Danger: Diabolik (1968)

"Maestro of the Macabre" Mario Bava's psychedelic '60s comic strip is akin to an episode of TV's BATMAN on acid. If Adam West's caped crusader were a Robin Hood-like super-villain, he'd be John Philip Law's DIABOLIK, lolling about his futuristic cave plotting heists capable of toppling governments and confounding Scotland Yard at every turn. He's super cool and, like his literary inspiration, Fantômas, he kills, too, whether he has to or not. The imaginative sets and the director's penchant for colored lighting make this tongue-in-cheek fantasy as flashy as any Bond film and almost as much fun. Gorgeous Marisa Mell, scantily clad through-out, plays Eva, Diabolik's "boy wonder", who's anything but. Entertaining eye candy all the way around.

Not that this movie was about a spy but actually about a thief, the format is very much like the James Bond movies that had gained popularity in the '60s when this movie was made. Diabolique (John Phillip Law) is a high profile thief who mock at the government's ineptness to catch him. He has a partner Eva (Marisa Mell) who helps him with his capers. He has a lavish lifestyle, but also few enemies which is trying to kill him. All of them are closing in on him, but it's Diabolique's ingenuity that will get him his way.The movie is very well crafted. The cinematography of Mario Bava will match any James Bond movies, but the location isn't as outrageous as the Bond movies, and has a more domestic European feel to it. The lavish style, and the mood is almost identical between this movie and the 007 series, but focus is bit weaker in this movie because the Diabolique character doesn't have as much purpose to what he does compared to 007. Similarity might not be coincidental if you consider that Albert Broccoli the producer of the James Bond series, Mario Bava, and Deno Delonetiis are all Italians. The beautiful brilliance that're common to Italian movies are abundantly obvious in this one as well. I liked this movie out of all of Mario Bava's movies because it's not as macabre as his other horror movies. Everything is quite beautiful in this movie which makes it worth watching including the two stars John Phillip Law, and Marisa Mell. If you've never seen Marisa Mell, it's worth watching the movie just to see her.

I knew director Bava mainly from his horror movies before I watched this colorful comic adaption. Surely it gives you a rough first idea if I describe "Danger: Diabolik" as a mixture of an early Bond with Batman plus the 60s psychedelia and sexiness of "Barbarella", but it is even more. First, it is quite anarchic, for example when Diabolik blows up the ministry of finance so nobody needs to pay his taxes anymore, after all the documents were destroyed. Second, in opposite to most of its contemporaries, it doesn't show the cartoon characters as simplified shallow people - Diabolik (John Philip Law) is a strong character, he has a so much love for his girlfriend (Marisa Mell) that he is willing to pay any price to rescue her. Third, the movie totally lacks a convenient, nice, healthy moral. Diabolik commits crimes just for fun, gets away with it and intends to keep all the money for no reason except to take a bath in it! Fourth, the former photographer Bava creates a visual style (and manages to keep its pace throughout the movie) that is surprising you with highly original shots again and again - it's just like turning a page in a comic book and - whoa! - see something new. Stylistically, "Danger: Diabolik" was ahead of its time for sure. Adolfo Celi plays a similar villain as in "Thunderball" (although I am sure he was capable of much more as an actor, but he can't show that in this movie), the poorly dubbed Michel Piccoli has a lot of plans to capture Diabolik just to fail again and again, Terry-Thomas grimaces as a panicking minister. That makes a good international cast, but it's a must-see in the first place for the camera work and speedy fun and action. By the way, if you get this on DVD, don't watch the included trailer first, because it has a real spoiler in it.

If there's a failing of most filmmakers when it comes to bringing a comic book to the big screen, it's a fundamental misunderstanding of the term "comic book." It goes all the way back to the origin of the comic book in this country, when "comics" were primarily humorous. These "funny strips," which appeared originally in newspapers, were eventually cobbled up into collections and sold as "comic books." Hence, the label. Like an albatross, that label was draped around the neck of one of the darkest characters to ever grace the pages of a comic book- BATMAN- when television producer William Dozier brought The Dark Knight to the small screen in the 1960s. Campy and as in-the-closet funny as the law would allow, it became a huge success. When Mario Bava decided to bring the fumetti DIABOLIK to the screen, he took his cue from the BATMAN TV series. The sometimes psychedelic 60s silliness (characters passing around "whacky tobaccy") was a perfect blend for the telestupidness of the series. One can't help but groan, remembering Batman's anti-shark repellent, when Diabolik, prior to unleashing laughing gas on an unsuspecting audience, takes his anti-laughing gas pills. Terry Thomas's prissy performance, the whirling images come-a-whirling straight out of the TV series, and John Law's exaggerated posturing all help make DANGER: DIABOLIK forgettable. Nor does the plodding snail's pace help.