Movies fired up my imagination as a little kid. I remember loving movies as long as I can remember anything. After a day attending Catholic elementary school, I’d walk to the city library and check out every book on monster and sci-fi films I could get my hands on. In the 4th grade I memorized Vincent Price’s movie credits and talked incessantly to friends about 1920’s German expressionist sci-fi and horror films like Metropolis, Der Golem, The Cabinet of Dr Caligari and Nosferatu. Even then I was a nerd.
Influencing my young psyche were Universal’s classic monster movies with Frankenstein, Dracula, The Mummy and The Wolfman. Through such cinema, fantastical worlds were opened up to a kid living in El Monte, California, a first generation son of immigrant parents from Mexico. Of course, growing up in a traditional Mexican household, I was exposed to the wonderful spectacle of Lucha Libre as well. Lucha Libre was television’s original mixed martial arts show and I loved it. Burly mas-macho men wearing elaborate masks who fought and flew inside a small ring were awesome to behold. Via a weekly television broadcast, professional wrestlers lived out simple storylines of good versus evil as either rule-abiding tecnicos or no-holds-barred rudos as they fought for supremacy.
El Santo
Legendary among the good guys was El Santo. He was a silver-masked wrestler that always fought for the side of good and usually won in spectacular style. His appeal soon grew beyond the wrestling ring and extended into film and television. He starred in 52 movies and during the course of his career took on all sorts of bad guys including spies, zombies, aliens, robots and Frankenstein – sometimes all at once! El Santo was James Bond and Batman rolled into one. I loved El Santo films for they proved that a man with some training, a mask and an outrageous sense of style could make the world safe from evil. Usually with a flying head kick.
Anyway, it’s my fond remembrances of all the adventure and excitement from childhood sci-fi, monster and masked wrestler films that first made me want to be part of the entertainment community. Then Enter the Dragon, Star Wars and Indiana Jones came along and my fate was sealed.
I guess I’m still that little kid who’s transfixed by the inspiration that story-telling provides and the magical places it can take you. I love this business.
the music in that clip is awesome.