By Bronson Pettitt
Mexico Weekly / March 29, 2011
“El Vampiro y el Sexo” (The Vampire and the Sex) will not be shown at this week's Guadalajara International Film Festival, after the son of Rodolfo Guzmán (aka El Santo) argued that restored scenes in the movie feature scenes of topless female vampires.
The film is a director's cut from the 1968 film “Santo in the Treasure of Dracula.” The nude scenes were originally shot for the film's release in Europe, but were omitted from the Mexican version, Milenio reported.
In his arguments for not screening the director's cut, the son of El Santo (who is also a masked wrestler who goes by the name Son of Santo) claimed he only wanted to protect the image of his father, Milenio reported Tuesday.
“My father left a legacy to my brothers and me, and his only request was that we defend it,” Son of Santo told Milenio.
In a press release, Cinematográfica Calderón, the film's production company, argues that the director's cut should be screened given that “the value of the film as a historical document is more important than a gentleman's agreement made between [Santo] and producer Guillermo Calderón.”
The gentleman's agreement referred to a deal made by El Santo and the film's director, René Cardona, to shoot the nude scenes for the European release but not to show them in Mexico.
The director's cut was locked away by Calderón because of concerns it would taint the wrestler's family-friendly image at a time when even miniskirts raised eyebrows in conservative Mexico, Reuters reported last week.
The son of El Santo says his father made only one other movie (“Operación 67”) in which he appears with topless women.
At Stake
The head of Guadalajara's International Film Festival, Iván Trujillo, told El Universal the disagreement between El Santo's son and the production company also has to do with copyright issues and money.
“More than censorship, I think this has to do with an economic arrangement,” Trujillo said. “There are movies that have never been released due to money issues.”
However, El Santo's son insists his reluctance to give the go-ahead to the screening has nothing to do with profit or distribution rights.
“It isn't a question of money … I'm not going to sell out El Santo or whore him around. I haven't done it before, nor will I do it now,” he told Milenio.
Son of Santo owns and manages a chain of gift shops in the Condesa neighborhood and at the Mexico City airport where he sells products featuring his father, including t-shirts and action figures.
In his four-decade career as a “luchador,” El Santo appeared in more than 50 films, many of which were box office hits and have become cult classics.
El Santo's legend began in 1952 when he appeared in the comic book called “Santo, el Enmascarado de Plata” (Santo, the Man in the Silver Mask). By the end of that decade, El Santo began starring in films in which he was often pitted against zombies, vampires, mummies, demons, monsters and other beasts.
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