Week 42: Santo en Anónimo mortal (Santo in Anonymous Death Threat, 1972)

      So here we are at movie, and week, 42. Only ten more weeks after this. Can you feel us getting down to the end together? I can. It feels like I'm 3/4s of the way through a barbacoa burrito from Chipotle. Only a couple more bites, and I'll be able to sit back, with my belt open, and enjoy the Mexican food induced itis. There might be some surprises after we're finished up with the regular 52 movies, so don't think that's the cut and dried end in march.

Check out this sweet title card Santo gets! 

      This week, Santo clashes with Nazis. These aren't Neo-Nazis either. They're good old fashioned, escaped from Europe, Nazis. I feel like we've covered Nazis before. Maybe not in this scale, but there has to have been one or two of these Jew hatin' assholes in here at some point. 

A relaxing evening with El Santo.

      Anyway, a number of fairly well-to-do immigrants are being picked off, not long after each respectively receives an anonymous death threat in the mail. One man, named Gaos (just like the gamera villain!) decides to lobby Santo for help. Santo takes the case, and has his new...interns I guess, Pablo and Yvette, keep track of Gaos during his daily routine. Unfortunately Yvette blows it and Gaos is picked off. Not long after, Santo makes the correlation between all the victims, which is that they all immigrated from Germany in the 50s, and were all members of the German resistance to Hitler during WWII. Apparently old enemies have caught up with them and are out for revenge. 

Those are some coke bottles Hermano...

     

      The subject matter might seem silly, but keep in mind, this was only about 25 years after the war ended. It's fairly well documented that several South American countries offered fleeing Nazis asylum at the end of the European theater. Several of these same countries also had a large German immigrant population, going back to the 1800s, which in part led to some of them protecting said fleeing Nazis. 

You know they're Nazis if they carry Lugers.

      There's actually surprisingly little fighting in this for a wrestling picture. There's the mandatory wrestling matches early on for Santo, but then he doesn't really have to defend himself or clash with any adversaries until the 48 minute mark. Yvette and Pablo clash with Nazi assassins a couple of times, albeit briefly. Santo also makes enough trouble for the bad guys to get his very own anonymous death threat, but there's not enough sense of risk there, since you know Santo is just too righteous an hombre to get killed by these clowns before he's able to smash their Nazi survivor network to pieces. 

Enjoyment!

Two and a Half Silver Masks out of a possible Five

Fun Fact: During the 1960s, Israeli Mossad executed a number of operations in South America, in an attempt to bring as many escaped Nazis to justice as possible. One of their most famous captures was Adolf Eichmann.