Mexican Psychotronica by Dave Goode

God bless K.Gordon Murray! Not only did he bring el Santo and the Aztec Mummy to America, but the "movie broker", who was known as the "King of the Kiddie Matinees", also brought a number of children's fantasy films from other countries like HANSEL & GRETEL (1954), RUMPELSTILTSKIN (1955), and SANTA CLAUS (1959). He also brought the Little Red Riding Hood series to American audiences. This trilogy consisted of LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD (1960), LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD AND HER FRIENDS (1961), and LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD AND THE MONSTERS (1962).

The third film in the trilogy LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD AND THE MONSTERS is an incredible piece of Mexican psychotronica. It has the Queen of Badness (Ofelia Guilmain) putting the Wolf (Manuel Valdes) and the Ogre (Jose Elias Moreno) on trial for not being bad enough. So it's up to Little Red Riding Hood (Maria Gracia), Tom Thumb (Cesareo Quezadas), and Stinky the Skunk (Santanon) to rescue their friends from the evil queen ,who is a dead ringer for the evil queen from Walt Disney's SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS (1937), and her minions. Oh did I mention this fantasy/adventure is also a musical? It is.

The movie is fun. It's sort of like the Batman television series of the 1960s that if you watch it at a certain age it's an entertaining fantasy/adventure. At another age it's just high camp fun. Not as good as THE WIZARD OF OZ (1939). Or as much demented fun as THE 5000 FINGERS OF DR.T. (1953). But it's well worth watching.

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Oh What Could Have Been by Dave Goode

K. Gordon Murray presents...

Being a fan of masked wrestler movies I sometimes imagine the genre taking off here in America during the 1960s. I imagine some Hollywood producer seeing the success K. Gordon Murray had at American matinées with his re-dubbed Santo flicks and decided to make a series of homegrown movies. The results would probably resembled the Superargo series from Europe that starred Giovanni Cianfriglia under the Americanized name Ken Woods.

 

Samson Burke in action

 The logical choices to star in these movies would have been the expatriate North American bodybuilders who went to Europe to star in sinew & sandal epics. Some of the more athletic stars like Dan Vadis, Brad Harris, and Gordon Mitchell could have nailed it. Samson Burke had been a pro wrestler under his real name Sammy Berg. Frankly I'll never understand how he didn't take the name "Samson Burke" when he began his career as a wrestler. It was a natural.

 

Gordon "Tarzan" Scott

Gordon Scott who starred as Tarzan and appeared in a number of peplum pictures would have been a good choice too. A former member of the U.S. Military Police and an expert in hand-to hand combat Scott would have been great playing a pro wrestler. The problem with Scott or Steve Reeves or Mark Forest playing a masked wrestler would be that they would spend 60% of the movie mask-less. And one of the things that makes the masked wrestler genre is that the heroes wear masks. But they had no secret identities. Something that the writers of the Superargo series understood.

Sundown Cinema has a great video about Superargo. Click HERE to see it. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 

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