Danger: Diabolik
It would seem that Police Inspector Ginko has taken every precaution in the transfer of $10 million in cash from the First International Bank-Trust Company, setting out under an imposing dawn sky with a flotilla of cars in fact occupied by police officers carrying a decoy, blank paper bound as though it was banknotes, the real shipment a smaller affair heading straight to the docks where it is promptly ambushed.
The entire car vanishing in the smoke and confusion, hoisted aloft by a crane and its contents thrown to a waiting speedboat which races to a rendezvous then a bait and switch to evade the pursuing helicopter, it is the work of the criminal mastermind Diabolik, the bane of Ginko’s life, always one step ahead and vanishing after every heist with no trace of his whereabouts or true identity, law enforcement requiring more extreme measures if he is to be apprehended.
An early comic book film adaptation, Danger: Diabolik was released in January of 1968, six years after the series had been created and launched by sisters Angela and Luciana Giussani, directed by Caltiki‘s Mario Bava and starring as the titular anti-hero John Phillip Law who would immediately move onto Barbarella, both films produced Dino De Laurentiis under an arrangement with Paramount for international distribution and sharing production personnel, leading to some overlap in the vivacious style.
With Marisa Mell as Eva Kant, Diabolik’s lover and accomplice of platinum hair and a variety of disguises, Michel Piccoli as Ginko and Adolfo Celi as the gangster Ralph Valmont, blackmailed into cooperating with the law as Ginko sets a thief to catch a thief, further authority is represented by Carlton-Browne of the F.O.‘s Terry-Thomas as Minister of the Interior, humiliated by Diabolik when laughing gas is pumped into a press conference.
A mixture of hijinx and spy-fi capers cashing in on the James Bond films, increasingly eccentric as they progressed through the sixties, released the year after the secret volcano base of You Only Live Twice erupted and two years after the similarly Euro-centric semi-serious spoof Modesty Blaise found form in Monica Vitti, with his underground lair accessed by an overly conspicuous entrance Diabolik is the anti-Batman.
The ostensible representatives of the law dull and stuffy, the agent of chaos is much more fun but while Law played the purity of the naive angel Pygar well here he seems lost in the duplicitous shenanigans, dazzling costumes and impressive sets enhanced and extended by seamless matte shots, the ideas behind his schemes involving emerald necklaces and twenty tons of gold melted into a single vast ingot more interesting as ideas than execution.
Both the film and the protagonist finding themselves backed into a corner with no place to go, the lack of contemporary critical and commercial success meant that any hopes for the sequel hinted at in the final scene never materialised, yet while it never delivers on the full potential of its parts, perhaps a case of trying to please too many masters, the story and screenplay carrying seven credits, it is an enjoyable romp which charmingly sends up its genre and era.
Making its 4K UHD and Blu-ray for the first time in the UK, Eureka’s new edition of Danger: Diabolik is supported by multiple audio options including both the original theatrical English dub and the later re-recording for the Laserdisc release, three commentary tracks with contributors including John Phillip Law and Bava biographer Tim Lucas, a discussion of the film, a video essay on Diabolik’s place as an anti-establishment pop culture characters and the Beastie Boys’ 1998 Body Movin’ video which incorporated footage from the film.
Danger: Diabolik will be available on 4K UHD and Blu-ray from Eureka from Monday 20th April
