Designing the Movies: Danger: Diabolik
What if the Adam West BATMAN had been made with a budget and had an Ennio Morricone score? The answer is DANGER: DIABOLIK — the 1968 action heist that has you rooting for the anti-hero. Directed and co-written by Mario Bava based on the cult following Italian comics. Produced by the impresario behind BARBARELLA, the movie is a feast of outlandish surreal-meets-Pop Art costume and set design. (The master thief’s lair boasts a hangar full of Jaguar E-Types. Because of course it does!) As one critic put it: 'a fever-dream experience that intoxicates the viewer with its rarefied, almost alien, European opulence.' Presented with an introduction by series host Nathalie Atkinson.
To see DANGER: DIABOLIK is to be doomed to forever wander the earth wondering what Mario Bava would’ve done with a Bond movie.