Sunday, June 14, 2009

And Santo, Unlike the Tramp, Remains a Mystery

Santo en la Frontera del Terror (1969)
directed by Rafael Pérez Grovas
rating: 2 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from the Albuquerque Public Library

It was nice to dip my toes – I almost wrote “clip my toes” - in a genre of Mexican moviemaking that I was hitherto ignorant of, but I can’t shake the feeling of a humorless anthropologist showing up too late to the party. Mostly, Santo is for kids, because only a kid’s imagination could stretch that lucha libre mask far enough to cover the shoddy production, gaping plot holes, and all-around carelessness that characterizes everything in the movie except the actors’ genial, family-minded performances. Operations to cure blindness mean getting to reference City Lights in any review; they share the same spirit, if not finesse.