The wrestler who saved the world Part 2: The Man in The Silver Mask.

As I had mentioned in the first part of this article, I grew up watching wrestling on TV and reading comic books. But this took a whole new meaning when one late night, a French speaking channel aired a film called SANTO CONTRE LE TRÉSOR DE DRACULA (SANTO EN EL TESORO DE DRÁCULA, René Cardona, 1969) in which a masked wrestler, who also just happened to be a world-renowned scientist, was using a time machine to peer into past lives and solve a mystery involving the infamous vampire. (A plot stolen almost word for word from the 1957 movie LA MOMIA AZTECA, but without the masked wrestler)

It was far from being the best film of Santo’s productive career. But for the unsophisticated 8-year-old that I was, it was amazing. This masked Mystery Man was heroic, brilliant and kicked ass. Everything a hero-worshipping boy needed.

But Santo wasn’t the first Masked wrestling hero in movies. That honour belongs to the Phantom Athlete (L'ATLETA FANTASMA by Raimondo Scotti) back in 1919 Italy, which portrayed a mild-mannered citizen who becomes a barrel-chested masked hero to save the day. While not technically a pugilist, the look and template is eerily similar to the plethora of enmascarados that would populate Mexican cinema in the latter half of the century, and owed more than a little to the classic masked wrestler sense of style.

Arguably the first Masked Wrestler in cinema, the Italian film L'ATLETA FANTASMA from 1919.

Interestingly, it followed a well established trend that was set up by the Maciste series that was all the rage in Italy in the 1910s, where the character that was introduced in CABIRIA (Giovanni Pastrone, 1914) generated his own series of popular films. Not very surprising, as it seems that periods of strife, or war (like the one that was tearing Europe at the time) tends to facilitate the sudden appearances of heroes, both in fiction and real life. Young men, who are basically the target audience for pulp heroes, may have an increased thirst for mystery men heroics in those difficult days as they wait to be drafted. They may either dream of hiding an unknown hero under their meek exterior, or wish some superior being will swoop down and do the dirty work for them. The 1929 Crash and the Second World War were the most fruitful stages for the inception of this particular breed of heroes, as a veritable menagerie of superheroes rained down literally from the sky to provide a source of escapism and pulpish hope to the masses.

Meanwhile, in Mexico, this kind of influence could also be observed to some extent. When Enrique Ugartechea created his own style of ‘’free wrestling’’ (Lucha Libre) in 1863, it happened to be during the French occupation of Mexico. A form of national pride was taking shape in exhibition of strength and skills. Then around 1900, as Mexico was in the midst of a revolution against the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz, two businessmen from Italy, Giovanni Reselevich and Antonio Fournier, began promoting violent, no holds barred matches between fighters, as a mean of distraction for the masses, and further planting the seeds for what would come over 30 years later.

In 1934, the same year masked wrestlers started to appear in Mexico, General Lázaro Cárdenas was elected President, and brought a series of reforms that encouraged a sense of Nationalistic Pride. And when his successor Manual Ávila Camacho, who was more conservative, decided to have Mexico join the Allies in World War II, the table was set for the Mexican Wrestlers to make their slow climb towards superheroism. In 1952, as the gap between the rich and the poor widened in Mexico during an economic growth sparked by the fallout from WWII, two major events in enmascarado history would occur that cemented that ascent.

First, after 10 years in the ring as The Man In The Silver Mask, Santo became the hero of his own comic book. His fame in the ring had finally started to spill over and reached Pop Culture status. Comic book author José Guadalupe Cruz, who had by that point become a celebrity in his own right as the most successful comic book creator in Mexico, a prolific movie writer and even actor, decided to launch a comic series based on El Enmascarada de Plata that would end up lasting a full 30 years in print. He would fight opponents as devious and varied as Rasputin, the Headless Horseman, the Wolf Man, Merlin, the Cyclops or a giant octopus. Overall quite a bit more extraordinay than his usual opponents in the ring. The comic would end up selling hundreds of thousands of copies a month.

The 1952 first issue of the Santo comic book, transforming the hero of the ring into a bona fide Superhero.

Second, as wrestling developed as a major cultural form of escapism in Mexico, it would make its way into the movies early on. But the wrestlers in those movies would still not be masked. Until 1952 when HURACAN RAMIREZ was released. The film, directed by Joselito Rodriguez, turned out to be so popular that it spawned its own series, and the professional wrestler who performed under the mask in the movie, Eduardo Bonada, was contracted to portray him in the ring after the film’s release. He grew tired of covering his face after a few years, and Daniel García Arteaga took over as Huracan until his retirement in 1988. Arteaga would play the masked hero on screen in five of the 8 Huracan Ramirez features, and even portray El Santo himself in a biographical film.

Huracan Ramirez was also the hero of a long standing comic book series.

Meanwhile, Santo himself was being courted by producers to star in a movie, but he didn’t feel it was a lucrative idea, so he declined. Nonetheless in 1954, José G. Cruz, the author of the acclaimed comic book, teamed up with director René Cardona to write the film EL ENMASCARADO DE PLATA, where the hero was portrayed NOT by Santo, but by real-life heel El Médico Asesino. El Médico had already honed his thespian abilities in supporting roles in films like the wrestling comedy EL LUCHADOR FENOMENO in 1952. But even though he was the star of this new film, the titular Man in The Silver Mask was actually the bad guy of the piece. It was all very misleading and a bit dishonest for the long-time Santo fans who felt a bit cheated.

But still the film was a success, and inspired wrestler Fernando Osés to don a black mask and become LA SOMBRA VENGADORA (The avenging Shadow) in a popular series of film that would quickly become very western oriented, with the enmascarado playing second fiddle to gauchos and Pancho Villa. The character would later appear in the Royal Rumble of masked wrestler movies, THE CHAMPIONS OF JUSTICE (LOSCAMPEONES JUSTICIEROS, Frederico Curiel, 1971), although it is unclear that Osés played the part then. Osés would play antagonist to his real life friend Santo many times in the movies, and would also be instrumental in launching his film career. More on that later.

One year later, in 1956, the multi-talented Wolf Ruvinskis, a retired wrestler turned actor, also well-versed in tango singing and magic, redefined the masked wrestler genre by appearing as El Vampiro in the first of those luchadores films to have an outright horror theme, EL LADRONE DE CADAVERES (Fernando Mendez). His character would be a template for NEUTRON, the black masked crime fighter he would portray in a popular series debuting in 1960. Interestingly, Neutron was not a wrestler in the sense we never saw him perform in the ring in the series, even though he looked the part. He was a full-time super-hero.

In 1957, the second film in the popular AZTEC MUMMY series, CURSE OF THE AZTEC MUMMY (LA MALDICIÓN DE LA MOMIA AZTECA, Rafael Portillo) featured yet another Santo lookalike, El Angel, who failed to live up to the Man in the Silver Mask’s legend. The film, along with others in the Aztec Mummy series, would be purchased by American International and dubbed and distributed statewide in the mid-sixties by the ‘’King of the Kiddie Matinee’’ K. Gordon Murray, along with the NEUTRON series, popularizing the genre for a whole generation of American kids catching those films on television.

At this point, the ever popular Santo, after 16 years in the ring, still hadn’t made it to the movies. But in 1958, La Sombra Avengedora himself would come to the rescue in the guise of frequent adversary in the ring and friend Fernando Osés, who wrote for Santo a couple of films that would be shot in Cuba on a shoestring budget. Directed by Joselito Rodriguez, SANTO CONTRA EL CEREBRO DEL MAL and SANTO CONTRA LOS HOMBRES INFERNALES, the films were far from classics of the genre, and failed to launch Santo’s film career. As a matter of fact, they were shelved until 1961, when, likely prompted by the NEUTRON series’ popularity, Santo gave another shot at big screen stardom with SANTO CONTRA LOS ZOMBIES (dir. Benito Alazraki). This was the one to strike gold for the silver masked strongman, and kick-started a film career that spawned decades and firmly cemented his status as one of Mexico’s most famous cultural figure.

The film was picked up for American distribution in 1964 under the title INVASION OF THE ZOMBIES, and whereas Santo was referred, rightfully so, as “The Saint” in the film, his moniker varied in his international adventures. He was named “Samson” in the English release of 1962’s SANTO VS. LAS MUJERES VAMPIRO (dir. Alfonso Corona Blake), and “Superman” in the French release.

Santo was starting to be a bona fide movie star, his salary jumping from 1700$ for his performance in SANTO CONTRA LOS ZOMBIES, to over 9000$ per film when he started working for producer Enrique Vergara in 1964 with EL HACHA DIABÓLICA.

As the political situation become more troubled in Mexico in the sixties, Santo's heroic figure would at times become questionable. The Tlatelolco Square massacre on October 2 1968 of over 300 student protesters by the police and military (although no government official would take credit for that decision) created a sense of unrest in the masses. One wonders if this didn't lead to the statement made by the the main bad guy in SANTO Y BLUE DEMON CONTRA DRACULA Y EL HOMBRE LOBO (Miguel M. Delgado, 1973) as he accuses Santo of being a ''retrograde man who still believes in truth and justice''. Whether there was a form of social criticism in that statement or not, it didn't slow down Santo's rise at the box office. If anything, 1973 was probably the peak of his film career.

His best film is arguably SANTO CONTRA EL DR MUERTE (Rafael R. Marchent, 1973), a rare co-production with Spain that featured better production values than most of his other films, something not hard to fathom when you consider that the very same year, Santo had starred in 7 other films. Quality was not the name of the game, but quantity. His fans were claiming more and more of the adventures of the versatile and virtuous hero. And he complied. He made in his career 52 films that ranged in style from crime drama, horror, science-fiction, spy mystery, comedy and even soft-core pornography.

Actually, two of his films were released in two versions, one family friendly and one of them including nudity to appeal to foreign distribution. The aforementioned SANTO EN EL TESORO DE DRÁCULA was also released under the unequivocal title EL VAMPIRO Y EL SEXO, and the 1970 film SANTO VS. THE RIDERS OF TERROR (SANTO CONTRA LOS JINETES DEL TERROR) saw a parallel adult release under the title LOS LEPROSOS Y EL SEXO. However, these two films directed by the ubiquitous René Cardona, no stranger to putting smut in exploitation films, were not the norm in the Santo series, as our hero, appropriately enough, frowned on the addition of nudity in films that were ultimately aimed at a broader audience. He felt rightly that they were tarnishing his wholesome image.

Santo’s icon status was so important that his identity managed to remain a secret in Mexico all through his career, as he never revealed his face to the general public. In the film EL HACHA DIABÓLICA, he actually removes his mask in front of his love interest, but he does so, facing away from the camera, and reportedly used a body double because he didn't want the actress to see his actual face. This unmasking in the intimacy of his love life is also alluded to in SANTO CONTRA LA HIJA DE FRANKENSTEIN (Miguel M. Delgado, 1972), as his love interest Norma confides to her sister ''When we are alone, he takes the mask off. If you saw him without it, you would also be crazy for him''.

His commitment to keeping his identity a secret was such that he devised a ploy to be able to go to court when author José G. Cruz wanted to replace the Santo character in his comic books with athlete Hector Pliego, who wore a suspicious ''S'' on his forehead. To be able to protect his identity in the Second Criminal court of Mexico, which forbids him to wear his mask during the proceedings, he instead covers his face in bandages and wears sunglasses, under the pretense of a wrestling accident. He won the case.

Hector Pliego as the ersatz Santo in the José R. Cruz comic book.

A long standing rumour has it that he even wears a mask on his passport photo. But the reality is that he has a standing agreement with U.S. Customs to be able to remove his mask in a private room in front of an officer, in order to keep the legend alive. He would also have a special chinless mask so he could eat in public while keeping his face covered.

On January 26, 1984, the investigative TV series Contrapunto invited Santo to talk on the topic of wrestling in a story entitled ''Circus, acrobatics, theatre or sport?'' Ten minutes into the show, to the surprise of flabbergasted viewers and the consternation of the panel, he offers a bashful glimpse at his face. The following day, the tabloid press in Mexico is having a field day with the photo showing his face. But a lot of the readers remain unconvinced that this was the ''real Santo''.

Rodolfo Guzmán Huerta, AKA El Santo

He died of a heart attack at the age of 66 ten days later, on February 5^th,during an appearance on a variety show at the Teatro Blanquita.

Like Bela Lugosi who was buried wearing his Dracula cape, Santo was entombed sporting his famous silver mask. He would carry his legend to his tomb. His funeral was one of the largest in Mexico's history and out of respect, many of his friends wore their own masks at the funeral.

In 1999, SOMOS magazine attempted to publish private, unmasked photos of Santo. His youngest son, who is perpetuating the professional legacy as El Hijo Del Santo, threatened to sue to magazine who wisely decided to abandon the story. It was later found out that one of Santo's ten other sons had tried to sell the photos for a quick buck.

Santo left behind a legacy that still thrives to this day, over a hundred years after his birth, and is in no danger of vanishing.

His lineage and influence will be the topic of our last part of this article. Coming soon.