| Mario
Bava bequeathed to movie images of the sixties one of his most remarkable
characters, the bandit Diabolik. Sophisticated, and with an endearing
touch of kitsch, John Phillip Law plays the high flying thief who, wearing
a black leather catsuit only showing his eyes, tries to do away with the
Italian economy before the desperate attempts of an impotent policeman
(represented by Michel Piccoli) who can do nothing to prevent the attractive
masked man and his equally attractive associate (a sensual Marisa Mell),
from bringing the entire nation to a halt. A movie of pop, sixties spirit,
adaptation of the comic written by the sisters Angela and Luciana Giusianni,
Mario Bava endows the movie with irony, a sense of humour and an elegance
making it one of the decade’s classic detective movies. |
