



Mario Bava‘s campy 1968 action flick Danger: Diabolik—which stars John Phillip Law and Marisa Mell as a couple of stylish, leather-clad jewel thieves—exists in the exact part of the Venn diagram where James Bond and Barbarella meet. The film was produced by Dino De Laurentiis, who also produced Barbarella that same year and John Phillip Law, of course, famously played Pygar the blind angel in the sexy sci fi classic. Sicilian-born heavy Adolfo Celi—who played “Valmont” the crime boss and Diabolik’s arch enemy—was best known for his portrayal of eyepatch-wearing SPECTRE badguy “Emilio Largo” in Thunderball.







Law’s suave Diabolik—a “master sports car racer, master skin diver, master lover” created by sisters Angela and Luciana Giussani in 1962—can be seen as a sort of antihero version of James Bond and the insanely gorgeous Marisa Mell—who was the inspiration for the comic book Vampirella character—is the equal of any of the Bond girls in the pulchritude department. Roman Coppola’s 2001 film CQ deals with the making of a Danger: Diabolik meets Barbarella-style romp, entitled “Codename: Dragonfly,” a cinematic homage that would be obvious to any fan of the Mario Bava cult film.







Danger: Diabolik‘s Ennio Morricone-composed soundtrack contains one of the greatest “Spy Fi” songs of that decade, the title theme, “Deep Down.” Obviously this is the maestro’s first run at a James Bond theme, or at least a pastiche of one. With a languid, string-bending Duane Eddy-ish guitar line that sounds like an underwater whale call and the powerful lungs of Christy—a pretty decent stand-in for the likes of, say, Shirley Bassey—it’s memorable, even awe-inspiring...







Sadly, the master tapes of Morricone’s Danger: Diabolik score are alleged to have been destroyed in a fire. Only a 45 single was ever released (other than a bootleg CD that was clearly taken from the laserdisc). I tried for years (pre-internet) to track this sucker down, to no avail. Then a friend of mine from Japan informed me that he had two copies and that one of them was mine. A picture sleeve and everything. There was only one problem and that was that the record was cut off center and sounded all wobbly! I subsequently found a second copy and it too was cut off center… That really pissed me off.







Below, “Deep Down” by Ennio Morricone and Christy, and the opening credits of Danger: Diabolik...





Mike Patton’s brilliant live cover of “Deep Down” at the Holland Festival. This originally appeared on his Mondo Cane album:

