FLASHMAN (1967)
Article 5063 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 1-28-2016
Directed by Mino Loy
Featuring Paolo Gozlino, Claudie Lange, Ivano Staccioli
Country: Italy / France
What it is: Camp superhero pastiche

Flashman takes on a criminal who has stolen an invisibility formula.

If the Flashman theme song sounds pretty reminiscent of the theme song of a certain American superhero who had a campy hit TV series in the mid-sixties, it’s no coincidence. This is basically an Italian take on Batman, with a hero who is a tycoon who fights crime in a mask, and this movie tries to work in the same campy vein as the TV series. It’s a little difficult to say how well it works; not a lot of care went into the English dubbing, and as is often the case when you’re dealing with dubbed comedy, much of the humor can be lost in translation. Certainly, the humor in the English language version falls flat as a pancake; nor am I impressed with the invisibility effects or the action sequences. The stupid comic-relief policemen are a particular annoyance. There’s not much to recommend here.