Samson aka Santo 2

 

 (de.wallpapers.com)

SAMSON VS. THE VAMPIRE WOMEN-1963-After 200 years, a vampire queen Zorina (Lorena Velazquez; SHIP OF MONSTERS (1960)) decides to return to hell and be with her husband Lucifer. She puts her priestess Tundra (Ofelia Montesco) in charge of finding a replacement. She sets her sights on Diane (Maria Duval) who's engaged to George. Diane's father, professor Orloff (Augusto Benedico) suspects something. He tells inspector Jackson (Jamie Fernandez) Diane is in danger. He knows Tundra wants his daughter for a ritual that involves Diane becoming the new queen of the vampire women. When Diane sees one of Tundra's vampire men at her window, Dad decides to call in Samson (Santo with an Americanized name) but he's off wrestling. Later the real queen shows up and she and her decrepit minions all drink blood and become young. At a costume party Tundra mesmerizes George and Diane is snatched. However, Samson's timely intervention prevents her from being taken away. Of course, later one of the vampire men pretends to be Samson's masked opponent in the ring. Not much else happens until Samson finds the vampire hideout and sets everything on fire. 

So-so US re-dubbing by K. Gordon Murray, its original Mexican title is SANTO VS. LAS MUJERES VAMPIRO and was directed by Alfonso Corona Blake (THE WORLD OF THE VAMPIRES (1961).

Thanks for reading!

Samson aka Santo

 

SANTO IN THE WAX MUSEUM-1963-A reporter Susan Madison (Roxana Bellini) is doing a story on the wax museum run by the mysterious Dr. Karol (Claudio Brooke), an Auschwitz survivor who also bears scars on his body from a fire. Susan is attacked by a scar faced guy and disappears. Karol comes under suspicion. He asks wrestler El Santo (in this dubbed version he's called Samson) to help clear him. Susan's sister Gloria (Norma Mora) and her fiance Richard (Reuben Rojo) believe Karol is to blame. Of course it turns out Karol is the nut responsible for all the bad things. He wants to turn everyone in the world into ugly monsters. Santo has to fight a bunch of mutated humans, who eventually turn on the doctor, to save the sisters and Richard. 

This El Santo horror adventure was later edited and dubbed into English by K. Gordon Murray and played a lot on US TV. Mad doctor portrayer Claudio Brook later was the title character in Luis Bunuel's bizarre short SIMON OF THE DESERT (earlier he was in the same director's THE EXTERMINATING ANGEL). Director Alfonso Corona Blake also made SANTO VS. THE VAMPIRE WOMEN.

Thanks for reading!

K. Gordon Murray Does It Again!

RUMPELSTILTSKIN-1965-Film “entrepreneur” K. Gordon Murray distributed all types of films (mainly in the ‘60’s) but was most infamous for his Fantasy-Fairy Tale kids matinees, although most of them were Mexican imports that Murray re-edited, dubbed, Americanized the credits and added a narrator. The Mexican shot SANTA CLAUS (in which St. Nick battles a devil and seems to be on par with Jesus) was shown for years at Christmas time and the fairy tale adaptations like PUSS ‘N BOOTS and LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD AND THE MONSTERS really packed them in.

However RUMPELSTILTSKIN is not Mexican. It was filmed in of all places Germany in the late ‘50’s but the fact that it is in color probably helped it become the perfect vehicle for KGM to unleash upon unsuspecting kiddies every-where.

The story is the basic familiar Grimm’s fairy tale. No one knows the name of The Little Man of The Forest, a dwarf who seems to be very powerful and concerned about the welfare of the animals in the woods he patrols but in reality he’s not very nice at all and one can’t help but wonder why this little guy has such a lofty position. He gets mad at a prince who’s hunting on a Sunday (apparently a strict local taboo) and makes him fall off his horse. Marie, the daughter of a local Miller finds him and tends to his wounds. It’s love at first sight even though they part still strangers. It seems to peeve the little man but he still promises to help Maria if she ever needs it.

Eventually for some dumb reason The Miller brags to The King that Marie can do anything including spinning straw into gold and all the trouble begins. The King’s two toady assistants convince their Majesty to take The Miller up on his offer and she’s locked away with a wheel and tons of straw. She asks for the little man’s help three times, promising to give him her first born child should she marry The Prince. Naturally she thinks this preposterous since a lowly peasant girl like herself would never marry such a noble kind of guy!

Of course all this time The Prince has been searching for his true love even though she’s right under his nose. Everything is cleared up in time for the two lovers to be reunited, married and have their first kid. It’s around this time we also learn that the little man likes to dance around a fire in the middle of nowhere singing a song that reveals his name to be.... Jimmy Carl Black!

I’m kidding of course. His name is Rumpelstiltskin. He wants to put the baby in a cradle in the middle of the forest for some sick reason. Anyway after much name searching (some of the names they guess are hilarious) a little bird tells The Prince where he can find the dancing Rumpy. They guess it, he freaks out and disappears…The End…

RUMPELSTILTSKIN is not that entertaining either in a good or bad sense. Werner Kruger, the actor who plays the tiny lead is the best part. He somehow manages to be both scary and silly. He kind of frightened me! But even though his character’s name is the title of the movie he doesn’t have many scenes. Most of the dubbing is funny (the only part left in Germany is a song Marie sings) but a lot of time is wasted on the “comic antics” of The King’s two toadies.

KGM “presented” another fairy tale movie called “MISCHIEF IN WONDERLAND” which also featured Kruger.

By the way, this movie was "dug up" by my friend Tony! He's found several other "gems" that I'm sure you'll be seeing here in the future! As Bela said in GLEN OR GLENDA: 'BEVARE! BEVARE!"

Thanks for reading!

Mischief In Germany

MISCHIEF IN WONDERLAND-1957-This German made fairy tale concerns the residents of a poor kingdom. The stupid King receives a magic button from the daughter of a fairy that grants him some wishes. He uses the wishes to give his starving populace lots of cake and candy. Soon everyone (including the children) is too fat and lazy to do any work. A turbaned king from another village wants to marry the king’s daughter but she refuses and plots to get rid of the candy oriented Wonderland. A doctor also helps out. This is more dumb but enjoyable kid oriented nonsense from Saturday matinee entrepreneur K. Gordon Murray who released this on an ignorant general public in the 1960’s. It also features Werner Kruger, the star of RUMPELSTITSKIN as “the genius” but the song he sings is cut out!!

The DVD version I saw (from Something Video) also featured two shorts. The first, SANTA’S MAGIC KINGDOM features a weird Santa Claus who gets helps from Merlin The Magician to fight an evil ogre (who is never seen). The Ferocious Wolf, Puss’N” Boots and Stinky The Skunk are also featured. It looks like someone’s holiday home movie. The second SANTA CLAUS AND HIS HELPERS has most of the same characters but also incorporates scenes from the Mexican made SANTA CLAUS (which Murray had released in the US). The stateside scenes were filmed at several Santa related playlands (“Santa’s Village”) in the US. (They are probably malls now!)



Thanks to my pal Tony for getting me a copy of this and thanks to everyone who read this!