by ·Comments Off on Danger: Diabolik (1968, Mario Bava)

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.

by ·Comments Off on The Big Gundown (1967, Sergio Sollima)

The Big Movie Series #2. This is my third show in a row (after Nemesis and I’m a Virgo) where a lead character belatedly realizes they’ve been doing damage not out of righteousness but as a tool of capitalism. Lee Van Cleef is a ruthless lawman chasing escape artist Cuchillo because corrupt rich guys say he’s a criminal. Lee is as badass as you could hope for, but Cuchillo (Tomas Milian of Identification of a Woman and Four of the Apocalypse) still runs off with the movie. All I knew about this previously was the Morricone score – he and the writer and producer followed up with Once Upon a Time in the West, while Sollima went on to make a reportedly-great Charles Bronson revenge flick.

Just some doomed outlaws:

Our guys:

Hotwife Manolita Barroso:

by ·Comments Off on For A Few Dollars More (1965, Sergio Leone)

Zowie, a pip of a western, and not at all a sequel to A Fistful of Yojimbo like I’d feared. Thrilling action with all the close-ups and wide-shots, Morricone twang and badass tough guys we’d expect.

Clint, eight years before facing off against Briggs:
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Clint is a steely young bounty killer out for heaps of money.

Lee, some six years after Ride Lonesome:
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Lee is a steely older bounty killer out for revenge. Of course we do not know he’s out for revenge until the very end when it’s revealed that the music-box portrait chain he carries around belonged to his sister who was long ago killed by super-thug El Indio.

Gian Volontè of Hercules and the Captive Women, later in Le Cercle rouge and Sacco & Vanzetti:
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The meaning of this musical/emotional prop is withheld until the final showdown, almost exactly like Charles Bronson’s harmonica in Once Upon a Time in the West. Lee and Indio are shown to be excellent long-range shooters. Lee, however, is the Fastest Man In The West (making the outcome of the climactic shootout a foregone conclusion). I think Clint’s special skill is a supernatural awareness of his surroundings, knowing exactly where/who to shoot. Awesome movie, anyway.

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