Weirdhouse Cinema Rewind: Danger: Diabolik

In this classic episode of Weirdhouse Cinema, Rob and Joe return to the phantasmagorical world of Mario Bava with the stylish 1968 crime thriller “Danger: Diabolik,” starring John Phillip Law and Marisa Mell. (originally published 09/08/2023)

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hello, and welcome to Weird House Cinema. Rewind. Today we
are bringing you an older episode of Weird House Cinema
on the nineteen sixty eight super crime thriller Danger Diabolic,
starring John Philip Law and Marissa mel 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

(00:24):
in for a real treat.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Bon Voyage, Welcome.

Speaker 3 (00:31):
To Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
Hey you, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb.

Speaker 1 (00:44):
And this is Joe McCormick in. Today's movie on Weird
House is the nineteen sixty eight 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

(01:07):
also called like spaghetti spy movies. These are all these
movies that came out in the sixties, I think somewhat
riding on the success of the first James Bond films,
that have characters named things like James Taunt or something.
And while that spy designation does not accurately describe the
plot of this movie, I can see why people say

(01:28):
that because Danger Diabolic takes part in a lot of
the same aesthetic trends you might find in sixties spy stuff,
like the early James Bond films, in 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.

Speaker 2 (01:49):
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 there 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

(02:13):
that the people they're stealing from see them as such.
So yeah, it's interesting because on one hand, there's not
a speculative element here like this this is not really
a sci fi film or a horror, a fantasy, or
you know, the typical genres we cover here. But it
is still packed with plenty of weirdness. It reminds me

(02:36):
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 Diabolic.

Speaker 1 (02:48):
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 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.

(03:11):
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 CARTOONI

(03:33):
or 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.

Speaker 2 (03:52):
Well, this is I love that detail on the plot
because that particularly feels like folkloric or mythic. It seems
like the kind of thing that various heroes in you know,
Sagas and Tales of Old would have engaged in. Oh,
you know, the trickster was going to steal the gold,
so we just made an enormous gold ingot. But ah,

(04:15):
the mighty hero Diabolic stole it anyway.

Speaker 1 (04:18):
So I actually hadn't seen this movie until a couple
of weeks ago, and a good friend of mine has
been telling me about it for years. I can 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

(04:40):
featured on an episode of Mystery Science Theater three thousand,
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 in strange company because Danger Diabolic is not
like Soul Taker. It is not like Final Sacrifice or

(05:00):
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.

Speaker 2 (05:11):
Yeah, yeah, I mean we could go in into an
entire tangent on MST three K 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 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

(05:36):
world of weird cinema through Mystery Science Theater three thousand,
and they taught in different ways to enjoy films. But
it Yeah, this was a film that I long associated
with ms th three K because it was episode one
ninety seven back in nineteen ninety nine. It was for
a very long time the final episode of MST three
K before it came back in twenty seventeen, and it's

(05:56):
still the final mic episode of MST three So it
was always bittersweet for that reason. Solid riffing but the
end of an Era. I had never watched Diabolic 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

(06:19):
experience it. That can't be said of every film that
was a feature in MST three K. There are some
that are bad enough that you really need a little
something extra to get you through. It is a very watchable,
very fun, very sexy, good time.

Speaker 1 (06:32):
Absolutely all of those things. And also 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.

(06:52):
Mario Bava's shadow hanging over this movie is just so powerful.
It's like, in some ways, I would compare it to
though I'm not really 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

(07:13):
would be impossible for other people. To do, but they
make it look easy. That's what I would compare the
filmmaking in this movie too. It's just like it is
such an effortless, feeling display of absolute confidence and finesse
in how sets and costumes and color schemes are used

(07:34):
and how shots are framed. You just feel like he
is taking it easy and making a perfect movie and
not breaking a sweat.

Speaker 4 (07:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (07:44):
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 this one is more action
themed compared to the other two Mario Baba films that

(08:06):
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.

Speaker 1 (08:17):
So I want to formally apologize to my friend Ben
for taking like ten 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

(08:37):
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.

Speaker 2 (08:50):
Yeah, I know the feeling sometimes if I come into
an episode and I'm like particularly attached to the film,
I worry how that's gonna impact the episode. But I
think it's going to be great. There's a lot to
talk about here.

Speaker 1 (09:01):
Okay, what's your elevator pitch for Danger Diabolic?

Speaker 2 (09:05):
I've got to channel a little meat Loaf 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.

Speaker 1 (09:19):
Yes, Why else take down the largest shipment of dollars
in human history unless it's for love?

Speaker 2 (09:25):
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.

Speaker 1 (09:43):
That's right. They want the money because it's money. He
wants the money because it's his girlfriend's birthday.

Speaker 2 (09:48):
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.

Speaker 1 (10:07):
Warning that much like the trailer, we will get into
some spoiler territory. And 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.

Speaker 2 (10:21):
All right, let's have a listen.

Speaker 4 (10:33):
Me Diabolic a bank Robin Hood battles the cops. He
robs from the rich to give to the girls. Ask Eva, Oh,
you shouldn't have done it. She can't get a good
night's sleep unless she's covered with money. Master Sportscar, Racer, Master,

(11:20):
Skin Diver, Master Lover Master Askeeper Diabolic the absolute gold

(11:46):
plated end Askeeper.

Speaker 2 (12:05):
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 twenty twenty 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.

Speaker 1 (12:26):
Should we start by talking about Mario Bava? How many
Bava films did you say? We've done?

Speaker 2 (12:31):
This would be the third one. So we've watched what
Black Sabbath, and we've watched Planet of the Vampires Planet
the Vampires from sixty five.

Speaker 1 (12:42):
Black Sabbath was the anthology horror film that we did.
Was it last October or maybe the October before?

Speaker 4 (12:51):
It is?

Speaker 1 (12:51):
So 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 Verduo loc this kind of 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

(13:12):
and looks menacingly at his HouseGuest.

Speaker 2 (13:16):
Yeah. Yeah, And that was kind of a follow up
to the nineteen sixty black and white film he did,
Black Sunday. But it is, you know, in many ways,
it's hard to imagine, you know, Mario Baba working in
black and white, because when I think of Bob, I
think of those rich colors, those rich gels, which he
used with a you know, a master's stroke.

Speaker 1 (13:36):
Well, let me stand up for his black and white films.
Baba 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 Jallo film that's kind of a murder
mystery thriller set in Rome called The Evil Eye or
The Girl who Knew too Much. Their title I think

(13:57):
those are titles. Ones for the American cut and ones
for the Channel cut. And that movie. 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

(14:20):
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. Black Oh my god,
Black Sunday is amazing. I can't remember have you seen
that or not?

Speaker 2 (14:36):
I haven't seen Black Sunday now.

Speaker 1 (14:37):
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.

Speaker 2 (14:47):
Well anyway you slice it. Yeah. Mario Bava legendary Italian
director with an unmistakable obsessive and at times just phantasmagorical
emphasis on visual composition. Strong still from Abava film is
often just instantly identifiable. He lived nineteen fourteen through nineteen
eighty and was the father of director Lomberto Bava. We've

(15:10):
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.

Speaker 1 (15:19):
I just looked it up to check. I thought, so
Lamberto Bava, his son is the director of Demons and
Demons too.

Speaker 2 (15:27):
Oh, there you go. Well, one way or another, we'll
come back to Abava at some point. All right. We
don't always mention the producer on a film, but this
one's notable because this is Dino di Laurents, who lived
nineteen nineteen through twenty ten. Delarentis legendary Italian and naturalized
American film producer, really one of the biggest names of

(15:48):
all time when it comes to production, both in Italian
cinema but also international cinema. Started producing in the late
forties and continued on till his death. Not everything he
was involved in was golden, but he had a hand
in the lavish, such lavish productions as sixty eight's Barberrella,
nineteen eighties Flash Gordon, which I would I would argue

(16:08):
those two films and Diabolic kind of are kind of
a stylistic trilogy.

Speaker 1 (16:14):
I think you could absolutely say that, Yeah, there's there's
a lot of uh, there's a lot of sinew in
common there also, didn't he Wasn't he the driving force
between hiring David Lynch to adapt to Dune in the eighties.

Speaker 2 (16:27):
I believe?

Speaker 4 (16:28):
So.

Speaker 2 (16:28):
Yeah, he was involved in David Lynch's Dune Conan the
Barbarian from eighty two, as well as the sequels and
also the sort of sequel Red Sonia. He was a
producer on Halloween two and three, so technically we have
covered one of his productions before, multiple Stephen King adaptations,
including Maximum Overdrive, and also all of the Hannibal movies

(16:50):
except for the Silence of the Lambs.

Speaker 1 (16:52):
Oh, so he did all the best ones?

Speaker 2 (16:54):
Yeah, well, you know, he did some. He was involved
with some good stuff. I mean Manhunter. Oh okay, yeah.

Speaker 1 (17:01):
And I actually, you know, I have sort of a
soft spot for what's it called the sequel to Silence
of Lambs that had Julian Moore as hannihal Is starling Hannibal.
Oh it's just called Hannibal. Yes, yeah, that one. I
understand why critics didn't like it. It's got some flaws,
but there there's a lot to love about that movie.

Speaker 2 (17:21):
If memory served 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 a book. The book I kind
of hated when it came out, but I have a

(17:41):
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.

Speaker 1 (17:51):
Agreed, all right.

Speaker 2 (17:52):
The writing credits for Diabolic for Danger Diboic here several
names involved here, So this movie is based on the
comic book of the same name by Angela Gusani and
Luciana Gusani. Angela lived nineteen twenty two through nineteen eighty
seven and Luciana lived nineteen twenty eight through two thousand

(18:16):
and one. They were sisters. They also share story credits
with Dino Mayori, who lived nineteen sixteen through nineteen eighty four,
Andreana Baraco who lived nineteen oh seven through nineteen seventy six.
Screenplay credits go to Bava Mayori, Brian Dagas, who lived
nineteen thirty five through twenty twenty and Tudor Gates who
lived nineteen thirty through two thousand and seven.

Speaker 1 (18:37):
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 Jusani sisters, they were they were the creators of
the character Diabolic, who was a comic book character before
it was ever adapted to film.

Speaker 2 (18:57):
That's right. They were inspired to create a grown up
com book for essentially for Italian commuters, something that could
be printed in in a small format you could easily,
you know, stuff in your pocket and then pull out
when you're on the train on your commute and read
offering kind of a Phantomus inspired crime adventure, that sort
of thing. So it ended up being a huge success

(19:20):
in Italy when it debuted in the early sixties, 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.

(19:40):
I haven't seen any of them, but I looked up
some of the stills, and yeah, it's still clearly Diabolic.
It doesn't look like they're messing with like the basic
visual chemistry of the thing.

Speaker 1 (19:48):
When I was in Italy in like two thousand and
seven or so, I bought a Diabolic comic book off
of a newsstand. Ah, and I knew nothing about it.
I just saw the art. 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

(20:11):
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.

Speaker 2 (20:20):
That's right. Yeah, it's like the mask is so skin
tight that it's just ridiculous. It's like a vacuum seal
to his face.

Speaker 1 (20:27):
Yeah. So I was reading a bit about Diabolic. So
the one I bought was in Italian, so I can't
read it. But I've been reading a bit about the
character Diabolic in the comics, and from what I understand,
he's originally imagined as a master thief who you know,
can steal anything and is constantly foiling the police and

(20:50):
their attempts to capture him, and he in a way
is he can do anything. You know, he knows all
the sciences, and he can make any kind of gadget,
and he can solve anykind of problems. So he's he's
one of these like superhumans, the kind of you know,
pre Jason Bourne type person who can they can just
do anything. But then also what I've read is that
there's an arc, and we've talked about similar arcs in

(21:12):
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,

(21:34):
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

(21:55):
often doing good along the way. But that was later
on and you know, there's a kind kind of 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 that,

(22:17):
the strong emphasis on the anti and anti hero, and
then over time there's this tendency to just make him
be like, ah, they're actually pretty good.

Speaker 2 (22:27):
Yeah, I mean, coming back to Hannibal, you see that
with Hannibal Lecter to a certain extent, like by by Hannibal.
You know, he's he's awful, he's awful, He's he's a
serial killer. It's it's it's clear he's a cannibal. But
he's not as bad as Mason Viger. Mason Virger is
presented as like the ultimate evil in so many other ways.

Speaker 1 (22:47):
Right, So yeah, he mostly kills other killers in that one.

Speaker 2 (23:00):
All right, Well let's talk who on earth do you
get to play the enigmatic diabolic? Well you get John
Phillip Law to do it.

Speaker 1 (23:07):
This is a truly inspired bit of casting. John Philip
Law is perfect in this role.

Speaker 2 (23:14):
Yeah, like just his physicality. He has this this wiry
kind of spidery body, very muscular, but also yeah, 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 can find a lot of
actors of the day and a lot of actors they're

(23:35):
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.

Speaker 1 (23:57):
You have to be able to make that Bird of
Prey v with your eyebrows as well.

Speaker 2 (24:02):
Yes, yeah, the Bird of Prey is a good comparison
here because he is there is a 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 Blau lived
nineteen thirty seven through two thousand and eight American actor
of stage, screen and television. He did some early Italian

(24:24):
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 nineteen sixty six film The
Russians Are Coming. The Russians Are Coming. This led to
a co star role in Auto Primager's Hurry Sundown from
sixty seven. His co star in that Jane Fonda. Jane

(24:45):
Fonda had a big upcoming role in a movie produced
by Dino di Laurentez 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.

Speaker 1 (25:01):
I haven't 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.

Speaker 2 (25:09):
He doesn't. Yeah, he doesn't have a lot to do
in that. I think if you're only exposure to John
Philip Blauer 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 that
this is a guy who did have stage credentials, like
you know, he's definitely an experienced actor at this point.

(25:30):
But there were delays in making Barberella, and those delays
allowed him to star in the spaghetti western Death Rides
a Horse from sixty seven with Lee van Cleef in
addition to this production Diabolic.

Speaker 1 (25:43):
Okay, so while he's working on developing his Bird of
Prey face, he's also playing a gunslinger in this western movie.

Speaker 2 (25:53):
Yes, yeah, and maybe being trained in the ways of
eye forward acting by Lee van Cleef. But anyway, after
a 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

(26:16):
of note here, at least for us include seventy one's
The Last Movie, Roger Corman's The Red Baron in seventy one.
Seventy three is The Golden Voyage of sinbad Ah, notable.

Speaker 1 (26:25):
For a lot of excellent ray Harry Housen special effects.

Speaker 2 (26:30):
Nineteen seventy six is The Cassandra Crossing. Seventy nine's Ring
of Darkness. That's a Satanist movie that I have not seen,
but it has a great poster. Nineteen eighty five's Night
Train to Terror, nineteen eighty eight Space Mutiny, an MST
three K favorite, and nineteen eighty eight 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

(26:51):
really eye catching bit of poster art for it.

Speaker 1 (26:55):
John Philip Law plays the villain in Space Mutiny, if
I recall correct, Yeah, he's what Kalgon I think, hal gone,
driving those go karts around and sneering. Yeah. To compare
his two Mystery Science Theater entries, I'm gonna go ahead
and say Diabolic is better than Space Mutiny.

Speaker 2 (27:14):
Yeah, it's a cut above a hefty cutbuff.

Speaker 1 (27:17):
But Space Mutiny might be a better episode of the show.

Speaker 2 (27:20):
Oh yeah, Space Mutiny is a classic MST three K
episode for sure. Great riffing in that ridiculous film, but
still a lot of neat ideas in it that are
not they don't really come to life, or an interesting
cast as well.

Speaker 1 (27:36):
But Diabolic would be nowhere without the love of his life,
Eva Kant, who is a character who apparently also comes
from the comics and is his partner in crime and
the love of his life in this movie, played by Marissa.

Speaker 2 (27:51):
Mel That's right, Austrian actor who lived nineteen thirty nine
through nineteen ninety two. She played a lot of film
fatale type characters. Her other big films include nineteen sixty
nine's One on Top of the Other Luccio Folchi thriller,
in which she plays a dual role, seventy five's Mahogany,
and also in Berto Lindsay's Seven blood Stained Orchids. In

(28:12):
nineteen seventy two, she also appeared in She appeared in
Ring of Darkness with John Philip Law, and also she
pops up in nineteen sixty six's Secret Agent Super Dragon,
which was also featured on Missus Sence Theater three thousand.

Speaker 1 (28:26):
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.

Speaker 2 (28:36):
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 hit the law first.

Speaker 1 (28:54):
Well, to fight super crime, you need a super cop,
and too bad because there aren't any in this movie. Instead,
get a very underwhelming cop.

Speaker 2 (29:02):
That's right, we have Inspector Jinko, played by the French actor, producer,
and film director Michel Piccoli, who lived nineteen twenty five
through twenty twenty, whose other works include seventy four is
the Phantom of Liberty, Jean lu Goddard's Passion from nineteen
eighty two, as well as his film Contempt from sixty three.

(29:22):
He also pops up in the twenty twelve weird movie
Holy Motors.

Speaker 1 (29:26):
Okay, so I think this guy made. This guy worked
in some prestige cinema as well, But 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

(29:48):
in order to catch him. And so this police inspector
is very put upon and just he's out there having
a hard time. And so the actor the cast 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 kind of a stepped down, humiliated

(30:11):
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.

Speaker 2 (30:21):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think that makes sense. Yeah, And
he's not a character like, he's not a twisted, corrupt
copp 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 a little corrupt, though he himself is not corrupted. Yeah,
it's like you're rooting for him, but you don't really

(30:44):
want him to win. But then you at the end
of the day you realize, well, diabolic is a criminal,
and I'm I guess he needs to be caught. Maybe
if someone's gonna catch him, it needs to be this guy.

Speaker 1 (30:55):
No, he doesn't need to be caught. He needs to
get away with all of it. I 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. Demnity.

Speaker 2 (31:08):
You know there is a similar case in Hannibal. Coming
back to Hannibal, we have remembered the Italian investigator who
is looking for Hannibal in John Carlo. 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

(31:28):
doesn't want his wife to be killed by the serial
killer monster. But then ultimately you're also rooting for Hannibal
to avoid capture.

Speaker 1 (31:38):
Things don't turn out well for him. Inspector Jinko does
not have things go as bad for him as they
go for Gian Carlo in Hannibal.

Speaker 2 (31:46):
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
Adolfocelli who lived eighteen twenty two through nineteen eighty six
Italian actor and director, best known internationally, I think for
his turn as Bond villain Emilio Largo in nineteen sixty

(32:09):
five's Thunderball, which keeps coming up on the show for
some reason.

Speaker 1 (32:13):
Yeah, what we were just talking about this last week,
for some reason, weren't.

Speaker 2 (32:15):
We Yeah, yeah, I think we were. I don't know.
I think it's just a lot of people worked in Thunderball.

Speaker 1 (32:20):
Well, yeah, so he played the villain in Thunderball, the
guy he's got the really fast driving yacht. I think
he's trying to steal lost a nuclear warhead that crashed
on a plane or something. But he's the guy who
puts sharks in his swimming pool.

Speaker 2 (32:36):
Yeah, yeah, this actor was. He was also in the
Phantom of Liberty, as well as nineteen sixty five, The
Agony in the Ecstasy, seventy two's I in the Labyrinth,
Gordon Hessler's Murders in the Room Orgue from seventy one,
Franco Zepharelli's brother Son Sister Moon from seventy two, and
we absolutely cannot forget nineteen sixty seven's Operation Kid Brother,

(32:56):
in which he basically rehashes his role from Thunderball, opposite
the character doctor Neil Connery played by Neil Connery, Sean
Connery's brother. It's a total cash grab, obviously, and also
one that was riffed on MST three K. But Shelley
great Italian actor with a clear knack for playing heavies

(33:18):
and villains. He has just this great sneer, you know,
this great sort of sort of stereotypical mob boss physicality.

Speaker 1 (33:28):
I think he had a cigar permanently implanted between his
teeth surgically, so he would just gnaw gnaw without end
for the rest of that.

Speaker 2 (33:37):
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, to steal from.

Speaker 1 (33:57):
Well, as we've said, it's always good to have a
character like this in a movie with a criminal anti hero.
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.

Speaker 2 (34:14):
He has a lot of hinchmen, 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 nineteen forty through twenty fourteen. He may stand out,
and he probably stood out to you, Joe, because this
Italian actor was also in nineteen sixty five's Planet of
the Vampires playing Keir. He's in Roger Vadim Spirits of

(34:37):
the Dead from sixty eight, and he was also in
seventy two super Fly. TNT just a good background stooge
or Hinchman, and he has a great Hinchman 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

(34:57):
by Terry Thomas, who lived nineteen eleven through nineteen ninety. Yes,
it's Terry hyphen Thomas. You might remember him as the
dirty movie enthusiast from The Abominable Doctor Fibes, 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

(35:18):
sixty three. He also voiced Sir Hiss in the Disney
Robin Hood film from seventy three. Oh he just cake, Yeah,
the snake. He has a great hissing voice in general,
and yeah, he's fun in this. He just Terry Thomas
is all over the place.

Speaker 1 (35:34):
Yeah, he has some really good scenes where he's giving
press conferences appealing to people's patriotism while while clearly kind
of squirming like a like a bug under a microscope.

Speaker 2 (35:47):
All right, real quick production design credit goes to Carlo Rombaldi,
who lived nineteen twenty five through twenty twelve. He's come
up before on the show. He's involved in a number
of great productions over the years, including Planet, The Vampires,
The Never Ending Story. He also had a hand in
designing et So some wonderful credits assigned to this man,
sometimes credited just as Rambaldi. And then the music for

(36:11):
the film, I think we mentioned this already, but it's
a score by and Neil Morricone, who lived nineteen twenty
eight through twenty twenty. You know, the 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

(36:34):
as examples go. They were nineteen seventy nine The Humanoid,
which I think had its moments in nineteen eighty three's
Treasure of the Four Crowns, which soundtrack wise was nothing special.

Speaker 1 (36:44):
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, has got these great these
kind of there are 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 these

(37:05):
voices that I they're the ones I was thinking of
is going backwards up a slide, So these like choir
of voices going.

Speaker 2 (37:11):
Oh yeah, yeah, there's some there. I think some of
this music has like a sitar kind of a vibe
going on yeah that I really liked. There's also there
also some tracks that really lean into the groovy fun
angle of the thing, which is totally totally valid, totally
you know, on point for this picture. And then there

(37:31):
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 Morcone scores that we've talked
about here.

Speaker 4 (37:41):
H oh.

Speaker 2 (37:42):
And he also wrote the theme song deep Down that
we hear I feel like two or three times in
the film.

Speaker 1 (37:48):
Do you have a favorite Morconey score.

Speaker 2 (37:51):
Yeah, I mean, as I've I've mentioned before, I think
you know, the mission is amazing, you know, of course
I love eighty two's John Carpenter is the thing, and
you know, and that The Good, the Bad, and the
Ugly from sixty six is a classic as well. But
so many scores, and the Lord knows I haven't heard
them all.

Speaker 1 (38:15):
Well, are you ready to talk about the plot?

Speaker 2 (38:18):
Yeah, let's dive into the life and times.

Speaker 1 (38:20):
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.

Speaker 2 (38:31):
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.

Speaker 1 (38:40):
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 on like the sound of sirens, engines gunning.
There is 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

(39:03):
there are 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

(39:27):
sequences in the movie. So, for example, everything with the
police and the opening sequence here has these flourishes of
yellow and black, kind of like the stripes on a
bee or on a yellowjacket, 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

(39:47):
mind of something that can sting or something that can
harm you. So I don't know, maybe I'm putting 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 colors elections that resonate thematically with
what's going on on screen and kind of interesting and
oblique indirect ways.

Speaker 2 (40:08):
Yeah. Absolutely, I mean Bob is a master of color,
among other things.

Speaker 1 (40:13):
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 ten million dollars. That got me thinking

(40:35):
how much would it cost to simulate ten million dollars
with blank paper? Like how much does the paper you
would use for that cost?

Speaker 2 (40:43):
I mean significantly less than ten million dollars, one would hope, Like.

Speaker 1 (40:47):
I'm going to spend five thousand dollars on paper to
simulate ten million dollars.

Speaker 2 (40:53):
If it keeps you ten million dollars from being stolen
by supercriminal, then I guess it totally works out.

Speaker 1 (40:59):
Too bad. It's not 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's 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

(41:19):
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 all 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?

Speaker 2 (41:42):
Yeah, one suspects not so.

Speaker 1 (41:44):
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
whispers the name Diabolic. So Jinko goes into the other

(42:05):
room where the police are loading the real ten million
dollars into different yellow bags which are being hidden inside
a chauffeured luxury car. And this thing, wouldn't it be
better to hide it inside a cheap car?

Speaker 2 (42:19):
I don't know. Yeah, yeah, because they're kind of fixing
it up like like this is a a chauffeur gride
with swells in it. So it seems like that might
attract a super criminal's attention.

Speaker 1 (42:28):
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

(42:49):
depart the police station and they head toward the port
while we get a taste of one of the sweet
musical themes. This is the one that 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 nice? And then

(43:15):
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. Diabolics Jaguar is
so cool.

Speaker 2 (43:36):
Absolutely, this is a cool looking car. And I believe
he buys them by like the dozen, yeah, because they're
just completely disposable to Diabolic. Diabolic is a very successful
super criminal. He has super riches, so he's operating with
a budget well beyond any other criminal you've seen in
another film.

Speaker 1 (43:55):
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 one.

Speaker 2 (44:09):
Oh nice.

Speaker 1 (44:10):
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.

(44:33):
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

(44:54):
see anything Inspector Jenko and the others get out of
their cars to investigate. 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

(45:16):
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. So he's got
a sinister laughter and he's beaten them again.

Speaker 2 (45:39):
Yes, I love the sinister laugh or laughter to him
to remind you that, yes, there is a fun evil
to diabolic. He is diabolical.

Speaker 1 (45:52):
Did you want to do a thing about his costume?
This like skin tight suit he wears?

Speaker 2 (45:57):
Uh? Yeah, yeah, I think we talked a little bit
about the mask. Yeah. The whole outfit is basically, I
think supposed to be kind of like a cat suit
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 but yeah, he has this this this

(46:18):
black outfit that he's like a ninja ninja with, but
with a mask that just clings to every detail of
his face.

Speaker 1 (46:28):
I did like when you said it was like his
face was vacuum packed.

Speaker 2 (46:32):
Yeah, it's like if you vacuum sealed the face. Yeah,
the face mask into the face.

Speaker 1 (46:36):
Yeah, souv diabolic?

Speaker 2 (46:38):
Mm hmm. And I do have to add, I don't
know that we ever see him blink. I think, uh,
I mean, he's not always wide eyed. Sometimes he's looking
at things or reading things, et cetera. But I didn't
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.

Speaker 1 (46:59):
I think you're 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, not afraid of bullets,
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 sequences, you know, we
see the credits running while there's like a spinning glass

(47:22):
colored painted glass thing. I don't know exactly what's going on.
It's kind of a groovy sixties Italian party song playing.

Speaker 2 (47:28):
Yeah, this would be this would be the Marconi theme
somewhat deep down.

Speaker 1 (47:32):
Oh okay, So he escapes with the ten million dollars.
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 a 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 by like driving under
some some greenery, some foliage, but they find him again,

(47:54):
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 where there is already waiting the love
of his life, his perfect partner in crime. Eva can't
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

(48:18):
the tunnel and it 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.

Speaker 2 (48:40):
There is a lot of screen time in this movie
devoted to Diabolic and Eva making out. It's great. Yeah,
it's what you're here for.

Speaker 1 (48:51):
I think it's time to talk about Diabolic and Eva's
secret layer.

Speaker 2 (48:55):
Oh my goodness, it is amazing. It's like the It's
like the Batcave, except on some sort of groovy cocktail
of sixties hallucinogens.

Speaker 1 (49:05):
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 they're 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.

(49:27):
And this is achieved in the movie by I think
a very simple force perspective effect. It's 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

(49:51):
to accomplish, and they're kind of the word might be
kind of stagy. 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, they just wash right over you.
Like so they fit into the action and the aesthetic

(50:13):
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, you know 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

(50:33):
and feel so good. It's like a real sense of
confidence and finesse and playfulness in Bova's filmmaking instincts here. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (50:41):
Plus, I think we've mentioned before with Baba, 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 that is maybe like that, the writing
is a little subpar, et cetera. Like everything else is
positioned just so that nothing feels out of place. And

(51:04):
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 that were primarily interested in futuristic romantic interior design.

Speaker 1 (51:22):
Yeah, it's like a it's like a Bond villain layer
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 decorse style.
It's that cool, hip sixties looking decor with you know,

(51:42):
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

(52:05):
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.

Speaker 2 (52:20):
Yeah, absolutely, because it is. I mean, it is a
movie about the power of their love and how that
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

(52:42):
two never getting into arguments or squabbles about anything. 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 under neat the surface of
another planet. I don't know.

Speaker 1 (53:02):
Yeah, it was built by the aliens from two thousand
and one of Space Odyssey and Buckminster Fuller and I
don't know the members of the who like it's how
would you like their bedroom and their bathroom. Their bedroom,
they have a giant like ring shaped bed that rotates

(53:24):
on a motor, and then next to it, they've got
these things that are just stacked 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

(53:45):
planters full of living plants in the showers. That's a
choice I've never seen before, but I love it.

Speaker 2 (53:52):
Yeah. And also each shower has like a blurry circle
bit that covers them up from the cameras, though it's
certainly in Eva's case like only barely.

Speaker 1 (54:06):
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 nineteen sixty eight. I don't know
about home video yet, but they you know, they watch
the news on TV and make cracks about how we're
going to steal that necklace.

Speaker 2 (54:28):
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.

Speaker 1 (54:32):
Right, Yeah, time to check in with the squares. No,
we got consequences for the cops. Inspector Jenko 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 ten million. He says, it's
absurd that one man can make a laughing stock of
the entire police force. And Terry Thomas says, you know, obviously,

(54:55):
if you think about it, logically, diabolics 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 Jenko 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

(55:18):
using the money as a bed as sort of a
love nest.

Speaker 2 (55:22):
Yes, that's right. It turns out presumably they stole all
that money just so they could make love on it. Yes,
because again, yeah, it's that you can't 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

(55:45):
just completely outrageous. So again something that elevates this film
into the sort of the flash Gordon Barbarella realm of
just you know, outrageous cinema.

Speaker 1 (55:56):
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 it's that Will Will Ferrell character on

(56:20):
SNL where he had the tiny, the tic tac sized
cell phone.

Speaker 2 (56:24):
Oh I don't remember this character.

Speaker 1 (56:26):
Well, that's what Diabolic looks like. Here. He's got these
square sunglasses and a turtleneck under a blazer. He looks great.

Speaker 2 (56:33):
Yeah, they do a lot of this, showing up really
close to the heat in disguise as the most fashionable people,
and nobody blinks an eye.

Speaker 1 (56:46):
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,
flashbowl camera photography, and when the flash bul goes off,
it releases a kind of puff of stuff, and it

(57:07):
turns out that is laughing gas, and everybody starts laughing, except,
of course Diabolic and Eva, who took antidote pills before
they did it.

Speaker 2 (57:15):
They have everything figured out.

Speaker 1 (57:16):
Terry Thomas says, he's certainly not going to make a
fool of me. Then I can't stop laughing. Yes, he
looks in It looks very foolish. Great Terry Thomas sequence.
All right, 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.

(57:36):
We learned about him through newspaper headlines linking him to
a bunch of crimes Jim 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 maybe
that's maybe somehow he can use Valmont to get to Diabolic.

(57:56):
And here we get you know, somebody comes to Jenko
and Inspector you know, we have a lead at one
of Valmont's nightclubs. So here we're gonna go see a swinging,
switched on sixties nightclub. I guess the movie isn't set
in Italy, but I see some Italian sensibilities in how
this hippie nightclub is realized.

Speaker 2 (58:17):
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

(58:41):
all through the Mario Bava lens.

Speaker 1 (58:44):
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 over on in Titanya.
They're dancing in the corner. And this is a club
where if you're not careful and elf is going to
make your cows sick. So we see various elfin and

(59:06):
fairy looking people around. But then also there is a
pirate playing guitar for good measure.

Speaker 2 (59:14):
Well't you lady chills out on a bed wearing flowers.

Speaker 1 (59:17):
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.

Speaker 2 (59:28):
Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 1 (59:29):
But also the guy. So there's like loud music playing
at the club because it's a dance club, you know,
it's like deafening. And this guy's sitting here playing an
acoustic guitar in a pirate hat. He can't hear himself
play in this set. Why is he playing?

Speaker 2 (59:43):
You know? I guess it doesn't mean you can't noodle
little bit. He's probably he's probably on the wacky.

Speaker 1 (59:48):
Weed, that's true. Also, this place has xylophone stairs. I've
never seen xylophone stairs in reality before.

Speaker 2 (59:55):
Yeah, this is great, and then all we get the
greatest blunt passing scene in the history of sen as well.

Speaker 1 (01:00:01):
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.

Speaker 2 (01:00:14):
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
uh oh, something's about to happen. Here come the fizz.

Speaker 1 (01:00:26):
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's a police raid on the club and
this this gets the attention of Valmont, who again this
is the largo from Thunderball Adolphocelli. So Valmont is finding
out that the police are onto him and he does

(01:00:47):
not like that. So we come. We go see Valmont
on his boat. And as we said before, you Valmont
is just he's the worst. You know, he makes Diabolic
look great.

Speaker 2 (01:00:58):
Yeah, he's just a complete pick.

Speaker 1 (01:01:00):
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

(01:01:21):
going to vote on whether to proceed with the plan
to catch Diabolic. And you can tell there's some descent.
There are those who vote against the plan because you
don't want to mess with Diabolic.

Speaker 2 (01:01:33):
That's right. I mean, this is a dangerous guy. Not
everyone wants wants to toy with him. You know, let's it.
Let him do his thing. We just hope he ignores
our stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:01:42):
So several members of the criminal syndicate vote against the plan,
and Valmont responds by shooting them, and he also he
shoots He accidentally shoots a hole in the fuselage of
the plane, which one of his henchmen plugs with chewing gum.

Speaker 2 (01:01:55):
Yeah this is Joe, I believe cool Joe is henchman.

Speaker 1 (01:01:58):
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 trapdoor
beneath the guy's feet and drops him out of the airplane.
Ten out of ten bond villain trapdoor deployment. Here love

(01:02:22):
a villain with a trap door. Absolutely, that's key villain infrastructure.

Speaker 2 (01:02:27):
Yeah, and it's going to come. It's gonna be important
later on as well.

Speaker 1 (01:02:31):
That's right. So you know, 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. So on

(01:02:55):
to the next act. We gotta have another heist. It's
been a bit since we had a heist. So Diabolic
and 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, uh, and one of them

(01:03:16):
is going to be wearing the world famous Axon emerald necklace.
And if this is a necklace with eleven 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 Saint 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,

(01:03:39):
those emeralds, and you can just see Diabolic. He squints.
He's working it out already in his mind.

Speaker 2 (01:03:46):
Again, he will steal anything for love, and he will
absolutely steal that.

Speaker 1 (01:03:50):
That's right. So next we see Diabolic and Eva doing
some kind of role play outside the castle. He like
drives up in a car. She apparently he has disguised
herself as a sex worker and done some recon inside
the castle and it's full. She reports, Okay, here's what
she figured out. Is full of police. They're disguised as waiters,

(01:04:10):
many of them wearing wigs. Uh. There are guards outside
with rifles. There are CCTV cameras everywhere. Looks basically impossible,
but not for Diabolic.

Speaker 2 (01:04:22):
Yep. They just love the challenge. They're in it for
the fun. They're they're they're in they enjoy their.

Speaker 1 (01:04:28):
Work, that's right. And uh he oh. She says, I
didn't see Inspector Jinko there, and he says, if you
didn't see him, that means he's there.

Speaker 2 (01:04:37):
M the reverse is also true, I guess, I.

Speaker 1 (01:04:40):
Guess so uh but so uh oh. It's not just
the police who are 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 can't partner in crime to diabolic himself,
he figures that out. So he's like, if we can

(01:05:01):
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.

Speaker 2 (01:05:19):
Yeah. I didn't remember this sequence from the MST three
K episode, which I haven't seen in a very long
time anyway, so I don't know if it was in
there or it was cut, but I was when they
started rolling this out. I'm like, Okay, 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

(01:05:42):
like they this is great. This is a great use
of what would otherwise be a throwaway sequence.

Speaker 1 (01:05:47):
Totally fast cuts, mixing and matching different facial elements. It's
kind of like rapidly clicking the randomized button on a
video game character creator mm hmm.

Speaker 2 (01:05:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:05:58):
But then finally they zero in on a drawing of Eva.
That's her and Valmont's the next part. I've seen this
couple times recently and I still never caught exactly how
he does this. Valmont manages to somehow get in contact
with Eva's doctor, and he's going to use Eva's doctor

(01:06:18):
to find Eva and then use Eva to catch diabolic Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:06:21):
I'm not sure what the connection here is. Like there's
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 pause
to question. Don't worry about it. Yeah, and I guess

(01:06:42):
this you might as well just roll with it. But
somehow he's able to make some connection and he starts
knocking on who turns out to a guy who turns
out to be her doctor, and ask, hey, have you
seen this lady?

Speaker 1 (01:06:53):
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.

Speaker 2 (01:07:00):
I think maybe the idea is he's a doctor who
only works with criminals.

Speaker 1 (01:07:04):
I don't know, Oh that might be it.

Speaker 2 (01:07:05):
Yeah, but even then this is a tenuous connection at best.

Speaker 1 (01:07:10):
Okay, Meanwhile, the heist has got to go on, so
we got to check back in with Diabolic and Eva
as there. You know, he's gonna Diabolic is 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 rear view mirror,
and there's like all this dark shadowy stuff outside of

(01:07:32):
the windshield ahead of her, and it's kind of framing
her eyes the same way that diabolics suit frames his eyes,
and then it like cuts between them. So I thought
that was cool.

Speaker 2 (01:07:42):
Oh yeah, that 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.

Speaker 1 (01:08:00):
All right, 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

(01:08:22):
he throws knives into guards throats to 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 anti heroes is to is to have them be

(01:08:43):
less anti you know, to be they wouldn't kill somebody
who wasn't in the game.

Speaker 2 (01:08:48):
Yeah, they wouldn't shoot first, right, that's yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:08:50):
But he does. He does. He's just like, these are
just people in his way and he's throwing throwing knives
into their necks.

Speaker 2 (01:08:57):
Was like your observation earlier. Yeah, 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.

Speaker 1 (01:09:07):
That's right. So this Diabolic is not Robinhood yet.

Speaker 2 (01:09:12):
Right, and he'll only kind of later on the film.
He may get into some Robinhood territory, but not because
he really just wants to help everybody. There are other
motives and situations that lead to that.

Speaker 1 (01:09:22):
Yeah, maybe he wants to help people, maybe he just
wants to get revenge.

Speaker 2 (01:09:26):
M oh, but this is when we get limited edition
white Diabolic. He's in the black suit.

Speaker 1 (01:09:33):
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.

Speaker 2 (01:09:40):
I think that's the idea. But also, of course it's
just visually appealing. It's like it's just snazzy.

Speaker 1 (01:09:46):
Okay, 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 places 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?

Speaker 2 (01:10:08):
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 are you hold with
your hands and they allow him to stick to stone. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:10:21):
I don't know about that. I think the stone looks
a little too rough for a suction cup to work.

Speaker 2 (01:10:26):
But within the context of the film, it works, and
he's able to scale that the sheer surface of that tower.

Speaker 1 (01:10:33):
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 the 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

(01:10:53):
your general in the morning.

Speaker 2 (01:10:55):
I don't know why he brought his minis on a trip.
I mean, it's always tempting, but you gotta you got
to scale back.

Speaker 1 (01:11:01):
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 gonna get him? Obviously he's going to
be seen if he goes to get it. What's he
gonna do?

Speaker 2 (01:11:16):
Photo trickery? Sneak up there, get it, take a polaroid,
and then use a little dou dad to position the
polaroid in front of the camera. I feel like this
is this is a scheme that has been utilized in
some other films as well. I just can't remember which
ones off hand.

Speaker 1 (01:11:31):
Oh they do the same thing in all the modern
Mission impossible movies.

Speaker 4 (01:11:34):
Oh they do.

Speaker 2 (01:11:35):
Ok.

Speaker 1 (01:11:35):
Yeah, they'll put like a video, a video playback or
a picture or something in front of a 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 onto him and a chase breaks out.
He is pursued up the spiraling stairwell to the roof

(01:11:56):
of the castle and then he gets there, he's cornered.
The police are they'll be there any see. He's on
the roof. What's he gonna 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 a rush up onto the roof.
We see the catapult fling out something that looks like

(01:12:17):
Diabolic and they shoot at it and they they're like,
I think I got him. But then they 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.

Speaker 2 (01:12:40):
Oh wow, perfect perfect master of strategy.

Speaker 1 (01:12:44):
So Diabolic and Eva escape by car. I guess they
got a new black Jaguar after they blew up the
last one.

Speaker 2 (01:12:50):
Oh they have, Yeah, they have, Like they buy him
by the dozen. We saw a whole rows of them
in the Layer.

Speaker 1 (01:12:56):
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.

Speaker 2 (01:13:12):
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 sixties, but also at heart, we have
a pair of young lovers, our power couple here for
whom all this crime is mere for play, for whom
money is a mere tool in their romance. While at

(01:13:33):
the same time money is just the all consuming and
all corrupting power of the elder authorities on both sides
of the law. So their enemies, 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

(01:13:54):
of their love. So very strong our love versus the
world vibes in this movie.

Speaker 1 (01:13:59):
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.

Speaker 2 (01:14:18):
Yeah, the whole doctor's angle thing pays off, and he
shows up with his goons. They murder the doctor and
they kidnap Eva.

Speaker 1 (01:14:27):
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 ex pattern. And I think he says,
like I told you, I would mark your name off
of the human register. And so, of course, now Eva's
been kidnapped, Diabolic will do anything to save her. So
he calls Valmont. Apparently Velmont placed like an ad in

(01:14:50):
the classifieds trying 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, the one with the

(01:15:11):
trap door in the floor that'll launch you out of
the fuselage. So Diabolic brings the money, he brings the necklace.
But but what happens here? We get another great reversal?

Speaker 2 (01:15:22):
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, this whole this whole

(01:15:44):
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 he has the the parachute on and he grabs
Valmont and then pulls him with him as they both

(01:16:05):
fall out of the airplane and then as they're plummeting,
the airplane explodes above them.

Speaker 1 (01:16:10):
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

(01:16:31):
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.

(01:16:53):
You see him look at like the clip on his
machine gun, and then the voices going backwards up the
slide play and ooh, you know, the hair is raised
on the back of my neck. Something good's gonna happen.
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

(01:17:17):
Jenko later he's talking to a colleague of his saying,
in a way it says, 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.

Speaker 2 (01:17:29):
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 Highes.

Speaker 1 (01:17:36):
That's right. So we later we're in the morgue and
we see doctors preparing Diabolic's body for an autopsy. But
just as the scalpel is about to go in, his
eyes pop open. Oh, Diabolic 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

(01:17:58):
was I think originally used by Tibetan lamas to enter
a state of apparent death, and he says, if you
let it go for twenty four 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.

Speaker 2 (01:18:16):
They like to play it close to the edge. Oh.

Speaker 1 (01:18:18):
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 eleven gunshot wounds. And then Inspector Jenko, you see,

(01:18:42):
if we get like his inner monologue, he says, eleven bullets,
eleven emeralds, there were eleven emeralds on the necklace, and
then cut to Diabolic, already at the morgue, pretending to
be a relative of Valmont's, talking to the funeral director,
saying like he was really a good ploy Valmont's. He's

(01:19:03):
there to collect Valmont's ashes, which now contain the emeralds
that Diabolic I think somehow used as bullets to shoot
into Valmont's body back in the desert that they parachuted into.

Speaker 2 (01:19:15):
And now I think, I think that's the idea. As
ridiculous as that is, I think that's what happened.

Speaker 1 (01:19:20):
That is that's an all time like top five movie twist.

Speaker 2 (01:19:25):
We don't understand it, but we're not as good with
guns as Diabolic, Like he knows what he's doing.

Speaker 1 (01:19:30):
He used the emeralds as bullets. So wait a minute,
the main villain is dealt with, and there's like a
whole other act of the movie to go.

Speaker 2 (01:19:38):
Yeah, I mean a lot of film's going to just
call it here, and 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.

Speaker 1 (01:19:49):
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 like sticks
all of the emerald to Eva. I guess he doesn't
have the necklace part, but he has all of an emerald,
so he just like sticks him to her skin.

Speaker 2 (01:20:06):
Yeah, tells are 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 those emeralds have
no intrinsic value to our power couple outside of their
role in enhancing their romance.

Speaker 1 (01:20:25):
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.

Speaker 2 (01:20:33):
That's right.

Speaker 1 (01:20:34):
So the last tist 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 one million dollar 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

(01:20:56):
on TV actually kind of again squirming and saying, I
appeal to your sense of national pride. Please pay your taxes.
You know we don't have any record of what you
owe anymore. I know you will not turn your back on.

Speaker 2 (01:21:08):
Me, he says, absolutely hilarious. Yeah, we're on the honor
system now right.

Speaker 1 (01:21:15):
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 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 idea is that it will be harder
to steal this way.

Speaker 2 (01:21:36):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:21:50):
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 it's not
too much underwater stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:22:07):
Yeah, they keep it to sub thunderball levels to maintain
our interest.

Speaker 1 (01:22:10):
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

(01:22:31):
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.

Speaker 2 (01:22:37):
No questioning that.

Speaker 1 (01:22:38):
But uh oh, police raid on the hideout. They finally
discovered Diabolic and Eva's right.

Speaker 2 (01:22:46):
They radiated part of the gold, yes, or the container
won so that they could track him, and so now
the gig is truly up, Like the police are starting
to raid the bat cave.

Speaker 1 (01:22:57):
That's right. So the police come there, they're they're shooting
at him and all this there's a big final showdown
with the police in which the molten gold 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

(01:23:19):
in place, and he is frozen in this pose with
his arm up over his head and apparently dead. Eve
has distraught.

Speaker 2 (01:23:28):
Yeah, we see part of the face that the glass,
you know, the clear face plate of 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 a you know, it feels

(01:23:49):
feels weird to parade his body like this. You know,
this was an honorable foe and so forth. 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

(01:24:12):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:24:24):
I knew it was coming, but still it felt like
as such a pleasing surprise.

Speaker 2 (01:24:29):
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 like our occult power couples a lot, but

(01:24:52):
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 that Eva is taken
away then by the inspector, it's clear they're still hope.
Not only hope, there's certainty in.

Speaker 1 (01:25:13):
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.

Speaker 2 (01:25:21):
Yes, they'll just keep stealing and then that's the end.
And it's not at the end with the question mark.
I've 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.

Speaker 1 (01:25:31):
I think so. I couldn't be sure, but yeah, that
sounds right.

Speaker 2 (01:25:35):
If it's not there, it's implied because yeah, he I
think he looks at the camera, he winks again. He
will be.

Speaker 1 (01:25:41):
Back danger diabolic. This has got to go on 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 joy.

Speaker 2 (01:26:01):
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 gonna remind everybody that, yeah, as usual, stuff
to blow your mind. As 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

(01:26:21):
see a list of all the movies we've covered over
the years, I blog about these movies at Summuto music
dot com. But also you can go to letterbox dot com.
It's l E T T E r box d dot 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

(01:26:41):
see what we've talked about.

Speaker 1 (01:26:43):
Huge thanks as always to our regular audio producer Jjposway
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 stuff to Blow your Mind
dot com.

Speaker 3 (01:27:09):
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.