CURSE OF THE AZTEC MUMMY (1957)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *metaphysical*

Of the three AZTEC MUMMY films, CURSE has the greatest resemblance to a forties serial. Once again evil Doctor Krupp seeks to obtain a fabulous treasure guarded by its mummified guardian, and he imposes upon the heroine Flor to lead him to the tomb (destroyed at the end of the first film by explosives). Her fiancee Almada and the couple's comedy-relief buddy, the cowardly Pinacate (Crox Alvarado), then get some unexpected aid from a mysterious masked man, The Angel. This new hero dresses like one of the contemporary luchadores, though there's no suggestion that he's a real wrestler. Also, he must not be a celebrity combatant, because none of the ordinary citizens know him from a hole in the ground.

The Angel, to be sure, isn't one of the most dynamic masked heroes, for Krupp's henchmen manage to beat him down most of the time, though only thanks to numerical superiority. Actor Luis Castaneda, however, seems to be having a great time as Krupp, chewing the scenery as he hints at the dark designs he has once he gets the Aztec treasure, and consigning the Angel to a pit of snakes (which the hero escapes with the maid of a kid-admirer). When the captive Almada challenges Krupp, the evildoer departs from the usual mad scientist hauteur and claims he'll welcome the chance to fight the other scientist. They do tangle briefly, though once again Krupp's henchmen exert an unfair advantage. 

Thanks to Flor's guidance, Krupp steals the jeweled breastplate from the mummy. Since the scientist wasn't present at the tomb during the first picture, he may have dismissed any claims of the recrudescent creature. In Krupp's lab, the villain taunts the captive heroes, among them the Angel-- and, in contrast to the many luchadores films that followed, the villain unmasks the hero. Surprise; it's wimpy seeming Pinacate! The script never says why he assumed this masked identity, though. In the hour of Krupp's triumph, the Mummy shambles into the lab, knocks around a few henchmen, and then throws the villain into his own snake pit. The good guys escape, and the Mummy shambles away with the breastplace. Almada sets up the action of the third film by commenting that since the tomb was destroyed, he'll have to find some other place to hang his, uh, wrappings.

If CURSE wasn't part of an interrelated trio of films, one might consider the Angel the main character. However, though there are barely any new scenes with the Mummy, technically he is the common thread that links all three movies. CURSE has a little historical importance in the history of Mexico's superhero wrestlers. In contrast to some reviews, this was not the first such character in Mexican cinema, for that would be the early fifties film MAN IN THE SILVER MASK, which built on the popularity of the Santo wrestling-persona though Santo himself did not play the hero. (However, the actor who played the Angel in CURSE had a supporting role in SILVER MASK.) At the least, though, CURSE may have encouraged other producers to experiment with the serial-like combination of heroes, mad scientists and monsters, not least the Santo series that got going in 1961.