Monday 27 June 2011

Danger Diabolik (Retro Italian Flick)


As I have said before, my mother was always taking my sister and me to the pictures when we were kids. I did not know anything about this movie when we walked into the cinema, but I remember being mesmerised by it. I was only around seven years of age, and I thought Diabolik was a good crook.

It was the first movie I remembered seeing where the bad guy was the goody. He had to be, because he had great sports cars and a fabulous girlfriend. I remember he robbed some grand jewels for her birthday present and they went to bed in thousands of dollar notes. Of course nowadays, it is a rather cheesy sixties retro Italian flick, but I still have a soft spot for this outrages and fun movie. I sucked it in completely and thought every country had a champion Diabolik in residence.

At first I thought this man was an American comic strip super hero. I had seen such a character in Marvel and his name was Sub-Mariner. I was confused by this because Diabolik had a hair style that looked similar to this American comic character and he dived into water at the beginning.




Diabolik is an Italian comic strip character that robs banks and lives the life of a charismatic gentleman adventurer. The movie is totally over the top in a wonderful sixties cheesy, sexy way. The end was good too. Encased in gold - what a diabolical and grand way for Diabolik to go, or does he? This movie takes me back to the retro sixties world with some of its more pleasant memories.

It starred John Phillip Law who was in a number of Italian B movies of the sixties. His most notable other movie was The Golden Voyage of Sinbad with Tom Baker and Caroline Munro.

The heroine of the movie is Diabolik's girlfriend played by Austrian actress Marisa Mell. Sadly, Marisa Mell and John Phillip Law are no longer with us. 




















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