Santo Returns

 

 (imdb)

SANTO AND DRACULA'S TREASURE-1968-Pro wrestler El Santo of the silver mask has invented some kind of time machine but scientists he invites to look at it just laugh at him. His kind of girlfriend Luisa (Noelia Noel) volunteers to try the machine and winds up in the 18th century a victim of vampirism. Her father Dr. Sepulveda (Carlos Agosti) sends for his old friend Dr. Van Roth (Fernando Mendoza). Their neighbor the greasy suave Count Alucard is actually...guess who? Count Dracula (Aldo Monti), who heads "the legion of the living dead" made up of fanged sexy priestesses. During their "initiation" he bites them (several are topless and they all eventually strip) and then stamps them with the imprint of a bat. Santo, his nerdy assistant Perico (Alberto Rojas) and Dr. Sepulveda watch the events unfold via a TV set! 

Drac turns Luisa into a vampire and reveals his vast treasure to her. Just before she's to be killed Santo brings her back. In the modern day, the trio search for the count's ring and medallion which are the keys to translating the treasure map. A man in a black hood and his gang are after the treasure too. Santo winds up in the ring wrestling a henchman ( El Lobo Negro) for possession of both items. Santo wins of course but the hooded one brings Drac back to life and he goes looking for his possessions. 

This Mexican production was directed by Rene' Cardona. It's alright but there could have been a little more atmosphere. The direction is rather routine.

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Wrestling Women Return (and The Mummy!)

 (rottentomatoes.com)

 WRESTLING WOMEN VS. THE AZTEC MUMMY-1964-An evil Asian (phony) Prince Fujiyata (Ramon Bugarini) and his "sisters" seek "the codex of the Aztecs" and kidnap, torture and kill several scientists trying to get it. Only Prof. Tracy remains. He has a plan to divide his half of the codex (the prince has the rest) among his friends detective Armando (Armando Silvestre) and his dopey comical assistant Tommy (Chucho Salinas) and two female wrestlers Loretta aka Gloria Venus (Lorena Valasquez from DOCTOR OF DOOM) and Lucy aka Golden Rubi (US born Elizabeth Campbell) but Tracy acts very mysteriously. Fujiyata's henchman Mao abducts Charlotte, the daughter of a dead scientist and hypnotizes her to be his spy. Fujiyata sends his sisters (two real life wrestlers) to battle the girls for possession of each other's half. The girls win and Tracy (and a flashback) discovers where the treasure may be. They take a necklace. Unfortunately the Aztec Mummy is guarding the tomb. The group escapes but the mummy (who can change into a bat) follows them. He kills all the bad guys and tries to make Charlotte his bride. 

More crazy wrestling horror from Mexico directed by the super prolific Rene Cordona (SANTA CLAUS).

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Wrestling Women

 

 (imdb)

DOCTOR OF DOOM-1963-A mad doctor Prof. Ruiz (Roberto Canedo) is doing brain transplants on women. He also has a man beast Gomar (Gerado Zepeda) in his celler. When his latest experiment fails his assistant says they need women with higher IQs. The doctor's gang kidnap a lab assistant Alice but once again the experiment fails and Alice dies. Her sister is wrestling star Gloria Venus (Lorena Valasquez from SHIP OF MONSTERS). Gloria and newcomer Golden Rudi (Elizabeth Campbell) team up with police detectives Armando (Armando Silvestre) and Chema (Chuco Salinas) to try and stop "The Mad Doctor" who usually dresses like a KKK member. After several encounters the doctor creates "Vendetta", a wrestler with a gorilla's brain programmed to kill Gloria in the ring! 

Fun craziness from Mexico by director Rene Cordona and screenwriter Alfredo Salazar who collaborated the next year on a sequel.

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Gorgeous George

 

ALIAS THE CHAMP-1949-Smug stupid Lt. Peterson (Robert Rockwell) of the LAPD is visited by Lorraine Connors (Audrey Long), manager of pro wrestler Gorgeous George (playing himself). It seems George is being threatened by gangster Al Merlo (Jim Nolan) who wants to control pro-wrestling. Later we are treated to a match between George (at the height of  his fame) and Bomber Kulkovic (future character actor Henry Kulky). Legendary ring announcer Jimmy Lennon introduces them. Two gangsters look on. Later Peterson visits backstage but George rebuffs him. "Beat it, Junior you bore me". After having a fistfight with Merlo, Peterson takes Lorraine out to dinner at a club where he gets into a tussle with wrestler Sam Menacker over the affections of singer Collette (Barbara Fuller) who's connected to Merlo. Later when Merlo demands Menacker get a title shot at the gorgeous one an all out brawl erupts between several wrestlers (described by one character as “the grunt and groan boys”) including big lovable Tor Johnson (credited as the Super Swedish Angel). 

Peterson is made wrestling commissioner. In their match Menacker dies and George is arrested for murder! The police commissioner (John Hamilton) isn't happy. Using a film of the match Peterson solves the murder, clears George, stops Merlo and gets Lorraine (and her marbles). It's too bad Gorgeous George wasn't the star of this movie. Without him and the wrestling angle it's just an innocuous low budget crime/love story. Real life pro wrestler Sam Menacker was one of the strongmen who tackled Mighty Joe Young the same year. 

Director George Blair had been making movies since the mid-forties but a few years after this would venture into TV and work with John Hamilton again on “The Adventures of Superman”.

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Timothy Farrell is Umberto Scalli in....

 

RACKET GIRLS-1951-Wrestling promoter Umberto Scalli (Timothy Farrell; soon to be in GLEN OR GLENDA?) and his little pal Joe (Dan Ferrara) take female grappler Peaches Paige (as herself) under their wing. He also owes gangster Mr. Big (Phil Gerald) 35 grand. Scalli's a sleazy small time hood who is also a bookie who dopes horses. Legendary ring announcer Jimmy Lennon (Sr.) introduces the match between the Panther Woman and the Lion Woman.

 Later Scalli tries to convince (real life) women's champ Mona Mortensen to throw her match with (real life rival) Mexican champ Rita Martinez. It doesn't work. Their match goes on a long time and Scalli is subpoenaed to testify about the rackets. He and Joe try to lam it but Mr. Big's henchmen shoot and kill both of them. 

This little cheapie exploitation film was written and directed by Robert Dertano who also made GIRL GANG and GUN GIRLS (both with Farrell) and JOURNEY TO FREEDOM (with Tor Johnson).

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Wrestling Women

LAS LUCHADORAS VS. EL ROBOT ASESINO-WRESTLING WOMEN VS. THE ROBOT ASSASSIN-1969- ln the first Wrestling Woman  series to be filmed in color female Luchador Gaby (Regina Torne'), her wrestler friend Gemma (Malu Reyes), her cop boyfriend Arturo (Joaquin Cordero, the monster in ORLAK, THE HELL OF FRANKENSTEIN) and his assistant battle a mad scientist Dr. Orlac (Carlos Agosti; INVASION OF THE VAMPIRES) bend on ruling the world by turning everyone into "human robots". He kidnaps many famous scientists to help in his plan dispatching a tall metallic robot (who wears a trench coat and wide rimmed hat & sunglasses) to get them. He also has a scarred man-beast in a cage in the basement (what successful mad scientist doesn't?). For some reason a nurse opens up the cage to let him out, turns her back and it kills her. The doc then uses a whip on the monster as punishment. 

Gaby has several matches in the ring and several encounters with robot (one of the kidnapped scientists is her relative) and she and her companions get beat up. Two captured scientists do create a device that allows Olac to control people (he has a real over the top maniacal laugh) but Gaby and her group break in, destroy the robot and rescue the scientists and Gaby's friend who was also "robotized". The mad doc somehow escapes with the basement beast (totally forgotten about till now). Later when it seems things have returned to normal Olac sends his beast man to kidnap a woman who  he turns into a masked human robot wrestler. She beats every opponent (with Olac controlling her from the stands) to get a revenge match with Gaby. Though she/it nearly kills Gaby the murderous plot is revealed and the vicious robo wrestler falls to her death. Olac is shot by the police. Both bodies wind up in the wrestling ring. 

Screenwriter Alfredo Salazar and directed Rene Cordona made many horror and wrestling related adventures. 

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Body Snatcher

LADRON de CADAVERES-1957-Strange Mexican horror film has a mad scientist Don Panchito (Carlos Riquelme) experimenting with the dead bodies of atheletes and apes in some kind of brain transplant to conquer death. A police captain Carlos Robles (Crox Alvarado) recruits a luchador named Santana (real wrestler Wolf Ruvinskis) to help him set a trap but the wrestler dies in the ring from poison administered by the scientist's henchman. 

The detective's friend Felipe (Arturo Martinez), who for most of the movie is romancing the detective's secretary, disguises himself as the dead wrestler but is killed and turned into a super strong monster with the brain of a gorilla! Naturally the scientist sends his creation into the ring where kills his opponent and runs amuck as the crowd panics. The creature transforms into an ugly hairy man beast with fangs. He impales the scientist on  hook (great bloody scene) then kidnaps the secretary after a lot of climbing. He's shot by the police and falls to his death.

The director Fernando Mendez went on to make other horror movies like EL VAMPIRO and THE BLACK PIT OF DOCTOR M. Wrestler Wolf Ruvinskis created the superhero Neutron and played the lead in several movies featuring the character. Co-star Martinez was later in the Aztec Mummy series.

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Zombie Wrestling

"Zombie killings hard"-Roddy Piper




PRO WRESTLERS VS. ZOMBIES-2013-The title kind of says it all. Pro wrestler "The Franchise" Shane Douglas (playing himself) accidentally kills an opponent in a match. The dead wrestler's brother (Ashton Amherst) creates a zombie army to kill Douglas and his friends including other real life wrestlers Rowdy Roddy Piper, Facade, Matt Hardy and Hacksaw Jim Duggan. Instead of using the usual zombie killing weapons like shotguns and machetes many of the living dead are dispatched with wrestling moves. There's some gory scenes but not as many as I would have expected in this type of craziness. It's mostly the wrestlers fighting the zombies with most of them getting killed. Later Douglas has to fight and kill family members (including his young nephew) who have been "zombified". The acting ranges from ok to pretty bad.

Another pro wrestler Kurt Angle (also the only American to win an Olympic gold medal in wrestling) appears as himself and is turned into a zombie for one fight.

At one point Piper says "This is fucking ridiculous".

The director Cody Knotts (who appears briefly as himself) got initial funding through Kickstarter.

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Wrestling Women

BELOW THE BELT-1980-A waitress named Rosa (Regina Baff) trains to become a woman wrestler (well, I guess she couldn't train to become a male wrestler...). Since she's tried various occupations no one believes she'll succeed. She's trained by Mildred Burke (a real life former pro wrestler) and she practices on her DJ boyfriend.  She trains hard, her gum chewing friend comes on to her and she's dumped by her boyfriend. She goes to Florida to train under the weird looking Jean (Billie Mahoney). Dolph Sweet plays Jean's husband, an alcoholic who can't remember which character in has to play in the ring and says "old wrestlers never die, they just fake away". The conceited butch ladies champ Terrible Tommy (real pro wrestler Jane O'Brien) gives her a hard time. After some adventures and soul searching Rosa gets her title shot at Tommy. Shirley Stoler from THE HONEYMOON KILLERS plays another wrestler.

BELT is very low budget but the acting is fairly good especially by Baff (who had roles in THE GREAT GATSBY and ESCAPE FROM ALCATRAZ) and it was made before the big budgeted flop ALL THE MARBLES. Wrestling fans might want to see it for the footage of WWWF wrestlers at Madison Square Garden in the late '70's.

Besides other wrestlers like Lenny Montana and Tiger Joe Marsh the only other "actor" (beside Sweet) I recognized was TV actor Herb Voland. The Firesign Theater provided some voices. I don't know anything about the director Robert Fowler. This is based on a novel by Roselyn Drexler who's other novel Lily was also made into a movie.

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No Holds Barred

NO HOLDS BARRED-1952-In this Bowery Boys outing Sach (Huntz Hall) somehow gets a special power from time to time. At first his head becomes very hard so Slip (Leo Gorcey) gets him into professional wrestling. He beats (real wrestler) Hombre Montana for the championship and runs afoul of his crooked manager (Leonard Penn). Henry Kulky (another real wrestler who later became a movie and TV character actor) is Mike the Mauler, Sach's trainer. When Sach loses his hard head he gets a powerful index finger and then a strong leg. Marjorie Reynolds is dispatched by the the manager to find out more about Sach's power. 

David Gorcey and Bennie Bartlett are Chuck and Butch again but they could have used little Louie (Bernard Gorcey) more. 

Some other real wrestlers appear: Brother Frank Jares, Ted Christy, and John Smith as well as (non-wrestlers) John Eldredge, Sandra Gould and Tim Ryan (who co-wrote the script). 

It was one of 10 movies William Beaudine directed in 1953 (including BELA LUGOSI MEETS A BROOKLYN GORILLA)!

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The Legend

RIKIDOZAN: A HERO EXTRAORDINARY-2004-If you don't know anything about Japanese professional wrestling you might still enjoy this Korean made biographical drama about The Rising Son's greatest grappler.

Kyung-gu Sol stars as Kim who comes from Korea to study Sumo wrestling in Japan soon after the end of WW2. Although he becomes Sumo he's not allowed to participate because he's Korean. After beating up a bouncer he meets actor Harold Sakata (played by real pro wrestler Kenji "The Great Muta" Muto) who beats him up and then introduces him into the world of pro wrestling. He changes his name and goes to America to make a name for himself. He makes pro wrestling a national past time in Japan after making a speech about standing up to "the big and bad white man". Later he helps Japan "regain it's lost pride" and get revenge on America by trouncing a foreign tag team but he dies from a stab wound he receives in a fight. (Some say he was killed by The Yakusa but this film seems to say he was just paranoid)

His main promoter Mr. Kanno is played by Tatsuya Fugi (from IN THE REALM OF THE SENSES). The story leaves out a lot of details especially regarding his wrestling career. It is true that he gave the post-Japanese population a much needed moral "shot in the arm" but pro-wrestling was (and still is) a choreographed sport so even though Rikidozan was standing up to "the American bullies", it was these very same bullies who had agreed to playing arrogant, cheating Westerners. Still his impact on pro-wrestling jn Japan can't be denied.

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Before Wrestlemania and Darren Aronofsky

THE WRESTLER-1974-If you followed professional wrestling in the 1970’s you’ll probably like this time capsule. Ed Asner (taking a break from “The Mary Tyler Moore Show”) stars as Frank Bass, a professional wrestling promoter. He has difficulty finding an opponent to beat champion Mike Bullard (real life AWA wrestling champion Verne Gagne). He also has trouble with a gangster (Chicago Wrestling announcer Sam Muchnik).

Another real pro wrestler (and real life rival to Gagne’s title) Billy Robinson plays Billy Taylor, an English grappler who thinks he can unseat Bullard. Elaine Giftos plays Asner’s secretary-love interest. 

The main story-line involves a “Super Bowl of Wrestling” that Bullard is eager to participate in and win. His wife (Sarah Miller) just wants him to retire. The legendary team of The Crusher and The Bruiser are the most entertaining characters. If they were around today they’d have their own TV show! A scene featuring The Outlaws (Dusty Rhodes & Dick Murdoch) fighting Harold “Odd Job” Sakata in a bar seems unrelated to the rest of the film.

It’s not as bad as one might suspect especially when you consider that except for Asner, Giftos and Miller all the other major roles are filled by wrestlers! The best part is a match between Eddie Graham and Wilbur Snyder while Gagne narrates a short history of the sport. Many other wrestlers appear in cameos. The director, Jim Westlake never made another movie.

"History is a pack of lies about events that never happened told by people who weren’t there"-George Santayana

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