Kilink in Istanbul (1967) – A Delirious and Psychedelic Celluloid Turmoil from Turkey

Kilink, the Turkish super villain in a skeleton suit, who was inspired by the Italian comic hero Killing, who again was inspired by the other Italian superhero Kriminal, opens the long series of Kilink installments (11 in total*) with this blockbuster cult movie of Turkish cinema. The film’s synopsis reads like this: „Kilink visits Istanbul in order to grab a destructive formula which is in the hands of an once-collaborate scientist, professor Houloussi. He murders him, kidnaps his daughter, tortures her in some gloomy dungeon, and then kidnaps more people and tortures them but still, the formula remains hidden. Meanwhile, the son of professor Houloussi is blessed by a divine spirit and turns into Superman. But will he be a worthy opponent to the unbeatable and evasive master of all criminals, Kilink?“

Kilink does not have any super-powers despite raising from a coffin, wrapped in mull like a mummy, and being surrounded by scientists. He opens his eyes, speaks Turkish fluently, and immediately starts to order his men around like a Marshal. He can’t fly and no ultraviolet rays are shooting from his eyes, but Kilink only wears an immaculate skeleton costume with a belt and uses a normal weapon.

Whenever Kilink is on screen, it’s A+ material. The best thing about him is that he’s sardonic and sarcastic, slapping and fighting the good guys after calling them a ‘loser’, and laughing at them maliciously on every occasion. Kilink’s scornful, arrogant, and completely undramatic „Hahahahaha“ as ongoing expression of bone-dry sublimity and superiority will reverberate inside the viewer’s head long after finishing the film.

Occasionally combined with this behaviour is Kilink’s other fine attribute: sex. Unlike the de-sexualized and cockless Marvel superheros in their chastity belts, Kilink is granting his sexuality room to bloom. One of the best scenes of Kilink in Istanbul is 26 minutes into the film, with a sex-bird in a bikini admiring herself in the mirror, which then suddenly reflects Kilink appearing behind a veil. This is the dialogue:

Woman: [screams out scared] „Aaaaah….Kilink!“
Kilink: [trademark laughter, calm & erotic voice] „Hahahahaha… yes, it’s Kilink. But don’t be scared, baby. I don’t harm women, especially not those that are of use for me. If you tell me where the formula is, I will satisfy you ways your professor can’t, baby [camera focuses on bikini slip of woman]. Come on baby, talk. Give me an answer…“
Woman: [gets a gun out of the drawer, points it at Kilink] „You cannot make me betray the professor.“
Kilink: „Hahahahaha… so you dare to oppose Kilink… hahahahaha“
Woman: „Don’t get any closer… I’ll fire“
[…]
Kilink: „Now tell me!“ [slaps woman to the ground]
Woman: „I don’t know where it is“
Kilink [put his skeleton hands around her throat]: „I have other ways to make you talk. With my lips…“ [kisses her, fade out.]

The sexy skeleton also kidnaps the professor’s daughter and tortures her in a dungeon, concluding „Your pretty face won’t be that pretty anymore“. He’s not doing that alone though, but together with his badass blonde partner- yes, Kilink has a girlfriend and loves his baby despite all of his criminal fornication. The Kilink film series reached the zenith of its bizarre Skeletor-goes-James-Bond eroticism in its third part, which is gloriously titled “Kilink – Strip and Kill”.

Kilink in Istanbul was directed by Yilmaz Atadeniz as first of the three Kilink movies he did in 1967, and one of ten Kilink films that were filmed in total that year. After quitting his engineering studies, he started working in a film studio and became the cult director of around 100 fantasy, action and adventure films, many of them starring the ‘Ugly King’ Yilmaz Güney. Atadeniz also was the mentor of Çetin İnanç , who reached worldwide B-Movie fame and immortalized his name with his trashy and fantastic “Turkish Star Wars”  Dünyayı Kurtaran Adam– The Man Who Saved the World (1982).

While there has always been a strong Turkish arthouse cinema, it was the popcorn cinema (Yesilçam) that generated an immense output between 1960 and 1980 with over 300 films completed each year. Turkish filmmakers, many of them autodidacts like Yilmaz Atadeniz, started producing films for a very hungry local audience under adventurous circumstances. Most of these films were cheap, but because of that sometimes also extremely creative productions. A lot was copied from local and foreign films, sampled, adapted, withered, simplified and stolen. The immense demand for films meant that the screenwriters quickly ran out of material, which eventually led to remakes of foreign films. This is how Turkish versions of Superman, Zorro, Tarzan, Dracula, James Bond, Flash Gordon, Rocky, Rambo, E.T., Strawdogs, or The Exorcist were born. (See Cem Kaya’s fantastic documentary Remake, Remix, Rip-Off (2014) to learn more about the Turkish Pop-Art Cinema)

Due to the lack of international copyright laws, it was possible to use any foreign material, such as foreign film music or special effects scenes from foreign films, completely legally. So in Turkey, contrary to the current global development, it was normal to draw and adopt from the cultural pool of the whole world. The result was often a unique and eclectic mix of different genres and content, sometimes bizarre, and most often psychedelic ‘remixes’ reminiscent of sampling in modern music. The ongoing Crazy Turks series on Vinyl Writers will introduce you to some of the cinematic gems of Turkey, starting with Kilink in Istanbul (1967), a delirious and psychedelic celluloid turmoil in black and white.

by Saliha Enzenauer

*Kilink İstanbul’da (1967) – Kilink in Istanbul
Kilink Uçan Adama Karşı (1967) – Kilink vs. Superman
Kilink Soy ve Öldür (1968) – Kilink: Strip and Kill
Sihibazlar Kralı Mandrake Kiling’in Peşinde (1967) – Mandrake, the King of Wizards
Kilink Frankenştayn ve Dr. No’ya Karşı (1967) – Kilink vs. Frankenstein and Dr. No
Kilink Caniler Kralı (1967) – Kilink: King of Villains
Kilink Ölüler Konuşmaz (1967) – The Dead Don’t Talk
Şaşkın Hafiye Kilinke Karşı (1967) – Kilink vs. The Confused Detective
Dişi Kilink (1967) – Female Kilink
Kiling Ölüm Saçıyor (1967) – Kilink is Spreading Death
Killing Kolsuz Kahramana Karşı (1974) – Kilink vs The Armless Hero