Argoman The Fantastic Superman

[checkoutgirl]

Argoman The Fantastic Superman, I'm mildly obsessed with the trailer for this film from 1967. I stumbled across it while watching a film called Trailer War (2012), which is essentially a bunch of campy kitsch trailers from the 60s and 70s.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7GE44MsQlA

It seems something happened with Italians and film in the 1960s. Spaghetti westerns and this kind of camp super spy genre that is very difficult to comprehend now. Look at the state of Argoman, he's on the left.



"a man gifted with such extraordinary powers that ordinary men were helpless to cope with it". He has telekenesis and can make people kill each other just by willing it and sticking his hand out like a claw while thinking "kill each other, kill each other".

Eurospy films they were called apparently. Also in 1967 we had Goldface the Fantastic Superman and The Three Fantastic Supermen. So in 1967 alone you had at least 3 films with "fantastic superman/men" in the title.

What the heel was going on back then? Were they pumping psychoactive drugs into the water supply in Italy? I don't know if I could ever sit through one of these films but the trailers are good fun. I must have watched the Argoman trailer a good 10 times and I know I will again.

Anyone got any opinions on this? It's a bit odd.

[Lisa Jesusandmarychain]

Is that Lieutenant Harris from "Police Academy" on the right?

[steveh]

The trailer is all you need. The actual film is rather tedious and goes downhill after the opening "kill yourself" scene that's heavily used in the trailer.

If you liked Trailer War, the 42nd Street Forever trailer compilations are a fun watch too.

[NoSleep]

At least they aren't infringing any copyrights like 3 Dev Adam (AKA Turkish Spiderman). Spidey's a wee bit stabby in this film (as well as having a new super power).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BlUYTqCqc0

...featuring English subtitles (I've only ever watch a copy without any clue what they were saying up until now, which probably adds to the fun).

[checkoutgirl]

That's quite an opening scene in that Turkish Spiderman film.

Here's 3 Fantastic Supermen in action, getting about in the only way they know how, 3 men in a 2 man car.

[MojoJojo]

All these Fantastic Supermen are leaving me a little disappointed in our plain old regular Superman.

[NoSleep]

That's quite an opening scene in that Turkish Spiderman film.

Just wait until he unleashes the guinea pig of death on one of his victims.

[checkoutgirl]

I'm bumping this piece of shit thread because new information has come to my attention. This is Brandon's Cult Movie Review and he does a decent job of dismantling this oddity of a film. He seems to agree with me that Italian directors went a bit mad in the mid to late sixties making these weird superhero films and naturally he has more insight than me into the subject. Anyone looking for a roundup on Argoman The Fantastic Superman or just general fans of terrible films might enjoy this video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nakpsgsa13o

[George White]

I've been watching a lot of Eurospy films recently.
They're almost all awful.
Sergio Grieco who did Argoman also did the 077 movies.

Apart from the glorious Diabolik, Argoman is along the same scale as the other rival Italian spy-superhero-villain rivals, eg Kriminal – which uses comic strip frames and shows Piccadilly cinemas showing CAST A GIANT SHADOW! before cutting to an Italian house with a policeman plonked house before devolving into the typical Italian superhero mix of parties full of extras in silly outfits, before devolving into sub-Topkapi capers, done in a such boring manner, laboured shots of foreign places and lots of padding. A lot of them try to go Avengers-ish raised "oh, I'm a deliberate cartoon" even without dubbing, e.g. exagerrated facial movements eg the Fantomas movies. Diabolik does all this but does it well, somehow pulling it off.
Even the Italian Mexican wrestler knockoff Goldface devolves into the typical Italian spy knockoff, a rented helicopter, some badly staged fistfights, exposition, some cheesecake and invariably footage of London. Argoman has all this, but it feels jokier, grander, it looks to have a bigger budget than it probably did, the dubbing by Lewis Ciannelli, son of regular Man from Uncle baddie Eduardo is rather fitting, all blustery Scotland Yard men and coquettish American girls. But it's still a mess.



Special Mission Lady Chaplin (1966) – One of the better Eurospy films, but still not a great film. Like with a lot of these films, it has unenthusiastic performances both in front of the camera, and in the dubbing. The plot is hard to follow, star Ken Clark (playing Dick Malloy in his third film) has the look of a provincial waxwork of Roger Moore, I've watched numerous Italian spy films, and they're all the same. Ex-musclemen/cowboys charmlessly beating up stuntmen, driving against back projection, using shite gadgets and wooing overly made up models. This has a few novelties. Ex-Bond girl Daniela Bianchi plays the titular Lady Chaplin, a British fashion designer (hence lots of boring scenes at fashion houses), who is also a spy. She gets up various disguises, but they're all leaden and directed like a Pink Panther knockoff. The plot, though moving from New York to London to god knows where is ultimately some sort of vague Thunderball do-over with cardboard nukes. It's hard to tell who is the villain, though it is Kobre Zoltan (ex-Mr. Ginger Rogers Jacques Bergerac, ironically later a Revlon executive). But he has relatively little presence. Directed by Alberto De Martino, who also handled OK Connery (1967). This has a better budget than most of the Eurospy fare (less reliance on stock footage) including the two earlier Dick Malloy films (with Clark labelled as 077 but doing work more akin to a mixture of Harry Palmer and Mike Hammer), but there's still the inevitable slapping women about (these films make Bond look like a liberal feminist).

Umberto Lenzi's 008 – Operation Exterminate has sequences in Egypt prefiguring Spy Who Loved Me.

Target for Killing ~(1966) Stewart Granger plays "James Vine" (not Shonteff's Charles Vine). Watching it, and his boss appears. "That looks like Rupert Davies. It can't be. It is!". I didn't notice the fab credits. I know the BBC Maigret was successful in Europe, hence why all 52 episodes miraculously survive, despite being a BBC series from the 1960s. Also featuring Curd Jurgens AND Adolfo Celi, as well as Klaus Kinski. Most of the stars use their own voices (certainly, Granger and Jurgens do). Despite a band of villainous white-robed monks, it is boring.

Coplan Saves His Skin (1968) – French effort with Mexican leading man Claudio Brook, better budgeted than the Italian efforts. Kinski plays a pervy sculptor. Weird scenes of hairy near-naked men lying in a bathhouse dressing dolls, and aplastic-faced cat-petting villain. Directed by Yves Boisset (who made arguably the greatest French SF film ever made- Game of Danger), it's overlong and doesn't really go anywhere. The sets are just ruins where the cast have camped in. Also saw elements of FX 18 – the Ken Clark Coplan film, which is a lot more dull.

Spy In Your Eye, Jerry Cotton, Roger Browne in Password Kill Agent Gordon, all cheap or empty, with none of the fantastic that Bond brings. The Kommissar X films at least look expensive and vivid, with lots of local colour in Death is Nimble, Death is Quick (1967) and Kiss, Kiss, Kill Kill (1967), but they're empty vessels with charmless leads. No wonder most of these films went straight to TV, because they're quite ITC.

Here's Game of Danger. The Running Man "borrowed" from it, more this than the actual novel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFY3yTWqUks