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A mysterious strangler is murdering his way through the cast of a
musical revue, and it soon becomes apparent that the strangler must be one
of the cast or crew ... but the question is, who? Inspector Villegas
(Carlos López Moctezuma) is quick to identify wrestler-turned-stagehand
Marcos (Eric del Castillo) as his prime suspect, as he has actually made
an attempt on the leading lady Laura's (María Duval) life to get his own
girlfriend Lilian (Ofelia Montesco) her role, but when he comes up with an
alibi for the last murder, the inspector is left clueless - so he asks his
friend, wrestler and crimefighter Santo (Santo) for help. When Santo
arrives on the scene, the strangler starts to panic, and he soon enough
tries to lure Santo into a trap - which only gets his henchmen arrested,
though. Later, he tries to shoot Santo during a wrestling match, but only
manages to hit and kill his opponent - who of all people turns out to be
Marcos. After the last murder, the show was shut down by the police, but
now it reopens under heavy police protection - and yet, the strangler
manages to kill another actress, Lilian. This prompts Santo to the
conclusion that the theatre the show plays in must be full of secret
passageways, secret panels, sliding doors and the like, and it also leads
him to the conclusion that the strangler must be a prominent master of
disguise from yesteryear (Roberto Canedo), whose face was horribly
disfigured by an actrtess - and now he has dedicated his life to killing
actresses. And obviously, leading lady Laura is the next on his list. So
Santo and the inspector decide to announce to shut down the theatre for
good, but after one final show - in which the strangler simply has to turn
up to kill Laura. He sure enough does, but Santo steps in to save Laura's
life. Then he calls everyone working on the show into Laura's dressing
room, to identify the strangler to be ... Claudia, the theatre manager. (S)he sheds her disguise to get away, though,
but the Strangler falls to his death having almost made it away ... only to show up again in Espectro
del Estrangulador, anohow. Milton Ray plays an orphan who forces himself on
Santo to become his ward, but he has no narrative function whatsoever. A
very routine backstage murder mystery with shades of Phantom
of the Opera, with maybe a few too many musical numbers thrown
in to keep its pace at all times. Santo seems a bit out of his league in
this one, as a story like this does not really need a masked wrestler with
a crime lab, but somehow he works in the context nevertheless, if less
than perfectly. Only Santo's scenes with his ward-to-be Milton Ray are
lacking in every possible way (including that of narrative necessity). In
all, a totally watchable murder mystery (as long as you can accept Santo
in a film like this), but nothing special, really, and as a Santo-film
it's ok but not the kind of movie he's best remembered for.
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