60/70 John Phillip Law + Marisa Mell • " Danger: Diabolik " 1968

Danger: Diabolik (also known simply as Diabolik) is a 1968 feature film from Italian filmmaker Mario Bava based on the Italian comic character Diabolik. It is the story of a skilled thief (played by John Phillip Law) living out of a ritzy hideout who steals incredible riches from the Italian government — including $10 million in cash, a highly prized set of emeralds, and an enormous gold ingot. Eva Kant was played by Marisa Mell, while Ginko was Michel Piccoli. A Dino De Laurentiis production (producer of Barbarella, which also featured Law), filmed at his studios in Rome. Also some scenes from the roof of the nearby Rome Hilton hotel with Valmont and his men. It had a notable musical score by Ennio Morricone. The song in the early part of the film Deep, Deep, Down was sung by "Christie" which was later voted number three in the best sound tracks ever (though it had not been released in any form). So they could get a film sound track without any unwanted background sounds, the film was completely revoiced. There are two different voiced English sound tracks. It was fairly faithful to the original, having Diabolik drive his black jaguar sports car and Eva drive her white one. The violence in the comics had to be toned down for the film and when it was finally shown in England in late 1969, it had 17 minutes cut from it. One of Diabolik's trademarks was his knife throwing but this was only done twice in the film, when he was after the necklace. The film was shot in 1967 and is copyrighted that year. A documentary included with the DVD release praises Mario Bava for creating one of the most faithful comic book adaptation of the 20th century. The film came in at under $500,000, mainly thanks to the very skillful use of camera tricks by Mario Bava like under cranking (so making things look like they are moving faster), many matte paintings and cut-out pictures (to show buildings, the inside of the hide out and other things which did not exist) as well as front projection (which made it look like the stars were in speeding vehicles, etc). A distant view of a GI Joe doll was used for a crook falling from a plane. The Diabolik mask was made by Carlo Rambaldi. In the titles, the story was said to be by Angela & Luciana Giussani (the 2 creators), Dino Maiuri & Adriano Baracco.