PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, psychological, sociological* I have to admit that on my first viewing of FLASHMAN, I didn't give it my full attention and briefly judged it to be no better than the majority of Italian-made costumed-hero films. Most of the Italian works in this genre are at best romps with a lot of silly formulaic action, like 1966's SUPERARGO, or terribly-executed junk like 1979's SUPERSONIC MAN. But though I don't doubt that FLASHMAN came about because someone wanted to produce a knockoff of the then successful BATMAN teleseries, this movie, despite having a very light touch, actually follows the better BATMAN comic books more ably than most of the TV episodes did. 
Prior to writing this review, I sorted out some of my thoughts on Bill Finger, the pre-eminent BATMAN writer of comics' Golden Age, concluding with the comment, "But I'd argue that even in his weaker stories-- and Finger did a lot of goofy, poorly conceived stories in addition to his quality fare-- he shows a greater, perhaps childlike ability to take the weirdest ideas seriously, in a spirit of uninhibited play." I don't know what the sole billed writer Ernesto Gastaldi thought about his FLASHMAN assignment. None of his horror or adventure scripts prior to FLASHMAN seem to have the "spirit of uninhibited play" that I find in this early Euro-superhero, so he might have just read some BATMAN comics or watched some BATMAN tv shows. But the central idea for the story-- beginning with a gangster-villain known only as "Kid" killing a scientist in England for an invisibility formula-- sounds like the sort of story that was par for the course in the comics. What's interesting about FLASHMAN, though, is the atypical way the hero (Italian actor Paolo Gozlino, under the name "Paul Stevens") becomes involved in the villain's first robbery. The hero is under cover as an English bank teller while trying to track down a counterfeiting ring that's infiltrated the bank, and by chance Flashman is the teller whom Kid decides to rip off. After the robber absconds with his loot, Flashman is then delayed by cops who think he stole the dough. Flashman pretends to commit suicide by jumping from a high-story window-- presumably saving himself through sheer athleticism-- and then somehow finds his way to the villain's redoubt. Fully attired in a costume that resists gunshots, Flashman beats up Kid's henchmen. However, Invisible Kid (sorry) gives the hero the impression he's trying to escape in a helicopter and then sends the vehicle on a remote-controlled trip of doom. Flashman survives, of course. But unlike so many other costumed-hero flicks from Italy (and Mexico, for that matter), he's suddenly in the unenviable position of not really having any way to track down the main villain.
The hero's solution is IMO fairly novel. Knowing that the police suspect another bank-employee-- Alika (Claudie Lange), who's the head of the counterfeiting ring-- of being a confederate of Flashman's teller-character, Flashman resumes that disguise, shows up at the apartment of Alika while the cops are present, and gets both of them arrested. A bluff about whether the "other robbers" have the bank's money provokes Invisible Kid to invade the cells of both Alika and Phony Teller. An unlooked-for consequence of the meeting of Kid and Alika is that Alika tells him that his bank robbery career is a terrible use of his great powers. He listens to her and breaks her out, which leads to a complicated shell-game plot against a sultan of Lebanon-- which is fun, but I won't explore it further.
There are a lot of fun tongue-in-cheek touches here that don't quite fall into the BATMAN show's evocation of "camp." For one thing, we learn that Flashman's secret ID is that of an English lord named Alex Burman. Only his butler and his oddball sister, clad in "mod" fashion, know his identity as Flashman, and the hero remarks to his sibling, "we have too much money and we're both trying to make our lives more interesting"-- her through fancy clothing, Flashman through crimefighting. Stevens fulfills this hail-fellow-well-met characterization admirably, particularly when he takes the time to repeatedly humiliate a thick-headed Scotland Yard cop (the film's comedy relief) who keeps resisting Flashman's beneficent intentions. The dopey cop is a bit of a bore, and the invisible villain isn't too interesting, but Alika is a mean bitch who's willing to commit flagrant murders to make her fortune. The climax includes some fun parasailing feats to conclude the film. And so ends the only Italian superhero film that I thought had a script worth a damn.
Prior to writing this review, I sorted out some of my thoughts on Bill Finger, the pre-eminent BATMAN writer of comics' Golden Age, concluding with the comment, "But I'd argue that even in his weaker stories-- and Finger did a lot of goofy, poorly conceived stories in addition to his quality fare-- he shows a greater, perhaps childlike ability to take the weirdest ideas seriously, in a spirit of uninhibited play." I don't know what the sole billed writer Ernesto Gastaldi thought about his FLASHMAN assignment. None of his horror or adventure scripts prior to FLASHMAN seem to have the "spirit of uninhibited play" that I find in this early Euro-superhero, so he might have just read some BATMAN comics or watched some BATMAN tv shows. But the central idea for the story-- beginning with a gangster-villain known only as "Kid" killing a scientist in England for an invisibility formula-- sounds like the sort of story that was par for the course in the comics. What's interesting about FLASHMAN, though, is the atypical way the hero (Italian actor Paolo Gozlino, under the name "Paul Stevens") becomes involved in the villain's first robbery. The hero is under cover as an English bank teller while trying to track down a counterfeiting ring that's infiltrated the bank, and by chance Flashman is the teller whom Kid decides to rip off. After the robber absconds with his loot, Flashman is then delayed by cops who think he stole the dough. Flashman pretends to commit suicide by jumping from a high-story window-- presumably saving himself through sheer athleticism-- and then somehow finds his way to the villain's redoubt. Fully attired in a costume that resists gunshots, Flashman beats up Kid's henchmen. However, Invisible Kid (sorry) gives the hero the impression he's trying to escape in a helicopter and then sends the vehicle on a remote-controlled trip of doom. Flashman survives, of course. But unlike so many other costumed-hero flicks from Italy (and Mexico, for that matter), he's suddenly in the unenviable position of not really having any way to track down the main villain.
The hero's solution is IMO fairly novel. Knowing that the police suspect another bank-employee-- Alika (Claudie Lange), who's the head of the counterfeiting ring-- of being a confederate of Flashman's teller-character, Flashman resumes that disguise, shows up at the apartment of Alika while the cops are present, and gets both of them arrested. A bluff about whether the "other robbers" have the bank's money provokes Invisible Kid to invade the cells of both Alika and Phony Teller. An unlooked-for consequence of the meeting of Kid and Alika is that Alika tells him that his bank robbery career is a terrible use of his great powers. He listens to her and breaks her out, which leads to a complicated shell-game plot against a sultan of Lebanon-- which is fun, but I won't explore it further.
There are a lot of fun tongue-in-cheek touches here that don't quite fall into the BATMAN show's evocation of "camp." For one thing, we learn that Flashman's secret ID is that of an English lord named Alex Burman. Only his butler and his oddball sister, clad in "mod" fashion, know his identity as Flashman, and the hero remarks to his sibling, "we have too much money and we're both trying to make our lives more interesting"-- her through fancy clothing, Flashman through crimefighting. Stevens fulfills this hail-fellow-well-met characterization admirably, particularly when he takes the time to repeatedly humiliate a thick-headed Scotland Yard cop (the film's comedy relief) who keeps resisting Flashman's beneficent intentions. The dopey cop is a bit of a bore, and the invisible villain isn't too interesting, but Alika is a mean bitch who's willing to commit flagrant murders to make her fortune. The climax includes some fun parasailing feats to conclude the film. And so ends the only Italian superhero film that I thought had a script worth a damn.
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