‘Our electronic interstellar brain indicates the Earthlings do not take our warning seriously.’
Concerned about humanity’s experiments with the a-bomb, a team of Martians come to Earth in a spaceship to put a stop to our aggressive ways. They attack a sporting event to prove their power but come up against a legendary silver-masked hero…
After tackling organised crime, mad scientists and vampires, it’s time for everyone’s favourite Mexican luchador Santo to face off against an extra-terrestrial threat. Alfredo B Crevenna referees from the director’s chair, and old hand Rafael García Travesi came up with both story and screenplay.
Running a wrestling class for young teens and imparting a few important life lessons along the way must have looked like a quiet afternoon for Santo, the man in the silver mask. Even the crowd in the bleachers are focusing more on the other sporting events on the field; a football match and a cycling competition. Unfortunately, the event’s been targeted by Martians, who are a bit non-plussed by humanity’s reaction to their TV debut the night before. Interrupting all global signals, they’d delivered their ultimatum: disarm, eliminate all borders, adopt one language and form a world government. Or else. Sadly, everyone thought they were the stars of a new comedy show.
Righteously pissed, Martian high commander Wolf Ruvinskis sends right-hand Beny Galán to provide the necessary wake-up call. He materialises out of thin air at the sporting arena and starts disintegrating sections of the crowd, including a group of children using the ‘Astral Eye’ in his silver hat. Santo leaps into action, of course, and the two fight; Martian Galán fortunately familiar with the wrestling moves of the day and disinclined to use his deadly disintegrating headgear. Eventually, Santo gets the upper hand, only for his opponent to vanish into thin air, appearing back outside the Martian saucer in the woods nearby.
Santo consults his friend Professor Ororica (Manuel Zozaya). They both agree that aliens are to blame, and the egghead sets about inventing some things that might be handy. Back at the Martian saucer, Ruvinskis orders his crew into the spaceship’s Transformation Chamber as he feels their appearance is detrimental to the mission. Out of the fog, they emerge in the dress of Ancient Greeks, which allows him to name them after some familiar figures from mythology. Earth mythology. They begin to kidnap various Mexican citizens and target both Zozaya and Santo, planning to take them back to Mars, where they can be studied after being put to death.
Where else but Mexico could you find a strange mutation of a movie like this? On the one hand, the plot is pure low-budget 1950s science fiction and displays some of the most worn-out conventions of the genre. However, the proceedings are infected with a swinging sixties sensibility, making for a wonderfully silly combination. It’s right there in the Martian’s initial costumes. Everything is silver (of course!), but the girls wear short skirts and go-go boots, while the guys have long, blonde ringlets falling down from caps with a third eye painted in the centre. These are some seriously cool cats, man.
Their transformation into Ancient Greeks is a high point and seems to exist only as a reason for Ruvinskis to name his crew after Gods and Goddesses. He takes the name of Argo, and his second-in-command is Cronos (Ignacio Gómez, billed under his wrestling name of El Nazi!). The other two guys are hypnotist Morpheus (Ham Lee), and strong arm Galán is christened Hercules. The gals are Aphrodite (Maura Monti), Selene (Eva Norvind), Diana (Belinda Corel) and Artemis (Gilda Mirós). The justification for the change is that their original appearance is frightening the Earthlings, which seems a little weird, considering that everyone thought they were actors in a TV comedy! Ruvinskis also admits that they can’t use their ‘Astral Eye’ in this form or become invisible, which seems to make the whole thing a very bad idea. But it doesn’t matter because we never see them dressed as Greeks again.
Santo’s backup is egghead Zozaya, whose various inventions of a transistor radio compass and a Martian-detecting cigar box prove quite the ticket. Later, when the authorities are trying to downplay this whole Martian invasion thing, Zozaya is invited to attend a dinner in his honour arranged by his scientific colleagues and staged at the Club Tropical. The Space Babes replace the resident Ballet troupe(!) and show off some crucial go-go moves before disappearing into thin air with the old Prof. It’s all rather splendid and quite wonderful.
There are many other highlights, too; the Martian spaceship has the big ‘self-destruct’ lever beloved by genre cinema ever since Colin Clive helpfully installed one in his watchtower laboratory before working on ‘The Bride of Frankenstein (1935). Ruvinskis decrees that the Martians will all speak Spanish for the duration as it’s the language of Mexico, which he’s picked as their landing site due to its global reputation for seeking peace and disarmament.
His mission does seem a tad confused, though. At first, he insists that humanity dissolves all national boundaries, creates a world government under one language, and imposes global peace with a brotherhood of man. A dastardly plan, to be sure, and entirely against the principles of a free market, capitalism, war for profit and manifest destiny that we all benefit from today. Thank God everyone thinks he’s joking. But then he orders his crew to start kidnapping random people, such as a priest, a couple of scientists and an average family who watch a lot of TV. Why? So he can take them back to Mars. Why? Well, I’m sure he has his reasons.
Space babes Mirós and Corel hypnotise a couple of Santo’s training partners (Eduardo Bonada and Nathanael León) and set them against him, but they can’t defeat him. Later, Monti and Norvind try their womanly wiles on Santo and get his mask off, so they can make out with him! However, it’s just a hallucination. The obligatory battle in the ring finds our hero pitched against Galán, who has disguised himself as ‘The Black Eagle’. Of course, the real wrestler has met a swift end in the ‘opponent’s dressing room’ (still the most dangerous place on Earth).
This was the penultimate of Santo’s films to be presented in black and white, and ridiculous as the whole enterprise might be, it’s notable that far more care and attention were devoted to the project than to some of the later entries in the series. Director Crevenna brings a swift pace, and there’s plenty of action, and, crucially, these sequences don’t outstay their welcome. Credit for this should also be given to Travesi, who keeps the events coming thick and fast, even if some don’t make a lot of sense. As usual, it’s all played completely straight, and the contrast between this serious approach and the story’s silliness makes for a fun ride.
Ruvinskis was one of Santo’s real-life rivals in the ring and was already familiar to Mexican cinema audiences as the heroic Neutron, who had appeared in a short series of rival films, including ‘Neutron Contra El Dr Caronte’ (1963). He would return, along with many other cast and crew members, for the next Santo film, ‘Santo vs. the Villains of the Ring/Santo vs los villanos del ring’ (1966). So many were involved in both, it seems likely that the films were shot back to back, particularly as they were both produced by Alfonso Rosas Priego, who does not appear to have been involved with the long-running series at any other time. One interesting absentee is Fernando Osés, who had appeared either in front of the camera or behind the typewriter on all but one of the first 15 films in the series. This time he would be gone for another three years (and half a dozen films). It could have been because of his heavy involvement in the film series starring Santo’s rival, Blue Demon, but that’s pure speculation on my part.
The real behind-the-scenes story, though, belongs to Norwegian-born space babe Norvind. She appeared in less than a dozen films but went on to fame of a different kind. Born Eva Johanne Chegodayeva Sakonskaya, she’d worked as a showgirl at the Follies Bergere and a Playboy bunny by the time she was 20, after which she travelled to Mexico City one summer to learn Spanish. Snapped up for a minor role in a TV show, she became an instant sex symbol and entered films. After speaking in support of birth control on national television, the government ordered her deported immediately. Still, she was able to stay in the country after help from the actor’s union.
After her film career, she entered journalism and movie distribution and studied film at New York University. In the mid-1980s, she began working as a dominatrix and sex therapist, speaking on the subject at many international conferences. Her life was chronicled in the documentary film ‘Didn’t Do It For Love’ (1997), and two years later, director John McTiernan hired her as a ‘technical consultant’ to coach Rene Russo for her starring role in ‘The Thomas Crown Affair’ (1999). Norvind drowned in the Pacific off the southern coast of Oaxaca in Mexico in 2006 while working on a documentary about the disabled musician and actor Jose Flores. ‘Born Without’ (2007) went on to win several awards after it was eventually released.
Cracking entertainment and one of the highlights of Santo’s film career.
Santo will return in ‘Santo vs. the Villains of the Ring/Santo vs los villanos del ring’ (1966).