The Mexican Masked Wrestler And Monster Filmography

 

Luchadorian Gray

The Mexican
Masked Wrestler &
Monster Filmography
by Robert Michael “Bobb” Cotter
McFarlane Press
ISBN: 9780786441044

Just a very quick ‘shout out while I’m passing’ review of Robert Michael ‘Bobb’ Cotter’s refreshingly entertaining book The Mexican Masked Wrestler And Monster Filmography. This book is not, as the writer rightly states in his introductory paragraph, an exhaustive tome covering absolutely everything in that, admittedly, very wide category but, it has to be said, it covers all the important ones (at least that’s how it seems to me).

The book is split into themed sections so, rather than just go through each movie one by one, he groups everything into themes. And that’s not as problematic as you may think because, as in the case when two or more wrestlers shared billing and performances in the same movie, at least two alternate looks at the film in question appear in two or more sections, where relevant. So, for instance, when Santo, Blue Demon and Mil Máscaras take on the mysteries of the Bermuda Triangle in Misterio en las Bermudas (aka Mystery In The Bermudas 1977), you will find a wealth of information for the film in both the Santo section, the Blue Demon section and, possibly, still more mention in the Mil Máscaras section.

The ten chapters which make up the book are as follows... 1. The Bat Flies South - Early Mexican Fantasy And Horror, 2. Who Was That masked man? - The Spirit Of The Serials, 3. Universal Con Carne - New Lives For The Old Undead, 4. Santo and Son - The Legend of the Silver Masked Man, 5. Devil With A Blue Mask On - The Life And Films Of Blue Demon, 6. Man of a Thousand Masks - The Life and Films of Mil Máscaras, 7. Glorious Luchadoras of Wrestling - The Lives and Films of the Wrestling Women, 8. The Undercard - Second-Banana Masked Men, 9. Vampires Not Named Drácula and Other Assorted Creatures - The Wide, Wide World Of Mexican Monsters and, lastly,  10. Men Can Die But Legends Live Forever - The Legacy Of The Silver-Masked Man.

The book starts off by giving a history of the background to wrestling and monsters in movies. So, coincidentally, Lucha Libre (Free Wrestling) was introduced as a phenomenon in Mexico in the early 1930s and, of course, the Spanish version of Dracula made by Universal simultaneously with their American version in 1931, on the same sets (reviewed by me here) also made a big splash in Mexico. So it wasn’t long before the wrestlers started appearing in films (and movie characters started also appearing in the wrestling ring) and, not too long after that, than they started facing various Universal style monsters and other supernatural villains in their big screen adventures. And also in their comics, it would seem, as there was often a big crossover with characters appearing in wrestling rings, in comics and in the movies.

Each movie covered is a very humorously written explanation of the film and what happens but it also is very illuminating as to various things the casual viewer like myself was unaware of. So I now know about the ‘private detective’ version of Fu Manchu from a series of Mexican movies, for example. I now know male wrestlers are luchadores and female wrestlers are luchadoras. I know which actor from The Aztec Mummy Trilogy was shot by his lover’s estranged husband a year after making the film and, similarly, which actresss’ career was thwarted by her father shooting her boyfriend after discovering they’d had pre-marital sex. It’s all here and written in a breezy but also very respectful manner.

So I was surprised to learn... because I’ve not seen many Mil Máscaras movies... that the origin of that particular character on screen was pretty much cribbed from the Doc Savage novels. And also that the one time the Mexicans made a theatrical serial (as opposed to a feature), it was only shown in serial form when it was distributed in America... in Mexico it was a, presumably cut down, feature length version.

So, yeah, lots new to me here and my one caveat emptor warning on this would be... the book was written around twenty years ago. So every now and again you wil find the author unable to review a film because it’s a ‘lost film’ or a ‘lost cut’. Well, in the two decades since this was written, a lot of headway must have been made because, I certainly have a few of these ‘lost prints’ as bootlegs and I even have a nice, officially released Blu Ray of at least one of them.

But don’t let this detract you because, for sure, if you are a beginner in the genre or, like me, just want to dip your toes in every now and again, you wil certainly find The Mexican Masked Wrestler And Monster Filmography an invaluable and illuminating treasure trove of information, with a big injection of humour added into the mix too. Definitely a big recommendation from me.