THIS German one-sheet poster represents the only photographic advertising generated for the movie, world-wide.
outmoded and its concentration on thrilling chases, daring robberies, un- derground hide-outs, underwater se- quences and super heroes and villains is more than familiar from the Bond films and the glut of superspy char- acters.” Though not completely flat- tering to the film, Hutchison made the important point that “the comic strip has a great many affinities with the motion picture; both are a series of sepa- rate pictures and take the same advan- tage of light, shade, color and perspec- tive. Bava is obviously well aware of this and the result is a film strip cartoon which, despite its faults, is generally more successful than either Modesty Blaise or Barbarella in capturing an elusive comic strip flavor.” 18 Monthly Film Bulletin’s anonymous critic was more enthusiastic about the whole: “Bava’s superb visual sense stands him in good stead in this comic- strip adventure which looks like a bril- liant pastiche of the best of everything in anything from James Bond to Matt Helm . . . Occasionally reminiscent of Barbarella in its sidelong sense of humor . . . what it really recalls is Feuillade. Not simply because of Diabolik’s penchant for black leo- tards or for scaling vertiginous walls with hand-operated suction-pads, but because he restores to villainy that long-lost and inimitable touch of good-humored chivalry.”19 In his 1970 book Science Fiction in the Cinema, John Baxter agreed that “Judex is alive and living at Cinecittà.” Baxter deserves credit for being the first critic to single out Bava’s later work for praise in book form; he calls Bava a “brilliant cinematographer and one of Italy’s finest fantasy film-mak- ers,” applauds John Phillip Law’s “dazzling characterization” and says that Bava gives the film “the visual pace of a streamlined juggernaut.” 20
18 David Hutchison, “Danger: Diabolik,” Films &
Filming 15:7, April 1969, 45–46. 19 “Diabolik (Danger: Diabolik),” Monthly Film
Bulletin 36:421, February 1969, 31–32. 20 John Baxter, Science Fiction in the Cinema
(New York NY: Paperback Library, 1970), 198–99. 753
