FENOMENAL AND THE TREASURE OF TUTANKHAMEN (1968)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

I noted in my review of HERCULES PRISONER OF EVIL that Ruggero Deodato, though not cited in that film's credits, claimed to have directed most of the movie, as opposed to official director Antonio Margeritti. The action scenes in that jumped-up Ursus flick weren't very good, but they were better than what Deodato put together for this Euro-super effort. This was his first film as the director proper, albeit under a pseudonym.

Though the titular hero dresses in a all black leotard like Diabolik (though without eye-holes in his mask), Fenomenal (Mauro Parenti) is entirely on the side of the angels. After an adequate scene on a boat, where the crimefighter vanquishes a gang of drug-smugglers, Parenti (or his body double) spends very little time in the black bodysuit, but is usually seen lazing around in his civilian identity, aristocrat Guy Norton. He gets wind of some sort of conspiracy to either steal or duplicate the famed headpiece of King Tut, and I think Gordon Mitchell's character is the ringleader of the plot, but the crooks' aims were very hard to follow. The same was true of the female lead Mike (Lucretia Love), who I think was some sort of adventuress. I don't think the script ever defines her role, but there's a weird scene in which she dresses up in an outfit like Fenomenal's. Guy interrupts her snooping in some room, she judo-flips him, and he belts her. What import the scene was supposed to have, I do not know. And most of the film is like that: stuff happens without context, because Deodato and his scripter-- a one-shot screenwriter, working from an "idea" provided by Deodato-- were lazy bums.

Fenomenal, in addition to being able to see through an eyeless mask, utters a mocking laugh, but he has no personality as such. When out of costume Mauro Parenti performs as ably as a hundred other handsome leading men, but he might have shone better had the script given performers like Love and Mitchell some decent scenes to play against him. Even a fight-scene in a women's steam-room is pretty dull, and FENOMENAL ranks as nothing but a footnote both in the career of Deodato and in the history of Euro-supers.