Mario Bava’s DANGER: DIABOLIK stars John Phillip Law, who to me will always be Pygar, the blind angel of love from BARBARELLA. This one came out earlier the same year, 1968, and kinda seems like BARBARELLA’s evil crime movie cousin. It is in fact another Dino De Laurentiis international co-production based on a comic book, and reportedly uses some of the same sets (though I’m not sure which ones). It feels very much like a super hero movie at the beginning: we hear police talking about Law’s character Diabolik as some kind of legendary figure, he first appears in a long black car (Jaguar, not Batmobile), he shows up in a mask, does his thing, makes an escape to a secret entrance to an amazing hidden base inside a cave. But this guy is no super hero, he’s just a thief with a whole lot of flair.
Police Inspector Ginko (Michel Piccoli, THE DISCREET CHARM OF THE BOURGEOISIE) is determined to not let Diabolik steal the $10 million that needs to be transported, going out of his way to deliver decoy money and send the real shipment in a Rolls-Royce with cops disguised as diplomats. But that car finds itself engulfed in plumes of multi-colored smoke and then lifted up by a crane operated by by Diabolik. The camera zooms in on him for a diabolical laugh when the title comes up. (read the rest of this shit…)
Well, in the tradition of Scream 3 I have been watching bad sequels to movies I haven’t even seen in the first place. This is the sequel to Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine which is supposedly a good “spy spoof.” What a spy spoof is for those of you who are too young, they used to have movies like James Bond 007, which is about a secret agent who gets laid ALL the time and goes on adventures around the world and what not, with little devices and what not. You know what I mean. So these james bond pictures were so popular that spy spoofs became a pretty huge genre. What they are is they are in the same style as James Bond but they are a little more campy and fun, more entertaining, funnier, sexier, better, etc. But sometimes you can also take them kind of seriously even though they’re mostly for laughs. For example the best one was the Flint pictures, Our Man Flint and In Like Flint starring James Coburn one of the few who I would want to play me in a movie. This guy is also in 1998 Oscar winner Affliction and 1999 Outlaw Award Winner Payback. Anyway Derek Flint is this secret agent who has a team of beautiful gals working for him, and he flies around the country to teach ballet, he is a master of karate and can meditate so deeply his heart stops. And he has to stop a plan about this evil cold cream I believe. Well I don’t know man, it’s hard to explain to you kids with no context, you don’t know what james bond is obviously you’re not gonna know what the fuck a spy spoof would be like. Sorry. 
