Italian cinema is an area that people can and have written entire volumes of books about—from the very beginnings of motion picture experimentation as we know it the land of Dolce Vita has been a massive influence on movies on both the artistic and commercial level. You might know classics like Life is Beautiful, landmarks like Amarcord, and that’s before we get into the vast array of genre mingled with exploitation (Suspiria, Demoni, the giallo subgenre…). Often times the curve was ahead of more westerly areas—while Hollywood was breaking in The Godfather, Fernando di Leo was already doing Caliber 9. So, with all this to discuss, what’s our topic today—why, Danger Diabolik of course!
Okay, bear with me a second here—this one was given to us by Mario Bava, whose mastery of producing visual sensualness on a low budget proved an inspiration for directors worldwide to come (including, arguably, the likes of Ridley Scott).The producer was Dino de Laurentiis, who bought Italy’s cinema to a wider world and eventually broke into an international stage, eventually overseeing a whole array of US-based productions from Conan the Barbarian to most of the Hannibal Lecter films. The soundtrack was also made by Enrico Morricone, a massively influential composer whose western tunes you can start humming right now—so with all things considered, we’re dealing with a solid enough pedigree with this one.
So, how did it turn out? The film is based on an Italian comic series about a very sly professional thief who’ll use any underhanded tactics to get his prize, namely the titular Diabolik (played here by John Philip Law). Alongside his girlfriend Eva (Marissa Mel), he challenges his wits against Inspector Ginko (Michel Piccoli) in his quest to steal, well, pretty much anything he wants.
For its time, the film looks pretty darn great—for an early modern comic adaptation, there’s a lot of rich colors and extravagant visuals, paired up with a cheesy but enjoyable score (“Deep, deep, love” as the chorus goes…for…er…some reason). We have a pretty neat skydiving sequence that infamously became the basis for a Beastie Boys music video, and vehicle chases galore.
Of course, if you’re after a rich plot, er, this won’t really deliver. We have a pretty episodic structure that’s mostly Diabolik’s unstoppable ploys after another, and he’s not exactly richly delved into himself. In fact, he seems almost like some force of nature that our beleaguered inspector is helpless against, defying physics and everything else in his quest to obtain the shiniest jewellery of them all (no, really, that's pretty much it).
You can almost make the case that this was commentating on the loss of trust in the Italian system that was kicking off around this time—and, well, in many ways, our criminal characters here making such a mockery of the law was something that was definitely new in an increasingly post-Hays Code Hollywood system. We’ve got a lot worse going on here than Bonnie Clyde for sure.
If you want something that’s all about indulgent sexy sinners doing as they please to funky music and visuals—as was no doubt the selling point back in the day—this one’s got its enjoyment factor for sure. On a cheesy movie level, hell you can also enjoy it. For a deep plot, avoid—but at the same time, there’s enough over the top sixties debauchery that you can see why it remains a bit of a cult flick decades later…
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