As seen in the previous post, a devilish woman can provide great inspirations in film and fashion as well and yesterday we looked at a woman who becomes a satanic femme fatale to win back her husband's affection. But there are devilish women also in the history of comics: in the violent and sexually explicit comic Satanik, for example, Marny Bannister, is a talented biologist with a tragic and traumatic past.
Mistreated by her family who considers her a sort of monster for a birthmark that disfigures a large part of her face, Marny takes revenge upon society after discovering a miraculous formula that transforms her into a beautiful woman – Satanik.
In the stories created by Max Bunker with drawings by Roberto Raviola, AKA Magnus Pictor (or simply Magnus) published between 1964 and 1974, Satanik was a relentless killing machine intent on unleashing her destructive power upon men and women and capable of committing unspeakable deeds that went from injecting acid into her own sister's veins to sexually exploiting her male victims.
In the comic, Satanik was usually clad in a witch-like red and black costume, and attracted, repulsed and frightened the readers for her thirst for money, men, power, sex and success.
On a par with the Devil, Satanik was conceived by its author as a sort of female Dr Jekyll and Mister Hyde, while the stories that saw her as main character often proved to be combinations of plots taken from Robert Louis Stevenson, Oscar Wilde, Howard Phillips Lovecraft and Edgar Allan Poe.
In Max Bunker's stories, supernatural elements (ghosts, vampires and mummies included...) were mixed with sex scenes and noir comics turned into erotic tales aimed at an entirely new audience and readership.
Satanik represented everything that society wanted to repress, in particular women's sexual power: its sadistic, avid and violent heroine destroyed all the last taboos that were still standing.
Legend goes that anonymous calls to Bunker often asked him to stop producing this comic because it was inconceivable that a woman could commit such criminal acts.
Male readers saw in this figure the embodiment of every man's erotic dream, but female readers, especially those ones who didn't see themselves as fitting the canons of beauty set by society, looked up at Satanik as a final liberation, a nemesis against men and society.
The comic book was turned in 1967 into a film: directed by Piero Vivarelli and released the following year, it was characterised by an almost inconsistent plot.
Polish model Magda Konopka starred as Marnie Bannister, a clever scientist and assistant to Professor Greaves (Nerio Bernardi), a famous biologist. Greaves thinks he may have discovered a potion that restores beauty and youth to whoever takes it and Marnie decides to try it on herself after killing her fellow colleague who is reluctant at making her risk her life for the sake of science.
Marnie takes the potion, gags and passes out, but, when she awakens, she realises the potion worked: she's been transformed and from disfigured, Marnie has turned into a gorgeous sensual young woman who seduces a rich man, George Van Donen (Umberto Raho).
But the police is soon after her, and, when she discovers that the effects of the potion do not last long, Marnie finds herself on the run and leaves behind her a trail of corpses.
In the film there is an emphasis on Marnie as the femme fatale: she's never actually called "Satanik", but the director portrays her more like a Dr Jekyll-Mr Hyde figure.
The costumes for this film were designed by Berenice Sparano and they were made by the tailoring house Tigano Lo Faro, founded by Serafina Tigano Lo Faro in Rome in the late '50s (its original name was Costumearte; the tailoring house first started working for the Rome Opera Theatre, but then developed collaborations with costume designers and tailors working for the stage and the big screen as well).
The film was shot at the end of the '60s and Marnie's wardrobe follows the trends of the time: one of the first dresses we see her wearing after her transformation is a mini-dress with a grid-like tulle motif and strategically placed patches of yolk yellow and orange sequins that cover her erogenous zones.
For a date with Van Donen, Marnie wears a sequined turquoise and white ensemble that looks like a one piece dress, but that actually consists in three parts - a bra, a skirt and a tall belt - and we discover this illusion when she sensually undresses (this trick that could be reused and reinvented in a modern collection to create a two-in-one design, so fashion designers out there, please take note).
When Marnie turns up at Stella's house (the girlfriend of a criminal who has betrayed him handing him to the police), she's wearing a hooded red and white striped top that perfectly embodies the concept of stripes being associated with evil and transgression (during the Middle Ages they were usually donned by court clowns, jugglers, prostitutes, hangmen, lepers and heretics, just to mention a few categories ostracised by the rest of society...).
During her trip to Switzerland Marnie wears a printed rusty orange mini-dress with a large tie accessorised with large glasses and a hat, but we also see her in a pastel shade bikini evoking Paco Rabanne's style. Towards the end of the film she instead appears in a Diabolik-meets-Irma Vep leotard, while performing a strip tease at Dodo La Roche's (Luigi Montini) club.
Most costumes in the film are used to show Konopka's body and the story is rather superficial compared to the comics.
Satanik was considered as an innovative anti-heroine as she took advantage of her sex appeal for her criminal activities, but here Marnie seems only interested in using her beauty to get the attention of men and steal their money.
The final idea of the film was showing how ugly Marnie didn't look acceptable by society, but she was a clever hard-working scientist, while beautiful bombshell Marnie, adored and desired by all men, is actually perversely wicked.
Visually there was an intent here of replicating the moods of films à la "Diabolik" by Mario Bava and maybe reference anti-heroines such as Eva Kant, interpreted on the big screen by Marisa Mell (Konopka does looks a bit like Marisa Mell when she wears a blonde wig).
Who knows, maybe there will be a modern remake at some point of this film that may reshift the attention on the original comic, what's for sure is that such a movie would provide an entirely new wardrobe for this devilish anti-heroine.
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