Back in elementary school I traded a magazine about the U.F.O phenomena for a dozen coverless issues of Famous Monsters of Filmland. In one of those issues was a pic of a dark-haired beauty in a dungeon dressed like a "bride of Dracula " (only sexier) standing imperiously over a group of strangely garbed men stretched out on stone slabs. The caption that accompanied the photo said it was from a flick titled THE SAINT VS. THE VAMPIRE WOMEN. Hold the phone!!! I couldn't recall ever seeing George Sanders or Roger Moore ever taking on the Undead. Though decades later I found out about Simon Templar fighting Commie zombies in Avon's THE SAINT comic book back in the 1950s.
Later I was to find the pic was from the psychotronic flick Santo vs. Las Mujeres Vampiro (1962) , a flick I started to refer to as the " Gone With The Wind of Mexiluchahero movies ". When I first saw SANTO VS. THE VAMPIRE WOMEN it was in it's re-cut ,re-dubbed version distributed by legendary movie broker K.Gordon Murray. The movie was re-titled SAMSON VS. THE VAMPIRE WOMEN. For years I thought the movie was re-titled so no one would confuse the silver-masked hero with Simon Templar. In fact the flick was re-titled to have moviegoers believe they were going to see one of those peplum movies that were so popular at the time. It sort of made sense. On a superficial level el Santo and Maciste did somewhat resemble each other. Two seemingly immortal bare-chested champions of justice.
Maciste was the strength hero introduced into the cinema in the 1914 silent film epic CABIRIA. He was portrayed by dock worker and strongman Bartolomeo Pagano who played the character in over 20 films during the silent era. He was a Hercules-like hero who used his super-human strength in the cause of justice. The character was revived in the early 1960s following the success of the Steve Reeves' Hercules movie. Many of these 60s Maciste movies were re-titled giving the hero the more familiar (to Americans at least) names like Hercules ,Atlas , Samson and Goliath. In the Mark Forest flick SON OF SAMSON it's explained that Maciste is the son of the biblical strongman which explains his enormous strength. The character seems to be immortal appearing in different time periods. In THE WITCH'S CURSE starring Kirk Morris he shows up in Scotland in 1650. In SAMSON AND THE 7 MIRACLES OF THE WORLD starring Gordon Scott he fights injustice in 13th century China.
El Santo takes a page from the Phantom's book and the silver mask is passed down from father to son. But in the case of Santo it wasn't to create the illusion of immortality. So it's not to hard to imagine the immortal Maciste teaming up with one of the original Santo's descendants. I imagine a 60s movie where Maciste turns up in the 20th century and teams up with el Santo. Maybe the strongman takes up a job as a professional wrestler where the two heroes meet. This would have been a natural for Turkish cinema , that had no regard for copyright laws ,and gave us the infamous Captain America / el Santo team-up.
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| Idea by Dave Goode retro art by Vance Capley vancecapleyart.com |
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I love that Wally Wood Simon Templar page from Avon Comics.
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