NIGHT OF SAN JUAN: SANTO IN BLACK GOLD (1977) ** ½

A messenger bursts into the boardroom of an oil company and demands his terrorist organization be paid a huge ransom.  When security tries to apprehend the man, he jumps out the window, and his mangled remains reveal him to be a robot double.  The board members then turn to El Santo to stop the terrorists. 

Directed by El Santo’s frequent collaborator, Frederico (The Mummies of Guanajuato) Curiel, the highlight of this uneven entry comes when El Santo goes to see his girlfriend Marta (Rossy Mendoza) perform at a nightclub.  In order to go out in public unrecognized, he wears a Mission:  Impossible-style false face to keep his identity a secret.  What makes it even better is the face he wears makes him look like Charles Bronson!  I can’t tell you how tickled I was to learn that the actor playing El Santo in this scene is a wrestler whose gimmick was... wait for it... being a Charles Bronson imitator! 

After watching Marta perform her act (she’s backed by a mariachi band) and jiggle around in revealing body stocking, El Santo (who’s now wearing his signature silver mask) takes her for a walk on the beach.  It doesn’t take long before they are jumped by several goons.  What I like about this scene aside from the fact that it jumps from night to day several times (sometimes within successive shots), is that Marta is no damsel in distress.  She fights back against her attackers with everything she has (and she has quite a bit). 

El Santo eventually squashes the terrorist organization by disguising himself as a priest and going undercover inside a prison.  It’s here where the villain’s all-robot army is hiding out.  The part where the priest rips off his face to reveal El Santo underneath is priceless.  More movies should feature a hero who wears a mask on top of another mask. 

There are two wrestling scenes in this flick, and both feature a lot of production value compared to the wrestling matches found in most of El Santo’s movies.  Instead of taking place in nearly empty arenas it looks like he’s playing to packed houses. (The second match is a tag team bout held inside a baseball stadium).  Both fights look like they were probably taken wholly from televised matches.  At any rate, the matches are long, involved, and fun to watch. 

All in all, Night of San Juan:  Santo in Black Gold is a decent enough Lucha Libre flick.  It just needed a bit more wackiness to put it over the top to make it a must-see.  Human henchmen with a few wires dangling from their ears parading around as “robots” only take it so far. 

Also, much of the nighttime finale is too dark to see, which kind of ends things on a down note.  It needed a bit tighter editing too as the scene where El Santo escapes from the prison goes on much too long.  Speaking of editing, like most of these things, there’s also a steamy version with added sex scenes (which may explain why two titles are shown on screen).  Unfortunately, I saw the regular version, but I imagine a dose of gratuitous nudity probably would’ve made this a *** affair. 

AKA:  Black Gold.  AKA:  Santo in Black Gold.