3 Supermen vs. Mad Girl, aka Çilgin Kiz ve üç Süper Adam (Turkey, 1973)

If you’re like me, you’re first thought, upon being confronted with 3 Supermen vs. Mad Girl, is going to be, “Just what exactly is this girl so mad about?” And if you’re answer is “the unchecked proliferation of 3 Supermen movies throughout the 60s and 70s”, you could be forgiven for thinking so. Of course, blame for the near viral accretion of unwarranted 3 Supermen sequels, remakes and knockoffs over the years can be laid at the feet of various combinations of the Italians and the Turks, with 3 Supermen vs. Mad Girl being one of the entries that is apparently purely Turkish in extraction. As is so often the case, the Turks bring to the franchise that certain, ineffable magic that only they can.

Simply put, if you’re a fan of Z grade comic book movies, the first five minutes of 3 Supermen vs. Mad Girl will make your head explode. It is here, against the backdrop of sets made to the cardboard and construction paper standard now so familiar to Turkish pulp cinema enthusiasts, that we meet the titular Mad Girl (3 Dev Adam’s Mine Sun) and her army of minions in emerald green Klansmen’s robes. She is a vision in bloated bouffant wig, chunky cats eye domino mask, and Vampirella one piece. But, despite her prominent billing, she is just another subordinate, in turn taking orders from a guy whom she calls “Seytan” who sits on a throne and wears what looks like a drugstore Halloween devil mask. Without subtitles, and within the context of a movie like 3 Supermen vs. Mad Girl, it is, I hope, understandably impossible for me to say whether this is supposed to actually be Satan or just a guy in a mask. In any case, it is also in this scene that Seytan and Mad Girl introduce us to their secret weapon, a cardboard box robot with a very phallic disintegrator gun.

Again, without subtitles, it is difficult for me to determine exactly what the above described freak show actually wants. There is a briefcase that switches hands a couple times and appears to be highly coveted, yet what is in it is unclear. A mad scientist named Dr. Zarkon is called in and the robot is employed to disintegrate a train, but again to mysterious ends. Indeed, watching a Turkish action film like 3 Supermen vs. Mad Girl without subtitles provides just about the best testament I know to just how superfluous the device of the “McGuffin” can be in such films, as it is here little more than a polite nod in the direction of narrative traditions and concerns of credible cause and effect that most people coming to 3 Supermen vs. Mad Girl voluntarily -- self included -- very likely don’t give a shit about. All that matters, really, is that it is this briefcase, that robot and the schemes of that mad scientist that set in motion all of the fighting, leaping, chasing and narrow escaping that will make up the meat, potatoes and creamy dessert of 3 Supermen vs. Mad Girl's remaining 60 minutes.

But before we can have all of that, we must have our heroes, the first of whom is played by Levant Çakir, not only the star of the Zagor movies, but also 1970s Turkey’s answer to Batman. With his scrawny body and big head, Çakir is exactly the person you want to see in a form fitting pair of superhero long johns. Here he is introduced in glorious buffalo shot, swim trunked and surrounded by beach babes as Tom Jones’s vocal theme from Thunderball plays on the soundtrack -- the single most audacious act of musical thievery I have yet witnessed in Turkish cinema (which is saying a lot). Çakir’s reverie is not to last, however, as his call to action soon comes in a Mission Impossible style cassette recording bearing his instructions. Soon after, he meets up with his fellow Supermen, one of whom, in unfortunate emulation of the series’ Italian iteration, is a babbling, deaf and dumb simpleton. It is here that the red super suits come into play, those garments that render these normally abled secret agents both bullet proof and able to perform feats that suggest the positioning of a trampoline just off screen.

From this point, the film’s action proceeds apace, with “apace”, in Turkish action cinema terms, meaning that everyone on screen proceeds as if their hair were permanently on fire. A love interest for Çakir is introduced, in the agreeable person of his Bedmen Yarasa Adam costar Emel Özden, and no time is wasted in having her trussed up suggestively in the villains’ lair, awaiting rescue. As in Bedmen, the various acrobatics -- backflips, somersaults, cartwheels, etc. -- that the Supermen perform in the course of the many, many fistfights that follow appear more cosmetic than to have any strategic value, and require a lot of patience on the part of their green hooded opponents, who must wait for them to complete these antics before being punched by them. Also, since this is the 70s, there’s some nudity.

I long ago predicted that I would eventually run out of things to say about these old Turkish pop movies, and it is likely that I have said very little new in discussing 3 Supermen vs. Mad Girl. Yet I now realize that it is sometimes just good to be reminded that these movies exist and of the wonders they contain. After dutifully slogging through the worthy event movies of this past Oscar season to scant reward, I found welcome respite in this film’s swirl of color, movement and violence, virtually unmoored as they were from traditional narrative justifications or meaningful subtext. Yes, that robot’s disintegrator gun looks like a dick, but, beyond that, sometimes a cardboard box robot is just a cardboard box robot. And sometimes that’s all you need.