Clavillazo was most amusing in some of his early films like El Fantasma de la Casa Roja (1954) in which he played a bumbling 'tec named Diogenes Holmes. But success seems to have gone to his head. In El Castillo de los Monstruos (1958), he is unbearable.
When filming with other players, he insisted that he always be photographed full face. While obeying this egotistical edict to the letter, veteran writer/director Julian Soler has even made a joke of it. In one early scene, the actor conversing with the swell-headed Clavillazo has to twist himself around at such a ridiculously awkward angle to face the "comedian", he falls off his stool!
Unfortunately, Soler and his co-writers have failed to give their star any witty or risible lines. He talks and talks and talks, but failed to amuse me one iota until he finally confronts the castle monsters in the last reel. And it's not until this finale, that we finally get a good look at his co-star, the lovely Mexican singer, Evangelina Elizondo, who at last has a scene (with the villain) in which Clavillazo does not appear. Of course, she doesn't sing in this movie, more's the pity. In fact, aside from the credits sequence and the last reel, it's a Poverty Row piece through and through.
When filming with other players, he insisted that he always be photographed full face. While obeying this egotistical edict to the letter, veteran writer/director Julian Soler has even made a joke of it. In one early scene, the actor conversing with the swell-headed Clavillazo has to twist himself around at such a ridiculously awkward angle to face the "comedian", he falls off his stool!
Unfortunately, Soler and his co-writers have failed to give their star any witty or risible lines. He talks and talks and talks, but failed to amuse me one iota until he finally confronts the castle monsters in the last reel. And it's not until this finale, that we finally get a good look at his co-star, the lovely Mexican singer, Evangelina Elizondo, who at last has a scene (with the villain) in which Clavillazo does not appear. Of course, she doesn't sing in this movie, more's the pity. In fact, aside from the credits sequence and the last reel, it's a Poverty Row piece through and through.