Glasses on Kant

During the production of the Mario Bava directed movie "Danger: Diabolik!" in 1967, Marisa Mell had some free time between takes which she used well given the amount of behind the scene pictures of her as Lady Eva Kant and co-star John Phillip Law as Diabolik. Set photographer was then already very famous photographer Emilio Lari who in later years would become even more famous as set photographer on movies like The Godfather trilogy or Raging Bull or Once Upon a Time in America. In this set of pictures Marisa Mell shows the latest fashion in sun glasses in her outfit from a scene of the movie where she is in disguise as a prostitute! 

DIABOLIK-La Serie! - Trailer

 

A few weeks ago I was pleased to announce that a new Diabolik television series was in the making and that a trailer was being made for the television markets around the world to invest in and/or buy the series! And here it is! AMAZING! 

Do you want to know more about the behind the scene production of this exciting new series? All the info and some stunning production pictures can be found Diabolik-Behind the scene!

At the moment nothing is known about the actors that are going to play the different parts of Diabolik, Lady Eva Kant or Inspector Ginko!

Can't wait to see the complete series!

"Are they going to replace me?" (Danger: Diabolik!)

Every year like the monster of Loch Ness an announcement is made that the Italian cult comic "Diabolik" is going to hit the big or small screen. Each time sadly enough that attempt ends in the gutter never to be heard of ever again! This time it is the Italian production company Sky Cinema that is trying to bring the dark hero to the small screen. There is a series of 13 episodes planned, each with a running time of 50 minutes without commercials so in the end it will be, depending on the television station, a 60 minutes or more show. The main cast of protagonists will be Diabolik, Lady Eva Kant, Inspector Ginko and (my auntie) Countess Altea di Vallenberg. Nothing is known about the actors playing the parts but some names are being mentioned as Diabolik like Gabriel Garko, Allesio Boni, Luca Argentero, Raul Bova, Allesandro Gassman or Danieli Liotti. All these men are very hot actors in Italy for the moment and have a huge female (and gay male) following. A trailer is in production to be shown at the major world television fairs to attract money from movie and television producers and to sell the concept to major television stations around the world in the different television markets. Production should start in the spring of 2013 with a first broadcast around autumn of the same year or spring of the year after when production stumbles on trouble! Scripts are being surpervised by Mario Gomboli, leading man of Astoria publishing house, the owners of the Diabolik trademark. So the question remains who will they select as the new Lady Eva Kant after Marisa Mell?

"Eva" by Justin Coffee.

Although Marisa Mell never had the status of Marilyn Monroe after her death, she is still around in the conciousness of fans around the world until this day. And that is amazing to me after almost 20 years since her passing. Other more famous actors and actresses than her are almost completely forgotten like Rock Hudson, Rex Harrison, Lana Turner..., you name them if you can remember them! So it is always nice to see some kind of rendition of Marisa Mell in any art form. Justin Coffee has made this beauftiful pop-art version of Marisa Mell called "Eva" in her role as "Eva Kant" from the movie "Danger: Diabolik!" Justin is a free-lance artist living in Pennsylvania (US) who loves to draw in a cartoonish style. He has a very beautiful blog called "Cream and Sugar" where you can see his amazing art work and the best is that you can purchase the pieces that you like.

http://creamandsugartheartofjustincoffee.blogspot.com/

The basis for the art work of Marisa Mell as "Eva" was taken from a publicity picture for the movie "Una Sull'Altra" shot a year later after "Danger: Diabolik!". The photographer was Angelo Frotoni.

Diabolikal Year Ender!

For the 1967 Mario Bava directed movie "Danger: Diabolik!" with John Phillip Law as Diabolik and Marisa Mell as Lady Eva Kant the promotional department of the production company took a lot of photographs of its stars. Many of these photo's were only taken for publication in newspapers, movie and fashion magazines and had little or nothing to do with the content of the movie. This is one of those pictures that shows Marisa Mell dressed as Eva Kant in a very high fashion outfit of that time! The picture comes from the archives of "United Press International", a press agency situated originally in Chicago (USA), now in New York City. Fashion in the 60's was daring and fun. This is a prime example of that attitude from that time. The photo has hardly been seen in more than 40 years!

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The Marisa Mell Blog now closes its 3rd calender year of blogging and will return in January 2011. I wish everybody of the many thousands who have kept coming back this past year again and again to read up on the life and work of Marisa Mell a "Merry X-mas" and a "Happy New Year".

Death of a Legend-Dino De Laurentiis dies at age 91!

Dino De Laurentiis, an Academy Award-winning film impresario and producer who helped revolutionize the way movies are bankrolled and sold, has died. He was 91. The Academy Award-winning producer's daughter said her father was surrounded by family when he died Wednesday night at his home in Beverly Hills. The statement from Raffaella De Laurentiis did not give a cause of death. De Laurentiis was a legend of Italian New Wave filmmaking. His works also included "Bitter Rice," "La Strada", "Barbarella" and of course the cult movie "Danger: Diabolik!" with among others Marisa Mell as Lady Eva Kant, the partner in crime with the dark hero Diabolik.

He was tiny, but tough, a veritable Napoleon on the set and utterly tireless. "Such a little lion," was how his second wife, producer Martha De Laurentiis, put it when he turned 80. Like any larger-than-life movie figure, De Laurentiis went through boom times and busts. But he always bounced back and his passion for movies never dimmed. His career spanned hundreds of films, including several Oscar winners and he worked with some of the biggest stars and best directors in the business. His credits include box office and/or critical successes such as "U-571", "War and Peace," "Ragtime," "Three Days of the Condor" and "Blue Velvet." A pivotal figure in postwar Italian cinema, De Laurentiis moved to the United States in the 1970s, becoming a citizen in 1986. But this son of a Neapolitan pasta maker never lost his thick Italian accent and tried to spend a month in Capri and Rome each year. The Academy Award-winning "Serpico" in 1973 with Al Pacino was De Laurentiis' Hollywood debut. But by then, he already had two Italian-made Oscar-winners, Federico Fellini's "La Strada" and "Nights of Cabiria" to his credit. One of the first producers to understand the box-office potential of foreign audiences, he helped invent international co-productions, raising money by pre-selling distribution rights outside North America. Throughout his career, he alternated lavish, big-budget productions with less commercial films by directors such as Robert Altman, Ingmar Bergman and David Lynch, and he's often package the blockbusters with art films to secure distribution for the smaller films. He got off to a strong start in the United States with "Serpico", then followed it up with another success, "Three days of the Condor," (Robert Redford). But he was also battered by flops, including the infamous "Dune", in 1984 and "King Kong" sequel. Personal tragedy also took its toll. In 1981, his son Federico was killed in a plane crash. "My father still to this day can't speak of him...He told me that every morning he wakes up and thinks of him," De Laurentiis' daughter Veronica said nearly 30 years after Federico's death.

"Esci Diabolik!" by Fabrizio Canciani and Stefano Covri

The Italian comic "Diabolik" and his "Mario Bava" directed movie counterpart "Danger:Diabolik!" hold, after more than 40 years, still a firm grip on the cultural scene all over the world. This blog has often reported about the influence of this black hero and his partner in crime "Lady Eva Kant", played by Marisa Mell in the before mentioned movie, on the arts.
This time Italian singers/songwriters Fabrizio Canciani and Stefano Covri tackled this subject in their song "Esci Diabolik" from their album "Delitti e Canzoni"-Il Giallo In Musica. The song is the second title on the album. The musicians used the familiar "Wa Wa Wa" title from the original movie soundtrack by Ennio Morricone to open their song. After the intro the song becomes a very likeable jazzy inspired song with a lot of musical reference and style to another Italian jazzy singer "Paolo Conti". The video is a collage of the giallo a fumetti Diabolik and the movie that it spawned. Enjoy!

"Danger: Diabolik!" - Rare cinema screening - Rio Cinema - London (UK) - September 11th 2010

On September 11th 2010, Cigarette Burns Cinema presents a special screening of the cult classic psychedelic movie "Danger: Diabolik!" directed by Mario Bava with John Phillip Law as Diabolik and Marisa Mell as Lady Eva Kant at the Rio Cinema in London (UK) at 11.15 P.M. Entrance: 7 British Pounds. There will be an intro and dj set after the screening. The cinema is situated at 107 Kingsland High Street London E8 (Corner John Campell Road). More information: http://www.riocinema.ndirect.co.uk/index.htm.

Original Diabolik Bookmarks For Free! (2nd Anniversary-175th entry)

On July 27th, the Marisa Mell Blog will celebrate it's second anniversary. Whaw, time does fly quickly. While thinking about this anniversary, I thought that it would be nice to do something nifty for the many loyal readers of this blog from all over the world that kept coming back day after day, week after week, month after month to folllow the life and work of Marisa Mell. What is Marisa Mell probably best known for as an Eurocult actress??? Exactly, for playing the role of Lady Eva Kant in the movie "Danger: Diabolik!", directed by cult director Mario Bava, with John Phillip Law as "Diabolik". So, in regard to that movie and the role that made her famous all over the world untill today I am giving away two original diabolikal bookmarks for free. You can see a drawn version of the bookmarks on the publicity poster above to promote them made by the Diabolik publishing house Astorina in Milano, Italy. The bookmarks are normally exclusively made for the Italian market and are not available to the rest of the world. Untill now. Unfortunately I am not able to give each and every reader of the blog a set. Nevertheless, you can get a couple of these bookmarks as a winner by simply writing a comment under this entry about whatever you like to tell me! The lucky winner will be drawn from all the comment entries and gets his prize by registered mail at home this summer. Diabolik would say "Maledetto"! Good luck!

BTW do not worry when your entry does not show in the comment section under this entry because they need to be approaved by me so that spammers and other hoaxers do not get the chance to submerge the comment section with their useless crap! Thanks for understanding!

Spot Pepper Steak Magazine N°21 avec Danger : Diabolik

You can download this magazine free at their site:

www.peppersteak.fr

Marisa Mell by Judith Eisler

The movie "Danger: Diabolik!" directed by Mario Bava with John Phillip Law as Diabolik and Marisa Mell as Lady Eva Kant has made quite an impression through the years on many creative people working in the movie business, even to this day! But it does not stop there! The movie also often had a lasting impact on other artists working in other areas of the arts like the visual arts! One of these visual art artists making a link between the movie and her work is Judith Eisler. Judith Eisler was born in 1962 in New York where she is still living and working. Eisler has a very uncommon way to create her paintings: she uses (cult) movies for her sources, pressing the pause button on the VCR, shooting the image with her digital camera, and then painting from the resultant photograph on the canvas. Eisler says of her paintings: "Each canvas is, in many ways, a fight between abstraction and representation." Her works typically have glossy surfaces and feature blurred often anonymous imagery. She has been compared to the German artist Gerhard Richter due to their similar working method. For her work, Judith Eisler received a BFA from Cornell University in 1984. In 2005, Judith Eisler painted this oil on canvas painting of one of the final scenes in the movie, where Marisa Mell as Eva Kant is mourning the lose of her partner Diabolik, hence the black fur and veil while tears are running from her cheek! Many fans of the movie regard this scene as one of the best and most beautiful shot scenes of the movie! So it is no wonder that the artist was attracted to this frame when deciding to make a painting of Marisa Mell! The painting is called "Marisa Mell 2"! It has the measurements of 48 by 60 inches (1.20 m x 1.54 m)! Special for this painting, knowing how the artist works, are the stretch marks on the painting resulting from the stretch marks on the VCR tape when the tape is worn out due the many viewings or the wear and tear of the VCR transmission heads. Nothing is known of the original asking price or where the picture is now!

Fill her up and drive her in!!!

In 1967, the Drive-In cinema's were still very populair in the USA with often movies specially made for that market like Carnival of Souls! Other movies like the Wicker Man from England and Danger: Diabolik! from Italy had a limited run in general cinema's and ended their career several months later in Drive In's. This clip shows the trailers for the three before mentioned movies together with the Intermission reel luring the audience in buying the snacks like popcorn, cola's, hot dogs at the snack bar of the Drive In.

Trailer From Hell - "Danger: Diabolik!"

"Trailers From Hell" showcases classic-era movie "Previews of Coming Attractions" with particular emphasis on the lurid, the extreme and the outrageous. This one is for the movie "Danger: Diabolik!" by director Mario Bava with John Phillip Law as "Diabolik" and Marisa Mell as "Eva Kant". The reviewer is writer and director Edgar Wright, known for his movie "Shaun of the Dead" in 2004. Notice how he pronounces the word "Diabolik" sounding as "Diabolique". Well, now we have a third way of saying the name of the dark Italian fumetti hero! Does anyone have another pronounciation of it?

Powers of Diabolik!

The movie "Danger: Diabolik!" directed by cult master Mario Bava with John Phillip Law as Diabolik and Marisa Mell as Lady Eva Kant is one, if not, THE ultimate psychedelic movie from the end of the sixties! Although the movie was filmed in 1967, it obtained his copyright in 1968. The movie was not a success when it was originally released, but during the following years, it graduately climbed the ladder of cult success untill it reached the number "1" spot, keeping it to this day. So it isn't strange that during these years, a lot of young people became influenced during their formative years by this movie, his director and his vision. One of these Diabolik infected artists is Michael Avon Oeming. Michael Avond Oeming is best known in the comics world as author and especially as artist for his stark art style which he uses for telling sophisticated and mature subject matters. His most famous comic is called "Powers"! Powers is set in a world where superpowers are relatively common but not mundane. It follows the lives of two detectives, Christian Walker and Deena Pilgrim, police officers in a Homicide department devoted to cases that involve "powers" (= people with superpowers). Walker himself used to be a costumed superhero named Diamond, but became a police officer after he lost his abilities. Though stripped of his powers, he still retains his contacts within the superhero community, even becoming engaged to an ex-colleague, who is later killed. In later issues, Walker is offered the chance to become the world's latest secret Guardian as part of The Millennium Guard, a secret group of intergalactic guardians, accepting the responsibility and the powers that come with it. Deena Pilgrim, his partner, is also hiding at least one troubling secret. She contracted superpowers during a fight with an underworld thug named the Bug, an event which she kept under wraps. As a result of this, she unintentionally kills her abusive boyfriend in self-defense, and hides the evidence, although coming under investigation by Internal Affairs.

When publishing house TwoMorrows, specialised in celebrating the art and history of comics, asked Oeming to make a cover for their 6th issue of "Write Now", cover date July, 2004, he found his cover idea rather quick by going back to his childhood memory of the movie "Danger: Diabolik!" and selecting one of the most recognizable photos of the cult couple and transforming it with his own creations into the present cover at the beginning of the entry.

And the winner is...

On February 2nd, 2009 the Italian quality newspaper "Corriere della Sera" had a very interesting article regarding the world of Diabolik and his partner Eva Kant written by their journalist Constantini EmiliaROMA - «Io nella calzamaglia di Eva Kant? Che altro potevo desiderare di più?». Carolina Crescentini, il giovane talento che ha già fatto impazzire le platee giovanili in film come «Notte prima degli esami» e «Parlami d' amore», è stata scelta per interpretare la compagna inseparabile di Diabolik che sul piccolo schermo sarà interpretato da un attore francese. «È un' icona della femminilità - dice l' attrice ventottenne - non paragonabile ad altre eroine. Innamoratissima del suo uomo, non ne è subalterna, al contrario, si comporta alla pari». Quali le caratteristiche che affascinano di più del personaggio? «Oltre alla bellezza magnetica e alla prorompente sensualità, che la colloca a pieno diritto nella categoria delle femmes fatales, mi stupisce la sua capacità di self-control, anche nelle situazioni di maggiore pericolo. Eva è un' autentica guerriera: non perde mai la calma e riesce sempre a scovare il modo migliore per tirarsi fuori dai guai. Insomma, ha una personalità molto solida, che non scende a compromessi. Proprio per questo, è citata spesso nel gergo giovanile». Ma per impersonare quest' eroina, occorre anche una notevole preparazione fisica: «Già, ma non mi spaventa, sono piuttosto allenata: da anni faccio aerobica e pre-pugilistica. Su un aspetto particolare, però, dovrò concentrarmi: anche nello sforzo fisico più tosto, Eva non perde mai la sua proverbiale eleganza».
The article tells us that at the moment an Italian production company is in the stages of pre-production of making a television series of the Italian fumetti "Diabolik" for an international probably European audience. The role of Eva Kant will be played by Italian new comer "Carolina Crescentini" who made movies like «Notte prima degli esami» e «Parlami d' amore. The role of Diabolik will be played by a French actor whose name still has to be confirmed by the production company. Because this series will be an international coproduction with investors from different countries the actors have to represent the different countries that are investing. So you'll get a very international cast, down to the non speaking parts. To test the market for the acceptance of the series, the first season will consist of only 6 episodes. Carolina Crescentini tells that Eva Kant is a symbol of feminity for her and not comparable with other heroines. Although she is absolutely in love with her man, they are partners in crime in every sense of the word! She is not subjugated like so many other women in love or heroines in comics. The actress loves the fact that the character, although very sensual and having a magnetic attraction, always is in control even in the most difficult and dangerous situations. Eva Kant is a real warrior. She never loses her self control, calm and always finds the best way to achieve her goal. In short, she has a solid character and does not compromise! To play this part the actress tells us that she does aerobics for years and that she also loves boxing. Although doing all the rough things Eva Kant does she never loses her elegance and that is very important. Carolina Crescentini is born in Rome, Italy, on April 18th, 1980.

So there you have it! The winner is Carolina Crescentini as the new Eva Kant for the Diabolik television series. Question remains if this series will actually be made in the months to come! A lot of attempts have been made in the past to bring Diabolik and his partner to the big or small screen! For one reason or another all those live action attempts failed. A lot of actresses and models have been cast in the past to play the companion of Diabolik, like Elsa Martinelli, Catherine Deneuve or Marilu Tolo but the fact remains that only Marisa Mell has played the part on the big screen more than 40 years ago and that she is still the reigning queen. After all those years a lot of fans can only see one Eva Kant on the screen and that is in the person of Marisa Mell. Carolina Crescentini will have a very difficult task ahead of her! Will she be able to forget Marisa Mell and become the new face of Eva Kant??? Time will tell but don't hold your breath!

TEASER TWO

This is another teaser for a new entry starting March 1st, 2009 in relation to Marisa Mell, her life and work!

Diabolikal Partner

The Italian editorial home and publisher "Astorina" of the fumetti cult anti-hero "Diabolik" has realised that, not only their icon is still very popular in Italy and the world, but also his partner in crime since ages "Lady Eva Kant"! Since a few years, they not only publish next to their monthly title Diabolik an annual dedicated to their main character but also annual stories with Eva Kant as the main character.

To honor this event they created a seperate website next to the main Diabolik website (http://www.diabolik.it/) with the entire history and back log of Eva Kant's life in the fumetti's, print, media, movie... and so much more. (http://www.evakant.it/)

Astorina, together with their commercial webmaster, has really put some thought into it to make this site a feast for the fan and the causal reader. You can see the historical surroundings from the creative birth of the character untill today.

It is an ideal mix of words and pictures. The site does not collapse, like so many other websites, under it's own lay-out often being heavy on words or pictures. It is like reading a book, not on paper, but on your PC. The advantage over a paper book is that you can really dive into the pages of this site. At the bottom of each page you have a control bar so you can navigate in the page, not only up and down, left or right but can also blow up the pages to better see the pictures or photo's on it. The only negative point is that these pages and the entire site are only in Italian but that is understandable from the editor's point of view. The main target audience of Diabolik are the Italian readers who buy each every month since 1963 their titles and not the English language markets. Nevertheless, due to still growing popularity of the Mario Bava movie "Danger: Diabolik!" it would be nice to also cater to the English language readers in the world. Maybe this will happen in the future! Speaking of the Diabolik movie, there is also a nice entry regarding this film and it's stars "John Phillip Law" as Diabolik and "Marisa Mell" as Eva Kant.

The information about the movie is some general information that if you are fan of the movie you already know. So nothing new in that department. Even the photo used of Marisa Mell in her movie Eva Kant outifit is a generally known picture. It would haven been nice to see a little less known picture or even a behind the scene one of Marisa Mell.

日本記者予約 Diabolik or Japanese Diabolik Press Book

In a time before the internet the commercial side of marketing a movie was limited. Newspapers and print media played a very important role in getting the message out to the general public. Known properties like James Bond or (sexy) actresses like Brigitte Bardot or Audrey Hepburn were not very difficult to market and find their audience. It became a complete different story when the production company had to sell a movie based on a character in a comic book known as a fumetti in its land of origin Italy. Japan was home of the manga comics with their more than 500 different characters from Akira to Dragonball Z. So there was no need to introduce an another new character like Diabolik in the land of the rising sun. Nevertheless Dino DeLaurentiis sold his movie in 1969 to a Japanese distributor and so the publicity carrousel came into motion. This was necessary because selling Diabolik in Europe was already a difficult task because outside Italy Diabolik was a little known character. So you can imagine that marketing him in Japan with its own huge stable of heroes and superheroes would not be easy if not impossible.

One of the means to get the message out was a classic movie poster and press book. The poster was build around the green money bed scene with parts from the psychedelic and drawn poster with a little clip from the shower scene from a lobby card. Instead of the white Jaguar, type "E" we get the black version on the poster while on western posters the Jaguar is white. The Japanese version of the press book is rather dull. It has a lot of text explaining who Diabolik is and what the film is about. The press book is almost all in black and white. The pictures are standard Diabolik stock pictures as we know them from the European pressbook. Because the Japanese read from right to left the book and photos are put in that order with Diabolik as a first character on the right side and Inspector Ginko as a last character on the left side of the photo series. The actor Michel Piccoli was probably less known in Japan than the Britisch actor Terry Thomas. It is not known in the end if the poster and press book did their job well. I have never heard that the character or movie was quite successful in Japan. Probably Danger: Diabolik! was seen by the Japanese audience as one of the many European spy movies in the wake of the James Bond craze. One thing is for sure after 40 years, finding a mint Japanes press book is rather scarce.

The other Eva Kant

The Italian Milanese sisters Angela and Luciana Giussani created in 1962 the fictional character ”Diabolik” as an anti-hero who steals from criminals by use of gadgets, tricks, deception and a set of lifelike masks. In the beginning he had no morality and killed to get his goal but over the course of the years this aspect has been softened. No hero, or in this case anti-hero, is as good as his cast so very soon at the beginning of his adventures the sister Giussani realised that telling stories about Diabolik and his robberies would get boring very quickly if they could not interact Diabolik with other characters, good or evil, to drive the stories forwards. So they created a recurring cast consisting of mainly Inspector Ginko and his girlfriend dutchess Altea di Vallenberg and a lot of other semi-regular characters like the little girl Bettina, who becomes friends with Diabolik and Eva.

In March 1963 with book #3 of the series “Il Arresto di Diabolik”, the sisters created the long-term female side-kick “Eva Kant” as lover, friend, complice and conscious for Diabolik. She is an attractive blond young woman from noble heritage known as “Lady Eva Kant, widow of Lord Kant”. The nobility was a hook for stories where Diabolik could steal jewels from the wealthy. That aspect was dropped through the years in favour of more hard core criminal stories with gangsters, drug lords, murderers, kidnappers, rapists…etc that readers liked to favour more.

What not many people know is that Eva Kant is not the first companion for Diabolik but his second. Another female character with the name “Elisabeth Gay”, modelled after the American actress Elisabeth Taylor, was some kind of partner for Diabolik in the first 2 issues of the series. Unfortunately Elisabeth was not, according to his creators, a good choice as counterpart for their hero so she had to go. Elisabeth betrayed Diabolik to inspector Ginko. In book #3 Eva Kant has a mysterious fascination for the dark hero and rescues him from the guillotine. As a reward the master criminal falls in love with her. In the next book #4 of April 1963 “Atroce Vendetta”, Elisabeth has to face the terrible revenge of Diabolik.

Eva Kant became the long time partner and mirror image for Diabolik. Diabolik drives a black Jaguar, type “E”. Eva Kant drives a white Jaguar, type “E”. Diabolik has short hair. Eva Kant has long hair. Diabolik has black hair. Eva Kant is blond. Diabolik wears a back mask and a one piece jump suit. Eva Kant wears no mask and a black sweater and pants. He is the burglar. She is the reason to steal the jewels, statues, money… whatever Eva Kant fancies for her enormous collection that she has build over the years.

Due to the enormous success of Diabolik in Italy in the 60’s, it wasn’t long that in 1967 a movie was produced with the title “Danger: Diabolik!”, loosely based on a few early stories of the comic book. After a long search, with candidates like Marilu Tolo, the producer Dino De Laurentiis decided that the French actress Catherine Deneuve would make an ideal Eva Kant opposite Diabolik played by John Phillip Law. During the course of the first few days of filming Mario Bava got agitated by her acting and diva like behaviour. He noticed that there was no chemistry between Law and her in the love scenes of the movie. Like in the comics, the first partner of Diabolik had to go.

Marisa Mell was, at that time starting to make a name in the international movie business with some highly visible movies like “Masquerade” with Cliff Robertson and Jack Hawkins, “Casanova 70” with Marcello Mastroianni and “Train d’enfer” with Jean Marais. She had the international appeal that Dino De Laurentiis was looking for to market his movie, not only in Italy but also internationally, especially in America.

Danger: Diabolik! was made in a period when spy movies were at an all time high thanks to the huge success of James Bond. A direct transfer from the serious Italian fumetti to the silver screen was a possibility but not chosen. High camp became the central focus of the movie! Marisa Mell, as a classical trained actress at the famous Max Reinhardt school of drama in Vienna, Austria, was able to bring this campy feeling to the movie. She had a terrific synergy with her onscreen partner John Phillip Law, just what Mario Bava was looking for. They were oozing sex on the silver screen.

The movie Eva Kant can not be compared to the comic book Eva Kant. The comic book version almost always has her hair in a bun while the movie version is wearing her hair straight. The comic book Eva Kant is not that sexual orientated as the movie version. Her wardrobe is often just plain 60's standard fair while the movie Eva has one sexy outfit next to the other. Who doesn't remember her sexy orange dress with clevage and black boots prior to the shower scene or the stunning black widow ensemble at the end of the movie while she mourns the death of Diabolik in his golden cage! Non of that in the comics. Character wise they are also very different in the two versions. The comic book character is rather strong in most of the stories unless her partner is in jail or prisoner of the gangster of the month. She than becomes weak and has a lot of doubts regarding her strength to free her partner which she eventually does each time! The movie Eva Kant is more of a sex toy for Diabolik and she is quit happy in that role. She has almost no identity of her own and her only aim in life is to please Diabolik. As a reward she gets the loot of the robberies.