Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 3: This is Rob Lamb and this is Joe McCormick. And today,
Speaker 3: once more, we return to the realm of the great
Speaker 3: and powerful Lucha doors Mexican wrestling cinema and the encounters
Speaker 3: of these wrestlers with villains of the supernatural, science fiction,
Speaker 3: and generally weird persuasion. You know, before we came on
Speaker 3: Mike today, Rob, you and I in the chat were
Speaker 3: talking about just other Mexican wrestling movies that come up
Speaker 3: that look interesting, but I guess they're just not really
Speaker 3: within our purview because they don't have either magic or
Speaker 3: science fiction technology in it. I think we have to
Speaker 3: limit ourselves just to those and even just walling off
Speaker 3: that sort of subset. There's still so many riches to discover.
Speaker 2: All right. Yeah, every time we dive into Lucca films,
Speaker 2: I feel like I'm discovering new, potentially tantalizing titles. And
Speaker 2: I mean, I think the same goes for just Mexican
Speaker 2: cinema in general. There's just so much there, so many
Speaker 2: different genres, and not all of it has really gone
Speaker 2: on to resonate certainly with modern audiences, but also with
Speaker 2: modern audiences outside of Mexico. Now.
Speaker 3: In the past, we've covered a couple of other supernatural
Speaker 3: Mexican wrestling movies. One was Santo and the Treasure of
Speaker 3: Dracula from nineteen sixty nine, in which I would say
Speaker 3: easily the most popular ever lucid or hero Santo. He
Speaker 3: invents a time machine which somehow leads to a vampire
Speaker 3: being unleashed upon the world, and in the middle of
Speaker 3: this chaos, Santo must simultaneously fight the unearthly evil of
Speaker 3: the Dracool and avoid being photographed in any of the
Speaker 3: gratuitous nude scenes that were added for the euro market.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, fun movie, fun episode. Definitely see the European
Speaker 2: version if you get a chance, though, because it is
Speaker 2: the one that is in glorious color and has been
Speaker 2: just lovingly restored.
Speaker 3: That was a real highlight, but also excellent was another
Speaker 3: one we covered, the nineteen sixty three film Doctor of Doom,
Speaker 3: which was mainly about two heroic luchadoras, Gloria Venus I
Speaker 3: think that was the one played by Lorrain of Alaskaz
Speaker 3: and Golden Ruby, who must defeat a mad scientist and
Speaker 3: his plot too, I think kidnap women and transplant their
Speaker 3: brains into a gorilla, or maybe put gorilla brains inside
Speaker 3: the women's heads. I was a little fuzzy on that.
Speaker 2: I think maybe a little bit of both goes on.
Speaker 2: But yeah, that one was super fun. That one also
Speaker 2: had the excellent Roberto Canedo playing the villain, the mad scientist,
Speaker 2: and both of the pictures we just mentioned were directed
Speaker 2: by Renee Cardona.
Speaker 3: Yes, now today we are coming home to another El
Speaker 3: Santo adventure, but this time it's more directly in the
Speaker 3: science fiction realm. Though I guess both of the other
Speaker 3: movies we talked about did have science fiction elements, because
Speaker 3: it's always easy to forget. The Dracula movie has time
Speaker 3: travel in it, it's full on time machine. But this
Speaker 3: one is like your straight up alien invasion movie. Planet
Speaker 3: Earth is in the crosshairs. The Martians are here and
Speaker 3: they want full control. So this movie is Santo in
Speaker 3: the Martian Invasion from nineteen sixty seven. I was thinking
Speaker 3: for a while, I was a little confused, like, oh,
Speaker 3: is this even technically a Santo in name movie? Because
Speaker 3: a lot of the times in the movie they were
Speaker 3: calling him Silver Mask, but I realize no, they also
Speaker 3: call him Santo in the movie. They use both names
Speaker 3: basically interchangeably.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was one of his monikers, the Man in
Speaker 2: the Silver Mask. He gets confusing, I think, especially when
Speaker 2: we're dealing with English language releases of some of the
Speaker 2: Santo films, where they may call him something else, like Samson,
Speaker 2: because the name Santo wasn't as firmly established in other regions.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, kind of like in other like in the
Speaker 3: peplam subgenre, you might get like Hercules Versus Machiste or
Speaker 3: Samson and in different releases.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Now, I would say, in my opinion of the three
Speaker 3: Mexican wrestling movies with supernatural elements that we have watched,
Speaker 3: this I think is the least of the three. Doctor
Speaker 3: of Doom and Santo and The Treasure of Dracula are
Speaker 3: both really special in their own ways, But despite coming
Speaker 3: in third, the Martian Invasion I think is still a
Speaker 3: lot of fun. And if this makes any sense, Rob,
Speaker 3: I think it should win some kind of award for
Speaker 3: some of the funniest blocking in all of the movies
Speaker 3: we've watched, just the way characters are kind of arranged
Speaker 3: on stage or on the set for the camera to
Speaker 3: look at is often in itself so funny.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it has a lot of things going for it.
Speaker 2: None of those things going for it are its story
Speaker 2: and character. They're virtually like no story and character beats throughout.
Speaker 3: But though Santo as always is flawless.
Speaker 2: Santo's flawless. Santo doesn't need to grow as a character.
Speaker 2: He is already, so like any criticisms about his character
Speaker 2: is redundant because he is.
Speaker 3: Missing that point.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, what it lacks in those departments, arguably it
Speaker 2: makes up for in just weirdness wackiness. I would say
Speaker 2: the beefcake factor is pretty high in this one.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: The ladies are really gorgeous as well, so it seems
Speaker 2: it gives the viewers a lot to look at. And
Speaker 2: I think has more teleportation and disappearance and reappearance scenes
Speaker 2: than perhaps some of the Star Trek movies. Uh, they
Speaker 2: really like this effect. They pull it off well and
Speaker 2: they it just happens all the time.
Speaker 3: Yes, they're really into the teleportation, which they accomplish by
Speaker 3: the way. I like just this little physical prop not
Speaker 3: by way of a button or by way of a
Speaker 3: switch or a lever, but by a dial. It's like
Speaker 3: the oven dials turn a dial on their belt and
Speaker 3: that makes them vanish and reappear at the spaceship.
Speaker 2: I love it. I love good tactile science fiction equipment.
Speaker 2: Nowadays you watch it's all you know, like virtual interfaces
Speaker 2: and floating holograms and you know, or Star Trek next
Speaker 2: generation like flat screen stuff. I like that. I like
Speaker 2: it when there's a chonky button and a dial and
Speaker 2: a big lever.
Speaker 3: Well, the implications of the dial are kind of fascinating,
Speaker 3: especially for teleportation, because I would think teleportation is an
Speaker 3: on off function. You either you teleport or you don't.
Speaker 3: But a dial is for graduated functions like the you know,
Speaker 3: the power of a stove burner or something. So it
Speaker 3: makes you wonder like can do you kind of half
Speaker 3: teleport or do you two thirds of the way teleport?
Speaker 3: We never see that happen in the movie. They always
Speaker 3: turn it to full crank.
Speaker 2: It's kind of reckless because I think maybe you used
Speaker 2: slowly tune it so that you maintain consciousness between this
Speaker 2: incarnation and the next, as this one is destroyed and
Speaker 2: the next one is created. But if you just turn
Speaker 2: it really fast, I don't know. Maybe it still happens. Appropriately,
Speaker 2: this movie's not really concerned with those questions.
Speaker 3: No, this glosses over a lot of the finer points
Speaker 3: of the Martian technology and the invasion plot and what
Speaker 3: the humans are doing. I've got to once we get
Speaker 3: into the plot, I really have questions about to what
Speaker 3: extent the people understand that a Martian invasion is happening.
Speaker 3: It seems to alternate scene to scene, whether people are like, yep,
Speaker 3: we're being invaded, or whether it's like, we've got to
Speaker 3: keep this a secret.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. Oh. I will also add the Martian technology
Speaker 2: is of course five hundred years ahead of ours, so
Speaker 2: of course it is difficult to understand. Seems like magic.
Speaker 3: Yes, they say that many many times. Rob, I don't
Speaker 3: know if you have an elevator pitch for this one,
Speaker 3: but I would say, imagine War of the Worlds, but
Speaker 3: take out the heat ray and most of the social
Speaker 3: commentary and put in muscles, beefcake and burlesque dancing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, pretty much. I will say. One of the
Speaker 2: things I really liked about this one is that, since
Speaker 2: it is I guess leaning into sci fi of the
Speaker 2: time period, this is a film that does have a
Speaker 2: message to it. It does have a pretty persistent anti
Speaker 2: war and anti nuclear weapon standpoint, which I respect.
Speaker 3: I guess that's right. I don't know why I said
Speaker 3: take out the social commentary. I guess take out any
Speaker 3: subtle social commentary. Instead, it's just like bluntly delivered morals.
Speaker 3: It's like will humanity? A narrator comes on and says,
Speaker 3: will humanity ever stop these crazy nuclear experiments?
Speaker 2: We don't know, but it's more than we got in
Speaker 2: Santo and the Treasure of Dracula, Like there wasn't really,
Speaker 2: I mean, they were like, we must not have time
Speaker 2: machines or draculas. Like they weren't really, you know, there
Speaker 2: wasn't really a message attached to that picture. All right, Well,
Speaker 2: let's go ahead and listen to just a little of
Speaker 2: the trailer audio. I believe this is Spanish language trailer,
Speaker 2: So we'll just give you just a little sample of
Speaker 2: some of the sights and sounds here one of the sides,
Speaker 2: but just the sounds.
Speaker 4: Hera miters a parison and you come for the portivo
Speaker 4: right right era, there's a parison brisona e strano phenomeno
Speaker 4: provocconcierto elpanico, ela steria Collectiva Asta Secretoso, Sequestras Cambinino purind
Speaker 4: and Extranaturai stampidiendo He stays Lato Marcin Grablao Costa Ricola's
Speaker 4: Yaman Mexico.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 3: I don't know if the trailer tries to mislead you
Speaker 3: on this front, but the glorious poster for this film
Speaker 3: does definitely mislead as to the plot contents because it
Speaker 3: shows Santo appearing to hold a sort of green martian
Speaker 3: in one arm, seemingly unconscious. Looks kind of like Blanca
Speaker 3: from Street Fighter who got that under his one arm.
Speaker 3: In the other hand, he's holding a gun, which what
Speaker 3: would Santo wheeld a gun like that? It seems completely
Speaker 3: out of character. Well, it doesn't make sense at all.
Speaker 3: And he's standing on the surface of another planet, probably
Speaker 3: the Moon, because we can see the Earth in the background.
Speaker 3: Santo does not leave Earth in this.
Speaker 2: Movie, right, and he never brandishes a laser pistol or
Speaker 2: a plasma rife or whatever this is. But yeah, this
Speaker 2: is a great poster for a different movie. None of
Speaker 2: this actually happens.
Speaker 3: Santra just shamelessly using the weapon of the enemy. It's yeah,
Speaker 3: admire the art style, though it's lavishly realized.
Speaker 2: Yeah, as we'll explore, Santo uses grapples, punches, kicks, especially
Speaker 2: like well timed kicks, and legs scissors to an opponent's legs,
Speaker 2: that sort of thing. He does not need a laser gun.
Speaker 3: Now Here is where we often talk availability. I was
Speaker 3: kind of surprised when we were going into this week
Speaker 3: because I wanted to do another Luca movie. I was
Speaker 3: kind of surprised how many of these classic Santo movies
Speaker 3: are apparently hard to get in a good release these days.
Speaker 3: Like there are tons of them that do not have
Speaker 3: a solid remaster or good Blu Ray release.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and a lot of times higher quality versions are
Speaker 2: really lacking, Like Santo and the Treasure of Dracula. When
Speaker 2: they found that reel and were able to restore it,
Speaker 2: like that was big news. I found the Reuter's News
Speaker 2: article about that, like everyone's excited there like this one.
Speaker 2: As far as I know, there are no Blu Ray
Speaker 2: versions of it, no restored versions of the footage, no
Speaker 2: color versions or anything like that. Nothing like we had
Speaker 2: with the Treasure of Dracula. What we do have is
Speaker 2: perfectly watchable. I watched it on a DVD release this
Speaker 2: is I think like VCI and or Mech DVD rented
Speaker 2: from Atlanta's own Video Drome. They have a number of
Speaker 2: Santo films there you can rent again perfectly watchable quality.
Speaker 2: He was in Spanish with English subtitles, and the disc
Speaker 2: also had some extras also in Spanish, but with subtitles
Speaker 2: that are worth seeking. So that's worth seeking out of you.
Speaker 2: If you want the physical media experience for this film. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I don't know how available it is right now though,
Speaker 2: but you can rent it at Video Drum. All right,
Speaker 2: shall we get into the people behind and in this film?
Speaker 3: Yes, I want to know more. So this is a
Speaker 3: different director than our previous Lucha outings.
Speaker 2: That's right. The director here is Alfredo B. Crevena. He
Speaker 2: lived nineteen fourteen through nineteen ninety six German born Mexican
Speaker 2: film director and screenwriter who directed more than one hundred
Speaker 2: and fifty films between the mid forties in the mid nineties.
Speaker 2: An acclaim filmmaker in his own right of the Mexican
Speaker 2: Golden Age of cinema. Among his most well received works
Speaker 2: are the nineteen fifty six drama Talpa and the nineteen
Speaker 2: fifty one film Girls in Uniform. Now this is a
Speaker 2: boarding school drama based on a nineteen thirty one German
Speaker 2: film of the same name. The German film I was
Speaker 2: reading about it suffered multiple waves of censorship, but is
Speaker 2: today held up as a cult classic of lesbian cinema.
Speaker 2: I haven't seen Crevenna's version of this, but I'm to
Speaker 2: understand it grapples with these themes as well while also
Speaker 2: pushing up against its own censorship issues. At the time,
Speaker 2: I realized, Girls in Uniform may sound like a sketchy title,
Speaker 2: but this is like, this is a serious These are
Speaker 2: serious film projects, and I think the original German film
Speaker 2: was based on a play.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I can see the phrasing could give the wrong idea.
Speaker 3: It sounds like a like women in Prison type title.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, but nothing of that sort. I have not
Speaker 2: seen either of these films, but they are very well regarded,
Speaker 2: or at least the German version is very well regarded,
Speaker 2: and people seem to like the Mexican version as well. Now,
Speaker 2: outside of dramas and comedies, Curvenna also directed multiple santo
Speaker 2: and other lucha libre movies, some zoro films, some Mexican noir,
Speaker 2: and also some horror. A couple of titles that jumped
Speaker 2: out of me include Planet of the Female Invaders from
Speaker 2: sixty six. This starred Elizabeth Campbell Mari Monte who will
Speaker 2: get into Loreno Valasquez, who we'd already mentioned, a nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty film called The Dracula Dynasty. I'm already intrigued. A
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy nine film called The Whip Versus Satan, which
Speaker 2: is supposed to be a zoro esque adventure where the
Speaker 2: zoro esque character has occult powers and battle Satan.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, so it really is the Whip Versus Satan,
Speaker 3: It's not. Yeah, Satan has the whip. No, that's Pen's type.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. And then there's a nineteen ninety two film
Speaker 2: called On the Edge of Terror, said to be a
Speaker 2: very weird and disturbing ventriloquist horror film with Robert Canedo
Speaker 2: in a supporting role.
Speaker 3: Okay, I'd be done for watching it.
Speaker 2: Of these. Yeah, it sounds like I say every time
Speaker 2: we dive into Mexican cinema. There are so many titles
Speaker 2: that jump out and sound I booked I footnoted a
Speaker 2: few of these to explore later.
Speaker 3: Man, just from the title and cast list. Planet of
Speaker 3: the Female Invaders. Sounds like it may have a lot
Speaker 3: in common with another show favorite that we did, Ship
Speaker 3: of Monsters, which also had Lorraine of Alaskaz, and was
Speaker 3: about women invaders coming to Earth to find the perfect
Speaker 3: man to I don't know, like replenish their species.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that one was a musical that was great.
Speaker 3: Yes, which was wonderful.
Speaker 2: I love that movie all right. The writer for this
Speaker 2: picture is Rafael Garcia Trevesi, who lived nineteen ten through
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty four, Mexican screenwriter who wrote loads of Santo
Speaker 2: films in addition to just seemingly loads of everything else.
Speaker 2: His credits include nineteen sixty two Santo and the Vampires,
Speaker 2: as well as non Santo movies like the horror film
Speaker 2: Spiritism from sixty two and the historical thriller Black Wind
Speaker 2: from sixty five.
Speaker 3: I don't want to be mean, but I will say
Speaker 3: I don't think the writing is a huge highlight on
Speaker 3: this one.
Speaker 2: No, No, you know it. It gave them something to shoot,
Speaker 2: you know. Yeah, But like I said, at least some
Speaker 2: of the films that this writer did, you know, are
Speaker 2: are were well received and are you know the thing
Speaker 2: about Luke, we should mention a lot of The thing
Speaker 2: about a lot of these Lucha Libre films is that
Speaker 2: they are they are essentially low budget, swiftly produced genre pictures.
Speaker 2: So yeah, they're not necessarily, you know, great examples of
Speaker 2: what everyone involved was capable of, especially when you're talking
Speaker 2: about the people behind the scenes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean you can tell from a business perspective.
Speaker 3: I think a lot of times the idea was, like,
Speaker 3: we have an extremely popular and charismatic wrestler. We want
Speaker 3: to find a way to string together a number of
Speaker 3: different fight scenes with some unusual texture and costumes. How
Speaker 3: can we kind of like thread all that together?
Speaker 2: All right? The star of this one, and of course
Speaker 2: we've talked about him before in our previous episode, is
Speaker 2: El Santo. Now we know now that El Santo's given
Speaker 2: name was Ridolfo Guzman Herte and he lived nineteen seventeen
Speaker 2: through nineteen eighty four. But it's worth noting that at
Speaker 2: the time period, and during this time period and even today,
Speaker 2: lucha libre stars their actual name is not necessarily a
Speaker 2: matter of public record. And during El Santo's day, like
Speaker 2: this guy like lived the gimmick. You did not see
Speaker 2: pictures of El Santo without the mask anywhere he went
Speaker 2: and was known. I guess he would go to the
Speaker 2: grocery store. I'm to understand, you know, he would not
Speaker 2: be wearing the mask, but he would be incognito. Anytime
Speaker 2: he was appearing as El Santo, he was wearing the mask,
Speaker 2: no one saw his face. And it's still the same
Speaker 2: today with some wrestlers in Mexico. The people don't have
Speaker 2: their access to the details of their their non gimmick life.
Speaker 3: Seems like there could be some advantages to that from
Speaker 3: the wrestler's point of view. I mean, if you're like,
Speaker 3: it's a way of being a famous person while still
Speaker 3: being able to have some privacy in your regular life.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So yes. El Santo the Saint probably the most
Speaker 2: famous and instantly identifiable luchador of all time. He was
Speaker 2: active for five decades and in addition to being a
Speaker 2: superstar in the ring, he was able to spin that
Speaker 2: off into becoming a comic book superhero, and that led
Speaker 2: to numerous films where he's generally playing the role of
Speaker 2: a superhero or a crime fighter, taking on everything from
Speaker 2: crime and corruption to supernatural evil, and of course invasions
Speaker 2: from other planets. As we'll be discussing today he was
Speaker 2: the ultimate good guy or technico. He never lost his mask,
Speaker 2: but he did famously reveal his face on TV prior
Speaker 2: to his death from a heart attack in nineteen eighty four.
Speaker 2: He was appearing on their mask and it wasn't something
Speaker 2: they promoted. They were like, oh, Santo's going to reveal
Speaker 2: his face today. It was like, almost casually, He's like,
Speaker 2: this is my face, and he showed his face and
Speaker 2: then put his mask back on.
Speaker 3: I've seen the footage. It's very brief. It's almost like
Speaker 3: like he doesn't give you a real good look. He
Speaker 3: just kind of peels it up and then pulls it
Speaker 3: right back down.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it's still there's there's an emotional quality to it,
Speaker 2: not as emotional as some of the footage you'll find
Speaker 2: of older luchadors losing their mask in a match where
Speaker 2: they put their mask on the line and they lose
Speaker 2: it and then they have to as like in a
Speaker 2: ceremonial fashion, reveal their face and revealed their full name
Speaker 2: to the audience, and generally like tears are streaming, family
Speaker 2: members are presents, very emotional, but there wasn't is no
Speaker 2: bigger deal than Santo. It wasn't just a lucha star.
Speaker 2: He was and is a cultural icon. I mentioned this
Speaker 2: the last time we talked about him, but wrestling journalist
Speaker 2: Dave Meltzer has pointed out that it's difficult to really
Speaker 2: point to a figure quite like Santo in American culture,
Speaker 2: Like you can't really compare him to any American wrestling
Speaker 2: name in terms of how important he was and is.
Speaker 2: So you can't say, oh, well, he was like hul Kogan,
Speaker 2: or he was like the Rock even, No, you'd have
Speaker 2: to point to a superstar like Muhammad Ali or Elvis
Speaker 2: Presley to even get close. And again, especially during their heyday,
Speaker 2: Like you'd really have to look to Elvis Presley during
Speaker 2: the height of his fame and you'd probably get close
Speaker 2: to what Santo was there.
Speaker 3: I mean, I am, by no means an expert in
Speaker 3: the cultural reception of El Santo, but one thing I
Speaker 3: noticed from all these movies is, Yeah, there is this
Speaker 3: aura of absolute awe about him that I guess you
Speaker 3: could compare to celebrities like Elvis. Except even with people
Speaker 3: like Elvis, I don't know if there was also the
Speaker 3: kind of holy veneration, Like there's just this understanding in
Speaker 3: all the Santo stuff. I've seen that Santo is just
Speaker 3: a perfectly honorable person. He is the ultimate law full good.
Speaker 3: Even in a world where you can't trust anything else,
Speaker 3: you can trust Santo.
Speaker 2: That's right. Santo is the best office without any question.
Speaker 2: And yeah, he does seem to like stand at this
Speaker 2: perfect place where all these different energies in Mexican culture
Speaker 2: come together. Like there's this like sacred Catholic element to him.
Speaker 2: I mean, he is the saint at the same time
Speaker 2: he is the superhero. He is a like Superman, but
Speaker 2: he is he is also in that area where he
Speaker 2: is both a comic book character and a real person.
Speaker 2: He is a performer. Yeah, and he is absolutely good.
Speaker 2: There are no shades of gray to this character. Everything
Speaker 2: is silver, beautifully said. Yes. So the comics came first
Speaker 2: again and this allowed this larger than life character to
Speaker 2: then branch out into films, And there were so many
Speaker 2: Santo films of the sixties, seventies, and eighties, and their
Speaker 2: success allowed other luchador to crossover into cinema. And again,
Speaker 2: these films are often cheap and fast, and they hopscotch
Speaker 2: through different genres horror, science fiction, western, spy movies, crime,
Speaker 2: flicks some outright comedies in the mix as well. All right,
Speaker 2: so that's Elcento, but there are numerous other wrestlers in
Speaker 2: this picture. There's there's quite a bit of grappling in
Speaker 2: the movie, and I think that all the the other
Speaker 2: main roles are also played by wrestlers.
Speaker 3: That's right when the Martians arrive and there they are
Speaker 3: bringing body slams.
Speaker 2: All right. The essentially the leader of the Martian invasion
Speaker 2: is a Martian who eventually takes on the human name
Speaker 2: of Argos.
Speaker 3: We don't know what their original names are.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they as we'll discuss. There's a point in the
Speaker 2: film where they're like, all right, we all have names
Speaker 2: now we've taken them from human cultures, and.
Speaker 3: They they transform themselves in something that lasts for about a.
Speaker 2: Scene, like, yeah, they don't stick to this concept at all.
Speaker 3: But yeah, the Martian leader, he transforms into Argos. And
Speaker 3: I got to say, right at the beginning, when we
Speaker 3: get to the plot section, I apologize because I may
Speaker 3: misattribute which of the male Martians I am talking about
Speaker 3: at any given time, because I was getting several of
Speaker 3: them mixed up, but not this one, the main Martian.
Speaker 3: I think I always knew who he was. This is
Speaker 3: the Martian leader the Beefcake played by Wolf Ravinsky's.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Wolf Ravinsky's lived nineteen twenty one through nineteen ninety nine.
Speaker 2: He was a luchador turned actor, a Latvian of Jewish
Speaker 2: descent whose family fled Europe for Argentina during the Second
Speaker 2: World War. Eventually got into lucha libre and became established there. Now,
Speaker 2: obviously Wolf was too handsome to wear a lucha hood,
Speaker 2: and I think he was generally a rudo. I was
Speaker 2: looking at Sometimes information on this time period is a
Speaker 2: little record keeping stunt, all that great, but it looks
Speaker 2: like he was rudo, often going up against Santo in
Speaker 2: his allies, and he was eventually able to spin this
Speaker 2: off the end into success as an actor. His filmography
Speaker 2: includes a couple of Santo films, also the serious wrestling
Speaker 2: drama the serious lucha libre drama The Magnificent Beast from
Speaker 2: nineteen fifty three, But his biggest success came as the
Speaker 2: star of the Neutron films, in which he plays the hero,
Speaker 2: a masked, caped atomic superman, and there are several of these.
Speaker 2: His other credits include the nineteen fifty noir film The
Speaker 2: man without a face, which looks really interesting. And eventually,
Speaker 2: after acting and wrestling, he became a restaurant tour in
Speaker 2: Mexico City, I believe. I think it was Argentinian cuisine.
Speaker 3: Oh interesting, If this makes any sense, I feel like
Speaker 3: his presence in this movie is most often funny in
Speaker 3: a way that is not necessarily intended. But that's not
Speaker 3: because he's not a good actor. I don't know if
Speaker 3: that really connects, but I think he's I consense that
Speaker 3: he would be a good actor in many a role,
Speaker 3: but he's just he is placed within hilarious scenarios and
Speaker 3: he looks hilarious acting them out.
Speaker 2: Right right now. But on the other hand, he always
Speaker 2: looks jacked and handsome. And I don't know if this
Speaker 2: is actually his voice that we hear. I don't know
Speaker 2: if it's dubbed by another actor, but at least as
Speaker 2: we experience it, he sounds commanding as well. Yeah. Now,
Speaker 2: moving from the lead male martian, I guess we're going
Speaker 2: to the lead female martian, though I don't know she's
Speaker 2: actually the.
Speaker 3: Leader, but she I'd say she's the number one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Okay, this is Afrodita, played by Maramanti, who I
Speaker 2: mentioned earlier. Born nineteen forty two. Now she's a familiar
Speaker 2: face for fans of weird Luchadora movies because she was
Speaker 2: the star of Renee Cardona's nineteen sixty eight film The Batwoman,
Speaker 2: which I do not think was authorized by DC Comics.
Speaker 2: This is a terrifically enjoyable film which also has fish
Speaker 2: monsters in it and a mad scientist played by Roberto Canido.
Speaker 2: Recent Mystery Science Theater three thousand coverage on this one,
Speaker 2: with Emily being the human riffer on that one. A
Speaker 2: lot of fun. Monty appears in a handful of Luca films,
Speaker 2: including sixty eight's The Treasure of Montezuma, which had Santo
Speaker 2: in it as well as Jorge Rivera, and she was
Speaker 2: also in nineteen sixty nine is the Vampires in nineteen
Speaker 2: seventy one's Alien Terror.
Speaker 3: Now I feel like I've seen The Batwoman, but I
Speaker 3: don't remember anything about it as just a complete blank
Speaker 3: in my brain.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of running around in a really skimpy
Speaker 2: batwoman costume, fish monsters, and like driving it's it's it's good.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's it's very fun.
Speaker 3: Well, I get to say Mara Monty is a striking
Speaker 3: screen presence in this movie. Her aura is off the charts.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean all the Martians are very charismatic,
Speaker 2: the sort of the second in command, and if there
Speaker 2: is a ranking system for the Martians, here second in
Speaker 2: command of the female Martians we have Selene played by
Speaker 2: Eva Norvind lived nineteen forty four through two thousand and six,
Speaker 2: Norwegian born actress who went on to achieve greater success
Speaker 2: as a professional dominatrix, but also award winning documentarian for
Speaker 2: the nineteen eighty film Born Without I haven't seen this,
Speaker 2: but I was reading about it. It's about handicapped Mexican
Speaker 2: actor and musician Jose Flores. It also features some content
Speaker 2: with Alejandro Jodrowski, and she served as a consultant on
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety nine's The Thomas Crown Affair. I think she
Speaker 2: was involved. She was like a Renee Russo's consultant on
Speaker 2: something about her characters, like dominance or something. I'm not
Speaker 2: sure if the full story is there.
Speaker 3: That's a movie that I remember seeing when I was
Speaker 3: way too young for it and finding it almost disturbingly
Speaker 3: weird and not what I expected.
Speaker 2: That's a remake of an older Steve McQueen movie, I believe.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I remember Renee Russo and Pierce Brosnan after he
Speaker 3: was coming off of being James Bond.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, I never saw the remake. I did see
Speaker 2: the original, and because I think it has this sung
Speaker 2: like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within
Speaker 2: a wheel. And okay, anyway, Norvind is striking in this
Speaker 2: as all the Martians are striking. Yeah, and some of them,
Speaker 2: of course do actually strike because all the male Martians
Speaker 2: are played by some of Santo's fellow luchador's.
Speaker 3: That's right, So the male Martians are I think, yeah,
Speaker 3: they are all wrestlers and the main one is Argos,
Speaker 3: but the sort of second in command is Kronos, right.
Speaker 2: Yes, a played by an actor billed as l Nazi.
Speaker 3: When I saw that in the credits, I was I
Speaker 3: didn't know what to think. We just see the names.
Speaker 3: It's like Wolf Ravinsky's Hamiley l Nazi.
Speaker 2: Yes, l Nazi. This was, of course the Luca name
Speaker 2: for a guy by the name of Ignatio Gomez. He
Speaker 2: lived nineteen thirty two through two thousand and eight. Obviously,
Speaker 2: if it's not obvious, he was a rudo. He was
Speaker 2: a bad guy. He made his career using a German
Speaker 2: Nazi gimmick and his finishing maneuver. His finishing hold was
Speaker 2: called the swastiko. I think it's like a variation of
Speaker 2: the abdominal stretch. It was a different time, but there
Speaker 2: are many examples of Nazi themed villains from Lucha libre history.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but so we shouldn't understand this guy not as
Speaker 3: like a wrestler who actually had Nazi sympathies, but who
Speaker 3: is playing a villainous character. He would be like the
Speaker 3: actor is playing the Nazi villains in the Indiana Jones movies.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, I think if you think of like Red
Speaker 2: Skull from Marvel comics, that kind of Okay, that's that's
Speaker 2: probably the reference point here. All right, there's another guy now.
Speaker 2: He takes on the name mor Morphio, and he is
Speaker 2: played by ham Lee. This was his wrestling name anyway.
Speaker 2: He lived nineteen thirty two through twenty eleven. He was
Speaker 2: a Mexican luchador of Korean descent. I think he only
Speaker 2: ever did two films, both of them Santo films. But
Speaker 2: he's a memorable presence here. According to Luchawiki, which is
Speaker 2: a great English language reference for anything and everything lucha libre.
Speaker 2: He apparently actually wrestled unofficially as Santo in Japan, I
Speaker 2: think in the early seventies, because he was stranded there
Speaker 2: with some of his coworkers after like a shady promoter
Speaker 2: like brought them in but didn't pay them, and so
Speaker 2: they had to get enough money to fly themselves back
Speaker 2: to Mexico. And so he's like, well, I guess I'll
Speaker 2: dress up as Santo and do the style and do
Speaker 2: some of the moves. And I guess they made it
Speaker 2: back because I believe he ran a gym in Mexico
Speaker 2: City for a long time.
Speaker 3: Well, this is, I guess the serious question. If you
Speaker 3: are a masked wrestling celebrity, how do you prevent somebody
Speaker 3: else from coming in and saying they are you just
Speaker 3: by using an identical costume.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's it can be an issue and it
Speaker 2: gets throughout.
Speaker 3: Oh, in fact, it happens in this movie.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it happens in this movie in a in a
Speaker 2: rather unbelievable way. But it happens in real life too,
Speaker 2: especially when you get into disputes between companies, Like one
Speaker 2: company is like, well, we own the rights to this
Speaker 2: mask and this character but then the guy who plays
Speaker 2: it he leaves for another company, and now you have
Speaker 2: two guys doing the same gimmick, but maybe one has
Speaker 2: to alter their name slightly, that sort of thing. And
Speaker 2: then there's been cases too where somebody passes away but
Speaker 2: they keep the gimmick going with somebody else under the
Speaker 2: same mask. You get into that again. You get into
Speaker 2: that weird space with a luchador or a luchador especially
Speaker 2: like it is a real person, but it is also
Speaker 2: a fictional character. It's also a gimmick, and yet at
Speaker 2: the same time, it doesn't always feel a appropriate that
Speaker 2: someone else should play that role if something happens to
Speaker 2: the original, unless it is passed down like officially, from
Speaker 2: like a father to a son, or one relative to another,
Speaker 2: or even from like a maestro to a mentor.
Speaker 3: I was a little unclear on exactly his powers, because
Speaker 3: they say the main thing about him is that he
Speaker 3: has great powers of hypnotism. But I think all of
Speaker 3: the Martians can hypnotize people. I think he can hypnotize
Speaker 3: them better than everybody else. Allegedly, yes, yeah, but there
Speaker 3: are a lot of good scenes of him, just like
Speaker 3: standing there looking very like stern while people just stop
Speaker 3: talking in the middle of a sentence and kind of
Speaker 3: go limp.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Other times he's wearing a suit and looks very dapper. Yes,
Speaker 2: one more wrestler, I'm gonna mention, and we may we'll
Speaker 2: rest We'll mention some more later on. But there's a
Speaker 2: bald wrestler that shows up in the training sequences. This
Speaker 2: is a guy whose real name was Nathaniel Leone who
Speaker 2: of nineteen fifteen through two thousand and one, but his
Speaker 2: wrestling name was Frankenstein. I don't think he wore a
Speaker 2: mask or anything. It's just like they're like, you look
Speaker 2: kind of like Frankenstein, so you're Frankenstein. He pops up
Speaker 2: in a lot of Lucca and Mexican genre movies, you know,
Speaker 2: just because he had a great look.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he also has an interesting face.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And oh, and I'll mention. There's a professor character,
Speaker 2: Professor d Rica, played by Manuel Zozaiah. He lived nineteen
Speaker 2: thirteen through nineteen eighty seven, but he was in a
Speaker 2: number of films, often in a supporting role. But I
Speaker 2: don't have much else to stay about him other than
Speaker 2: he's in it, and they talk a lot about what
Speaker 2: a great scientist he is.
Speaker 3: Well, he's kind of an ambiguous character because he is
Speaker 3: portrayed in this movie as like Santo's best friend. He's
Speaker 3: the only guy who really we see Santo spending off
Speaker 3: time with. I mean, we see him training with his
Speaker 3: wrestling buddies, but you know, they're like hanging out together
Speaker 3: and discussing things. But then really, by the time you
Speaker 3: get to the end of the movie, to the extent
Speaker 3: the film has a theme, it is the schism between
Speaker 3: his view of the world and Santo's view of the world.
Speaker 2: Right, yeah, yeah, yeah, that is true. They could have
Speaker 2: maybe built it up more, but it is there all right.
Speaker 2: And finally, the music here is once more the music
Speaker 2: of Antonio Diez. Condi died in nineteen seventy six, prolific
Speaker 2: Mexican composer who worked on a ton of beat pictures
Speaker 2: during his time period. In fact, we previously mentioned him
Speaker 2: in our episodes on Doctor Doom and Santa Claus. I
Speaker 2: was kind of dismissive of his work in those previous films,
Speaker 2: but this one had a lot of sci fi electronic
Speaker 2: sound effects going on, so I enjoyed the sonic aspects
Speaker 2: of this picture more.
Speaker 3: I would say, that's how to hook, Rob, get plenty
Speaker 3: of beat boops in there.
Speaker 2: I know, I'm kind of a cliche. You just add
Speaker 2: some beets and some boots and then I'll be like,
Speaker 2: all right, this one's good.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 3: I like the beat boops too. They got us both.
Speaker 2: All right, Well let's get into the plot.
Speaker 3: Oh boy, Well we begin with stock footage of a
Speaker 3: rocket taking off, So it's time to play the game
Speaker 3: we've played before. Which mission is this public domain government
Speaker 3: footage from? I can't be positive, but I do have
Speaker 3: a best guess, and it's that it was one of
Speaker 3: the Atlas rockets used in Project Mercury Rob. I found
Speaker 3: a photo to compare it to that I put side
Speaker 3: by side in the outline with the opening shots from
Speaker 3: the film. Think it looks pretty close.
Speaker 2: What do you think?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm convinced this one was from the launch of
Speaker 3: Friendships seven in nineteen sixty two, which was before this
Speaker 3: film was released. But anyway, after we fiddle around with
Speaker 3: a bunch of rocket stock footage, we get the title,
Speaker 3: which appears over shots of spectators observing the space launch.
Speaker 3: And the title here is Santo the Silver Mask versus
Speaker 3: the Martian Invasion. Now I think it's interesting that we
Speaker 3: see the space launch at the beginning here, because this
Speaker 3: plays no role in the plot at all. But I
Speaker 3: was thinking, yea, why we have it here, and then
Speaker 3: thinking about how many other mid century low budget space
Speaker 3: invasion movies have plot elements or include something however small,
Speaker 3: about humans first sending a mission into space, which then
Speaker 3: somehow triggers or provokes or leads to an alien attack
Speaker 3: on Earth. Why do we so often have this element
Speaker 3: of humans going into space and then the aliens like
Speaker 3: retaliate or they come here. Why do you need the
Speaker 3: element of humans launching something first? I don't know, but
Speaker 3: I wonder if it's because actual human rocket launch footage
Speaker 3: was easily obtained, and that's going to look more realistic
Speaker 3: than any spaceship special effects we can throw together. So
Speaker 3: why not work in a space mission of some kind
Speaker 3: so we can use the tape?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that seems reasonable to me. Yeah, because these films
Speaker 2: can and will create their own spaceship effects. But you
Speaker 2: got all this rocket footage, it's just set there. Why
Speaker 2: not use it? Yeah?
Speaker 3: But anyway, the movie proper starts with some voiceover narration
Speaker 3: while showing astronauts in mid space walk don't know what
Speaker 3: this is from But the narrator says, with the advance
Speaker 3: of science come new mysteries. Is our planet the only
Speaker 3: one inhabited by rational beings like us? And then this
Speaker 3: is gonna sound kind of confusing, but I'm reading the
Speaker 3: sub subtitles directly. If so, will we conquer those other worlds,
Speaker 3: or on the contrary, will their inhabitants come to rule us?
Speaker 3: I think maybe that should have been If not, I'm
Speaker 3: not sure. But anyway, we start to see out in
Speaker 3: space something approaching. It's almost like the beginning of you know, Predator,
Speaker 3: one of these movies where you're out in the starfield
Speaker 3: and you just see something coming toward the planet Earth.
Speaker 3: In this case, it looks kind of like a kettle grill.
Speaker 3: I don't know. I've seen different people online discussing what
Speaker 3: this could be. Some people say hubcaps. I don't see hubcaps.
Speaker 3: I see more of a cooking device of some kind,
Speaker 3: maybe a kind of shallow Dutch oven. I'm not sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it does seem like it came from the kitchen,
Speaker 2: that's for sure.
Speaker 3: But then, oh lord, we get a look inside the ship,
Speaker 3: and this is so first glimpse of the Martians. I
Speaker 3: was rolling. I don't even know how to begin to
Speaker 3: describe the energy of this house party, but it is wild.
Speaker 3: So the inside of the ships has windows that look
Speaker 3: out into space that have like wooden slats, you know,
Speaker 3: coming in between them. And then standing around a table,
Speaker 3: are all these people in shiny gold, gold looking. I mean,
Speaker 3: it's in black and white, but I imagine based on
Speaker 3: the sheen of these things that it's all gold stuff.
Speaker 3: They're wearing gold outfits with these big upside down teapot
Speaker 3: helmets on. They've all got long blonde hair, kind of
Speaker 3: you know, classic hulkster energy, and then just these gold
Speaker 3: sort of foil looking capes. And the women are in
Speaker 3: leotards with belts, and the men are just in pants
Speaker 3: and shirtless with their big muscles bulging out, also wearing
Speaker 3: wrestling style belts. And the blocking from the very beginning
Speaker 3: is quite funny. And they all especially because when we
Speaker 3: first see them, they just stand there, not moving or
Speaker 3: speaking for a good long while, I guess, so we
Speaker 3: can take it all in.
Speaker 2: Yeah, everyone here is jacked or voluptuous, and their golden
Speaker 2: helmets are blocking in a way that kind of looks
Speaker 2: like their heads are big teeth. You know, like each
Speaker 2: head is a big tooth, a big gold tooth, yeah, bicuspits,
Speaker 2: yeah yeah, but with an eyeball on the front, which
Speaker 2: on the forehead reminds me a lot of Santa Claus
Speaker 2: conquers the Martians in this respect, because we have a
Speaker 2: lot of questions I had anyway about whether this is
Speaker 2: a helmet or part of their anatomy or both. Again,
Speaker 2: their technology is five hundred years ahead of ours. You know,
Speaker 2: they're beyond cybernetics at this point.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there'll be a lot of questions about how we're
Speaker 3: supposed to understand what we're looking at when we see them.
Speaker 3: But anyway, so they stand there, we get a look
Speaker 3: at them, and then the main beefy dude says, from
Speaker 3: now on, we will speak in Spanish, for it is
Speaker 3: the language used in the country we are traveling to
Speaker 3: the country the Earthlings call Mexico. And then we got
Speaker 3: a sort of Chekhov guy who tells them they're approaching
Speaker 3: the planet, and the beef alien says it is time
Speaker 3: to transmit their message to the people of Earth, or
Speaker 3: at least to the people of Mexico. And then we
Speaker 3: see them looking at this circular screen up in the wall,
Speaker 3: and I really could not tell. Is this a window
Speaker 3: where they're looking out at Earth or a TV screen.
Speaker 3: I think it's a TV screen because later they're looking
Speaker 3: at the same circle and they're like watching Santo do
Speaker 3: a wrestling match.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean it's hard for us to say what
Speaker 2: this is, because again, their technology is so far ahead
Speaker 2: of where we are.
Speaker 3: Our puny brains can't even begin to comprehend.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: But then we cut some Earth TV, so we see
Speaker 3: some households, presumably in Mexico, you know, sitting around on
Speaker 3: the couch watching television. So there's a nice program where
Speaker 3: there is a band playing and a man singing a
Speaker 3: love song.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 3: And the family is there on the couch. The mother's
Speaker 3: doing some sewing, the father is reading a newspaper, or
Speaker 3: the kids are watching TV. The boys taking like these
Speaker 3: big slugs of some kind of soda from a bottle.
Speaker 2: I think it's a oh.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I couldn't tell on mine. Yeah, you must have
Speaker 3: had higher res.
Speaker 2: I think maybe i'd slightly higher res on my version. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's ata.
Speaker 3: But then there's so uh oh, there's a TV malfunction.
Speaker 3: They're trying to watch this music program and it starts
Speaker 3: shorting out and TV's making weird sounds, and mom asks
Speaker 3: what's happening. So we see the father get up and
Speaker 3: he goes to adjust the TV, and then what comes
Speaker 3: on the TV is all of the weird Martians we
Speaker 3: just saw. So there's suddenly the TV is full of
Speaker 3: full of just like jacked, half naked peeple wearing kind
Speaker 3: of tenfoil outfits with these big goofy helmets on, and
Speaker 3: the dad says, don't be frightened, it's a new program.
Speaker 3: And when we see everyone visibly relieved.
Speaker 2: Real Homer Simpson moment there like yeah.
Speaker 3: And the first thing that the aliens say is what
Speaker 3: you are watching on your screen is not a fantasy.
Speaker 3: It is real. We are not just actors performing in
Speaker 3: a scary movie. And then we start here like cutting
Speaker 3: around and seeing not just this family watching TV, but
Speaker 3: like people all over, like different households watching the same thing,
Speaker 3: people in a bar watching a TV, drinking and like
Speaker 3: laughing at the TV and all this, and the alien
Speaker 3: message goes on while we see all the different households watching,
Speaker 3: they say, this is our actual appearance. We are from
Speaker 3: the planet that you call Mars, using scientific advancements surpassing
Speaker 3: yours by more than five earth centuries. We have intercepted
Speaker 3: transmissions from all across your planet. I loved this line.
Speaker 3: The radar you are so proud of was powerless and
Speaker 3: detecting our arrival. Earthlings famously proud of their radar. They say,
Speaker 3: instead of using your scientific advancements to better humanity, you
Speaker 3: Earthlings use them for your own destruction. And then once
Speaker 3: again we see the Earthlings not just watching but mostly
Speaker 3: laughing at this. We see the drunks at the bar laughing.
Speaker 3: We see a scientist in a lab coat kind of
Speaker 3: watching pensively and rubbing his chin. Then we also see
Speaker 3: a priest in a frock watching pensively and rubbing his chin.
Speaker 3: That means something. But then the speech continues. When you
Speaker 3: wage war with your conventional weapons, you are the only
Speaker 3: victims of your ambition and selfishness. But with the discovery
Speaker 3: of nuclear energy and your mad experiments with the atomic bomb,
Speaker 3: you are on the verge of destroying the entire planetary system.
Speaker 3: Before this happens, we warn you that we are prepared
Speaker 3: to disintegrate all the inhabitants of Earth. And this last
Speaker 3: line is delivered is delivered very forcefully. Wolf is like
Speaker 3: looking right into the camera and he like barks it.
Speaker 3: I will disintegrate all the inhabitants of Earth.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 3: He goes on to keep talking. He says, knowing the
Speaker 3: skeptical attitudes of the Earthlings, we understand that you may
Speaker 3: doubt the message and not take our warning seriously. Beginning now,
Speaker 3: we will be forced to use the country called Mexico
Speaker 3: to show our determination and power. We have weapons one
Speaker 3: hundred times more powerful than yours. Here are our demands.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 3: And by the way, this is first of all, like
Speaker 3: man sucks, sucks for Mexico. Why did they pick Mexico?
Speaker 3: Are they going to use the weapons on Mexico?
Speaker 2: I had I have a lot of thoughts about everything
Speaker 2: they've been saying thus far. What but concerning Mexico. On
Speaker 2: one hand, you can imagine in Mexico was like, well,
Speaker 2: we're honored first of all that you would you would
Speaker 2: come here. But secondly, like a lot of this is
Speaker 2: not on us specifically, so it's kind of weird that
Speaker 2: you're singling us out.
Speaker 3: I don't think of Mexico as the most responsible for
Speaker 3: nuclear warfare.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but later on they do come back around to
Speaker 2: this at least briefly, and they mention that they've singled
Speaker 2: out Mexico because of Mexico's commitment to pacifism.
Speaker 3: That seems completely the opposite of what they should be doing.
Speaker 2: But yeah, at the same time, I will add, though,
Speaker 2: it is always refreshing to watch a science fiction film
Speaker 2: in which global considerations are in play and the United
Speaker 2: States or the UK or maybe the Soviet Union are
Speaker 2: not the primary focal point, you know, So it is
Speaker 2: kind of it is nice that we have a Mexico
Speaker 2: centric plot here as opposed to something we're more used to.
Speaker 3: Oh sure, I mean, yeah, of course I want the
Speaker 3: Santo movie to be focused on Mexico. It just seems
Speaker 3: like within the logic of the film, like it makes
Speaker 3: doesn't make a lot of sense, and seems incredibly unfair
Speaker 3: that the Aliens would decide to make an example of Mexico.
Speaker 2: Yeah, when they start get into the whole making examples off,
Speaker 2: you would think that Mexican officials would be like, look,
Speaker 2: can you take this like one north of here, because
Speaker 2: that seems like a better focal point for whatever you're planning. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I can think of at least two other countries who
Speaker 3: are doing more cold warring.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, but then their demands.
Speaker 3: They've got demands. So this is the first moment we
Speaker 3: see Santo sitting in a chair watching the TV broadcast
Speaker 3: as well, and in a theme that will repeat throughout
Speaker 3: the movie, Santo, even when at home on his own
Speaker 3: leisure time, is in full costume, wearing a cape and
Speaker 3: a mask.
Speaker 2: Right, and no shirt. And he never wears a shirt
Speaker 2: in this. Yes, in other Santo movies he'll wear like
Speaker 2: a slick suit with his mask, but in this he's
Speaker 2: always ready to grapple.
Speaker 3: Yep, yep. But here are their demands. They say, all
Speaker 3: governments of Earth completely disarmed, surrendering all weapons, eliminate all borders,
Speaker 3: establish a universal language, establish a global government that does
Speaker 3: not discriminate by race or religion. Foster earthly brotherhood, give
Speaker 3: up war forever, which I would have thought that be
Speaker 3: included under total disarmament, but I guess this goes a
Speaker 3: step further in outlaws war using only like punching and sticks. Right,
Speaker 3: And I love this list. It's like they're trying to
Speaker 3: like make the new World order. Conspiracy theories theorists like
Speaker 3: go berserk, which I you know, it's weird. I think
Speaker 3: of that as a more recent thing, but that was
Speaker 3: like that that ideation existed even at the time. It's
Speaker 3: like what the John Birch Society was.
Speaker 2: I mean, I was kind of nodding my head on
Speaker 2: a lot of these. Aside from establish a universal language,
Speaker 2: I'm like, yeah, these these alsound like fine points, and
Speaker 2: we're obviously not going to do any of these things
Speaker 2: on our own, So I think maybe Martian Big Brothers
Speaker 2: should come and threaten us and make us do it.
Speaker 3: Unfortunately, it's not so. I mean, you get different versions
Speaker 3: of this premise in different movies. This is not the
Speaker 3: first movie to do this, so you get everything from
Speaker 3: The Day the Earth Stood Still to Plan nine from
Speaker 3: Outer Space. This is almost an exact copy of the
Speaker 3: idea of Plan nine from Outer Space. It's like, you
Speaker 3: are doing atomic weapons and all that stupid Earth mind, stupid, stupid,
Speaker 3: Now we must destroy you.
Speaker 2: I believe Plan nine also mentioned the idea that our
Speaker 2: nuclear weapons might destroy the Earth and beyond the Earth
Speaker 2: like planets. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well it's because they think that next after nuclear weapons,
Speaker 3: we will discover the solar night bomb, which he says
Speaker 3: will explode the sunlight itself. Oh, that's right, But I
Speaker 3: guess that's the sillier version. I mean, you can also
Speaker 3: think of like the Day the Earth stood Still, which
Speaker 3: I think maybe is a little less explicit, but it's
Speaker 3: still kind of the idea that aliens try to establish contact,
Speaker 3: and there is a principle where it's like if we
Speaker 3: respond with just unnecessary violence and militarism, they will destroy
Speaker 3: us possibly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's it works well in science fiction
Speaker 2: because there's so many different ways of looking and on
Speaker 2: one hand, the longing for an alien force to come
Speaker 2: and solve our problems like this is this is a
Speaker 2: regular part of many different strains of ufology and related
Speaker 2: like new religious movements, you know, and it certainly ties
Speaker 2: into other religious ideas that something beyond us will come
Speaker 2: and tell us what to do and tell us how
Speaker 2: to do things. And and then if you're getting into
Speaker 2: like positioning it as the itinerary of an enemy, then yeah,
Speaker 2: it serves as like a supernatural version of what you
Speaker 2: might perceive as a threat in whatever your sort of
Speaker 2: political opponent happens to be. Like you can apply it
Speaker 2: to like, oh, this is what the communists want, or
Speaker 2: this is what the you know, this is what the
Speaker 2: capitalists want or you know, what have you. Somebody has
Speaker 2: a script for a way to make the world a
Speaker 2: better place, but it doesn't respect who I am and
Speaker 2: what I want. And yeah, I mean it's kind of
Speaker 2: like the idea, like the one main bullet point that
Speaker 2: I wrote that I that I was like, well, that
Speaker 2: doesn't sound so great. Establish a universal language that inevitably
Speaker 2: means destroying other languages and you know, cultural associations within
Speaker 2: those languages.
Speaker 3: Because of course it's going to be French, right, I mean,
Speaker 3: too bad for all the.
Speaker 2: Others, esperanto. Right, that's all it said. Oh, yeah, we
Speaker 2: got to come what's the William Shatner movie? That's completely annis. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'll have to come back to that.
Speaker 3: But to come back to the list of alien demands here,
Speaker 3: I mean, yeah, as much as the next guy, I
Speaker 3: like the idea of earthly brotherhood, no discrimination, no more war.
Speaker 3: That sounds great, but we will learn that not only
Speaker 3: is the Martian enforcement mechanism of these demands quite hypocritical.
Speaker 3: In fact, this is all just a ruse. There will
Speaker 3: be a twist coming.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And if you know, even if you take them
Speaker 2: at their word, they just step off completely on the
Speaker 2: wrong foot. Yeah, step one in making Earthlings follow this
Speaker 2: plan is just a disastrous misstep.
Speaker 3: So after this big speech, we see Santo kind of
Speaker 3: he leans back in his chair and he thinks about
Speaker 3: what he has just witnessed, and then we go straight
Speaker 3: back to the Martian mothership where the number two goes
Speaker 3: up to the main beef Martian and says, our electronic
Speaker 3: interstellar brain indicates the Earthlings do not take our warning seriously.
Speaker 3: Why not? Well, apparently we learned that the Earthlings didn't
Speaker 3: realize they were real Martians. Most Earthlings thought that they
Speaker 3: were just watching a comedy skit on TV. So they
Speaker 3: come up with a new plan. They got to convince
Speaker 3: the people of Earth. So they're going to land the
Speaker 3: spaceship in a forest, go out and find a populated area,
Speaker 3: let the Earthlings see them, and then melt the Earthlings
Speaker 3: with a weapon that they called the astral Eye. It's
Speaker 3: the only way they're going to take their order seriously.
Speaker 3: So oh, but before coming down, we learn an important
Speaker 3: piece of exposition. So the Martians talk about how Earth's
Speaker 3: atmosphere is toxic to them, so they will need to
Speaker 3: take capsules to survive. So they They're like, here are
Speaker 3: all your pills. They've all got a little pouch on
Speaker 3: their belt that has pills in it. They got to
Speaker 3: take the pills or they will asphyxiate in the Earth's atmosphere.
Speaker 3: Sounds like a good planet for them to invade, you know.
Speaker 3: So they land amidst some model trees, and then we
Speaker 3: cut to a big athletic complex with tennis courts, volleyball nets,
Speaker 3: and a track and a bunch of onlookers in this
Speaker 3: arena seating around a soccer game, and the narrator comes back.
Speaker 3: I forgot about him for a second. The narrator tells
Speaker 3: us the Martians, who claim to come from a world
Speaker 3: much more civilized than ours, and whose scientific advancements surpassed
Speaker 3: the Earths by more than what is.
Speaker 2: It, five hundred years?
Speaker 3: Five hundred years, nonetheless commit the same fatal error when
Speaker 3: they accuse us attempting to impose peace and brotherhood through
Speaker 3: fear and force, forgetting that violence only promotes destruction and hate.
Speaker 3: I feel like maybe the narrator is explaining a little
Speaker 3: too much, like yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, it's a the to have the whole
Speaker 2: They learn too late that man is a feeling creature
Speaker 2: until the end of the picture. But they just want
Speaker 2: to go ahead to make sure we have that in
Speaker 2: our minds before we proceed.
Speaker 3: But I don't know, maybe at least they wanted to
Speaker 3: make clear that the irony of like end all wars
Speaker 3: and practice brotherhood, practice worldwide brotherhood, or we will kill you,
Speaker 3: that the irony is not lost on the filmmakers.
Speaker 2: I don't know if they had test audiences, but maybe
Speaker 2: that was like a point, like, too many people are
Speaker 2: agreeing with the Martians at this point, we need to
Speaker 2: couch that a little bit.
Speaker 3: So anyway, here we see a man in a lucha mask.
Speaker 3: This is Santo helpfully coaching a bunch of young children
Speaker 3: in This looks like tumbling and acrobatics on the playground.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, but also it's Luca Like they're grappling, they're
Speaker 2: doing little flips and whatnot. So he's training the next
Speaker 2: generation of Luciadors to some extent, and.
Speaker 3: He's instilling not just physical lessons. This is not just
Speaker 3: training in the techniques, but he's also instilling an ethos.
Speaker 3: He says, everybody, grab a partner, begin to wrestle each
Speaker 3: other without hurting anyone let's see how it goes. And
Speaker 3: we see one boy named Luis who really just starts
Speaker 3: wailing on another kid, and Santo has to stop him.
Speaker 3: He says, Luis, how many times have I told you
Speaker 3: not to inflict deliberate harm? And after this, Luis has
Speaker 3: to affirm sort of the Santo school credo, which is
Speaker 3: that these cutting edge rastling skills should never be used
Speaker 3: in attack. They should only be used to counter aggression
Speaker 3: or to protect the weak and defenseless. So it's kind
Speaker 3: of the Santo School of good sportsmanship.
Speaker 2: It kind of gets into sort of like the heart
Speaker 2: of Lucha libre as well too, because this is not
Speaker 2: a legitimate competitive like martial art combat sport. It is
Speaker 2: a highly athletic, collaborative, cooperative entertainment product that ultimately affirms
Speaker 2: the victory of good over evil, of technicos over rudo's,
Speaker 2: and of righteousness over evil. So so yeah, I can
Speaker 2: see I can see this lining up with actual Santo theology.
Speaker 3: Here, I guess, did I already mention there's a big
Speaker 3: soccer match going on nearby?
Speaker 2: I think, oh, yeah, there's like a big soccer match
Speaker 2: in the background. There's so much sport happening I.
Speaker 3: Don't know what they're training like right next to the field,
Speaker 3: but suddenly we hear a buzz and Yonder materializes one
Speaker 3: of the beef Martians. I don't remember which one this is.
Speaker 3: It's either I think it's either Kronos or the one
Speaker 3: that will later be called Hercules.
Speaker 2: This one is played by Benny Gallant, who was a
Speaker 2: he was I think he was always billed as a Frenchman,
Speaker 2: but he was actually born in Spain, I think so. Yeah,
Speaker 2: the Martians have it's it's a it's really a cross
Speaker 2: continental cast here in many respects.
Speaker 3: Big stable.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And this guy has the thing on his head called
Speaker 3: the astral eye. It's like a third eye up on
Speaker 3: his forehead, the forehead part of his helmet. We don't
Speaker 3: see how it works exactly yet, but he has. This
Speaker 3: is the guy I was calling this murder Corey Energy.
Speaker 3: He somehow looks a little bit like a super jacked
Speaker 3: Corey Feldman adult Corey Feldman in the face.
Speaker 2: Do you see that, Yeah, I can see that. Yeah.
Speaker 3: But anyway, he approaches the bleachers of the soccer game
Speaker 3: and with a cruel smirk, the Martian activates his astral eye.
Speaker 3: It flashes with an internal light, and then the spectators
Speaker 3: see him. They begin to scream and run away, and
Speaker 3: then they suddenly start to vanish into thin air. Now,
Speaker 3: the astral eye, I think is an interesting weapon because
Speaker 3: on one hand, the effects that we see are not
Speaker 3: very gory, that we just see people like vanish from
Speaker 3: the frame, but it implies something even more devastating than
Speaker 3: like the heat ray in War the Worlds, which I
Speaker 3: don't remember if this was in the novel, but in
Speaker 3: the in the Spielberg adaptation, the movie adaptation, it would
Speaker 3: leave this pile of empty clothes behind. When it hits you,
Speaker 3: these people seem to disappear completely, not even leaving dust.
Speaker 3: It's like they never existed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he just completely disintegrates loads and loads of people,
Speaker 2: like men, women and children. Like it just it's I mean,
Speaker 2: it's at this as I was watching, and I'm like, well,
Speaker 2: surely they're just disappearing and they'll be back later. But no,
Speaker 2: like they're completely disintegrated.
Speaker 3: No, he totally. He vaporizes children in the scene, and
Speaker 3: so Santo is looking on from the nearby playground and
Speaker 3: he when he realizes what's happening, he springs into action.
Speaker 3: He tackles the Martian Killer and they start to wrestle
Speaker 3: out on the grass. And so there's like one point
Speaker 3: where the Martian throws Santo and then he stops and
Speaker 3: takes a moment to vaporize four of Santo's students, and
Speaker 3: then the fight resumes. And I was thinking the same thing, like, well,
Speaker 3: is Santo gonna go Like did he teleport them? Santo's
Speaker 3: gonna go rescue them later? Nope, they're just vapor now. Yeah,
Speaker 3: a lot of throwing, flipping, and tumbling takes place in
Speaker 3: this fight. I thought it was a good fight.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a very fun lucha fight scene, especially considering
Speaker 2: it just takes place in the middle of a field.
Speaker 2: It like, as far as the location for a fight
Speaker 2: in a film in general, if this is the most
Speaker 2: mundane place it could ever go down. And yet it's
Speaker 2: really good, Like it's just really good lucha grappling by
Speaker 2: guys who really knew their craft. And I would say,
Speaker 2: you know, half jokingly but half serious. The best storytelling
Speaker 2: in this film is told in these little Luca fight scenes. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Now I had questions about what I'm seeing here, because
Speaker 3: you know a lot more about the conventions of wrestling
Speaker 3: in Luca than I do. The Martian uses a full
Speaker 3: nelson on Santo here, and I was wondering, is the
Speaker 3: full nelson like a dirty move or is that part
Speaker 3: of the legitimate move set.
Speaker 2: It's a legitimate move. It's I mean it can be
Speaker 2: used in a dirty way if you're going to hold
Speaker 2: somebody so that someone else can punch them in the face.
Speaker 2: And I think in that respect, you see the full
Speaker 2: nelson pop up in all sorts of like cowboy brawls
Speaker 2: in pictures. But you know, I think the big thing
Speaker 2: is that it's dramatic. You can see both wrestlers' faces,
Speaker 2: and it has a number of cool Luca counters. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and we see some of those here, several of those here.
Speaker 2: I think Santo busts out all his favorite counters to
Speaker 2: the full melson we see.
Speaker 3: Him throughout the movie, and in this case, I think
Speaker 3: he gets out of it by flipping the guy over
Speaker 3: top what you call it, like throws it that goes
Speaker 3: into a somersult throw.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. The Luca holds are really fun in this film,
Speaker 2: and in this fight in particular, the Martian here busts
Speaker 2: out the rare butterfly hold, which you don't see much
Speaker 2: anymore as a standalone hold. It's usually is more as
Speaker 2: a setup move for some sort of a bomb or
Speaker 2: a soup lex.
Speaker 3: Well, anyway, finally Santo gets the upper hand in this fight.
Speaker 3: He puts the Martian in a choke hold of some kind,
Speaker 3: but then suddenly the Martian fiddles with something on his
Speaker 3: belt and then de materializes and Santo is left grasping
Speaker 3: it air Like. I thought back to that footage we
Speaker 3: saw the raccoon who tried to wash the wad of
Speaker 3: cotton candy and it just disappears and he's there switching
Speaker 3: around in the water looking for it. Yep, yep, yeah, like,
Speaker 3: what happened? Where is it? I gotta say this several times.
Speaker 3: This happens throughout the movie, when the Martian disappears and
Speaker 3: Santo's just like looking around frantically. It is the rare.
Speaker 3: It is the rare exception to the rule of Santo
Speaker 3: always looking like totally like in control. In these moments,
Speaker 3: Santo looks a bit made a fool of, and I
Speaker 3: feel like, that's not what you want to go for.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, he's he has trained exclusively. I'm grappling opponents
Speaker 2: that cannot vanish into thin air, so it just throws
Speaker 2: him off his game, at least for a few seconds.
Speaker 3: Anyway, after this, we get a long slow pan as
Speaker 3: Santo surveys the empty athletic field, and it's kind of like,
Speaker 3: what was that? What new terror am I facing?
Speaker 2: Now?
Speaker 3: But anyway, we go back to the spaceship and we
Speaker 3: check in with the Martians and they're like, good, good job,
Speaker 3: mission accomplished. The Earthlings are afraid now. However, the Martian
Speaker 3: who was out there and just had the fight has
Speaker 3: a little bit of a footnote to report. He says,
Speaker 3: there is one Earthling who dresses rangely and covers his
Speaker 3: face with a silver mask, and he almost managed to
Speaker 3: disrupt our plans. Should we disintegrate him? And then the
Speaker 3: head Martian says no, in fact, he is such an
Speaker 3: extraordinary specimen, really, the perfect biped. The only thing to
Speaker 3: do is capture him and take him back to Mars
Speaker 3: for study.
Speaker 2: And they'll expand this project as the film commences, where
Speaker 2: they'll realize, well, there are other humans that are kind
Speaker 2: of Santo's of the mind, and we should also bring
Speaker 2: them back as well, but Santo's the main one. If
Speaker 2: we could only bring one, it would be el Santo.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so next we reunite with Santo at a wrestling event.
Speaker 3: I think he's I don't know if this makes any
Speaker 3: Is he like in his office at the wrestling arena?
Speaker 2: Maybe? The establishing shot is that we're at Arena Mexico
Speaker 2: in Mexico City, which is a very prestigious home of
Speaker 2: Luja de Libra. It is built in nineteen fifty six,
Speaker 2: so I guess it was relatively young building at the time,
Speaker 2: but it's still in operation. It's the home of CMLL,
Speaker 2: which is like the biggest in traditional digital libret promotion
Speaker 2: in Mexico. You can still go there and see shows
Speaker 2: Lucha Libre shows at Arena Mexico. So maybe Santo has
Speaker 2: an office in the building.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but Santo has a friend here. This is when
Speaker 3: we first meet the professor we will later learn this
Speaker 3: is Professor Orto Rica, and they're discussing theories on what happened.
Speaker 3: Professor Orto Rica is a professor of nuclear physics, and
Speaker 3: they're Santo is saying, what cruel monster would vaporize even
Speaker 3: innocent children? So they talk it through, but it's not
Speaker 3: much of a talk because they just briefly consider, well,
Speaker 3: what if it was a warmongering foreign country trying to
Speaker 3: dominate them, and they both agreed that it can't be that.
Speaker 3: And then they both immediately go to the conclusion that
Speaker 3: the man with the astral eye must have come from
Speaker 3: another planet. That's just logic. So then we check in
Speaker 3: with some of the families who were watching TV earlier.
Speaker 3: They're all watching cowboy stuff. Now when suddenly broadcast signal
Speaker 3: Intrusion again. The Martians are back and they say, listen
Speaker 3: to Earthlings. You doubted the reality of our existence. Well
Speaker 3: you shouldn't have done that. Now you've seen our power.
Speaker 3: No scientific or military authority can stand up to us.
Speaker 3: We can destroy you all if we want. And then
Speaker 3: we see a priest and a church who's like under
Speaker 3: a crucifix and he begins to pray. Now, meanwhile, the
Speaker 3: Santo Professor friendship really starts cooking. They're thinking more about
Speaker 3: their theories. Now they're in the Professor's lab and one
Speaker 3: of them says, you know, something makes me think that
Speaker 3: the lost continent of Atlantis was inhabited by a race
Speaker 3: of people who also had the astral eye. I was like, oh, really, wow,
Speaker 3: I wonder where they're going with this. But I don't
Speaker 3: think you know what never comes up again.
Speaker 2: In a normal conversation, this would be the point where
Speaker 2: you would suddenly doubt your source, where you're like, this
Speaker 2: guy's talking about Atlantis. Now I don't know if he
Speaker 2: should really be my guy, my consult for the situation.
Speaker 3: Oh but while they're hanging out talking about Atlantis, the
Speaker 3: professor gets a call from the university and they're like, hey,
Speaker 3: the Martians are on TV. Watch them. Turn the TV on, so,
Speaker 3: you know, Santo and the Professor tune in, and this
Speaker 3: is the part where the Martians explained that they selected
Speaker 3: Mexico because it is a country dedicated to pacifism. And
Speaker 3: then the professor I thought this was great. He snaps
Speaker 3: a photo of the TV while the Martians are on TV.
Speaker 3: How's that going to come out?
Speaker 2: I mean, you can't push record at this point in
Speaker 2: no vc RS, Yeah, I guess so.
Speaker 3: But the Martian muscle guy says resistance is futile, and
Speaker 3: then they just returned to the regular schedule programming. It's
Speaker 3: back to the Cowboys show. Well after this, we finally
Speaker 3: get a confrontation. Here, the beefy Martian teleports into the
Speaker 3: room with Santo and the professor. Santo is unhappy with
Speaker 3: him because of all the people he vaporized earlier. But
Speaker 3: the Martian kind of waves away the criticism. He's like, hey, listen, YouTube, guys,
Speaker 3: are the best humanity has to offer. With your intelligence,
Speaker 3: strength and integrity, you will quote be the seed of
Speaker 3: a new humanity, more scientifically and morally advanced. So there,
Speaker 3: I was like, what, so are they suggesting Santo and
Speaker 3: the Professor are going to be like Adam and Eve
Speaker 3: of a new humankind?
Speaker 2: Sort of? Okay, I have to say in the screenshot
Speaker 2: that you grabbed a wolf here, he really looks like
Speaker 2: John Cena in the face.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, yeah, I can see that. I don't know
Speaker 3: what is it in the face I'm seeing, but I
Speaker 3: know what you're talking about there. But anyway, so Santo
Speaker 3: and the Martian argue. Santo is like, no, no, no,
Speaker 3: you're not going to tell me what to do. Also,
Speaker 3: was wrong to kill innocent people like you did earlier,
Speaker 3: and the Martian is like, it was necessary to do
Speaker 3: so because only by killing earthlings will they learn to
Speaker 3: live in peace. And then here it ends up with that,
Speaker 3: you know, the Martians like, you must come with me,
Speaker 3: and so Santo does a leg sweep and the fight begins.
Speaker 3: It's another fight. I noticed the Professor does not tag in.
Speaker 3: He does not help at all. He just watches, hiding
Speaker 3: behind a bunch of erlin Meyer flasks.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he doesn't go and try and break something over
Speaker 2: the villain's head. He knows he's an egghead and he
Speaker 2: should stay out of this.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Now, Santo holds his own in a fair fight.
Speaker 3: But then the Martian uses a dirty trick. He turns
Speaker 3: on his astral eye and doesn't disintegrate, but paralyzes our hero,
Speaker 3: leaving him frozen standing straight up. So then the Martian
Speaker 3: enforcer approaches the Professor, who's now defenseless, and he says,
Speaker 3: all you have to do is touch my hand. The
Speaker 3: dial on my belt will transport us to the spaces
Speaker 3: I think he means to the spaceship. He says, do
Speaker 3: not resist me. But then while he's there holding his
Speaker 3: hand out waiting for the Professor to hold his hand
Speaker 3: so they can go to Mars, something happens. The Martian
Speaker 3: is suddenly gripped by pain and surprise, as if like
Speaker 3: Darth Vader were just offscreen doing a force choke on him.
Speaker 3: What's going on, Well, this is the first payoff of
Speaker 3: the little talk earlier about Earth's toxic app sphere. The
Speaker 3: effects of the martians protective capsules are wearing off, so
Speaker 3: he starts struggling. He's clutching at his throat, and the
Speaker 3: Martian begins to reach for the pouch of pills on
Speaker 3: his belt. It's like, can I get down another one
Speaker 3: in time? I think in D and D terms, or
Speaker 3: at least Boulder skate terms, I think it would work
Speaker 3: like this in D and D. This seems to break
Speaker 3: his concentration on the paralyzed lucha spell, and Santo starts
Speaker 3: to come unfrozen.
Speaker 2: Yep, yep.
Speaker 3: And so while the Martian is struggling for the pills,
Speaker 3: Santo comes up behind him and applies a choke hold,
Speaker 3: and then the Professor watches as they struggle, but once
Speaker 3: again the Martian escapes. He escapes the anaconda like grip
Speaker 3: of Santo by flipping the dial on his belt buckle
Speaker 3: and teleporting back to the ship. And once again Santo
Speaker 3: is swiping around in the air like where did he go?
Speaker 3: But now now they are armed with knowledge, because the
Speaker 3: Professor has a clue as to the weakness of the Martians.
Speaker 3: Several of the atmosphere capsules were spilled on the floor,
Speaker 3: and he promises Santo to examine them thoroughly and to
Speaker 3: report back with what he finds. All right, now, here
Speaker 3: begins a segment where just there's random kidnappings, like some
Speaker 3: shirtless Martian hulksters appear in children's bedrooms while they're sleeping
Speaker 3: and just kidnap them. A bunch of the families we
Speaker 3: saw watching TV earlier just get kidnapped and taken back
Speaker 3: to the Martian spaceship. And then they get placed in
Speaker 3: this Martian spaceship jail that has one cool thing about
Speaker 3: it is an S shaped bench inside it.
Speaker 2: Oh, yes, the estering.
Speaker 3: It's like super jail. But here we get more Martian scheming.
Speaker 3: So after they put the people in the jail, the
Speaker 3: Martians talk about how they talk about how their appearance
Speaker 3: frightens Earthlings and somehow this is delaying their plans. I
Speaker 3: didn't understand why, but one of them says, why do
Speaker 3: we frighten them when our bodies are more perfectly evolved
Speaker 3: than their own? I don't know. But then one of
Speaker 3: them explains it is all in the mind, and then
Speaker 3: that that's the end of that, and so then they
Speaker 3: go They say, what we've got to do is go
Speaker 3: into the transformation chamber to transmogrify our bodies into a
Speaker 3: less threatening form that we will find disgusting but the
Speaker 3: Earthlings will find appealing. And so what this means is
Speaker 3: they all go into this adjoining room with big glass windows,
Speaker 3: and then it quickly fills up with smoke, and then
Speaker 3: they I was wondering, like, what are they going to
Speaker 3: be transformed into, like bunny rabbits to be, you know,
Speaker 3: not non threatening.
Speaker 2: I was expecting that they would walk out like in
Speaker 2: street clothes, looking like they would blend in. Yes, and
Speaker 2: later on in the film we do see them in
Speaker 2: street clothes, but that's not what we get initially.
Speaker 3: No, not at all.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 3: So they come out and they look exactly the same,
Speaker 3: except with shorter, darker hair, and with different costumes on.
Speaker 3: So now instead of golden space wrestler costumes with the
Speaker 3: kind of the tinfoil sheet, they're wearing some kind of
Speaker 3: Greek peplham wrestler costumes. And all of the lady Martians
Speaker 3: now have big hair as well, like voluminous mid century
Speaker 3: updues and that kind of bouffont helmet hair.
Speaker 2: Yeah there, I guess. With the women, you could say
Speaker 2: to their costumes are like a little less revealing than
Speaker 2: they were earlier, and their hair is bigger. And as
Speaker 2: for the guys, I don't know, they still look ridiculous.
Speaker 2: They still look like they're about to wrestle a match.
Speaker 3: They changed out of the tinfoil and now they're all
Speaker 3: dressed like masheiste.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah with and the helmets are all gone obviously.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So the head Martian explains that they now will
Speaker 3: begin using names taken from the Earthlings mythology. So the
Speaker 3: captain of the ship is going to be Argos. There's
Speaker 3: the sort of Kirk Douglas looking Martian, they say, because
Speaker 3: he is a scholar excelling at the studies of time
Speaker 3: and space, he will be named Kronos. There's I think
Speaker 3: it's ham Lee who's going to be called Morphio because
Speaker 3: of his hypnotic powers. There is this might be the
Speaker 3: Benny Gallant guy who they are gonna call Hercules because
Speaker 3: of his physical strength. They say that the lady Martian
Speaker 3: with the hugest hair is Aphrodita because of her great beauty.
Speaker 3: Another Martian lady is Selina because she has the serenity
Speaker 3: of the moon. And then the last two Martian ladies
Speaker 3: are Artemisia and Diana. No explanation why, Yeah, it's like
Speaker 3: and the rest. So Captain Argos gives him a few reminders.
Speaker 3: He says, of all of you, only Hercules has the
Speaker 3: strength to match Santo, so he's the only one who's
Speaker 3: going to go toe to toe with him in a
Speaker 3: wrestling match. And they say, now that we have taken
Speaker 3: on these disgusting, undesirable human forms, we will no longer
Speaker 3: have the power of the astral eye, so we can
Speaker 3: neither vaporize nor paralyze humans at will. So we're gonna
Speaker 3: have to rely on our strength and our wits and
Speaker 3: our belts whatever those do. We are only told that
Speaker 3: the belts cannot make them invisible, but we're not told
Speaker 3: what they can do apart from teleportation.
Speaker 2: Now, all of this is I love it when a
Speaker 2: movie gives us the rules. No, but these rules are
Speaker 2: more guidelines. Yeah, play pretty fast and loose with all this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I can't stress enough It will be repeated many,
Speaker 3: many times that the Martians find their current hot body
Speaker 3: forms hideous and grotesque. But like, hey, this is what
Speaker 3: the Earthlings like. But the thing is they don't really
Speaker 3: look very different, Like, it's mostly just costume changes and
Speaker 3: some changes to like hair style and color.
Speaker 2: Yeah, these references would have made a lot more since
Speaker 2: had they been in like monster costumes earlier on. But no,
Speaker 2: it's just it's not that different.
Speaker 3: But somehow this is going to help them capture some Earthlings,
Speaker 3: and especially capture Santo and Professor Orto Rica and take
Speaker 3: them back to Mars to create the perfect human.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they don't really lay it out here, but the
Speaker 2: female Martians their main goal is to use siren like
Speaker 2: powers to bring in like key male captives, scientists, heads
Speaker 2: of industry, prominent sci fi writers, that sort of thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we'll see this in several scenes where just like
Speaker 3: a beautiful Martian lady walks up to a dude and
Speaker 3: he's like, oh hollo, and then she just hypnotizes him,
Speaker 3: and then they're at the spaceship.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So, anyway, what's going on with Santo and the Professor Now, well,
Speaker 3: the Professor's research figures out what the alien's pills are for,
Speaker 3: he figures out atmosphere is poisonous to them. They're going
Speaker 3: to die without the pills so they can use that information.
Speaker 3: But he also tells Santo that because the Martians have
Speaker 3: such smart brains, he can make a machine that will
Speaker 3: be able to locate them by detecting the mental vibrations
Speaker 3: that their brains put out. These are produced during moments
Speaker 3: of high tension or emotion, such as when they are
Speaker 3: on the attack. But it will be twenty four hours
Speaker 3: before this device is functional, so Santo can't have that
Speaker 3: device yet. The professor also mentions an additional way that
Speaker 3: Santo could locate the Martian hideout, though this would be
Speaker 3: so impossible it's ridiculous to even imagine, but that way
Speaker 3: would be to take control of one of their almost
Speaker 3: wrestling championship style belts and to use the dial on it.
Speaker 3: Santo is like, Okay, all that all makes sense, and
Speaker 3: now I've got to go practice wrestling, get to the gym.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like it's more important now than ever. I've
Speaker 2: got to work out.
Speaker 3: Yes. So here the movie kind of transitions into what
Speaker 3: feels less continuous and more just like a series of
Speaker 3: alien encounter episodes and fight scenes. So I thought, here
Speaker 3: we can just kind of like talk about some highlights.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because it really does flow like that the movie.
Speaker 2: It's kind of like highlight after highlight until the movie ends. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it doesn't. This film doesn't have a lot of I
Speaker 2: don't know, intentional flow to it, but it's still it's
Speaker 2: it's entertaining the whole way.
Speaker 3: So one thing is attempt to number two, to kidnap
Speaker 3: the Professor. This one comes pretty much right after what
Speaker 3: we were just talking about. The Professor is left alone
Speaker 3: he's working on the Martian brain wave detector when the
Speaker 3: Martians come back to get him. Fortunately, he has a
Speaker 3: brilliant idea. He knocks a bunch of chemistry beakers on
Speaker 3: the floor at the martians feet, causing a fire in
Speaker 3: his lab, and this makes them go away quick thinking Professor.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because they're like, oh, the fire, it's eating up
Speaker 2: the oxygen so forth. So yeah, yeah, but he also
Speaker 2: clearly burns his whole lab down in the process.
Speaker 3: I was just thinking of the line in the Attack
Speaker 3: of the Crab Monsters, you know, pity is all fires
Speaker 3: must one day burn out, let's see.
Speaker 2: Oh.
Speaker 3: I also want to note that in this scene, the
Speaker 3: Martians who come for him, which I believe are Argos
Speaker 3: and Chronos, they are already changed out of their new
Speaker 3: Greek hero clothes and back into essentially the original gold
Speaker 3: Martian outfits, except without the helmets on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so we will almost immediately abandon all.
Speaker 3: Yes, there's this huge like transformation scene and then it
Speaker 3: has almost no effect in the rest of the film.
Speaker 3: And I don't think do the Greek costumes ever return.
Speaker 2: No, They're like, we didn't like the way those felt,
Speaker 2: so we're just ticularly the old customs.
Speaker 3: So there is The next thing is ooh, I think
Speaker 3: this is a really good scene. This is one of
Speaker 3: my favorites in the movie. The hypnotic attack at Club
Speaker 3: de Luchadors is good, really good. In this sequence, Santo
Speaker 3: is training with a couple of his Lucca buddies and
Speaker 3: it's a tough fight, but they're all friends and it's
Speaker 3: good sportsmanship all around. So you know, he's wrestling with
Speaker 3: people they're they're fighting hard, but no hard feelings. These
Speaker 3: are all friends here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and Frankenstein is one of the friends.
Speaker 3: Yes, and I should know that Santo is masked, but
Speaker 3: his two training partners are not anyway, So Santo's here
Speaker 3: and then suddenly disguised as beautiful Earth women and revealing Leotard's.
Speaker 3: The Martians are Temsa and Diana come into the gym
Speaker 3: to execute a plans. They walk through the doors as
Speaker 3: this is right after Santo's sparring matches over and Santo
Speaker 3: leaves for a minute, and the two Space ladies make
Speaker 3: eye contact at his two sparring partners, and they're of course.
Speaker 3: Both of these guys are like, hey, what's up. Hello,
Speaker 3: and the ladies walk up and they end up hypnotizing
Speaker 3: them so that when Santo comes back into the room later,
Speaker 3: his two sparring partners suddenly pounce on him with deadly intent.
Speaker 3: I think they say, and now you are finished. No, no, sorry,
Speaker 3: they say, your end has come. Also, I don't know
Speaker 3: if this even needs to be said, but the Martian
Speaker 3: ladies are no longer in their Greek outfits either. They're
Speaker 3: just wearing the tin foil cheek.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they didn't like that old like it was gross.
Speaker 3: So this fight I think is pretty good. It's like
Speaker 3: a no holds barred two on one fight with what
Speaker 3: I thought were some surprisingly brutal moments and moves, like
Speaker 3: at one point, the other two wrestlers they grab Santo
Speaker 3: and they pin Santo's arm across the two saddles on
Speaker 3: a bench press rack and start kicking his arm like
Speaker 3: to break it between the two metal hooks, and I
Speaker 3: was like, oof, that is a I don't know, that
Speaker 3: has much more kind of gory and brutal implications than
Speaker 3: a lot of Luca moves. I don't know if you
Speaker 3: felt the same way, but that it really struck me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah. This fight here, it does have
Speaker 2: Luca moves in it, but it also has these these
Speaker 2: brutal moments. I think on one hand, you have, of
Speaker 2: course performers here who are used to portraying violence in
Speaker 2: a way that is convincing. But then also maybe they're
Speaker 2: like leaning into it, working a little stiff here for
Speaker 2: the camera. But yeah, it's it's a brutal fight scene. Santo,
Speaker 2: of course is up up for the fight.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, oh, and I should say during the fight,
Speaker 3: we see Diana and Artemisa over at the other side
Speaker 3: of the room watching intently, and I don't know, it
Speaker 3: seems like they are enjoying what they see. But however,
Speaker 3: Santo prevails against it even these odds, even two on one,
Speaker 3: he wins, and when the Martian ladies see that he
Speaker 3: is going to win. They're like, oh, we gotta get
Speaker 3: out of here, and they use their belt dials to disappear.
Speaker 3: The spell immediately wears off, and then Santo's two buddies
Speaker 3: are just like, gorsh, we were trying to kill you.
Speaker 3: Wonder why, and it's there aren't a lot of questions
Speaker 3: about it. It's just kind of like, h, no harm,
Speaker 3: no foul. They shake it off and then yeah, we're
Speaker 3: all good.
Speaker 2: Santo knows it's good. Santo knows your heart.
Speaker 3: There's a scene after this where the Martians kidnaps more
Speaker 3: regular Earthlings. It's like a there's a cocktail party of
Speaker 3: these various scientists and government leaders, just various important big wigs.
Speaker 3: This is one of the scenes where I was getting
Speaker 3: really confused about what people understood about the Martian invasion.
Speaker 3: I'm not sure if I missed something or if this
Speaker 3: really is just inconsistent or nonsensical. In the movie, everybody
Speaker 3: usually seems to be aware of the Martians, Like everybody
Speaker 3: saw the message on TV and then they found out
Speaker 3: about the astral eye vaporizations. We see newspapers with headlines
Speaker 3: about the Martian invasion. Everybody seems to be talking about it.
Speaker 3: Whenever we get scenes of just regular people talking. And
Speaker 3: yet there is also a b plot that like, these
Speaker 3: big wigs are trying to keep the Martian attack a
Speaker 3: secret to avoid causing mass panic, and throughout the rest
Speaker 3: of the movie, the Martian invasion seems to be both
Speaker 3: common knowledge and a secret and the subject of a
Speaker 3: cover up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's I mean again, it's kind of commendable
Speaker 2: that the movie is acknowledging some of the complex dynamics
Speaker 2: that would be in play with a situation like this,
Speaker 2: But at the same time, it's like, this is not
Speaker 2: the place where you really get to explore those concepts
Speaker 2: to their fullest.
Speaker 3: Well, it's also not portrayal. So like the big wigs
Speaker 3: who are deciding that there must be a cover up,
Speaker 3: they stand around with their martinis and cigars and they're like, yes,
Speaker 3: we must lie to everyone, and we must start by
Speaker 3: lying to our Yeah. But then they don't really get
Speaker 3: a chance to lie to their wives yet because instead,
Speaker 3: suddenly Martian women come into the room. It's Afrodita and Selena.
Speaker 3: They wander into the party, they get ogled by the
Speaker 3: conspiracy dudes. They get some nasty looks from the conspiracy
Speaker 3: dudes wives, and then they teleport the big wigs away
Speaker 3: to space jail. Oh and then also I didn't understand
Speaker 3: why this was, but they kidnap a science fiction writer
Speaker 3: from a restaurant and take him to spaceship jail. That
Speaker 3: sounds like something written by a writer.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I have a feeling that the screenwriter was like,
Speaker 2: I'm just not connecting with any of these characters. I've
Speaker 2: got an idea, why can't I be kidnapped by the
Speaker 2: space women.
Speaker 3: Well he's like, yeah, I want to get seduced by Artemisa.
Speaker 3: So you know, she makes eyes at him at the
Speaker 3: restaurant and he follows her away from the table, and
Speaker 3: then they just blink. You they get teleported.
Speaker 2: Oh.
Speaker 3: But it is through the sci fi writers attempt to
Speaker 3: escape the spaceship that we learn the ship has a
Speaker 3: big level in the center of the room that causes
Speaker 3: the ship to explode if it is pulled, and so
Speaker 3: he goes and reaches for it. I don't know how
Speaker 3: the sci fi rider knew this. Maybe he's just randomly
Speaker 3: pulling it levers, but the Martians start yelling, no, that
Speaker 3: will make the ship blow up.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm really one of the last people to
Speaker 2: sexualize everything in a film, But this is the most
Speaker 2: phallic looking lever I think I've ever seen an emotion picture,
Speaker 2: and it just makes all of these scenes where folks
Speaker 2: are grabbing at it all the more hilarious.
Speaker 3: It's a big just like a handle that is protruding
Speaker 3: from a large round bass that looks like hips.
Speaker 2: Like it's somebody. This had to have been intentional on
Speaker 2: some level. Somebody designing this thing puts some thought into it.
Speaker 3: So yeah, it makes the ship will up. I wonder
Speaker 3: if this will come up again later. They do not
Speaker 3: succeed in blowing up the ship, but so then we
Speaker 3: just move on. Oh, we get some stuff with the
Speaker 3: people in the space jail. They're fed concentrated food and
Speaker 3: things like that.
Speaker 2: Oh yeap pills for dinner, kind of like Santa conquers
Speaker 2: the Martians. There's a lot of shared DNA between these
Speaker 2: two films.
Speaker 3: We also get more scenes. There are some repetitive things here,
Speaker 3: more scenes of the Martians all standing around looking sexy.
Speaker 3: They're all like, you know, flexing their muscles and looking
Speaker 3: at their bodies and they're like, I don't understand what
Speaker 3: earthlings see in this disgusting appearance. And in this scene,
Speaker 3: this is the part where they we get a twist,
Speaker 3: we learn more about the Martians motivations. So they're talking
Speaker 3: about they have to kidnap Santo, and they say, you know,
Speaker 3: when we get him to Mars, we're going to kill
Speaker 3: him and dissect his body for study. And it's like,
Speaker 3: why would they do that? Well, because Santo, it turns out,
Speaker 3: is even more advanced than the Martians themselves. They must so,
Speaker 3: like they're five hundred years ahead of us, and yet
Speaker 3: Santo's still ahead of them. So how many years ahead
Speaker 3: of regular humanity is Santo? I don't know, six hundred years.
Speaker 3: So they've got to study him. And the reason is this,
Speaker 3: they want to make copies of Santo use as super
Speaker 3: soldiers for the armies that they will soon use to
Speaker 3: launch a full scale invasion of Earth. Doun dun duh.
Speaker 3: Who could have seen this this twist coming? Because it
Speaker 3: turns out all that stuff about improving humankind, fostering universal brotherhood,
Speaker 3: all that it was just it was just for show.
Speaker 3: It was whoy. They don't actually care. They're just trying
Speaker 3: to soften us up so they can invade and take
Speaker 3: our planet.
Speaker 2: With an Army of dark Santo's Like, that's that's that's awful.
Speaker 3: Evil Santo's by the millions.
Speaker 2: Oh.
Speaker 3: Also after this, uh, we just get like a radio
Speaker 3: announcer we got talking into a microphone who says that
Speaker 3: the authorities, in an effort to calm the public, decided
Speaker 3: to use every tool in their arsenal, including letting people
Speaker 3: quote enjoy their favorite pastimes. Again, I think that means rastling.
Speaker 2: This is such a weird sequence. Yeah, because they're building
Speaker 2: us up, like just go to go to watch your
Speaker 2: local Lucas show as usual. Well, don't let this fear
Speaker 2: of alien invasion steer you in a different direction. But then,
Speaker 2: as we see, nobody actually shows up for resting that night.
Speaker 2: It's the arena they.
Speaker 3: Do in the first one. There are two. There are two.
Speaker 2: People don't show up the second. What's going on by
Speaker 2: the second one?
Speaker 3: The second one is when people don't show up the
Speaker 3: first one, it's a huge crowd.
Speaker 2: Oh, that's true. It is a big crowd for the first.
Speaker 3: They may be discouraged for the second one because martians
Speaker 3: show up at the end of the first match and
Speaker 3: start vaporizing people.
Speaker 2: Well that's understandable.
Speaker 3: But this first one it's is rob Is there a
Speaker 3: formal term in Lucca for the villain swap out? Like
Speaker 3: when the villain is you think it's one person behind
Speaker 3: the mask, but then the mask comes off and it
Speaker 3: turns out it with somebody else.
Speaker 2: I don't know if there's any kind of lingo for it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but but it is a trope, I guess. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Well, anyway, here one of the beef aliens I think
Speaker 3: it's Hercules. He beats up and steals the mask of
Speaker 3: Santo's scheduled opponent for the night, a wrestler called Black Eagle,
Speaker 3: and this appears to be the kind of fight where
Speaker 3: the goal is to take off the opponent's mask. I
Speaker 3: think that's That's not every fight in Luca, right.
Speaker 2: No, in fact, I don't. I was kind of scratching
Speaker 2: my head at this, because generally a mask is on
Speaker 2: the line officially, in which if you lose the match
Speaker 2: you have to give up your mask in your previous identity.
Speaker 2: But then also it is mask ripping, and the unmasking
Speaker 2: is also a common shenanigan that takes place in Luca masks.
Speaker 2: So like the rudo's will start tugging at the technico's mask,
Speaker 2: the raff will get on to them for it. They
Speaker 2: may pull off a mask and then get a quick
Speaker 2: pin while the hero's distracted. And then also if memory serves, like,
Speaker 2: actually snatching the mask off your opponent's face is a dq. So, honestly,
Speaker 2: maybe it was different back then. I don't know. Maybe
Speaker 2: they did have matches like this in the fifties and sixties,
Speaker 2: but it also kind of felt I don't know, I
Speaker 2: didn't fully understand it. Yeah, but for some reason it
Speaker 2: seems to be the case that you can end this
Speaker 2: match by pulling off your opponent's mask.
Speaker 3: Well, I thought this was a solid fight, and it
Speaker 3: had a lot of twists and turns and some weird
Speaker 3: interesting moves and rules. What the weirdest move I think
Speaker 3: in the entire movie is this match has a clear
Speaker 3: I'm not exaggerating. There is a move that's like a
Speaker 3: head butt to the perineum.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, this was great. I'd never seen it before.
Speaker 2: But there used to be a lot more butt based combat,
Speaker 2: you know, like the atomic drop used to be big
Speaker 2: money back in the day. That's the one where you
Speaker 2: do like it's like you're gonna do a belly to
Speaker 2: back suplex, but then you bring the opponent down so
Speaker 2: that their butt lands on your knee. Okay, And you know,
Speaker 2: it's like it makes sense in a wrestling world, you know,
Speaker 2: because it's like, oh, impact of the spine, like that's
Speaker 2: a full body you know effect right there. But it
Speaker 2: also is kind of funny because you're hitting somebody in
Speaker 2: the butt, so you don't see it as much anymore.
Speaker 3: Okay, Okay, I accept it. I mean I don't want
Speaker 3: to be head butted in the butt either.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I'd never seen an attack like this before. This
Speaker 2: was pretty great.
Speaker 3: At one point, Hercules gets the gets the better of Santo, though,
Speaker 3: and he rips off Santo's mask oh no, only to
Speaker 3: reveal that Santo is wearing a second mask underneath.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And then somehow Hercules the alien knows to like throw
Speaker 3: the first mask that he took off. He throw it
Speaker 3: on the ground and stomp on it and squish it.
Speaker 3: And somebody starts to rebuke Santo for this. He's like
Speaker 3: suggesting it's some kind of cheating I think, to be
Speaker 3: wearing more than one mask. But Santo counters that his
Speaker 3: opponent is not actually an Earthling but a Martian, and
Speaker 3: I guess that's a that is a legitimate counter argument,
Speaker 3: and he proves this by pinning him and ripping off
Speaker 3: his mask, and for some reason this makes the Martian
Speaker 3: transform into his original Martian hair and helmet, which causes
Speaker 3: the people in the arena to freak out and scatter.
Speaker 3: And then the Martians appear and start astral eye blasting
Speaker 3: everybody in, vaporizing them yep. And then of course they
Speaker 3: turn the dial again and escape.
Speaker 2: So clearly some other form of attack is going to
Speaker 2: be necessary to defeat Santa.
Speaker 3: That's right. Now they try a seduction as well. How
Speaker 3: well do you think this is going to work on Santo?
Speaker 2: Oh, this is not going to work. In fact, I
Speaker 2: was a little it seems like it's working, and I
Speaker 2: was shocked.
Speaker 3: Yes, but it's it turns out it's like a dream
Speaker 3: fake out. So we see Santo at home in his
Speaker 3: full outfit with the mask on, lying on his bed
Speaker 3: reading a book, and then who should appear at the
Speaker 3: opposite end of the room but Afrodita, the most powerful
Speaker 3: seductress of the Martian operators, and she's like, hey, Santo,
Speaker 3: and then she blows some smoke into the air and
Speaker 3: the Martian love goddesses they I think they're multiple of
Speaker 3: them there, and they hypnotize Santo start kissing him and
Speaker 3: remove his mask. Now we don't see his face, we
Speaker 3: only see from behind, but we see like his hair,
Speaker 3: and I was just like you, s it can't be true.
Speaker 3: It can't be Santo is he cannot be defeated in
Speaker 3: this way. But it turns out it's all like a
Speaker 3: horrible dream. He wakes up and she's still there, but
Speaker 3: he hasn't actually kissed her or anything, and his mask
Speaker 3: is still on, and he's like, you know, if you
Speaker 3: try to kidnap me, I might steal your belt and
Speaker 3: your Martian technology. And that threat alone is enough to
Speaker 3: make her be like, oh, never mind, and.
Speaker 2: Then they just back away and then teleport.
Speaker 3: Next there is a scene where Marsh where he ends
Speaker 3: up using the device that the Professor made to track
Speaker 3: the Martians to a Catholic church where they're there arguing
Speaker 3: with the priest about I don't know, they're just like
Speaker 3: having a moral argument with the priest, and there is
Speaker 3: a weird kind of discussion of whether or not they
Speaker 3: should fight inside the church. I think they have to
Speaker 3: take the fight outside.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like the basically the priest here is like he
Speaker 2: pulls out some highlander lord and he's like, this is
Speaker 2: holy ground. You can't actually fight here, and they're like,
Speaker 2: fair enough, yep, we respect holy ground.
Speaker 3: Then one of the most baffling things in the movie
Speaker 3: after this is the Professor is invited to some kind
Speaker 3: of celebration of scientific achievement, which takes the form of
Speaker 3: a party with burlesque dancing. So it's there, it's like
Speaker 3: people there with their families to receive awards for scientific achievements.
Speaker 3: But then of course there are four burlesque dancers who,
Speaker 3: of course they get hypnotized by the Martian ladies, who
Speaker 3: then steal their costumes and do the dance themselves. The
Speaker 3: costumes are hilarious. It's like something out of Doctor Seuss.
Speaker 3: It looks like the lore Axe.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it's really it's really classy stuff. It's
Speaker 2: I guess it's kind of chorus line, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I guess. So I don't know the terminology here,
Speaker 3: But what are the dancers going to do here? Obviously
Speaker 3: they're here to kidnap the professor, and so they take
Speaker 3: the professor they send him back to the ship as well.
Speaker 3: Now later we see the Martians at the ship and
Speaker 3: they're like, uh, oh, we're in trouble now, all out
Speaker 3: of our atmosphere pills, and it's it's do or die.
Speaker 3: It's this is our last chance chance to capture Santo
Speaker 3: before we must leave this planet because we you know,
Speaker 3: the atmosphere is killing us. So Santo comes up with
Speaker 3: a plan that involves guess what what's it going to be?
Speaker 3: It's another wrestling match, So they get that going. Uh,
Speaker 3: there's not a whole lot to explain here, It's just
Speaker 3: like they have another match. This time there's nobody in
Speaker 3: the arena, but it still manages to trick the Martians
Speaker 3: into showing up. Santo beats them up and he they
Speaker 3: fall right into his trap. He beats them up and
Speaker 3: he manages to steal one of the belts, which earlier
Speaker 3: they said that would be impossible. So now he's got
Speaker 3: a belt and that man and that allows him to
Speaker 3: teleport to where the ship is, so it's on now.
Speaker 3: He goes back to the Martian ship and arrives actually
Speaker 3: to find the Martians all generally asphyxiating, and he like
Speaker 3: fights them in the state, which I don't know. It
Speaker 3: felt a little anti climactic. But he frees the hostage.
Speaker 3: Is they all run outside, and here is where they get.
Speaker 3: We get a brief discussion between Santo and the professor,
Speaker 3: because the professor is like, hey, we should save the
Speaker 3: Martian ship. We've got to use it to advance Earth
Speaker 3: technology by five hundred years, right, and Santo says, no, no, no,
Speaker 3: we must destroy it because we are not ready for
Speaker 3: such power. It must be eliminated.
Speaker 2: I mean, this is this is a part of the
Speaker 2: film where it's like, all right, this is they're cooking
Speaker 2: a little bit here with these ideas. Yeah, Santo's like, like,
Speaker 2: we're going out there to destroy it, not to bring
Speaker 2: back and.
Speaker 3: Right, yeah, he's the ripley in the scenario nukid for morbid,
Speaker 3: which he does by running back into the ship once
Speaker 3: more and pulling the lever. Pulling the lever we talked about,
Speaker 3: the lever of death. He pulls it real good. He
Speaker 3: jumps out of the ship. There's a big explosion. Santo
Speaker 3: and the freed prisoners watch the ship burn, and then
Speaker 3: the narrator comes in and says, the human race has
Speaker 3: been saved for the moment. Will we learn our lesson
Speaker 3: or insist on carrying on? Crazy nuclear experiments until we
Speaker 3: disappear from the face of the earth, and the narrator
Speaker 3: is saying this as we just watch Santo turn around
Speaker 3: and wander into the woods, leaving the freed prisoners alone
Speaker 3: by themselves.
Speaker 2: I really like this sending, though, because it's like Santa's saying, Look,
Speaker 2: I'm not always going to be here to fight your
Speaker 2: battles for you and to clean things up for you.
Speaker 2: You've got to figure this out for your own humanity.
Speaker 2: You've got to decide what you want for this world
Speaker 2: and for your lives. And yeah, so Santo leaves them there.
Speaker 3: Great, Yeah, all right, So that was Santo in the
Speaker 3: Martian invasion.
Speaker 2: Yes, he successfully defeated the invasion, did not find it
Speaker 2: necessary to then go and conquer the Martians. Leave that
Speaker 2: for Santa Claus.
Speaker 3: Someday we'll have to come back and explore all of
Speaker 3: the parallels between Santo and Santa Claus.
Speaker 2: Number Yeah, like the attempt to kidnap Santo and Santa
Speaker 2: Claus the head, the food pills. I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: I guess they're both pulling on a lot of sci
Speaker 2: fi ideas that were very much in the heather at
Speaker 2: that time.
Speaker 3: You never see them out of costume. They're paragons of virtue.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they teach the children to do right.
Speaker 2: Yeah. But we had no divisions this time in Martian
Speaker 2: the Martian camp. You know, we didn't have like pro
Speaker 2: Santo anti Santo camp. That would have been interesting. But
Speaker 2: oh yeah, there's no dropo. This movie needed to drive.
Speaker 2: That would be my other main criticism is that Santo
Speaker 2: and the Treasure of Dracula had a nice comic relief SIDEKICKO. Yeah, parago,
Speaker 2: and we didn't have a perago. We didn't have a
Speaker 2: dropoh in this in this picture, I'm not sure we
Speaker 2: had room for.
Speaker 3: Can't have everything, Rob, that's true, that's true.
Speaker 2: All right, we're gonna go ahead and call it for
Speaker 2: this episode, but we'd love to hear your thoughts on
Speaker 2: this and other Santo movies, Luchador movies, Luchadora movies. Write in.
Speaker 2: We would love to hear from you. Just a reminder
Speaker 2: of the stuff to Blow your Mind is primarily a
Speaker 2: science and podcast with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays,
Speaker 2: but on Fridays, we set aside most serious concerns to
Speaker 2: just talk about a weird film on Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 2: You can find us on a letterboxed we are Weird House,
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Speaker 2: are STBYM podcast.
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
Speaker 3: you can email us at contact stuff to Blow your
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