‘The human eye allows us to capture the different vibrations emitted by colours, red being the colour with the highest intensity.’
An elderly professor has invented an invisibility process and demonstrates it to his friend, a masked wrestler. Later on that night, the scientist is murdered, and an invisible criminal begins a reign of terror…
Generic crime thriller with an invisibility gimmick from ubiquitous Mexican director René Cardona. Jorge Rivero makes his screen debut, with Ana Bertha Lepe and Carlos Agosti taking the other leading roles.
Professor Green (Miguel Arenas) has invented a machine that uses sound vibrations to create invisibility, demonstrating it to his friend, the masked wrestler, El Enmascarado de Oro (Rivero). However, the scientist is murdered overnight, and the machine is stolen. Suspicion naturally falls on the professor’s assistant, Eric Larsen (Agostí), who is also dating his daughter, Adriana (Adriana Roel). Fortunately, he has a ready-made alibi; he was with Roel at The Fountain until the early hours, a nightclub where entertainment is provided by headliner Ana Bertha Lepe (playing herself!) However, Agosti’s evening included a visit to Lepe’s dressing room where he introduced himself and declared his romantic intentions.
Shortly after the theft, an invisible man holds up a bank at gunpoint, shooting a guard. It is the first in a series of robberies, prompting Inspector Raúl Martínez (Guillermo Murray) to enlist Rivero’s help to break the case. Their strategy is to tempt the villain with a case of jewels, and when they are taken and subsequently found in the professor’s house, his servant (Juan Garza) becomes the prime suspect, especially as he is missing. Murray and Lepe have become an item, but the case comes to a complete standstill. The invisible man is still on the loose, and Murray and the police are forced to wait for him to make the next move.
This is a highly predictable adventure that hits all the expected story beats and most of the familiar cinematic invisibility tropes. The sinking seat cushions and the floating cigarette (isn’t it about time that the Invisible Man got his own brand?) are conspicuous by their absence for a change, but everything else is present and correct. You might expect that the presence of a masked wrestler might shake things up a little, but his effect is negligible. Sure, the action comes to a halt a couple of times for some shenanigans in the square ring, but that’s about it. This luchador is also a very obvious stand-in for legendary Mexican wrestler Santo, down to his silver mask and the open-top sports car. He does keep a big cat in a cage in his laboratory, though, which is different. Unfortunately, its presence is simply a plot device to enable the ‘twist’ ending, which is half-hearted at best, and comes across as an afterthought.
Given that Santo was already a few years into his own screen career, this was likely a project originally intended for him. Director Cardona wrote the screenplay with his son, René Cardona Jr, and had already appeared as an actor in two of Santo’s films: ‘Santo vs. the King of Crime/Santo contra el rey del crimen’ (1962) and ‘Santo and the Diabolical Brain/Santo contra el cerebro diabólico’ (1963). In a probable non-coincidence, these films had also starred Lepe in the leading female role. Whether Santo was offered the project and turned it down is pure speculation, of course, as such production history is lost to time, but it’s certainly possible. Cardona had directed ‘El Enmascarado de Plata/The Silver-Masked Man’ (1954), which was originally intended to bring Santo to the screen for the very first time. When the wrestler passed on it, Cardona made the film anyway with another actor. If there was any subsequent ill feeling, it passed in time as the two went on to collaborate on more than half a dozen films.
Sadly, this is a very formulaic effort, being little more than a retread of the far superior ‘Invisible Man in Mexico/El hombre que logró ser invisible (1958). The main culprit is the script, which boasts little in the way of creativity or fresh ideas. There’s also a suspicion that this was partially intended as a musical showcase for Lepe, whose various stage numbers bring proceedings to a halt on a semi-regular basis. She can certainly sing and dance and seeing her rock out with an electric guitar is undeniably appealing. Still, it doesn’t advance the plot very much and feels a lot like unnecessary padding. Although mostly a dramatic actress, Lepe did occasionally appear in musicals, so it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that she had a second career as a nightclub entertainer. The movie introduces her with a shot of a huge sign bearing her name outside the club, and it seems unlikely that this was something fabricated for the film, given that it only appears the one time.
The film’s most entertaining sequence comes at the opening when Arenas explains his invisibility process. Curiously, it’s based on sound, and he provides a fearsome diatribe of scientific gobbledygook to explain it. Apparently, different colours have different vibrations, and these can be detected by the optic nerve. Ultraviolet registers in a different way, though, which is highly significant. It also has something to do with shocking the Earth’s magnetic poles, but I must admit that part went over my head. The professor is also bright enough to understand that his invention could be dangerous if it ‘falls into the wrong hands’, but sadly not bright enough to keep his mouth shut in front of the hired help or install even a rudimentary level of security. I doubt his lab complies with the applicable Health & Safety regulations, either.
There is a recovery procedure to follow to return to visibility, which must be implemented within two hours of undertaking the vanishing process. Otherwise, death results. This fact could have made for some interesting story developments, but, in the end, it’s barely relevant. There’s also a lack of detail regarding the Invisible Man’s long-term plans. What exactly is his endgame? What is he trying to accomplish? His ambitions don’t seem to stretch beyond stealing a few things here and there and sneaking around the leading lady’s private dressing room. His secret identity isn’t likely to tax the ‘little grey cells’ either, given that the pool of suspects is so incredibly threadbare. When belatedly released in America, it was retitled ‘Neutron Traps the Invisible Killers’ in a misbegotten attempt to ride the coattails of Wolf Ruvinskis, who played the grappling crime fighter Neutron in a film series that was itself an attempt to cash in on the popularity of the Santo movies.
Carlos Agostí ran up an impressive 144 acting credits in a screen career lasting over half a century. Born in 1922 in Madrid, h he entered the business at the end of the Second World War, playing the lead in Spanish drama ‘El pozo de los enamorados’ (1945). Subsequent roles were of a lesser nature but included appearances in major, award-winning productions such as ‘Las inquietudes de Shanti Andía’ (1947). He relocated to Mexico in the mid-1950s, where he became a reliable second lead and featured supporting player, first crossing the path of cult cinema in ‘Santo vs. the Zombies/Santo contra los zombies/The Invasion of the Zombies (1962). In the same year, he starred as Count Siegfried von Frankenhausen in ‘El Vampiros Sangriento/The Bloody Vampire’ (1961) and repeated the role in sequel ‘La Invasion de los Vampiros/The Invasion of the Vampires’ (1962). Further run ins with Santo and other wrestlers followed in films like ‘Blue Demon contra las diabólicas’ (1968), ‘Las luchadoras vs el robot asesino’ (1969), ‘Santo and Dracula’s Treasure/Santo en El tesoro de Drácula’ (1969) and the wonderfully ridiculous ‘Santo vs. the Killers from Other Worlds/Santo contra los asesinos de otros mundos’ (1971). However, it’s only fair to point out that as numerous as these titles are, they only account for a small percentage of his overall credits.
Some films fall between the cracks as the years go by. Sometimes, it’s not hard to see why.