La donna, il sesso e il superuomo

"Fantabulous, Inc." (1968) directed by Sergio Spina with an original screenplay by Furio Colombo, Ottavio Jemma and Sergio Spina, produced by Felice D'Alisera; music by Alessandro Brugnolini; excellent cinematography by Claudio Ragona and film editing by Giancarlo Cappelli; production design by Sergio Canevari; art direction by Amedeo Fago and costume design by Gisella Longo and Edith Ryker starring Richard Harrison, Adolfo Celi and Judi West is a true wonder. The film is as "fantabulous" as the organization that is threatening a takeover with making a "romeo" into a superhero, and is so utterly inventive and for an Italian movie on a modest budget in 1968 is well done, cheeziness kept to a minimum for something if made today, when it is apparently when it should have made, would have a multi-million dollar budget and access to top drawer special effects, the film definitely deserves a DVD/Blu-ray release. Richard Harrison has never been better. This is the type of thing at which he could excel. Judi West, co-star of Billy Wilder's "The Fortune Cookie," showed a brilliance that failed to catch on. She plays an actress as the "juliet" of his dreams, marked "one of a kind." Adolfo Celi has never been better as the head of "Fantabulous, Inc." These three characters as played by the actors become iconic. The rest of the cast adds to the hilarity. Unfortunately, the copies of the film I saw were either in Italian without subtitles or no audio and a terrible, barely decipherable English subtitling. "Fantabulous, Inc." is a rich, daring film on the perfection of Adam and Eve, something the Italians seemed to do better than anyone, but "Fantabulous, Inc." is unlike any that I've seen from Italy at that time or since. It is better than Mario Bava's "Danger: Diabolik" which it has similarities to with the comic book mentality, but moreso, with scenes of civil unrest, which the superhero created by the Fantabulous, Inc. and offered to the highest bidding superpower country to keep the sheep in line, is 20 years ahead of a predecessor like "Robocop" and more topical. Should be seen today.

I had never heard of this one (or director Spina, for that matter) before its screening on late-night Italian TV last year; in view of a favorable write-up on the indispensable "Stracult" book, I decided to record the film but only now did I manage to fit it in my schedule (since I am currently going through a "Euro-Cult" marathon). Anyway, while certainly interesting – both visually (being laden with pop-art references) and thematically (a sci-fi tale about the creation of supermen) – the whole proved somewhat tiresome, especially after a hard day's work, given a decidedly cerebral approach (albeit not unexpected considering its year of release)! Incidentally, the original Italian title translates to WOMAN, SEX AND SUPERMAN – indicating that the sexual revolution, again typical of the era, was as much at its core as the science (not that it was particularly explicit). The cast is led by Richard Harrison (usually seen in peplums or Spaghetti Westerns, he seems a bit overwhelmed by the material and not a bit silly when taking to the skies – though his woodenness is, ironically, ideal for projecting the character's eventual robotic nature!) and Adolfo Celi as the megalomaniac villain (tapping into his earlier stint as a larger-than-life James Bond nemesis) who, as one more sign of the times, is an industrialist owning the titular company; leading lady Dorothy West, while also unknown to me, makes an appealing doe-eyed heroine – and just as much involved is Celi's obligatory mad scientist assistant who adopts a unique terminology throughout. The anything-goes mood suggests the film was conceived as a satire (anticipaing in this regard William Klein's similarly spotty MR. FREEDOM [1969]) but, alas, this very ostentation is what dates it above all; mind you, FANTABULOUS is undeniably colorful and entertaining on the surface, and yet not exactly memorable