Possibly the first Mystery Science Theater 3000 movie I’ve ever watched on its own – though I followed up by immediately rewatching the episode. Somewhere along the way I heard that the movie is actually excellent, and that’s not true; it’s Italian Batman Mabuse 007, but the color really pops on the new blu-ray and I got to listen to Ennio’s “Deep Down” for four hours.

Eva:

Eva (artist’s rendition):

Diabolik was in Barbarella the same year, and those would make a great double-feature: jokey genre movies with high fashion and design. He’s the villain hero, out to steal whatever he pleases, for no reason but that he can, and only Inspector Michael Piccoli and Gov’t Minister Terry-Thomas can stop him. Oh I’m kidding, they can’t stop him at all, in fact Diabolik shows up at their press conference and drops “exhilarating gas” to cause a laugh riot, just to humiliate them.

One of ten-ish movies produced by Dino De Laurentiis that year, Bava between horror movies, enlisting his idiot son Lamberto to assist. Diabolik’s chick is Eva of Ken Russell’s French Dressing. She wants an emerald necklace she saw on TV, so her man goes out to steal it, starting a war with his archrival Valmont (white-haired Adolfo Celi of Thunderball) who runs a ridiculous nightclub. Hundreds more things happen: a cop has a wacom tablet, Diabolik uses emeralds for bullets, falls out a plane and fakes his own death, a woman makes a Robin Hood reference (but to Piccoli, not Terry-Thomas). Diabolik finally Fight-Clubs the country’s tax office buildings, then after the country melts all of their gold into one giant chunk to make it easier harder(?) to steal… he steals it. Technically he’s still alive at the end, encased in gold, but there would be no sequels since there was nothing left to steal.