Come rubare la corona d'Inghilterra

I've seen this movie 4 times. The first time when I was about 8 years old, in Romania, with the Romanian title "Argoman superdiabolicul". I remember that I liked it very much. I was just a naive child. I saw it 2 more times as an adult, less than 10 years distance, and I totally forgot what was the subject, "so good it is"... Everything is bad, stupid plot, bad acting, bad bad bad. They are trying a combination of James Bond with Batman and a big s..t gets out. A movie for little children without discernment or for adults without brain. Only they can like it.

Fun, tongue-in-cheek super hero/spy spoof/caper film. Roger Browne plays Argoman, whose superpowers include strength, psychic ability, and telekinesis. Since he's a suave, debonair playboy, he also likes to romance ladies. There's one catch: if he sleeps with a woman, he loses his powers for six hours. He and the villainous Queen of the World share a bed and a fabulous costume sense. Naturally, Argoman has a loungey score. Great fun. The version of this that I saw was titled The Incredible Paris Incident and was released by Sinister Cinema. The colors were a bit washed out, and the film needs to be letterboxed, but the print was quite watchable.

...was the title of the last print I saw. A classic in the 1960's European superhero/action genre. You'll swoon with B-flick extasy when Argoman confides to his manservant, Chandra, "Sometimes I'd prefer not to have my superpowers, if only to make my adventures a bit more difficult!" This is just one snippet of the dazzling dialogue from this masterpiece. His flair for Jetson-style interior decor makes his pad almost as cool as Diabolik's. He locks horns with supervillain Jenabel, "queen of the world," a hot redhead supermodel type babe with a fabulous Swinging 60's wardrobe and miles of eyeliner. All to one of those upbeat, cheerfully awful, strangely compelling European badmovie soundtracks. There are a couple of loosely related flicks, "Superargo vs. the Faceless Giants" and "Superargo vs. Diabolicus." It's the sort of stuff we lovers of cinematic trash thrive on. This is a film you will watch over and over again. Or maybe that's just me. Whoops.

I was vaguely aware of this superhero, flick but which I almost missed out on when it was shown earlier this week on late-night Italian TV given the misleading original title – which translates to HOW TO STEAL THE CROWN OF ENGLAND (a plot device which, while occurring twice during the course of the movie, is only a means to an end and not the villainess’ ultimate goal)! Anyway, this was one of a boom of Italian superhero/master criminal films (most of them emanating from the latter half of the 1960s) – apart from which, I was already familiar with the enjoyable KRIMINAL (1966; whose sequel, THE MARK OF KRIMINAL [1968], I watched on the strength of this), the obviously superior DANGER: DIABOLIK (1968), the surprisingly agreeable spoof ARRIVA DORELLIK (1967) and, much later, the truly lamentable THE PUMA MAN (1980).

Argoman’s alter-ego is Sir Reginald Hoover (Roger Browne) – a laid-back, womanizing criminologist living in a luxurious gadget-filled mansion and waited upon by his faithful Hindu servant (played by Spaniard Eduardo Fajardo); to put it another way, if Batman is the James Bond of superheroes, then Argoman would be their Matt Helm! Having said that, the outrageous costume notwithstanding (which features a cape and a slit in his mask similar to the armor worn by Gort, the robot from THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL [1951]!), his superhero characteristics make him actually closer to Superman than Batman: as a matter of fact, he has sonar, telekinetic and magnetic powers!; however, these are depleted for six hours straight after every sexual encounter – which exasperates time-keeper Fajardo no end! The villainess, then, is a man-eating redhead (Dominique Boschero) typically obsessed with world domination – which she plans to accomplish via a precious diamond that, through the sun’s energy, is able to dissolve steel (consequently, having relocated from London to Paris, the French currency is soon in peril of being devalued!).

Unfortunately for Argoman, he always seems to happen on the scene at the wrong time – so that the Police (especially an incompetent Scotland Yard Inspector) mistakes him for the perpetrator of Boschero’s nefarious deeds! While generally entertaining, the plot gets a bit confusing in the second half – especially when dealing with a subplot in which Boschero hypnotizes a clutch of high-ranking officials to aid her cause, and also the kidnapping of Hoover/Argoman on a crowded bus. The film (re-edited in 1979 and re-issued simply as ARGOMAN) is nevertheless boosted by Piero Umiliani’s breezy score and the attractive locations. A regrettable occurrence in connection with the version I watched is that, for about a 10-minute stretch towards the end, the beat-up print turned completely to black-and-white!

This movie is a philosophy of life: "live and take what you really want". A CAMP classic of maximum proportions, which ruled the world in the late sixties, conquering all the known B-movies markets. Sir REGINALD HOOVER/ARGOMAN is the greatest, coolest and meanest super-hero/anti-hero ever been. Period. I'm actually proud to be Italian, and I'm wondering WHEN and HOW and WHERE Argoman the fantastic superman will strike again. Thanks, Sergio Grieco! Bottom line: ROGER BROWNE kicks ass!

11 out of 10.