Danger: Diabolik

Movie Marquees!

While in Paris (France) last week and the beginning of this week, I was walking one night along the Boulevard de Strassbourg. During this walk I was happy to see that some traditions have not (yet) died out in our present day society! What am I talking about? Well, along the Boulevard there is a nice little cosy theatre, as there are still many in Paris, but this one still had a big old style marquee on its front wall like in the old days with the name of the actress/cabaretière on it in bright big lights together with the name of the programme that she was bringing. In the last century, theatre and movie marquees were "the" way to announce a programme. Sadly, when a lot of theatres and cinemas were replaced by modern movieplexes and big concrete theatres these often beautiful crafted marquees disappeared to be replaced by dull displays.
So during my walk I wondered what it would be like to see a Marisa Mell film on a movie marquee during the end of the 60's and the beginning of the 70's when these were still around. Unfortunately, to my knowledge, there excist no pictures of these movie marquees with a Marisa Mell movie on it but thanks to the magic of the internet I created these marquees to get a sense what they might have looked like in the past!

Haphazard Stuff: "Danger:Diabolik!"

For more great reviews of Superhero movies and excellent James Bond movie analyses with an in-depth view, please, visit his great website: http://haphazardstuff.com/

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".

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

Hecho en Europa, Cine de géneros Europeo, 1960-1979

Once every few years you get a book in your hands that makes you so happy that you own it but best of all that you are going to have a very good time reading it! "Hecho en Europa", cine de géneros Europeo from 1960-1970 is such a great book. Often books are written by authors who know to some degree what they are writing about but the contributing authors of this book sure know their stuff in and out regarding everything Eurocult cinema from decades past. The list of authors reads as a real "who's who" from the latin Eurocult world: Jesús Parrado, Javier G. Romero, Nino Ortea, Antonio José Navarro, Pablo Fernández, Ramón Freixas & Joan Bassa, Tomás Fernández Valentíni, Alfredo Lara López, Ángel García Romero and last but not least the always reliable Carlos Aguilar, who by the way, wrote together with his wife Anita Haas an amazing autobiography and filmography about John Phillip Law called "Diabolik Angel". This book was finished a few weeks before the untimely death of John Phillip Law. Both authors had the full cooperation of this versatile Eurocult actor and access to his private photo library.

If you are following the Eurocult sites and blogs from the different genres the names of the authors are very familiar to you so it does not come as a surprise that they tackle in this book material as experts in their fields like Eurowestern, Cine Bélico, Cine Fantástico, Cine de Aventuras, Eurothriller, Cine et Erotismo, Cine et Literatura, Cine et Cómic, Cine et Musica.

Both books can be bought by writing a mail to this adress:

quatermass@hotmail.com

They will gladly give you all the information regarding price, shipment and payment. Highly recommended.

"Un'Ombra Nell'Ombra" - Clip

As mentioned on September 29th 2009, Italian DVD company MYA will release the movie "Un Ombra Nell'Ombra" during the month of January 2010. Here is a clip of the movie with Marisa Mell! Notice the dramatic acting of both actresses while practising the soap opera gaze! BTW nothing is known about the quality of the transfer or master used for the disc!

Un Ombra nell' Ombra (DVD release)

Italian based DVD company "MYA" will officially release in January 2010 the 1979 movie "Ring of Darkness" or better known as "Un Ombra nell' Ombra". In the aftermath of the world wide success of the Exorcist, the Italian cinema bis made a lot of ripp off's of this cult American movie. This is one of such movies. Anne Heywood is the member of a shadowy devil cult made up of other rich, bored housewives. Her teenage daughter seems to have fallen under sinister dark forces. She makes flippant, gloomy remarks, is moody and combative, drives her teacher to throw herself out the window and burns her handprint into a young man’s chest. In short, she acts like a typical moody adolescent. Heywood’s coven enlists a priest (played by Diabolik star "John Phillip Law") to attempt an exorcism… Marisa Mell plays only a small part in this movie. The music is by fan fave Stelvio Cipriani. At the moment nothing is known about the master they are using for this print.

Thanks to Mirek and his blog at http://www.myadvd.blogspot.com/.

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.

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.

Diabolik-Cronistoria di un Film (Diabolik Club)

Today I got my copy of the premium book for 2008 from the Italian based "Diabolik Club" called "Diabolik-Cronistoria di un Film" written by Roberto Altariva. It has a print run of 700 copies. The book is in black and white with a color cover. It has 176 pages and comes with your annual subscription of the club. The book is completely in Italian, sorry no English. You can also have a subscription without the book what makes the annual fee a little cheaper.

After viewing the content of the book I was pleasantly surprised. A lot of people have written about Mario Bava's film "Danger: Diabolik" so it would be hard to write about this movie from another new angle than the usual ones. Therefore the books focusses completely on the publicity side of the 1968 movie. It has I believe almost all the articles that have appeared in the Italian press running up to making the movie, during its production and its press junket afterwards.

But that is not all. There are a lot of bonusses that makes every "Danger: Diabolik!"-fan's heart go faster: all the Italian and international promotional material starting with the Italian locadina, Belgian posters, international posters, all the Italian and international lobby cards, press books, all the movie versions, all the soundtrack versions... and finally a list of bloopers in the movie that you problably didn't know existed. What is also great about the book is the number of photo's that have not been seen during almost 40 years unless you are in the possession of the original articles from the Italian magazines or newspaper clippings. But that is not all, you even get the complete fotoromanzo of the movie and finally an interview from 2001 with John Phillip Law. If you are fan of the movie and would not like to cash out a lot of money for all the clippings and magazine articles regarding the movie "Danger: Diabolik!" then this book is a very cheap alternative! Highly recommended!

"Diabolik Angel" - John Phillip Law Autobiography

On May 13, 2008 cult actor John Phillip Law died after being ill for some time! He was the actor, as most of you know, who gave Diabolik a face on the silver screen in the movie "Danger: Diabolik!" with Marisa Mell as his partner Eva Kant. The last two years before his death he was working with Carlos Aguilar and Anita Haas on his autobiography. Unfortunately John Phillip Law did not got to see the finished result to which he contributed more than 600, often exclusive, pictures from his private photo library ranging his entire career. The book is in English and Spanish and counts around 240 pages. If you love Euro-cult movies and his stars than this is definitely a book to have in your library! (ISBN: 978-84-612-4501-7)

You can order the book here:

http://www.scifiworld.es/ficha.php?seccion=1&cat=15&id=70

UPDATE: On the CinemaRetro site there is a great review of this book!

(http://www.cinemaretro.com/index.php?/archives/2845-JOHN-EXSHAW-REVIEWS-A-NEW-BOOK-ABOUT-JOHN-PHILLIP-LAW.html#extended)

Marta or ...dopo di che, uccide il maschio e lo divora (1971) - Avco Embassy Television Pressbook

In 1971 Marisa Mell was at the height of her career! That year she played in two Spanish movies, filmed back to back, which was rather exceptional for that time, with Stephen Boyd as her co-star. One was "Historia de una traición" or internationally known as "the Great Swindle" the other was "...dopo di che, uccide il maschio e lo divora" and internationally known as "Marta". The story of a sister's tortured attempt to discover what happened to her twin. During this expierence, she is suspected of murder herself; falls in love with her sister's husband, only to discover he is impotent and insane. The final discovery of her murdered twin, in the house, climaxes a horror tale of twisted minds and souls. This period in the life of Marisa Mell was special because she fell madly in love with actor Stephen Boyd during the production of the first movie "the Great Swindle". Due to a sometimes special atmosphere on set with often intimate scenes, actors often fall in love during a production. Unfortunately they mostly end it when a production is wrapped and everyone drifts to other productions and projects. So Marisa Mell was no exception to this rule of dating on a film set. She had often a affaire with a co-star. Her affair during the production of "Danger: Diabolik!" with John Phillip Law is one of the best known examples. This time the romance was not just a fling. Later she would devote a whole chapter in her autobiography "Coverlove" to her time together with Stephen Boyd. In this chapter she tells us that by the end of the second production "Marta" Stephen Boyd asked her to marry him. Apperently she accepted. It was not a traditional marriage in a church but a gypsy wedding. Marisa Mell describes how they cut their wrists, shared their blood and how romantic the little time was that she spent with him. Although the affair was doomed from the beginning she tells the readers that she never quite got over the affair and makes special note of his death in 1977. In 1972 the affair came to an end and she never saw him again. A special trivia is the fact that one time after the death of Stephen Boyd, Marisa Mell believed that he still spoke to her from beyond and that theirs was a very special kind of love, no matter how short-lived. Here are some photos from the 1974 pressbook released by Avco Embassy Television issued to all the networks and television stations in America who were showing this film on TV.


Next to pictures from the movie, a pressbook had often ads, texts and templates to promote a film in local newspapers and/or magazines with the name of the cinema at the bottom of the ad. Here are two examples for this movie together with the templates for the printers to use.

Diabolik - Cronistoria di un Film (Diabolik Club)

This autumn 2008 the Italian based "Diabolik Club" is publishing in Italian (sorry no English version) for its members a book called "Diabolik - Cronistoria di un Film". The book is written by the curator of the club Lorenzo Altariva. He is the guiding force behind the club since more than 10 years and does an excellent job in keeping the club interesting and fun. He is an expert on Italian fumetti's but especially everything regarding Diabolik and his rich history.

Next to the standard quarterly club publication "La Gazetta di Clerville" with all the news regarding Diabolik in Italy and the world, the club gives also annually its members a premium that is not available in stores or on the internet. These premiums in the past were chain keys, cards, special editions of the comic book, ... This year, due to the 40 year anniversary of the movie "Danger: Diabolik!" directed by Mario Bava with John Phillip Law as Diabolik and Marisa Mell as Eva Kant, the club will give this book "Diabolik - Cronistoria di un Film" to their members who are inscribed for the year 2008. The book will be printed in a very limited quantity and will not be available anymore once the initial run has been distributed to its members. Ordering as back order will not be possible. So if you are interested get your copy now by becoming a member of the club for 2008!

You can get more info at: http://www.diabolikclub.it/