I had been underwhelmed by this on first viewing, which I found rather campy, and was equally unimpressed by Ennio Morricone's 'corny' score! However, this time around it all just clicked somehow: it's undoubtedly one of the most sheerly enjoyable "Euro-Cult" offerings (unlike most other examples in the field, it zips along at breakneck speed) and the eclectic but disarming soundtrack has now become one of my favorites from this legendary composer!
The film is widely recognized as the best to be adapted from a comic-strip up to that time; Bava dabbled in most genres and, apart from Epics and Westerns, his own work in each of them was peerless! As expected, he gave the film a super-stylish look - a masterpiece of production design and special effects (including extensive matte work) - and, even if he had a big Hollywood studio behind him (Paramount) and a proposed $3 million budget at his disposal, he brought the production in at the ridiculously low cost of $400,000!! Still, interference from the bigwigs made his experience on it an unhappy one - and this put paid to the idea for further exploits of the titular character (for which producer Dino DeLaurentiis was all ready to oblige)!
The project was actually first gotten off the ground by other hands, with Jean Sorel as the masked criminal; besides, when Bava took over, Catherine Deneuve had initially been slated for the female lead! However, John Phillip Law and the delectable Marisa Mell were both perfectly cast - despite the fact that characterization in their respect was reduced to the bare essentials, so much so that they probably don't have ten sentences between them throughout the entire film! The rest of the cast is equally interesting: Michel Piccoli (as Diabolik's arch-nemesis Inspector Ginko), Adolfo Celi (as a racketeer) and Terry-Thomas (as the Finance Minister!).
The film was highly influential, as witness The Beastie Boys' video for "Body Movin'" and Roman Coppola's homage to the European style of film-making circa 1970, CQ (2001) - which, incidentally, I watched immediately after I got done with the DANGER: DIABOLIK DVD! Finally, despite its tongue-in-cheek approach, it was still considered potentially harmful in the post-9/11 mindset because Diabolik is shown to wage his reign of terror without much consequence - and Paramount had initially scrapped its plans for a DVD release of the film, before saner minds prevailed!
The film is widely recognized as the best to be adapted from a comic-strip up to that time; Bava dabbled in most genres and, apart from Epics and Westerns, his own work in each of them was peerless! As expected, he gave the film a super-stylish look - a masterpiece of production design and special effects (including extensive matte work) - and, even if he had a big Hollywood studio behind him (Paramount) and a proposed $3 million budget at his disposal, he brought the production in at the ridiculously low cost of $400,000!! Still, interference from the bigwigs made his experience on it an unhappy one - and this put paid to the idea for further exploits of the titular character (for which producer Dino DeLaurentiis was all ready to oblige)!
The project was actually first gotten off the ground by other hands, with Jean Sorel as the masked criminal; besides, when Bava took over, Catherine Deneuve had initially been slated for the female lead! However, John Phillip Law and the delectable Marisa Mell were both perfectly cast - despite the fact that characterization in their respect was reduced to the bare essentials, so much so that they probably don't have ten sentences between them throughout the entire film! The rest of the cast is equally interesting: Michel Piccoli (as Diabolik's arch-nemesis Inspector Ginko), Adolfo Celi (as a racketeer) and Terry-Thomas (as the Finance Minister!).
The film was highly influential, as witness The Beastie Boys' video for "Body Movin'" and Roman Coppola's homage to the European style of film-making circa 1970, CQ (2001) - which, incidentally, I watched immediately after I got done with the DANGER: DIABOLIK DVD! Finally, despite its tongue-in-cheek approach, it was still considered potentially harmful in the post-9/11 mindset because Diabolik is shown to wage his reign of terror without much consequence - and Paramount had initially scrapped its plans for a DVD release of the film, before saner minds prevailed!