DVD Review: Flashman (1967)

DVD Review: Flashman (1967)

The hero is trapped in a helicopter, high over London. He grapples with the controls, but to no avail! They’re useless. The bad guy, back on the ground, is flying it by remote control. He plays with the hero, making the chopper swerve and dip a bit, coming a little too close for comfort to some tall buildings and a bridge. But that’s just for fun. His real aim is to destroy his enemy, and if he has to waste a perfectly good helicopter in doing so, so be it. You know this scene, right? It’s the opening of For Your Eyes Only (1981). But that’s not what I’m talking about! It’s also an early standout action sequence in Flashman, a 1967 Costumed Adventurer movie from Mino Loy and Ernesto Gastaldi, the team responsible for the Eurospy gems Fury In Marrakesh and Secret Agent Fireball! It’s another great example of how the Eurospy genre (or in this case its more colorful offshoot), which owed its very existence to the James Bond films, in turn fueled the Bond canon. Sure, it’s possible that Michael G. Wilson and Richard Maibaum came up with the sequence on their own, independently of Flashman, for Roger Moore’s fifth 007 outing, but it seems more likely that one of them at least subconsciously remembered this sequence from the earlier, more obscure movie.

It’s a healthy cycle, and we still see it today: the unstoppable Bond franchise inspires countless imitators, and some of them turn out pretty good and inject something new into the genre. That, in turn, gets injected right back into the Bond films, and the creative cycle sustains the series. Right now it’s happening with the Bourne films. Some people complain that Daniel Craig’s Bond movies owe too much to the Matt Damon series, but they’re forgetting that there would be no Damon series without Bond. In the case of James Bond and his followers, it’s not a question of which came first. But the give and take between the two is a healthy one, allowing the imitators to exist and the Bond series to flourish. It’s also a big part of what I love about Eurospy movies. For all they take from James Bond, they give something back as well. It’s a two-way creative street.

So who is Flashman? Well, for starters, he’s not Octopussy co-writer George Macdonald Fraser’s like-named cad antihero, lifted from Tom Brown’s Schooldays and planted into a series of popular historical adventure novels (and even a film called Royal Flash). Nope, no relation. He’s yet another wealthy English gentleman (with the rather un-English name Count Alexei Burman, played by the Hugh Laurie-looking Paolo Gozlini) who dresses up in a gaudy costume to fight crime. (Why do the Italians always base their superheroes in London instead of Rome or–if they’re dead set on going abroad–New York, the superhero capital of the world? It’s kind of odd, as they British themselves have never really had much of a homegrown superhero industry.) Flashman doesn’t appear to have any special powers, per se (although he can jump pretty high), but the costumed pastime seems to ward off the ennui of a life of privilege. He lives with his sister in a large country house, and they each deal with the utter boredom of wealth differently. She dives headlong into the mad world of the mods, wrapping herself up in the latest in Carnaby street fashion and far-out make-up and face-painting (like drawing eyes on her cheeks... she’s that mod!) while he puts on a cape and chain mail and looks for trouble.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. We don’t know who Flashman is when the movie opens. And we don’t begin with him. Instead, we begin with the villain killing one of those overly enthusiastic middle-aged scientists who always get killed (or kidnapped) for their inventions at the beginning of Eurospy movies. And if a Euro-baddie is killing a scientist, well then he must have an invention, right? Spot on! This one’s developed the world’s first successful invisibility formula! He’s only tested it on mice, but that’s good enough for this villain (played by Ivano Staccioli), who grabs it and blows up the lab. Then he heads back to his gang’s headquarters and prepares to make himself a human guinea pig. (He doesn’t trust this power in the hands of any of his minions.) Before chugging the serum, though, he begins casually undressing in front of his subordinates. If I were a small time hood and my boss started doing that, I think it would freak me out a little bit. But they’re nonplussed. I suppose the movie should be commended for even considering the clothing factor; it seems like oftentimes in movies people just turn invisible with whatever they’re wearing. And that does indeed apply to women in Flashman (later on one drinks the formula and it turns her and her gold corset see-through), but not men. Still, maybe it’s generations’ worth of Puritan American prudeness that’s been bred into me, but I think I would turn invisible first, then strip off my clothes rather than going the full monty in front of my gang. Not this guy, though! He strips off, then turns invisible.

Now, at this moment we should all pause and ask ourselves what’s worse: an invisible man running around London with no one to answer to–or a naked one? The combination is particularly alarming. If I owned a bank, I think I’d be almost as worried about unseen naked buttocks on my upholstery as someone slipping into my vault undetected. I know, I know; I’m fixating... but by stripping before turning invisible, Staccioli forces us to do that!

Once invisible, he runs naked to the nearest bank (as you do) and... holds it up. That’s right, he doesn’t use his powers of invisibility to slip in and out without a trace, but instead uses them to wield a visible gun and force the nebbish accountant who’s working late to fill up a few bags of cash for him. This sort of strategy creates the opportunity for lots and lots of guns and cigarettes and whatnot to be floating around on strings that aren’t quite as invisible as the people who are supposed to be holding the items, so that creates some inadvertent moments of hilarity. But Flashman is the sort of movie whose sheer unbridled enthusiasm easily sweeps you past any shoddy effects work.

Once the invisible man has snuck away, the bank guards find that nebbish accountant holding the gun and unable to account for the whereabouts of the money he was handling. He blathers on about an invisible robber, and naturally they suspect him. This is where the movie gets really cool: the accountant jumps out the window and goes on the run! All along, Flashman has been undercover as an accountant at this particular bank, investigating an altogether different (and coincidental) crime: a gang of beautiful women working at banks all over London have been secretly swapping out the real money for counterfeit bills. The hero is a master of disguise.


When next we see him, of course, he’s in his costume, adventuring. He follows the invisible man (how, exactly, is not made clear) back to his hideout and starts punching up the hired help. That’s when the villain tricks him into thinking he’s getting away in a helicopter, only for Flashman to climb aboard and discover it’s on autopilot. Cue the For Your Eyes Only Sequence.

It’s a surprising and effective way of introducing the hero, and pays off much better than Fenomenal, which kept us guessing practically the whole movie. In Flashman, we only have to go about fifteen minutes or so wondering who the hero is–and when it’s revealed, it’s unexpected and neat. After a dip in the Thames (escaping remote-controlled helicopters can be a wet experience), Flashman comes back to his home where a butler helps him change into his bathrobe while he’s still wearing his mask! It’s an amusing sight.

Meanwhile, as Flashman relaxes with his butler and sister, the usual idiotic police inspector, Baxter, is busy ignoring these reports of invisible people and trying to pin the crime on Flashman. He’s part Inspector Lestrade (the Dennis Hoey version) and part Chief Inspector Dreyfus. In fact, Flashman irritates him so much that he starts to develop Dreyfus’s famous facial tic! Of course, some of his annoyance is justified, as when Flashman kidnaps him and hauls him off to Beirut. You see, the invisible gangster has now hooked up with Alika (Claudie Lange), the gorgeous leader of the all-girl counterfeiting ring–and the two of them have set their sights on a wealthy maharajah in Lebanon.

The bad guys use their invisibility in a rather ingenious way to get their hands on the maharajah’s money, and his daughter, a princess, becomes imperiled. Cue Flashman to save the day. Problem is, she doesn’t know who this masked stranger who wears his underwear on the outside is–and she's a little freaked out. "He’s Flashman!" one of her guards tells her, excitedly. "Haven’t you heard of him?" The princess looks at him as blankly as you or I would and admits, "no."

I guess Flashman’s determined to make more of a name for himself, because he doesn’t give up on saving this princess. And she keeps getting into trouble. The villains revive a deathtrap so old that doesn’t turn up often in Eurospy fare, and tie her to the train tracks. "Hurry up!" demands Alika. "There’s an express train at seven and we have to leave her on the tracks." I think that’s the first time I’ve ever seen a villain so concerned about time tables as she tethers her victim, and I found that refreshing. Flashman determines (somehow) that the fastest way to get to her and save her is to run along the top of the train. I don’t follow his logic, but the plan gives him the opportunity to flounce along the top of the train cars just like Argoman. I guess these Euro-heroes really love running on top of trains!

The invisibility formula changes hands many times in the second half of the film, and even Flashman gets a go at it. He carefully strips out of his costume first, and neatly folds it before kicking some surprised bad guy ass. (He’s every bit as fastidious as you would expect of a confirmed bachelor who lives with his sister.) He also uses his invisibility to taunt Baxter in the Beirut police station. ("Someone’s twisting my nose!" the alarmed copper exclaims.) Later, to prove to the dubious Baxter that the invisibility formula exists, he puts the costume back on while still invisible, leading to the curious sight of an empty mask (no chin!) commanding the police what to do. (Examine the second picture and you'll catch onto how they did it...) Baxter is forced to admit defeat to his Lebanese counterpart: "What would my men think of me if I ordered them to arrest an invisible man in a superman costume?" He’s got a point!

That doesn’t stop him from still trying to arrest Flashman (which is rather unfair, since unlike Argoman, Flashman is only out to uphold the law), and the two inspectors show up on the beach in time to witness Flashman involved in a From Russia With Love-style boat chase. Only when the person he’s pursuing sets fire to the oil on the water, Flashman uses a handy parachute that he keeps under his cape to create a parasail, and soars over the flames. (He then lands in the water and has to swim to shore in a soggy cape, which must be slightly embarrassing.)

After all that, there’s still an okay beach chase to come and, of course, the finale where the hero gets the girl. Not Flashman, however. In fact, I’m not too sure that he likes girls. My suspicions seemed to be confirmed when the beautiful princess says she’s always wanted to go to London, and Flashman’s helpful sister says he’d be happy to take her... but the truth is he clearly wouldn’t. "My kid sister always goes too far," he grins. What's the joke? Oh, I get it...

Flashman isn’t quite as much fun as its cousin Fantastic Argoman, or as the Eurospy pictures this team was responsible for, but it’s still a blast. Despite a few questionable invisibility effects, the action is generally quite well done and there are some impressive setpieces. (Including, of course, the one that inspired James Bond.) It’s got great locations, beautiful girls and a catchy (if kind of hilariously annoying) theme song–all necessary ingredients for a successful Eurospy romp. And it’s filled with amusing dialogue from everyone from the two perpetually bickering police inspectors to the henchman with a penchant for stating the obvious ("He must have used the serum! That’s why we can’t see him!") to the wistful guard who, on observing the princess dangling precariously from a helicopter comments mournfully, "Everybody’s got helicopters. Even her." It’s hard to dislike Flashman.

Adding to the movie’s appeal, Fin de Siecle Media (the company responsible for Fury in Marrakesh and Secret Agent Fireball) has recently put out a great Region 2 DVD of it, complete with the terrific widescreen transfer we’ve come to expect of them and a gallery of posters. The disc is available from DiabolikDVD in the U.S. or, slightly cheaper, directly from Fin de Siecle.

New Spy DVDs Out This Week: Baron, Smart and Statham

The Baron

Today sees the first ever American release of the classic ITC adventure series The Baron! The Baron stars American Steve Forrest (who would go on to star in S.W.A.T. in the Seventies) as John Creasey’s titular antiques dealer-cum-spy (here reimagined as a cattle baron instead of a member of the peerage to accommodate Forrest’s accent) in this entertaining Saint imitator from one of the producers of the Roger Moore hit. Predating the color Saint series, this was the first ITC show to be filmed in color. (As with the casting of Forrest, this was done with an eye to the American market.) The series was pretty uneven in terms of quality, gets steadily better as it progresses. Overall, the good episodes make it well worth seeing–and owning–for fans of The Saint. It even spawned a feature film in Europe, made by editing together two of the series' best episodes. The Ipcress File’s Sue Lloyd co-stars in The Baron, (joining the series several episodes in) and provides entertaining commentary tracks on select episodes. In fact, all of the commentaries (from Lloyd, Cyril Frankel, Johnny Goodman and others) from the Australian Umbrella release are included on Koch Media's new Region 1 DVD! Along with audio introductions to select episodes from Brian Clemens, Peter Wyngarde and others. The series trailer is also included as an extra. It's really quite a nice set–very well done. Koch Media has done the best job of any American company to date to tackle an ITC series, and I really hope that The Baron sells well enough for them to encourage them to release some of the other series that Umbrella has put out in Australia, like Department S or The Champions. From the extras to the presentation to the nifty package artwork to the shiny yellow gatefold interior, this is a very classy release, and a must for fans of British Sixties spy series. I'll have a full review up shortly.

Get Smart: Season 2

From HBO Home Video comes a standalone version of Get Smart: Season 2. This 4-disc set includes every episode of Season 2 (among them classics like "Bronzefinger" and "Casablanca"), but not the bonus disc of extras found with Season 2 in the Complete Series set. Still, there are some extras (like audio introductions from Barbara Feldon) and you can't beat the price!

Transporter 3

The ridiculously fun third installment of Jason Statham's neo-Eurospy Transporter series hits DVD today courtesy of Lionsgate. If you ever find yourself pining for the daffy action of Roger Moore's James Bond tenure, Transporter 3 delivers it in spades. It's not quite as good as Transporter 2, but the third entry still provides loads of over-the-top action, wild chases (including Statham on a bike) and sexy newcomer Natalya Rudakova fulfilling the babe quotient. The disc is available in single-disc, two-disc and Blu-Ray configurations.

Read my full review of Transporter 3 here.

DVD Review: Fenomenal And The Treasure Of Tutankaman (1968)

DVD Review: Fenomenal And The Treasure Of Tutankaman (1968)

I’ll admit I was sleepy when I watched Fenomenal (sometimes spelled Phenomenal), so I’m not entirely sure if I just wasn’t paying enough attention... or if the movie doesn’t make a lick of sense. I suspect the latter, though. Fenomenal is a Diabolik rip-off about a black-suited hero/antihero who wears a black ski mask... with no eye holes! How does he see? Never mind; the movie isn’t concerned with that. Instead, its primary narrative gimmick is to keep the audience guessing as to which of the many characters is the masked Fenomenal, It’s a clever idea on paper, making a mystery of the hero’s identity, but director Ruggero Deodato (who would go on to make a slew of cannibal movies and a favorite sword-and-sorcery movie of mine, Barbarians, in the 80s–but is billed here as "Roger Rockfeller") doesn’t pull it off. It’s tough to watch a movie when you literally don’t know who the hero of it is. The result is a confusing mess. But if you’re willing to give up on the narrative altogether and just allow yourself to be assaulted by bright colors and a parade of images of beautiful women, heists, car chases, nonsensical fights, and particularly garish Sixties fashions, then you might just have fun with it anyway.

Unlike Diabolik, Fenomenal is actually a hero... kind of. When we meet him, he’s thwarting a gang of drug smugglers off the coast of Marseilles–and makes headlines for it. Apparently the populace likes Fenomenal. While fighting, Fenomenal is prone to fits of laughter intended to evoke Diabolik’s laugh, but it’s not entirely clear why. (One gets the feeling that for Diabolik, all of his thieving is really a big joke, but with Fenomenal one just gets the feeling he’s a slightly confused copycat.)

We meet someone named Gregory Falkov (Gordon Mitchell), a hulking blond, who might be a bad guy. Or he might even be Fenomenal. But most likely he’s a bad guy, because Deodato manages to cram both a floozie and a giant dog into his introductory shot, as well as a henchman of some sort lurking in the background. He’s talking on the phone about something, but exactly what is unclear. Meanwhile, there’s a gang of cat burglars using the tunnels under the Eiffel Tower to break into a museum. Is one of them Fenomenal? We’re never certain, but their heist takes forever–and not in a good, Rififi-sort of way, either. Eventually the museum guards hear Fenomenal’s laughter and it seems like maybe he is among the gang, but a moment later we realize that they’re actually guards themselves, testing their own museum’s security system. Why? Because the museum is displaying the famous mask of Tutankaman.

"Is it true that the mask has evil powers?" inquires a reporter.

"Yes, I believe so," answers Count Guy Norton (Mauro Parenti) matter-of-factly. Who is Count Guy Norton? That’s what I was wondering, too, because the movie hasn’t really bothered to set that up at this point. But apparently he’s got some stake in the museum or the mask. And he’s got a beard. And, like everyone else, he might be Fenomenal.

Rather than developing a plot in this movie, things just happen. (While we’re still in the dark about who the hero is and supposed to be interested enough to guess.) So rather than trying to summarize a plot, I’ll list some of those things that happen:

A woman named Anna (Carla Romanelli) in very weird mushroom hat uses cigarette lighter camera to photograph museum owner dialing his safe.

Another woman wears a dress that looks like it’s been made out of a lawn chair.

Blondie’s henchmen play soccer in a weirdly childlike way.

People fight for no discernible reason inside a women’s Turksih bath. Naturally, there’s lots of shrieking and running about.

Fenomenal himself stays out of the picture for about half an hour, then finally returns to steal the mask. Or maybe a copy of the mask; two have been made, making all the goings-on that much more confusing. Whether it’s a copy or the original that he grabs, at least Fenomenal’s presence livens things up a bit. He leaves a briefcase with his name on it in the mask’s stead, and then leads an exciting car chase. It’s the movie’s best moment, because it includes some impressive stunt-driving and you don’t need to know who’s involved in it or why to appreciate what’s going on. At the end, Fenomenal’s car goes over a cliff, but he’s okay, laughing his laugh.

Everyone’s after the mask(s), including our hero, but we still don’t know which one of these characters is our hero... which is a problem. It turns out that there are some hieroglyphics on the mask that reveal the location of another, even greater treasure. This shifts the action to the Middle East, where all the characters go through the same shenanigans they did in Paris.

In the finale, there’s someone in a helicopter and someone in a boat and they’re shooting at each other, but it’s not very clear who’s who. Fenomenal himself is involved in an underwater fight, and then in another fight on a boat, echoing the opening one so closely that I wondered for a moment if everything had been a flashback up until now. (It hadn’t.)
Fenomenal’s identity is finally sort of revealed, and it’s who we suspected it was, which is unsurprising enough to negate the whole "Who is Fenomenal?" device. If I hadn’t just seen Fury In Marrakesh, I would call the ending of Fenomenal and the Treasure of Tutankaman the weirdest I’d seen in recent memory. All the characters are on an airplane, heading back to France, and they hear ticking. We get a close-up of each one worrying. Is it a bomb? Nope! It’s a kid’s toy. There’s a quick shot of the kid himself (and he’s a creepy one) and then a fade to red. It’s weird.

Overall, Fenomenal presents an interesting and unique take on the masked hero genre by making a big deal over the mystery of who will turn out to be the main character. But the premise (which may never have been doable to begin with) is let down by shabby direction. It’s all just confusing.

So is there anything good about the movie? Yes, Bruno Nicolai’s score is reliably cool, with lots of "creeping music" and a catchy theme song. The fashions are all as eye-popping as we’d expect from a 1968 movie of this type. And there’s a fight scene in which one of the participants is in a wheelchair. So Fenomenal and the Treasure of Tutankaman would be a good movie to put on in the background at a party, or to watch while you’re doing housecleaning or something and want to be distracted by occasional cool visuals. But it’s not worth your time to sit down and actually pay attention to because it's a confusing mess. (So much so that at first I thought I must be watching a sequel to something I hadn't seen!)

The DVD I watched was included on the fifth disc of a twenty film collection called The Grindhouse Experience 2. The quality was not the worst in the collection (there were no foreign subtitles and it didn’t appear to be taped off TV), but it’s nothing to write home about either. In fact, it’s kind of lousy, and windowboxed instead of letterboxed. (But the set as a whole makes up for that with the sheer quantity of weird movies it provides.)

DVD Review: Danger: Diabolik (1968)

Mario Bava’s 1968 pop-art masterpiece Danger: Diabolik is not only one of my favorite spy films, but one of my favorite films, period, ever made. Top ten, easily. Diabolik may not be a spy movie per se, but as I’ve often argued on this blog, it is in many ways the quintessential Sixties spy movie, showcasing all the elements the genre requires–despite focusing on a criminal instead of a secret agent as its hero. It plays as a checklist of everything I look for in a great Eurospy caper: stunningly beautiful women, lavish settings, amazing costumes, spectacular setpieces, an infectious score, fast sports cars, underground lairs, bizarre deaths, Adolfo Celi, and, at its core, the most dashing, handsome, charismatic hero you could ask for in the person of John Phillip Law. It’s a near-perfect film (and a clear influence on later productions as diverse as Moonraker, The Beastie Boys’ "Body Movin’" video, CQ and V For Vendetta), from its witty writing (thanks to Bava, Dino Maiuri, Tudor Gates and Saint writer Brian Degas) to its polished look (primarily thanks to Bava and not credited cinematographer Antonio Rinaldi, according to Law on the commentary track) to its pitch-perfect performances. Best of all, it’s endlessly fun. I’ll never grow tired of watching Danger: Diabolik, and I still discover something new on every viewing.

The film follows the subversive escapades of Italian comic book hero Diabolik, a lithe, mirthful superthief clad in a skintight latex ninja outfit and matching face mask. His girlfriend and willing partner-in-crime is the iconic, criminally sexy Eva Kant (Marisa Mell, looking more ethereally gorgeous than ever in a fantastic blond wig and outrageously mod, barely-there fashions), and the two of them are relentlessly pursued by the single-minded Inspector Ginko (Michel Piccoli), the only authority figure in this world capable of rational, intelligent thought. And even he isn’t above ridicule: in one scene, Ginko munches on a tiny sandwich while boasting to a gangster over the telephone that "for once, we’ve got special powers!" With his mouth full. (Nicely undermining any talk of police special powers.) Overall, though, Ginko manages to escape the derision reserved for other officials because he is somewhat smarter than them, and certainly more noble.

Bava was fifty-four when he made Danger: Diabolik, but tapped completely into the zeitgeist of the late Sixties youth movement, delivering a candy-coated hymn to anarchy. Diabolik is James Bond for the revolutionary set, appealing equally to the decade’s conflicting appetites for consumerism and rebellion. The character is not a Robin Hood because he doesn’t aim to redistribute the wealth he steals. Then again, he’s not interested in moving it to some offshore account, either, and building a nest egg. After he heists ten million dollars ("the largest single shipment of dollars ever made... at six in the morning") from a disguised convoy at the film’s opening, the buffoonish Minister of the Interior (Terry-Thomas, doing a dead-on Terry-Thomas) suggests it only logical to conclude that he’ll do exactly that. "Logical suggestion, sir," says Ginko to Thomas' annoyance, "but I’m afraid quite useless. Diabolik will handle the ten million dollars, but in some quite different way." What quite some different way? "A way no mind but his could imagine." That way, quite famously, is by spreading the bills out all over his gigantic, rotating circular bed and making love to Eva while rolling around in the cash. (Were paper cuts were an issue?) He merely wants money out of circulation to disrupt commerce and government; what he actually does with it is his business–or, more precisely, his pleasure. (I always find it amusing that the $10 million appears to be largely made up of tens and twenties.)

It’s true that Diabolik already has the ultimate in lavish lairs (comprised entirely of very impressive matte paintings and foreground elements), fashionable clothing, a fleet of sleek and trendy E-type Jaguars and a beautiful, adoring companion, so he’s not above creature comforts. But he still wants more. ("Out for all he can take, caress or get away with!" blared the American posters.) What for? He shows no particular financial ambitions beyond his already immodest holdings. No, he doesn’t want riches to spend; he wants them to make love upon, to decorate his lair, so the government can’t have them. He wants to tear down the very fabric of law and order–and the financial institutions upon which that fabric is slung. He’s a paradoxical consumerist anarchist, the perfect combination for 1968.

All of Diabolik’s heists and crimes are perpetrated against authority. He’s liberal with his use of knives and bullets, but only against police, security guards, mob kingpins and other authority figures. And the movie does nothing to endear audiences to those authority figures, either. With the noted exception of Ginko (portrayed in the Guissani Sisters’ original comic books as Diabolik’s doppelganger), not one of them has an ounce of sense. Terry-Thomas is the Minister of the Interior for crying out loud! It’s certainly no accident that Bava cast someone known only for playing twits. The police officers guarding the initial cash shipment that Diabolik knocks off are equally idiotic. The slovenly, slouching cops fail miserably in their attempts to pass themselves off as upper-crust society types, out for a pleasant drive in the Rolls. And the helicopter that hovers overhead keeping tabs on the situation (what authority is higher than an eye in the sky?) identifies itself on the radio as "Aerial Surveillance Ship #1." Weird call sign? Go ahead, note the acronym. From the very first scene, we’re alerted that in this film, all representatives of the establishment are unmitigated asses!

Bava adheres closely to the character’s comic book roots both in visuals and narrative. In a nod to the fumetti, the story is episodic, but very deliberately so. Each act focuses on a different heist, but also advances the overall story. In Act 1, we see Diabolik pull off a flashy but fairly rudimentary robbery, knocking over the aforementioned disguised cash transport. In the course of his escape, we’re not only treated to a very exciting helicopter/car chase, but also introduced to the love story. And it’s Diabolik’s mad, passionate love for Eva that drives his actions in the second act.

Diabolik’s first crime enables the police to invoke "special powers," putting pressure on mob kingpin Valmont (Thunderball’s Adolfo Celi–dubbed to sound much less polished and charming than Largo) to do their work for them, and capture Diabolik. ("It takes a thief to catch a thief," reasons Ginko.) Act 2 centers on a more elaborate heist, with Diabolik liberating a priceless emerald necklace from a visiting British dignitary’s wife within a castle crawling with Ginko’s men. The episode of the necklace doesn’t end there, however, as Valmont snatches Eva (the one thing Diabolik cares about above all others), ostensibly to ransom her for the emeralds. We’re also treated to more fantastic action (including a freefall from Valmont’s airplane and a shootout on a beach) and one of the two best freak-outs ever filmed when police raid one of Valmont’s drug dens in order to pressure him. (For the curious, the other one occurs in a Patrick Macnee movie called Bloodsuckers.) The scene, set to some of Ennio Morricone’s trippiest music ever, is a hilarious parody of "hippy" culture. Yes (despite some influential pundits’ misunderstanding of the scene), it’s a parody–and very intentional. This isn’t out-of-touch filmmakers (like some at Hammer or ITC) trying in vain to replicate youth happenings; this is a joke. Don’t believe me? Check out the standout day player decked out in plants who frolics about high on whatever all the kids are taking, getting in a final pirouette as the cops show up! This is clearly Bava reveling in a comic mastery he wasn’t always able to display in his horror movies. Also laugh-out-loud funny is the ultra-square gangster in a pinstripe suit who remains rigid despite the vibe and distributes drugs to the youths in a hilariously surreptitious manner.

By the third act, things have escalated to the point that Diabolik must steal the world’s largest gold ingot (twenty tons–all of the country’s remaining gold supply has been melted into it), and heist it from a moving train. The plan involves Eva distracting a truck driver by wearing the shortest of short shorts, and the two of them in some Thunderball-like underwater action. This act also brings Ginko and his men to his very doorstep. It’s a very tight script, much moreso than the ones Bava often worked with. (Not that the director couldn’t do great things with the flimsiest of scenarios.)

Along the way, Diabolik revels in every opportunity to undermine the system. When Terry-Thomas’s minister gives a press conference about his first robbery, Diabolik and Eva show up disguised as photographers (each in some amazing sunglasses) and distribute laughing gas to the crowd (but only after carefully administering themselves handily labeled "anti-exhilarating gas capsules!"). Thus they make a literal laughingstock out of the minister, forcing his resignation. Later, when the government offers a huge reward for his capture, Diabolik decides that if they’re putting their money to such bad use they don’t deserve to have it. So he blows up all the banks and tax bureaus! Terry-Thomas is forced to grovel once more on TV, pleading with his people to come forward and pay the taxes they think they owe.

In addition to the structure, the film’s aesthetic also evokes comic books at every opportunity. Two animated sequences stand out: in one, we see the spread of Ginko’s police forces across a map of city streets leading into the freakout sequence. In another, Valmont’s men use an Identikit gizmo to recreate Eva’s face from a prostitute’s description. The hand-drawn face expands and contracts against multiple primary color backgrounds, changing many times before settling on a likeness not to Mell, but to the comic book depiction of her character. Both sequences play out to particularly trippy, discordant music.

Furthermore, the very composition of the shots also recalls comic books–specifically their panels. Bava frequently uses vertical and horizontal elements in his foregrounds and backgrounds to break up the frame into simulated panels, including the latticework of a telephone booth, an open bookcase and a car’s rearview mirror. He uses the latter again and again as Diabolik drives, so that you have a full-frame image of him and Eva in the car driving, with the road ahead (also in a panel of its own, framed by the windshield) and, in the form of the rearview mirror, an insert panel showing a close-up of one of their faces as they talk. Coolest of all, the director even uses the limitations of the effects at his disposal to his advantage. He plays up the thick greenish outline around characters’ faces in certain rear-projection shots to further establish panels within the frame.

That’s not the only instance in this film in which Bava uses perceived limitations of special effects to his advantage. After making off with the emerald necklace, Diabolik dashes out onto the roof of the castle and sees a catapult: a possible means of escape! The pursuing policemen burst out just in time to see the catapult spring forward, flinging what’s supposed to be Diabolik into the sea. To a jaded audience, well used to such special effects, it’s clear that no stuntman performed this feat; it’s only a dummy in his suit that was launched over the edge. The police are fooled, but the audience is not. We know it’s a dummy! We assume that we’re seeing through the artifice of the filmmaking. But we’re wrong! Bava’s tricked us! It was really a dummy, not just behind the scenes but in the world of the film as well! Diabolik’s still up here, naked. He put a dummy in his suit and launched it into the sea to fool the police, and it worked. It also worked on us, because Bava used our preconceptions to fool us. He played on our expectations. In doing so, he tips his hand, revealing the craft of movie making in a similar manner to his famous final shot in Black Sabbath when Boris Karlof is revealed to be riding a dummy horse in the confines of a movie studio.

On top of being clever and visually arresting, Danger: Diabolik is also an incredibly sexy movie. Even if they’re both a bit crazy, Diabolik and Eva share a genuine love and a very healthy sex life. When they meet in the middle of a job in a tunnel, fully knowing that the police are hovering just outside looking for them, the pair can’t keep their hands off each other. They’re so in love! As soon as they arrive back at the incredibly mod hideout (accessed via a fake mound in the landscape that lifts up to reveal an underground passage), she tells him to "be quick" in the shower. They can’t wait to find each others’ bodies once again. Despite being in a long-term relationship, they’ve lost none of the spark. (Of course, they do spice things up with games: making love in heaps of money, roleplaying as prostitute and john while reconnoitering a potential target, etc.) The two actors’ chemistry together is phenomenal, which may come partially from the fact that they were involved off-set at the time, one of many juicy facts revealed by Law in the DVD’s commentary track.

The characters aren’t the only ones with sex on the brain. Bava crams more sexual imagery into this movie than an entire Hitchcock film festival! From the stalactites in the cave leading to Diabolik’s underground lair to the vertical pipes in the organ that serves as its alarm to the gearshift in his Jaguar that Eva excitedly shifts for him when she’s turned on as he races down a winding road, there are phallic symbols everywhere. And after stealing the gold ingot, Diabolik sets about melting it down. Eva looks on eagerly as he wields a large hose between his legs, preparing to issue molten gold from it into a mold. We see him and his hose framed between her statuesque legs, just in case we still don’t get it. Then we see her bite her lower lip as the gold spurts out. It’s ridiculously over the top, but so appropriate for this movie! And really rather shocking for 1967. In poking fun at the sexuality in James Bond films with scenes like this, Danger: Diabolik actually manages to one-up 007 on that count.

From the shot compositions to the performances to the action to the suggestive situations, there is no part of Danger: Diabolik that isn’t a sheer joy to watch. Bursting with Sixties style and fashions, it is an absolute must for fans of the era, and also compulsory viewing for James Bond and Eurospy afficionados. But it’s not a movie that should be limited to any sort of niche audience; it’s a movie for all. It’s sheer entertainment.

I’m generally a fan of the cult favorite TV series Mystery Science Theater 3000, but they did a grave disservice to cinema in general when they wrongheadedly selected Danger: Diabolik as their final "experiment," thus poisoning a generation against what’s really one of the greatest movies ever made with their riffing. (It’s not even a very funny episode, since genuinely bad movies lend to better jokes.) Fortunately, a lot has been done since then to correct this misapprehension.

In 2005, Paramount issued a fantastic special edition DVD, boasting not only a great widescreen transfer (utilizing the better of the two available English language tracks; an inferior one had circulated widely as a bootleg before then), but also a number of excellent special features. Foremost among them is a truly stellar commentary track by John Phillip Law and the erudite publisher of Video Watchdog and Bava biographer Tim Lucas. It’s both informative and entertaining. Law candidly recalls lots of great stories from the set, and Lucas makes sure there’s never a lull in the track with a plethora of behind-the-scenes facts about nearly everyone involved in the production. (His book, Mario Bava: All the Colors of the Dark also contains an entire, exhaustively researched chapter on the movie–and is the final word to date on its making.) The Beastie Boys’ music video "Body Movin’" is also included, and that’s a real treat as well. It utilizes clips from the film mixed with new footage of the musicians playing the roles themselves. Beastie Boy and director Adam Yauch provides a commentary on that. There’s a good (if ultimately too short) featurette called "From Fumetti to Film" in which comic artist Steven Bissette makes the credible case for Danger: Diabolik being the best comic book movie ever, and both the U.S. teaser and theatrical trailer round out the special features. The disc is sadly out of print in America at present, though still easy enough to find used. (I’m hoping this moratorium is only temporary while the studio prepares an even better special edition for Blu-Ray, but I have no evidence supporting that theory.) It’s still available in Region 2, but sadly without the features.

Since then, Lucas’s book has fueled a much-deserved renaissance in Bava films in general, and Danger: Diabolik frequently makes the rounds of revival cinemas. Celebrity fans like Joe Dante and Edgar Wright have also done their part to reclaim this misunderstood classic from the schlock status unfairly bequeathed it by MST3K.

There is so much more I’d love to write about Danger: Diabolik, but a review can only be so long. In short: this is a truly fantastic film. If you’ve never seen it, make sure to rectify that at your earliest opportunity!

For more on the fabulous set design of Danger: Diabolik, be sure to check out Jason Whiton's fantastic article on the subject over at Spy Vibe.

Danger: Diabolik is the second in an ongoing series devoted to My Favorite Spy Films. Previous entries include:

Deadlier Than the Male (1967)