Andrés Olé!

In the past several years, I had the good fortune to discover Dominican-born sex symbol Andrés García, first through the eye-popping Tintorera (1977), followed by Day of the Assassin (1979.) Having been raised in Mexico, he gained fame in telenovelas and in the often-exploitive movies of Rene Cardona Sr. More recently, I've found myself sitting through movies like Bermuda Triangle (1978) and Cyclone (1979), both quite horrible, yet featuring his alluring face throughout. 

García as he appears in the rather ghastly Bermuda Triangle.

When I stumbled upon this lobby card, from carlos el terrorista (aka - "Carlos the Terrorist," 1980), there was no question that I was going to watch this movie...

carlos el terrista is an unusual film in that there is no dialogue, just some ambient noises like announcements or crowd conversations. There is also voice-over narration. Yet, BEWARE of the English-dubbed rendition. The announcer-like voice is ridiculous (and the film quality is wretched.) I read comments on imdb.com bemoaning the cheap film stock and low budget. However, the original movie is beautifully photographed in colorful widescreen and it contains some captivating imagery, which I will share in this post of highlights... The poster gives no indication of what beauty is in store!

The gloriously handsome García plays the title character, a rather callous killer who uses various methods to do away with various political figures on an international basis. Here, he uses a remote control bomb to eliminate an official. 

Here, he and some cohorts are in disguise in order to knock out a selection of human targets. Take note of his stunning face as it peeks out of the beige headwear. 

Next we find him attempting to make his way through customs, wearing a macho mustache as a disguise. He's getting out of the mercenary business and is ready to live a normal life. 

Depending on one's affinity for this, the stache either raises or lowers one's temperature, but regardless, he remains a beautiful specimen of man. 

The woman behind him turns out to be his wife, who not only made my day with her false eyelashes, but also with her coordinated outfit, earrings and eyeshadow! He, his wife and their young daughter check into a high-rise hotel room. 

Unfortunately, he sees from the balcony that they are being watched.

Even the young actors playing pursuers (and sometimes victims) of him are sporting snug, revealing pants. 

Knowing they already have to flee the place, he has his wife stop unpacking and he sticks his passport where it will remain safe. (Not if I could have helped it...!) 

A couple of henchmen are about to come for him and you can see that jeans in 1980 had little more to offer than the ones you typically see now. 

García, who as you can see looks good from most any angle, gets his wife and daughter into a cab...

Then bolts atop some roofs in order to evade capture. He did have a stunt double for some of the most incredible bits, but nonetheless did a lot of his own as well. 

He is pursued by one assailant where he, thank Jesus, takes off his shirt in order to fight it out. It was this sequence which had been memorialized in the aforementioned lobby photo. But it was great to see him in action. 

These people mean business, but he's not so easily outdone. 

One cannot underestimate how physical this role was. He's constantly running, jumping, careening, sometimes in live traffic. The movie features interesting locations throughout, such as this real street with its plethora of stores. 

Another is this cemetery with its ornate headstones, though I'm mostly drawn to looking at his head. 

Clean-shaven and back home to his apartment, he's just gorgeous to behold. One thing about García that I adore is the way he manipulates his hands. They are beautiful. 

Sadly, for him, his wife and daughter are nowhere to be found. They've been kidnapped! And if he wants to see them again, he has to follow the instructions left for him. And those instructions are to kill someone. 

I had a caption for this, but then saw his forearm and forgot my name and also which blog this is.... Ha ha ha!!! My GOD. In the glove compartment is a new passport along with further info on what he's expected to do. 

Checking into a luxury hotel, he heads to the lobby to find a magazine on the man he's targeting. (No, he's not gunning for Pia Zadora, whose face on the cover of Las Vegas Star made me grin!)

He studies his subject, making clippings from the magazine.

Then he mulls over the best way to deal with the situation at hand. (I could just sit and mull over that face, myself...)

A sudden noise at the door and he's in danger again! Off he goes. 

Having escaped this most recent emergency, he lands on a bus, spots a child and begins to recall his life with his wife and the baby she gave him. 

There's a meme going around that says something like, "Find a friend who looks at you the way Lucy is looking at Vivian here." Well, I want a man who will look at me like this. 

And more.

Now at the airport, observing the arrival of his next target, he has another flashback. It seems he and this man had once been associates during an adventure and the guy was kind to him following an injury. 

Old chums.

Nevertheless, he's got a job to do in order to save his family. So when the dude arrives with an entourage, he begins to move forward. 

It's a two-part thing. The guy is in town to blow up part of this convention. García has to put a stop to that as well as get rid of him altogether. 

He tracks the man to a beach and follows him down to the shoreline. 

The baddie, all dressed in black, has just taken off in a rowboat. García begins removing his shirt and then, in what is the unqualified highlight of this motion picture...

He slips out of his pants and boards this tour boat to follow the guy!

This movie, despite more than a few online belly-achers, is actually very beautiful. This show shows the saboteur exiting his boat and heading to a pavilion where he has plans to plant a couple of bombs. 

He slinks around, placing two foil-covered explosives within the furnishings of the pavilion.

Meanwhile, the nearly naked love of our lives is on his trail. 

He's nearly discovered by a security guard, but ducks into a doorway. I was waiting for him to just strike a pose and behave like a glorious statue!

The bomber now gone, García sets out to locate the explosives. 

Good thing it's quiet there (except for my heavy breathing) because he listens for the ticking timers in order to hunt the bombs down!

He believes he's found the first one.

Sure enough, he reaches into this decorative display and there it is. 

Diffusing it is a stressful experience. 

Success!

Now he's gotta find the other one. 

He walks quietly around the silent plaza until he thinks it's underneath a table. Then, the same way Miss Joan Crawford used to walk into her key light for most of her movies, he strides crotch first into the waiting illumination.

His next step involves ridding the world of the man who planted the explosives. He heads to his hotel room while he and his lady are at the pool. 

Then he (and his pec) creeps in.

As happened multiple times in this movie, we gasped at the site of him, even with clothes (almost) on. 

But what a joy when he had to undo the top of his leisure suit in order to reach for his pistol. 

He heads to the telephone and begins to rig it with a bomb. 

Down by the pool, the target is emerging from the water with his gal while pals/bodyguard sit on nearby loungers. The couple heads up to their suite... 

...and the antlike García (second middle balcony from the top) is making a clean getaway. 

But he's spotted by one of the eagle-eyed henchmen!

They take off running through a crowd of extras.

But it's too late...!

García is handed one more passport, another reminder of what is at stake...

...and one more job to do. 

Another day, another location.

A shave and then placements of some of the world's luckiest handguns.

In a nearby park, he is intrigued by a man's use of a remote control model airplane. 

Later in his hotel room, he watches on TV as his subject arrives to the city.

And he'll be ready...!

This latest assassination occurs, but things go awry. He's shot in the leg and has to escape via the back of a van driven by an unknowing civilian. Later he creeps into their home in order to fix himself up. Like the old song goes, "Open a new window, open a new door."

Just getting upstairs to the bathroom is something of an ordeal. 

I could barely watch this sequence. As much as director Cardona loved to focus on the physical appeal of García and others, he also liked to include some gore. (I guess that's what exploitation usually boils down to!) He gets the bullet out, but it does leave a mess. 

He pulls himself together enough to make it to the airport, but is approached by a guard and takes off hobbling. 

Eventually, he drops down under this desk to evade capture. I've been coming to my desk every weekday for 29 years this month and I've NEVER spotted anything like this underneath...!

His multiple missions completed, he finally meets up with the scheming folks who kidnapped his family, and he can see them on the beach. Has he paid his dues enough to be happy at last? 

I know we all have our own tastes, likes, dislikes, but, man, this guy has recently soared into the top of my favorites. He was just dreamy. A famed ladies man in real life (he lost count after 800 conquests!), he passed away in 2023 of cirrhosis at age 81, still having kept his shape. But as the saying went, "What a way to go!"