Danger: Diabolik

1968 Italian French film directed by Mario Bava

Danger: Diabolik is a 1968 action and crime film directed and co written by Mario Bava, based on the Italian comic series Diabolik by Angela and Luciana Giussani. The film is about a criminal named Diabolik (John Phillip Law), who plans large scale heists for his girlfriend Eva Kant (Marisa Mell). Diabolik is pursued by Inspector Ginko (Michel Piccoli), who blackmails the gangster Ralph Valmont (Adolfo Celi) into catching Diabolik for him. An adaptation of the comics was originally envisioned by producer Tonino Cervi, who set up an international co production deal in 1965 and hired Seth Holt to direct the film with a cast that included Jean Sorel, Elsa Martinelli and Gilbert Roland. Appalled with Holt's footage, distributor Dino De Laurentiis assumed control of the film's production, electing to restart the project from scratch with a new screenplay and Bava as director. De Laurentiis produced the film in tandem with another comic book adaptation, Barbarella, with the two projects receiving financial support from Paramount Pictures and sharing several cast and crew members. Catherine Deneuve was initially cast as Eva, but her incompatibility with Law and disagreements with Bava led to the part being recast with Mell. Working under more financial and creative pressure than he was familiar with, Bava delivered Danger: Diabolik considerably below its assigned budget by utilizing many of the inexpensive visual effects techniques that he had used in his earlier films; it would prove to be the only film that he would direct for a major Hollywood studio. Upon its theatrical release, Danger: Diabolik performed below De Laurentiis' expectations at the box office, and received negative reviews from The New York Times and Variety. With the re evaluation of Bava's filmography, retrospective reception of the film has been more positive, with its visuals, the performances of Law and Mell, and the score by Ennio Morricone receiving praise. In studies of the film, critics and historians have focused on Bava's use of mise en scène to replicate the imagery and stylization of comic books, and the film's reflection of the socio political upheavals of the 1960s in its characterization and narratology. Having garnered a cult following, Danger: Diabolik was chosen by Empire magazine as one of "The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time" in 2008. The first in a planned trilogy of new Diabolik films directed by the Manetti Bros. was released in 2021.

In an unidentified European country, Police Ginko oversees the transportation of $10 million from a bank. To prevent the master thief Diabolik from stealing the money, he creates a diversion whereby a truck from the bank transports wastepaper, while a team of himself and disguised officers take the money in a Rolls Royce. The plan is still foiled by Diabolik, who escapes with the money and his lover Eva Kant to their underground hideout, where they passionately make love on top of their loot. Diabolik and Eva attend a press conference held by the Minister of the Interior, who reinstates the death penalty to dissuade criminals such as themselves; they disrupt the conference by releasing exhilarating gas into the crowd. Unable to locate Diabolik, Ginko and his fellow officers are granted emergency privileges that allow them to crackdown on the activities of gangster Ralph Valmont, who they hope will aid in capturing him. Realizing their plan after a teen discotheque he operates is raided due to it being a front for his drug trafficking operations, Valmont makes a deal with Ginko. While watching a news report, Diabolik decides to steal the famous Aksand emerald necklace from Saint Just Castle for Eva's birthday. After learning of Eva's features from a prostitute who spotted her scouting the castle, Valmont builds and circulates an identikit image of her. Diabolik scales the castle's sheer walls as the police lie in wait, and steals the necklace. Driving on his getaway, he and Eva fool the police by pulling a mirrored film across the road and using dummy decoys of himself; Eva is injured while setting up the film. While visiting her private doctor, Eva is recognised from the identikit image and abducted. To rescue her, Diabolik boards Valmont's airplane with the stolen $10 million and the necklace to trade for Eva. He is ejected from the plane, but manages to grab Valmont just before a bomb he had planted earlier explodes. Diabolik rescues Eva as Ginko and the police close in on them. Eva makes her escape, while Diabolik loads a gun magazine with the emeralds and fires them at Valmont, killing him. He then seemingly commits suicide by taking a mysterious capsule. As the police hold a press conference about Diabolik's death, he is about to be autopsied when he returns to life, having faked his death using a technique created by Tibetan lamas which requires an antidote to be administered within twelve hours; posing as a nurse, Eva administers the antidote and sneaks him past the police and the press. Later, a disguised Diabolik visits the morgue where Valmont's body has been cremated, collects the emeralds from his ashes and escapes, gifting them to Eva. Upon Ginko's realization that Diabolik is still alive, a million dollar reward is offered for his capture; in retaliation, he blows up the tax offices. Despite pleas from the disgraced Minister of the Interior — now the Minister of Finance — the citizens refuse to pay their taxes, forcing the country into debt. Twenty tons of gold, which will be used to buy currency, are melted into a single block to make it difficult to steal; the block is loaded onto a train commandeered by Ginko. Diabolik and Eva divert the train by leaving a burning truck on the tracks and re route it to a bridge where a bomb is placed. It explodes when the train arrives, and the gold falls into the water below. As Ginko swims ashore, Diabolik and Eva collect the gold and return to their hideout. The steel casket containing the gold is traced by the police, allowing them to track Diabolik's hideout. They close in on Diabolik, who is melting the gold into smaller ingots. As the police fire upon him, Diabolik is unable to control the smelting, and the whole cavern ends up being covered in molten gold. Diabolik is believed to have been killed, with his heat proof suit now covered in solidified gold. The police seal off the cavern, intending to recover the gold later. As Ginko arrives to arrest her, Eva is allowed a private moment to pay her respects to Diabolik, who winks at her.

De Laurentiis felt that the only way to save the film was to restart production with a new script and director. The other production companies were not content with De Laurentiis stopping production, which led Les Films Marceau Cocinor to terminate its contract with Italy Film. A. S. Film Produccion confiscated the footage and took cameras, costumes, and weapons that had been rented by Italy Film, which nearly bankrupted the company. During the interim, De Laurentiis capitalized on his newfound rights to the fumetti by including Diabolik among several comic book characters in "An Evening Like the Others", Vittorio De Sica's segment of the anthology film The Witches starring Silvana Mangano and Clint Eastwood; here, Diabolik was portrayed by actor Gianni Gori. Director Umberto Lenzi unsuccessfully attempted to buy the rights to Diabolik from De Laurentiis, prompting him to instead make Kriminal, based on Magnus and Max Bunker's fumetti neri of the same name. Deciding to make the film as an ancillary project complimenting his upcoming production of Barbarella — which was also an adaptation of a comic series — De Laurentiis restarted production with financial backing for both projects from Paramount Pictures, set up a two film co production deal with French producer Henri Michaud of Marianne Productions, and hired Mario Bava as director. Bava was reportedly suggested to De Laurentiis and the Giussanis by Farina, who was a fan of the director's giallo films, and informed the producer of Bava's popularity with cinephiles and intellectuals. Bava was also deemed by De Laurentiis to be a financially viable director, as Le spie vengono dal semifreddo (the Italian version of Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs) had been a commercial success.

The initial treatment for Danger: Diabolik was written by Adriano Baracco, which was then adapted into a full screenplay by Dino Maiuri, who had previously scripted the Eurospy comedy Kiss the Girls and Make Them Die for De Laurentiis. The script was later revised by the British writing team of Brian Degas and Tudor Gates, who were hired by Bava due to their positive collaboration on the aborted giallo project Cry Nightmare (later filmed by Antonio Margheriti as The Young, the Evil and the Savage). The final screenplay, which is credited to Maiuri, Degas, Gates and Bava in the English version of the film, and only to Maiuri and Bava in the Italian version, was based on three separate Diabolik stories: Sepolto vivo! from August 1963, Lotta disperata (Hopeless Battle) from March 1964, and L'ombra nella notte (The Shadows of Night) from May 1965. Degas and Gates' script bore the working title of Goldstrike! for Paramount to consider as an alternative title for the film's international release due to the fumetti being little known outside of Italy; the film's English title was announced by Parmount's publicist Chuck Painter to be Danger: Diabolik on November 29, 1967. De Lautentiis was so enthusiastic towards Degas and Gates' work that he hired them to provide additional material for Barbarella. In analysing Degas and Gates' Goldstrike! script (dated December 5, 1966) compared to the film, Bava biographer Tim Lucas notes that the former includes details not featured onscreen, such as Diabolik being implicated as the mastermind behind the 1963 Great Train Robbery (a reference to Julius No's implied theft of Portrait of the Duke of Wellington in Dr. No), sequences that were staged differently to what was filmed, and lacks scenes that were entirely Bava's invention. Among the differences include the opening heist — which was scripted as concerning an armoured car carrying gold, compared to the film's depiction of a diversion in which cash is transported in a Rolls Royce accompanied by a police motorcade — a police raid on a casino instead of a discotheque, Eva injuring herself while using an exercycle rather than while helping Diabolik set up a trap, a second conversation between the Minister of Finance and Ginko being substituted with a televised plea to the public, and Eva visiting Diabolik's gold encased body in the Hall of Ministry rather than in their hideout. Lucas believes that many of Bava's alterations to the screenplay served to make the characters more sympathetic and believable, and notes that many of the film's wittiest and most memorable moments, such as Diabolik and Eva's lovemaking on top of the stolen $10 million (a parody of Horst Buchholz covering Catherine Spaak's nude body with lira notes in The Empty Canvas) and Valmont's threat to "cross [Dr. Vernier] from the human register", were entirely the director's creation. Bava was permitted by De Laurentiis to utilize many of the key crew members of several of his most recent films (namely Planet of the Vampires and Kill, Baby, Kill), such as his son and assistant director Lamberto Bava, editor Romana Fortini, cinematographer Antonio Rinaldi, and script supervisor Rosalba Scavia. The film's art direction was led by Flavio Mogherini and two time Oscar winner Piero Gherardi: Mogherini, who had last worked with Bava on The Wonders of Aladdin, was also responsible for the film's scale model effects, while Gherardi, who had designed sets for films that Bava had shot early in both men's careers, also assisted Luciana Marinucci with the film's costume designs. Other crew members would also become future Oscar winners: Carlo Rambaldi, who had previously provided special effects for Planet of the Vampires and created Diabolik's form fitting mask, would be recognized for his work on E. T. the Extra Terrestrial, as would composer Ennio Morricone for The Hateful Eight.

John Phillip Law was invited to audition for Diabolik as a favor by De Laurentiis after production on Barbarella, which Law had been cast in as Pygar, was delayed due to technical difficulties, allowing director Roger Vadim and his wife and star, Jane Fonda, to make the "Metzengerstein" segment of Spirits of the Dead. An avid comic book fan since childhood, Law was initially unfamiliar with the characters in Diabolik, and read several of the comics to understand his character, as he had done when preparing for Barbarella. Due to most of the character's face being hidden by a black or white skin tight mask, Law noted that the most prominent aspect of Diabolik's appearance was his eyebrows; he prepared for the role by applying mascara to his own, and taught himself to convey a wide array of expressions with them. Upon meeting with De Laurentiis and Bava, the director exclaimed "Ah, questo Diabolik!" ("This is Diabolik! "), indicating to Law that he had won the role. Budgetary changes led to established actors being cast in smaller roles, including Michel Piccoli — who was recommended to De Laurentiis by Vadim — as Ginko, Adolfo Celi as Valmont, and Terry Thomas as the Minister of the Interior (later the Minister of Finance). Because of his busy schedule, which precluded his ability to dub his own performance (in the typical manner of production for Italian films), Terry Thomas' scenes were shot in a single day and his dialogue was recorded as live sound. Several minor members of the film's cast had appeared in Bava's earlier films, including Federico Boido (Planet of the Vampires), Francesco Mulè (Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs) and Walter Williams (The Girl Who Knew Too Much). Renzo Palmer, whose character Mr. Hammond usurps Terry Thomas in the Minister of the Interior role, was also an experienced dubbing actor who had provided voice work for Planet of the Vampires and Knives of the Avenger; for the Italian version of the film, he looped not only his own lines, but those of Terry Thomas'. Casting Eva Kant proved particularly troublesome. The role was originally going to be played by an unidentified American model who was cast at the behest of her friend, Gulf+Western (the then parent company of Paramount) President Charles Bluhdorn. Law noted that the model was "gorgeous, but couldn't say 'Hello' on film", and was eventually fired a week into filming. De Laurentiis, who had previously cast the actress in Kiss the Girls and Make Them Die and The Witches, disliked Tolo and instead hired Bava's secondary choice, Marisa Mell. Law recalled that upon meeting Mell, "we knew everything was going to work out. We fell into each other's arms on the first day, and had a really great relationship on — and off screen, after a while." For the duration of the film's production, the two leads lived together, and adopted a stray black kitten, which they christened "Diabolik". With Mell in place as Eva, Law found Bava to be a cooperative, amiable director who allowed them to express vulnerability and create "magic moments" throughout the film. while her film counterpart keeps her hair long (Mell, a brunette, wore a wig to portray the character as a blonde) and undergoes a multitude of retrofuturistic costume changes. Following the film's completion, Mell was cast alongside Sorel and Martinelli in Lucio Fulci's giallo One on Top of the Other.

Danger: Diabolik began filming on April 11, 1967, and was shot at Dinocittà, a Fiat plant in Turin, the Blue Grotto in Capri, and on location in Rome and Anzio. In a 1970 interview with Luigi Cozzi, Bava described the filming as "nightmarish", and said that De Laurentiis had him tone down the violent scenes in the film. Law commented that the producer and director had opposite ideas for the film: De Laurentiis wanted to make a family friendly film with a charming thief in the vein of Raffles, while Bava wanted to make a film that was faithful to the comic books. Lamberto Bava recalled that while his father's relationship with the producer was generally amiable, he was also frustrated by De Laurentiis' frequent absences due to his commitments to other films. Danger: Diabolik finished filming on June 18, 1967. Law stated that shortly after the film's production ended, shooting began on Barbarella. This led to the same sets, such as the set for Valmont's teen discotheque, being used in both films. Although De Laurentiis set aside $3 million with which to make the film, the final budget came to only 200 million lire. His recollection of his experiences on Danger: Diabolik led Bava to turn down De Laurentiis' offer to provide special effects for King Kong, recommending Rambaldi instead. Danger: Diabolik would also prove to be the only film Bava would direct for a major Hollywood studio such as Paramount; for the remainder of his career, he would work for independent producers who Lamberto Bava often described as "dodgy".

Lucas has analysed Bava's extensive use of visual effects photography in Danger: Diabolik and its implementation of techniques used in his earlier films, albeit to a more flamboyant degree as allowed by the film's budget. With regard to the film's first sequence, shot in an alleyway near Dinocittà, he states that Bava opens the film with "a parade of illusions", most notably the establishing shot of a bank, which utilizes a travelling matte that adds multiple floors to a single floor structure while duplicating the structure to the opposite side of the screen; to visually lend scale to the matte, toy figurines are used to represent soldiers standing guard on both sides of the structure, while a toy tank is visible in the foreground as a motorcade of police officers on motorcycles ride through the structure's gate in the lower section of the composition — the only part of the set that was actually built. He describes this as "a staggering pre digital effect, and it's only there not to be noticed". Aside from this example and Diabolik's car hangar, other instances of Bava's in camera matte work in the film include the exteriors of Saint Just Castle — which were filmed on the beaches of Tor Caldara, where he employed similar effects for Erik the Conqueror, The Whip and the Body, Knives of the Avenger, Five Dolls for an August Moon and Roy Colt & Winchester Jack — Valmont's runway (for which only one wing and a portion of a plane's hull were painted) and the cabin in which Eva is held hostage; although an establishing shot of Valmont's plane flying towards the runway was shot with a specially prepared matte, the sequence was ultimately cut from the finished film. For the sequence in which Diabolik scales the castle wall, a convex section of material was built at a 35 degree angle, allowing Law to "climb" the wall without needing to be doubled by the film's stunt coordinator, Gofreddo "Freddy" Unger (who instead doubled for him during Diabolik's dive into a harbor in the pre title sequence); the scene was shot with wide angle lenses to lend a sense of depth and height. The underwater sequences of Diabolik and Eva's recovery of the gold were shot by a second unit supervised by Francisco Baldini; these are interspersed with close ups of Law and Mell's faces that were filmed "dry" in front of an aquarium. Lucas is more critical of Bava's uncharacteristic use of optical overlays and chroma key effects, deeming them to be aspects of the production that were likely forced upon him by De Laurentiis: in the scene in which Diabolik and Valmont free fall from the latter's plane, one of Diabolik's legs appears to be unusually thin, as light from the bluescreen used bounced back onto the trouser leg. He also brings attention to the artificiality of two scenes in particular, one in which Diabolik uses multicolored smoke to distract Ginko and the police as he steals their Rolls Royce, and another where Diabolik calls Valmont from a phone booth. In the former, the smoke is overlaid in a continuous pattern rather than changing with the editing of the action behind it, while the latter begins with an establishing shot that is too tightly framed on Diabolik to allow the audience to visually adjust to his location, and a zoom onto him in a later shot fails to correspond with the background matte. Lucas, however, notes that this artificiality is also in line with the composition of artwork in comic books. Swamp Thing artist Stephen R. Bissette notes that Bava's framing frequently serves to emulate comic book panels, such as filming action on rear view mirrors and through bookcases and bed frames; he also considers Bava's use of depth, onscreen action and camera movement to be closer to the intended effect of a comic book upon a reader compared to other contemporary interpretations of the medium such as Barbarella, which Bissette feels placed its focus on combining elaborate costuming and art direction with static framing and action in a misguided attempt to replicate the flatness of the artwork. For scenes in which characters are dropped out of the trapdoor of Valmont's plane, G. I. Joe action figures were dressed in the style of the characters they were representing and dropped through a miniature recreation of the life size plane set. Similarly, the shot depicting the destruction of the gold carrying train used a model bridge with a toy train that was painted to match the engine depicted in the preceding sequences; a matte containing airbrushed clouds was used to mask the illusion. Although filmed with high speed cameras, the on set explosion of the bridge was deemed unsatisfactory, and was accented in post production with an overlaid, animated explosion.

Morricone's score for Danger: Diabolik, which was conducted by Bruno Nicolai, was the composer's only collaboration with Bava, and was influenced by his work with the avant garde/free improvisation collective Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza. It includes a title song, "Deep Down", featuring vocals sung by singer and actress Maria Cristina "Christy" Brancucci — whose other collaborations with Morricone include "Run, Man, Run" in The Big Gundown and "Man for Me" in O. K. Connery — which appears throughout the film in a variety of arrangements. It is primarily used to communicate Eva's love for Diabolik, which is furthered by Alessandro Alessandroni's playing of a sitar during the bridge. A "chase theme" frequently used in action scenes prominently features a double tracked electric guitar motif, also performed by Alessandroni, that bears similarity to that featured in Neal Hefti's "Batman Theme". Among the film's most experimental cues include the psychedelic discotheque theme, which utilizes "wall of sound" reverb to enhance (at alternating points) a vocal chorus and a brass section providing the melody over a rhythm section consisting of a fuzz guitar and drum kit, and the identikit theme, which includes an improvised performance on an atonal keyboard by Nicolai. Lucas deems the highlight of the score to be the cue featured when Diabolik and Eva recover the gold, beginning with a solo melisma performed by Edda Dell'Orso, which is replaced by a vocal chorus performed by Alessandroni's I Cantori Moderni choir and later by a rock band accompaniment that "feels closely allied to Morricone's Spaghetti Western work while also feeling perfectly at home in an espionage milieu". Although an Italian language version of "Deep Down" was released by Parade as a 45 RPM single, the original score has never seen a full, authorized release, as the original master tapes were destroyed in the 1970s by a warehouse fire. This has resulted in several unauthorized reconstructions of the score being released on CD, the most widely distributed of which is a version attributed to Pallottola Foro, which also includes dialogue extracts from the film. In the March 2002 issue of GQs list of the "Top 10 Movie Soundtracks of All Time", Morricone's score was ranked third.