Film (1967; vt Danger: Diabolik). Dino De Laurentiis/Marianne. Directed by Mario Bava, starring John Phillip Law, Marisa Mell, Michel Piccoli, Adolfo Celi, Terry-Thomas. Screenplay Bava, Dino Maiuri, Adriano Baracco, Brian Degas, Tudor Gates, based on fumetti by Luciana and Angela Giussani. 105 minutes, cut to 88 minutes. Colour.
This Italian/French coproduction is one of Di Laurentiis's several attempts to film sf Comic strips, others being Barbarella (1967) and Flash Gordon (1980). Law plays a stylish supercriminal after the manner of Fantômas, the Antihero of 32 French thrillers by Pierre Souvestre and Marcel Allain, published monthly 1911-1913 and beginning with Fantômas (1911; trans 1915 US/UK). He attempts to steal the entire gold reserves and destroy all the tax records of his country. He is caught at the denouement in a shower of radioactive molten gold, becoming his own memorial. Directed with visual panache and a sense of fun by Bava, Diabolik is futuristic but only marginally sf. [PN/DRL]
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