Santo contra el cerebro del mal (Santo vs. the Evil Brain)

Mexico/Cuba, 1958

Director: Joselito Rodríguez

Script: Fernando Osés, Enrique Zambrano

Main actors: Joaquín Cordero (Dr. Campos), Norma Suárez (Elisa), Enrique Zambrano (Teniente Zambrano), El Santo (El Enmascarado), Fernando Osés (El Incógnito)

Music: Salvador Espinosa

Genre: Crime, science fiction

Story

Several bandits chase a masked man until they surround him in an alley and knock him out. Unconscious, they take him to the laboratory of Dr. Campos, who injects him with a serum to appropriate his will. From that moment on, the mysterious individual who covers his face (and who is none other than Santo) will blindly carry out Campos’ orders. He leads a double life, because while he presents himself to society as a respectable and prestigious scientist, he is really a dangerous megalomaniac with aspirations of world domination.

Dr. Campos has an assistant, Gerardo, and a secretary, Elisa, who are not aware of his perfidious plans and ignore that the professor leads a gang of thugs. In the city, famous scientists are disappearing, and the police put agents to escort Dr. Campos – fearing that he too will be kidnapped. What Lieutenant Zambrano’s men don’t know is that it is Campos himself who has ordered the kidnappings of his professional colleagues; for two reasons: He sees them as competitors and at the same time he intends to take advantage of their discoveries.

The masked man, with his mind nullified and manipulated by Campos, has become an automaton at his service; and he acts as one of the most effective thugs of the gang in the kidnapping of scientists and other important personalities. The escorts that Zambrano had placed to protect the wise men are defeated by the Saint. When the lieutenant finds out, he is astonished, for the masked man is one of his best agents. To find out if he has really gone over to the enemy or is being used, Zambrano sends another fighter with his face covered by a mask, known as “Incógnito”.

For his part, Dr. Campos has a banker kidnapped and subjected to his control by brainwashing him with injections and serums, using the same procedure as with the Masked Man. Under the influence of Campos, the bank manager strips the safe from one of his branches, to bring him the money. Elisa witnesses the banker’s strange behavior and begins to be suspicious. To keep the girl from talking about it, Dr. Campos orders her abduction. Elisa is held in a warehouse, while Gerardo tries to do his best to locate her.

The Masked Man, to whom Campos has assigned the role of “watchdog” of his laboratory, will have to deal with the Incognito; who enters the scientist’s premises to investigate. The Incognito manages to reduce his opponent and give him a counter-measure so that he recovers his normal state. Now the Masked One is again on the side of justice, but he will dissimulate, staying within the band as an infiltrator.

At the same time, the evil scientist is preparing to sell confidential documents to a foreign power; as well as “the formula for the disintegration of cells”…

Commentary

It is a known fact that in Batista’s Cuba organized crime was at large: The Mafia casinos, Lucky Luciano, Meyer Lansky… This film also shows us that there was another class of criminals wreaking havoc on the Caribbean island: The mad scientists.

It can be said that Dr. Campos has a double identity, since most people perceive him as a scholar who works for the good of society, while he secretly devotes himself and his gang to planning ambitious and delirious plans for world domination. A double identity is also held by the masked ones who are willing to stop him: Two super agents of the secret police with their naked torso and covered faces – one with a silver mask and the other with a black one. The first is Santo, the famous Mexican vigilante fighter, and this was his debut on the big screen.

Rodolfo Guzmán Huerta, such was his name in real life, was already known in his home country as a wrestling athlete. His role in “Santo contra cerebro del mal” was his first appearance in a movie. In the following decades, around fifty more films would follow.

The film we are dealing with here is linked to “Santo vs. the Infernal Men ” by several factors. Both are by the same director, and were shot in parallel in the same locations in Havana at the end of 1958 (shortly before the triumph of Castro’s revolution). In addition to the Saint, several other actors in the cast are the same: Among them Joaquín Cordero, who in this “Evil Brain” embodies the mad scientist while in “Infernal Men” plays the hero. Enrique Zambrano, on the other hand, plays a similar role in both films: He is the police lieutenant (his character in “Cerebro del mal” has the same last name).

There are identical scenes and shots in both films: The agent of the foreign power who goes to meet Campos’ men leaves the Colina Hotel (which still exists, by the way) and goes to a remote area where some individuals give him “instructions” and others try to assault him… Exactly the same scene also appears in “Infernal Men” in a different context. We also see the same performance of some singers (“Trío Servando Diaz”) in a beach bar and the final scene at the airport is the same for both films – only in “Evil Brain” the lieutenant refers to two masked men (his companion asks him: “Why do they cover their faces, what nationality are they?” and the lieutenant answers: “They are citizens of the world, their duty has no borders. They cover their identity behind masks to do good for humanity.” In the epilogue of “Infernal Men” we have identical dialogue but in the singular, since the only masked one that appears is El Santo).

The screenwriters of both films were Enrique Zambrano himself (the actor who plays the police lieutenant on both occasions) and Fernando Osés (the fighter who gives life to “Incognito”)

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