UCLA's Mexploitation film series to close with 1967 Santo the Silver Mask vs. The Martian Invaders

“Aztec Mummies & Martian Invaders: Mexican Sci-Fi Classics,” the UCLA Film & Television Archive’s tribute to the “Mexploitation” craze that infected the Mexican film industry in the 1950s and 1960s, will wrap-up with the film Santo el Enmascarado de Plata contra la Invasión de los Marcianos (1967), on Saturday, August 29, 2009. Starring Wolf Ruvinskis, Beni Galan, and Eva Norvind, here’s a synopsis of the film, provided by UCLA:

Extraterrestrials invade Earth seeking human specimens. Announcing themselves in apocalyptic television broadcasts, then tele-transporting themselves to private homes and public sporting events, the platinum-bewigged, mylar-clad, macho Martians, backed by scantly dressed female beauties as counterparts, kidnap select humans, obliterating others with vaporizing rays. But heroic masked wrestler "Santo" neutralizes the invaders with his incredible wrestling prowess, after respectfully consulting a famous scientist and the local priest -- thus mediating between Mexico's high-tech future and its traditional past to restore peace and order to the nation.

If you speak Spanish, you'll understand this four-minute trailer of Santo the Silver Mask vs. The Martian Invaders posted on YouTube.

Pictured: Movie poster