and Nathaniel Thompson. A Blu-ray for the Australian market, distributed by Via Vision Entertainment under their Imprint Films division, was released on October 28. Packaged in a limited edition slipcase, this release includes the DVD's special features, alongside a re-recorded commentary with Lucas and an exclusive video essay by critic and historian Kat Ellinger. Reception Contemporary Upon its initial release, Howard Thompson of The New York Times gave a brief negative review of Danger: Diabolik, referring to the film as "infantile junk." Variety was also negative, calling it a "dull Dino De Laurentiis programmer" whose "[b]izarre sets, poor process work, static writing and limp direction spell pure formula fare for lowercase grind bookings." A more favorable review came from Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times, who gave it a two-and-a-half star rating out of four, stating that although he felt that the film was "long and eventually loses track of itself", he deemed it to be "very nearly the movie Barbarella should have been" due to "look[ing] better put-together (although its budget must have been smaller)", noting Bava's "thorough grounding in schlock exploitation films" and praising his use of clichés. He also found Piccoli's casting as Ginko to be "nothing short of hilarious". In Britain, a review came from David Hutchison for the April 1969 issue of Films and Filming, who deemed the film's use of spy-fi tropes to be outdated, but made a point that "the comic strip has a great many affinities with the motion picture; both are a series of separate pictures and take the same advantage of light, shade, colour and perspective. Bava is obviously well aware of this and the result is a film strip cartoon which, despite its faults, is generally more successful than either Modesty Blaise or Barbarella in capturing an elusive comic strip flavour". Betty Marcus of Fort Lauderdale News was enthusiastic, describing the film as "pure entertainment", noting that "it brings back the excitement and gimmickry of the Bond films and the high-camp corn of the Batman television series" and finding the visual effects to be "magnificent". In Australia, a review in the September 6, 1968 edition of The Age called the film "a real surprise, splendid stuff"; aside from noting the influence of Fantômas and Raffles, it defined the film in the context of Bava's filmography as cinematographer and director, stating that "Danger: Diabolik demonstrates [Bava's] graphic eye for an