The Three Fantastic Supermen

The Three Fantastic Supermen (Italian: *I fantastici tre supermen*) is a 1967 superhero film directed by Gianfranco Parolini. It launched a series of Three Supermen films, created during a wave of superhero movies in mid-1960s Italy.

The cast includes Luciano Stella as Tony, Brad Harris as Brad McCallum, Aldo Canti as Nick, Carlo Tamberlani as Professor Schwarz, Jochen Brockmann as Golem, Rossella Bergarmonti as Diana, Gloria Paul as Havana, Zorica Gajdas as Rose, and Sabin Sun.

Parolini, who had worked in sword-and-sandal films featuring multiple heroes, noted that stunts were performed on set—actor Aldo Canti jumped from a 20-foot-high window onto a trampoline and then into a moving truck. Parolini also directed several Kommissar X films with Tony Kendall and Brad Harris. Former stuntman Aldo Canti, billed as "Nick Jordan," appeared in Parolini’s *Five for Hell* and *Sabata* films. The movie was shot primarily in Italy and Yugoslavia.

Released in Italy in 1967, it was described by Roberto Curti in *Diabolika* as a "reasonable box office success in Italy." It was released in France in 1968 or 1969. Sequels followed: *Three Supermen at Tokyo* (1968), *Three Supermen in the Jungle* (1970), *Supermen Against the Orient* (1973), and *The Three Supermen in the West* (1973).

A contemporary review in the *Monthly Film Bulletin* praised the stunt work as "a welcome relief from the standard secret agent/judo syndrome," though noting that the "ingenuity of this comic strip adventure begins to pall after the first half hour" and that the finale is "brightened by the villain's diverting scheme to produce an army of robot villains who all look like the hero." Retrospectively, Curti called the film a "mixed bag" that borrowed heavily from *The Phantom*, *Zorro*, and *Goldfinger*.