Costume Design by:
- Luca Sabatelli ( notable efforts: How I Learned to Love Women (1966), The Cat o' Nine Tails (1971), Safari Express (1976), My Wife is a Witch (1980) and several other contributions to Italian film & TV )
Directed by Aldo Lado under the fake name ‘George B. Lewis’ (itself very telling a choice),
The Humanoid (originally known as
L’umanoide) is definitely one of the more blatant examples of films riding on the
Star Wars wave, with designs that actually toe the line to being legally actionable. However, the story itself has some original quirks with some moments that are surprisingly endearing (and others that are oddly brutal!), and whilst some of the costumes (all designed by veteran Italian costume designer
Luca Sabatelli in their only science-fiction effort, though certainly has an eye for very fashionable designs and even some sketches for the film
on his website) are derivative, they still have a charm
The titlular ‘humanoid’ is the spaceship pilot Golob played by the imposing Richard Kiel, always sporting his double-breasted pilots uniform, fixed with shoulder pads to add that futuristic flair.
Looking after Tom Tom is Barbara (Corinne Clery) who like the other citizen extras in the ‘Metropolis’ scenes of the film, just dresses in a very plain white dress and neckpiece (other civilians just are in white shirts or overalls).
Metropolis is led by the elderly ‘Great Brother’ (Massimo Serato) who rules with his council of aides. All of them are dressed in beige (beige really does seem to be signature colours of the heroes in this film), but only Great Brother and his female aides have the robes, whereas the male aides have tunics and trousers.
The villainous Lord Graal (Ivan Rassimov) is perhaps one of the more blatant examples of what ‘inspired’ the production of this film, with a design extremely reminiscent of Darth Vader’s but opting to actually show his face (to a degree).
Assisting Graal are the no-less evil Lady Agatha (Barbara Bach) and Dr. Kraspin (Arthur Kennedy), the former of which has asked the services of Kraspin to help them produce a blood serum to ensure their eternal youth – a scifi version of Elizabeth Bathory, essentially. Agatha is, in her first few scenes, in a lurid hairstyle (clearly a wig) and silver-lined black robe.
Lady Agatha’ secondary outfit is rather a bit more kinky, with a headpiece resembling a pilots cap, and a large coat going over a tight brown leather catsuit – classic villainess wardrobe, basically.
The mad scientist Kraspin is in a rather almost medieval looking outfit, consisting of a long leather or vinyl tabard (which depending on the lighting, either looks black or brown) that is coated entirely in metallic studs - the tabard is worn over leather underclothes, the sleeves of which are also covered in studs, and fixed with a large collar fixed with metallic lining.
Kraspin’ guards have uniforms very similar to his own, but have masks that give the slight uncanny vibe, akin to terracotta soldiers (the inspiration?) – the neck guards are a rather interesting design touch too. The masks were reused in infamous scifi/peplum cheapo
Yor, the Hunter from the Future a few years later, though wearing Kraspin's uniform instead.
Lord Graal’s soldiers are of course similarly in all-black, with a rather unthreatening but still interesting mask design (it could be bias, because the circular mouthpiece and eyes just remind me of Bionicle sets). These armor suits were also reused in
Yor quite liberally.
