Revisiting Neutron, the Atomic Superman

I recently indulged a whim to revisit the series of Mexican films about Neutrón, El Esmascarado Negro ("Neutron, the Black Mask") - known as "Neutron, the Atomic Superman" in English - which I hadn't seen in 50 years. Now that I've refreshed my memory, I'd be surprised if I ever saw more than one of them, all those years ago. There were five such films in all, the first three directed by Federico Curiel, a true horror auteur whose prolific career as a writer, actor and director encompassed more than 70 genre films including the Nostradamus and Santo series as director, and THE BRAINIAC and THE LIVING HEAD as a writer. His directorial career began in 1960 with the trilogy of films about the masked crimefighter known as Neutron (played by Wolf Ruvinskis) who, despite his American credentials, has so super powers nor atomic patrimony to speak of. We never get an origin story for him, but with his rippling bare chest and action tights, he appears to be one of those luchadors (masked wrestler)s Mexico seems to inspire, though - as far as I know - Neutron had no actual real life experience in the ring. I was able to look at the first and third of the Curiel films - NEUTRÓN EL ENMASCARADO NEGRO (NEUTRON AND THE BLACK MASK, 1960) and NEUTRÓN CONTRA EL DR. CARONTE (NEUTRON VS. DR. CARONTE, 1963) - in Spanish with English subtitles (old Cinemageddon downloads) and the second - NEUTRÓN CONTRA LOS AUTÓMATAS DE LA MUERTE  - in its English version (NEUTRON VS. THE KILLER ROBOTS, 1962) which was dubbed by the Coral Gables group responsible for dubbing the K. Gordon Murray children's films and much other Mexican dubbing, which VIDEO WATCHDOG profiled in issue #2 with Bill Kelley's interview of voice actor (and Bill's former teacher) Paul Nagel.

Wolf Ruvinskis, 1921-1999.

Thanks to the greater access we enjoy today of the serialized thrillers of Louis Feuillade, it is much easier to appreciate Curiel's work as being in that same mold. Though the films exist in the form of feature-length stories, the original Mexican posters and lobby cards list them as serials; for example, NEUTRÓN EL ENMASCARADO NEGRO is said to consist of three episodes: "El Enmascarada Negro," "Caronte Triunfa," and "En Invento Diabolico." The contemporary story opens with the successful creation of a Neutron Bomb in the laboratory of Prof. Mendez (Ernesto Finance), whose intention it has always been to present it as a gift to all nations to ensure world peace. However, as soon as it is perfected and completed, Mendez' assistant Prof. Walker (Claudio Brook) tries to tempt his superior to use it to the ends of personal gain through terror. Walker shoots his noble mentor, who triggers the bomb, unleashing a deadly mist that leaves his insane murderer's mind and visage half-disfigured, much like the famous Batman villain Two-Face. Even more covetous of the bomb is the masked villain Dr. Caronte, an evil menace entirely dressed in white, who with his evil dwarf sidekick Tony (Manuel Vergara) and army of mush-faced zombies is grave robbing and reactivating the disembodied brains of the world's most brilliant dead scientists to access the secret of the bomb's invention. This story is complemented by the introduction of three best friends - TV producer Mario (Julio Alemán, who would later play the masked wrestler... Rocambole!), the nightclubbing Carlos (Ruvinskis), and the independently wealthy and lazy Jaime (Armando Sylvestre) - who think of themselves as "the Three Musketeers" (Rivinskis had actually played Aramis in a 1957 film, Gilberto Martinez Solares' THREE AND A HALF MUSKETEERS) and who find their loyalties tested when they all fall in love with the cocktail singer Nora (Rosita Arenas). Naturally, one of these Three Musketeers is actually Neutron, who dedicates himself to destroying the bomb, the terrorists who would wield its power, and also to protecting Nora - whose abode is discovered to contain a secret passage leading directly down to Caronte's lair!

At the end of the first film, Caronte falls victim to the bomb and is vaporized by it, leaving only his costume behind, and one of the Musketeers reveals his identity not only to Nora, but to the other two. Disappointingly, the second film pretends that neither of these things happened; Neutron's secret identity is once again unknown, and Dr. Caronte never explains (not even to the slavishly devoted Tony) how he managed to cheat death and get another costume in the bargain. The same pretty much goes for the third film, and all three leaven their creepy matinee thrills with Nora's soppy nightclub ballads and guest songs by rock and roll bands like Los Tres Diamantes (The Three Diamonds), Los Rebeldes de Rock (The Rock Rebels), and Los Tres Ases (The Three Aces). This trilogy is a bit gruesome but always in a cartoonish way, and was clearly intended to entertain young people. It's not really scripted on an adult level but it has a delightfully pulpy atmosphere. Some viewers might be surprised to discover the great Spanish actor Claudio Brook cast as the disfigured mad scientist Walker, but we must remember that Brook is best known for his collaborations with the surrealist filmmaker Luís Buñuel (THE EXTERMINATING ANGEL, SIMON OF THE DESERT) and Curiel's inspirational source, Feuillade, was championed early on by the Surrealists. It's also a pleasure to see in the first three films the now-renowned Spanish actor Jack Taylor playing the important role of Prof. Thomas under the early alias "Grek Martin." The English dubbing of his performance is terrible, but he makes quite a favorable impression acting with live sound in the Spanish originals.  

For reasons unknown, Curiel left the franchise after the third film and Neutron - along with new writers and a new director - returned wearing a different mask (and far more chest oil) in 1964's NEUTRÓN CONTRA EL CRIMINAL SÁDICO (NEUTRON VS. THE MANIAC, though the original Spanish translates as "Neutron vs. the Sadistic Criminal"). Its direction was entrusted to Alfredo B. Crevenna, a prolific filmmaker (BRING ME THE VAMPIRE and more than 150 others) who would also direct the sequel, NEUTRÓN CONTRA LOS ASESINOS DEL KARATE (NEUTRON BATTLES THE KARATE ASSASSINS, 1965). This bizarre and stylish film opens with a nightclub singer's performance, which includes a band with a blind pianist who immediately catches our interest. To our surprise, he becomes one of the film's key characters as the singer approaches him afterwards and offers to walk him home. Though he is used to doing this himself, he agrees - but for the pleasure of escorting her. During their walk, the pair are attacked by a lurking shadow in a black mask, cape, and wide-brimmed hat. Leaving the blind man stricken, the attacker absconds with the woman, taking her to a garage where he proceeds to stab her to death as a rattling movie camera documents the killing. The blind man is aroused by her death screams and awakens just in time to see the sadistic criminal fleeing from the crime scene behind the gates of the Robles Clinic for the Mentally Deranged. Yes, I said "see" - the pianist, who lost his sight as the result of an accident, has since regained his sight but kept this a secret as his infirmity was actually good for his career. He comes forward to the police with this information, and Inspector Rivas (Rodolfo Landa) shares it with Neutron, who decides to enroll at the clinic under his true identity for a rest, to investigate the strange goings-on from the inside.

I've still not seen NEUTRÓN CONTRA LOS ASESINOS DEL KARATE, but EL CRIMINAL SÁDICO I enjoyed quite a bit, even though it dilutes and diminishes the original naïve charm of its superhero and makes the man who wears his mask seem at home in a house full of neurotics on a dark and stormy night. The film not only has more adult ambitions and thrills, but it names its main characters after luminaries of Latin American literature (Marquez, Fuentes, etc) and, most cleverly, casts series regular Rosita Arenas not as Nora but as a patient of the clinic who labors under the delusion of being a great actress that no one has ever heard of - and who must be continually humored by the people around her! Also presented, with a similar dose of irony, is the popular  Mexican wrestler El Lobo Negro (Guillermo Hernández), who is portrayed as a washed-up has-been who cannot accept that his career is over! (according to wrestlingdata.com, he had 39 bouts between 1935 and 1954, of which he won 12 and lost 18, so perhaps Hernández was just being a good sport about the plain truth of his career.

Something peculiar that I learned by watching the Spanish version of the first film and the English version of the second: Television Entertainment, credited as the series' US distributor, monkeyed with the content of at least the first two films, removing some of the musical numbers and removing the scene in which the Musketeers confront Nora with a mass marriage proposal from the first film and moving it into the second. There is also a fifth film that alleges to be part of this series, NEUTRON TRAPS THE INVISIBLE KILLERS (1965), but its original title was EL ASESINO INVISIBLE and it stars Jorge Rivero as El Enmascarado de Oro ("The Golden Mask"), not as Neutron.  

(c) 2020 by Tim Lucas. All rights reserved.

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