El Águila descalza

A comic-book variant of The Great Dictator. Arau plays a gangster and a factory pogo-stick tester, whose identities are confused at the end.

The secret power behind La Malinche Corporation is Mascalzzone of Chicago, who descends the steps from his plane, knocks down a passenger in front of him and walks over the man. At a pay phone, he barks instructions and drops his violin case, which opens to show that it contains a violin. His plan is to run the corporation himself.

Poncho reverses his cap, which has two eyeholes in the back, puts on a cape and becomes The Barefoot Eagle. He creeps into his boss’s home, leaves a flower with the beautiful sleeping daughter, and removes a pair of roller-skates from the son’s room. A note reads, “You shouldn’t rob skates from the poor.”

Mascalzzone’s masked wrestling team open fire on the house. And there you have the very efficient setup of this comedy, mainly filmed with a handheld camera, full of comic-strip gags, slapstick and what-have-you.

Some of the pogo sticks are full of drugs for export. The daughter is menaced, the boss gives in. Poncho and his girl chum are locked in a mental asylum for their incredible story.

News of Mascalzzone’s wedding to the daughter (“No Reception”) drives Poncho wild, the inmates force their way out.

“Hong Kong Rose” is sung by chorus girls at a party where the boss is drugged and a Chinese magician turns a balloon into a rabbit.

Poncho and the patients break up the wedding, drugs fly, they turn into flower children. Mascalzzone and The Barefoot Eagle duke it out over a giant wedding cake (cf. The Great Race). A mix-up sends Poncho and his girl running from police into the night.