Tag Archives: james bond

[August 4, 1967] Bond Movie.  James Bond Movie (Casino Royale)


by Fiona Moore

When Albert R. Broccoli acquired the rights to the James Bond novels, the one exception was for Casino Royale, because in 1955, producer Gregory Ratoff had bought that particular story from Ian Fleming. Following Ratoff’s death in 1960, his widow sold the rights on to Charles K. Feldman of What’s New, Pussycat? fame, and he, together with Jerry Bresler, produced and released the movie this year.

Casino Royale is advertised as a “spoof” of the Bond franchise. However, having recently watched the picture courtesy of my local cinema (The Regal in Staines) I’d argue that this was a miscategorisation. It certainly has spoof elements, but it’s best seen as an example of the surreal absurdist comedy which has emerged as an entirely new subgenre in this decade.

I can’t adequately discuss this film without revealing plot details, so consider yourselves warned.

David Niven: the pure BondIn plot terms, Casino Royale is two almost entirely separate films, tenuously linked by a handful of scenes. The ‘first’ plot features David Niven as a retired, now celibate, British agent named James Bond, who is returned to service when all other agents are being killed off due to their fondness for sex. Bond recruits a new agent, Coop (Terence Cooper), and instigates an anti-sex training programme, thus allowing the movie to have its cake and eat it through sequences of Coop being sexually tempted but boldly resisting. Mata Bond (Bond’s daughter by Mata Hari) is recruited by her father and discovers a plot to auction SMERSH agent Le Chiffre’s collection of blackmail materials to various military forces from across the world, whose senior staff have been photographed in compromising situations.

At this point, the ‘second’ plot, starring Peter Sellers, kicks in, and it is this one which mines its source material most comprehensively. Sellers plays a professional gambler, recruited by the British government agent Vesper Lynd (Ursula Andress) to defeat Le Chiffre (Orson Welles) at baccarat at Casino Royale, using the alias James Bond. Although he succeeds in his mission, he subsequently falls into the clutches of Le Chiffre and is killed by Vesper Lynd during a surreal mind-torture sequence.

A strangely appropriate bad guyMeanwhile Mata and Bond travel to Casino Royale, where they discover the mastermind behind SMERSH, Doctor Noah, is in fact Jimmy Bond, Bond’s nephew (Woody Allen), who has become a supervillain through feelings of inadequacy. Noah is tricked into swallowing a pill that turns him into a walking atomic bomb and a free-for-all breaks out in the casino, with invasions by cowboys, Indians, seals, the Keystone Kops, a French legionnaire, and actor George Raft — the whole thing eventually blowing sky-high as the heroes fail to prevent Noah from exploding.

Mata Bond finds herself in a different movie altogetherCertain elements of the story are indeed more or less direct spoofs, either of the James Bond franchise itself or of the wider spy series craze. The film starts with a pre-credits sequence which is just a tiny scene of Bond meeting a French agent in a pissoir, simultaneously setting up and destroying expectations of a James Bond-style pre-credits action sequence. Mata Bond’s trip to Germany places her within a stage set straight out of The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari, in a nod to the huge debt the spy film genre owes to Expressionist artform. The supporting cast includes people who’ve either appeared in Bond movies or the many independent television spy series that have cashed in on the Bond craze, notably Ursula Andress but also Vladek Sheybal and promising young character actor Burt Kwouk. As in many spy series, doubles and duplicates turn up frequently. The bizarre conceit of having all the agents, male, female, and, by the end of the adventure, animals, named James Bond/007, can be construed as a sly comment on the fact more than one actor has played Bond, or even a metatextual joke about the proliferation of code-names and numbers in such series. And, of course, the villain is motivated by a sense of personal and sexual inadequacy—what spy series villain isn’t?

A comment on The Beatles movies?However, both plots reach their highest, as well as their lowest, moments when they embrace the surreal comedy ethos. Arguably this started with The Goon Show, of which Sellers was a key member, before really finding its home with audiences in the Sixties. Current examples of this genre include What’s New, Pussycat?, Round The Horne, the Dadaist stylings of the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band and At Last the 1948 Show. The trend is gaining strength: reportedly Paul McCartney is also a fan and is keen to adopt fantastical elements into Beatles films. So it’s not surprising, given the involvement of Sellers and Feldman, that Casino Royale would be taken in such a direction.

Peter Sellers getting self-indulgentThe picture’s surreal comedy doesn’t always work. For instance, there’s an annoyingly self-indulgent sequence which seems just an excuse for Sellers to dress up as historical characters. Others are better: Niven’s Bond, for instance, lives on an estate guarded by a pride of lions (“I did not come here to be devoured by symbols of monarchy!” protests the Soviet head of espionage), and the idea James Bond and Mata Hari had a relationship is a somehow appropriate melding of the archetypes of the male and female spy. Mata Bond stops the auction of Le Chiffre’s compromising photos by switching the projector to a war film: as if triggered, the British, American, Chinese and Russian representatives instantly all start fighting each other, in a comment on the Cold War worthy of Doctor Strangelove.

Orson Welles' magic tricks take on a political subtext.Furthermore, the surrealist aspect transforms some of the problems and conflicts that arose during its production, from potential flaws to part of an overarching psychedelic atmosphere. Orson Welles had apparently insisted on performing magic tricks on camera, but these become both a send-up of the contrived “eccentricities” of spy-series villains and a deeper comment on illusion and artifice. The title sequence, which starts out as a simple riff on Bond films’ animated credits, becomes increasingly disconcerting, the imagery including walls of eyes staring pitilessly out at the viewer, with connotations of surveillance and voyeurism.

The title sequence just gets weirder from hereAt the climax, the presence of multiple James Bonds escalates into a scenario where literally everyone becomes the titular hero; and this, together with the recurrence of doubles and duplicates, poses serious questions about how we construct our identity in modern society. At the end, everyone dies, going to Heaven or Hell, the accompanying random images and cheery music underscoring that there can be no guaranteed rescue or happy-ever-after in the atomic age.

Perhaps the ethos of the movie is best summarised by Bacharach’s blockbusting theme song, which becomes more and more like a giddy stream-of-consciousness riff on spy picture clichés as it goes along (“The formula is safe with old 007, he’s got a redhead in his arms… they’ve got us on the run, with guns and knives, we’re fighting for our lives… have no fear, Bond is here!”). The viewer is led to acknowledge the vapidity of spy film clichés, but also to see them transmuted into something that’s less easy to define. Guided by the familiar phrases, one is tempted to search for meaning, but at the end of it, the meaning is simply what the viewer wants to make of it. Three and a half stars.





[June 24, 1967] Oh no, not again!  (The James Bond movie, You Only Live Twice)

Join us today, June 25, at 11:45 AM Pacific (2:45 Eastern) to see the very first, round-the-world broadcast: "Our World", featuring the premiere performance of the Beatles song, "All You Need is Love" (and a whole lot more!)




by Lorelei Marcus

My father and I took a trip to downtown Escondido last Friday to stroll and see the sights. Our first destination was the public library, a pleasant establishment my family visits often. That day, however, we were there for more than just books.


The Escondido Public Library

You see, Escondido is an old town for California, dating back to the previous century. While the sleek Main Street with its boutiques and shops is grand and all, father and I, travelers that we are, were out to discover some history. We made our way to the back corner of the library, full of dusty filing cabinets and drawers, and began rummaging through stores of old maps, newspaper clippings, and photographs in search of adventure. Soon after a kindly librarian came up to us and explained that there was a historical district just down the street. With a sheepish 'thank you' and 'farewell', we left to pursue the lead.

The expedition was a success. We saw a number of buildings from the twenties and before. The nearly Victorian architectures contrasted interestingly with some of the newer sites, including a very modern house of worship built just two years ago.


Escondido School District office building


In front of the Christian Science church


The brand new Methodist church


The El Plantio plant store!


Among the plants.


Lasagna break!


Modern works of art

The trip made me appreciate a little more the wonderful beauty of old things, and the amazing persistence of art, as we continue to remember and admire things long after their creation.

Fool me Thrice…

This week I watched the newest Bond film, You Only Live Twice , at its premiere. I can only hope that the philosophy of art preservation and adulation does not apply to this film in years to come.

I didn't have high hopes for the movie, particularly after the disaster that was Goldfinger (and previously, From Russia with Love). Yet with the setting being Japan, and our last trip several years behind us, the propect was too good to refuse.

And now there are two hours of my life that I'll never get back.

I will concede You Only Live Twice is the best of the Bond films (at least the ones I've seen), and I mean no disrespect to Roald Dahl who adapted the screenplay. However, the story takes some real squinting to hang together properly, and occasionally the only solution is to close your eyes altogether. Allow me to explain:


And pay attention.

Imagine it's 1966, the midst of the Cold War, and your goal is to get Russia and America to go to war with each other. You have a large budget and a small army of expendable workers. What are a few ways you might get the two superpowers to turn things hot? Do you have an idea in your head? Maybe two or three? Alright, now I'll tell you how Spectre decided to do it.

Step one: Design and construct a spacecraft capable of upright takeoff and landing (something which no nation in the world has ever managed), and large enough to contain another spacecraft.


It goes up and down. Spectre would make more selling this design to the highest bidder.

Step two: Construct an underground facility/launchpad to house said spacecraft.


Complete with Disneyland monorial.

Step three: Launch the spacecraft during American and Russian space shots, align the craft with other ships in orbit, and use the Spectre ship to retrieve American or Russian crafts in overly dramatic fashion.


Reusing Cronkite's Gemini simulation set, apparently.

Step four: Keep the astronauts as prisoners, not to interrogate or hold for ransom, or anything really. Maybe they make nice pets?


New pets for Spectre.


Spectre's current pet.

Step five: America and Russia blame each other for the stolen spaceships and go to war.


At a special session of the Security Council, both the U.S. and U.S.S.R. blame the U.K. for its lousy film franchise.

How simple! And elegant! And economically efficient! I can't think of a single thing that could go wrong!

I think I've made my point here, so let's move on.

Plots in the Hole

Spectre, with the priority of theatrics over efficiency, go through with their evil plan. MI6 tracks that the shots are coming from Japan and send their 'best man' for the job, James Bond himself. On his arrival, Bond has a run in with the charming Aki (Akiko Wakabayashi), who turns out to be the assistant of Tiger Tanaka (Tetsuro Tamba), leader of Japan's spy organization. One thing this movie does do right is having an ensemble of likable characters. James Bond is an insufferable character as it is, and Sean Connery is particularly weak in the role. The charisma of his co-stars alone was what kept me invested through most of the movie.


Wakabayashi and Tamba try once more to explain the script to Connery.

Of course Aki is killed off halfway through, just to make sure my opinion of the film doesn't get too high. She is replaced by a pretty girl from a fishing village who poses as James Bond's wife. Her special skills include having the personality of a cardboard sheet, and being able to hike an entire mountain in a bikini.


Talent!

But when Bond isn't throwing himself at anything with breasts and legs, he's taking credit for other people's work in saving the world. After he infiltrates Spectre's super secret volcano base, Bond gets captured trying to pose as one of their astronauts. Luckily, his friend Tiger shows up with an army of one hundred ninjas to rescue him and take Spectre down.


Ninjas!

An intense battle ensues, and Bond manages to press the self-destruct button for the Spectre spacecraft just in the nick of time. (That is, when it's right next to the Gemini spaceship in orbit. I'm sure that explosion will have no repercussions.) The day is saved, Spectre's plan foiled, etc., etc. Hooray.


"Houston! Something just hit us in the….[crackle]"

I can only imagine the masterpiece this could have been if it weren't a James Bond movie. The cinematography and special effects were both phenomenally gorgeous. The music was good, the setting was fun (and to some degree familiar), and most of the acting was good, too. For the first half I actually felt like I was watching a fairly interesting spy flick, despite its star.


The scenery didn't hurt, either.

But then it stumbled and fell into the pitfalls of the franchise. So long as Bond remains a womanizer whom every pretty girl falls for (despite his incompetence and frankly, ugliness); so long as death has no consequence and people are killed for cheap drama left and right; so long as the villains and their plots make no sense whatsoever and should fall apart the second they're set in motion; so long as all of these things remain staples of the James Bond tradition, I doubt I will ever appreciate a James Bond movie.

But perhaps just as the bright colors on the sophisticated Escondido houses were once seen as gaudy, this film will rise from the ashes as a historical classic for the ages. Or maybe it's just schlock. Only time will tell.

Out of all the Bond movies, three stars. Out of all the media I've ever seen, two stars, one for Tiger and one for Aki.





[January 24, 1966] The Sincerest Form Of Espionage (Agent for H.A.R.M., Our Man Flint, and Other Bond Imitations)


by Victoria Silverwolf

My Word Is My Bond

The late Ian Fleming certainly didn't invent spy fiction, but he started an explosive interest in the genre with the publication of his 1953 novel Casino Royale.


And he designed the cover art, too.

Introducing British secret agent James Bond, also known as 007, the book was followed by eleven more novels, as well as the story collection For Your Eyes Only.

Spies On The Screen

Of course, the current craze for all things Bond-related didn't really get started until the release of the film adaptation of Dr. No, making an international superstar of Scottish actor Sean Connery in the role of Bond. Since then, we've seen movie versions of From Russia With Love, Goldfinger, and Thunderball. It seems certain that there will be more to come, at least until they run out of Fleming titles.

It's no surprise to find out that other filmmakers around the world have jumped on the bandwagon. Many of their productions, made in Europe, have yet to appear in the USA, so are beyond this discussion. (I presume that some will eventually show up, in heavily edited and badly dubbed versions, on American television.) Let me mention, at random, a few that have appeared in Yankee movie theaters.

Hot Enough For June stars Dirk Bogarde as an ordinary fellow looking for a job who gets mixed up in international intrigue because he happens to speak Czech. Known as Agent 8 3/4 on this side of the pond, just in case we ignorant Americans didn't realize it was a spy movie, it offers both action and fish-out-of-water comedy, in the form of the reluctant secret agent.


As you can tell if you've seen the trailer, it also offers Sylva Koscina's legs.

A similar combination of laughs and thrills appears in the French film That Man from Rio (L'Homme de Rio), one of the few foreign language Bond imitations to reach English-speaking audiences.


The clever screenplay was nominated for an Academy Award. You can enjoy watching the trailer at your local art cinema house, if you don't mind subtitles.

We go from semi-comic adventures to out-and-out farce with Carry On Spying, one of the many films in the long-running Carry On series of lowbrow British comedies. Given that the evil organization in this movie is called STENCH, you realize that this isn't exactly subtle wit.


The oddest thing I found out when I saw the trailer is that it's in black-and-white. The genre screams for bright, bold colors.

The United Kingdom doesn't have a monopoly on silly spy spoofs. The great Vincent Price has the title role in the American comedy Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine. It's so goofy that it reminds me of the beach movies to which I am addicted. And the Supremes sing the groovy title song!


Catch the trailer to see Price parody his role in The Pit and the Pendulum.

There are other followers of the Bond formula that are more dramatic. Despite a few sly references to you-know-who, Licensed to Kill is mostly a serious imitation of the original.


It was re-edited and given a nutty new title for American audiences. They also added a title song performed by Sammy Davis, Jr.

Idiot Box Intelligence Agents

Secret agents also populate our living rooms on the small screen. One of the most popular television versions of the espionage game comes in the form of The Man From U.N.C.L.E., starring Robert Vaughn as the improbably named operative Napoleon Solo and David McCallum as his Russian partner Ilya Kuryakin. Together, they fight each week against the sinister organization THRUSH.


U.N.C.L.E. stands for the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement. THRUSH doesn't stand for anything but evil, as far as I know.

There's also the relatively new series I Spy, with a pair of secret agents pretending to be a semi-pro tennis player and his trainer. The show manages to be both serious and comic, and benefits from the playful dialogue between the two leads.


Comedian Bill Cosby as Alexander Scott and Robert Culp as Kelly Robinson.

Also recently arriving is a series that combines the popular Western genre with the gadgets and evil megalomaniacs of spy fiction. The Wild Wild West features two secret agents working for President Ulysses S. Grant. Their adventures often involve bizarre science fiction technology, far beyond what you would expect in the Nineteenth Century.


Ross Martin as Artemus Gordon, Master of Disguise, and Robert Conrad as James West, the Bond of the Old West.

While I was working on this article, the Noble Editor informed me that the whodunit series Burke's Law, some episodes of which were written by Harlan Ellison, has changed its name to Amos Burke, Secret Agent. The millionaire playboy police captain is now a millionaire playboy spy.


The Noble Editor also informs me that it's not very good.

Naturally, we have a situation comedy based on spy stuff. Get Smart pits the good guys of CONTROL against the bad guys of KAOS (who obviously don't spell very well.)


Don Adams as Maxwell Smart, Agent 86, and Barbara Feldon as the otherwise nameless Agent 99.

The Young Traveler has already waxed poetic over the British import Danger Man (known as Secret Agent in the USA, because we have to have everything spelled out for us), so I won't go into any detail.


Patrick McGoohan as John Drake. In some ways, he's the antithesis of James Bond.

I've heard good things about another TV show from the UK, but it hasn't reached these shores yet. I'm talking about The Avengers, a tongue-in-cheek adventure series starring another Patrick, this one surnamed Macnee. It started broadcasting in 1961, before the first James Bond movie was released.


Patrick Macnee as John Steed and Honor Blackman as Cathy Gale. Blackman left the series to play a character with an unusual name in Goldfinger.

I understand that the American Broadcasting Company has purchased the rights to the series, and will begin showing it in the USA in a couple of months.


Wearing Steed's bowler is his new partner, Emma Peel, portrayed by Diana Rigg.

Mad About Spies

I would be remiss in my duties if I didn't mention a series of cartoons appearing in Mad magazine, of which I am a regular reader. Cuban expatriate Antonio Prohias writes and draws Spy vs Spy, which shows a Black Spy and a White Spy taking turns destroying each other. Once in a while, the female Gray Spy shows up and gets the better of both of them. This femme fatale is drawn in a more-or-less realistic fashion, unlike the pair of cone-faced male spies.


The feature changes its name to Spy vs Spy vs Spy when she arrives. For those of you who don't read Morse code, the message says By Prohias.

Double-Oh Double Feature

Speaking of Spy vs Spy, a pair of would-be Bonds arrived in American theaters this month, ready to take on each other at the box office. Who will prevail? Let's take a look at the earlier arrival first.

In H.A.R.M.'s Way


The trailer emphasizes Danger! rather than Women!

We begin with a couple of guys running through a tunnel. A soldier chases them, but gets shot down by one of them. The two reach safety, they think, but the man they meet, who was supposed to help them cross the Iron Curtain, betrays them. He shoots one of them with a funny-looking gun that makes a kind of a hiss when it fires. We'll find out that this thing is a spore gun, and it turns people into bubbling green fungus.


Who ordered an extra large spinach and pepperoni pizza?

The other guy overpowers the traitor and gets away. It turns out that this is a defecting scientist, who apparently created the deadly spore and who is working on a cure for it.


Carl Esmond as Spore Guy.

After the semi-abstract title sequence, which seems to be mandatory for this kind of thing, we get to meet our hero, Adam Chance, Agent for H.A.R.M., played by Mark Richman. In proper Bond style, he's a real ladies' man. He's got a date with his boss's secretary, but has to break it to take on a new assignment.


She's a very minor character, and I wasn't even going to mention her, but I wanted you to see her truly amazing two-tone beehive hairdo.

He also gets some smooching from a female agent he's training in judo and marksmanship. Although she's no amateur when it comes to martial arts, he overcomes her, because he's all manly and stuff.


Romance, Adam Chance style.

Adam goes to visit the scientist in his oceanside home. Also present is his niece, whom he hasn't seen in twenty years. We find out right away that she's really an imposter, working for the Commies. Attention girlwatchers: She spends almost the entire movie in a skimpy bikini. (By the way, our hero often wears a green turtleneck with a pale yellow sweater. Somehow that doesn't seem as elegant as Bond's tuxedo.)


Barbara Bouchet, as the phony niece, reacts to Adam's choice of attire.

It seems that the Bad Guys plan to spray the spores over American crops, so those rascally capitalists will turn into slimy green goop. They've got their headquarters in a little house just over the border in Mexico. They also have only about four or five guys, and one small plane, so I assume they're on a budget.


"Tell me the truth, boss; do I look more like Stevie Wonder or Johnny Mathis?"

Well, there's no need to go over the rest of the slow-moving plot. There's a lot of running back and forth between the beach house and the Bad Guys' hacienda. There are some sub-Bond gadgets. (Adam has a tape recorder disguised in an electric shaver. During a conversation with the scientist, he has to casually ask if he minds if he shaves while they talk.) Our hero gets a flat tire, so he steals a motorcycle. Don't try that the next time you get a flat.

Oh, you'd like to know what H.A.R.M. stands for?  The movie reveals this in a shot that lasts a fraction of a second, above a sort of computer map gizmo that keeps track of where the agents are located.  Are you ready?

Human Aetiological Relations Machine.

Don't ask me what that means, or why this American organization uses the British spelling.

Originally an unsold pilot for a TV series, this thing was released to an unsuspecting public as a feature film. The low budget and cramped sets of a television show are visible in every scene. The only way to enjoy it, I think, is to get together with some friends and make fun of it.

The Lighter Side of Espionage


Watch the trailer and you'll understand my lighter joke.

Next to arrive on the silver screens of America was Our Man Flint, with James Coburn playing the title role. We start with scenes (stock footage, with maybe some stuff stolen from other movies) of disasters all over the world. For a moment I thought I was watching Crack in the World again.

Cut to the headquarters of some kind of international organization. Although an establishing shot tells us we're in Washington, D.C., there are folks of different nationalities standing around. The boss is played by Lee J. Cobb. We'll find out later that the organization is known as Zonal Organization World Intelligence Espionage — Z.O.W.I.E.!


On the phone with the President of the United States. This telephone has its own special ring.

Desperate to defeat the mysterious villains behind these events, all the assembled representatives of world governments write down their desired qualifications for the perfect agent. The computer spits out only one name: Derek Flint. Cobb has to call on Flint to convince him to come out of retirement to save the world.

Flint lives in this really cool place, full of all kinds of gadgets. He can change the paintings and statues instantly, with one push of a button. He's got private practice areas for martial arts, fencing, and so forth.


Just part of a routine day for Derek Flint.

He also lives with four women, each of a different nationality, who apparently combine the characteristics of servants — barber, valet, etc. — and girlfriends.


Flint bids a temporary farewell to the ladies

Flint prepares himself for his assignment by stopping his heart for a couple of hours, a talent that will come in handy later. This requires him to maintain what seems to be a rather uncomfortable position.


Coburn is really doing this, without special effects.

After refusing to accept the usual spy gadgets, because he has his own — remember the lighter? — he immediately dispatches a couple of Bad Guys disguised as military guards.


He knows they're phonies because they're wearing ribbons for the Battle of the Bulge, which don't exist. Silly Bad Guys.

The plot gets really complicated from this point, so let me just outline it a bit. Our movie's Bad Girl, played by Israeli beauty Gina Golan, tries to kill Flint by shooting a poison dart at him with the strings of a harp.


Our femme fatale. How much do you want to bet that she falls into our hero's arms?

Traces of the ingredients for Marseilles-style bouillabaisse on the dart lead him to the French port city. Then, after exchanging information with agent 0008 while they have a fake fight, he learns that an organization known as GALAXY is behind the disasters. Golan tries to blow him up with a bomb in a jar of cold cream.

The cold cream leads him to Rome, where he encounters Golan again. Complications ensue when his four girlfriends are kidnapped. It all leads up to the final battle at GALAXY headquarters, situated on a volcanic island.


The Bad Guys have great interior decorators.

It seems that three Mad Scientists want to create a world without war and want, using the disasters they create to blackmail the world into accepting their benign dictatorship. They also use mind control to transform Flint's ladies, and a bunch of other women, into Pleasure Units, to serve the needs of their male minions.

This takes the form of entertaining them in fantasy rooms, where they play the roles of go-go dancers, maidservants of ancient times, and so forth. The most amusing of these is the room where they park in cars with the men in a simulated drive-in theater and smooch on them.

Will Flint defeat GALAXY and get his four girlfriends back? Are you kidding me?


Make that five girlfriends.

Our Man Flint is a very amusing movie. The main source of humor is the fact that Flint is incredibly competent at everything from emergency surgery to cliff diving. Coburn plays the role with just the right sense of cool assurance.

Unlike the poverty-stricken Agent for H.A.R.M., this film obviously has a real budget. The sets are lavish, and the special effects are pretty good, although you can tell that some things are just models. The action sequences are done with excellent stunt work. The movie seems to be making money, and I wouldn't be surprised if there's a sequel in the works.

I'm sure there will be countless more books, movies, television series, comic books, and whatnot inspired by the spy fad. Who knows where a secret agent will show up next?


Maybe in board games. That doesn't look a whole lot like Sean Connery, by the way.




[December 26, 1965] Murders per Minute (James Bond in Thunderball)


by Victoria Lucas

Bring Earplugs

It was a date. This guy wanted someone to go with him to a Panavision premiere of the latest Bond movie. I should not have complained so much; I should have been grateful that he paid for the movie. But every time the music came back on it singed my eardrums. I had to stick my fingers in my ears since I had not thought to bring earplugs. Next time–if I ever see another Bond film, which I hope I won't have to–I'll bring earplugs.

Shaken, Not Stirred

I know, I know, Sean Connery. He has made his name in these Bond movies. Can't say I understand why. I don't find him at all attractive, and his character's behavior toward women is disgusting. Yes, he rescues some, but he is perfectly capable of rape. In one scene in the movie he threatens a woman with exposure of a secret and exacts his blackmail in a steam room in which all you can see is her hands against the steamy glass. Frankly, I have difficulty telling the women apart in the film–they are all willowy, small, and mostly helpless.

Sharks Win

…although one of the murders (of which there are probably one per minute if you average the whole movie and count the battle at the end) is committed by the woman with whom he is rescued by a military airplane, to revenge her brother's death. Oh, good. Murder leads to murder. It should be said that there is one suicide. And is it murder if a shark eats someone? (I would say not for the shark.)


[The Villain's Villa in the Bahamas–Not Really]

Blood in the Water

I read somewhere that nearly a third of this movie was filmed underwater. The shark mentioned above? It was supposed to be at the estate shown above, but there was a real shark pool kept for filming, and Connery is said to have narrowly escaped being eaten by a shark himself.

Plot and Theme

It is a movie filled with the most murderous, discourteous, illegal, nonsensical, trivially violent and nasty behaviors that I've ever seen before in one place. Car chases, explosions, myriad guns. Not my thing. These movies are probably a young teenage boy's dream: lots of sexy women, fast cars, and fighting (successfully). As for plot, here it is: a Russian (global) villainous group steals 2 atom bombs and threatens the US & UK with them for ransom. Apparently "Thunderball" is the name of a UK national lottery, and Bond "won the lottery" when he discovered the location of the bombs and helped the military prevent their use. Ah, the good governments triumph yet again!


[Sean Connery with his rocket pack]

Summary and Fish

I'm sorry to tell you that this is a very violent film, and between the sexual assaults (by Bond) and torture (by the villain), the puerile remarks from Bond that are supposed to be funny, and the number of murders per minute (at least one), oh! and the music and sounds of a parade that were deafening as well, I cannot recommend this movie. On a scale of 10? I'd give it a 3. (There are some lovely fish and other animals in some of the underwater scenes.)


[Pretty, but I could also just watch Flipper.]






[June 14, 1965] Our Best Man (the Young Traveler's favorite secret agent)


by Lorelei Marcus

Spy King

A thrilling trend has swept its way across the screen recently. Suddenly everyone is keen on viewing the exhilarating day to day of the best secret agents film and television have to offer. They are dapper, cunning, and they challenge the world's darkest foes with masterful plans and interesting gadgets.

Yet among this sea of shadow-dwelling men there is a spy who stands above the rest as the best secret agent of all time. He's British, attracts women like a magnet, and works for a morally ambiguous organization to bring justice to the world.

I'm of course talking about John Drake.

Secret Agent, or Danger Man as it is called in its original airing in Britain, is the best fictional depiction of special intelligence on television. The sophisticated writing and wonderful performance from Patrick McGoohan has earned the show my weekly attention, as it should yours.

Now some may protest at the boldness of my claim. After all, how can a show almost no one in the States has ever heard of reign champion in the crowded secret agent genre? Especially with opponents such as The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and of course, the James Bond movies. Except, it becomes quite obvious when broken down that Secret Agent contains every possible desired aspect of the secret agent genre and excels where its rivals are lacking.

Exhibit 1: Stakes

Part of the spy appeal is the larger-than-life nature of their profession. Secret agents are frequently thrown into scenarios where their actions can change the face of the modern world. Secret Agent not only captures this drama, but on a level of such elegance and nuance that even the smallest of crises has you on the edge of your seat. John Drake is frequently sent to foreign countries to interfere or investigate governmental affairs; however no two jobs are ever alike. Sometimes he is stuck in the middle of a rebellion. Other times he's hunting down traitorous agents.

No matter the mission, John Drake always executes his work with a level of care, intelligence, and competence equalled by no other hero on television. The diversity and complexity of conflicts grounds the show in a realism akin to our own world. Not to mention the portrayal of other ethnicities and countries is done with unparalleled accuracy and respect. Every episode is exhilarating, mysterious, and well written, and there is yet to be one I didn't like.

To reinforce Secret Agent's excellence I'll compare it to the biggest secret agent film of the season: Goldfinger.

I would summarize the movie's plot, but to be frank it's been a few months and there wasn't much of one to begin with. Goldfinger was less a spy movie and more James Bond failing over and over and then being saved by the more competent people around him.


"I'll be over there, bailing you out…as usual."

Then there's Goldfinger's villain. While John Drake's foes are always complex and rarely monomaniacally evil, the titular villain, Goldfinger, throws subtlety out the window. Now, there's nothing wrong with the booming, big bad villain, but they also have to be cunning to properly challenge the hero. Except Auric Goldfinger's plans make no sense and reach a level of convolution so extreme that the movie must take 15 minutes to explain them to us.


Don't tell your evil plan! James Bond could be hiding under your little Fort Knox!

Sure there are the high-stakes threats of mass genocide and collapse of world economy, but they feel so large that that they are bound to backfire. James Bond has to win because otherwise the whole canonical universe would become unusable. Not that Bond doesn't try everything in his power to screw it up. Even after hearing Goldfinger's entire secret plan, he only barely manages to save the day by convincing Goldfinger's right hand woman to do it for him.


"Oh don't look at me. She's the one who'll be doing all the work."

The differences in quality are so vast that the two almost shouldn't be compared. The Bond Films are idiotic, nonsensical drivel in comparison to the grounded masterpiece that is Secret Agent. However for some reason James Bond is the much more popular and well-known franchise. Perhaps it's the higher budget and flashy special-effects, even though Secret Agent is often better at those, too.

Exhibit 2: Gadgets

All spies have to use fancy tools to save the world — because it's really cool to watch. Who doesn't get excitement from the technologies that make it possible to listen to secret conversations or track down criminals? Though James Bond does get some arguably neat secret weapons and tech, he always manages to lose them or destroy them in some bumbling foolish manner. Also, Bond's inventions are often beyond the realm our modern world, and require a suspension of disbelief.

John Drake instead often uses tools actual spies use such as bugs and microdots. That doesn't mean they aren't fun. The most fascinating part of each episode is witnessing Drake's plans unfold, and how he uses his technological tools is simply a part of that entertaining process. Realism does not inhibit creativity.

Beyond their use, the neat factor of these gadgets comes in how Drake transports them. In one episode, rather than an impossibly small phone in his shoe, Drake must obtain a radio while undercover by intercepting a package of meat that has the transmitter hidden inside. My personal favorite so far is a blowgun in the shape of the fishing rod that shoots listening bugs. The cleverness of the show never ceases to amaze me.

Exhibit 3: Charisma

Simply put, a secret agent has to be likable. Without charm, an agent would be unable to assume alternate identities convincingly– and also not be fun to watch. James Bond does not have the redeeming qualities needed to be a good agent: he is actively bad at his job. Morevoer, he cares more about dating than the fate of the world; in one grotesque scene in Goldfinger he actively forces himself onto a woman for no reason but selfishness.

Once again, the comparison is stark: John Drake is the complete opposite. He is the best at what he does, and because of that he never loses, but it's never a given. It's always his own wit that gets him out of close shaves and tough jobs. He also has an incredibly strong moral compass, always trying to do the right thing.


John Drake, equally at home as the suave man of society and a meek music aficionado.

This makes for incredibly interesting tension with MI9, the organization he works for, because they sometimes send him on missions that aren't necessarily moral. The internal conflict of Drake doing his work because he's the best at it, but sometimes having to do "wrong" things in that line of work creates wonderful character drama.


Drake has no qualms about telling off his bosses. But he does the job anyway.

Exhibit 4: Partners

Secret Agent consistently has some of the best portrayals of female characters on all of television. Many women fall for John Drake due to his innate and thorough confidence, and yet not once does he ever make a move. He is incredibly respectful and human in his treatment of women, as equals rather than objects for physical pleasure. And though many women are attracted to Drake, that does not lessen them as characters. The wealth of interesting and strong female characters on this show is unparalleled in any other broadcast I've ever seen.

In fact, Secret Agent goes out of its way to feature women, agents and otherwise, who are as talented and and resourceful as Drake. There are often several in an episode. Beyond that, the globetrotting Danger Man frequently works with locally based allies. Whether Western European or Eastern, South Asian or African, Caribbean or Middle Eastern, Drake's counterparts are played as competent professionals, and (usually) by actors of the appropriate background (with the occasional, unfortunate example of "brown/black/yellow face").

It's truly both astounding and refreshing to see such wonderful representation, and the willingness to let Drake share the limelight with other strong characters makes each episode almost an ensemble production.

Q.E.D.

It is, thus, irrefutable that Secret Agent is the best spy show ever to be shown on a screen — of any size. It is perfection, with sublime writing, engaging acting, fascinating characters, realism, and a progressiveness desperately needed but rarely seen anywhere else. It is currently midway through its second season in America, and there will hopefully be a third in Britain at the end of summer. Whichever side of the Pond you live on, please make sure to catch Secret Agent. You won't want to miss it.

This is the Young Traveler, signing off.



[Come join us at Portal 55, Galactic Journey's real-time lounge! You can dispute the Young Traveler's presentation. You'll be wrong, of course…]




[September 3, 1963] An unspoken Bond (Ian Fleming's On Her Majesty’s Secret Service)


By Ashley R. Pollard

Last month I talked about spies. Spies that were cool, and those who betrayed their country. With the Profumo affair still rattling around the news, I opined that spies and spying would sweep into the public consciousness. Scandals have a habit of doing that.

So, please excuse me, while I take the time to talk about another spy-centric non-SF book for this month's episode on Galactic Journey.

With the success of last year's film adaptation of Ian Fleming's Dr. No., I continue to predict that the next James Bond film, From Russia With Love, which is coming this October, will further raise the public's interest in the heady delights of techno-thrillers featuring spies. So far all I’ve seen are a couple of stills from the set, so it’s hard to make any judgment on the adaptation of the story by the filmmakers.

But until the film arrives on the big screen we have a new Bond novel to sate our appetites.

On Her Majesty’s Secret Service is the tenth James Bond novel, a sequel to the previous novel (once removed), Thunderball. I was lucky to get hold of a copy of OHMSS when it came out at the beginning of April, because both the first and second print runs, totaling over 60,000 copies, sold out in the first month. This should give readers some insight into how popular James Bond has become in Britain.

Since OHMSS is a sequel to Thunderball, a quick reprise of the former novel's plot is in order.

Thunderball centred on the theft of two atomic bombs stolen by a shadowy organization called SPECTRE: SPecial Executive for Counterintelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion.  SPECTRE is the replacement for SMERSH, MI-6's nemesis organization that appears in the earlier novels. These villains were originally loosely based on the real life Soviet counterintelligence organization SMERSH.

The name is a Russian portmanteau, created by Stalin from the words SMERt and SHpionam. Translated it means "Death to Spies."

Why the change? My understanding is that the film producers and Fleming decided to make the villains apolitical. In an interview Fleming said that he wanted to show that the cold war had thawed and changed the name to reflect this.

This criminal organization is led by the nefarious villain Ernst Stavro Blofeld, who returns in OHMSS to cause our hero more pain and suffering. This time round Fleming fleshes out his hero with some fascinating revelations about Bond's character. For example, he discloses that Bond visits the grave of Vesper Lynd every year.  Lynd was a character that appeared in Fleming's first James Bond novel, Casino Royale, where she kills herself rather than betray Bond.

James Bond's relationship with women also breaks new ground, but I don't want to spoil the plot by giving anything away. All I'll say is that OHMSS deals with grief and loss. And most affecting it is too.

As is usual in an Ian Fleming novel, real places are used to add verisimilitude to the narrative, though some of the names are changed. In this case, the description of Piz Gloria makes clear that it is based on the Nazi German eugenic research facility Schloss Mittersill.

Its inclusion as a setting for the plot therefore adds a certain emotional darkness to the story. It's a chilling foreshadowing of the reveal about the purpose of the centre. We later discover that the villain is brainwashing young women he's treating for food allergies. Blofield's plan is to send them home to Britain where they will release a bioweapon to destroy our crops.

Cue loud cackling.

OK. That was probably a tad unfair of me, but the plan strained my credulity to its limits. James Bond stories are not subtle. However, OHMSS is a lot of fun to read. Once I started I had to keep turning the pages to find out what happened next. OHMSS demonstrates Fleming's increasingly assured touch and storytelling confidence.

I will freely admit that the SF trappings are not strongly in evidence in this novel. However, the machinations of the plot are driven by technological developments driven by science. Had this novel been written before the war, it would have been derided for its fanciful SF trappings. Ideas that SF fans take as a given, like rockets, robots, and ray-guns, are now taken for granted.

All right, perhaps not ray-guns, but the terms that used to mark out the genre are now increasingly appearing in everyday usage. In a few short years, SF ideas have moved from the pages of the Pulps and post-war magazines into everyday life. Therefore, in the wake of the success of Ian Fleming's "Bond", what I predict we will see is more techno-thrillers, spy stories with futuristic trappings.

After all, why should Ian Fleming have all the fun?


The Jamaica home where Fleming wrote OHMSS during the filming of Dr. No

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[Oct. 20, 1962] Yes, please! (The first James Bond movie, Dr. No)

[if you’re new to the Journey, read this to see what we’re all about!]


By Ashley R. Pollard

With the days drawing in, marking the beginning of Autumn, and the evenings becoming longer, I know I look forward to going to the cinema more.  I was very fortunate to be able to get a ticket to the premier of the first James Bond film, Dr. No, which was shown at the London Pavilion, and therefore I saw it three days before its general release to the rest of the country.

There was quite a buzz surrounding this film, but before I go into my piece let me give you some context to the books behind the movie: Ian Fleming's James Bond series.

It may be confusing to some Fleming fans to see Dr. No presented as the first James Bond film, because the title and plot are from the sixth book.  So six is number one, but chronologically the first James Bond novel was Casino Royale, which came out in 1953.  I understand that Casino Royale was adapted as an episode of an American television called Climax! (which sounds rather racy to my ears) and that the rights to the name of the first James Bond book are therefore tied up.

Anyway, in Britain, Ian Fleming's books have always sold well, and Fleming may rightfully be described as the inventor of the Cold War spy thriller genre, which while set in the mundane world has themes that require elements of science and technology for the plots to work.

Up to now Fleming hasn't taken American by storm, but I think that will change when Dr. No is released in America next year.  It will not probably hurt that President John F. Kennedy has been quoted as saying that Fleming's fifth James Bond novel, From Russia, with Love, was one of his top ten all time favourite books.

Given that the title of the next James Bond movie is From Russia, with Love, I fully expect American audiences to take to reading James Bond as readers over here have.  Last year, the ninth book in the series, Thunderball, featuring the capture of a NATO fighter, sold out of its initial print run of 50,938 hardbacks and has had to be reprinted to meet demand.  Reviews have said it is the best since Diamonds Are Forever, the fourth book in the James Bond series.

To say Ian Fleming is prolific is I think over-egging it a bit, but he can certainly write, and his writing improves with each book.  I have watched Fleming adding depth and character, to what would otherwise be a cipher who only served the whims of the author.  Fleming has made James Bond more than that.  He's the man every man aspires to be, and the bad boy that every woman wants to be chased by.

And here I am, and I haven't even started to tell you all how wonderful Dr. No is.  A caveat though, it's not a direct translation of the novel to film.  For a start it has a scene near the very beginning that introduces our titular hero with the quote, "My name is Bond, James Bond," which I'm pretty sure is lifted wholesale from Casino Royale.  Other small changes have been made to the story too, but these do not detract form the central thrust of the plot, the machinations of Dr. No who wants to sabotage the American space race.

A very timely plot, apposite even, given the setbacks that NASA have suffered over recent years.

The film has a very stylish opening sequence that culminates in a stunning shot down the barrel of a gun that shows James Bond turning to fire at his assailant before they can fire.  This is followed by a quirky fade to the tune of Three Blind Mice that leads to the opening that sets up the action when three apparently blind men assassinate the British MI6 Station Chief in Jamaica.  Then we cut to Britain and the introduction of our hero, played by Sean Connery.  It's all very suave and sophisticate, in keeping with Fleming himself, and the way he writes about things.

Bond is sent to Jamaica to investigate, and we are introduced to M, the head of MI6, and Miss Moneypenny, M's secretary.  For fans of James Bond this just feels so right, and M ordering Bond to stop using his Beretta in favour of a Walther PPK (first issued to Bond in the book, Dr. No) sets the tone perfectly.  When Bond arrives in Jamaica, things go from bad to worse with the first of several attempts on his life that don't end well for his would be assailants.  Warning, the spider scene is also not for the squeamish.  Fortunately, I find spiders to be nice creatures, but some of the audience gasped in shock when it crawled across the screen.

From there the mystery develops and ultimately leads to Dr. No's secret lair, where the fellow is using a nuclear reactor to power a transmitter that can jam US missiles and cause them to crash.  All very exciting, and I'm avoiding giving away too much of the plot here because I feel that people should be allowed to experience a story for themselves.

There's enough differences between the novel and the film to make both distinct, with each enhancing the enjoyment of the other format.  So, the North American premiere is set for the 8th of May next year, and I can really recommend going to see this film.  I know I enjoyed it, and I imagine you all will too.

And while I am on the subject of cutting edge technology…

When you think of aircraft flying mostly straight up and down, helicopters (or if you're old enough, autogyros) come to mind.  But the so-called whirlybirds now have stiff competition.

This year, the Farnborough Air Show showcased the amazing XP831 Royal Airforce prototype Vertical Take-Off and Landing jet (VTOL).  The Hawker P1127 is the result of nearly ten years of engineering development.

The idea of a winged aircraft that could take-off and land vertically goes back even further to the dark days of World War Two, but it wasn't until 1955 that Rolls-Royce produced a test bed for vertical flight.  It became known as the Flying Bedstead.  It was difficult to fly, ungainly to look at, and had a propensity to crash, killing two test pilots in the process.

Not an auspicious start, but Dr. Alan A. Griffiths, a pioneer of British jet technology came up with the idea of a liftjet, which was small engine designed to specifically provide thrust to all the aircraft to take-off vertically.  This led to the Shorts SC-1, which first flew in 1957.  However, having five engine in an aeroplane where four of them only provided thrust during take-off meant that while useful data could be extracted from the flights, it wasn't in and of itself a practical prototype aircraft.

Enter the Hawker P1127 using a Rolls Royce Pegasus jet engine, a marvel of British engineering that has nozzles that divert the thrust from the engine to allow vertical take-off using only one engine.  Furthermore, Hawker are also working on developing a larger P1154, which will be able to go supersonic.

I can only imagine how exciting it would be for one of these stunning aircraft to make a debut in a spy thriller.  Perhaps in a few years, when VTOL jets have become commonplace enough to pass into private ownership, we'll see one featured in a James Bond movie… perhaps Thunderball?