Plot from Imdb: "Fey super-thief Diabolik runs around stealing jewels, gold, murdering innocent people, and being a nuisance to the government of a generic European country."
Inspired from the Fumetti by Angela and Luciana Giussani in 1962, Diabolik is a masterpiece and yet another confirmation of the amazing skills of Mario Bava. Shot for less than 500 000$, the movie is magnificent, with a tremendous use of matte-painting and visual special effect from that time. The framing is second to none, as Bava allows himself to play with it even more than usual, to match the comic book graphic style. Diabolik as a character is pretty nice, he does bad things but so stylistically and cleverly that we cannot keep from loving him. Deep down, he's not a real bad guy. He just has some issues with morality & the law. Who hasn't ? His willingness to sacrifice himself for his girlfriend makes him a romantic character more than anything else. The actors are great, John Philip law doing a good job as Diabolik, Melissa Tomei being beautiful and Michel Picoli not overacting as the police arch enemy of our anti-hero. The soundtrack is one of Morricone's best, if not the best. It's lush, hypnotic and pop as hell. A masterpiece. Well, what to say ? This is a complete success as far as it's intention: to be a 90 minutes fun trip into the extravaganza life of an European super criminal.
US Trailer:
The Beastie Boys did a video clip inspired by Danger Diabolik, check it out here!
Official Italian comic books site:
http://www.diabolik.it/
VS
Plot: " Escaping from his execution, purchased by Scotland Yard, Kriminal goes on doing what he does best: stealing jewelly and killing anybody in his way."
Kriminal, adapted from,another Italian Fumetti comic book, is a nice piece of Europop cinema from Umberto Lenzi, very crafted italian director from the 70's ("Cannibal Ferox", "Spasmo", "Roma a mano armata" ) . The main character is much more violent and psychopathic than Diabolik, and he's never reluctant to kill and deceit everyone. As such, he could have been a great character, but the movie doesn't really bring out the all dark side of him, it focuses more on the adventurous events of his journey. The cast is ok and the directing is well done, but clearly uninspired. The difference between this exploitation movie and the work from Bava on Diabolik is tremendous. When Bava is looking to always stay close to the graphic element of the comic book, Lenzi on the other hand is just shooting it like the "serial" it is and adds nothing to it. Even if it's quite well made, it's impossible to compare the two movies, as they are each on a different scale: Lenzi does his job well, Bava creates Art. Locations are great as we travel from England to Spain & Turkey (Istanbul was clearly a very popular destination in "Euro exploitation" movies from the 70's). Nice & enjoyable but minor movie.
Opening credits video:
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