Santo Gold’s “Blood Circus”

I was recently explaining to Jim about a funny late-night UHF television commercial that I used to see all the time in the late 80’s which featured famous actress Nancy Kwan, explaining the benefits of a product called Pearl Cream and showing clips from her film The World of Suzie Wong. My friends and I used to love it, and quoted her heavily-accented line readings about “pewl cweem” all the time. We recently looked for the old commercial on the web and unfortunately couldn’t find it (if anybody can, please let me know!), although we found that the product is still in production, and Kwan is amazingly still their spokesperson. But... this entry has nothing to do with Nancy Kwan, because suddenly Jim shouted “Look for Santo Gold!” Having no idea what Santo Gold was, I punched it into Google and a zillion hits came back...

I grew up in the south, and apparently the way-infamous infomercial “Santo Gold” was perhaps only a north-eastern thing? anyway, Santo Gold (click link to watch infomercial) was the mid-80’s creation of a man named Santo Rigatuso, who was kind of a cross between John Waters and Crazy Eddie. The product? Fake gold chains. Sometimes sold as necklaces and sometimes sold in spools by the yard. Oh, and the commercial also taunted a movie called Blood Circus that Rigatuso had produced and directed. The inexplicable film was about aliens who came to earth and got involved with wrestlers and battled cannibals - and also featured Rigatuso himself as a “real rock star” in a long concert segment singing “The Santo Gold Theme Song” (which he penned) in front of a dubbed screaming audience. The infomercial, in all it’s 80’s low-budget video editing-deck glory, obviously touts the chains and film and Rigatuso himself as the most amazing, earth shattering products and events ever, who’s availability will no doubt result in planet domination of historic proportions. The goal? All the products tied together to help promote one another, of course. Rigatuso knew a lot about the concept of marketing “synergy” long before Oprah and Martha Stewart. The chains actually did sell a bit thanks to the infomercial, but the film (which cost Rigatuso $2 million to produce) didn’t find any distributors or audience. Rigatuso rented out several theaters in the Baltimore area to show it, and reportedly only three people came to it’s premier; two critics and an extra from the film. “The film won’t make sense. It will just make dollars,” Santo told a reporter.

After Rigatuso failed to become the next Orsen Wells, he participated in even more brazen business ventures; a credit card for people with bad credit for only $49.95 (which turned out to be a paper card that was only redeemable for Santo Gold merchandise), and a very real radio spot touting a very fake offer to sell off $2000 blocks of a millionaire’s estate at $52 a piece. The law eventually tracked Rigatuso down and he ended up spending ten months in jail for mail fraud (the court proceedings were reportedly memorable).

Today, Rigatuso is a bit of a recluse. But the legend lives on! Here is a YouTube clip of the commercial, here is the Wikipedia entry for Santo Gold, here is the IMDB.com entry (!) for Blood Circus, here is the USPS complaint file on Rigatuso. There are quite a few web pages devoted to the Santo Gold phenomenon here and here (include sound clips and video, and the latest reports on the lost whereabout of the film).

Sadly, all reports indicate that the film Blood Circus has been lost forever. Witnesses described it as “un-redeemably bad.” The only stored copies apparently got lost or trashed during the chaos of Rigatuso’s fleeing, capture, sentencing and prison time. But, us connoisseurs of such stuff can always hold out hope. Perhaps one day there will be a discovery, hidden somewhere deep in a massive warehouse on the other side of the earth, a hidden copy of Blood Circus sealed in a wooden crate (a la Raiders of the Lost Ark) that is locked tight, with heavily wrapped Santo Gold chains all around it (I’m sure they won’t be hard to break).

 

Comments

[Andy]

And, of course, this cannot be mentioned without somebody brining up the Lotion song, "Love Theme From Santo Gold." The lyrics don't seem to have much with the movie, though.

[Perry Mancini]

I think the actress you are looking for is not Suzie Wong.
Her real name is Nancy Kwan and her home page can be found here: http://www.nancy-kwan.com/
I was not able to locate the Pearl Cream commercial, but there is a 2-hour movie called “Cenopath” staring David Carradine that is circulating on the Internet. Nancy Kwan is the concubine. You can search video search engines like singingfish.com to find it.
Hope this helps
Thank You,
Perry Mancini
Executive Director- American Eskimo Rescue and Sanctuary of Iowa
Co-Director Iowa Heart Bandits
http://www.eskiedog.com

[david rhoden]

Thanks! This is weirder than I remember it!

[shawn]

The Wikipedia page says, "His attorney attempted to have the charges dismissed based on mental incompetence, and used Blood Circus as an example of Rigatuso's purported insanity." If the film was entered as a trial exhibit, could it be moldering in an evidence room somewhere, or have I been watching too much television?

[Mark Allen]

Perry - indeed you are right. It's Nancy Kwan - not Suzie Wong. I confused her name with that of her character in the film. I have changed the info - thanks! :)

[SANTO GOLD]

Greetings! SANTO GOLD is on the My Space! It is a profile made of 100% pure 24karat formulated SANTO GOLD process and featured in the mega-smashtacular film BLOOD CIRCUS! Grab your FREE SCREAM BAG and add SANTO GOLD today!

http://www.myspace.com/santogold

[Chris]

Santo Gold was not a northeastern thing. I grew up on a farm in East Texas and I clearly remember my brother and me watching the Santo Gold infomercial. We even incorporated 'Santo' into our vocabulary. A 'Santo' was one of those guys--you know the ones--who thought they were cooler than they really were--shirt unbuttoned several buttons, several fake gold chains dangling down mixing in with the chest hairs. We still to this day use 'Santo' to refer to these types, even broadening it to include anyone whose attempts at coolness far exceeded their actual coolness.

[Chris in MD]

I was actually at a filming of a "wrestling match" that was supposed to be used in Blood Circus. It was at the Baltimore Civic center, as I recall. I went with my friend and we took my Super-8 movie camera. A pair of rent-a-cops confiscated our roll of film; fortunately, we had another stashed away and shot that one, too, this time a being a little more discreet.

The audience was the usual unwashed kids and grannies at a low-rent wrestling event, and MAN were they pissed when it turned out to be a sham (it was advertised as a wrestling match/come-be-in-a-movie event). Long pauses while nothing happened, with people screaming for blood, with local announcer Charlie Eckman trying to move the non-existant show along. There were aliens (bad dummies, as I recall) lowered from the roof to suck the brains/blood of wrestlers; there were fake severed heads tossed about. My favorite part was a wrestling tag-team called the Cryin' Blondes. Hit them and they cried, which they indicated by spinning/rubbing their fists in their eyes, baby-style. All the while Mr. Santo himself ran around with a bullhorn, looking exactly like Phil Spector.

A great night. Still have the films somewhere, I guess. At the time, it fit right in to my Subgenious shenanigans.

[Kenny in Baltimore]

I have two of the movie posters in my office. I remember we went down to the Civic Center as well. As i recall they wanted extras and we thought we could get into the movie. We got tossed out after one of our party created some sort of fuss during one of the long periods of waiting. How did they get Charlie Eckman involved?

[lick]

Am I the only one who recalls Andy Kauffman? Maybe it was one of his most outlandish stunts to date that never got regognized... Maybe, hmmm?

[PukeFlavor]

"SANTO GOLD, JUST LIKE REAL GOLD, MADE FROM THE GOLD BULLION!"

[Stan the Man]

I never heard of Santo Gold until Dave Cross (legendary leader of Coffee) asked me to digitize his "Santo Gold" sessions. Featuring Chas Lockwood (Ferrets, Lotus STP & Invisible Party) & Steve Grills (Roadmasters). Inspired by Santo Gold; enjoy!

http://www.greendoch.com/santogold/

S

[HMPL]

Santo Gold TV auction that hypes Blood Circus:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiBdplG_0xs
It's an infomercial! It's a movie trailer! It's a TV sell-a-thon! You decide!!

[Jeff Mitchell]

I agree about the "northeastern thing". That it definately was not. I lived in Birmingham , Alabama around that time, I guess I was about 16 or 17. It religiously came on late Friday or Saturday nights. We would all get stoned as hell and watch it and laugh for hours.

BY the way, can anyone get a copy of the entire infomercial? I'd love to check it out again.

[Big John]

I HEAR SANTOGOLD IS PLAYING A SECRET SHOW IN LOS ANGELES ON APRIL 22ND AT BORDELLO BAR www.bordellobar.com/, MORE INFO AT SWINDLE MAGAZINE. I HEAR SHE WILL GO ON AT 11PM. ANYONE KNOW IF THIS IS TRUE?

[DiggityDawg]

I can also vouch that it wasn't only a Northeast thing. I lived in Southeast Kansas in the mid-80's, & Santo came on after Letterman. Now that's "Must-See TV".

[andy]

there's a nancy kwan pearl cream video on youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaD_fvehAaU

[Richard]

I grew up in South Texas (our television picked up Corpus Christi stations and, under the right weather conditions, San Antonio), and I remember the Santo Gold commercials very well. So bad they're classics.

[Chuck]

As per the Wikipedia entry on "Blood Circus", looks like the original negatives have been found and they're currently looking for producers...wounder if anything will come of this second go-round!

[ChuckL8]

Santogold infomercials also ran in both Los Angeles and San Francisco TV markets. They were so incredibly bad that they were fun to watch, and they were the only infomercials that we all watched from start to finish, even at parties. If someone had a TV on, and a Santogold infomercial came on, everyone stopped to watch it, and we could all recite just about every line, verbatim.

One of the best bits was when they proudly showed their "factory", which looked like something out of a bad industrial section of Albania, or the final scenes in "Full Metal Jacket".

The theme song was great, too; ... "Not just gold, ... SANTO gold!" Anyway, thanks for bringing back memories of those truly cheesey ads.