A Mad Doctor has been trying to transplant women’s brains from one human to another but, so far, with no success. This is his fourth attempt and his fourth failure. His assistant suggests that they try transplanting the brain of a superior woman with a higher IQ. He vows to continue his experiments until he is successful. The police, detective Mike Henderson (Armando Silvestre) and Tommy Johnson (Chucho Salinas), have no clue as to who the Mad Doctor is.
In the doctor’s basement is his latest success. He transplanted the brain of a gorilla into a man. His creation, Gomar (Gerado Zepeda), is slowly converting into a gorilla. The doctor can only control the half man, half animal by hypnotism. Eventually he will lose control totally. Mad Doctor uses Gomar and some henchmen to kidnap young women for his experiments.
Mad Doctor kidnaps Alice (Sonia Infante), a professional woman who works for Professor Ruiz (Roberto Canedo). She too dies during the brain transplant operation. Alice happens to be the sister of luchadora Gloria Venus (Lorena Velazquez). Mad Doctor comes to the conclusion that he needs women who are strong and physically fit to stand the rigors of the operation. He decides Gloria and her new luchadora friend and roommate Golden Rubi (Elizabeth Campbell) would be perfect for his next experiment.
“Rock and Roll Wrestling Women Vs the Aztec Ape” AKA “Las luchadoras contra el médico asesino” AKA “The Wrestling Women Vs the Killer Doctor” AKA “Dr. Doom” was released in 1963 and was directed by Rene Cardona. It is a Mexican science fiction horror film and a luchadora movie.
This is one of K Gordon Murray’s gems. Murray purchased a bunch of Mexican horror films and dubbed them into English. He then packaged them for American television. Part of the packaging was to change some of the character’s names to make them sound more Americanized. This time in addition to bad dubbing and American names Murray changed the title of the movie and added “Rock and Roll” music to the wrestling scenes, the fight scenes and just about any action scene in the movie. That little addition throws the movie into high overdrive camp and ridiculousness. This is also the movie that Director Rene Cardona remade in color years later as the gory “La Horriplante Bestia Humana” or “Night of the Bloody Apes” 1969.
Although there are some women wrestlers in the film, the star, Lorena Velazquez, is not one of them. A female stunt double is used for her wrestling scenes. Actually I’m not totally sure it’s a female double. It certainly doesn’t look much like the well apportioned Velazquez. The same goes for Elizabeth Campbell, who plays Golden Rubi. All her wrestling scenes are done with a rather masculine looking stunt double as well. My favorite part of the movie is the nifty “Dick Tracy” watches the girls wear to find their kidnapped boyfriends, which happen to be the cops.
Rene Cardona made six films featuring female luchadoras. This was the first film and it was released under the title “Doctor of Doom”. The other films were 2. “Wrestling Women vs. the Aztec Mummy” 1964, 3. “She-Wolves of the Ring” 1965, 4. “The Panther Women” 1967, 5. “Las luchadoras vs el robot asesino” 1969, 6. “Night of the Bloody Apes” 1969. Unfortunately the copy of the film I have is from an old VHS tape so it’s not perfect. There is also a small part of the beginning of the tape that’s a little messed up but once you get past that the actual movie itself is clear.