1968 funk
Rating: 16/20
Plot: The titular super-thief super-thieves seemingly just to impress his girlfriend which, if you ask me, is pretty awesome. And with those legs, she’s totally worth it. The government sends a rival criminal out to help them catch him.
This has Bava taking on the spy genre without a spy, displaying the adventures of this Bond-esque anti-hero in a way that could only come from the swingin’ sixties. He’s got gadgets and gizmos apleanty, a super cool underground lair with a rotating bed full of money and a Dr. Phibes alarm system, a sweet car, and twice the smarts of anybody else in this movie. Diabolik is played by John Phillip Law who was Sinbad in one of those movies with the Harryhausen stop-motion creatures, matched wits with Van Cleef in the awesome Death Rides a Horse, and played that winged angel with a pistol in his pants in Barberella all around the same time which shows some versatility and a penchant for choosing roles in movies that would become classics. Sure, Diabolik might be a stuntman half of the time since the costume–impeccably stylish–covers most of his face, but I’m giving Law credit for this perfect comic book hero posture he has in several shots and this acrobatic flip he does over the hood of his car. Marisa Mell plays his gal-pal Eva, and she’s just stunning. There’s a between-Eva’s-legs shot with Diabolik holding this giant hose that I’d love to posterize. Man, those two look good together, even in a stylish shot where they’re seen in a rear view mirror, and the scene where they’re enjoying each other carnally, a sex scene with only partial nudity, on that rotating bed with the money all over and Morricone’s score is bliss. That followed a twin shower scene that was a delightful tease. Oh, and speaking of Morricone, his score here is wild and terrific, and that includes the “Deep Deep Down” song that grew on me after about the 48th time. The music perfectly compliments what’s going on on the screen, and Bava gives us plenty to look at here–a funky 60’s nightclub scene, action scenes galore, imaginative sets, a Jaguar going off a cliff without Cat Stevens music accompanying it, great costumes, Marisa Melli’s legs, etc. It’s an overload of style, and the completely ludicrous storytelling only helps, right up to the very cool and very ambiguous ending which may or may not set things up perfectly for a single that I’d love to see. This never really takes itself seriously, or more accurately, it takes itself about as seriously as a comic book. There’s a humor there–a cartoonishly cool police sketch thing, exhilarating gas and–of course–some anti-exhilarating gas capsules, an obvious dummy that turns out to be just that. Loads of fun, especially for fans of the wackier James Bond movies, maybe the Avengers, or movies like Austin Powers movies that aren’t Austin Powers movies. Bava nails yet another genre.