1013 – Diabolik
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Things I liked in the movie:
Diabolik’s super evil laugh.
The cops shoot at cars from a helicopter (Coleman Francis would be proud)
Diabolik’s groovy hideout.
How Diabolik incorporates luck into his calculations.
Impressions
This is the final episode for real this time. The host segments are about the crew returning to Earth. It’s sad. Very very sad.
This movie scored a whopping 6.1 stars on IMDB by user votes. I have to admit, only about 5 or 6 movies panned by MST3K are watchable (not to be confused with good) without the heckling: Mitchell, This Island Earth, Rocketship X-M, and Moon Zero Two and Diabolik. But this is probably the least bad. It’s sort of like a French version of The Avengers only if The Avengers were bad guys. It’s a moderately fun movie just because the casually murderous Diabolik is also amusingly capricious which makes it ok.
Synopsis
Diabolik and his
stunning girlfriend collaborate to steal $10million in the most clever and
competent way possible. This isn’t the
first time, and the police are embarrassed and angry. The chief inspector, Jenko, is hell-bent on catching
Diabolik.
As part of his plan
to catch Diabolik, Jenko enlists the help of a mob boss, who kidnaps Diabolik’s
girlfriend, Eva, after Diabolik steals a world-famous emerald necklace from a
visiting dignitary. Again, Diabolik
outwits the police, rescues Eva, and returns to his hideout. (He’s much like Batman if Batman used his
powers to steal and kill.)
The next part is not
explained well. Either because Diabolik
has stolen so much money from the government, or as another attempt to trap
him, Jenko gets 20 tons of gold melted into one giant ingot and this ingot is
to be transported on a train. Diabolik
finds out about it and steals the gold, too.
Only this time, the gold has been irradiated, so it can be tracked.
Diabolik melts the
gold and is attempting to form it into more manageable ingots when the police
raid his hideout. Diabolik accidentally
blows up the melted gold and he’s encased in it while wearing a protective
suit. Everyone thinks he’s dead but at
the end, he winks at us to let us know he’ll live to slaughter more innocents
and make love with his gorgeous girlfriend in piles of money. Yay!
Host Segments
Prologue: Tom is losing lift because he has an SOL
employee handbook stuck in his cover skirt.
It was written by Dr. Forrester and includes many abusive comments about
how he’s going to mess with Mike. The
SOL starts listing. Pearl has a
joystick and is controlling it. The
joystick breaks and the SOL starts plummeting to Earth. Brain Guy can’t do anything because Pearl
poured Mountain Dew onto his brain.
Back on the SOL, it’s time for the final “I love yous.”
Second: Mike has packed his suitcase. He only has bags of rice in his bag. Crow packed a trash bag with dirty laundry and a whoopee cushion. Tom has 517 copies of himself get rid of. He self-destructs them all. There’s much confusion about which Servo is the original.
Third: Crow is asking if they have a severance
package because he’ll need to look for work once they’re back on Earth. Pearl is trying to destroy the castle so she
can move on to her new job as dictator for live of Qatar. Bobo has a job at the zoo. The answer to Crow’s question is “no.”
Fourth: Mike and the ‘Bots are looking at Mike’s
scrapbook from Earth. They’re anxious
about being on the Earth. Mike wrote a
song – “To Earth.”
Final: The SOL is burning up as it falls through
the atmosphere. He calls Pearl. She tells him to move on and disconnects the
umbilicus. They crash to Earth. In the end, Mike and the ‘Bots are sitting
on a 70s couch in a small house waiting to watch “The Crawling Eye” on TV.
Stinger: “Is that stud coming?”
Funny Riffs
Crow: You know this music would work better with women in bikinis shaking all over the place. Well, I guess that’s true of any music, really.
Tom: Some movies just won’t stop and ask for directions.
Crow: A French-Italian co-production, so I’m guessing there’s going to be a lot of cheese involved here.
The credits are shown for a considerable amount of time over some red spinning thing.
Crow: Gentlemen, let’s open our movie with a ten-minute shot of a spinning radish.
Diabolik and his girlfriend are rolling around in a pile of cash.
Tom: They’re really going to have to get their money laundered.
Diabolik is wearing a rubber scuba mask and he’s sneaking toward the mansion.
Mike: I exfoliate while I creep.
Diabolik floats 20 tons of gold with about 10 large balloons.
Tom: Raising the Titanic would be a since! Just get a bunch of party balloons.
Crow: You know, nobody goes to this kind of trouble any more for frankincense or myrrh.
Diabolik is preparing to spray the molten gold into ingot molds. He’s wearing a foil suit.
Eva: You be careful.
Diabolik: Don’t worry. With this suit I could swim through the center of the sun.
Tom as Diabolik: That’s what it said in the catalog anyway.
Diabolik’s alarm goes off. It’s an incredibly loud pipe organ.
Mike: I’m kinda glad I didn’t install a bagpipe alarm.