El Santo, El Enmascarado de Plata, is back in El tesoro de Moctezuma (1968), directed by René Cardona and René Cardona Jr., and Santo contra los asesinos de otros mundos (1973), directed by Rubén Galindo. One narrative is disjointed while the other is fractured, and both narratives see the multitude's hero, El Santo, as a secret agent out to stop the supervilllains. In El tesoro de Moctezuma, there is an international underworld organization out to steal the film's title; and in Los asesinos de otros mundos, a blob is roaming the streets and killing folks, having its scientific origin in the criminal underworld.
During the first act of Los asesinos de otros mundos, the machine-gun-toting criminals attempt to lift some contraband from a parked plane on a runway. Both well-armed and well-numbered the criminals begin to remove their booty, while Santo hides in the cargo area of the plane. The cargo hold is tight and cramped, and Santo is able to funnel most of the criminals into the small space for a beating. Santo eventually takes the fight from the plane to the runway, giving everyone a beating until the boss decides to flee in his vehicle. Santo stands in the way of the criminal boss's oncoming car and waves his arms but is subdued. Having hit our hero with a large vehicle, rendering him unconscious on the runway, the boss points a gun at his head. With one bullet, the world could topple with the death of Santo.
However, in supervillain fashion, one bullet is cinematically boring, so a contrived and cinematically sublime death scenario is envisioned. Los asesinos de otros mundos moves to another setting, another planet, where Santo is greeted by the supervillain at his throne. Santo, unarmed, is forced into gladiatorial combat with two really big dudes with medieval armory and weaponry. Santo has no fear and dispatches one, and another one appears. After Santo thwarts both opponents, the supervillain summons Santo's final opponent: a large man in a hazmat outfit armed with a flamethrower. As opposed to the previous two opponents, this one is state of the art and this character is where director Galindo impresses. While nearly everything during this sequence is theatrical, (the painted walls of starry space, the dirt ground arena mimicking the surface of another planet, the gladiator apparel and weaponry, and the supervillain throne) the final opponent looks both alien and familiar. While I assume safety guidelines were strictly adhered on the set and camera tricks employed to create tension, when the final opponent fires real streams of fuel and fire at Santo, it is quite scary. Santo, in rare fashion, displays a modicum of fear: I would not be surprised with every tumble he took, Santo hoped if an accident did occur, then his wrestling gear was flame-retardant. 
El tesoro de Moctezuma is late-60s spy cinema. Santo has a partner, the extremely handsome Jorge Rivero. Santo and Jorge perform the duties of one secret agent, but each character has to be present to perform the respective secret agent duties: Santo is both the muscle and the brains, while Jorge seduces the women. That's not an entirely fair description as Jorge does help with strategy, and Santo, I'm certain, was grateful for his help. That description of the two's duties is more or less apt. In a standout sequence, Jorge brings his lady to a bullfight, and the two are notable guests, as the matador greets them. The bullfight ensues, and during his date, Jorge notes the gentlemen with sunglasses and suits around the bullpen look suspicious. Jorge leaves his date to investigate. The gentlemen in suits and sunglasses pull their pistols and are going to kill Jorge. Jorge runs around the arena, firing the occasional shot at the bad guys, but he is outnumbered and takes a bullet in the shoulder. Santo appears, unarmed (and in a very stylish turtleneck sweater), and gives a beatdown to the bad guys. Above the bullpen, Santo lifts one of the gentlemen in a suit and sunglasses and raises him in the air. Santo tosses him into the bullpen, and the man is trampled and gored by a bull. Santo saves Jorge, and with a bullet in his arm, Jorge returns to his date. This scene is representative.
When Santo finishes his gladiatorial combat in Los asesinos de otros mundos, despite the drama, the film more or less ends midway. A new supervillain appears, who dominates his subjects with neckbands and can explode them on command, and Santo still has to save the word but has a more immediate task: helping gorgeous Karen (Sasha Montenegro) and her scientist father, Dr. Bernstein (Carlos Suárez). The one constant in the narrative, besides Santo, is the blob. The blob is menacing, and in the film's opening sequence, it looks unstoppable. With accompanying throbbing audio, the blob absorbs its victims. On the street or in the comfort of the bedroom, no one is safe. One could say it looks like a cover of latex rubber with five or six people underneath, decorated to look like a chocolate malt, but I'm not. Interestingly, Santo cannot dispatch the blob with his hands and must use his cunning to subdue it. 
El tesoro de Moctezuma has a beautiful sequence, shot very well by both Cardonas, at an Aztec pyramid. The authentic location provided quite the background for Santo to give the villains an ass whipping. Structurally, the Aztec pyramid has several levels, creating steps to its top; and it provides an excellent opportunity for Santo to pick up an opponent and throw him to his death. I seriously cheer whenever Santo performs this move in combat. Rivero is a nice addition to the film: he's good-looking and brings a youthful energy. All the sexy sequences with the actresses are welcome. In a humorous and clever flourish, the Cardonas have Santo and Jorge meet two beautiful twins in very different scenarios. Both Santo and Jorge hold one of the twins in his arms, simultaneously, yet events leading up to this act are radically different for both. El tesoro de Moctezuma has some wonderful compositions and is well-paced and exciting. 
Both films in El Santo fashion, two out of three falls, end in a draw. Too much infectious fun. And a blob.
It's curious as to whether Jean Rollin read this passage and was inspired:
Those "people and places who figure in his own universe" literally populate one of Rollin's latest films, La nuit des horloges (2007). A young woman, Isabelle (Ovidie) is like one of the hypothetical viewers referenced above: her cousin, a film maker named Michel Jean, has recently died. She knows little of the man personally. The two separated when she was very young. Now a grown woman, Isabelle sits near the entrance to a railway tunnel, reading her favorite book, when a character from one of Michel Jean's films appears to her. Isabelle begins a journey to discover what kind of artist her cousin was and to discover who he was as a person. During her journey, characters from his films continue to "pop up," and tell Isabelle about the film maker.
One of the most striking sequences occurs at a burned forest setting where Isabelle encounters a character played by Sabine Lenoël. Where is this place? asks Isabelle. The "burned forest" setting is one where the film maker always wanted to film but was unable to. The setting is striking natural scenery. Isabelle, through the grandfather clock at Michel Jean's home in Limoges, visits another location which Rollin himself identified as a place where he hoped to film in "his next film." (identified in his interview included as a supplement on the Media Blasters/Shriek Show 
While the meta elements are cleverly rendered into La nuit des horloges, this is by far not a post-modern attempt by Rollin to be self-referential and hip (which is seemingly annoying the majority of film viewers these days). During my first viewing, La nuit was quite disorienting: seemingly part of its design was to be strange and that was not lost on me. During a second viewing, I was struck by how melancholy the film was. A particularly affecting scene occurs with Isabelle and a genuine actor from one of Rollin's (or Michel Jean's) "lost" films. The actor, who is quite perfect in the film, is either generating true emotion felt by his lines and/or giving a very emotional performance. The emotion is very much present not only in the scene but in the overall film. This is not to say La nuit is depressing as a lot of the nostalgia and its positive energy is on display. Isabelle encounters another actress from Rollin's cinema in her bedroom at the maison in Limoges. Her performance is emotional also, but it is quite obvious her roles in Rollin's cinema were memorable and perhaps not tinged with any sadness.
Ovidie is a notable figure in current French cinema and its culture, and she deserves wider discussion in subsequent entries. During my second viewing of La nuit, I was struck by how similar she is to Brigitte Lahaie in many of her memorable performances from Rollin's cinema. Like Lahaie, Ovidie is an extremely beautiful and sensuous woman who conveys a powerful sexuality but who is also able to convey a real sense of innocence and shyness simultaneously. Her performance is essential to the success of La nuit. La nuit des horloges is available on region two DVD from German label, X-Rated, and has French audio with optional German and English subtitles. It's anamorphic widescreen and has chapter stops and nine trailers from the label's other releases (including some Rollin ones). I purchased the disc from retailer, 
Urueta doesn't need a traditional narrative for El poder satánico, but it has one. Viewing it as a collage piece is a better experience, made up of song-and-dance sequences, seduction sequences, Satanic sequences, wrestling matches, and Blue Demon sequences. El poder satánico resides in a character portrayed by charismatic and legendary actor, Jaime Fernández. From his jail cell, he smiles and is later buried by the hands of justice in a nondescript plot in the cemetery. Cut to modern times, as the hands of thievery are digging his grave whereupon the true poder satánico reveals itself and Fernández's character rises. It's not long before he dons a cape and finds a cobwebbed mansion with Gothic trimmings, but he doesn't behave in the traditional way a caped figure in a Gothic residence should behave. A young couple is walking in arms in a forest, clearly infatuated with each other, when Fernández's character encounters them. With the tight close-up upon the eyes, el poder satánico works its magic. The young man is killed (upon whose coffin Blue Demon sheds tears, giving him a personal stake in the administration of justice); and the young woman is captured by the power. Back at the Gothic residence, with his captive under his spell, Fernández's character seduces the woman twice and then leads her to a chamber, a homemade crematorium where she is burned alive. The satanic smile from Fernández's character returns.
In Arañas infernales, Curiel allows the aliens to invade right at the beginning and unlike Urueta, lets Blue Demon beat up bad guys and save the world. Blue Demon serves up justice, initially, in his athletic, fist-pummeling style. Beset by an alien immobilization attack, Blue Demon and his associates are seized, whereupon two alien henchmen in human form, donning black capes which are glittered with a spiderweb design, move into dispatch the group. Blue Demon sheds his cape and gives the two a beatdown. As most residing on Earth are apt to do, the aliens have clearly underestimated Blue Demon's power. Their strategy changes with some experimentation until deciding upon imbuing a wrestler with superhuman strength to enter the ring and take down our hero. This alien incarnation looks the part, glittery headband, shiny armbands and belt, and flowing cape; and appears credible in combat: as when he initially enters the wrestling arena, three wrestlers are sparring and a promoter is present. The alien wrestler asks to get into the promotion and challenges all three wrestlers as an audition. It's an impressive display, and soon Blue Demon is pencilled as his opponent. During their match, the likes of which pay-per-view has never seen, Blue Demon takes to this chump. Slowly, Blue Demon in a strategic move, works over his right arm. The human hand of the alien incarnation, as he is losing the match, begins to grow hair on his right hand. Blue Demon suppresses him with his athletic ability, and the alien incarnation shows its true form: his right hand takes the form of a spider. He enters the ring, and the crowd rushes for the exits, screaming. Blue Demon, the courageous hero, doesn't waver but is ready to serve up the final stage of his ass-whipping.
Virtually all Blue Demon action sequences within El poder satánico take place within the ring. Blue Demon's battle against Fernández comes in the form of academic study: Blue Demon is seen primarily behind his desk with a large, ancient tome in his hands. Urueta's compositions of Blue Demon at study are either haphazard (showing a careless attitude towards the production) or playfully brilliant: striking images, giving the superhero an Edgar Allen Poe-ish air who faces dark demons from legend. The actual wrestling sequences within both films actually reappear in both. El poder satánico features one match, two out of three falls, with Blue Demon winning two, but it's the same sequence shot in two different ways (perhaps this is lifeless carelessness from Urueta, but the end result is a disorienting, deja-vu effect). Santo makes a cameo appearance in El poder satánico, shaking Blue Demon's hand in the dressing room; and the viewer also gets to witness a Santo wrestling match, re-used from a Santo film from the period. Blue Demon is not the vehicle who drives the narrative of El poder satánico, but like all the sequences, he is driven by the images, as a powerful inclusion: a aong-and-dance sequence allows Fernández to seduce the singer, giving an opportunity for Gothic and satanic seduction which fuels Blue Demon who eventually has to end the evil character. Undeniably, Blue Demon is the vehicle and true savior within Arañas infernales (literal English title, Hellish Spiders), and the film could have benefitted from more indulgent, atmospheric, and/or surrealistic sequences (like its fantastic final ten minutes). Arañas infernales boasts a tried-and-true formula, has an absence of cinema's greatest superhero, El Enmascarado de Plata, El Santo, and benefits from showing Blue Demon as a great cinema superhero, himself, in his solo battle against the alien-cum-spiders. Long live Blue Demon.
Mark il poliziotto is Stelvio Massi's second poliziesco following Squadra volante (1974) and has an interesting commercial genesis. "I said, 'Why not make a film with Franco Gasparri?'" says Massi. "He [presumably this is producer, Pietro Bregni at P.A.C. who financed all of the Mark films (Italia Calibro 9, same reference as later in this paragraph)] said: 'No, who'd go and see it?'" Massi continues, "'Look, there's fifteen million picture stories sold a month. If we make it and the girls go and see how he moves--because he is static in the picture stories--maybe it'll work.' We started work two days later." (Massi's quote is taken from an interview included as a supplement on the No Shame 
Unsurprisingly, extremely-handsome Gasparri is both focal with Massi's camera and with the narrative (from a screenplay by legendary Dardano Sacchetti, from his story with Massi, Raniero di Giovanbattista, and Adriano Bolzoni). Superficially, Gasparri's Mark the Narc character seems a hybrid of Clint Eastwood's Dirty Harry and Al Pacino's Serpico. One can see, beyond Dirty Harry's weapon of choice, the .44 Magnum, that Mark shares Dirty Harry's style of police investigation: warrants, evidence, and criminal procedural rules are obstacles. Intuitively, Mark, like Dirty Harry, knows the criminals are adhering to no rules themselves, so the only way to stop them is adhere to no rules to capture (or kill) them. Pacino's Serpico character (and Pacino's performance) is timeless and wonderfully complex and rich. Gasparri's Mark adopts Serpico's attitude towards police work with his appearance: like Serpico, Mark's hair and clothes match the youthful culture in which he works (which his boss, also, dislikes). Mark is also quite the ladies' man and in a more overt nod to Pacino's policeman, Mark has an extremely large pet dog, named Whiskey. Again, these are superficial comparisons, but Gasparri's character in Mark il poliziotto is only slightly deeper than his glossy photos. (Although Gasparri's Mark drives Sacchetti's script, his character is a vehicle which advances the plot. The character's actions do not create his own consequences and results which create the story. In other words, hero and villain are going to confront each other in the final act.) Considering the film's commercial genesis, some depth to Mark's character comes with his doomed romance with drug-addicted Irene (Sara Sperati). Mark shows pity on Irene at a crime scene where Mark and his straight-laced partner, Bonetti (Giampiero Albertini), find a dead body from a known figure in the drug trade. Appearances of his death lead to an overdose of heroin, but Mark believes it is a cover up for murder. Irene is a drug addict, also, and she floats around in the drug scene, frequently a target for men who sleep with her in exchange for drugs. Mark takes her to his apartment and calls a doctor to help her dry out. When she recovers, Mark sends her on her way, knowing more than likely, Irene is going to use again and hit the streets. This point is emphasized when Mark gives her a some money for a meal when the two separate: Irene refuses the money, because it is too tempting to go and use. She expresses a willingness to quit. Mark tells her to take it anyway, as he has little faith that she's genuine. The two reunite again after Irene has gone quite a few days without using (and the viewer sees in scenes that Irene is having a tough time, as no one wants to help her recover, including her mother). Eventually Irene's character becomes an essential plot device in Mark's investigation and Sacchetti's screenplay and Sperati's character yields to it.
Franco Gasparri is not only handsome but extremely charismatic. Massi does not spare the close-ups on his actor. "He was a real treasure," says Massi, "truly incredible. Apart from his good looks there were crowds of girls wherever he went. In Genoa they filled the piazza. And he was good, serious, and polite..." (taken from the Massi interview from the No Shame DVD of Squadra volante). The story of Mark il poliziotto does little to taint Gasparri's image: by far not a violent film (just compared to Massi's previous poliziesco) nor does it have a gritty depiction of street life nor a truly socially-critical message (despite the serious subject matter). Mark il poliziotto is the portrait of a young, good-looking, defiant cop who, no doubt, is relatable to the youthful audience to which the film was aimed. Likewise, there's a youthful energy to Mark il poliziotto and wherein lies its fun. Most of the adults (e.g. specifically the much older men) are depicted as money-driven, hollow, souless people. Lee J. Cobb's Benzi (whose casting was a real coup d'etat. The legendary American actor brings an amazing amount of professionalism to his role. He dubs himself in the English version and gives a great performance) is a strong example. Benzi sits in his palatial mansion one late evening going over paperwork. His wife is doing a crossword puzzle. Gasparri's Mark plays a prank on Benzi by calling him and playing a tape-recorded message of gunshots. Benzi doesn't care: he has too many important figures, including the police, on his payroll. He cannot be bothered with small-time cops or, for that matter, enjoy time in his house, doing something light and fun with his wife. 
Sacchetti's script does have some clever sequences, such as when Bonetti and Terzi go to see an importer/exporter (involved in the syndicate) and question him. The import/export business involves goods like small trinkets and toys. Bonetti picks up a toy police car and asks the businessman, "How much for this?" "You can have it," says the businessman, "for very little." "No thanks," says Bonetti. Very nice joke on corruption. Likewise, Massi's camerawork creates a very handsome production with Mark il poliziotto. "Technique's what helped me more than anything else," says Massi, "because I'd been an assistant and... And then an advantage I perhaps had was to be able to take the screenplay and slowly change it to my viewpoint. It was nothing extraordinary but that was it." (taken from the Massi interview on the No Shame DVD Squadra volante supplement.) Mimicking his own humility towards his artistic craft, Massi's style in Mark il poliziotto is elegantly simple and organic: no flashy compositions to compete either with Gasparri or the screenplay. Massi's desire is to make an entertaining action film and he delivers. Mark il poliziotto was phenomenally popular with filmgoers: "Il film costo 208 milioni, e ad un mese dall'uscita aveva gia incassato oltre due miliardi." (taken from Italia Calibro 9, same reference as above.) Massi would helm two sequels with Gasparri, Mark il poliziotto spara per primo (1975) and Mark colpisce ancora (1976) (with coverage of the two here soon). 
When I witnessed this scene within El mundo de los muertos, my heart began to race and I was seized with fear. Santo is in the arena and has entered the ring to face off against his opponent. His opponent is large and muscular and has this odd, gangrene-ish hue about his skin, as if he is not quite human. Nonetheless, the two square off when the bell rings. Santo's opponent is fierce, and soon the high-flying, theatrical lucha-style wrestling moves into intense brawling. What was once a sporting competition turns into a fight for his life as Santo encounters not one but two additional oddly- and deathly-colored fighters. The three attack Santo, and in a wince-inducing stunt, Santo is thrown against the ropes. The top rope gives away and slackens, and Santo tumbles to the hard floor of the arena. Alone, the courageous wrestler returns to the ring to face his opponents. The sickly-looking trio subdues Santo and introduces a foreign object into the match: a dagger. One plunges it directly into Santo's heart. I thought cinema's greatest superhero, the multitude's hero, was dead.
Despite it being a shocking moment, the subsequent scene El mundo de los muertos is, in some ways, representative of the ethos of both films under review. Santo is rushed to the emergency room and open heart surgery is performed. The surgery scene doesn't match the celluloid of the dramatic scenes; and it is clearly an actual depiction of open heart surgery. The surgery scene is stock footage (presumably made for scientific audiences or medical students); and Solares and crew have really made effective use, in a commercial sense, of it. Reminiscent of Johhny Depp's lines as Ed Wood in the film of the same name, "I could make a whole film out of this footage, if given the chance." Well, Solares and Soler do not, but the stock footage serves as a serious impetus for their creativity. It is doubtful that Solares and company would be so audacious as to actually conceive and create a scene in which Santo is stabbed in the heart. But it worked, in an odd, possibly exploitative way. Santo contra Blue Demon en la Atlantida begins with stock footage of wartime shots, mushroom clouds, and space exploration (I do not really know what footage is genuine but it does not appear to match the bulk of the film), and this opening montage of footage drives the themes of the film. An evil, James Bond-ish villian is going to take over the world, causing an international catastrophe, using rockets and related technology. The historical footage also provides a historical background for the villains, as Greek mythology and the titular "Atlantis" theme also play into it. Jesús Sotomayor Martínez (the producer of all three films mentioned above) and crew probably went a little overboard with the conception of Santo contra Blue Demon en la Atlantida, as it really functions as a cool, late-sixties spy flick: not wholly benefiting from its contrived background but from the secret agent, spy action. When Santo has to make a trip into the title in El mundo de los muertos, the underworld setting is enhanced by natural scenery footage, altered with a blood-red hue, which colors the entire trip. The sequence rivals Coffin Joe in its hellish nature and is, like Coffin Joe cinema, bizarre, compelling, and totally fun. 
Provocative is a relative term, and while both El mundo de los muertos and Santo contra Blue Demon en la Atlantida do not reach the heights of other cinema in the decade of the 1970s, each is fairly provocative compared to previous El Santo cinema in terms of sex and violence. Beyond the blood spilled over Santo's chest from his stabbing, El mundo opens with an Inquisition scene of torture wherein the witch-hunters give some nasty lash marks to the nude back of a bound female. As with most of the sex and violence in both films, its provocative nature is not in its graphic depiction, but rather in its overall, uncomfortable intensity. In the first-act battle between Santo and Blue Demon in El mundo, these two wrestlers really go at each other. There is an energy driving these two performers seemingly beyond their characters. The action appears sped up beyond twenty-four frames a second, and neither wrestler appears to be pulling punches. In a fantastic sequence in Santo contra Blue Demon en la Atlantida, Santo returns to his apartment in the evening after his wrestling match with Blue Demon. Waiting for him is a super-sexy woman, donning matching underwear and see-through, sheer fabric gown. She begins to seduce Santo and quickly has Santo under control. An evil agent appears just as Santo is about to get some loving, and the two men square off. The light-hearted, clumsy, tumbling battle does not ensue. The fist-pummelling is relentless, like two fierce animals fighting to the death. 
Oh shit. I've realized that I've hit my customary thousand-word mark and have not detailed a synopsis of either film. This will be remedied in a future post or with a viewing by curious, thrill seekers of cinema's greatest superhero, El Enmascarado de Plata, the multitude's hero, El Santo.
