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Santo en el Misterio de la Perla Negra

Santo in Mystery of the Black Pearl
Misión secreta en el Caribe

Spain / Mexico / Columbia 1974
produced by
Juan José Ortega for Producciones Juan N. Ortega
directed by Fernando Orozco
starring Santo, María Eugenia San Martín, Mara Cruz, Guillermo Gálvez, Frank Braña, Antonio Pica, Juan Garza, Fernando Osés, Carlos Suárez, Orlando Vélez
written by Fernando Orozco, music by G.C. Carreón

El Santo

review by
Mike Haberfelner

Santo is informed about a plot to smuggle a set of stolen diamonds - attached to the outer hull of a cruise ship - to Panama where they're exchanged for pearls. But the baddies behind the operation listen in on the briefing and from now on make every attempt to keep Santo from getting onto the cruiser - without success. Likewise on the cruise ship many attempts are made to kill Santo, to no avail. When he leaves the ship in Panama, Santo runs into a trap and he's ultimately tied to a post beneath the pier where he's to be drowned once the tide comes in - but an unknown man saves him the last minute. Santo shows up at exactly the restaurant baddie Andres (Antonio Pica) and his entourage dine, giving them quite a fright, and gets a message via throwing knife to meet one Wu-Li (María Eugenia San Martín), who turns out to be one of Andres' girls who has decided to switch sides, and who has actually seen to it that he got saved from drowning. Wu-Li gives Santo the basics of Andres' plot, and Santo is soon on the trail of Andes' partner, shady pearl dealer Davila (Guillermo Gálvez), who likes to work his native pearl divers half to death, and who shoots dead those who don't comply - and thus is almost lynched by the locals. He makes a hasty escape, with Santo in hot pursuit, and pretty much leads Santo to Andres - but there's nothing to actually pin on Andres, so he, his girlfriend (Mara Cruz) and Wu-Li make it onwards on the cruise ship with the case of diamonds still attached to the outer hull. Santo travels per airplane to arrive ahead of them and has them searched at the airport but to no avail. When Andres and girlfriend go diving for the diamonds, they're followed by Santo and Wu-Li, but once Andres has retrieved the diamonds from the ship's hull, his girlfriend harpoons him while Wu-Li abandons Santo swimming in the middle of the Ocean, as the two women have long conspired to keep Andres' diamonds for themselves to have a life in luxury. But of course, justice is served to them in the end ...

 

A little info up front as there's some confusion about the release date of this movie: While the IMDb lists it as 1976, more credible sources suggest 1974 while rumour persists it was released in Spain in 1971 as Misión Secreta en el Caribe. Whatever the case, it's rather likely that the film was shot even earlier than that, since it sharing much cast and crew with 1969's Santo Frente a la Muerte suggests the two films were shot back-to-back, something that's only reconfirmed by the fact that some footage of Santo en el Misterio de la Perla Negra also shows up in the non-Santo movie Campeones del Ring from 1972.

 

Be that as it may, Santo en el Misterio de la Perla Negra is actually not one of the better Santo movies, the film's very straight-forward plot lacks proper structure, which results in quite some plotholes and leaps of reason. Plus, it's a film that's really rather sloppily made: Not only does it seem to use a Santo-double in an ill-fitting mask in a handful of scenes, something that's painfully obvious even to the untrained eye, it's also a bit of a hodgepodge of a film, inserting footage from Sam Fuller's 1969 movie Shark! for its opening scenes, a car chase that doesn't have anything to do with the movie's plot, later a women's wrestling bout is shown that remains completely inconsequential, as well as scenes from an old-fashioned musical revue, rather obviously stock footage dating from much earlier than the rest of the film. This of course is objectively not good filmmaking - but is also kind of endearing in its brashness, so certainly adds to the film's weird charm. But still, as far as Santo movies go, this isn't a very good one, just a somewhat likeable oddity.

 

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review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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