Having turned down down an offer in 1952 to appear in the aptly named ENMASCARADO DE PLATA (he doubted the film would click with audiences, and thus Huracan Ramirez appeared in the first true lucha libre film), El Santo finally tested the cinematic waters in the late 1950s in two Cuban lensed features.
Shot at the same time and on a shoestring, CEREBRO DE MAL and HOMBRES INFERNALES featured Santo as an agent assisting the police in tough investigations (in these films, he plays an actual police agent -- he was later generally cast as either a wrestler who also fought crime or as an Interpol agent who also wrestled as well).
While this was a theme which would appear in many of his later films, these two films were unique in one distinction -- in neither is he referred to as El Santo.
The plot involves an attempt to put a police agent into a drug smuggling ring. hen the man is placed in danger, it's up to the masked Santo to go in to extricate him alive.
The film is a curiosity, lacking the polish of the later films (even the early, cut-rate Vergara features, which says something). Santo is also played as a curiosity -- more of a fixture with a mask than a developed personality. Then again, this is nearly true of the later three films he made with Fernando Casanova and Ana Bertha Lepe. In those he was someone brought in fairly late in the films, to wrap up the loose ends. He'd then wheel away in his flashy sportscar.
Interesting as a bit of film history, but it should have been much more. I like lucha films, but I'd give this one a 2 for curiosity and entertainment value.
Shot at the same time and on a shoestring, CEREBRO DE MAL and HOMBRES INFERNALES featured Santo as an agent assisting the police in tough investigations (in these films, he plays an actual police agent -- he was later generally cast as either a wrestler who also fought crime or as an Interpol agent who also wrestled as well).
While this was a theme which would appear in many of his later films, these two films were unique in one distinction -- in neither is he referred to as El Santo.
The plot involves an attempt to put a police agent into a drug smuggling ring. hen the man is placed in danger, it's up to the masked Santo to go in to extricate him alive.
The film is a curiosity, lacking the polish of the later films (even the early, cut-rate Vergara features, which says something). Santo is also played as a curiosity -- more of a fixture with a mask than a developed personality. Then again, this is nearly true of the later three films he made with Fernando Casanova and Ana Bertha Lepe. In those he was someone brought in fairly late in the films, to wrap up the loose ends. He'd then wheel away in his flashy sportscar.
Interesting as a bit of film history, but it should have been much more. I like lucha films, but I'd give this one a 2 for curiosity and entertainment value.
