‘That damn masked man looks like a tiger; he’s the devil himself.’
The authorities have their eye on a local crime lord and shut down his nightclub. Meanwhile, the leading cop’s reporter girlfriend has gone undercover at his base of operations outside of the city…
An early entry in the film series starring iconic Mexican wrestler Santo. Here, he takes on part of the criminal underworld under the direction of Federico Curiel, who co-wrote the script with Antonio Orellana and regular contributor Fernando Osés. This was the last of the three films the team shot together in 1961 featuring returning characters and cast members and forms a sort of trilogy within the Santo series.
The authorities are cracking down hard on crime in the big city. Leading detective Fernando Lavalle (Fernando Casanova) and his partner, Conrado (Roberto Ramírez Garza, billed as Beto’ el Boticario), storm a nightclub and, despite heavy resistance, arrest everyone in sight. It’s a good night’s work, but a nasty surprise awaits Casanova when he returns to headquarters. There’s a phone call from newspaper editor Señor Morales (Víctor Velázquez) with bad news about the detective’s girlfriend, top reporter Virginia (Ana Bertha Lepe). Against orders, she’s gone undercover searching for a scoop on mob boss Refugio Canales (Luis Aceves Castañeda).
Disguising themselves as cattle buyers, Casanova and Garza head for the small town where Castañeda is based, hoping to get a lead on her whereabouts. Unfortunately, their disguises are soon penetrated, and they find themselves at the mercy of the crime lord’s ruthless gang. Fortunately, Casanova has an ace in the hole: his friendship with a certain silver-masked wrestler. When one of the gang inadvertently activates the radio device that the two use to communicate, Santo learns of the danger and comes running to help.
This was a sequel of sorts to Curiel’s ‘Santo vs. the King of Crime/Santo contra el rey del crimen’ (1962) and ‘Santo in the Hotel of Death/Santo en el hotel de la muerte’ (1963), being that it carries on the story of his collaboration with detectives Casanova and Garza and the headstrong Lepe. Unfortunately for audiences looking for some story consistency, the release of Curiel’s films was delayed and two other films starring Santo made into theatres first: ‘Santo contra los zombies/Santo contra los zombies’ (1962) and ‘Santo and the Vampire Women/Santo vs. las mujeres vampiro’ (1962). Neither of those featured any of Curiel’s recurring characters, of course, which may have made the presence of Matias (Augusto Benedicto) a bit of a headscratcher for some. This older gentleman in glasses and suit and tie appears only very briefly here, but was introduced in ‘Santo vs. the King of Crime/Santo contra el rey del crimen’ (1962), as ‘Alfred’ to Santo’s ‘Batman’. However, audience members not familiar with that film may have recalled him instead as the heroine’s father from ‘Santo and the Vampire Women/Santo vs. las mujeres vampiro’ (1962)!
The additional issue is that the fans who had enjoyed the great the man’s battles with the supernatural would be expecting a great deal more of him than is presented here. In Curiel’s version of the Santo Cinematic Universe, the garppler is still playing second fiddle to ‘tecs Casanova and Garza. Whether producers were still unsure of Santo’s box office appeal is unclear, but it often feels that he’s a guest star in his own film, he’s even billed that way at the end of the opening credits. The result is that he’s largely offscreen for the first half of the film, only turning up to help after his friends get in too deep, which is pretty much inevitable. They’ve only been in town for a couple of hours before they let themselves get distracted by two of the hostesses in the cantina. This allows Castañeda’s goons the time to search their luggage and find their police badges!
But if our heroes aren’t too bright, then you also have to wonder about their nemesis too. He’s hardly a ‘diabolical brain’ or a criminal mastermind as the film’s title suggests. Given that he’s apparently running a busy nightclub in the city, what’s he doing burying himself in a one-horse town so far away from the action? I suppose the man must know what he’s doing but, then again, what is that, exactly? Sure, his thugs push the townsfolk around, and he puts some heinous moves on Lepe, but what are his organised criminal activites? What is his racket? Yes, there’s the nightclub, which got all the official attention, but beyond being a hangout for unsavoury types and a dodgy knife-throwing act, there didn’t seem to be all that much going on there. So why is he Public Enemy Number One?
Anyway, at least Lepe is a little better at undercover work than our hapless heroes. By the time they arrive, she’s already working in the cantina. The specifics of her job description as a hostess are never really specified, but they do involve an intimate, backroom rendezvous with the leering Castañeda. He wants to see her legs, among other things. Fortunately, Casanova is best buds with ace crimefighter Santo, who gets wise to the situation when one of the gang inadvertently activates the ‘X-Alpha’ device that the two use to communicate. Realising his friends are in danger, Santo rushes to the rescue, although he does stop on the way for a quick wrestling match at the arena.
In a way, this is a curious mashup of a crime picture and a Western. Castañeda is set up like a corrupt frontier town boss, with Casanova and Garza (and Santo!) as the strangers riding into town to force a regime change. Lepe is the saloon girl with the heart of gold, and there’s even a barroom brawl where Garza gets a couple of tired bits of comedy business. If it all seems like a long way from the mean streets of downtown Mexico City, then the gang still take our heroes for ‘a ride’, although here it’s on horseback, rather than in the back of a black Sedan.
The fight choreography, and its execution, are a little awkward at times, leading to a couple of fun moments. Santo can sure throw a dummy down a cliff and is so strong that he can hold a plane down when it tries to take off! Castañeda makes for one of the series’ best villains, leching after Lepe and enjoying the spectacle of his men torturing Casanova and Garza. He’d had plenty of experience of the dark side, playing the evil Dr Krupp in the first three films featuring the Aztec Mummy, culminating in the hilarious antics of ‘The Robot vs. The Aztec Mummy/La momia azteca contra el robot humano’ (1958).
Casanova was born in 1925 and trained initially to be a bullfighter. He was gored on his debut at the Toreo de la Condesa in Mexico City and returned to the provincial circuit, eventually retiring to become an actor. He began his film career with some uncredited bits in 1947, working his way up to parts with billing by the early 1950s. His first leading role was as the Zorro-like Black Eagle in Ramón Peón’s ‘El águila negra’ (1953), which was a tremendous domestic box office hit and launched him as a romantic star. A series featuring the same character followed, and he also enjoyed great success in Westerns. His screen career lasted for over 60 years, and he was still working five years before his death in 2012. Some sources credit him as the actor with the most starring roles in film history, but, of course, any such claim is likely to be hotly disputed.
A crime drama in Western clothing with a silver-masked wrestler thrown in. Sadly, it’s not nearly as interesting as it sounds, but it still has some fun moments.
Santo will return in ‘Santo in the Wax Museum/Santo en el museo de cera’ (1963).