1013-Diabolik

Film Year:  1968
Genre:  Action, Crime, Superhero(-ish)
Director:  Mario Baba
Starring:  John Phillip Law, Marisa Mell, Michel Piccoli, Adolfo Celi, Terry-Thomas
MST Season:  10

The Movie

About a decade before Superman showed the world that a comic book hero could be brought to the screen and not look silly, Italy did their own adaptation of their local pulp character.  Diabolik is the world’s greatest thief, and with his girlfriend Eva at his side they steal anything and everything.  But his way of life soon becomes threatened when mob boss Valmont teams up with the police to take him down.

Directed by cult Italian director Mario Bava, and starring Space Mutiny’s John Phillip Law and Operation Double 007's Adolfo Celi, Diabolik is flashy 60’s pulp, not too different stylistically from a Bond film.  For those who like groovy 60’s kitsch, with arrogant main characters who do no wrong, and in which every woman is portrayed as a sex object of some sort, then Diabolik is sure to please.  It’s escapist fantasy about being able to have and take whatever you want, and nobody can stop you.

Unfortunately for me I can’t get behind this movie.  The movie walks a tricky line in trying to make its protagonist an antagonist.  An anti-hero is one thing, but Diabolik is an unlikable douche.  Any character like this needs to have a reason for the audience to root for him, and Diabolik gives us nothing.  He does whatever he wants because he can, and thumbs his nose on everyone in his way.  If one has some sort of resentment toward authority, then maybe this is fun, but for me it’s pretty excruciating.

The film gets some points for being well made, and it has a bit of sex appeal as well.  And after the turn-of-the-century superhero boom in cinema it’s more ludicrous elements age fairly well.  But this movie is an acquired taste.

The Episode

It has all led to this.  Ten (well, eleven) seasons, one movie, and 197 episodes.  The epic series finale (at least for the time) of Mystery Science Theater 3000.  Storylines will draw to a close.  (What story?)  Questions will be answered. (What about Scarecrow’s brain?!)  Which character will die? (hint:  nobody)

I’ve read a lot of complaints about the use of this particular movie for this episode, claiming it wasn’t “suitable” for a final episode.  I fail to see how.  It’s a movie and it sucks.  That’s about all they look for.  Plus it’s not like they looked far and wide to find the “perfect” final movie, that would be overthinking it.  It’s more likely Diabolik came up on rotation and they were able to get the rights to end.  The end.  And when you get down to it, the film looks great on the show.  It’s colorful, full of action, mind-numbingly stupid, and leaves a lot of openings for Mike and the bots.  And they fill those openings with gusto.  The movie is playful, and they play back, and it’s a fairly fun merry-go-round they create out of it.  They don’t seem too daunted by this movie, and seem to even like it to an extent.  This almost improves the quality of their riffs because there’s some sort of mutual waltz going on between the film and the riffers.  They especially get a lot of mileage out of Diabolik’s costume, which they seem to get a kick out of.

As for the host segments, for a series finale these were about the best we could have hoped for.  In Pearl’s screwing with the Satellite of Love she accidentally starts re-entry protocol, sending the Satellite and its crew back to Earth.  Mike, Servo, Crow, and Gypsy spend most of the episode preparing for their long awaited return, as Servo destroys his clones from The Human Duplicators and sing one of the best songs of the entire series, “To Earth.”  The episode ends on quite possibly the best possible note, as Mike, Servo, and Crow sit down in their shared apartment to watch The Crawling Eye on television.

MST ending is enough to get any of us “Deep Deep Down,” and of course it’s easy to go into a series finale with elevated expectations.  Diabolik isn’t MST’s best effort, though had the exact same movie segments aired earlier in the season it likely would have been labeled one of the high points of the season.  It’s almost a bit sad that this solid episode became bittersweet by gaining the notoriety of airing last.  But as far as series finales go I’d say this is a definite step-up from Laserblast, both in terms of the riffing and the host segments.  Diabolik is a kick of an episode, and a damn fine end to the original series.

Good

The DVD

Diabolik was fittingly one of the last classic episodes of the series released on Shout Factory's claimed to be final box set of unreleased episodes, Volume XXXIX.    Video was vibrant, and is probably one of the most crisp episodes of the series Shout ever put out.  Audio is pretty good as well.

Special features kicked off with a ten minute retrospective called Showdown in Eden Prairie.  Kevin Murphy, Jim Mallon, Beth "Beez" McKeever, and Patrick Brantseg discuss the ship's cancellation, revealing that AMC (then a classic movie channel and not the all-Walking Dead/Breaking Bad behemoth they are today) was actually interested in airing another season.  The discuss the bittersweetness of the end, as well as the deconstruction of the set and selling of props on eBay.

Up next is a 75 minute vintage documentary of the last episode's behind the scenes called The Last Dance.  Shot by Jim Mallon on a home camcorder, this is mostly sideline shots of the filming of the host segments.  There is also footage of Kevin Murphy being made up as Bobo, some prop work, and editing.

Finally is a trailer for the film that insists we "Ask Eva" for any question we might have.  In that case I'd like to ask her why MST was cancelled.