Deborah (Rosita Arenas), but the family home is still filled with de Marco’s favourite tuberoses, and Corona has vowed vengeance. Rather than just being a witch, she can hit up Satan (or one of his demons) for a quick catch-up, turn herself into an owl or a cat and walk through walls.

It’s not long before things are going bump at all hours of the day in the Calvo household with the piano playing itself, Arenas’ flower arranging plans falling prey to time-lapse photography, and de Marco going walkabout from her open grave, which is conveniently visible from the house! This all results in her manifesting to Arenas via the mirror, the increasingly frantic Calvo breaking the glass with a naked flame and his young bride being engulfed by the resulting fireball. Although this might be supposed to be the film’s climax, we’re only halfway through by this point. Arenas survives the immolation but with a hideously scarred face and hands. Then, without any foreshadowing whatsoever, the audience discovers that Calvo is a brilliant plastic surgeon and research scientist! Only he can restore Arenas’ beauty, but the road to recovery is littered with corpses, black magic and other inconveniences.

The Mexican horror craze of the mid-20th Century was spearheaded by hard-headed actor-producer Abel Salazar, who delivered a succession of such pictures after hitting box-office gold with Dracula remake ‘El Vampiro’ (1957). All contained standard horror elements and devices, inspired mainly by the success enjoyed by the classic Universal monster cycle but rarely were so many combined in one film. Early events suggest supernatural horror with Calvo’s murder foreseen by witch Corona who pleads unsuccessfully with her dark master to intercede on behalf of her goddaughter. It’s no dice, and the following scene is arguably the best in the film, at least by usual filmmaking standards. De Marco drinks her poisoned milk while staring into Calvo’s eyes, hoping it’s not poisoned but suspecting that it is and accepting her fate if he no longer loves her. She really sells this moment, and it would provide an excellent grounding for Calvo’s subsequent mental deterioration if we were in an ordinary movie.

After that, we’re quickly into ghostly goings-on as Calvo brings new love Arenas to the house, having evaded the law somehow. The film never tells us how he manages it, as de Marco’s death seemingly has no consequences except the supernatural ones that befall our main protagonists. Director Urueta doesn’t allow these shenanigans to overstay their welcome, though, as we move swiftly into ‘Eyes Without A Face/Les yeux sans visage’ (1960) territory. Yes, Calvo and new assistant Gustavo (Carlos Nieto) take regular trips to the graveyard and dig up the fresh corpses of young women so the doc can use their skin to repair the damage to Arenas.

But the film isn’t finished yet. Not by a long chalk. One convenient case of catalepsy later, and we’re on a nodding acquaintance with Maurice Renard’s science-fiction/mystery novel ‘The Hands of Orlac’, which was most famously filmed as ‘Mad Love’ (1935) with Peter Lorre. Throw in ‘The Beast with Five Fingers’ (1946), dead girls propped up in a walk-in fridge and Calvo failing to notice that large owl perched just below the ceiling of his backroom laboratory while he operates and there you have it. The plots of several different films and horror stories vigorously mixed into a mad cocktail of Gothic terror.

However, it’s not just the disparate collection of different horror plots crashing together that makes the results so enjoyable. What’s key to the entertainment value is that the film has no sense of its own absurdity; it’s all played completely straight without any trace of a wink at the audience. Urueta delivers some elegant camera moves, and he and cinematographer Jorge Stahl Jr create some quite stunning gothic imagery using little more than shadows and smoke. The score by Gustavo César Carrión is solid, and the production design is excellent, cluttering Corona’s satanic altar with an impressive array of folk art and curiosities, including a large, slow-moving spider that provides no story function, only atmosphere. Rather than being a product of factory filmmaking, it seems some genuine technical care and attention was given to the project.

Similarly, the cast is all good. The stand out is Corona, who is imperious as the witch, with a nice line in sly glances and dry humour when required. Often the essence of her character is not conveyed by the dialogue, rather the manner of her delivery and facial expression. Calvo is also fine in his role, which betrays more depth than the average movie mad scientist. At first, he appears to be a simple, heartless killer, but after the deed is done, we discover that he and Arenas were not actually lovers but in love and that she knows nothing about what he did to bring them together. His love remains constant, too, even when she is disfigured; everything he does is for her. Considering what happens to Arenas, it all seems rather unfair; after all, she’s not to blame for anything; she just has lousy taste in men. She is even disgusted when she finds out what her husband has done, although her moral outrage does take a backseat once she realises that he’s been successful and she has her looks back!

Producer Salazar liked the movie so much that he married leading lady Arenas, and she left the big screen the following year. Before his death after a long illness in 1995, she appeared in several roles on Mexican television, beginning in 1987, but retired permanently afterwards. Calvo was the son of award-winning Spanish actor Juan Calvo and split his career between Spain and Mexico. He’d already appeared as the Police Inspector in ‘The Hell of Frankenstein/Orlak, el Infierno de Frankenstein’ (1960) but became most familiar in Spaghetti Westerns such as ‘Ringo’s Big Night/La grande notte di Ringo’ (1966), ‘Two Crosses at Danger Pass/Due croci a Danger Pass’ (1967) and ‘Django Does Not Forgive/Mestizo’ (1971). There were also notable supporting roles in films based on Italian fumetto (so-called ‘black’ comics) that included ‘Kriminal’ (1966) and, as another Police Inspector, in ‘Satanik’ (1968).

For sheer extravagance in plotting and some surprising technical accomplishments, this is one of the most entertaining Mexican horrors of the period and is thoroughly recommended. Great fun.

The Mummies of Guanajuato/Las Mommias de Guanajuato (1972)

‘Girls, in case of a Mummy’s attack, stay calm…’

One hundred years after being defeated in the ring, a wrestler returns to life as a mummy to take his revenge. Commanding the undead thanks to a deal with the devil, he targets local wrestlers in the hope of drawing out the descendant of the legendary fighter who bested him all those years ago.

One of the best-remembered of the Mexican Wrestling horrors, director Federico Curiel delivers the first teaming of arguably the three most iconic fighters in the history of lucha libre: Santo, Blue Demon and Mil Máscaras. Tying them in with the real-world bonanza of a famous cultural phenomenon didn’t hurt the box office either.

Diminutive tour guide Penguin (Jorge Pinguino) funds his liking for the liquor by showing holidaymakers around the exhibit of the Mummies of Guanajuato. Although most of them are sealed behind glass, one group of six are free-standing on a bench in the corridor. The most striking of these is Satan (Tinieblas), a giant standing seven feet, two inches tall. The story goes that he was a famous wrestler in the latter part of the 19th Century who made a diabolical pact after being defeated by an ancestor of legendary luchador, Santo. This deal promised resurrection one hundred years later to the day, and Pinguino suddenly realises that the clock runs out today! One of the women in the party faints dead away.

Returning to the exhibit alone, Pinguino also thinks he sees the mummy move and passes out, but the watchman assumes he has been drinking. So he goes to the Sante Fe Club to do just that, arriving too late to catch the pointless musical number performed by real-life popular singer Martha Angélica. He tries to convince top of the bill Lina (Elsa Cardenas) and friend Alicia (Patricia Ferrer) of what he’s seen, and when they return to the exhibit, Satan has gone for a little walk. However, the mummy’s strange disappearance fails to persuade Cardenas’ boyfriend, flamboyant wrestler, Mil Máscaras, that anything’s amiss. His compadre Blue Demon is even more sceptical, dismissing the possibility out of hand, which is interesting considering his many encounters with the supernatural in previous films.

However, it’s not long before the corpses start piling up in the streets of the town in apparently random acts of mayhem. Satan then blindsides Blue Demon and steals his mask and clothes, passing them to one of his undead crew. This fake Blue Demon then murders a passer-by, the killing witnessed by police inspector Juan Gallardo, who’s on hand thanks to a note attached to a rock thrown through the window of his office. Who throws this rock and how he knew where to throw it is not important. What does matter is that Blue Demon is wanted for murder, and Santo must race to the rescue!

Screenwriters of the world, look away now! Although it has to be acknowledged that scripts for Mexican Wrestling movies were never outstanding models of logic or credibility, rarely has one left the audience with so many questions. We only receive the most cursory details about our main villain for a start. No information about his original death or how he came to be mummified. Was that part of his deal with the devil? Why would he want to visit his vengeance on the descendant of the man who defeated him anyway? Why not the man himself? Who are his mummified friends? Why do their numbers seem to increase as and when required?

The answers to these (and many other questions!) perhaps lie with a production decision made late in the day, apparently after shooting had begun. Initially, the film was intended as a vehicle for the double team of Blue Demon and Mil Máscaras. However, the producers suddenly decided to bring Santo on board, presumably for his box office clout. This does explain why he only appears in the last 20 minutes of the film (a brief flashback aside), but it must have given scriptwriter Rafael García Travesi a few grey hairs. In the end, what we get is the faithful old ‘generational revenge’ chestnut delivered in an exposition dump by Pinguino at the start of the film. As for what was originally scripted (and perhaps even filmed?), we can’t know, but it probably filled in a few of the film’s gaping plot holes.

As it is, we’re never clear why Satan fixes his attention on Blue Demon. Some kindly commentators have suggested that framing him for murder is a device to get Santo’s attention, but that’s never stated in the film. Indeed, Santo doesn’t even mention Blue to his manager Carlos Suárez as they’re driving into town! In effect, Santo shows up in the final reel to ‘save the day’ when the situation is seemingly beyond Blue and Mil Máscaras. Cardenas even delivers a line at the end of the picture where she ventures the opinion that if they’d called in Santo earlier, then there would have been no problems! Ouch. Blue was not happy about all this, and his resentment was still evident in interviews toward the end of his life.

Despite these production issues, the results are undeniably entertaining. Our three heroes facing down a horde of the living dead with flame-throwing pistols is undoubtedly one of the iconic moments of the entire genre. The monster makeups by veteran Carmen Palomino are surprisingly effective too, which is perhaps not too surprising given earlier credits on the ‘Aztec Mummy’ series. The action is brisk, and there’s plenty of it, and the ridiculous nature of developments result in several priceless moments for fans to enjoy. I’m still wondering who threw that rock through Gallardo’s window.

The real-life Mummies of Guanajuato were bodies exhumed from a cemetery when town officials enforced a tax on ‘perpetual burial’, which lasted from 1870 to 1958. If you couldn’t pay, your loved ones were exhumed and stored in a warehouse! Environmental conditions led to the mummification of the corpses, and the public started paying to see them as early as the late 1800s. However, international attention quickly arrived after the establishment of a museum to house them (‘El Museo de las Momias’), in 1969. As well as ensuring their permanent place in Mexican popular culture, the resultant media ballyhoo attracted the interest of film producers who recognised a good thing when they saw it.

Although never as famous as his compatriots in the film, Mil Máscaras also enjoyed a long career on the silver screen, debuting in ‘Los canallas’ (1968), apparently as a substitute for the injured Blue Demon. Two horror films co-starring Hollywood legend John Carradine closed out the 1960s before he first teamed up with Blue and other luchadors for ‘The Champions of Justice/Los campeones justicieros’ (1971). His name translates into English as ‘Thousand Masks’, and he wore a different, brightly coloured mask on every occasion. These were usually colour-co-ordinated with the rest of his gaudy outfit, and on this occasion, he even sports appropriate headgear to match his lime green dune buggy!

The success of our trio’s encounter with the Mummies led to quick sequel ‘Robbery of the Mummies of Guanajuato/El robo de las momias de Guanajuato’ (1972). This time neither Santo nor Blue was on hand, so Máscaras had to beat them off with the aid of lesser grapplers Blue Angel and El Rayo de Jalisco. All of the trio passed on ‘The Castle of the Mummies of Guanajuato/El castillo de las momias de Guanajuato’ (1973) but Máscaras was happy to face ‘The Mummies of San Angel/Las momias de San Ángel’ (1975) shortly afterwards. Those last two films featured Tinieblas, who plays Satan here, and he was happy to stay on board for ‘The Whip Against Murderous Mummies/El latigo contra las momias asesinas’ (1980). But, by then, it seems that the Mummy horror craze in Mexico was well and truly over.

One of the brighter examples of Mexican Wrestling cinema, although Santo’s participation is surprisingly brief.

La Llorona (1960)

‘I just stepped on a cat that didn’t exist.’

A young woman marries against her father’s wishes and gives birth to a son. However, as the child approaches five years of age, she becomes over-protective to such a degree that it threatens her marriage. It’s then that the husband learns of the curse that hangs over her family…

Remake of the 1933 Ramón Peón movie based on the folk myth of the same name prevalent throughout Latin America. There are multiple variations on the original tale, but it remains so popular that it appeared recently in ‘The Conjuring’ film series as ‘The Curse of La Llorona’ (2019). However, this take by director René Cardona stays close to the story told in Peón’s original film.

Pretty blonde Margarita (Luz María Aguilar) is tired of the single life. She wants to marry handsome Felipe Arnáiz (Mauricio Garcés) but her father, as Don Gerardo Montes (Carlos López Moctezuma) objects to their union. Father and daughter both know why, but keep Garcés in the dark. The couple goes ahead anyway and returns to live at the family home after their honeymoon. Young son Jorgito (Marina Banquells) arrives shortly afterwards, and everything should be perfect. However, Aguilar refuses to leave the child’s side and, as he approaches his fifth birthday, her mania seems to intensify. By this time, Garcés has had enough and delivers an ultimatum; they start behaving like a typical family or get a divorce.

Seeing that things have reached a crisis, Moctezuma takes his son-in-law to one side and explains the danger that threatens the family. Back in the 16th Century, their ancestor Don Nuño de Montes Claros (Eduardo Fajardo) was a soldier attached to the staff of the local Viceroy. He began an affair with a mixed-race woman, Luisa del Carmen (María Elena Marqués) that led to the birth of two children. However, his promises of marriage faded when he saw that the children took after their mother. Instead, he planned to wed noblewoman Doña Ana (Erna Martha Bauman). The news sent Marqués over the edge, and she murdered their children with a dagger after cursing Fajardo and Bauman’s children and their firstborn descendants.

Garcés remains unconvinced of the threat, even after a gust of wind from a closed window and the sudden manifestation of a black cat. So, Moctezuma follows up with more recent information. His first son drowned mysteriously in a pool as a toddler and his older brother in a riding accident at the same age. Nevertheless, Aguilar decides to put her fears aside, and she and Garcés start a more conventional life, leaving the young boy in the care of a mysterious new nanny, Carmen Asiul, who bears a surprisingly close resemblance to you-know-who.

Cardona’s film is almost a straight re-telling of the 1933 story, so inevitably, it shares some of the same strengths and weaknesses of that movie. Again, the second act flashback is very lengthy, which makes the drama feel disjointed. Cardona achieves a better balance with that, but it’s also the most substantial part of the narrative. In comparison, the climactic events are somewhat bloodless, especially as they take place when the hero and heroine are offscreen on a romantic night out! The racism angle is interesting, though, and a departure from the original where the faithless soldier’s choice of wedding partner is political rather than based on prejudice. It’s unusual to address such a theme in a genre picture of this vintage, and it’s handled with surprising subtlety, being reflected in Fajardo’s face when he sees his new son for the first time, rather than being explicitly stated.

The film also deserves credit for sticking to its guns; the new nanny is the spirit of La Llorona, and the legend is not explained away in rational terms. A little clarity about the curse would have helped, though. Yes, the firstborn must die, but why must it seem like an accident? Nanny Marqués is alone with the child on multiple occasions but, instead of just finishing off the job, she contrives to place him in harm’s way through various devices, such as rolling his ball out into traffic, tripping him up when he’s running with scissors, etc. Why is this necessary? It’s not as if she has to fear any reprisals from the authorities; she’s an evil spirit from the otherworld! Inevitably, it feels as if all this has been included simply to pad out the final third.

The main reason for tuning in is the performance of Marqués. At first, she’s swept off her feet by the dashing Fajardo, becoming his devoted partner and mother to his children. She remains steadfast in her loyalty even during his increasing absences. The scene where he tries to pay her off with jewellery, and she still thinks it’s just a gift, provides critical psychological insight into her character and lends credibility to her sudden collapse into vicious hatred and madness. She’s also appropriately sinister as the black-garbed La Llorona, conflicted by her thirst for revenge and the apparent charms of her youthful charge. Without her performance, the film would probably seem twice as long.

After almost twenty years in the business and many leading roles, Marqués must have been a familiar face to the contemporary Mexican audience, but several of her fellow cast members are also worthy of note. Fajardo was a Spanish actor who moved to Mexico in the 1950s and quickly established himself in featured supporting roles and had graduated to some leads by the end of the decade. He moved back to his home country in the 1960s, where he became almost a fixture in Spaghetti Western productions, both from Spain and Italy. He appeared in prominent character parts in ‘A Coffin for the Sheriff/Una bara per lo sceriffo’ (1965), ‘Django’ (1966), ‘Seven Pistols for a Massacre/7 pistole per un massacro’ (1967) and ‘Pistol for a Hundred Coffins/Una pistola per cento bare’ (1968), among many others. He also appeared in horror maestro Mario Bava’s ‘Lisa and the Devil’ (1973).

Moctezuma’s film career began in 1938 and, by the time he died in 1980, he’d appeared in over 200 features. These included roles opposite luchadors like Neutron in ‘Neutron vs the Karate Assassins/Los asesinos del karate’ (1965) and as the police inspector on the case during El Santo’s two run-in’s with ‘The Strangler’. He was also one of the leads in director Cardona’s rather tatty ‘Night of the Bloody Apes (1969), a film banned in the UK during the media-created ‘Video-Nasty’ scandal of the early 1980s. Bauman appeared more prominently in a trio of vampires in the immediate years following this production. There’s even a small role here for David Reynoso, who would become back-up for luchador Blue Demon during a couple of his most memorable cinematic adventures. He also appeared in many other genre and fantastical films of the 1960s.

Although improving the country’s first cinematic take on the legend, this is still a minor entry in its supernatural filmography. La Llorona herself wasn’t finished, though. Not by a long chalk. Three years later, she returned again for ‘La Maldicion De La Llorona/Curse of the Crying Woman (1963).

Santo and the Vengeance of the Mummy/Santo en la venganza de la momia (1971)

‘Since they started making those plastic glasses, I’ve had so many embarrassments.’

Following the translation of an ancient codex, an archaeologist assembles a team to enter the Mexican jungle and locate the tomb of an Aztec warrior. The expedition is successful, but the Mummy disappears from the crypt, and group members begin to die one by one…

Riffing on Universal’s classic monster films of the 1930s and 1940s was hardly a new approach for Mexican Horror cinema by this point. Pitting legendary luchador Santo against another iteration of the Aztec Mummy, who had already had his own series of films beginning in the late 1950s, was hardly going to win director René Cardona any awards for originality.

Jumping straight into the square ring for some grappling action, the film’s opening finds our hero in the Silver Mask in some serious tag team action. His partner, the red-masked Rebel, is out for the count, thanks to the dirty tactics of opponents Angelo and Casanova, those ‘famous Italians.’ However, dealing with these upstarts proves a minor inconvenience, and he’s on time for his meeting with archaeologist Professor Romero (César del Campo). Other delegatres at this brief discussion are anthropologist Professor Jiménez (Carlos Ancira), photographer Susana (Mary Montiel), engineer Sergio Morales (Eric del Castillo) and del Campo’s secretary Rosa Bermúdez (Alma Rojo). Everyone agrees to come along, of course, and, less than two minutes after Santo’s victory in the arena, we join them all in the jungle.

The expedition has linked up with Chief Guide Carlos Suárez, and he’s recruited a bunch of rather shifty locals to act as porters, who are not at all interested in the rumours of hidden treasure at the burial site. Also joining the group are the elderly Plácido (Alejandro Reyna) and his grandson Agapito (Niño Jorgito). Reyna is initially reluctant to give the interlopers the benefit of his local knowledge. However, Montiel promises they will pay for Jorgito’s education after the old man is gone (which isn’t a red flag at all). In what must have been a major disappointment for fans of the previous entry ‘Santo vs The Head Hunters/Santo contra los cazadores de cabezas’ (1971), endless hours of our heroes trekking through the undergrowth does not follow. Instead, we flash forward to everyone safely encamped at the dig site. What’s more, engineer del Castillo has already sorted out any necessary excavations, and all that remains is the final breakthrough to the funerary crypt.

Its occupant turns out to be Nonoc, an Aztec noble who was buried alive a thousand years before. He wiled away the initial hours of his entombment by writing out some exposition on a parchment, which is helpful for everyone, especially as Reyna can translate. It turns out to be the same old story; man loves virgin, man kidnaps virgin from the shadow of the sacrificial altar. Man and virgin run off into the jungle but are captured just before he can disqualify her from her religious duties. Virgin is sacrificed, man is buried alive. It’s a familiar tale to anyone with a passing knowledge of Karloff and Chaney Jr’s adventures in bandages for Universal. It’s also hardly earthshaking that the would-be lover put a curse on the descendants of those that condemned him. This is bad news for Reyna because he happens to be one of them!

Those familiar with the original Aztec Mummy series may recall that the creature was brought back to life by removing the ‘Holy Breastplate’, and Nonoc is similarly non-plussed when the idiotic Ancira relieves him of the ‘Necklace of Death.’ That night the Mummy goes for a little walk that ends up at Reyna’s tent and exit one team member, the deadly deed witnessed by grandson Jorgito. The kid wakes everyone up, and they find the Mummy is gone from the tomb. Faced with this evidence, everyone believes his story, however impossible it might seem. Five minutes later, they find Nonoc having a quiet lie down in the girls’ tent, and the boy’s tale becomes ‘scientifically impossible’, and no one believes him. To prove that the creature is dead, del Campo drives a dagger three times into its mummified chest, thus displaying a sound knowledge of scientific protocol and an appropriate respect for ancient cultures and their dead. Nice one Professor, pick up your Nobel Prize on the way out.

The Mummy begins a reign of terror with his bow and poisoned arrows while our heroes endlessly vacillate between believing in his resurrection one minute and then dismissing the possibility as nonsense the next. Of course, the porters try to desert, so Santo gives them a sound thrashing. Unsurprisingly, this doesn’t prove to be an effective man-management strategy, and they all head for the hills the moment his back is turned. Worse still, his budding romance with Montiel is derailed by a call to dinner, and he’s obliged to take care of the orphaned Jorgito. Given the number of boys he’s adopted over the series, it’s a wonder the local social services haven’t paid him a visit! Meanwhile, Nonoc displays a surprising grasp of the 20th Century by burning down the supply tent and wrecking their radio! Not bad for someone who’s been out of the loop for a thousand years.

None of this qualifies as great cinema, of course. Still, it’s undeniably entertaining, with director Cardona infusing the proceedings with far more pace and incident displayed in some of the other entries in the series. Screenwriter Alfredo Salazar can perhaps also be forgiven for straying rather close to the plot elements and scripts of the old Aztec Mummy series. It wasn’t plagiarism, after all, because he co-wrote those original films! On the debit side, he saddles us with Ancira as the tiresome comic relief. The character wanders into the movie somewhat like the ‘wacky egghead’ who dragged down many of Jules Verne’s literary escapades.

Nonoc is not too impressive as a movie monster. He gets the quiver of arrows on his back caught up in the paraphernalia inside a tent and takes some moments to extricate himself. Cardona uses the take, of course. I mean, who needs another? At the risk of engaging in spoilers, the creature’s behaviour and some of the plot’s more ridiculous developments are explained by a late twist in the tale, even if it does raise its own questions of credibility.

Jorgito’s adoption by Santo takes on an interesting twist when you check the boy’s other movie credits; two appearances under the name of Jorge Guzmán, both in other films of the series. Twelve years later, he attempted to revive his film career playing one of the title roles in ‘Chanoc y el hijo del Santo contra los vampiros asesinos/Chanoc and the Son of Santo vs the Killer Vampires’ (1981). Yes, he was Santo’s real-life son and, although his screen career never amounted to more than a couple of films, he had far more success following in his father’s footsteps in the square ring.

Cardona was in the director’s chair for several of Santo’s more outlandish adventures, such as ‘Santo and Dracula’s Treasure/Santo en El tesoro de Drácula’ (1968) and was one of the leading figures in Mexican cult cinema for several decades. His career began in earnest in the 1930s, but it was more than a quarter century before he joined the horror boom with supernatural folk rale ‘La Llorona’ (1960). From there, it was a short step to ‘Doctor Doom/Las luchadoras contra el médico asesino’ (1963), ‘Wrestling Women vs the Aztec Mummy/Las luchadoras contra la momia’ (1964) and ‘The Batwoman/La mujer murcielago’ (1968) and many others, often involving Salazar on scripting duties. He also birthed a directing dynasty with son, René Cardona Jr and grandson, René Cardona III also taking up the megaphone.

One of the breezier and more enjoyable of Santo’s monster mash-ups.

The Skeleton of Mrs Morales/El esqueleto de la señora Morales (1960)

‘Come on; I’ll give you some fertiliser for your wife.’

A good-natured taxidermist is driven to distraction by his manipulative wife and her constant complaining. The situation escalates when she falsely accuses him of beating her, and he is knocked unconscious by his brother-in-law. Provoked beyond measure, his thoughts turn to a permanent solution…

Pitch black Hitchcockian comedy from director Rogelio A. González based on an original story by Welsh mystic and writer Arthur Machen. This tale of quiet desperation and murder is a million miles away from the supernatural happenings that pervaded Mexcian horror film at the time but merits consideration due to the macabre setting and ghoulish aspects of the plot.

Life is certainly not a bed of roses for taxidermist Dr Pablo Morales (Arturo de Córdova). His long marriage to his wife Gloria (Amparo Rivelles) has disintegrated into a nightmare of continuous aggravation. Rivelles moans about the smell of dead animals, gags when he tries to eat meat for dinner and spreads lies about him to her family, neighbours and local priest, Padre Artemio Familiar (Antonio Bravo). She even puts drops in her eyes to fake crying sessions and beats herself up so she can accuse him of the deed, which results in de Córdova getting on the wrong end of a knockout blow from his thuggish brother-in-law, Elodio (Luis Aragón).

Given that de Córdova has a sideline selling human skeletons to anatomists and his basement workshop provides the necessary chemicals and a furnace, it’s not surprising that his thoughts turn to the dark side. After she smashes the camera he buys with money he has been saving for two years, it’s time to take action. Of course, Rivelles’ sister Clara (Angelines Fernández) doesn’t believe she’s gone to see a non-existent aunt in Guadalajara without leaving word, and the sanctimonious Bravo calls in the cops. Very quickly, once he sees that de Córdova is exhibiting a new skeleton in the front window of his shop.

There’s nothing remarkably fresh or original about this tale of domestic unhappiness and murder, although the taxidermy is a clever element. This aspect neatly allows for the means of murder and corpse disposal and provides de Córdova with a plausible reason to be in possession of the necessary skill set for the job. It also allows production designer Edward Fitzgerald to create an impressive working space for our leading man, cluttered with the tools of his trade and its results. It’s also beneficial that director González shows restraint in these scenes, preferring his camera to linger on the live bird of prey that de Córdova keeps as a pet rather than on stuffed animals for a cheap effect.

But what sells the film are the performances. The supporting cast is well up to the task, particularly Bravo’s interfering priest, and that’s a testament to their skills because it would be easy to miss them given the terrific turns by our leading couple. Rivelles is outstanding as drama queen Gloria, presenting a fully fleshed-out character with nuance and depth when it would have been easy to give the audience a hateful shrew. Yes, she’s a monster whose behaviour sometimes verges on deranged, but we also see a desperate woman at war with herself. Her disability, a leg deformed by tuberculosis, gives an obvious reason for audience sympathy, and it’s perhaps a too-convenient way to explain her psychology, but, again, González doesn’t linger on it. Ultimately, it’s the whole woman who alternately commands our respect and exasperation.

As her partner, de Córdova also brings a complicated character to life. The taxidermist is a good man still in love with his wife and would like better than a normal, healthy marriage. Even without that, he’d be quite happy with life’s small pleasures; having a beer at the local with his friends, handing out treats to the local children, taking photos with his new camera bought from understanding shop manager, Señorita Castro (Elda Peralta). So when Rivelles tries to take even those things away, the audience can understand his reaction.

One of the strengths of Luis Alcoriza’s screenplay is that, despite a refusal of time in the marriage bed, the taxidermist never cheats on his wife. He’s a handsome man and does have opportunities but is simply not interested. Early in the picture, there’s a wonderful scene when Rivelles goes out visiting, and de Córdova runs through the house, calling for pretty young maid, Meche (Rosenda Monteros). The audience assumes they’re having an affair, of course, but no, he just wants her to cook him a thick, juicy steak that he can eat in peace!

Rogelio A. González began his film career in the postwar period as a screenwriter working in various genres, primarily romance and comedy, before stepping behind the camera in the 1950s. However, it appears that the only projects that gained distribution outside his homeland were ‘School for Tramps/Escuela de vagabundos’ (1950) and ‘The Bandits of Cold River/Los bandidos de Río Frío’ (1956). In the wake of the sudden horror boom toward the decade’s end, he delivered ghostly comedy-adventure ‘Dos fantasmas y una muchacha’ (1959). Then came the genuinely jaw-dropping ‘The Ship of Monsters/La nave de los monstruos’ (1960), which is still the greatest science fiction-horror-musical-comedy-western-romance ever made. Later projects included the cheesy but enjoyable, ‘Dr Satan vs Black Magic/Dr. Satán y la magia negra’ (1968), and he was active in the industry right up until he died in 1984.

Arturo de Córdova quickly became a star on the Mexican screen after his debut in 1936, specialising in action roles. Hollywood came calling when casting Sam Wood’s adaptation of Ernest Hemingway’s ‘For Whom The Bell Tolls’ (1943), and de Córdova took a significant supporting role alongside stars Gary Cooper and Ingrid Bergman. Other American studio projects followed, such as leads in Frank Tuttle’s ‘Hostages’ (1943), opposite Joan Fontaine in ‘Frenchman’s Creek’ (1944) and with Betty Hutton in ‘Incendiary Blonde’ (1945). However, after the end of the war, he returned to his homeland and, over the following years, his fame grew throughout Latin America, and he easily eclipsed his earlier career. He won an Ariel for Best Actor in 1952, 1954 and 1958, the honour being the Mexican equivalent of the Academy Award. He died in 1973 at the age of 66.

Rivelles was born in Spain in 1925, and her big-screen career stretched from 1941 to the end of the century. Few of her features seem to have been released in English-speaking countries, although ‘The Duchess of Benameji/La duquesa de Benamejí’ (1949) and ‘The Lioness of Castille/La leona de Castilla’ (1951) had worldwide distribution. In the early 1960s, she switched to television and became a fixture on the Spanish small screen for the next 25 years. At the age of 62, she went back to film and became the inaugural winner of Best Actress at the Goya Awards, Spain’s equivalent of the Oscars, for her performance in ‘We Must Undo the House/Hay que deshacer la casa’ (1987). Almost a decade later, in 1996, she won Spain’s ‘National Theater Prize’ and was awarded the Kingdom of Spain’s ‘Gold Medal of Merit in Labour’ in 2002. She passed in 2013.

There’s nothing wildly original or inventive about the story or its presentation here, just relax, sit back and watch two excellent actors at work.

The Living Coffin/El grito de la muerte (1959)

‘The unburied wander through dark forests’.

The spectre of a weeping woman has driven the superstitious locals from their remote town and spells financial disaster for a once-thriving hacienda. Two strangers arrive unexpectedly and start to ask questions about a small, carven idol that has fallen into their possession…

Supernatural mystery from South of the Border with celebrated bullfighter Gastón Santos and his trusty equine partner, Rayo de Plata. The splicing of Western and ghost stories was a particularly popular mashup with Mexican audiences in the late 1950s. This example rests in the safe hands of writer Ramón Obón and director Fernando Méndez.

It’s hard times at the Hacienda de la Ciénega. Once a successful ranchero, things have been looking grim since the passing of owner Doña Clotilde (Carolina Barret). It’s not her death so much as her habit of wandering around the countryside wailing for her lost children when she should be tucked up tight in her coffin. The haunting has scared off most of the locals, leaving a ghost town populated by ‘old women waiting to die.’ Barret’s elderly sister, Doña Maria (Hortensia Santoveña), has become obsessed with testing the alarm system in her own coffin, and someone has stuck a knife in the face of the grandfather clock to keep the dead from coming back.

Into town ride the handsome Gastón (Santos) and his portly sidekick, Coyote Loco (Pedro de Aguillón). Santos is after answers about a small stone idol he has got his hands on. Barret’s pretty niece, María Elena García (María Duval), explains that the icon is one of a pair carved by Barret to represent the two children she lost to quicksand many years ago. Town doctor Antonio Raxel owns the other, so our heroes pay him a visit. On the way, they pick up old family retainer Lencho (José Chávez), who has been shot by a mysterious gunman. Raxel returns with them to the hacienda but ends up stuffed into a chimney. Aided by ranch manager Don Emiliano (Guillermo Álvarez Bianchi), Santos opens Barret’s coffin in the family crypt to solve the mystery. However, the grave is empty, and a ghostly figure is stalking the hacienda’s dark passageways.

There are a couple of nice touches in this brisk, efficient mystery, but, for the most part, it sticks to a tried and trusted formula of family-friendly chills, narrow escapes and PG action. The story ties in nicely with the familiar Latin American folk myth of La Llorna (‘The Weeping Woman’), which has been the subject of many cinematic ventures, most recently ‘The Curse of La Llorona’ (2019) which appeared as part of ‘The Conjuring’ franchise. Here, the weeping woman is tied to a plot involving a secret gold mine, and holds very few surprises. In fact, with a few tweaks, it’s pretty much an identical setup to the earlier Santos vehicle ‘Swamp of the Lost Souls/El pantano de las ánimas’ (1957), which screenwriter Ramón Obón also scripted.

Whether it’s due to degradation of the film stock over time or the process originally used, the washed-out colour gives the film a nice, period feel. Although the exact date of events is never stated, it’s fair to assume we’re in the Old West. The production design is also good, with the hacienda interiors boasting an antique flavour and the family crypt (and the catacombs below) appropriately dark and gloomy.

On the debit side, we have the inevitably painful comic relief from de Aguillón, the joke being that he is so lazy he is always trying to catch 40 winks. Fortunately, the reliable Rayo de Plata picks up the slack, pulling his master from the quicksand with a rope and even backing him up in a gunfight by firing off a pistol! Not bad for a creature without opposable thumbs!

Santos’ exploits in the bullring aboard de Plata made him a national figure in Mexico and helped revive the more traditional practice of bullfighting from horseback. He signed with producer Alfredo Ripstein Jr for a brief series of pictures toward the end of the 1950s. Most of these were Westerns, but the slate did include mad scientist horror ‘The Black Pit of Dr M/Misterios de ultratumba’ (1959). Most of the films were part of the package of 28 features picked up by Miami-based entrepreneur K Gordon Murray who dubbed them into English and sold them to American television in the 1960s.

Director Méndez helped kick off Mexico’s horror craze by teaming with producer-star Abel Salazar for smash hit ‘El Vampiro’ (1957) and sequel ‘El ataúd del Vampiro/The Vampire’s Coffin’ (1959). He also brought the chills with ‘The Body Snatcher/Ladrón de cadáveres (1957) and ‘The Black Pit of Dr M/Misterios de ultratumba’ (1959). Female lead Duval was a successful singer and recording artist who went on to star opposite everyone’s favourite luchador in ‘Santo vs the Vampire Women/Santo vs las Mujeres vampiro’ (1962), ‘Santo vs the Strangler/Santo vs el estrangulador (1965) and ‘Santo vs the Ghost of the Strangler/Espectro del estrangulador’ (1966).

A slight project but acceptable entertainment if viewed in the right spirit on a rainy afternoon.

Santo vs the Head Hunters/Santo contra los cazadores de cabezas (1971)

‘It seems impossible that such a thing could exist in the space age.’

A lost tribe of head hunters kidnap a young woman who is the direct descendant of the conquistador that almost wiped them out, planning to sacrifice her to their gods. Her father calls in a famous masked wrestler, and they form an expedition and head into the jungle in hot pursuit…

Legendary luchador Santo goes on a jungle movie adventure, courtesy of co-writer and director René Cardona. By this point in the long-running series, the masked wrestler had successfully tackled the Mafia, witches, Dracula and aliens, to name just a few, so how hard could an excursion through the interior to fight some tribesmen possibly be?

After near extinction at the hands of the conquistadors, the Hibaro Indians have kept firmly under the radar. Lately, however, they’ve touched base with bad man Tirso (Guillermo Hernández), who has convinced them to take action to restore their rightful place in the world. However, before they can do that, they must take their vengeance on pretty blonde Mariana (Nadia Milton), a direct descendant of their original nemesis. Conveniently, her family’s butler Husca (Enrique Lucero), is one of the tribe, and they contrive to send her a black orchid and a legendary amulet called the ‘Golden Anaconda’. Her father, Don Alonso Grijalva (director Cardona), has the relic pronounced as genuine by expert Professor Castro (Enrique Pontón), who values it beyond price. Rather than put in a museum, however, Milton wears it out on a date with boyfriend Carlos (Freddy Fernández) and is promptly kidnapped and whisked off into the jungle.

The distraught Cardona wastes no time forming a safari to run the miscreants down, bringing in guide Pancho (Carlos Suárez) and none other than Santo to lead the party. The tribesmen have a good head start already and Professor Pontón thinks that Milton is headed for a date with the sacrificial knife, but he also believes the ceremony won’t take place for some time yet. A long chase through the jungle ensues with the tribe’s witch doctor using his magical arts to place obstacles in the way, such as a river crocodile and a jaguar. Warriors also carry out a series of attacks, and the rescue party become rapidly diminished.

Santo on safari like a modern-day Jungle Jim is not, of itself, a flawed concept for a film, and the first half-hour that sets up the adventure is entertaining enough. There’s a decent pace and an opening scene of our hero seeing off some criminal types that later ties into the story, albeit somewhat vaguely. Unfortunately, a couple of minutes into their rescue mission, our heroes run out of road, and the film runs out of plot. An audience gains little satisfaction from scenes of people walking, and Cardona’s film has them in abundance. Occasionally, there’s a little bit of business to break them up, but these events come across as contrived and serve no real purpose other than to slowly whittle down the numbers of Santo’s group and place more of the heroic burden on the great man’s shoulders.

The action, such as it is, is relentlessly underwhelming. Santo makes like Johnny Weissmuller with the crocodile in the river and also wrestles the jaguar to two falls and a submission. However, both creatures look a good deal smaller and less animated when sharing the frame with our hero than they appeared initially. There’s also a ‘blink, and you’ll miss it’ attack by vampire bats and a traitor in the camp. Santo deals with the latter by throwing him into the river, where he immediately explodes because it’s filled with electric eels. Scientifically plausible, of course. Best of all, the villain’s hat meets the same fate, only for it to reappear a few seconds later, floating down the river behind the Man in the Silver Mask, looking completely undamaged. There’s also a wonderful moment when the group builds a defensive stockade. A couple of poles begin to slide slowly to the ground and collide gently with Cardona along their way. Ever the consummate professional, the actor-director simply pushes them back into place and uses the take anyway.

If it doesn’t seem like there’s much here for even hardened fans of the series, then there’s a minor payoff during the last ten minutes when our heroes finally reach the tribe’s headquarters. Santo puts the hurt on various warriors, of course, as everyone panics, but then he’s joined by Cardona. So we get a wonderful moment where the two are fighting off head hunters standing back to back on the sacrificial altar. Given that Cardona directed many of Santo’s earlier and subsequent cinematic adventures, it’s kind of an iconic moment. I guess. There’s also some amusement to be had watching the faces of the extras playing the tribe as they troop past the camera. Never in the history of showbusiness have movie stars looked so bored.

Not only was Cardona responsible for more than half a dozen of Santo’s films, but his filmography is littered with other examples of fantastical Mexican cinema. ‘La Llorona’ (1960) opened the floodgates, quickly followed by the trio of films starring Lorena Velázquez and Elizabeth Campbell, which included the classic ‘Wrestling Women vs The Aztec Mummy/Las luchadoras contra la momia’ (1964). Other projects followed such as ‘The Panther Woman/Las mujeres panteras’ (1967), ‘The Batwoman/La mujer murcielago’ (1967), ‘Night of the Bloody Apes/La horripilante bestia humana’ (1969) and ‘Blue Demon and Zovek in The Invasion of the Dead/Blue Demon y Zovek en La invasión de los muertos’ (1973). He also has over 100 acting credits, which stretch all the way from 1928 until his death in the late 1980s.

Not Santo’s finest hour; this is one for the die-hard fans only.