Film 1 - The Batwoman: (1967) Direction: René Cardona, Sr. 4:3 fullscreen ratio stated on sleeve (but unknown ratio ?) english dub

Fun and trashy superheroine action with the beautiful Italian-Méxican actress Maura Monti as The Batwoman fighting the evil
supervillain Doctor Eric Williams played by Roberto Canedo. For a long time this cult movie could be seen on Youtube in a
blurry old print, but now this is digitally restored by VCI (says the DVD sleeve).
Batwoman wears a cool bikini dress and displays a very intriguing clevage in this crime mystery action where Acapulco wrestlers
is found murdered and where a cop, a special agent and Batwoman is about to solve the case.

When two boys finds a dead wrestler on the beach the Acapulco police have had their 5th mysterious murder of Acapulco
lucha libre wrestlers, and as there have been similar cases in other parts of the world a Special Agent, Mario Robles, is
assigned by the Federal Secret Service to help the Acapulco police. But also the mysterious Batwoman is called to help the
police in solving the murder cases. Batwoman, always wearing a mask and also being a lucha libre wrestler (even though
Maura Monti's muscular stunt double weighs a lot more than the photomodel thin Monti) starts her sleuthing in the
wrestling arena. Batwoman unmasked is Gloria, a rich México City resident that masters all sorts of skills in fighting crime.

The Super villain is Dr. Eric Williams (Roberto Canedo) a neuro-surgeon who assisted by Igor needs athletic men, as
wrestlers, to create a Fishman. The doctor extracts some pineal gland from his victims brains and then tries to mix this
stuff with a .... a Goldfish to finally turn into a Fishman. Why ? To prove that he can i guess.

The Mad Doctor and his henchmen operates from the yacht Reptilicus and to get there The Batwoman has to do a lot
of diving, and there are a lot of pretty nice underwater footage with Batwoman being hunted by the Fishman. It looks
like Maura Monti actually did her own diving in these scenes and not done by a stunt double (i'm not sure but the
cleavage looks like Monti's) and that'spretty impressive if so. The Fishman monster looked pretty cool too, a bit like
The Creature from the Black Lagoon.

Great fun and trashy silliness with gorgeous Monti as Batwoman and Canedo having fun as the mad doctor. Roberto
Canedo also played a doctor, Dr. Ruiz, in the 1962 "Las Luchadoras vs. El Mèdico Asesino" AKA "Doctor of Doom"
that was the first of the Luchadoras movies (with Elizabeth Campbell and Lorena Velazquez in it).

 

 

Film 2 - The Panther Women (Las Mujeres Panteras): (1968) Direction: René Cardona, Sr., black&white

This film, the 4th in the Luchadoras Film Series was the 1st were Lorena Velazquez didn't play the role of Loreta
Venus and also the last were the Gorgeous Gringa Goddess Elizabeth Campbell played her role of Golden Rubi.
A very uncharismatic Ariadne Welter plays Loreta poorly but EC rocks as Rubi as usual. Elizabeth Campbell, the
definition of an Cult actress, gorgeous and Lost. No one seems to know what happened to her after her mexican
film career during the 1960's. Where is she now and is she even alive?

The police duo, the Captain Arturo and his comic relief assistant is no longer played by Armando Silvestre and
Chucho Salinas but by Eric Del Castillo (the killer in Las Lobas Del Ring) and Loco Valdes.
But, the Strange Thing in this film that's the role of El Angél - The Angel !? A masked wrestler crime fighter with
a smart sports car and his own lab - but he's NOT El Santo. Some sort of Copy he is though.

Above: The earlier VCI DVD edition of Panther Women with spanish audio only

The story ain't bad and very enjoyable with a whiff of Cat People and with interesting Bad Guys .... eeh, Women.
We are shown Gothic Catwomen, a Mummy, a Magic Sword, an El Santy copy, Golden Rubi and Lucha Libre.

A Sect of Panther women killers wants to revenge the death of their leader, a brujo - wizard, many hundreds of
years earlier. The descendants of the responsible, that is professor Rafael Pietras Santa (Jorge Mondragón) and
his son Ramon (Genaro Moreno) are now the sects targets, and they get killed both of them.
Then there's only 1 living member of the Pietra Santas, Ramons young daughter. Can the police, Angel and Las
Luchadoras save the kid from the Catwomen's fury?

The coolest one in this film must be Ramon's weird fianceé Tongo (Yolanda "Tongolele" Montes) who makes an
impressive exotic dance number, is one of the evil Panther Women, and also is one of the deadly Shadow Lucha-
doras teaming up against Loreta Venus and Golden Rubi in the arena (The Shadows / Las Sombras).

In this Elizabeth Campbell's last film as The Golden Rubi she actually seem to do a lot of the wrestling scenes by
herself, maybe she learned some wrestling manouvres or two during the 5 years since her first Lucha movie.
Fullscreen 4:3 original ratio, english dub version 2.0, black & white.
Soundtrack in both these movies were made by Antonio Diaz Conde