Diabolik

Kant Buy
Me Love

Diabolik
Italy 2021
Directed by Antonio & Marco Manetti
RAI Italian Ltd Edition
Blu Ray Zone B/DVD Region 2 set

Warning: Very light spoilers.

So, after both the 1968 Mario Bava movie known in the UK as Danger Diabolik and an animated series, Diabolik returned to Italian cinema screens at the end of last year. Alas, it’s still not found an English distributor for either a UK cinema or home video release (or possibly even streaming, at time of writing) but I wanted to do this right so, rather than just watch a free HD copy online, I managed to acquire the new limited edition Italian Blu Ray/DVD set, which also comes with a replica copy of the third issue of the original fumetti, The Arrest Of Diabolik (on which this film is based, along with also taking material from a 2012 remake comic book of the same story) but, since I can’t read Italian to get the one detail about a certain jewel I wanted to know, I can’t work out whether a specific reference was put there by the Manetti Bros or if it was in the original version of the comic... or, indeed, if it’s just a coincidence (I’ll get to that possible reference in a minute).

The new film starts off with a very similar style opening to the Mario Bava version (reviewed by me here), to which the first time viewer will obviously compare it to, at least for a while. So the film is set in the late 1960s and we have Diabolik in his black Jaguar evading the police after a heist. It’s one of very few action sequences in the movie, actually and, I suspect, those who are not intrigued by the story and the absolutely wonderful performances of Luca Marinelli as Diabolik, Miriam Leone as Eva Kant and Valerio Mastandrea as Inspector Ginko... may find the lack of stunts and explosions etc a little disappointing. However, because the story is so strong... it’s an origin tale, of sorts, for the way that Diabolik and his future girlfriend Eve Kant first met... I found it absolutely absorbing from start to finish and didn’t notice the 2 hour 15 minute running time.

Okay, so I won’t say all that much about the plot but two things that caught my attention were the diamond and a section of the story involving an execution by guillotine. Okay, so the jewel that Diabolik is after from Eva Kant, which brings him to her door, is a very special pink diamond. So my first thought was obviously the specific diamond named The Pink Panther, which was the plot device of the 1963 film and which birthed the animated title sequence using a literal pink panther, thus giving kids all over the world a new hero when the title sequence character got his own cartoon show (which used to feature an Inspector Clouseau cartoon as its second half each week, if I remember correctly, both segments utilising Henry Mancini’s themes from The Pink Panther and A Shot In The Dark respectively). It’s a nice touch but I’ve no idea now if it was a deliberate reference or not, due to the dates being fairly close (if it did appear in that original fumetti).

The other thing I noticed which, judging from my look at the replica fumetti... since the first two thirds of this movie seem to follow it fairly closely (and so don’t blame the Manetti Brothers for eschewing action sequences, it looks like they are trying to do it fairly straight to the source material)... deals with the mistaken execution by guillotine of one of the characters who has been switched out at the eleventh hour, allowing Diabolik to escape justice. Now, I’ve read the first Fantomas novel from 1911, years ago and, honestly, it’s an absolute steal from that inaugural story but, of course, it’s not rocket science to figure out that the original character of Diabolik was blatantly inspired by the French master criminal.

So, okay, I had two slight problems with the movie. One is.... and I suspect this is endemic of the current state of Italian film production in general... that, although I’m sure a lot of money was spent on this new movie, there’s something about it that makes it look really cheap. Like it’s a TV movie or something. It all looks like it’s just been shot on a high res video camera and so doesn’t have that cinematic feel I was expecting from it (and no, I didn’t have the stupid motion smoothing setting on, thanks very much). However, once I got  used to it I managed to forget about it.

The other thing is... there are no real surprises in the film. Even though the narrative structure is deliberately built to hide information until certain things happen, I could pretty much second guess the entire movie. For example, during the first meeting between Ginko and Eva Kant, I realised that this was probably not Ginko at all... in which case, the same kind of fictionally heightened style masks used in the Mission: Impossible series and films was probably being used here and, yep, indeed it was.

However, when a film is put together this well, the lack of unpredictability is not that distracting... there are lot of other good things to grab your attention. Some of the frame designs, for example, are nicely done with the directors sometimes emphasising vertical patterns to echo the frames of a comic book... something which they do big time in the last third of the movie, which is basically a heist, much of which is made of dynamic, split screen compositions. I found it odd that they saved the use of split screen for only the last third of the movie but it works effectively for the sequence and was as good a solution as any other. There are also some sets of camera movements that are a little reminiscent of some modern horror movies, in that they’re designed to conceal rather than reveal elements of a scene before a particular story point is reached.

The comic strip style is further enhanced by details which you wouldn’t necessarily get away with in other forms of fiction in a credible manner. For example, the fact that Diabolik has managed to have a raising ramp built right into the middle of a street so he can take that route to evade the police, after making sure he gets boxed into the correct location. Hmm... yeah... don’t know how he would have managed to install that one without being seen. Also, the ears of the character protruding from either side of his mask (either that or his ears are also very tightly covered in latex) which would look really silly if not for the fact that they’re lit so well to hide any colour or texture change in the scenes where they are prominent. Also, Diabolik has a very strong widows peak, which echoes the open eyes section of his mask to remind you who he is when he’s not wearing his criminal costume (Ginko has a widow’s peak too).

The structure of the piece is good also. Like I said, no real surprises but there are a few sequences where conversations are cross cut with other conversations (often with one of the same characters) so the present of a character can be at counterpoint with a reveal needed to make more sense of a scene when it comes up later. Again, even though I’d figured out most of those reveals on this one way before they happen... mostly due to just thinking logically about the way what I was watching was unfolding... it’s a nice way of presenting the information and the two or three times where this is done in the movie adds to an overall ‘corporate style’ to the film.

I really liked the sexual chemistry between Marinelli  and Leone as Diabolik and Eva too. Don’t get me wrong, it’s nowhere near as evident or blatantly expressive as the version of the relationship between John Philip Law and Marissa Mell’s versions of the characters in Bava’s movie but, the camera does still linger on the strength of their attraction to each other here as the glue which holds their relationship together... so that’s nice. I was worried they were going to shy away from that element here.

So it’s a shame, then, that due to the film’s release schedule being delayed by the Coronavirus pandemic, Marinelli is unable to reprise his role as the title character for the two sequels which are just winding up back to back production in Italy as I write this review. I hope the new guy they’ve got is able to at least match his, mostly emotionless and chilled performance here.

And that’s me done with the new Diabolik. I hope this one manages to find someone to give it a UK and US release because, frankly, our cinemas need more ‘shades of grey’ characters like this. This is a pretty good adaptation of the comics is my best guess, not to be compared to the Bava movie (which will always have the number one spot in terms of this character) but still doing something of its own with the material. And also... I love it whenever Diabolik throws his knife and the camera follows it at the same speed by keeping it in centre frame before we see who it killed (and, yes, I know it probably wasn’t captured like that but, that’s the impression it’s trying to create and it works really well, I think). Diabolik doesn’t need ‘bullet time’ when he has ‘dynamic dagger duration’ moments like this.

Danger Diabolik

Kant Get Enough

Danger Diabolik
aka Diabolik
Italy 1968
Directed by Mario Bava  
Paramount Blu Ray Zone A
 
Warning: Light spoilers.

I thought, in light of the reboot movie released in Italy recently, I’d revisit one of my favourite comic book movies, Danger Diabolik, based on the famous, long running fumetti Diabolik by sisters Angela and Luciana Giussani which, as far as I know, has not been translated for an English audience. The comic book followed in a long  line of lionised fictional super-criminals which seemed more abundant in countries like France, Germany and Italy than they did over here in the UK or in the US. I suspect the character was more than a little inspired by the original Fantomas, for example and there were a few attempts to get Diabolik started as a film by producer Dino De Laurentiis, with actors like Jean Sorel and Catherine Deneuve in the roles of Diabolik and his super sexy girlfriend Eva Kant, before he finally got the great Mario Bava to direct the movie.

So this version stars John Philip Law as the master criminal (who was also working on Barbarella for the same producer at the time), the marvellous Marisa Mell as Eva Kant, the great Michel Piccoli as Diabolik’s nemesis police Inspector Ginko, Adolfo Celli (who played Bond villain Largo in Thunderball) as mob boss Valmont and, in a few scenes scattered throughout the film in what is more or less an extended cameo, comical British actor Terry Thomas (who was so much in demand at the time that he shot all his scenes in one day).

Although Diabolik does not come over as ruthless, perhaps, as he did in the early comic books, he’s still going around killing innocent people who get in the way of his headline grabbing crimes and, although you’re always on his side as much as Ginko’s, he does tend to do some typical Robin Hood style acts of terrorism along the way. For instance, when a new police commissioner puts out a one million dollar reward for his capture, he sends him a note saying that he does not believe using this sum of money as an enticement to his capture is in the interests of the regular taxpayer... and then proceeds to blow up all the tax offices in the district so that people no longer have to pay any income tax, since the government has no records left to figure out what anybody owes to anyone.

The film is beautifully directed and, because Dino chose Bava to direct it, looks stunning. Bava uses some of his standard modi operandi to split the shots with foreground objects such as book cases, windows and bars to compartmentalise his actors and uses ‘natural inserts’ such as reflections in a rear view mirror in a car to add interest to the shots (and possibly as a wink to the comic book origins of the character, almost as if he’s presenting the audience with a bunch of comic book panels on the page). Although his colouring in the film isn’t as bright as the neon primary hues he uses in a lot of his films, it’s still a pretty colourful affair with the odd Bava trademark colour collision thrown in, such as a psychedelic night club party sequence, enhanced by Ennio Morricone’s swinging score or, in the pre-credits sequence where Diabolik uses a smokescreen to steal a car carrying a large amount of money, using three jets of orange, purple and green smoke injected into the mix. And when Diabolik has to climb up a pale castle tower in the moonlight, he changes from a black catsuit to a white one to better blend in with the environment.

Bava also uses his lens to really build an iconic status around the characters of Diabolik and Eva, with everything they do in their ‘larger than life’ sets and locations (including a super-villain’s lair which would make Bruce Wayne green with envy) enhanced to the point where almost every shot they are in becomes an artificial, attention grabbing statement of the importance of their respective characters. For instance, Diabolik is not introduced as a person initially, but as his two seat Jaguar car, which invades the proceedings in the pre-credits with a Morricone musical stinger and which becomes almost an apex predator to the poor, bumbling policemen who are trying to protect the money... and when Diabolik’s masked, iconic visage is seen, he is giving a proper super-villain laugh before he dives into the sea, along with the money, as the brilliant title song ‘Deep Down’, sung by Christy, cuts in with swirling credits before we rejoin him racing off in his speedboat, hotly pursued by police helicopter.

Now, there are a lot of wonderful, jokey comic book style sequences in the movie, such as when Valmont promises to cross a character’s name off the human register and then later, indeed, making an X shape with the path of his machine gun as he guns the victim down. And there’s that sumptuous villain’s lair with it’s huge, pipe organ alarm system and, of course, everything is enhanced with Bava’s miniatures and matte paintings to make everything look much bigger than it really is. He even adds in a couple of animated sequences to bring the comic book comparison closer in a couple of scenes.

The film has often been called campy but, with the hard edge of various characters, not forgetting the dark criminal heart of Diabolik himself, it really isn’t. There are, however, a couple of similarities, it could be said, to the landmark Batman TV show and film from a couple of years earlier. Most notably when Diabolik and Eve, disguised as press photographers, use laughing gas dispersed by their flash bulbs to infect a police press conference with a very lively atmosphere. So... in very much the Batman style... the gas is actually labelled up as Exhilarating Gas and the pills which Diabolik and Eva take to protect themselves, are similarly labelled up as Anti Exhilarating Gas Capsules.

If I had to pick a favourite moment, in a film which is full of little ingenious and light hearted gags, it would be when the title character places himself under a security camera, takes a shot of the room with a polaroid camera and them places the photo in front of the camera so the room looks empty. Preposterous, of course, since it would probably be completely out of focus but, in the setting of a comic book milieu which is further heightened by the visual genius of Mario Bava, it works really well.

And I suppose that’s me done with Danger Diabolik, for now, although I am hoping to watch the new version over the next week or so and so, I will review that one for the blog soon (yeah... I did just that, review coming tomorrow, stay tuned). Meanwhile, if you haven’t figured it out by now, Danger Diabolik is a movie I’m always going to recommend to any lover of cinema and well worth your time.

Isabella, Duchessa Dei Diavoli (aka Ms. Stiletto)

Blade In Full 

Isabella, Duchessa Dei Diavoli (aka Ms. Stiletto)
1969 Italy/ West Germany
Directed by Bruno Corbucci
WFF Productions DVD Region 0

A quick word to the wise: By a bizarre coincidence, the same day I had planned to watch this film, I discovered that there was also a so called “full version” of it posted on YouTube. I was surprised at this due to the nature and content of some of the scenes depicted on the back of the box and, sure enough, when I had a quick look at the YouTube version, it’s been censorially butchered by as much as ten minutes, with many sexy sequences gone, giving the film a completely different and, somewhat tame, feel. So my advice is... don’t watch the stupid version on You Tube and try to source a copy from somewhere else if you want to see this one. Oh... and I guess there’s kind of a spoiler in this review but, honestly, it’s not that kind of movie.

Well this is a bit of a fun romp!

Directed by Sergio Corbucci’s brother Bruno... Isabella, Duchessa Dei Diavoli is based on one of the first of the adult themed, erotic fumettis (Italian comics, not fotonovels... which is an English bastardisation of the term) from 1966 and onwards by Sandro Angiolini. Set in 17th Century France (think Dumas’ Musketeer kinda times), it tells of a young girl’s survival after seeing her family castle stormed and her parents and friends butchered, which all takes place in cracking pace before the swirling, “of their time”, psychedelic opening credits. The film then jumps to a grown up Isabella (played by the lovely Brigitte Skay) who has been living with her “new” family, a bunch of gypsies, by whom she has been trained, since that fateful day, to be able to handle herself in a fair fight. We know this much because the introduction of our fully grown protagonist shows Isabella beating her friend in a contest which involves her throwing two knives simultaneously and splitting apples with them... which have been propped up on the horns of an animal skull. All good stuff.

However, when nobility comes knocking, she leaves her new, good, honest, thieving family and starts living with her peers... using herself as bait to lure out the various assassins who have been sent to finish the job from all those years ago.

And that’s about it as far as the plot goes. The film is foremost an exploitation movie which is intent on giving you lots of sex, action, broad comedy and heaps of unnecessary but mostly appreciated nudity. Which, frankly, I am assuming reflects the original comic book rather well... can’t say for sure since I’ve never read an issue of this one but the film is suitably lurid enough to capture the essence of similar products I have read.

For example, Isabella tends to wear her swordfighting clothes (typical “three musketeers” style costuming) with quite a few of the top half buttons undone, which means her cute bosoms are threatening to burst out at every shot, of course. This means that shots of her running up and down castle ramparts and engaging in what can only be described as energetic swordfights with lots of lunging and thrusting, are all made even more spectacular by the anticipation of a costume malfunction at any moment and, being as this is a film which is happy to cater for popular tastes, her costume does exactly that on more than one occasion... with things popping out at opportune occasions.

The direction and camerawork are all quite beautiful and Bruno Corbucci obviously has as fine an eye for "the elegant shot" as his brother. Lots of shots are taken from low angles, which I found most interesting, and the screen does tend to get split up into vertical rectangles on occasions in terms of the placement of people against foreground or background objects.

The style of some of the camerawork is of particular note in that many times we will be moving around and following a character or group of characters with a handheld camera but, then, the shot will suddenly stop moving and we will find that we have been lead to a place where we can observe a static and nicely composed composition as the characters go into the shot and we are left behind observing. It’s a curious way of filming things but it works quite well and we are given the impression of following along and being lead to some observation point where we can step back and take a breather. Cracking stuff.

The handheld camera also comes into play during most of the sword fights, where we tend to get right in on the action with a few of the characters while the battle rages around us out of shot, before we cut to an establishing shot after each set of ferocious engagements.

Some of the dialogue writing is laughable and maybe that’s quite faithful, coming from a comic, but I similarly enjoyed it immensely. Some of the throwaway lines, such as when Isabella first parts ways with her makeshift family and says "I'll write you a letter as soon as I learn how.", were quite telling in terms of filling in the characters and their varied skill sets. And of course, amongst ripping lines of dialogue such as "The idea that she is still alive is anathema to me." and the nonsensical but wonderful "Don't worry child. We have secret medicines to revive the dead.", we are also reminded of the exploitational quality of the film at every turn, such as with the following exchange between the German bad guy Baron Von Nutter and a lady acquaintance which goes thusly...

Baron: "I assure you my dear, among the German nobility, the greatest art is the art of love."
Lady friend: "Your younger brother is altogether too artistic."

Just how much of an exploitational romp is this movie?

Well some of the wonderful, stand out moments in the film includes the following: a lesbian bath scene that turns into a murder attempt, the aforementioned swordfighting with Isabella’s breasts threatening to pop out of her shirt at every sword thrust which leads to a scene near the end where she gets into topless swordplay, a bizarre contest to sexually stimulate a man into moving for reward or penalty, a woman fresh out of her bath barrel wrestling a man naked in spilt flour, an aphrodisiac cream which, when rubbed into Isabellas bottom, produces white hot passion and desire in her and, of course, the obligatory topless whipping scene which seems to be a staple of eurotrash films dating from around this kind of period (honestly... not... complaining... here).

The film then resolves itself with a bizarre, extended love scene between Isabella and her leading man in slow motion just before a final scene where the wrong man is publicly beheaded, allowing the now “masked villain” Baron Von Nutter to escape and live for another film... a film which sadly, to this day, goes unmade. I say sadly because, seriously, I’d love to have seen a sequel to this one.

I hadn’t even heard of this movie before I picked it up from a stall at one of the major UK film fairs earlier this year but, as far as exploitation films go, it’s certainly one of the more entertaining and elegant breed of the species which I’ve had the pleasure to watch and I have to admit to thoroughly enjoying this one. A 500 piece limited edition of the score from the film was released, again coincidentally, on the day I watched this... so I’m looking forward to sampling Sante Maria Romitelli’s lush tones away from the movie and I just hope enough interest becomes apparent at some point for a proper, commercial release of this film sometime with a good looking transfer so I can see it under better conditions. One of the stronger of the comic book movies made in the 1960s as far as I’m concerned and I’d definitely recommend it to anybody who is interested in a little nudity mixed in with their swordplay. And with the gorgeous Brigitte Skay playing Isabella... well... she can swash my buckle anytime.

Superargo VS Diabolikus (Superargo Contra Diabolikus)

Key Argo

Superargo Contra Diabolikus 
(aka Superargo VS Diabolikus)
1966 Italy
Directed by Nick Nostro
LFACC DVD Region 0

Superargo Contra Diabolikus is a film I’ve been wanting to take another look at for while because I have a few of these Italian masked heros and villains films to get through over the next year or so and this one is one of the first of these from Italy and, as it happens, it’s also one of my favourites. I’m probably, in fact, unusual in that most of the things I’ve seen in print about these particular films tend to favour the sequel, Superargo And The Faceless Giants (which I reviewed here ) over the original but, personally, I still prefer this one, although it’s even more simplistic than it’s successor, it has to be said.

From what I can understand, Superargo Contra Diabolikus was one of a number of films which were put in production to ride the wake of the popularity of the Diabolik fumetti and the proposed big screen adaptation of it, Danger: Diabolik. However, due to production problems on the Diabolik movie, which led to delays and eventually ended up being directed by the incredibly talented Mario Bava for a 1968 release, this film (and a fair few others, from what I can make out) didn’t exactly coast along in the wake of the Diabolik film because it actually beat it into cinemas by two years.

I personally reckon, however, that certain elements of the Superargo character, which I believe was a creation created entirely for the screen and not based on any source novel or comic, must have taken some influence from the popular Mexican series of films headlining Santo (aka El Santo) the masked wrestler and which dealt with his exploits against various villains or supernatural monsters, sometimes with a big helping of science fiction thrown in at the same time. That would certainly account for the pre-credits sequence in this film, which looks like it could almost have been ripped out of one of the Santo movies, and which establishes Superargo (played by Ken Wood) as a wrestler who accidentally kills his friend in the ring (by throwing him out of it) and forcing Suparargo himself, filled with remorse, into retirement... thus leaving him free to join the secret service and lend them the use of his superpowers. This is something his girlfriend, played by Monica Randall, is very pleased about, when he joins the service after a fantastically cool and psychedelic opening credits section which combines swirling shapes, an illustrated artist's mannequin and shots of Superargo posing and screaming in mad pain, all set to a soundtrack which eventually... oh, wait. I’ll get to the music in a little while.

There follows a post credits sequence where Diabolikus (played by Gérard Tichy, who looks almost like a clone of Joseph Cotton, in all honesty), his sexy right hand gal (an unnamed character played by Loredana Nusciak) and a bunch of never ending thugs, steal plutonium and other rare substances from a ship before mercilessly machine gunning to death the entire crew.

Having proven to us that the villains are well worthy of their bad guy (and gal) status, we are then treated to an extended sequence where Superargo is briefed and then subjected to a series of lengthy tests to demonstrate his abilities to the five government leaders representing the United Nations. Here we learn such things as his near invulnerability when his new boss stabs him in the arm and he doesn’t bleed, or flinch. We learn that his blood coagulates faster than anything and that you can subject him to extremes of cold without getting him too frosty. We also learn that no matter how much he physically exerts himself, his blood pressure and heartbeat always remain at a constant speed. Also, we are shown that he can hold his breath for at least seven minutes, which probably comes in handy in some circumstances... so all good stuff then.

Curiously, we are also thrown a supposed Achilles heel in the character by showing that, although being subject to live electricity cannot harm him... he actually feels great pain when handling it. I say curious because the standard reason such things are pointed out in these kind of affairs is so that you can play with this later on in the film. Alas, it only comes up once near the end and has absolutely no impact, positively or negatively, on the actions of the characters.

Once this sequence is out of the way, Superargo is given a spacial “Q branch” style scene where he is given a new costume... which is absolutely identical to his usual red body suit and black face mask (which, incidentally, you never see him without, as conspicuous a spy as you could want I guess) but which is bullet proof. He is also given a new car, pills which stop his heartbeat (oh yes, those do come in handy), a television camera inside a lady’s brooch (because... um... WTF?) and a load of geiger counters. Superargo nearly eats one of these because... well, let me put it to you this way, only the Italians would equip their agents with geiger counters hidden in replicas of an olive on a stick. Again, most curious since Superargo doesn’t once encounter a Martini filled party but, instead, throws these in the water to trace the trail of the boats that made off with the radioactive substances at the start of the movie.

And this is a long set up for a movie which is entirely ridiculous, quite a bit of fun while, to the cast and crew’s credit, taking itself absolutely seriously and straight faced all the way through.

There’s some nice camerawork too... with some shots in particular used to split frames vertically or sometimes diagonally to push the idea that this masked hero might have stepped out of a comic book at some time... even though he didn’t. Also some interesting stuff when Superargo is being tortured in a scene which is not even feintly trying to hide the sadomasochistic subtext that a lot of the adult audience might find an appealing element of the movie... with Diabolikus’ lady using her big stick to repeatedly hit the classically secured Superargo. During this sequence he is subjected to fiery jets beneath the tilting table to which he is fastened, the camera dizzyingly wobbling up and down to express the intensity of the flames and its effect on Superargo which, to be fair, the audience probably wouldn’t have thought to be too much, considering the extended demonstration of the title character’s formidable and totally unexplained and unjustified super powers at the start of the movie.

Other things like using repeat motifs on transitions are also used in the film and are also a very nice touch. For example, Superargo spinning a globe and then cutting shot to a similar globe spinning in another room used as a location transition... or the same to characters shaking hands in first one place and then cutting to them doing the same in a separate location to suggest the passing of time. It’s all quite good and does its job in keeping you interested in the film if, for whatever reason, you weren’t already interested in a film with a ridiculously red costumed, black masked, super powered hero at its centre.

And then there’s the little matter of the music. Oh yes. The score to this by Franco Pisano is a right little gem. I would absolutely love to get this score because it’s vibrant, dynamic, bold and totally appropriate to its bizarre subject matter. However, I suspect the fact that I can’t find evidence of any recording ever being made commercially available is possibly down to the fact that it’s also a complete rip-off of John Barry’s score to the James Bond film of the previous year, Thunderball. The main theme is a similarly orchestrated, similarly tuned version of Barry’s famous 007 sub-theme, which he began using in From Russia With Love but which is used most prominently, of the five Bond films it features in, in Thunderball and it’s specifically this kind of pacing that the score is trying to match here, if I’m not mistaken. Throw in some underwater sequences with similar orchestrations to Thunderball’s famous underwater atmospheres and, seriously, a great score which I would give anything to own on CD. Although I suspect they might have some difficulties with John Barry’s estate if they did release this one. Only my opinion though... watch the movie and have a listen for yourself and see what you think.

So, there you go, great music for a serious movie about a less than serious subject. Ideal for kids who will take it as seriously as the main cast, and with any adult subtext going straight over their heads, and a fun romp for those of us who like to watch movies made in simpler times and with simpler, larger than life and, let’s face it, more than feintly ridiculous concerns. A good, solid recommend from me and, if you like it, be sure to watch the sequel, where Superargo has a guru sidekick who has taught him how to levitate. Why would anyone not want to watch these films?