Hello, and welcome to Weird House Cinema. Rewind. Today we are bringing you an older episode of Weird House Cinema on the nineteen sixty eight super crime thriller Danger Diabolic, starring John Philip Law and Marissa mel directed by Mario Bava. Ooh, this is one of my favorites. So if you haven't seen the movie, haven't heard the episode, I think you're in for a real treat.
Bon Voyage, Welcome.
To Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Hey you, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb.
And this is Joe McCormick in. Today's movie on Weird House is the nineteen sixty eight Mario Bava film Danger Diabolic. A movie that straddles many genres. It is a comic book adaptation, it is a crime thriller, it's an action movie. And I've even seen people refer to it as a spy movie or a euro spy thriller. This is sometimes
also called like spaghetti spy movies. These are all these movies that came out in the sixties, I think somewhat riding on the success of the first James Bond films, that have characters named things like James Taunt or something.
And while that spy designation does not accurately describe the plot of this movie, I can see why people say that because Danger Diabolic takes part in a lot of the same aesthetic trends you might find in sixties spy stuff, like the early James Bond films, in these other continental European espionage capers. So Danger Diabolic is about a thief, but it feels like it's about a spy. But really, more than anything, it's about love.
That's right. It's ultimately a movie about love. Though our heroes are definitely criminals, there's no doubt about it, but we'll discuss the flavor of crime that there really involved in. I think ultimately you would classify this film as a super crime movie. These are super criminals engaging in super crime. They're not quite super villains per se, though I'm sure that the people they're stealing from see them as such.
So yeah, it's interesting because on one hand, there's not a speculative element here like this this is not really a sci fi film or a horror, a fantasy, or you know, the typical genres we cover here. But it is still packed with plenty of weirdness. It reminds me in our build up to this, you even brought this up, Joe. You were like, I'm not sure it'll be weird enough, but I think now that we've both rewatched it, we have found there's plenty of weirdness to be had in Diabolic.
Well, I guess you know, we've always gone intuitively on like what counts as weird for weird house cinema. Usually it's got to have some kind of major anti realism element in the plot. It's either got to be about something kind of like magical or supernatural, or something sufficiently has enough science fiction distance from reality that it's really weird. Diabolic has. It takes place in a world of light
science fiction possibilities. Actually much like most spy movies, do you know, kind of like James Bond or Mission Impossible movies have very light sci fi elements, just sort of slight exaggerations of what's possible in reality, And this is kind of like that, except it has a much CARTOONI or style that is free to more free to experiment with what would be plausible in terms of like what people would actually do, like would people actually make a
gold ingot the size of a tanker truck because reasoning that it will be harder to steal that way.
Well, this is I love that detail on the plot because that particularly feels like folkloric or mythic. It seems like the kind of thing that various heroes in you know, Sagas and Tales of Old would have engaged in. Oh, you know, the trickster was going to steal the gold, so we just made an enormous gold ingot. But ah, the mighty hero Diabolic stole it anyway.
So I actually hadn't seen this movie until a couple of weeks ago, and a good friend of mine has been telling me about it for years. I can going back probably a decade, him saying this movie is actually great, and I think for a long time my expectations about it were miscalibrated by the knowledge that this movie was featured on an episode of Mystery Science Theater three thousand, which I've never seen. By the way, the very last episode.
You know, that's a show I love, But that places this movie in strange company because Danger Diabolic is not like Soul Taker. It is not like Final Sacrifice or Mitchell or most of the kinds of movies that end up on Mystery Science Theater. Danger Diabolic is a wonderful movie. In fact, I would even say that it possesses a kind of genius.
Yeah, yeah, I mean we could go in into an entire tangent on MST three K movies and the fact that, Yeah, I think there are a lot of great movies that were riffed over the years, and I think there are people out there who take offense sometimes on behalf of movies that were riffed. I don't view it like that. I think for me in particular, and for a lot of people you are Slash were introduced to this whole world of weird cinema through Mystery Science Theater three thousand,
and they taught in different ways to enjoy films. But it Yeah, this was a film that I long associated with ms th three K because it was episode one ninety seven back in nineteen ninety nine. It was for a very long time the final episode of MST three K before it came back in twenty seventeen, and it's still the final mic episode of MST three So it was always bittersweet for that reason. Solid riffing but the end of an Era. I had never watched Diabolic or
danger Diabolic as it's known in the West. I'd never watched it unriffed until today. And it's, you know, like a lot of these films, it's so much fun. It certainly holds its own You don't need the riffing to experience it. That can't be said of every film that was a feature in MST three K. There are some that are bad enough that you really need a little something extra to get you through. It is a very watchable, very fun, very sexy, good time.
Absolutely all of those things. And also this is a movie that I think has special appeal to people who are interested in the process of filmmaking because it's one of those movies where you can just you can just feel the steady hand of a director working with absolute finesse. Mario Bava's shadow hanging over this movie is just so powerful.
It's like, in some ways, I would compare it to though I'm not really sports fan, but what I imagine it's like to, you know, really appreciate an incredible athlete, somebody who just does inhuman things with their muscles that would be impossible for other people. To do, but they make it look easy. That's what I would compare the
filmmaking in this movie too. It's just like it is such an effortless, feeling display of absolute confidence and finesse in how sets and costumes and color schemes are used and how shots are framed. You just feel like he is taking it easy and making a perfect movie and not breaking a sweat.
Yeah.
Yeah, and he makes it seem easy, and at the same time you're in awe of some of the shots that he puts together and the way he approaches scenes that would just be so throwaway in other films. I will say that there are plenty of hypnotic shots in this movie, but since this this one is more action themed compared to the other two Mario Baba films that we've talked about on the show, it has a different
feel overall to it. There may be fewer of those like long hypnotizing sequences, but there's still plenty of moments like that in the film.
So I want to formally apologize to my friend Ben for taking like ten years or more to watch this movie, which he's been recommending to me the whole time. You were right, this movie is great. It's great. It's great. And this is a caveat I sometimes have to issue on the show. I sometimes fear that the more I love a movie, the harder it is for me to make a good Weird House episode about it. So I'm going to try to do my best here and not just let this turn into a NonStop, repetitive overt gushing.
But yeah, please please understand. I feel like I'm working with that handicap. I think I like this movie too much.
Yeah, I know the feeling sometimes if I come into an episode and I'm like particularly attached to the film, I worry how that's gonna impact the episode. But I think it's going to be great. There's a lot to talk about here.
Okay, what's your elevator pitch for Danger Diabolic?
I've got to channel a little meat Loaf here, and I would say it is I would steal anything for love, and I will absolutely steal that because it's all for love in this movie, Absolutely all for love.
Yes, Why else take down the largest shipment of dollars in human history unless it's for love?
Yeah, And that's why. And that's one of the reasons they call him diabolic. They're like we don't understand his motivations. Why does he do the things that he does. Well, it's because he's operating on a different wavelength from you old fogies that are ruling the world on both sides of the law. He has his own agenda and we'll get into that.
That's right. They want the money because it's money. He wants the money because it's his girlfriend's birthday.
Yes, all right, let's listen to a little trailer audio here. I don't know if we'll listen to the full trailer, and I do want to advise anyone out there that if you're interested in watching this movie in full, don't watch the classic trailer for it, because this is one of those trailers that just spoils absolutely everything. Nothing is spared visually anyway.
Warning that much like the trailer, we will get into some spoiler territory. And but Diabolic has a lot of excellent twists all throughout the movie, so things will be revealed. If you want to go into it knowing nothing, you should watch it before you finish this episode.
All right, let's have a listen.
Me Diabolic a bank Robin Hood battles the cops. He robs from the rich to give to the girls. Ask Eva, Oh, you shouldn't have done it. She can't get a good night's sleep unless she's covered with money. Master Sportscar, Racer, Master, Skin Diver, Master Lover Master Askeeper Diabolic the absolute gold plated end Askeeper.
All right, Well, if you want to go out and watch Diabolic or Danger Diabolic before proceeding through the rest of the episode, well, luckily for you. It's widely available in all formats, including a nice twenty twenty Shout Factory release on Blu Ray. And if you really like the music, we'll get into the score in a bit. The score is available on vinyl from Audio Clarity Great Score.
Should we start by talking about Mario Bava? How many Bava films did you say? We've done?
This would be the third one. So we've watched what Black Sabbath, and we've watched Planet of the Vampires Planet the Vampires from sixty five.
Black Sabbath was the anthology horror film that we did. Was it last October or maybe the October before?
It is?
So that's one that's got like three segments, and one of them, the one that stuck with us the most, I think is the one that has Boris Karloff as the Verduo loc this kind of of Serbian or Carpathian mountain vampire type creature, and it has all those beautiful shots where he's just like got purple light dripping off of his face as he comes in from the cold and looks menacingly at his HouseGuest.
Yeah. Yeah, And that was kind of a follow up to the nineteen sixty black and white film he did, Black Sunday. But it is, you know, in many ways, it's hard to imagine, you know, Mario Baba working in black and white, because when I think of Bob, I think of those rich colors, those rich gels, which he used with a you know, a master's stroke.
Well, let me stand up for his black and white films. Baba is best once the colors get pumping and he can use yeah, the gel lights and all that. But his black and white films look very good. He did an early proto Jallo film that's kind of a murder mystery thriller set in Rome called The Evil Eye or The Girl who Knew too Much. Their title I think those are titles. Ones for the American cut and ones
for the Channel cut. And that movie. It's not the best of the ones I've seen because of some like it's not the best script he's ever worked with, but it's a fantastic looking film, even in black and white. He uses very high contrast black and white and uses makeup to a great effect. So there's always kind of eyeliner and shading of the actors' faces and stuff. And I assume a lot of that rests on makeup, though probably some of it is use of light and shadow
as well. But that one looks great. Black Oh my god, Black Sunday is amazing. I can't remember have you seen that or not?
I haven't seen Black Sunday now.
Oh that one. It is also in black and white. It is one of the most visually striking black and white films I have ever seen. Also uses a lot of high contrast.
Well anyway you slice it. Yeah. Mario Bava legendary Italian director with an unmistakable obsessive and at times just phantasmagorical emphasis on visual composition. Strong still from Abava film is often just instantly identifiable. He lived nineteen fourteen through nineteen eighty and was the father of director Lomberto Bava. We've talked more about him on the previous episodes discussing his films, and you know, I have a feeling we'll come back for more Bava in the future.
I just looked it up to check. I thought, so Lamberto Bava, his son is the director of Demons and Demons too.
Oh, there you go. Well, one way or another, we'll come back to Abava at some point. All right. We don't always mention the producer on a film, but this one's notable because this is Dino di Laurents, who lived nineteen nineteen through twenty ten. Delarentis legendary Italian and naturalized American film producer, really one of the biggest names of all time when it comes to production, both in Italian cinema but also international cinema. Started producing in the late
forties and continued on till his death. Not everything he was involved in was golden, but he had a hand in the lavish, such lavish productions as sixty eight's Barberrella, nineteen eighties Flash Gordon, which I would I would argue those two films and Diabolic kind of are kind of a stylistic trilogy.
I think you could absolutely say that, Yeah, there's there's a lot of uh, there's a lot of sinew in common there also, didn't he Wasn't he the driving force between hiring David Lynch to adapt to Dune in the eighties.
I believe?
So.
Yeah, he was involved in David Lynch's Dune Conan the Barbarian from eighty two, as well as the sequels and also the sort of sequel Red Sonia. He was a producer on Halloween two and three, so technically we have covered one of his productions before, multiple Stephen King adaptations, including Maximum Overdrive, and also all of the Hannibal movies except for the Silence of the Lambs.
Oh, so he did all the best ones?
Yeah, well, you know, he did some. He was involved with some good stuff. I mean Manhunter. Oh okay, yeah.
And I actually, you know, I have sort of a soft spot for what's it called the sequel to Silence of Lambs that had Julian Moore as hannihal Is starling Hannibal. Oh it's just called Hannibal. Yes, yeah, that one. I understand why critics didn't like it. It's got some flaws, but there there's a lot to love about that movie.
If memory served I'm just going off memory here, but I believe his original working title. Harris's working title for the novel was The Morbidity of the Soul, which I think was ultimately a more fitting title for both the book and the film a book. The book I kind of hated when it came out, but I have a feeling like if I went back and at least watched the movie again, I would find a lot to love about it. Like it is a very strange movie, it's a very strange story overall.
Agreed, all right.
The writing credits for Diabolic for Danger Diboic here several names involved here, So this movie is based on the comic book of the same name by Angela Gusani and Luciana Gusani. Angela lived nineteen twenty two through nineteen eighty seven and Luciana lived nineteen twenty eight through two thousand
and one. They were sisters. They also share story credits with Dino Mayori, who lived nineteen sixteen through nineteen eighty four, Andreana Baraco who lived nineteen oh seven through nineteen seventy six. Screenplay credits go to Bava Mayori, Brian Dagas, who lived nineteen thirty five through twenty twenty and Tudor Gates who lived nineteen thirty through two thousand and seven.
Okay, so we got a lot of writers going on here, and that can often be a bad sign for a film, but it turned out great here. And I guess with the Jusani sisters, they were they were the creators of the character Diabolic, who was a comic book character before it was ever adapted to film.
That's right. They were inspired to create a grown up com book for essentially for Italian commuters, something that could be printed in in a small format you could easily, you know, stuff in your pocket and then pull out when you're on the train on your commute and read offering kind of a Phantomus inspired crime adventure, that sort of thing. So it ended up being a huge success in Italy when it debuted in the early sixties, and
then also enjoyed international appeal afterwards. This was a French Italian co production, so, like you know, the Italian popularity is obvious, but it would have also been popular in France. And I have to say they're still making Diabolic films. I haven't seen any of them, but I looked up some of the stills, and yeah, it's still clearly Diabolic. It doesn't look like they're messing with like the basic visual chemistry of the thing.
When I was in Italy in like two thousand and seven or so, I bought a Diabolic comic book off of a newsstand. Ah, and I knew nothing about it. I just saw the art. I was like, that guy looks cool. I like the mask, yeah, or the kind of anti mask actually, because what Diabolic wears is like a it's like the Domino mask in negative. His entire head is covered in a skin tight mask except for the area around the eyes and the top of the nose, which is just his face is revealed.
That's right. Yeah, it's like the mask is so skin tight that it's just ridiculous. It's like a vacuum seal to his face.
Yeah. So I was reading a bit about Diabolic. So the one I bought was in Italian, so I can't read it. But I've been reading a bit about the character Diabolic in the comics, and from what I understand, he's originally imagined as a master thief who you know, can steal anything and is constantly foiling the police and their attempts to capture him, and he in a way is he can do anything. You know, he knows all the sciences, and he can make any kind of gadget,
and he can solve anykind of problems. So he's he's one of these like superhumans, the kind of you know, pre Jason Bourne type person who can they can just do anything. But then also what I've read is that there's an arc, and we've talked about similar arcs in films before on this show, where in the early in the early Diabolic comics, he is closer to an evil alignment, like he does crime and he'll just kill people whoever gets in his way to steal the thing he wants
to steal. From what I've read, there is kind of an arc. Where as the series of comics went on, Diabolics nature became a little more like chaotic good rather than than i don't know, neutral evil or something that he became more of a Robin Hood figure who was stealing from people who were understood to be powerful and bad in some way. You know, he was stealing from other criminals and crime lords, rich, rich, dangerous people and
often doing good along the way. But that was later on and you know, there's a kind kind of there's a kind of gravity pushing anti hero characters in that direction. I think we were talking about this with the This
is a hilarious comparison with Riddick with Vin Diesel. You know, you start off trying to make them look really hard and they're really close to the evil designation, you know that, the strong emphasis on the anti and anti hero, and then over time there's this tendency to just make him be like, ah, they're actually pretty good.
Yeah, I mean, coming back to Hannibal, you see that with Hannibal Lecter to a certain extent, like by by Hannibal. You know, he's he's awful, he's awful, He's he's a serial killer. It's it's it's clear he's a cannibal. But he's not as bad as Mason Viger. Mason Virger is presented as like the ultimate evil in so many other ways.
Right, So yeah, he mostly kills other killers in that one.
All right, Well let's talk who on earth do you get to play the enigmatic diabolic? Well you get John Phillip Law to do it.
This is a truly inspired bit of casting. John Philip Law is perfect in this role.
Yeah, like just his physicality. He has this this wiry kind of spidery body, very muscular, but also yeah, kind of like thin, like he's like he's he's grown up in orbit or something, you know. And then also key is that you could you can find a lot of actors of the day and a lot of actors they're working in cinema right now to play Diabolic that could maybe physically look like Diabolic, but they've got to have
the eyes. You've got to have these just wide, kind of sinister, unblinking eyes that just register from across the room but also in close up. And John Philip Law definitely has this look down.
You have to be able to make that Bird of Prey v with your eyebrows as well.
Yes, yeah, the Bird of Prey is a good comparison here because he is there is a he is dangerous. Danger Diabolic is the title, and it is a warning. This is a dangerous man. And if he's looking in your direction, well watch out. So John Philip Blau lived nineteen thirty seven through two thousand and eight American actor
of stage, screen and television. He did some early Italian cinema work which helped establish him there, while at the same time attracting the attention of Hollywood director Norman Jewison, who cast him in the nineteen sixty six film The Russians Are Coming. The Russians Are Coming. This led to a co star role in Auto Primager's Hurry Sundown from sixty seven. His co star in that Jane Fonda. Jane Fonda had a big upcoming role in a movie produced
by Dino di Laurentez Barbarella. So she said, Hey, I met this guy. He's great. You should have him play this weird shirtless angel dude that is going to be in Barbarella.
I haven't It's been a long time since I've seen Barbarella. I don't remember anything about what he does except that he's shirtless and has wings.
He doesn't. Yeah, he doesn't have a lot to do in that. I think if you're only exposure to John Philip Blauer that movie, you might think that he's more of say the rocky horror level of actor, like because he doesn't really do much there. But you know that this is a guy who did have stage credentials, like you know, he's definitely an experienced actor at this point.
But there were delays in making Barberella, and those delays allowed him to star in the spaghetti western Death Rides a Horse from sixty seven with Lee van Cleef in addition to this production Diabolic.
Okay, so while he's working on developing his Bird of Prey face, he's also playing a gunslinger in this western movie.
Yes, yeah, and maybe being trained in the ways of eye forward acting by Lee van Cleef. But anyway, after a Diabolic, his Hollywood career had a little more steam in it, but he had lasting international star appeal, especially in Europe. I think he also worked at least on a couple of films that were Taiwanese productions. Other films of note here, at least for us include seventy one's The Last Movie, Roger Corman's The Red Baron in seventy one.
Seventy three is The Golden Voyage of sinbad Ah, notable.
For a lot of excellent ray Harry Housen special effects.
Nineteen seventy six is The Cassandra Crossing. Seventy nine's Ring of Darkness. That's a Satanist movie that I have not seen, but it has a great poster. Nineteen eighty five's Night Train to Terror, nineteen eighty eight Space Mutiny, an MST three K favorite, and nineteen eighty eight Blood Delirium, which I haven't seen that one either, but I know it's recently been re released on Blu Ray and has a really eye catching bit of poster art for it.
John Philip Law plays the villain in Space Mutiny, if I recall correct, Yeah, he's what Kalgon I think, hal gone, driving those go karts around and sneering. Yeah. To compare his two Mystery Science Theater entries, I'm gonna go ahead and say Diabolic is better than Space Mutiny.
Yeah, it's a cut above a hefty cutbuff.
But Space Mutiny might be a better episode of the show.
Oh yeah, Space Mutiny is a classic MST three K episode for sure. Great riffing in that ridiculous film, but still a lot of neat ideas in it that are not they don't really come to life, or an interesting cast as well.
But Diabolic would be nowhere without the love of his life, Eva Kant, who is a character who apparently also comes from the comics and is his partner in crime and the love of his life in this movie, played by Marissa.
Mel That's right, Austrian actor who lived nineteen thirty nine through nineteen ninety two. She played a lot of film fatale type characters. Her other big films include nineteen sixty nine's One on Top of the Other Luccio Folchi thriller, in which she plays a dual role, seventy five's Mahogany,
and also in Berto Lindsay's Seven blood Stained Orchids. In nineteen seventy two, she also appeared in She appeared in Ring of Darkness with John Philip Law, and also she pops up in nineteen sixty six's Secret Agent Super Dragon, which was also featured on Missus Sence Theater three thousand.
She and John Philip Law have such great chemistry in this movie. We will explore more as we go on, but it's this has got to be one of my all time favorite screen couples.
Now. Yeah, in the past, we've talked about occult power couples in various movies. This is I would say this is a super crime power couple. Yes, all right, But of course, since they're doing super crimes, they're running up against the law and they're also running up against other criminals. So let's hit the law first.
Well, to fight super crime, you need a super cop, and too bad because there aren't any in this movie. Instead, get a very underwhelming cop.
That's right, we have Inspector Jinko, played by the French actor, producer, and film director Michel Piccoli, who lived nineteen twenty five through twenty twenty, whose other works include seventy four is the Phantom of Liberty, Jean lu Goddard's Passion from nineteen eighty two, as well as his film Contempt from sixty three. He also pops up in the twenty twelve weird movie Holy Motors.
Okay, so I think this guy made. This guy worked in some prestige cinema as well, But I didn't mean to sell short his performance by saying we have underwhelming police. That's how it's written. The police in this movie are just not up to the task of capturing Diabolic. In fact, they have to outsource their work to other super criminals in order to catch him. And so this police inspector is very put upon and just he's out there having a hard time. And so the actor the cast here
is interesting. The actor reminds me sort of of Christopher Lee in a way, but without the gravitas. I was thinking kind of a kind of a stepped down, humiliated Christopher Lee, somewhat combined with the Canadian character actor Elias Koteas, who was in a bunch of different things. You've seen him all over the place.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think that makes sense. Yeah, And he's not a character like, he's not a twisted, corrupt copp or anything like he's you get the impression like he's a good guy trying to fight the good fight, but maybe in a system that is is that is is a little corrupt, though he himself is not corrupted. Yeah, it's like you're rooting for him, but you don't really want him to win. But then you at the end of the day you realize, well, diabolic is a criminal,
and I'm I guess he needs to be caught. Maybe if someone's gonna catch him, it needs to be this guy.
No, he doesn't need to be caught. He needs to get away with all of it. I I don't think anybody wants the police inspector to win in this movie. You just want to see him get foiled and foiled and foiled again and keep going. Demnity.
You know there is a similar case in Hannibal. Coming back to Hannibal, we have remembered the Italian investigator who is looking for Hannibal in John Carlo. Yeah, yeah, yeah, great actor, great role, and also I think one of the most interesting characters in that story. You're rooting for him to a certain extent because he seems like a good guy trying to do his job, and also he doesn't want his wife to be killed by the serial
killer monster. But then ultimately you're also rooting for Hannibal to avoid capture.
Things don't turn out well for him. Inspector Jinko does not have things go as bad for him as they go for Gian Carlo in Hannibal.
All right, So anyway, the inspector here is going to have to join forces with one of his enemies, a crime boss by the name of Ralph Valmont played by Adolfocelli who lived eighteen twenty two through nineteen eighty six Italian actor and director, best known internationally, I think for his turn as Bond villain Emilio Largo in nineteen sixty five's Thunderball, which keeps coming up on the show for some reason.
Yeah, what we were just talking about this last week, for some reason, weren't.
We Yeah, yeah, I think we were. I don't know. I think it's just a lot of people worked in Thunderball.
Well, yeah, so he played the villain in Thunderball, the guy he's got the really fast driving yacht. I think he's trying to steal lost a nuclear warhead that crashed on a plane or something. But he's the guy who puts sharks in his swimming pool.
Yeah, yeah, this actor was. He was also in the Phantom of Liberty, as well as nineteen sixty five, The Agony in the Ecstasy, seventy two's I in the Labyrinth, Gordon Hessler's Murders in the Room Orgue from seventy one, Franco Zepharelli's brother Son Sister Moon from seventy two, and we absolutely cannot forget nineteen sixty seven's Operation Kid Brother, in which he basically rehashes his role from Thunderball, opposite the character doctor Neil Connery played by Neil Connery, Sean
Connery's brother. It's a total cash grab, obviously, and also one that was riffed on MST three K. But Shelley great Italian actor with a clear knack for playing heavies and villains. He has just this great sneer, you know, this great sort of sort of stereotypical mob boss physicality.
I think he had a cigar permanently implanted between his teeth surgically, so he would just gnaw gnaw without end for the rest of that.
And his character in this is just a complete brute, Like no sympathy for this character like this is just a horrible crime boss. He's rude to everyone. You know, no method is off the table for this guy. So this is exactly the sort of fellow that we're cheering on Diabolic to steal, to steal from.
Well, as we've said, it's always good to have a character like this in a movie with a criminal anti hero. Diabolic is a criminal, but we love him, we want him to win. It's good to be reminded what a really nasty, cigar knowing criminal is like. For contrast, that's right now.
He has a lot of hinchmen, and I'm not going to mention them all, but I am going to mention one. This is his henchman, Joe, played by Federico Boido, who lived nineteen forty through twenty fourteen. He may stand out, and he probably stood out to you, Joe, because this Italian actor was also in nineteen sixty five's Planet of the Vampires playing Keir. He's in Roger Vadim Spirits of the Dead from sixty eight, and he was also in seventy two super Fly. TNT just a good background stooge
or Hinchman, and he has a great Hinchman look. And then finally, in terms of the actors, here we have the Minister of the Interior and I think his title changes later on in the film, but this is played by Terry Thomas, who lived nineteen eleven through nineteen ninety. Yes, it's Terry hyphen Thomas. You might remember him as the dirty movie enthusiast from The Abominable Doctor Fibes, British comedian
and character actor who excelled at playing bumbling fops. He was in a ton of pictures, but you might know him from It's a Mad, Mad, Mad Mad World from sixty three. He also voiced Sir Hiss in the Disney Robin Hood film from seventy three. Oh he just cake, Yeah, the snake. He has a great hissing voice in general, and yeah, he's fun in this. He just Terry Thomas is all over the place.
Yeah, he has some really good scenes where he's giving press conferences appealing to people's patriotism while while clearly kind of squirming like a like a bug under a microscope.
All right, real quick production design credit goes to Carlo Rombaldi, who lived nineteen twenty five through twenty twelve. He's come up before on the show. He's involved in a number of great productions over the years, including Planet, The Vampires, The Never Ending Story. He also had a hand in designing et So some wonderful credits assigned to this man,
sometimes credited just as Rambaldi. And then the music for the film, I think we mentioned this already, but it's a score by and Neil Morricone, who lived nineteen twenty eight through twenty twenty. You know, the huge name Italian composer, soundtrack master. He was responsible for many amazing scores. But the two films that we've talked about previously that had a Morricone score were probably not that great as far
as examples go. They were nineteen seventy nine The Humanoid, which I think had its moments in nineteen eighty three's Treasure of the Four Crowns, which soundtrack wise was nothing special.
Well, I think diabolic breaks that streak. This is an excellent score. I love the theme music here, or the music that's used all throughout, has got these great these kind of there are there are themes that are tagged to specific types of emotional moments in the movie. So like anytime there's a big twist, there are these these voices that I they're the ones I was thinking of is going backwards up a slide, So these like choir of voices going.
Oh yeah, yeah, there's some there. I think some of this music has like a sitar kind of a vibe going on yeah that I really liked. There's also there also some tracks that really lean into the groovy fun angle of the thing, which is totally totally valid, totally you know, on point for this picture. And then there are some great suspenseful moments as well. So I agree, I think this is a great score. It's certainly head and shoulders above the previous Morcone scores that we've talked about here.
H oh.
And he also wrote the theme song deep Down that we hear I feel like two or three times in the film.
Do you have a favorite Morconey score.
Yeah, I mean, as I've I've mentioned before, I think you know, the mission is amazing, you know, of course I love eighty two's John Carpenter is the thing, and you know, and that The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly from sixty six is a classic as well. But so many scores, and the Lord knows I haven't heard them all.
Well, are you ready to talk about the plot?
Yeah, let's dive into the life and times.
Of Diabolic Reminder again, this movie is full of surprises, so if you want to see it without having any of those surprises spoiled, please watch it before we spoil them all here.
Well, there's no surprise how this is going to start. This is a movie in which money or valuables are stolen, so you have to begin with some unstolen valuables.
That's right, We're going to start with the prologue heist, the largest shipment of dollars in human history. So there we come up on like the sound of sirens, engines gunning. There is a massive procession of police motorcycles riding in double file through the gates of a big, austere looking
building complex. It's all concrete and corners and walls, and there are snipers lining the roofs, and guards with machine guns that are standing along the alleyways within, and we see a shipment of yellow bags being loaded into an armored transport vehicle. One thing to go ahead and mention here is that there is something really inspired about the braiding in and out of different color themes in different
sequences in the movie. So, for example, everything with the police and the opening sequence here has these flourishes of yellow and black, kind of like the stripes on a bee or on a yellowjacket, which could put you in mind of like hives and workers and mindless drones all carrying out orders, or it could put you in the mind of something that can sting or something that can
harm you. So I don't know, maybe I'm putting reading too much into it, but I see a kind of genius in the way color is used throughout the whole film, like that there are colors elections that resonate thematically with what's going on on screen and kind of interesting and oblique indirect ways.
Yeah. Absolutely, I mean Bob is a master of color, among other things.
So we see several of the officials who are overseeing this truck transport. Having a private conversation. One of them loads up taped stacks of blank paper into one of the yellow bags and says, you know, I wonder how security would feel if they knew they were guarding waste paper instead of ten million dollars. That got me thinking how much would it cost to simulate ten million dollars with blank paper? Like how much does the paper you would use for that cost?
I mean significantly less than ten million dollars, one would hope, Like.
I'm going to spend five thousand dollars on paper to simulate ten million dollars.
If it keeps you ten million dollars from being stolen by supercriminal, then I guess it totally works out.
Too bad. It's not work anyway, So secretly, you know, we got a trap being set up. This armored vehicle is full of bags of fake money, so somebody's trying to set up a trap. And then looking on from a window above is the decoy truck motors away, we see one of the main characters of this movie. It is Inspector Jinko, the police detective who is involved in the planning of this operation, and he is stern lawful.
He's driven to catch his mark, but there's all there's also something a little bit weary in the eyes and kind of pitiful about him, and you kind of wonder is he finding fulfillment filling up armored trucks with blank paper?
Yeah, one suspects not so.
Inspector Jinko is talking to an ally in the scheme, who says to him, I've never seen such precautions just to get a shipment to the port, And Jinko says, the whole underworld worries me less than a single man. And then the other guy, he gets very quiet and whispers the name Diabolic. So Jinko goes into the other room where the police are loading the real ten million dollars into different yellow bags which are being hidden inside
a chauffeured luxury car. And this thing, wouldn't it be better to hide it inside a cheap car?
I don't know. Yeah, yeah, because they're kind of fixing it up like like this is a a chauffeur gride with swells in it. So it seems like that might attract a super criminal's attention.
Anyway, Yeah, I guess so. But they've got a whole system here So they've got a bunch of tough police or government operatives, some kind of tough guys who are disguised as diplomats with top hats and cravats, very formal, and they're going to ride along with the money. So the convoy of cars carrying the real money, those cars depart the police station and they head toward the port while we get a taste of one of the sweet musical themes. This is the one that the kind of
nervous sounding descending guitar riff. And also there's some kind of wind instrument warbling in the background, maybe a saxophone or something. I'm not sure what it is. Can we get a taste of that theme? JJ nice? And then following the convoy, we catch our first glimpse of what Jared Harris might call the Jaguar. I'm not a car guy, so I don't usually get excited about cars in movies or fancy sports cars in any context really, but for
some reason this broke through to me. Diabolics Jaguar is so cool.
Absolutely, this is a cool looking car. And I believe he buys them by like the dozen, yeah, because they're just completely disposable to Diabolic. Diabolic is a very successful super criminal. He has super riches, so he's operating with a budget well beyond any other criminal you've seen in another film.
I think this might be present in the original comics as well, but it's definitely here in the movie where Diabolic and Eva both have their own jaguar. I think it's a Jaguar E type, and he drives a black Jaguar and she drives a white one.
Oh nice.
So the police and the money shipmen arrive at the port. I guess it's going to be loaded on a boat, and they're driving under the giant cranes and monstrous equipment used to unpack container ships. And as they pass underneath these rusting technological archways, suddenly another musical theme strikes. This is the eerie chorus of voices going backwards up the slide. I love it. It makes me want to run with scissors. Can we hear a sample of this? So we've got
these evil fairy voices ringing out on the soundtrack. Suddenly the convoy of cars is enveloped in a haze of multicolored smoke. We've got yellow, green, purple smog. They can't see anything Inspector Jenko and the others get out of their cars to investigate. When we finally realize what's going on, the car stuffed with all the money is being hoisted away on a crane. It's up in the air, and then there is a silhouette barely visible through the smoke.
It is a tall, dark, lean figure climbing on the rigging of the crane. And then there is a fast zoom or a fast pull focus. I'm not sure what the terminology is, but the camera just charges in for a close up on his face and it is danger diabolic. We get the title. It says danger diabolic. We see his eyes glowering out from the kind of butterfly shaped gap in his mask, and he laughs. So he's got a sinister laughter and he's beaten them again.
Yes, I love the sinister laugh or laughter to him to remind you that, yes, there is a fun evil to diabolic. He is diabolical.
Did you want to do a thing about his costume? This like skin tight suit he wears?
Uh? Yeah, yeah, I think we talked a little bit about the mask. Yeah. The whole outfit is basically, I think supposed to be kind of like a cat suit as it's realized in the film, it's maybe like a little less catsuit and more like leather pants and then some sort of a kind of a turtleneck type thing. It varies, but but yeah, he has this this this black outfit that he's like a ninja ninja with, but with a mask that just clings to every detail of his face.
I did like when you said it was like his face was vacuum packed.
Yeah, it's like if you vacuum sealed the face. Yeah, the face mask into the face.
Yeah, souv diabolic?
Mm hmm. And I do have to add, I don't know that we ever see him blink. I think, uh, I mean, he's not always wide eyed. Sometimes he's looking at things or reading things, et cetera. But I didn't I didn't think to watch the whole movie with this in mind. But it's very possible that Bava does not include a single frame of John Philip Law blinking.
I think you're about that. So Diabolic removes the money from the car while the cops are shooting at him, by the way, but Diabolic doesn't care, not afraid of bullets, he throws the money down into a speedboat waiting below, dives into the water to escape, drives the speedboat away. We get credits, so the credit sequences, you know, we see the credits running while there's like a spinning glass colored painted glass thing. I don't know exactly what's going on.
It's kind of a groovy sixties Italian party song playing.
Yeah, this would be this would be the Marconi theme somewhat deep down.
Oh okay, So he escapes with the ten million dollars. So he's in the boat, and then he just transitions to now he's in a car. He's driving the Jaguar, and then there's a helicopter on his tail. Oh no, there's a machine gun fire coming from above. So what's he going to do? Well, he kind of bobs and weaves. He eludes them for a while by like driving under some some greenery, some foliage, but they find him again, and then oh no, maybe it seems like they're going
to catch him. But there's a brilliant twist. Diabolic drives into a tunnel where there is already waiting the love of his life, his perfect partner in crime. Eva can't she's here with her white Jaguar while he was driving the black one and they do a car swap. So he sends his car speeding in reverse back out of the tunnel and it or maybe he sends it out
of the front I don't know. Anyway, his car goes out of the tunnel, goes speeding over a cliff, so the police see it crash and they think, oh, Diabolic has been killed. Meanwhile, he and Eva speed away to their secret hideout, probably furiously kissing the entire time. They do not respect the eyes on the road rule.
There is a lot of screen time in this movie devoted to Diabolic and Eva making out. It's great. Yeah, it's what you're here for.
I think it's time to talk about Diabolic and Eva's secret layer.
Oh my goodness, it is amazing. It's like the It's like the Batcave, except on some sort of groovy cocktail of sixties hallucinogens.
Yes, so maybe before we get inside, I want to mention the door that opens to let them inside. So it's supposed to look like a hidden trap door in the earth, you know, so like they're just like rocks and earth. And then it opens up, pops up like the top of a pedal bin to allow them to drive down the ramp and then it closes behind them. And this is achieved in the movie by I think
a very simple force perspective effect. It's you know, little things popping up in the foreground, A little miniature door in the foreground pops up, and then they drive the car behind it. In the background, it looks like they're driving down into the earth. And the movie is full of effects like this that seem relatively cheap and easy to accomplish, and they're kind of the word might be
kind of stagy. Like you can tell they're obviously not real if you're looking out for it, but if you're not, I don't know, if you're not applying a critical type of attention to it, they just wash right over you. Like so they fit into the action and the aesthetic
of the film perfectly. And I would not want these beautiful, cheap, simple little effects replaced with higher budget counterparts, like they actually build a giant, you know door in the ground and drive into it, or replace it with you know, really realistic looking cgi or any of that. There there's something about these cheap, simple effects that is so nice and feel so good. It's like a real sense of confidence and finesse and playfulness in Bova's filmmaking instincts here. Yeah.
Plus, I think we've mentioned before with Baba, there's a structural completeness to everything, so that when you have a lower budget effect in place, or you know, or even something that is that is maybe like that, the writing is a little subpar, et cetera. Like everything else is positioned just so that nothing feels out of place. And
I think that definitely applies here as well. Yeah, now once we get down into the headquarters themselves, Oh my goodness, it's it's it really has a sci fi feel to it. It feels like this is something that was built by aliens that were primarily interested in futuristic romantic interior design.
Yeah, it's like a it's like a Bond villain layer in a way. It's a giant underground cavern with all these elaborate structures and oh god, I wish I knew more of the terminology of style. I mean, I think it's kind of like a kind of a mod decorse style. It's that cool, hip sixties looking decor with you know, weird choices about shapes and colors and all that. So it's just gorgeous, and so what we do next really is we spend some time at home with Eva and Diabolic.
And I mean this in all seriousness. Diabolic and Eva are so sweet. I already said, one of my favorite screen couples of all time. They are absolutely mad about each other. And really the whole elaborate crime plot is just about them being in love and trying to have fun, which in a way makes this kind of a perfect date movie. Couples should watch Danger Diabolic together.
Yeah, absolutely, because it is. I mean, it is a movie about the power of their love and how that their love can be is tested but cannot be overcome by these other forces in the world. And then on top of that though, it's just extremely groovy. It's outrageous, you know, it's it's never too serious, you know, these
two never getting into arguments or squabbles about anything. And yeah, we spend just a lot of time with them here at home in their super sexy sci fi luxury underground pad that feels like it must have been I don't know, built by again ancient aliens under neat the surface of another planet. I don't know.
Yeah, it was built by the aliens from two thousand and one of Space Odyssey and Buckminster Fuller and I don't know the members of the who like it's how would you like their bedroom and their bathroom. Their bedroom, they have a giant like ring shaped bed that rotates on a motor, and then next to it, they've got these things that are just stacked polygons. I don't even know what to call them. I don't think they're functional.
They don't look like shelves. They're just polygons that are lit from behind, so they kind of glow with the soft white through all their corners. And then in their bathroom they have his and hers glass shower enclosures with planters full of living plants in the showers. That's a choice I've never seen before, but I love it.
Yeah. And also each shower has like a blurry circle bit that covers them up from the cameras, though it's certainly in Eva's case like only barely.
You can just tell that. As much as these two love to go out and get into dangerous adventures together, they also love chilling at home. You know, they have a great time, like putting on a movie or something. Well, I don't know, it's nineteen sixty eight. I don't know about home video yet, but they you know, they watch the news on TV and make cracks about how we're going to steal that necklace.
So we spend a long time with them, but then we have to cut out. We have to see what's going on in the rest of the world.
Right, Yeah, time to check in with the squares. No, we got consequences for the cops. Inspector Jenko is in trouble with Terry Thomas, who is playing some kind of bureaucrat who's been deeply embarrassed by all of the crime and the theft of the ten million. He says, it's absurd that one man can make a laughing stock of
the entire police force. And Terry Thomas says, you know, obviously, if you think about it, logically, diabolics next move is going to be to find a way to get the money out of the country, So maybe we can catch him that way. Inspector Jenko says, logical, sir, but not helpful in this situation. Diabolic, he plays by his own rules. He will find some other way to put that money to use, and then cut straight to Diabolic and Eva using the money as a bed as sort of a love nest.
Yes, that's right. It turns out presumably they stole all that money just so they could make love on it. Yes, because again, yeah, it's that you can't you can't approach Diabolic like any other criminal. His motives are not the same. He is not like the rest of them. But it's yeah, it completely is a great sequence, very tastefully done, and
just completely outrageous. So again something that elevates this film into the sort of the flash Gordon Barbarella realm of just you know, outrageous cinema.
Yeah. Also, there's a very funny scene with a press conference where Terry Thomas comes out to announce that in order to crush the current wave of crime sweeping the country, the government has mercifully restored the death penalty, and at this press conference, Diabolic and Eva show up in hilarious disguises. Diabolic looks like it's that Will Will Ferrell character on SNL where he had the tiny, the tic tac sized cell phone.
Oh I don't remember this character.
Well, that's what Diabolic looks like. Here. He's got these square sunglasses and a turtleneck under a blazer. He looks great.
Yeah, they do a lot of this, showing up really close to the heat in disguise as the most fashionable people, and nobody blinks an eye.
But he Diabolic decides to humiliate Terry Thomas and Inspector Jinko by by releasing laughing gas in the room while the press conference is going on. He pretends I guess to be a reporter, and he's doing like you know, flashbowl camera photography, and when the flash bul goes off, it releases a kind of puff of stuff, and it turns out that is laughing gas, and everybody starts laughing, except, of course Diabolic and Eva, who took antidote pills before they did it.
They have everything figured out.
Terry Thomas says, he's certainly not going to make a fool of me. Then I can't stop laughing. Yes, he looks in It looks very foolish. Great Terry Thomas sequence. All right, So after this, Inspector Jinko he's got to come up with a plan to stop Diabolic once and for all. So here the movie introduces the character Valmont.
We learned about him through newspaper headlines linking him to a bunch of crimes Jim theft, drug dealing, all that stuff, and he seems to be kind of the ultimate crime kingpin. And now Inspector Jinko is looking for him. Maybe maybe that's maybe somehow he can use Valmont to get to Diabolic. And here we get you know, somebody comes to Jenko and Inspector you know, we have a lead at one of Valmont's nightclubs. So here we're gonna go see a swinging,
switched on sixties nightclub. I guess the movie isn't set in Italy, but I see some Italian sensibilities in how this hippie nightclub is realized.
As best I can tell, this movie takes place in the country of Europe, Like it's never really clear, and I guess you're not supposed to think too long and hard about it. But yeah, the nightclub sequence is amazing. We got go go dancers, medieval troubadours, blurry lighting, dope, smoke gels, just an overall miasma of just hippie grooviness all through the Mario Bava lens.
Yeah, the club seems to be part chemistry lab because there are glass beakers and tubes everywhere, but also a little bit secret Commonwealth themed, like there's over on in Titanya. They're dancing in the corner. And this is a club where if you're not careful and elf is going to make your cows sick. So we see various elfin and fairy looking people around. But then also there is a pirate playing guitar for good measure.
Well't you lady chills out on a bed wearing flowers.
Yeah, yeah, I think she's sort of the one of the one of the elf or fairy themed people. Like she's got the garlands of leaves and flowers all around her. She seems like a hidden folk of the forest.
Yeah, that's right.
But also the guy. So there's like loud music playing at the club because it's a dance club, you know, it's like deafening. And this guy's sitting here playing an acoustic guitar in a pirate hat. He can't hear himself play in this set. Why is he playing?
You know? I guess it doesn't mean you can't noodle little bit. He's probably he's probably on the wacky.
Weed, that's true. Also, this place has xylophone stairs. I've never seen xylophone stairs in reality before.
Yeah, this is great, and then all we get the greatest blunt passing scene in the history of sen as well.
Within the rotation is a guy who looks like William H. Macy, but then also a sequence of people who look like Mozart's Bad News Vienna Party friends in Amadeus.
So anyway, this is Valmont's club. But you know, we don't get a sense that the club is bad. The club seems hip and groovy and so forth. But uh uh oh, something's about to happen. Here come the fizz.
I think there's some drugs in this club. In fact, I know there are because we saw that that blunt rotation. So there there's a police raid on the club and this this gets the attention of Valmont, who again this is the largo from Thunderball Adolphocelli. So Valmont is finding out that the police are onto him and he does not like that. So we come. We go see Valmont on his boat. And as we said before, you Valmont is just he's the worst. You know, he makes Diabolic look great.
Yeah, he's just a complete pick.
So Valmont calls up Inspector Jinko with a proposal in exchange for leniency in his own police troubles. Valmont offers to help Jinko catch Diabolic. After all, it takes a thief to catch a thief, and Jinko is intrigued. So we get a scene on Valmont's airplane where he's meeting with the other members of his criminal syndicate and they're going to vote on whether to proceed with the plan to catch Diabolic. And you can tell there's some descent.
There are those who vote against the plan because you don't want to mess with Diabolic.
That's right. I mean, this is a dangerous guy. Not everyone wants wants to toy with him. You know, let's it. Let him do his thing. We just hope he ignores our stuff.
So several members of the criminal syndicate vote against the plan, and Valmont responds by shooting them, and he also he shoots He accidentally shoots a hole in the fuselage of the plane, which one of his henchmen plugs with chewing gum.
Yeah this is Joe, I believe cool Joe is henchman.
Yes, Valmont. Also he tries to shoot one guy but I think he misses, and then the guy is begging for mercy. He's like, please, please, don't shoot, and Valmont says, since you said please, I won't shoot. So instead he presses a button on his desk which opens a trapdoor beneath the guy's feet and drops him out of the airplane. Ten out of ten bond villain trapdoor deployment. Here love a villain with a trap door. Absolutely, that's key villain infrastructure.
Yeah, and it's going to come. It's gonna be important later on as well.
That's right. So you know, now what's going on is we've got a dangerous and ruthless collection of violent crime bosses who are working together under Valmont's command to capture Diabolic and turn him over to the police. So on to the next act. We gotta have another heist. It's been a bit since we had a heist. So Diabolic and are watching TV together and he's like, oh, hey, your birthday is coming up. What do you want for
your birthday? And right then we see a news report there are visiting diplomats i think from the UK coming to Europe wherever this is, uh, and one of them is going to be wearing the world famous Axon emerald necklace. And if this is a necklace with eleven totally unique giant emeralds in it. It's one of the most valuable pieces of jewelry in the world. And they'll be staying
at Saint just Castle. So the news report is like, here's where you can find them if you would like to steal these emeralds, and ava she sees them, She's like, ooh, those emeralds, and you can just see Diabolic. He squints. He's working it out already in his mind.
Again, he will steal anything for love, and he will absolutely steal that.
That's right. So next we see Diabolic and Eva doing some kind of role play outside the castle. He like drives up in a car. She apparently he has disguised herself as a sex worker and done some recon inside the castle and it's full. She reports, Okay, here's what she figured out. Is full of police. They're disguised as waiters, many of them wearing wigs. Uh. There are guards outside with rifles. There are CCTV cameras everywhere. Looks basically impossible, but not for Diabolic.
Yep. They just love the challenge. They're in it for the fun. They're they're they're in they enjoy their.
Work, that's right. And uh he oh. She says, I didn't see Inspector Jinko there, and he says, if you didn't see him, that means he's there.
M the reverse is also true, I guess, I.
Guess so uh but so uh oh. It's not just the police who are involved in this trap. Valmont has recruited women who saw Eva snooping around snooping around the castle, and he knows that this woman they saw must be the infamous Eva can't partner in crime to diabolic himself, he figures that out. So he's like, if we can
find her, we can get to him. So he wants the women who saw her to describe her, and then we get this bizarre looking, amazing animated scene where they're doing like a forensic reconstruction of Eva's face with the help of this computer.
Yeah. I didn't remember this sequence from the MST three K episode, which I haven't seen in a very long time anyway, so I don't know if it was in there or it was cut, but I was when they started rolling this out. I'm like, Okay, we're going to have a forensic sketch sequence and whatever. I mean, maybe I'll check my notes, but no, it's amazing. It's like, whoever, I don't know whose decision this was and everything, but
like they this is great. This is a great use of what would otherwise be a throwaway sequence.
Totally fast cuts, mixing and matching different facial elements. It's kind of like rapidly clicking the randomized button on a video game character creator mm hmm.
Yeah.
But then finally they zero in on a drawing of Eva. That's her and Valmont's the next part. I've seen this couple times recently and I still never caught exactly how he does this. Valmont manages to somehow get in contact with Eva's doctor, and he's going to use Eva's doctor to find Eva and then use Eva to catch diabolic Yeah.
I'm not sure what the connection here is. Like there's did he go to every doctor in town and say, hey, I'm looking for this lady. Have you seen this lady? You're a doctor, right, you see lady patients. I don't know, it's not explained. There's a lot that's not explained in this movie, but most of it you don't really pause to question. Don't worry about it. Yeah, and I guess
this you might as well just roll with it. But somehow he's able to make some connection and he starts knocking on who turns out to a guy who turns out to be her doctor, and ask, hey, have you seen this lady?
He tries to cover for her. He tries to lie and say no, I don't know her, but that'll come back to bite him.
I think maybe the idea is he's a doctor who only works with criminals.
I don't know, Oh that might be it.
Yeah, but even then this is a tenuous connection at best.
Okay, Meanwhile, the heist has got to go on, so we got to check back in with Diabolic and Eva as there. You know, he's gonna Diabolic is going to
be trying to get into the Just Castle. And there was a cool moment I don't know if you caught this, where there's like a juxtaposition of showing Eva in the car with her eyes reflected in the rear view mirror, and there's like all this dark shadowy stuff outside of the windshield ahead of her, and it's kind of framing her eyes the same way that diabolics suit frames his eyes, and then it like cuts between them. So I thought that was cool.
Oh yeah, that that was cool. And then also, I mean it also bears mentioning that Mario Bava, you know you're in a Mario Bava film when you have a lot of these shots of things seen through other portals or windows, a lot of shots of things seen in reflection. He really makes great use of these effects.
All right, So Diabolic swims up to the shore outside the castle and he goes onto the beach. He takes out some of the guards, and here maybe we should discuss the morality of Diabolic in this movie, because Diabolic does kill people who are not necessarily like criminals or people trying to kill him. This is a harder edged criminal anti hero than we might be used to. So he throws knives into guards throats to and kills them just to get past them to get to the necklace.
And in this scene, with like the framing and the costume, he looks absolutely evil, and clearly he is supposed to. So I don't know, I feel like the tendency now for anti heroes is to is to have them be less anti you know, to be they wouldn't kill somebody who wasn't in the game.
Yeah, they wouldn't shoot first, right, that's yeah.
But he does. He does. He's just like, these are just people in his way and he's throwing throwing knives into their necks.
Was like your observation earlier. Yeah, he's a bird of prey. He is dangerous. He's a loner though outside of his life mate, you know, no one else really means anything to him.
That's right. So this Diabolic is not Robinhood yet.
Right, and he'll only kind of later on the film. He may get into some Robinhood territory, but not because he really just wants to help everybody. There are other motives and situations that lead to that.
Yeah, maybe he wants to help people, maybe he just wants to get revenge.
M oh, but this is when we get limited edition white Diabolic. He's in the black suit.
Yeah, do you think that was supposed to be functional? Like he blends in better with the wall that he's going to be climbing in the white suit.
I think that's the idea. But also, of course it's just visually appealing. It's like it's just snazzy.
Okay, here we are at the heist. He comes to the tower where the diplomats are staying at the top, and the emeralds are on the table in their room. But the emeralds have been placed in a very special location. Inspector Jinko is in there and he's he places them right in front of a police CCTV camera. So how is diabolic going to get them? Well, first, how's he going to get up that wall?
Well, he pulls out some suction cup devices. We were just talking about this in our episodes on stickiness. He has these suction cup things that are you hold with your hands and they allow him to stick to stone. Yeah.
I don't know about that. I think the stone looks a little too rough for a suction cup to work.
But within the context of the film, it works, and he's able to scale that the sheer surface of that tower.
He's diabolic, he can do anything. So, yes, the suction cups work. He climbs the tower. He goes in through the window. He hears the diplomats argue is the it's the husband and wife who are the diplomats and they're in the bedroom arguing. The old guy says like, have you arranged my toy soldiers again? Where is my general under the bed? And she goes, you can play with your general in the morning.
I don't know why he brought his minis on a trip. I mean, it's always tempting, but you gotta you got to scale back.
So Diabolic goes into the room with the emeralds, but he realizes that the necklace is being monitored by CCTV camera. So how's he gonna get him? Obviously he's going to be seen if he goes to get it. What's he gonna do?
Photo trickery? Sneak up there, get it, take a polaroid, and then use a little dou dad to position the polaroid in front of the camera. I feel like this is this is a scheme that has been utilized in some other films as well. I just can't remember which ones off hand.
Oh they do the same thing in all the modern Mission impossible movies.
Oh they do.
Ok.
Yeah, they'll put like a video, a video playback or a picture or something in front of a of a security camera and it works every time. All right, So Diabolic gets the necklace, but then soon after he gets it, the police are onto him and a chase breaks out. He is pursued up the spiraling stairwell to the roof of the castle and then he gets there, he's cornered. The police are they'll be there any see. He's on the roof. What's he gonna do? How will he escape?
And then suddenly we see Diabolic lock eyes on a catapult. For a moment, I was like what, And so the police rush up on a rush up onto the roof. We see the catapult fling out something that looks like Diabolic and they shoot at it and they they're like,
I think I got him. But then they as they leave the roof, we get a catapult fake out where a naked Diabolic now peeks up from behind the catapult and he apparently launched his limited edition white Diabolic catsuit by itself in the catapult and they just shot his clothes.
Oh wow, perfect perfect master of strategy.
So Diabolic and Eva escape by car. I guess they got a new black Jaguar after they blew up the last one.
Oh they have, Yeah, they have, Like they buy him by the dozen. We saw a whole rows of them in the Layer.
The vibes in this movie and in this scene are so good. The feeling of freedom and fun as they are escaping with the emerald necklace in the scene and as they like put up a this like mirror across the roadway to fool the cars that are chasing them.
Yes, yeah, all the wonderful technology they utilize. And yeah, the youthful rebellion energy of this film is really strong, because you know, certainly there's the hippie vibe and all of the late sixties, but also at heart, we have a pair of young lovers, our power couple here for whom all this crime is mere for play, for whom money is a mere tool in their romance. While at the same time money is just the all consuming and all corrupting power of the elder authorities on both sides
of the law. So their enemies, law and crime, now united and maybe not that dissimilar, are coming after their love. But I think we'll find that they underestimate the power of their love. So very strong our love versus the world vibes in this movie.
I think that's an excellent, correct and profound interpretation. Yeah, that's exactly what's going on. So the only real threat to Diabolic and Eva is a threat to their integrity as a couple. So here we get the next attack. The next act, Eva is kidnapped.
Yeah, the whole doctor's angle thing pays off, and he shows up with his goons. They murder the doctor and they kidnap Eva.
That's right, Valmont personally shows up at the doctor's office to kill the doctor by shooting him with a machine gun in an ex pattern. And I think he says, like I told you, I would mark your name off of the human register. And so, of course, now Eva's been kidnapped, Diabolic will do anything to save her. So he calls Valmont. Apparently Velmont placed like an ad in the classifieds trying to sell her jaguar, her jaguar, and that is how Diabolic knows who to contact. He calls
him up. He says, what do you want? And Valmont says, I want ten million dollars plus an emerald necklace, and so Diabolic says, I will pay. So Valmont lures Diabolic onto his private airplane, the one, the one with the trap door in the floor that'll launch you out of the fuselage. So Diabolic brings the money, he brings the necklace. But but what happens here? We get another great reversal?
Oh yeah, because you know Valmont could shoot him right there on the plane, right he could drop him out of that that that trap door, and it looks like that's where it's going. But then no, I mean, he's Valmont's too cruel and evil for this. He has some other kind of scheme in mind, it would seem. But on the other level, we also know he's working with the police. He this whole thing, this whole this whole cooperation is about turning Diabolic over alive to law enforcement.
So he's like, no, if you want Eva, you need to take this parachute and jump out of the trap door. He opens the trap door, but then oh crap, Diabolic has he has the the parachute on and he grabs Valmont and then pulls him with him as they both fall out of the airplane and then as they're plummeting, the airplane explodes above them.
That's right, so Diabolic says, I brought a magnetic I guess a bomb with him to blow up the airplane. And now he's got Valmont. He's like interrogating Valmont as they're plummeting through the air about like, you know, who's are the police down there? And he admits, yes they are. Is Eva down there? And he says, yes, she is, So they parachute into this trap, and Diabolic does manage to rescue Eva, but the police are waiting for him, so he sends Eva off on her own to escape
while he draws the fire of the police. And then there's a big shootout the police and the Valmont, the Valmont. The police and Valmont on one side, Diabolic on the other. They've got him surrounded and at one point Diabolic seems out of ammo or something maybe, but he has an idea. You see him look at like the clip on his machine gun, and then the voices going backwards up the slide play and ooh, you know, the hair is raised on the back of my neck. Something good's gonna happen.
Diabolic pops out and he shoots Valmont dead, and then you see him take some kind of pill. So the police come and find him, and Diabolic himself appears to be dead when they find him, and we see Inspector Jenko later he's talking to a colleague of his saying, in a way it says, though he's become part of my life. I can't believe he's really dead. And you know what, Inspector, I can't believe it either. I don't think he is.
We thought he was dead at least one other time in the film. It seems like it's probably something that happens every time he pulls off Highes.
That's right. So we later we're in the morgue and we see doctors preparing Diabolic's body for an autopsy. But just as the scalpel is about to go in, his eyes pop open. Oh, Diabolic is still alive, and one of the doctors is Eva in disguise, and we get a whole explanation. Diabolic says he used a pill that was I think originally used by Tibetan lamas to enter a state of apparent death, and he says, if you let it go for twenty four hours without the antidote,
the death becomes permanent and real. But Eva delivered the antidote just in time to save him. She got there just like with seconds to spare.
They like to play it close to the edge. Oh.
But then he gets back on the table and they cover him up with the cloth and she wheels him out through the crowd of police and reporters, which was hilarious. Then if that wasn't a good enough twist, a second twist, which is just amazing. So there's a moment where the police are talking about Valmont's death as well. They're like, oh, we got the reports from his autopsy. Turns out he
died of eleven gunshot wounds. And then Inspector Jenko, you see, if we get like his inner monologue, he says, eleven bullets, eleven emeralds, there were eleven emeralds on the necklace, and then cut to Diabolic, already at the morgue, pretending to be a relative of Valmont's, talking to the funeral director,
saying like he was really a good ploy Valmont's. He's there to collect Valmont's ashes, which now contain the emeralds that Diabolic I think somehow used as bullets to shoot into Valmont's body back in the desert that they parachuted into.
And now I think, I think that's the idea. As ridiculous as that is, I think that's what happened.
That is that's an all time like top five movie twist.
We don't understand it, but we're not as good with guns as Diabolic, Like he knows what he's doing.
He used the emeralds as bullets. So wait a minute, the main villain is dealt with, and there's like a whole other act of the movie to go.
Yeah, I mean a lot of film's going to just call it here, and but it's clearly not presented with that kind of like movie capping finale kind of a feel to it. Yeah, clearly there's more to go.
There's also a great lovely scene back at the hideout where Diabolic and Eva are, you know, they're reunited. They're hanging out by the pool and Diabolic like like sticks all of the emerald to Eva. I guess he doesn't have the necklace part, but he has all of an emerald, so he just like sticks him to her skin.
Yeah, tells are happy birthday, and then they start kissing, and then they like fall into the water and presumably all those emeralds just fall right off of her chest and sink to the bottom of the pool, which is totally in keeping with their vibe, because those emeralds have no intrinsic value to our power couple outside of their role in enhancing their romance.
Right, They're not going to sell these on a secondary market. They don't care about the cash value of the emeralds. They only matter as a token of love.
That's right.
So the last tist I am going to cover in less detail, but this one has a really fun, ludicrous premise as well. So the new plan to catch Diabolic is there's a one million dollar reward for his capture, and in response, Diabolic destroys all of the government's tax offices and records. And then we see Terry Thomas coming on TV actually kind of again squirming and saying, I appeal to your sense of national pride. Please pay your taxes. You know we don't have any record of what you
owe anymore. I know you will not turn your back on.
Me, he says, absolutely hilarious. Yeah, we're on the honor system now right.
And for some I don't remember the mechanics they explained, but this leads to the creation of the ingot, one of the funniest plot devices I can think of any movie. They say they're going to create a single giant ingot of gold. It's like the size of a tanker truck. I think the idea is that it will be harder to steal this way.
Yeah, it's just too big to steal. He could steal a lot of little gold bars, or maybe some amount of the gold bars but if we just made one gigantic gold bar, surely he would not be able to steal this. Again, this is just like almost folkloric and mythic qualities to it.
Can Diabolic steal it? Of course he can. Diabolic and Eva together they do some great tag teaming. They work together to this one involves like car chases and submarines. There is some underwater stuff, but it's not it's not too much underwater stuff.
Yeah, they keep it to sub thunderball levels to maintain our interest.
Right, So eventually Diabolic and Eva get the gold and get back to the secret hideout. But how are they going to get the gold out of the steel case that it has been enclosed in? So the plan is they like drill a hole in the case and they're going to melt the gold out of there, so it'll like run out through the hole. And Diabolic is going to do this using a suit he says, with such thermal protection that it would allow you to walk on the surface of the sun.
No questioning that.
But uh oh, police raid on the hideout. They finally discovered Diabolic and Eva's right.
They radiated part of the gold, yes, or the container won so that they could track him, and so now the gig is truly up, Like the police are starting to raid the bat cave.
That's right. So the police come there, they're they're shooting at him and all this there's a big final showdown with the police in which the molten gold from the ingot gets like splattered out of the case all over Diabolic in his thermal protection suit. So the gold is like flung over him like ribbons that sort of harden in place, and he is frozen in this pose with his arm up over his head and apparently dead. Eve has distraught.
Yeah, we see part of the face that the glass, you know, the clear face plate of the suit there, and we see his eye just staring out his face, you know, totally totally still seemingly dead. And yeah, then they start doing a press conference around this, and you know, the inspector Jinko is like a you know, it feels feels weird to parade his body like this. You know,
this was an honorable foe and so forth. But then we get you know, the final twist, and it's absolutely great because in this moment, it seems like, you know, like their love has been defeated, you know, the powers that be seem victorious. Diabolic is entombed in gold, and as the crowd begins to depart, Eva arrives dressed all in black to grieve. But even this separation is temporary because if she's looking up, what does she see? She sees suddenly there's movement, and he winks at her.
I knew it was coming, but still it felt like as such a pleasing surprise.
Absolutely yeah, And of course if you take it literally, this is quite outlandish and unbelievable, but you know, it really takes on this almost supernatural air. Death cannot separate them and defeat their love. Only instead of this being presented in kind of like a religious manner or certainly a horror themed flavoring, we see this kind of thing occurring with like our occult power couples a lot, but instead it's cloaked in style and super science, super crime,
super science. You know, where our anti hero has been turned into art by splattering gold. But no, he's still alive in there, and even as that Eva is taken away then by the inspector, it's clear they're still hope. Not only hope, there's certainty in.
Fact, you just know she's going to find a way to get him out, that's right. And then they'll steal more. They'll steal more, by god.
Yes, they'll just keep stealing and then that's the end. And it's not at the end with the question mark. I've thought they were going to show the question throw this question mark in there. But I think we do get one last diabolical laugh, don't we.
I think so. I couldn't be sure, but yeah, that sounds right.
If it's not there, it's implied because yeah, he I think he looks at the camera, he winks again. He will be.
Back danger diabolic. This has got to go on my best of list. This is one of my favorite films we've covered on Weird House Cinema. And yeah, it may not have that sci fi or supernatural speculative element, but it's also just for style reasons, one of the weirdest films we've done. It's pure joy.
Absolutely, it's a really fun one. So I highly recommend you check it out. All Right, as we close out here, we're just gonna remind everybody that, yeah, as usual, stuff to blow your mind. As a science podcast with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but on Fridays we set aside most serious concerns to just talk about a weird film here on Weird House Cinema. If you want to see a list of all the movies we've covered over the years, I blog about these movies at Summuto music
dot com. But also you can go to letterbox dot com. It's l E T T E r box d dot com. You'll find our profile there weird House and there's a whole list of all the movies we've covered over the years, and you can do lots of neat things like divide them up by year and genre and so forth and see what we've talked about.
Huge thanks as always to our regular audio producer Jjposway and to our guest producer today Chandler Mays. If you would like to get in touch with us with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest a topic for the future, or just to say hello, you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
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