Weirdhouse Cinema: Santo vs. the Martian Invasion

Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema.

This is Rob Lamb and this is Joe McCormick. And today, once more, we return to the realm of the great and powerful Lucha doors Mexican wrestling cinema and the encounters of these wrestlers with villains of the supernatural, science fiction,

All right. Yeah, every time we dive into Lucca films, I feel like I'm discovering new, potentially tantalizing titles. And I mean, I think the same goes for just Mexican cinema in general. There's just so much there, so many different genres, and not all of it has really gone on to resonate certainly with modern audiences, but also with modern audiences outside of Mexico. Now.

In the past, we've covered a couple of other supernatural Mexican wrestling movies. One was Santo and the Treasure of Dracula from nineteen sixty nine, in which I would say

Yeah yeah, fun movie, fun episode. Definitely see the European version if you get a chance, though, because it is the one that is in glorious color and has been just lovingly restored.

That was a real highlight, but also excellent was another one we covered, the nineteen sixty three film Doctor of Doom, which was mainly about two heroic luchadoras, Gloria Venus I think that was the one played by Lorrain of Alaskaz and Golden Ruby, who must defeat a mad scientist and his plot too, I think kidnap women and transplant their brains into a gorilla, or maybe put gorilla brains inside the women's heads. I was a little fuzzy on that.

I think maybe a little bit of both goes on. But yeah, that one was super fun. That one also had the excellent Roberto Canedo playing the villain, the mad scientist, and both of the pictures we just mentioned were directed by Renee Cardona.

Yes, now today we are coming home to another El Santo adventure, but this time it's more directly in the science fiction realm. Though I guess both of the other movies we talked about did have science fiction elements, because it's always easy to forget. The Dracula movie has time travel in it, it's full on time machine. But this one is like your straight up alien invasion movie. Planet Earth is in the crosshairs. The Martians are here and they want full control. So this movie is Santo in

Yeah, that was one of his monikers, the Man in the Silver Mask. He gets confusing, I think, especially when we're dealing with English language releases of some of the Santo films, where they may call him something else, like Samson, because the name Santo wasn't as firmly established in other regions.

Oh okay, kind of like in other like in the peplam subgenre, you might get like Hercules Versus Machiste or Samson and in different releases.

Yeah.

Now, I would say, in my opinion of the three Mexican wrestling movies with supernatural elements that we have watched, this I think is the least of the three. Doctor of Doom and Santo and The Treasure of Dracula are both really special in their own ways, But despite coming in third, the Martian Invasion I think is still a

Yeah, it has a lot of things going for it. None of those things going for it are its story and character. They're virtually like no story and character beats throughout.

But though Santo as always is flawless.

Santo's flawless. Santo doesn't need to grow as a character. He is already, so like any criticisms about his character is redundant because he is.

Missing that point.

Yeah. Yeah, what it lacks in those departments, arguably it makes up for in just weirdness wackiness. I would say the beefcake factor is pretty high in this one.

Yeah.

The ladies are really gorgeous as well, so it seems it gives the viewers a lot to look at. And I think has more teleportation and disappearance and reappearance scenes than perhaps some of the Star Trek movies. Uh, they really like this effect. They pull it off well and they it just happens all the time.

Yes, they're really into the teleportation, which they accomplish by the way. I like just this little physical prop not by way of a button or by way of a switch or a lever, but by a dial. It's like the oven dials turn a dial on their belt and that makes them vanish and reappear at the spaceship.

I love it. I love good tactile science fiction equipment. Nowadays you watch it's all you know, like virtual interfaces and floating holograms and you know, or Star Trek next generation like flat screen stuff. I like that. I like it when there's a chonky button and a dial and a big lever.

Well, the implications of the dial are kind of fascinating, especially for teleportation, because I would think teleportation is an on off function. You either you teleport or you don't. But a dial is for graduated functions like the you know, the power of a stove burner or something. So it makes you wonder like can do you kind of half teleport or do you two thirds of the way teleport? We never see that happen in the movie. They always turn it to full crank.

It's kind of reckless because I think maybe you used slowly tune it so that you maintain consciousness between this incarnation and the next, as this one is destroyed and the next one is created. But if you just turn it really fast, I don't know. Maybe it still happens. Appropriately, this movie's not really concerned with those questions.

No, this glosses over a lot of the finer points of the Martian technology and the invasion plot and what the humans are doing. I've got to once we get into the plot, I really have questions about to what extent the people understand that a Martian invasion is happening. It seems to alternate scene to scene, whether people are like, yep, we're being invaded, or whether it's like, we've got to keep this a secret.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh. I will also add the Martian technology is of course five hundred years ahead of ours, so of course it is difficult to understand. Seems like magic.

Yes, they say that many many times. Rob, I don't know if you have an elevator pitch for this one, but I would say, imagine War of the Worlds, but take out the heat ray and most of the social commentary and put in muscles, beefcake and burlesque dancing.

Yeah, yeah, pretty much. I will say. One of the things I really liked about this one is that, since it is I guess leaning into sci fi of the time period, this is a film that does have a message to it. It does have a pretty persistent anti war and anti nuclear weapon standpoint, which I respect.

I guess that's right. I don't know why I said take out the social commentary. I guess take out any subtle social commentary. Instead, it's just like bluntly delivered morals. It's like will humanity? A narrator comes on and says, will humanity ever stop these crazy nuclear experiments?

We don't know, but it's more than we got in Santo and the Treasure of Dracula, Like there wasn't really, I mean, they were like, we must not have time machines or draculas. Like they weren't really, you know, there wasn't really a message attached to that picture. All right, Well, let's go ahead and listen to just a little of

Hera miters a parison and you come for the portivo right right era, there's a parison brisona e strano phenomeno provocconcierto elpanico, ela steria Collectiva Asta Secretoso, Sequestras Cambinino purind and Extranaturai stampidiendo He stays Lato Marcin Grablao Costa Ricola's Yaman Mexico.

Now.

I don't know if the trailer tries to mislead you on this front, but the glorious poster for this film does definitely mislead as to the plot contents because it shows Santo appearing to hold a sort of green martian in one arm, seemingly unconscious. Looks kind of like Blanca from Street Fighter who got that under his one arm. In the other hand, he's holding a gun, which what would Santo wheeld a gun like that? It seems completely out of character. Well, it doesn't make sense at all.

Movie, right, and he never brandishes a laser pistol or a plasma rife or whatever this is. But yeah, this is a great poster for a different movie. None of this actually happens.

Santra just shamelessly using the weapon of the enemy. It's yeah, admire the art style, though it's lavishly realized.

Yeah, as we'll explore, Santo uses grapples, punches, kicks, especially like well timed kicks, and legs scissors to an opponent's legs, that sort of thing. He does not need a laser gun.

Now Here is where we often talk availability. I was kind of surprised when we were going into this week because I wanted to do another Luca movie. I was kind of surprised how many of these classic Santo movies are apparently hard to get in a good release these days. Like there are tons of them that do not have a solid remaster or good Blu Ray release.

Yeah, and a lot of times higher quality versions are really lacking, Like Santo and the Treasure of Dracula. When they found that reel and were able to restore it, like that was big news. I found the Reuter's News article about that, like everyone's excited there like this one. As far as I know, there are no Blu Ray versions of it, no restored versions of the footage, no color versions or anything like that. Nothing like we had with the Treasure of Dracula. What we do have is

Yes, I want to know more. So this is a different director than our previous Lucha outings.

That's right. The director here is Alfredo B. Crevena. He lived nineteen fourteen through nineteen ninety six German born Mexican film director and screenwriter who directed more than one hundred and fifty films between the mid forties in the mid nineties. An acclaim filmmaker in his own right of the Mexican Golden Age of cinema. Among his most well received works are the nineteen fifty six drama Talpa and the nineteen

Yeah, I can see the phrasing could give the wrong idea. It sounds like a like women in Prison type title.

Yeah yeah, but nothing of that sort. I have not seen either of these films, but they are very well regarded, or at least the German version is very well regarded, and people seem to like the Mexican version as well. Now, outside of dramas and comedies, Curvenna also directed multiple santo and other lucha libre movies, some zoro films, some Mexican noir, and also some horror. A couple of titles that jumped out of me include Planet of the Female Invaders from

Oh okay, so it really is the Whip Versus Satan, It's not. Yeah, Satan has the whip. No, that's Pen's type.

Yeah. Yeah. And then there's a nineteen ninety two film called On the Edge of Terror, said to be a very weird and disturbing ventriloquist horror film with Robert Canedo in a supporting role.

Okay, I'd be done for watching it.

Of these. Yeah, it sounds like I say every time we dive into Mexican cinema. There are so many titles that jump out and sound I booked I footnoted a few of these to explore later.

Man, just from the title and cast list. Planet of the Female Invaders. Sounds like it may have a lot in common with another show favorite that we did, Ship of Monsters, which also had Lorraine of Alaskaz, and was about women invaders coming to Earth to find the perfect man to I don't know, like replenish their species.

Yeah, that one was a musical that was great.

Yes, which was wonderful.

I love that movie all right. The writer for this picture is Rafael Garcia Trevesi, who lived nineteen ten through nineteen eighty four, Mexican screenwriter who wrote loads of Santo films in addition to just seemingly loads of everything else. His credits include nineteen sixty two Santo and the Vampires, as well as non Santo movies like the horror film Spiritism from sixty two and the historical thriller Black Wind from sixty five.

I don't want to be mean, but I will say I don't think the writing is a huge highlight on this one.

No, No, you know it. It gave them something to shoot, you know. Yeah, But like I said, at least some of the films that this writer did, you know, are are were well received and are you know the thing about Luke, we should mention a lot of The thing about a lot of these Lucha Libre films is that they are they are essentially low budget, swiftly produced genre pictures.

Yeah, I mean you can tell from a business perspective. I think a lot of times the idea was, like, we have an extremely popular and charismatic wrestler. We want to find a way to string together a number of different fight scenes with some unusual texture and costumes. How can we kind of like thread all that together?

All right? The star of this one, and of course we've talked about him before in our previous episode, is El Santo. Now we know now that El Santo's given name was Ridolfo Guzman Herte and he lived nineteen seventeen through nineteen eighty four. But it's worth noting that at the time period, and during this time period and even today, lucha libre stars their actual name is not necessarily a matter of public record. And during El Santo's day, like

Seems like there could be some advantages to that from the wrestler's point of view. I mean, if you're like, it's a way of being a famous person while still being able to have some privacy in your regular life.

Yeah. So yes. El Santo the Saint probably the most famous and instantly identifiable luchador of all time. He was active for five decades and in addition to being a superstar in the ring, he was able to spin that off into becoming a comic book superhero, and that led to numerous films where he's generally playing the role of a superhero or a crime fighter, taking on everything from crime and corruption to supernatural evil, and of course invasions

I've seen the footage. It's very brief. It's almost like like he doesn't give you a real good look. He just kind of peels it up and then pulls it right back down.

Yeah, but it's still there's there's an emotional quality to it, not as emotional as some of the footage you'll find of older luchadors losing their mask in a match where they put their mask on the line and they lose it and then they have to as like in a ceremonial fashion, reveal their face and revealed their full name to the audience, and generally like tears are streaming, family members are presents, very emotional, but there wasn't is no bigger deal than Santo. It wasn't just a lucha star.

I mean, I am, by no means an expert in the cultural reception of El Santo, but one thing I noticed from all these movies is, Yeah, there is this aura of absolute awe about him that I guess you could compare to celebrities like Elvis. Except even with people like Elvis, I don't know if there was also the kind of holy veneration, Like there's just this understanding in all the Santo stuff. I've seen that Santo is just a perfectly honorable person. He is the ultimate law full good.

That's right. Santo is the best office without any question. And yeah, he does seem to like stand at this perfect place where all these different energies in Mexican culture come together. Like there's this like sacred Catholic element to him. I mean, he is the saint at the same time he is the superhero. He is a like Superman, but he is he is also in that area where he is both a comic book character and a real person. He is a performer. Yeah, and he is absolutely good.

That's right when the Martians arrive and there they are bringing body slams.

All right. The essentially the leader of the Martian invasion is a Martian who eventually takes on the human name of Argos.

We don't know what their original names are.

Yeah, they as we'll discuss. There's a point in the film where they're like, all right, we all have names now we've taken them from human cultures, and.

They they transform themselves in something that lasts for about a.

Scene, like, yeah, they don't stick to this concept at all.

But yeah, the Martian leader, he transforms into Argos. And I got to say, right at the beginning, when we get to the plot section, I apologize because I may misattribute which of the male Martians I am talking about at any given time, because I was getting several of them mixed up, but not this one, the main Martian. I think I always knew who he was. This is the Martian leader the Beefcake played by Wolf Ravinsky's.

Yeah. Wolf Ravinsky's lived nineteen twenty one through nineteen ninety nine. He was a luchador turned actor, a Latvian of Jewish descent whose family fled Europe for Argentina during the Second World War. Eventually got into lucha libre and became established there. Now, obviously Wolf was too handsome to wear a lucha hood,

Oh interesting, If this makes any sense, I feel like his presence in this movie is most often funny in a way that is not necessarily intended. But that's not because he's not a good actor. I don't know if that really connects, but I think he's I consense that he would be a good actor in many a role, but he's just he is placed within hilarious scenarios and he looks hilarious acting them out.

Right right now. But on the other hand, he always looks jacked and handsome. And I don't know if this is actually his voice that we hear. I don't know if it's dubbed by another actor, but at least as we experience it, he sounds commanding as well. Yeah. Now, moving from the lead male martian, I guess we're going to the lead female martian, though I don't know she's actually the.

Leader, but she I'd say she's the number one.

Yeah, Okay, this is Afrodita, played by Maramanti, who I mentioned earlier. Born nineteen forty two. Now she's a familiar face for fans of weird Luchadora movies because she was the star of Renee Cardona's nineteen sixty eight film The Batwoman, which I do not think was authorized by DC Comics. This is a terrifically enjoyable film which also has fish monsters in it and a mad scientist played by Roberto Canido. Recent Mystery Science Theater three thousand coverage on this one,

Now I feel like I've seen The Batwoman, but I don't remember anything about it as just a complete blank in my brain.

There's a lot of running around in a really skimpy batwoman costume, fish monsters, and like driving it's it's it's good. I mean, it's it's very fun.

Well, I get to say Mara Monty is a striking screen presence in this movie. Her aura is off the charts.

Yeah, yeah, I mean all the Martians are very charismatic, the sort of the second in command, and if there is a ranking system for the Martians, here second in command of the female Martians we have Selene played by Eva Norvind lived nineteen forty four through two thousand and six, Norwegian born actress who went on to achieve greater success as a professional dominatrix, but also award winning documentarian for the nineteen eighty film Born Without I haven't seen this,

That's a movie that I remember seeing when I was way too young for it and finding it almost disturbingly weird and not what I expected.

That's a remake of an older Steve McQueen movie, I believe.

Yeah, I remember Renee Russo and Pierce Brosnan after he was coming off of being James Bond.

Yeah. Yeah, I never saw the remake. I did see the original, and because I think it has this sung like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel. And okay, anyway, Norvind is striking in this as all the Martians are striking. Yeah, and some of them, of course do actually strike because all the male Martians are played by some of Santo's fellow luchador's.

That's right, So the male Martians are I think, yeah, they are all wrestlers and the main one is Argos, but the sort of second in command is Kronos, right.

Yes, a played by an actor billed as l Nazi.

When I saw that in the credits, I was I didn't know what to think. We just see the names. It's like Wolf Ravinsky's Hamiley l Nazi.

Yes, l Nazi. This was, of course the Luca name for a guy by the name of Ignatio Gomez. He lived nineteen thirty two through two thousand and eight. Obviously, if it's not obvious, he was a rudo. He was a bad guy. He made his career using a German Nazi gimmick and his finishing maneuver. His finishing hold was called the swastiko. I think it's like a variation of the abdominal stretch. It was a different time, but there are many examples of Nazi themed villains from Lucha libre history.

Yeah, but so we shouldn't understand this guy not as like a wrestler who actually had Nazi sympathies, but who is playing a villainous character. He would be like the actor is playing the Nazi villains in the Indiana Jones movies.

Yeah. Yeah, I think if you think of like Red Skull from Marvel comics, that kind of Okay, that's that's probably the reference point here. All right, there's another guy now. He takes on the name mor Morphio, and he is played by ham Lee. This was his wrestling name anyway. He lived nineteen thirty two through twenty eleven. He was a Mexican luchador of Korean descent. I think he only ever did two films, both of them Santo films. But

Well, this is, I guess the serious question. If you are a masked wrestling celebrity, how do you prevent somebody else from coming in and saying they are you just by using an identical costume.

I mean, it's it can be an issue and it gets throughout.

Oh, in fact, it happens in this movie.

Yeah, it happens in this movie in a in a rather unbelievable way. But it happens in real life too, especially when you get into disputes between companies, Like one company is like, well, we own the rights to this mask and this character but then the guy who plays it he leaves for another company, and now you have two guys doing the same gimmick, but maybe one has

I was a little unclear on exactly his powers, because they say the main thing about him is that he has great powers of hypnotism. But I think all of the Martians can hypnotize people. I think he can hypnotize them better than everybody else. Allegedly, yes, yeah, but there are a lot of good scenes of him, just like standing there looking very like stern while people just stop talking in the middle of a sentence and kind of go limp.

Yeah. Other times he's wearing a suit and looks very dapper. Yes, one more wrestler, I'm gonna mention, and we may we'll rest We'll mention some more later on. But there's a bald wrestler that shows up in the training sequences. This is a guy whose real name was Nathaniel Leone who of nineteen fifteen through two thousand and one, but his wrestling name was Frankenstein. I don't think he wore a mask or anything. It's just like they're like, you look

Yeah, he also has an interesting face.

Yeah. And oh, and I'll mention. There's a professor character, Professor d Rica, played by Manuel Zozaiah. He lived nineteen thirteen through nineteen eighty seven, but he was in a number of films, often in a supporting role. But I don't have much else to stay about him other than he's in it, and they talk a lot about what a great scientist he is.

Well, he's kind of an ambiguous character because he is portrayed in this movie as like Santo's best friend. He's the only guy who really we see Santo spending off time with. I mean, we see him training with his wrestling buddies, but you know, they're like hanging out together and discussing things. But then really, by the time you get to the end of the movie, to the extent the film has a theme, it is the schism between his view of the world and Santo's view of the world.

Right, yeah, yeah, yeah, that is true. They could have maybe built it up more, but it is there all right. And finally, the music here is once more the music of Antonio Diez. Condi died in nineteen seventy six, prolific Mexican composer who worked on a ton of beat pictures during his time period. In fact, we previously mentioned him

I would say, that's how to hook, Rob, get plenty of beat boops in there.

I know, I'm kind of a cliche. You just add some beets and some boots and then I'll be like, all right, this one's good.

No.

I like the beat boops too. They got us both.

All right, Well let's get into the plot.

Oh boy, Well we begin with stock footage of a rocket taking off, So it's time to play the game we've played before. Which mission is this public domain government footage from? I can't be positive, but I do have a best guess, and it's that it was one of the Atlas rockets used in Project Mercury Rob. I found a photo to compare it to that I put side by side in the outline with the opening shots from the film. Think it looks pretty close.

What do you think?

Yeah, I'm convinced this one was from the launch of Friendships seven in nineteen sixty two, which was before this film was released. But anyway, after we fiddle around with a bunch of rocket stock footage, we get the title, which appears over shots of spectators observing the space launch. And the title here is Santo the Silver Mask versus the Martian Invasion. Now I think it's interesting that we see the space launch at the beginning here, because this

Yeah, that seems reasonable to me. Yeah, because these films can and will create their own spaceship effects. But you got all this rocket footage, it's just set there. Why not use it? Yeah?

But anyway, the movie proper starts with some voiceover narration while showing astronauts in mid space walk don't know what this is from But the narrator says, with the advance of science come new mysteries. Is our planet the only one inhabited by rational beings like us? And then this is gonna sound kind of confusing, but I'm reading the sub subtitles directly. If so, will we conquer those other worlds, or on the contrary, will their inhabitants come to rule us?

Yeah, yeah, it does seem like it came from the kitchen, that's for sure.

But then, oh lord, we get a look inside the ship, and this is so first glimpse of the Martians. I was rolling. I don't even know how to begin to describe the energy of this house party, but it is wild. So the inside of the ships has windows that look out into space that have like wooden slats, you know, coming in between them. And then standing around a table,

Yeah, everyone here is jacked or voluptuous, and their golden helmets are blocking in a way that kind of looks like their heads are big teeth. You know, like each head is a big tooth, a big gold tooth, yeah, bicuspits, yeah yeah, but with an eyeball on the front, which on the forehead reminds me a lot of Santa Claus conquers the Martians in this respect, because we have a lot of questions I had anyway about whether this is a helmet or part of their anatomy or both. Again,

Yeah, there'll be a lot of questions about how we're supposed to understand what we're looking at when we see them. But anyway, so they stand there, we get a look at them, and then the main beefy dude says, from now on, we will speak in Spanish, for it is the language used in the country we are traveling to

Yeah. I mean it's hard for us to say what this is, because again, their technology is so far ahead of where we are.

Our puny brains can't even begin to comprehend.

Yeah.

But then we cut some Earth TV, so we see some households, presumably in Mexico, you know, sitting around on the couch watching television. So there's a nice program where there is a band playing and a man singing a love song.

Uh.

And the family is there on the couch. The mother's doing some sewing, the father is reading a newspaper, or the kids are watching TV. The boys taking like these big slugs of some kind of soda from a bottle.

I think it's a oh.

Yeah, I couldn't tell on mine. Yeah, you must have had higher res.

I think maybe i'd slightly higher res on my version. Yeah, it's ata.

But then there's so uh oh, there's a TV malfunction. They're trying to watch this music program and it starts shorting out and TV's making weird sounds, and mom asks what's happening. So we see the father get up and he goes to adjust the TV, and then what comes on the TV is all of the weird Martians we

Real Homer Simpson moment there like yeah.

And the first thing that the aliens say is what you are watching on your screen is not a fantasy. It is real. We are not just actors performing in a scary movie. And then we start here like cutting around and seeing not just this family watching TV, but like people all over, like different households watching the same thing, people in a bar watching a TV, drinking and like laughing at the TV and all this, and the alien message goes on while we see all the different households watching,

Uh.

He goes on to keep talking. He says, knowing the skeptical attitudes of the Earthlings, we understand that you may doubt the message and not take our warning seriously. Beginning now, we will be forced to use the country called Mexico to show our determination and power. We have weapons one hundred times more powerful than yours. Here are our demands.

Uh.

And by the way, this is first of all, like man sucks, sucks for Mexico. Why did they pick Mexico? Are they going to use the weapons on Mexico?

I had I have a lot of thoughts about everything they've been saying thus far. What but concerning Mexico. On one hand, you can imagine in Mexico was like, well, we're honored first of all that you would you would come here. But secondly, like a lot of this is not on us specifically, so it's kind of weird that you're singling us out.

I don't think of Mexico as the most responsible for nuclear warfare.

Yeah, but later on they do come back around to this at least briefly, and they mention that they've singled out Mexico because of Mexico's commitment to pacifism.

That seems completely the opposite of what they should be doing.

But yeah, at the same time, I will add, though, it is always refreshing to watch a science fiction film in which global considerations are in play and the United States or the UK or maybe the Soviet Union are not the primary focal point, you know, So it is kind of it is nice that we have a Mexico centric plot here as opposed to something we're more used to.

Oh sure, I mean, yeah, of course I want the Santo movie to be focused on Mexico. It just seems like within the logic of the film, like it makes doesn't make a lot of sense, and seems incredibly unfair that the Aliens would decide to make an example of Mexico.

Yeah, when they start get into the whole making examples off, you would think that Mexican officials would be like, look, can you take this like one north of here, because that seems like a better focal point for whatever you're planning. Yeah.

I can think of at least two other countries who are doing more cold warring.

Yeah, okay, but then their demands.

They've got demands. So this is the first moment we see Santo sitting in a chair watching the TV broadcast as well, and in a theme that will repeat throughout the movie, Santo, even when at home on his own leisure time, is in full costume, wearing a cape and a mask.

Right, and no shirt. And he never wears a shirt in this. Yes, in other Santo movies he'll wear like a slick suit with his mask, but in this he's always ready to grapple.

Yep, yep. But here are their demands. They say, all governments of Earth completely disarmed, surrendering all weapons, eliminate all borders, establish a universal language, establish a global government that does not discriminate by race or religion. Foster earthly brotherhood, give up war forever, which I would have thought that be included under total disarmament, but I guess this goes a step further in outlaws war using only like punching and sticks. Right,

I mean, I was kind of nodding my head on a lot of these. Aside from establish a universal language, I'm like, yeah, these these alsound like fine points, and we're obviously not going to do any of these things on our own, So I think maybe Martian Big Brothers should come and threaten us and make us do it.

Unfortunately, it's not so. I mean, you get different versions of this premise in different movies. This is not the first movie to do this, so you get everything from The Day the Earth Stood Still to Plan nine from Outer Space. This is almost an exact copy of the idea of Plan nine from Outer Space. It's like, you are doing atomic weapons and all that stupid Earth mind, stupid, stupid, Now we must destroy you.

I believe Plan nine also mentioned the idea that our nuclear weapons might destroy the Earth and beyond the Earth like planets. Yeah.

Yeah, well it's because they think that next after nuclear weapons, we will discover the solar night bomb, which he says will explode the sunlight itself. Oh, that's right, But I

Yeah, I mean it's it works well in science fiction because there's so many different ways of looking and on one hand, the longing for an alien force to come and solve our problems like this is this is a regular part of many different strains of ufology and related like new religious movements, you know, and it certainly ties into other religious ideas that something beyond us will come and tell us what to do and tell us how

Because of course it's going to be French, right, I mean, too bad for all the.

Others, esperanto. Right, that's all it said. Oh, yeah, we got to come what's the William Shatner movie? That's completely annis. Yeah, I'll have to come back to that.

But to come back to the list of alien demands here, I mean, yeah, as much as the next guy, I like the idea of earthly brotherhood, no discrimination, no more war. That sounds great, but we will learn that not only is the Martian enforcement mechanism of these demands quite hypocritical. In fact, this is all just a ruse. There will be a twist coming.

Yeah, And if you know, even if you take them at their word, they just step off completely on the wrong foot. Yeah, step one in making Earthlings follow this plan is just a disastrous misstep.

So after this big speech, we see Santo kind of he leans back in his chair and he thinks about what he has just witnessed, and then we go straight back to the Martian mothership where the number two goes up to the main beef Martian and says, our electronic interstellar brain indicates the Earthlings do not take our warning seriously. Why not? Well, apparently we learned that the Earthlings didn't realize they were real Martians. Most Earthlings thought that they

It, five hundred years?

Five hundred years, nonetheless commit the same fatal error when they accuse us attempting to impose peace and brotherhood through fear and force, forgetting that violence only promotes destruction and hate. I feel like maybe the narrator is explaining a little too much, like yeah, I don't know.

Yeah, you know, it's a the to have the whole They learn too late that man is a feeling creature until the end of the picture. But they just want to go ahead to make sure we have that in our minds before we proceed.

But I don't know, maybe at least they wanted to make clear that the irony of like end all wars and practice brotherhood, practice worldwide brotherhood, or we will kill you, that the irony is not lost on the filmmakers.

I don't know if they had test audiences, but maybe that was like a point, like, too many people are agreeing with the Martians at this point, we need to couch that a little bit.

So anyway, here we see a man in a lucha mask. This is Santo helpfully coaching a bunch of young children in This looks like tumbling and acrobatics on the playground.

Yeah yeah, but also it's Luca Like they're grappling, they're doing little flips and whatnot. So he's training the next generation of Luciadors to some extent, and.

He's instilling not just physical lessons. This is not just training in the techniques, but he's also instilling an ethos. He says, everybody, grab a partner, begin to wrestle each other without hurting anyone let's see how it goes. And we see one boy named Luis who really just starts wailing on another kid, and Santo has to stop him. He says, Luis, how many times have I told you

It kind of gets into sort of like the heart of Lucha libre as well too, because this is not a legitimate competitive like martial art combat sport. It is a highly athletic, collaborative, cooperative entertainment product that ultimately affirms the victory of good over evil, of technicos over rudo's, and of righteousness over evil. So so yeah, I can see I can see this lining up with actual Santo theology.

Here, I guess, did I already mention there's a big soccer match going on nearby?

I think, oh, yeah, there's like a big soccer match in the background. There's so much sport happening I.

Don't know what they're training like right next to the field, but suddenly we hear a buzz and Yonder materializes one of the beef Martians. I don't remember which one this is. It's either I think it's either Kronos or the one that will later be called Hercules.

This one is played by Benny Gallant, who was a he was I think he was always billed as a Frenchman, but he was actually born in Spain, I think so. Yeah, the Martians have it's it's a it's really a cross continental cast here in many respects.

Big stable.

Yeah.

And this guy has the thing on his head called the astral eye. It's like a third eye up on his forehead, the forehead part of his helmet. We don't see how it works exactly yet, but he has. This is the guy I was calling this murder Corey Energy. He somehow looks a little bit like a super jacked Corey Feldman adult Corey Feldman in the face.

Do you see that, Yeah, I can see that. Yeah.

But anyway, he approaches the bleachers of the soccer game and with a cruel smirk, the Martian activates his astral eye. It flashes with an internal light, and then the spectators see him. They begin to scream and run away, and

Yeah, he just completely disintegrates loads and loads of people, like men, women and children. Like it just it's I mean, it's at this as I was watching, and I'm like, well, surely they're just disappearing and they'll be back later. But no, like they're completely disintegrated.

No, he totally. He vaporizes children in the scene, and so Santo is looking on from the nearby playground and he when he realizes what's happening, he springs into action. He tackles the Martian Killer and they start to wrestle out on the grass. And so there's like one point where the Martian throws Santo and then he stops and takes a moment to vaporize four of Santo's students, and then the fight resumes. And I was thinking the same thing, like, well,

Yeah, it's a very fun lucha fight scene, especially considering it just takes place in the middle of a field. It like, as far as the location for a fight in a film in general, if this is the most mundane place it could ever go down. And yet it's really good, Like it's just really good lucha grappling by guys who really knew their craft. And I would say, you know, half jokingly but half serious. The best storytelling in this film is told in these little Luca fight scenes. Yeah.

Now I had questions about what I'm seeing here, because you know a lot more about the conventions of wrestling in Luca than I do. The Martian uses a full nelson on Santo here, and I was wondering, is the full nelson like a dirty move or is that part of the legitimate move set.

It's a legitimate move. It's I mean it can be used in a dirty way if you're going to hold somebody so that someone else can punch them in the face. And I think in that respect, you see the full nelson pop up in all sorts of like cowboy brawls in pictures. But you know, I think the big thing is that it's dramatic. You can see both wrestlers' faces, and it has a number of cool Luca counters. Yeah, and we see some of those here, several of those here.

Him throughout the movie, and in this case, I think he gets out of it by flipping the guy over top what you call it, like throws it that goes into a somersult throw.

Yeah. Yeah. The Luca holds are really fun in this film, and in this fight in particular, the Martian here busts out the rare butterfly hold, which you don't see much anymore as a standalone hold. It's usually is more as a setup move for some sort of a bomb or a soup lex.

Well, anyway, finally Santo gets the upper hand in this fight. He puts the Martian in a choke hold of some kind, but then suddenly the Martian fiddles with something on his belt and then de materializes and Santo is left grasping it air Like. I thought back to that footage we saw the raccoon who tried to wash the wad of cotton candy and it just disappears and he's there switching around in the water looking for it. Yep, yep, yeah, like, what happened? Where is it? I gotta say this several times.

Well, yeah, he's he has trained exclusively. I'm grappling opponents that cannot vanish into thin air, so it just throws him off his game, at least for a few seconds.

Anyway, after this, we get a long slow pan as Santo surveys the empty athletic field, and it's kind of like, what was that? What new terror am I facing?

Now?

But anyway, we go back to the spaceship and we check in with the Martians and they're like, good, good job, mission accomplished. The Earthlings are afraid now. However, the Martian who was out there and just had the fight has a little bit of a footnote to report. He says, there is one Earthling who dresses rangely and covers his face with a silver mask, and he almost managed to disrupt our plans. Should we disintegrate him? And then the head Martian says no, in fact, he is such an

And they'll expand this project as the film commences, where they'll realize, well, there are other humans that are kind of Santo's of the mind, and we should also bring them back as well, but Santo's the main one. If we could only bring one, it would be el Santo.

Yeah, so next we reunite with Santo at a wrestling event. I think he's I don't know if this makes any Is he like in his office at the wrestling arena?

Maybe? The establishing shot is that we're at Arena Mexico in Mexico City, which is a very prestigious home of Luja de Libra. It is built in nineteen fifty six, so I guess it was relatively young building at the time, but it's still in operation. It's the home of CMLL, which is like the biggest in traditional digital libret promotion in Mexico. You can still go there and see shows Lucha Libre shows at Arena Mexico. So maybe Santo has an office in the building.

Yeah, but Santo has a friend here. This is when we first meet the professor we will later learn this is Professor Orto Rica, and they're discussing theories on what happened. Professor Orto Rica is a professor of nuclear physics, and they're Santo is saying, what cruel monster would vaporize even

In a normal conversation, this would be the point where you would suddenly doubt your source, where you're like, this guy's talking about Atlantis. Now I don't know if he should really be my guy, my consult for the situation.

Oh but while they're hanging out talking about Atlantis, the professor gets a call from the university and they're like, hey, the Martians are on TV. Watch them. Turn the TV on, so, you know, Santo and the Professor tune in, and this is the part where the Martians explained that they selected Mexico because it is a country dedicated to pacifism. And then the professor I thought this was great. He snaps a photo of the TV while the Martians are on TV. How's that going to come out?

I mean, you can't push record at this point in no vc RS, Yeah, I guess so.

But the Martian muscle guy says resistance is futile, and then they just returned to the regular schedule programming. It's back to the Cowboys show. Well after this, we finally get a confrontation. Here, the beefy Martian teleports into the room with Santo and the professor. Santo is unhappy with him because of all the people he vaporized earlier. But the Martian kind of waves away the criticism. He's like, hey, listen, YouTube, guys,

Sort of? Okay, I have to say in the screenshot that you grabbed a wolf here, he really looks like John Cena in the face.

Yes, yeah, yeah, I can see that. I don't know what is it in the face I'm seeing, but I know what you're talking about there. But anyway, so Santo and the Martian argue. Santo is like, no, no, no, you're not going to tell me what to do. Also, was wrong to kill innocent people like you did earlier, and the Martian is like, it was necessary to do so because only by killing earthlings will they learn to

Yeah, he doesn't go and try and break something over the villain's head. He knows he's an egghead and he should stay out of this.

Yeah. Now, Santo holds his own in a fair fight. But then the Martian uses a dirty trick. He turns on his astral eye and doesn't disintegrate, but paralyzes our hero, leaving him frozen standing straight up. So then the Martian enforcer approaches the Professor, who's now defenseless, and he says, all you have to do is touch my hand. The dial on my belt will transport us to the spaces I think he means to the spaceship. He says, do

Yep, yep.

And so while the Martian is struggling for the pills, Santo comes up behind him and applies a choke hold, and then the Professor watches as they struggle, but once again the Martian escapes. He escapes the anaconda like grip of Santo by flipping the dial on his belt buckle and teleporting back to the ship. And once again Santo is swiping around in the air like where did he go? But now now they are armed with knowledge, because the Professor has a clue as to the weakness of the Martians.

Oh, yes, the estering.

It's like super jail. But here we get more Martian scheming. So after they put the people in the jail, the Martians talk about how they talk about how their appearance frightens Earthlings and somehow this is delaying their plans. I didn't understand why, but one of them says, why do we frighten them when our bodies are more perfectly evolved

I was expecting that they would walk out like in street clothes, looking like they would blend in. Yes, and later on in the film we do see them in street clothes, but that's not what we get initially.

No, not at all.

No.

So they come out and they look exactly the same, except with shorter, darker hair, and with different costumes on. So now instead of golden space wrestler costumes with the kind of the tinfoil sheet, they're wearing some kind of Greek peplham wrestler costumes. And all of the lady Martians now have big hair as well, like voluminous mid century updues and that kind of bouffont helmet hair.

Yeah there, I guess. With the women, you could say to their costumes are like a little less revealing than they were earlier, and their hair is bigger. And as for the guys, I don't know, they still look ridiculous. They still look like they're about to wrestle a match.

They changed out of the tinfoil and now they're all dressed like masheiste.

Yeah yeah with and the helmets are all gone obviously.

Yeah. So the head Martian explains that they now will begin using names taken from the Earthlings mythology. So the captain of the ship is going to be Argos. There's the sort of Kirk Douglas looking Martian, they say, because he is a scholar excelling at the studies of time and space, he will be named Kronos. There's I think it's ham Lee who's going to be called Morphio because of his hypnotic powers. There is this might be the Benny Gallant guy who they are gonna call Hercules because

Now, all of this is I love it when a movie gives us the rules. No, but these rules are more guidelines. Yeah, play pretty fast and loose with all this.

Yeah, And I can't stress enough It will be repeated many, many times that the Martians find their current hot body forms hideous and grotesque. But like, hey, this is what the Earthlings like. But the thing is they don't really look very different, Like, it's mostly just costume changes and some changes to like hair style and color.

Yeah, these references would have made a lot more since had they been in like monster costumes earlier on. But no, it's just it's not that different.

But somehow this is going to help them capture some Earthlings, and especially capture Santo and Professor Orto Rica and take them back to Mars to create the perfect human.

Yeah, they don't really lay it out here, but the female Martians their main goal is to use siren like powers to bring in like key male captives, scientists, heads of industry, prominent sci fi writers, that sort of thing.

Yeah, we'll see this in several scenes where just like a beautiful Martian lady walks up to a dude and he's like, oh hollo, and then she just hypnotizes him, and then they're at the spaceship.

Yeah.

So, anyway, what's going on with Santo and the Professor Now, well, the Professor's research figures out what the alien's pills are for, he figures out atmosphere is poisonous to them. They're going to die without the pills so they can use that information. But he also tells Santo that because the Martians have such smart brains, he can make a machine that will be able to locate them by detecting the mental vibrations

Yeah, it's like it's more important now than ever. I've got to work out.

Yes. So here the movie kind of transitions into what feels less continuous and more just like a series of alien encounter episodes and fight scenes. So I thought, here we can just kind of like talk about some highlights.

Yeah, because it really does flow like that the movie. It's kind of like highlight after highlight until the movie ends. Yeah, it doesn't. This film doesn't have a lot of I don't know, intentional flow to it, but it's still it's it's entertaining the whole way.

So one thing is attempt to number two, to kidnap the Professor. This one comes pretty much right after what we were just talking about. The Professor is left alone he's working on the Martian brain wave detector when the Martians come back to get him. Fortunately, he has a brilliant idea. He knocks a bunch of chemistry beakers on the floor at the martians feet, causing a fire in his lab, and this makes them go away quick thinking Professor.

Yeah, because they're like, oh, the fire, it's eating up the oxygen so forth. So yeah, yeah, but he also clearly burns his whole lab down in the process.

I was just thinking of the line in the Attack of the Crab Monsters, you know, pity is all fires must one day burn out, let's see.

Oh.

I also want to note that in this scene, the Martians who come for him, which I believe are Argos and Chronos, they are already changed out of their new Greek hero clothes and back into essentially the original gold Martian outfits, except without the helmets on.

Yeah, so we will almost immediately abandon all.

Yes, there's this huge like transformation scene and then it has almost no effect in the rest of the film. And I don't think do the Greek costumes ever return.

No, They're like, we didn't like the way those felt, so we're just ticularly the old customs.

So there is The next thing is ooh, I think this is a really good scene. This is one of my favorites in the movie. The hypnotic attack at Club de Luchadors is good, really good. In this sequence, Santo is training with a couple of his Lucca buddies and it's a tough fight, but they're all friends and it's good sportsmanship all around. So you know, he's wrestling with people they're they're fighting hard, but no hard feelings. These are all friends here.

Yeah, and Frankenstein is one of the friends.

Yes, and I should know that Santo is masked, but his two training partners are not anyway, So Santo's here and then suddenly disguised as beautiful Earth women and revealing Leotard's. The Martians are Temsa and Diana come into the gym to execute a plans. They walk through the doors as this is right after Santo's sparring matches over and Santo leaves for a minute, and the two Space ladies make eye contact at his two sparring partners, and they're of course.

Yeah, they didn't like that old like it was gross.

So this fight I think is pretty good. It's like a no holds barred two on one fight with what I thought were some surprisingly brutal moments and moves, like at one point, the other two wrestlers they grab Santo and they pin Santo's arm across the two saddles on a bench press rack and start kicking his arm like to break it between the two metal hooks, and I was like, oof, that is a I don't know, that has much more kind of gory and brutal implications than

Yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah. This fight here, it does have Luca moves in it, but it also has these these brutal moments. I think on one hand, you have, of course performers here who are used to portraying violence in a way that is convincing. But then also maybe they're like leaning into it, working a little stiff here for the camera. But yeah, it's it's a brutal fight scene. Santo, of course is up up for the fight.

Yes, yeah, oh, and I should say during the fight, we see Diana and Artemisa over at the other side of the room watching intently, and I don't know, it seems like they are enjoying what they see. But however, Santo prevails against it even these odds, even two on one, he wins, and when the Martian ladies see that he is going to win. They're like, oh, we gotta get out of here, and they use their belt dials to disappear.

Santo knows it's good. Santo knows your heart.

There's a scene after this where the Martians kidnaps more regular Earthlings. It's like a there's a cocktail party of these various scientists and government leaders, just various important big wigs. This is one of the scenes where I was getting really confused about what people understood about the Martian invasion. I'm not sure if I missed something or if this

Yeah, yeah, it's I mean again, it's kind of commendable that the movie is acknowledging some of the complex dynamics that would be in play with a situation like this, But at the same time, it's like, this is not the place where you really get to explore those concepts to their fullest.

Well, it's also not portrayal. So like the big wigs who are deciding that there must be a cover up, they stand around with their martinis and cigars and they're like, yes, we must lie to everyone, and we must start by lying to our Yeah. But then they don't really get a chance to lie to their wives yet because instead, suddenly Martian women come into the room. It's Afrodita and Selena. They wander into the party, they get ogled by the

Yeah. I have a feeling that the screenwriter was like, I'm just not connecting with any of these characters. I've got an idea, why can't I be kidnapped by the space women.

Well he's like, yeah, I want to get seduced by Artemisa. So you know, she makes eyes at him at the restaurant and he follows her away from the table, and then they just blink. You they get teleported.

Oh.

But it is through the sci fi writers attempt to escape the spaceship that we learn the ship has a big level in the center of the room that causes the ship to explode if it is pulled, and so he goes and reaches for it. I don't know how the sci fi rider knew this. Maybe he's just randomly pulling it levers, but the Martians start yelling, no, that will make the ship blow up.

You know, I'm really one of the last people to sexualize everything in a film, But this is the most phallic looking lever I think I've ever seen an emotion picture, and it just makes all of these scenes where folks are grabbing at it all the more hilarious.

It's a big just like a handle that is protruding from a large round bass that looks like hips.

Like it's somebody. This had to have been intentional on some level. Somebody designing this thing puts some thought into it.

So yeah, it makes the ship will up. I wonder if this will come up again later. They do not succeed in blowing up the ship, but so then we just move on. Oh, we get some stuff with the people in the space jail. They're fed concentrated food and things like that.

Oh yeap pills for dinner, kind of like Santa conquers the Martians. There's a lot of shared DNA between these two films.

We also get more scenes. There are some repetitive things here, more scenes of the Martians all standing around looking sexy. They're all like, you know, flexing their muscles and looking at their bodies and they're like, I don't understand what earthlings see in this disgusting appearance. And in this scene, this is the part where they we get a twist,

With an Army of dark Santo's Like, that's that's that's awful.

Evil Santo's by the millions.

Oh.

Also after this, uh, we just get like a radio announcer we got talking into a microphone who says that the authorities, in an effort to calm the public, decided to use every tool in their arsenal, including letting people quote enjoy their favorite pastimes. Again, I think that means rastling.

This is such a weird sequence. Yeah, because they're building us up, like just go to go to watch your local Lucas show as usual. Well, don't let this fear of alien invasion steer you in a different direction. But then, as we see, nobody actually shows up for resting that night. It's the arena they.

Do in the first one. There are two. There are two.

People don't show up the second. What's going on by the second one?

The second one is when people don't show up the first one, it's a huge crowd.

Oh, that's true. It is a big crowd for the first.

They may be discouraged for the second one because martians show up at the end of the first match and start vaporizing people.

Well that's understandable.

But this first one it's is rob Is there a formal term in Lucca for the villain swap out? Like when the villain is you think it's one person behind the mask, but then the mask comes off and it turns out it with somebody else.

I don't know if there's any kind of lingo for it. Yeah, but but it is a trope, I guess. Yeah.

Well, anyway, here one of the beef aliens I think it's Hercules. He beats up and steals the mask of Santo's scheduled opponent for the night, a wrestler called Black Eagle, and this appears to be the kind of fight where the goal is to take off the opponent's mask. I think that's That's not every fight in Luca, right.

No, in fact, I don't. I was kind of scratching my head at this, because generally a mask is on the line officially, in which if you lose the match you have to give up your mask in your previous identity. But then also it is mask ripping, and the unmasking is also a common shenanigan that takes place in Luca masks. So like the rudo's will start tugging at the technico's mask, the raff will get on to them for it. They may pull off a mask and then get a quick

Well, I thought this was a solid fight, and it had a lot of twists and turns and some weird interesting moves and rules. What the weirdest move I think in the entire movie is this match has a clear I'm not exaggerating. There is a move that's like a head butt to the perineum.

Yes, yeah, this was great. I'd never seen it before. But there used to be a lot more butt based combat, you know, like the atomic drop used to be big money back in the day. That's the one where you do like it's like you're gonna do a belly to back suplex, but then you bring the opponent down so that their butt lands on your knee. Okay, And you know, it's like it makes sense in a wrestling world, you know, because it's like, oh, impact of the spine, like that's

Okay, Okay, I accept it. I mean I don't want to be head butted in the butt either.

Yeah. I'd never seen an attack like this before. This was pretty great.

At one point, Hercules gets the gets the better of Santo, though, and he rips off Santo's mask oh no, only to reveal that Santo is wearing a second mask underneath.

Yeah.

And then somehow Hercules the alien knows to like throw the first mask that he took off. He throw it on the ground and stomp on it and squish it. And somebody starts to rebuke Santo for this. He's like suggesting it's some kind of cheating I think, to be

So clearly some other form of attack is going to be necessary to defeat Santa.

That's right. Now they try a seduction as well. How well do you think this is going to work on Santo?

Oh, this is not going to work. In fact, I was a little it seems like it's working, and I was shocked.

Yes, but it's it turns out it's like a dream fake out. So we see Santo at home in his full outfit with the mask on, lying on his bed reading a book, and then who should appear at the opposite end of the room but Afrodita, the most powerful seductress of the Martian operators, and she's like, hey, Santo, and then she blows some smoke into the air and the Martian love goddesses they I think they're multiple of them there, and they hypnotize Santo start kissing him and

Then they just back away and then teleport.

Next there is a scene where Marsh where he ends up using the device that the Professor made to track the Martians to a Catholic church where they're there arguing with the priest about I don't know, they're just like having a moral argument with the priest, and there is a weird kind of discussion of whether or not they should fight inside the church. I think they have to take the fight outside.

Yeah, Like the basically the priest here is like he pulls out some highlander lord and he's like, this is holy ground. You can't actually fight here, and they're like, fair enough, yep, we respect holy ground.

Then one of the most baffling things in the movie after this is the Professor is invited to some kind of celebration of scientific achievement, which takes the form of a party with burlesque dancing. So it's there, it's like people there with their families to receive awards for scientific achievements. But then of course there are four burlesque dancers who, of course they get hypnotized by the Martian ladies, who then steal their costumes and do the dance themselves. The

Yeah, I mean, it's really it's really classy stuff. It's I guess it's kind of chorus line, right.

Yeah, yeah, I guess. So I don't know the terminology here, But what are the dancers going to do here? Obviously they're here to kidnap the professor, and so they take the professor they send him back to the ship as well. Now later we see the Martians at the ship and they're like, uh, oh, we're in trouble now, all out of our atmosphere pills, and it's it's do or die. It's this is our last chance chance to capture Santo before we must leave this planet because we you know,

I mean, this is this is a part of the film where it's like, all right, this is they're cooking a little bit here with these ideas. Yeah, Santo's like, like, we're going out there to destroy it, not to bring back and.

Right, yeah, he's the ripley in the scenario nukid for morbid, which he does by running back into the ship once more and pulling the lever. Pulling the lever we talked about, the lever of death. He pulls it real good. He jumps out of the ship. There's a big explosion. Santo and the freed prisoners watch the ship burn, and then the narrator comes in and says, the human race has been saved for the moment. Will we learn our lesson

I really like this sending, though, because it's like Santa's saying, Look, I'm not always going to be here to fight your battles for you and to clean things up for you. You've got to figure this out for your own humanity. You've got to decide what you want for this world and for your lives. And yeah, so Santo leaves them there.

Great, Yeah, all right, So that was Santo in the Martian invasion.

Yes, he successfully defeated the invasion, did not find it necessary to then go and conquer the Martians. Leave that for Santa Claus.

Someday we'll have to come back and explore all of the parallels between Santo and Santa Claus.

Number Yeah, like the attempt to kidnap Santo and Santa Claus the head, the food pills. I mean, you know, I guess they're both pulling on a lot of sci fi ideas that were very much in the heather at that time.

You never see them out of costume. They're paragons of virtue.

Yeah.

Yeah, they teach the children to do right.

Yeah. But we had no divisions this time in Martian the Martian camp. You know, we didn't have like pro Santo anti Santo camp. That would have been interesting. But oh yeah, there's no dropo. This movie needed to drive. That would be my other main criticism is that Santo and the Treasure of Dracula had a nice comic relief SIDEKICKO. Yeah, parago, and we didn't have a perago. We didn't have a dropoh in this in this picture, I'm not sure we had room for.

Can't have everything, Rob, that's true, that's true.

All right, we're gonna go ahead and call it for this episode, but we'd love to hear your thoughts on this and other Santo movies, Luchador movies, Luchadora movies. Write in. We would love to hear from you. Just a reminder of the stuff to Blow your Mind is primarily a science and podcast with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but on Fridays, we set aside most serious concerns to just talk about a weird film on Weird House Cinema.

Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway. If you would like to get in touch with us with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest a topic for the future, or just to say hello, you can email us at contact stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.

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