Watching the featurette that accompanies this DVD did help me to appreciate this movie more. Namely, that Diabolik (pronounced Dee-abolik in the Italian) is an anti-hero thief rather than a government sponsored spy and is all about 'sticking it to The Man' as befits the 1960s counterculture. Being Italian, it also contrasts with the American idea of a superhero. The Italians lost the last war, they had Mussolini and no faith in the government. This anti-hero is on the same page, whereas Superman is all in favour of the President. I suppose this is the superhero's answer to Burlesconi.
Point no 2: unlike Fleming's James Bond, Diabolik is based on a comic strip hero and many of the shots mirror that panel shape in the way they're framed: the shot of the couple talking, reflected in the rear view mirror of a car, for instance. For all that, the style is more dynamic than other comic-based films like Barbarella.
Otherwise, it's astonishing how many scenes anticipate similar ones in Bond films, from the opening helicopter car chase along the winding mountaintop road which predates that of The Spy Who Loved Me by nine years, along with other scenes that pop up in Moonraker, For Your Eyes Only, A View to A Kill and GoldenEye.
Sadly Diabolik (played by John Philip Law, who was the angel in Barberella) is a humourless blank, a charisma-free zone who scarcely utters a witticism in the entire film. I think the only reason such lusty or promiscuous attitudes prevailed in the 1960s is because the likes of Sean Connery and Michael Caine put a positive spin on it.
This is a guy in superhero guise who has no alter ego - and therefore no social life. Batman has Bruce Wayne, Superman has Clark Kent. He is just Diabolik and when he retreats to his lair to bang his bird, fine, but he doesn't actually have any mates at all so it's hard to connect with him. It's like if Superman decided to not bother to save lives but just went on Viking-like pillages once in a while, holing up in the Fortress of Solitude every so often to shag his mistress and count the cash.
The anti-hero and his girl are so unlikeable and ruthless that you do feel excluded from their activities. They remind me of the charmless pair from Topaki, though the film has more to offer than that and is superior to many Bond knock-offs of the day.
