Weirdhouse Cinema Rewind: Danger: Diabolik
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Hey guys, I'm Kate Max. You might know me from my popular online series, The Running Interview Show, where I run with celebrities, athletes, entrepreneurs, and more. After those runs, the conversations keep going. That's what my podcast, Post Run High, is all about. It's a chance to sit down with my guests and dive even deeper into their stories, their journeys, and the thoughts that arise once we've hit the pavement together.

Listen to Post Run High on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello and welcome to Weird House Cinema Rewind. Today we are bringing you an older episode of Weird House Cinema on the 1968 supercrime thriller Danger Diabolics, starring John Philip Law and Marissa Mell, 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, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb.

And this is Joe McCormick, and today's movie on Weird House is the 1968 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 60s. I think somewhat riding on the success of the first James Bond films that, you know, have characters named things like James Taunt or something. Mm hmm.

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 60s spy stuff, like the early James Bond films and 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 they're 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,

So there's not a speculative element here. Like this is not really a sci-fi film or a horror or fantasy or 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 Diabolical.

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 impact.

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 more.

cartoonier 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 in the plot because that particularly feels like

like folkloric or mythic. It seems like the kind of thing that various heroes in sagas and tales of old would have engaged in. Oh, the trickster was going to steal the gold, so we just made an enormous gold ingot. But ah, the mighty hero Diabolik stole it anyway. So I actually hadn't seen this movie until a couple of weeks ago. And I

a good friend of mine has been telling me about it for years. I can remember 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 3000, 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 on,

in strange company because danger diabolic is not like soul taker. It is not like final sacrifice or, uh, 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 into an entire tangent on MST3K 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'm

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 3000. And they taught you different ways to enjoy films. But yeah, this was a film that I long associated with MST3K because it was episode 197 back in 1999. It was fantastic.

for a very long time, the final episode of MST3K before it came back in 2017. And it's still the final Mike episode of MST3K. So it was always bittersweet for that reason. Solid riffing, but the end of an era. I had never watched

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 featured on MST3K. There are some that are bad enough that you really need a little something extra to get you through it. This is a very watchable, very fun, very sexy good time. Absolutely. All of those things. And also, yeah,

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, though I'm not really a 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 fans.

the filmmaking in this movie too. It's just like, it is such a, an effortless feeling, uh, display of, of absolute confidence and finesse in how sets and costumes and color schemes are used and how shots are framed. Uh, it's, you just feel like he is taking it easy and making a perfect movie and not breaking a sweat. Yeah.

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 one is more action themed compared to the other two Mario Bava 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 10 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 I worry how that's going to impact the episode. But I think I think it's going to be great. There's a lot to talk about here. OK, what's your elevator pitch for Danger Diabolic?

I've got to channel a little meatloaf 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.

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. 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 robbing hood who baffles the cops. He robs from the rich to give to the girls. Ask Eva. Oh, you shouldn't have done it then.

She can't get a good night's sleep unless she's covered with money. Master sports car racer. Master skin diver. Master lover.

Master. Ask Eva. Diabolic. The absolute gold-plated end. Ask Eva.

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 2020 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 Black Sabbath and we've watched Planet of the Vampires. Planet of the Vampires from 65. Black Sabbath was the anthology horror film that we did. Was it last October or maybe the October before? 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 Verduloc, this kind 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, and looks menacingly at his house guest. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. And that was kind of a follow up to the 1960 black and white film he did, Black Sunday. But it is, you know, in many ways, it's hard to imagine, you know, Mario Bava working in black and white, because when I think of Bava, I think of those rich colors, those rich gels, which he used with a master's stroke technique.

Well, let me stand up for his black and white films. Bava 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-Giallo film, this 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 original cut. And that movie is,

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. 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. Yeah.

Well, any way you slice it, yeah, Mario Bava, legendary Italian director with an unmistakable obsessive and at times just phantasmagorical emphasis on visual composition. A strong still from a Bava film is often just instantly identifiable. He lived 1914 through 1980 and was the father of director Lamberto 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 2. Oh, there you go. Well, one way or another, we'll come back to a Bava at some point.

All right. We don't always mention the producer on a film, but this one's notable because this is Dino De Laurentiis of 1919 through 2010. De Laurentiis, a 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 40s and continued on to his death. Not everything he was involved in was was golden, but he had a hand in the lavish such lavish productions as 68's Barbarella, 1980's 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 a lot of sinew in common there. Also, wasn't he the driving force between hiring David Lynch to adapt to Dune in the 80s? I believe so. Yeah, he was involved in David Lynch's Dune.

Conan the Barbarian from 82, as well as the sequels and also the sort of sequel, Red Sonja. He was a producer on Halloween 2 and 3. 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. I actually, you know, I have sort of a soft spot for, what's it called? The sequel to Silence of the Lambs that had Julianne Moore as Starling. Hannibal. Oh, it was just called Hannibal. Yes. Yeah, that one, I understand why critics didn't like it. It's got some flaws, but there's a lot to love about that movie.

If memory serves, 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. I 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 Diabolic here, several names involved here. So this movie is based on the comic book of the same name by Angela Gussani and Luciana Gussani.

Angela lived 1922 through 1987, and Luciana lived 1928 through 2001. They were sisters. They also share story credits with Dino Maiori, who lived 1916 through 1984, Andriana Baracco, who lived 1907 through 1976. Screenplay credits go to Bava Maiori,

Brian Dagus, who lived 1935 through 2020, and Tudor Gates, who lived 1930 through 2007. 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 Giussani 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 comic book.

for, essentially for Italian commuters. Something that could be printed in a small format that you could easily stuff in your pocket and then pull out when you're on the train on your commute and read. Offering kind of a Fantomas inspired crime adventure, that sort of thing. So it ended up being a huge success in Italy when it debuted in the early 60s 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. Doesn't look like they're messing with, like, the basic visual chemistry of the thing.

When I was in Italy in like 2007 or so, I bought a diabolic comic book off of a newsstand. Ah! And I knew nothing about it. I just saw the art and 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 sealed to his face. Yeah. Yeah.

So I was reading a bit about Diabolik. So the one I bought was in Italian, so I can't read it. But I've been reading a bit about the character Diabolik in the comics. And from what I understand, he's originally imagined as a man.

Yeah.

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 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, the strong emphasis on the anti and anti-hero. And then over time, there's this tendency to just make them be like, oh, they're actually pretty good.

Yeah. I mean, coming back to Hannibal, you see that with Hannibal Lecter to a certain extent, like by Hannibal, you know, he's awful. He's a serial killer. It's clear he's a cannibal, but he's not as bad as Mason Verger. Mason Verger is presented as like the ultimate evil in so many other ways. Right. So, yeah, he mostly kills other killers in that one.

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It's lighthearted, pretty crazy, and very fun. Listen to Post Run High on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, well, let's talk. Who on earth do you get to play the enigmatic diabolic? Well, you get John Philip 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 but also 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 could find a lot of actors of the day and a lot of actors forever.

that are 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 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 Law lived 1937 through 2008, 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 1966 film The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming. This led to a co-star role in Otto Primminger's Hurry Sundown from 67, which

He's co-starring that Jane Fonda. Jane Fonda had a big upcoming role in a movie produced by Dino De Laurentiis, 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. 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 if you're only exposure to John Philip Lauer, 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, this is a guy who did have stage experience.

credentials like, you know, he's definitely an experienced actor at this point. But there were delays in making Barbarella and those delays allowed him to star in the spaghetti Western Death Rides a Horse from 67 with Lee Van Cleef, in addition to this production, Diabolic. OK, 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 it may be being trained in the ways of, uh, of, of I forward acting by Leland Cleef. I don't know. But, uh,

Anyway, after 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 71's The Last Movie, Roger Corman's The Red Baron in 71, 73's The Golden Voyage of Sinbad. Ah, notable for a lot of excellent Ray Harryhausen special effects. Yeah.

Mm hmm. 1976 is the Cassandra Crossing. 79 is Ring of Darkness. That's a Satanist movie that I have not seen, but it has a great poster. 1985 is Night Train to Terror. 1988 Space Mutiny, an MST3K favorite. And 1988's 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 title.

a bit of poster art for it. John Philip Law plays the villain in Space Mutiny, if I recall correctly. Yeah, he's what, Calgon, I think? Calgon, driving those go-karts around and sneering. To compare his two Mystery Science Theater entries, I'm going to go ahead and say Diabolic is better than Space Mutiny. Yeah, it's a cut above, a hefty cut above. But Space Mutiny might be a better episode of the show.

Oh, yeah. Space Mutiny is a classic MST3K episode for sure. Great riffing in that ridiculous film, but still a lot of neat ideas in it that are not that don't really come to life or in 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, obviously.

and is his partner in crime and the love of his life in this movie played by Marissa Mell. That's right. Austrian actor who lived 1939 through 1992. She played a lot of femme fatale type characters. Her other big films include 1969's One on Top of the Other, a Lucio Fulci thriller in which she plays a dual role, 75's Mahogany, and also Umberto Lindsay's Seven Bloodstained Orchids in 1972.

She also appeared in Ring of Darkness with John Philip Law. And also she pops up in 1966's Secret Agent Super Dragon, which was also featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000. 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 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, you get a very underwhelming cop. That's right. We have Inspector Jinko, played by the French actor, producer and film director, Mikel Piccoli.

who lived 1925 through 2020, whose other works include 74 is the Phantom of Liberty, Jean-Luc Goddard's Passion from 1982, as well as his film Contempt from 63. He also pops up in the 2012 weird movie Holy Motors.

Okay. So I think this guy may, this guy worked in some prestige cinema as well. Uh, but he, 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, this police inspector is very put upon, uh,

And just he's out there having a hard time. And so the actor, the casting 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 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 cop 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 is a little corrupt, though he himself is not corrupted. Yeah.

Yeah, it's like you're rooting for him, but you don't really want him to win. But then at the end of the day, you realize, well, Diabolic is a criminal and I guess he needs to be caught. Maybe if someone's going to 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 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, damn it.

You know, there's a similar case in Hannibal. Coming back to Hannibal, we have, remember the Italian investigator who is looking for Hannibal? Giancarlo Rognini, 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. Right.

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 Giancarlo and 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 Adolfo Celli, who lived 1922 through 1986. Italian actor and director best known internationally, I think, for his turn as Bond villain Emilio Largo in 1965's

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 who's got the really fast driving yacht. Uh, I think he's trying to steal a lost nuclear warhead that crashed on a plane or something. Uh, but he's the guy who puts sharks in his swimming pool. Yeah. Yeah. Uh,

This actor was, he was also in The Phantom of Liberty, as well as 1965's The Agony and the Ecstasy, 72's Eye in the Labyrinth, Gordon Hessler's Murders in the Rue Morgue from 71, Franco Zeffirelli's Brother, Son, Sister Moon from 72, and we absolutely cannot forget 1967's

Operation Kid Brother, in which he basically rehashes his role from Thunderball opposite the character Dr. Neil Connery, played by Neil Connery, Sean Connery's brother.

It's a total cash grab, obviously, and also one that was riffed on MST3K. But Celli, great Italian actor with a clear knack for playing heavies and villains. He has just this great sneer, you know, this great 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 his life. 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 from.

Well, as we've said, it's always good to have a character like this in a movie with a criminal antihero. 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 henchmen, 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 1940 through 2014. He may stand out, and he probably stood out to you, Joe, because this Italian actor is

Was also in 1965's Planet of the Vampires playing Keir. He's in Roger Vadim's Spirits of the Dead from 68. And he was also in 72's Superfly TNT. Just a good background stooge or henchman. He has a great henchman 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 1911 through 1990. Yes, it's Terry hyphen Thomas. You might remember him as the dirty movie enthusiast from The Abominable Dr. Fibes. Yeah, yeah.

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 63. He also voiced Sir Hiss in the Disney Robin Hood film from 73. Oh, he's the snake? Yeah, the snake. He has a great hissing voice.

voice in general. And yeah, he's, he's fun in this. He just Terry Thomas is all over the place. Yeah. He has some really good scenes where he's, uh, giving press conferences, appealing to people's patriotism while, uh, while, uh, clearly kind of squirming, uh, like a, like a bug under a microscope. Um,

All right, real quick, production design credit goes to Carlo Rambaldi, who lived 1925 through 2012. He's come up before on the show. He's been involved in a number of great productions over the years, including Planet of the Vampires, The NeverEnding Story. He also had a hand in designing E.T. 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 Ennio Morricone, who lived 1928 through 2020. You know, 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 1979's The Humanoid, which I think had its moments, and 1983'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. It's got these great, these kind of, 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 voices that I, they're the ones I was thinking of as going backwards up a slide. So these like choir of voices going, oh, oh,

Yeah, yeah. I think some of this music has like a sitar kind of a vibe going on in it that I really liked. There are also some tracks that really lean into the groovy, fun angle of the thing, which is totally valid, totally 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 Morricone scores that we've talked about here. Mm-hmm.

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 Morricone score? Yeah, I mean, as I've mentioned before, I think, you know, The Mission is amazing. You know, of course, I love 82's John Carpenter's The Thing and, you know, and The Good, The Bad and The Ugly from 66 is a classic as well. But so many, so many scores and Lord knows I haven't heard them all.

All right, we're all set for the party. I've trimmed the tree, hung the mistletoe, and paired all those weird-shaped knives and forks with the appropriate cheeses. And I plugged in the Bartesian. Bartesian? It's a home cocktail maker that makes over 60 premium cocktails, plus a whole lot of seasonal favorites, too. I just got it for

So how about a Closmopolitan or a mistletoe margarita? I'm thirsty. Watch. I just pop in a capsule, choose my strength, and... Wow. It's beginning to feel more seasonal in here already. If your holiday party doesn't have a bartender, then you become the bartender. Unless you've got a Bartesian. Because Bartesian crafts every cocktail perfectly in as little as 30 seconds. And I just got it for $50 off. Tis the season to be jollier.

Add some holiday flavor to every celebration with the sleek, sophisticated home cocktail maker, Bartesian. Pick up your phone and shake it to get $50 off any cocktail maker. Yes, you heard me. Shake your phone and get $50 off. Don't delay. Hey, guys. I'm Kate Max. You might know me from my popular online series, The Running Interview Show, where I run with celebrities, athletes, entrepreneurs, and more.

After those runs, the conversations keep going. That's what my podcast Post Run High is all about. It's a chance to sit down with my guests and dive even deeper into their stories, their journeys, and the thoughts that arise once we've hit the pavement together.

You know that rush of endorphins you feel after a great workout? Well, that's when the real magic happens. So if you love hearing real, inspiring stories from the people you know, follow, and admire, join me every week for Post Run High. It's where we take the conversation beyond the run and get into the heart of it all. It's lighthearted, pretty crazy, and very fun.

Listen to Post Run High on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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 with like the sound of sirens, engines gunning.

There was 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 were 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 in the opening sequence here has these flourishes of yellow and black.

kind of like the stripes on a bee or on a yellow jacket, 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 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 color selections 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 $10 million. Yeah.

That got me thinking, how much would it cost to simulate $10 million with blank paper? Like, how much does the paper you would use for that cost? I mean, significantly less than $10 million. One would hope.

Like, I'm going to spend $5,000 on paper to simulate $10 million. If it keeps your $10 million from being stolen by a super criminal, then I guess it totally works out. Too bad it's not going to 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 is 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 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 he whispers the name Diabolic. Yeah.

So Jinko goes into the other room where the police are loading the real $10 million into different yellow bags, which are being hidden inside a chauffeured luxury car. And I was thinking, 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 chauffeur ride with swells in it. Right. So it seems like that might attract a super criminals 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. Well, we get a taste of one of the sweet musical themes. This is the one with 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? Oh, yeah.

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. Diabolik's Jaguar is so cool. Absolutely. It is a cool looking car. And I believe he buys them by like the dozen.

Yeah, because they're they're just completely disposable to Diabolic. Diabolic is a very successful super criminal. He has super riches. So he's operating with 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 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 Jinko and the others get out of their cars to investigate.

But 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. He's got a sinister laughter, and he's beaten them again. Yes, I love the sinister laughter 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? Yeah, yeah. I think we talked a little bit about the mask. But yeah, the whole outfit is basically, I think, supposed to be kind of like a catsuit. 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 yeah, he has this black outfit. He's like a ninja. A ninja 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, face mask onto the face, yeah. Suvi Diabolic. Mm-hmm.

And I do have to add, I don't know that we ever see him blink. I think, I mean, he's not always wide-eyed. Sometimes he's looking at things or reading things, etc. But 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 right 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. Yeah.

not afraid of bullets uh 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 sequence is uh you know we see the the credits running while there's like a spinning glass uh color painted glass thing i don't know exactly what's going on it's kind of a groovy 60s italian party song playing yeah this would be uh this would be the the morricone theme song but deep down oh okay

So he escapes with the $10 million. 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 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, but like driving under some, uh, 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 and,

where there is already waiting the love of his life, his perfect partner in crime, Eva Kant. 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, 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. I don't know. It's great. Yeah, it's it's what you're here for.

I think it's time to talk about Diabolic and Eva's secret lair. Oh, my goodness. It is amazing. It's like the bat cave, except on...

some sort of groovy cocktail of 60s 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 there are 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 forced perspective effect. It's a, 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 stagey. 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, then...

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 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 feels so good. It's like a real sense of confidence and finesse and playfulness in Bava's filmmaking instincts here. Yeah, plus, I think we've mentioned before, with Bava, 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, you know, that is maybe like 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 and,

that were primarily interested in futuristic romantic interior design. Yeah, it's like a Bond villain lair 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 decor style. It's that cool hip 60s 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 in how 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

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 underneath the surface of another planet. I don't know. Yeah, it was built by the aliens from 2001 A Space Odyssey and Buckminster Fuller and the, I don't know, the members of the Who.

It's like their bedroom and their bathroom. Their bedroom, they have a giant ring-shaped bed that rotates on a motor. And then next to it, they've got these things that are just stacked up.

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 camera's view, though 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 1968. I don't know about home video yet. But they, you know, they watch the news on TV and make cracks about how, oh, 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. We got consequences for the cops. Inspector Jinko 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 10 million. He says it's absurd that one man can make a laughingstock of the entire police force.

And Terry Thomas says, you know, obviously, if you think about it logically, Diabolik's 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 Jinko 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.

Good choice. Yes. Because again, yeah, 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 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 Will Ferrell character on SNL where he had the tiny the tic-tac-size cell phone thing.

Oh, I don't remember this character. Well, that's what Dybalik 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 present. 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, flashbulb camera photography. And when the flashbulb 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 they did it.

They have everything figured out. Terry Thomas says, he's certainly not going to make a fool of me. And then I can't stop laughing. Yes, he looks very foolish. Great Terry Thomas sequence.

Alright, 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 learn about him through newspaper headlines linking him to a bunch of crimes, gym 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 somehow he can use Valmont to get to Diabolic. And here we get, you know, somebody comes to Jinko and says, Inspector, you know, we have a lead at one of Valmont's nightclubs. So here we're going to go see a swinging, switched on 60s nightclub. I guess the movie isn't set in Italy, but I see some Italian sensibilities in how this hippie nightclub is realized. Yeah.

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 Oberon and Titania. They're dancing in the corner. And this is a club where if you're not careful, an 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. While a 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.

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, like deafening. And this guy's sitting here playing an acoustic guitar and a pirate hat. He can't hear himself play in this. Why is he playing? You know, I guess it doesn't mean you can't noodle a bit.

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, oh, we get the greatest blunt passing scene in the history of cinema 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. Yeah.

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-oh.

Something's about to happen. Here come the fives. 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 is a police raid on the club. And this this gets the attention of Valmont, who, again, this is the Largo from Thunderball Adolfo Celli. So Valmont is finding out that the police are on to him and he does not like that.

So we go see Valmont on his boat. And as we said before, yeah, Valmont is just he's the worst. You know, he makes Diabolic look great. Yeah, he's just a complete pig. 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 there's some dissent. 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 to wants to toy with him. You know, let's let 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 also he shoot 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 trap door beneath the guy's feet and drops him out of the airplane. Yeah.

10 out of 10 Bond villain trapdoor deployment here. Love a villain with a trapdoor. Absolutely. That's key villain infrastructure. Yeah. And it's going to come, it's going to be important later on as well. That's right. So, so, you know, we're 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.

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Add some holiday flavor to every celebration with the sleek, sophisticated home cocktail maker, Bartesian. Pick up your phone and shake it to get $50 off any cocktail maker. Yes, you heard me. Shake your phone and get $50 off. Don't delay. Hey, guys. I'm Kate Max. You might know me from my popular online series, The Running Interview Show, where I run with celebrities, athletes, entrepreneurs, and more.

After those runs, the conversations keep going. That's what my podcast Post Run High is all about. It's a chance to sit down with my guests and dive even deeper into their stories, their journeys, and the thoughts that arise once we've hit the pavement together.

You know that rush of endorphins you feel after a great workout? Well, that's when the real magic happens. So if you love hearing real, inspiring stories from the people you know, follow, and admire, join me every week for Post Run High. It's where we take the conversation beyond the run and get into the heart of it all. It's lighthearted, pretty crazy, and very fun.

Listen to Post Run High on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So on to the next act. We got to have another heist. It's been a bit since we had a heist. So Diabolic and Eva 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.

And one of them is going to be wearing the world famous Axon Emerald Necklace. And this is a necklace with 11 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 St. 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 Diabolik and Eva doing some kind of role play outside the castle. He like drives up in a car. She apparently has disguised herself as a sex worker and done some recon inside the castle. And it's full. She reports, OK, here's what she figured out is full of police. They're disguised as waiters, many of them wearing wigs.

There are guards outside with rifles. There are CCTV cameras everywhere. Looks basically impossible, but not for Diabolic. They just love the challenge. They're in it for the fun. They enjoy their work. That's right. Oh, she says, I didn't see Inspector Jinko there. And he says, if you didn't see him, that means he's there. The reverse is also true, I guess. I guess so. Yeah.

But so it's not just the police who were 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 Kant, 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.

Yeah, I didn't remember this sequence from the MST3K episode, which I hadn't seen in a very long time anyway. So I don't know if it was in there or it was cut. But when they started rolling this out, I'm like, OK, 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 this is great. This is a great use of what would otherwise be a throwaway sequence. Yeah.

Totally. Fast cuts, mixing and matching different facial elements. It's kind of like rapidly clicking the randomize button on a video game character creator. Yeah. But then finally they zero in on a drawing of Eva. That's her. Yeah. And Valmont's the next part. I I've seen this a couple of times recently and I still never caught exactly how he does this. Valmont manages to somehow get in contact with Eva's doctor and

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, 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 understand.

positive question. Yeah. Don't worry about it. Yeah. And I guess this, you might as well just roll with it. But somehow he he's able to make some connection and he starts knocking on who turns out to be 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, it's this is a tenuous connection at best. OK, meanwhile, the heist has got to go on. So we've got to check back in with Diabolic and Eva as they're, you know, he's going to Diabolic's 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 rearview 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 Diabolic's suit frames his eyes and then like cuts between them. So I thought that was cool. Oh, yeah, 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.

Alright, 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 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, for antiheroes is to, um,

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? Yeah, but he does. He does. He's just like, these are just people in his way and he's throwing knives into their necks. Well, it's like your observation earlier. 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 Robin Hood yet. Right.

Right. And he'll only kind of later on in the film, he may get into some Robin Hood territory, but 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. Mm hmm.

Oh, but this is when we get limited edition white diabolic. Right. Because he's normally 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.

OK, 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 placed 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 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 that 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 got to you got to 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 going to get him? Obviously, he's going to be seen if he goes to get it. What's he going to do?

Photo trickery. Sneak up there, take a Polaroid, and then use a little doodad to position the Polaroid in front of the camera. I feel like this is a scheme that has been utilized in some other films as well. I just can't remember which ones offhand. Oh, they do the same thing in all the modern Mission Impossible movies. Oh, they do? Okay. Yeah, they'll put like a video playback or a picture or something in front 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 on to 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 second. He's on the roof. What's he going to 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 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 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 them by the dozen. We saw like whole rows of them in the the lair. 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 60s. But also at heart, we have a pair of young lovers, our power couple here, for whom all this crime is mere foreplay.

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 they're enemies of

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 X pattern. And I think he says, like, I told you I would mark your name off of the human register. Yeah.

And so, of course, now Eva's been kidnapped. Diabolic will do anything to save her. So he calls Valmont. Apparently, Valmont placed like an ad in the classifieds 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 with the trap door and the floor that'll launch you out of the fuselage. So Diabolic brings the money. He brings the necklace. But what happens here? We get another great reversal. Yeah.

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.

thing, 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 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, that, you know, the hair is raised on the back of my neck. Something good's going to happen. Um,

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 Jinko later. He's talking to a colleague of his and saying, in a way, it's as 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 a heist.

That's right. So we later we're in the morgue and we see doctors preparing Diabolik's body for an autopsy. But just as the scalpel is about to go in, his eyes pop open. Oh, Diabolik 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 llamas to enter a state of apparent death. And he says, if you let it go for 24 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 11 gunshot wounds. And then Inspector Jinko, you see, we get like his inner monologue. He says, 11 bullets shot.

11 emeralds. There were 11 emeralds on the necklace and cut to Diabolic already at the morgue, pretending to be a relative of Valmont's, talking to the funeral director, saying he was really a good boy. He's there to collect Valmont's ashes, which now contain the emeralds that Diabolic had

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, he knows what he's doing. He used the emeralds as bullets. Uh,

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 films could have just called it here. 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 sticks all of the emeralds to Eva. I guess he doesn't have the necklace part, but he has all of an emerald. So he just like sticks them to her skin. Yeah. Tells her 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 Diabolic

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 heist 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 $1 million 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, kind of again squirming and saying, I appeal to your sense of national pride. Please pay your taxes. 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 in 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...

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 too much underwater stuff. Yeah.

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...

Oh, police raid on the hideout. They finally discovered Diabolic and Eva's secret. That's right. They radiated part of the gold or the container one so that they could track him. And so now the gig is truly up like the police are starting to raid the Batcave. That's right. So the police come there. They're shooting at him and all this. There's a big final showdown with the police in which the molten gold is

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. He has distraught.

Yeah, we see part of the face that the glass, you know, the clear face plate of the 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, oh, you know, it feels feels weird to parade his body like this. You know, this was a an honorable foe and so forth. Yeah.

But 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 it's 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 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 Eva is taken away then by the inspector, it's clear there's 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 a question mark. I 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, it's implied because yeah, he, I think he, he looks at the camera, he winks again. He will be back. Danger Diabolic. This has got to go on my, my, 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 horror.

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 going to remind everybody that, yeah, as usual, Stuff to Blow Your Mind is 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 Samudamusic.com. But also you can go to Letterboxd.com. That's L-E-T-T-E-R-B-O-X-D.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, J.J. Posway, 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 stufftoblowyourmind.com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app. Apple Podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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