Age of Heroes Trailer

With a big tip of the hat to The Book Bond (the foremost site out there for news on the literary 007, by the way, and an absolutely required daily visit for me as we enter the home stretch toward the publication of Carte Blanche), here's the official trailer for that movie about Ian Fleming's 30 Assault Unit we've been following here since its initial announcement last year.  I have to say, I think it looks fantastic. It may not look particularly big budget, and it might use a questionable font, but that trailer pushes all my movie buttons--from its Ian Fleming-meets-The A-Team opening to the awesome action of a snowbound commandos in white camoflage.  Evidentally, it will receive theatrical release in Britain on May 20--though it's bound to be a limited engagement, since it's already been announced for DVD release in June. Neither venue seems particularly likely right now in America, which is too bad, because I am dying to see it! Age of Heroes stars former Bond villain Sean Bean, and James D'Arcy plays Commander Fleming.

Tradecraft: Sean Bean is Missing

Deadline reports that 006 himself, Sean Bean, has joined the cast of ABC's forthcoming Takenesque spy series Missing.  Unfortunately, he's not playing one of the meatier male roles in the pilot script.  (The best male part in that is an Italian Interpol agent, and I'm really curious to see who gets cast in that part!)  Instead he's playing the husband of star Ashley Judd's character, a character who dies in the show's opening minutes—but apparently (according to the trade blog) "will appear throughout the series in flashbacks."  Bean, who not only menaced James Bond, but also Jack Ryan, can be seen in a few weeks starring in HBO's fantasy series Game of Thrones.  His next spy role will be in Age of Heroes, a fact-based adventure about James Bond creator Ian Fleming's secret WWII commando unit 30AU that's due out on DVD in Britain this June. As previously reported, James D'Arcy plays Fleming in that.

The Man With the Golden Career

Deadline reports that Christopher Lee is finally getting some of the recognition he so rightfully deserves.  This Sunday, "the British Academy of Film and Television Arts will present Sir Christopher Lee with the Academy Fellowship at the Orange British Academy Film Awards ceremony at London’s Royal Opera House. Awarded annually by the Academy, the Fellowship is the highest accolade bestowed upon an individual in recognition of an outstanding and exceptional contribution to film." Previous recipients include Sir Sean Connery, Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick, Stephen Spielberg and Dame Judi Dench, so Francisco Scaramanga is in good company.  Besides playing a Bond villain, Lee's spy career includes two guest turns on The Avengers and a handful of villainous roles in obscure TV movies (Once Upon a Spy) and Eurospy flicks (Five Golden Dragons). If that seems surprisingly skimpy for one of the most prolific actors in film history, it's more than made up for by the fact that Lee's pre-acting career included a real spy career in military intelligence during WWII! Now if only BAFTA's American counterpart, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, would recognize Sir Christopher's amazing career with a Lifetime Achievement Oscar...

Bardem Confirms Bond Talks

Javier Bardem confirmed to the Los Angeles Times (via Hollywood Reporter) that he is, indeed, in talks to play the antagonist in Bond 23, as previously reported.  The Oscar-winning actor has met with director Sam Mendes to discuss the role, and he's definitely intrigued (he says he's a life-long Bond fan himself), but he's waiting to read the script before he commits.  “They’re changing the whole thing, the whole dynamic,” Bardem tells te newspaper. “I’d be playing Bond’s nemesis, yes, but it’s not that obvious. Everything is more nuanced. It’s very intriguing.”  I'm thrilled that he sounds so open to it!  Here's hoping John Logan's script seals the deal.

Tradecraft: Producers Offer Major Bond 23 Role to Javier Bardem

Deadline reports that Oscar-winner Javier Bardem (No Country For Old Men) has been offered a part in the next James Bond movie. There are no details on the part, but the logical assumption would be that it's the villain.  And that, frankly, would be awesome.  Bardem would not only make a wonderful Bond villain, but a worthy antagonist for Daniel Craig in terms of both screen presence and physical stature.  I think Mathieu Amalric is a fantastic actor, but the finale of Quantum of Solace, in which he is supposed to make a credible opponant for Craig beggars belief. Since the producers have seemed intent for the last few decades on having Bond villains be physical matches for 007, Bardem makes a much better choice than the convincingly creepy but undeniably slight Amalric. 

The trade blog also indulges in some industry gossip, revealing that MGM's new custodians, Gary Barber and Roger Birnbaum, are milking the Bond license for all it's worth, trying to entice potential  distributors (remember, Bond 23 is still seeking a distribution partner) to put up cash for multiple MGM projects if they want any part of 007. Apparently some studio honchos are getting fed up with those tactics, but I have no doubt that a deal will be reached soon.

Judging A Book By Its Cover/Book Review: DK’s New Bond Set

The holidays are just around the corner (if you can believe it), and while we may not have a new James Bond movie to look forward to this year, that still means some new merchandising from DK. The publisher has made the most of its Bond license, publishing not only specific movie tie-ins like Bond On Set: Filming Quantum of Solace (review here) and Bond On Set: Filming Casino Royale, but also staggering those with a new James Bond Encyclopedia (review here), which has already been revised once, and frequent updates of their trusty warhorse James Bond: The Secret World of 007 (review here), which is certainly the best first book on 007 for young Bond fans today. (It also appeals to those of us older fans who never matured much beyond 11 and still get a kick out of cutaway drawings of gadget-stocked vehicles). Their latest offering is physically (if not content-wise) the most ambitious yet: a set of four matching hardcover volumes, each exploring a different aspect of 007's mystique: Bond Cars and Vehicles, Bond Girls, Bond Villains and The Book of Bond, the latter (not to be confused with Kingsley Amis’ must-have tome of the same name) focusing on the famous secret agent himself. Bond Girls and Bond Villains both hit bookstores last week.

Those familiar with the DK brand are probably aware that the publisher’s hallmark is presentation, and their books focus a lot more on visuals than on content. They can sometimes be frustratingly sparse on information (excepting the aforementioned Encyclopedia, at least) but generally stunning in design. This new quartet is true to form, yet somehow more so in both respects. The content is thinner than ever, yet the presentation yields by far the nicest looking Bond volumes in some time. Being, admittedly, somewhat superficial myself–and a very tactile bibliophile–I’ve been known from time to time to flout the storied axiom and judge books by their covers. To me, not only what it looks like, but how a book feels and even smells often provides as much pleasure as actually reading it. (Clearly, I will never abandon my tangible library even as literature at large becomes reduced to ephemeral bytes on a Kindle or iPad.) Yet I do generally keep these physical book reviews separate from the ones in which I evaluate books' contents. With DK that’s almost impossible. The presentation is the point. How the page looks is at least as important and (clearly in this case) often even more important than the words that are printed on it. Therefore, I will combine my traditional book review with my “Judging A Book By Its Cover” review, and address both aspects at once.

Starting, appropriately, on the outside, these are certainly eye-catching books. They’ll look good faced out together on endcaps at bookstores this season (wherever brick and mortar bookstores still survive, that is) and they’ll look great with their spines lined up next to each other on your shelf. The spines (perfectly flat, not subtly curved) are especially well thought out, with each volume sporting a different suit from a deck of cards at the bottom: Cars gets a club, Girls a heart (naturally), Villains a spade (equally naturally) and The Book of Bond a diamond. The title treatments are uniform, with the word “Bond” standing out in large white caps on each spine. Besides the “Bond” and the heart or club, these spines will stand out because they’re shiny. Not shiny like a grade school library book, like your regular DK hardcover when stripped of its dust jacket, but shiny in a very unique way. The books are cloth-bound, like all the best hardcovers, but the cloth is silky. If you run your hand over the cover, you’ll feel the fine grain of the threads coating the boards. If you rub the books together while pulling one from the shelf, you’ll hear it. (There’s a new sense for my physical book reviews to address!) Since they’re all silver or gold colored to begin with (with black spines), the effect is nothing short of shimmery. It’s very cool. (Enlarge the photo of the spines above for a better idea of the texture I'm describing.) The squarebound corners are hard edges, and the boards themselves are thick. It gives the book weight (which I always like in a hardcover) and makes it feel durable. It also adds overall thickness, which benefits volumes this slight. (Each one clocks in at around 130-150 pages, but it’s not so much the pages as what’s on them that qualifies as slight.)

Opening the very attractive cover and turning past the equally attractive solid colored endpapers (red for Cars, tan for Girls, purple for Villans and blue for Bond) to said pages inside, I’m sorry to report that the seasoned Bond fan will learn nothing new from any of these books. I suppose I shouldn’t have been expecting that, but my hopes were particularly high for Bond Cars and Vehicles since, surprisingly, there has never before been a book devoted specifically to that potentially rich subject. Dave Worrall managed to devote an entire, fantastic volume to just one particularly famous Bond car (and another to all of them, but only in miniature form!), but no one has yet written about all the marvelous Bond cars together. I was hoping this would be it. Sadly, it’s not. You will learn nothing new about your favorite Aston Martin or Lotus, and in fact you won’t even see them all covered. (GoldenEye’s BMW Z3 is a shocking omission in a book called Bond Cars and Vehicles!) You won’t even get any of DK’s famous cross-sections. (I had imagined the book would be mostly comprised of those!) Instead, you get lots of photographs, accompanied by rudimentary text (“A slap with his machine pistol–and boom!–one dead henchman and another Bond car totaled. Would Q regret fitting that burglar protection system in Bond’s Lotus?”). They are, however, very pretty photos, and I must admit I’ve bought other books and magazines before simply for pretty photographs of Aston Martins. And while most of them looked familiar, a few pictures were even new to me. Where else can you see a lovely two-page spread of Mr. Big’s pimped-out ‘71 Cadillac Fleetwood 60 Special by Dunham, parked in front of Harlem’s Fillet of Soul restaurant? (Of course, the car frustratingly isn’t identified, but it’s still a very nice picture. Once again: presentation without information.) The all-photo format keeps this volume of a piece with its companions, but I sincerely hope that DK will one day revisit this subject with more of the childlike glee usually on display in their books, focusing on cool cutaways and schematics–and the makes and models of every vehicle pictured.

I’m afraid The Book of Bond is even less essential on its own. The text (credited to Alistair Dougall) is kind of odd: it’s written like a children’s book (“A shock was waiting for Bond before he left for Nassau to investigate Strangways’ fate. M announced that instead of the Beretta Bond had used for ten years, he would be taking another gun, a Walther PPK.”), like one of those old Bond annuals from the Sixties, or the A View To A Kill storybook, but it’s not a narrative. From a narrative standpoint, it glosses over crucial turning points, like the murder of Tracy. The chapter on OHMSS concludes its recap with, “M, Q and Miss Moneypenny wished the happy couple good luck and Mr. and Mrs. James Bond truly believed that they had all the time in the world.” Accompanying that Disney ending is a full-page picture of the smiling bride and groom. There’s no mention of what happens next, just vague foreshadowing. Yet the omission isn’t to spare younger readers the shock. No, that comes bluntly on the next page with, “Bond avenges Tracy’s murder by drowning Blofeld in a pool of mud in a Cairo clinic.” What murder? If you don’t know, you’ll be confused, and if you do then there’s really no reason for you to read this recap. The loose narrative depends on the reader having a knowledge of what happens in the movies. It’s kind of like the narrative you get on the back of trading cards. This sort of narrative might have had a place back in the Sixties and Seventies before home video, but now every kid who likes the movies enough to own this sort of book probably has them all on DVD and can watch for himself.

However, as with the first title, it’s rather unfair to judge this sort of book by its text. These aren’t text-oriented books; they’re lavish, glossy picture books with brief (and apparently unnecessary) text accompaniment. The reliable DK layout (credited to Dan Bunyan on the first two volumes) outshines the lack of any substantial prose. This superficial format works alright on The Book of Bond (showcasing all six official Bond actors in multiple two-page spreads), but is best served in the final two volumes of the quartet, Bond Girls and Bond Villains.

As with Bond Cars and Vehicles, there has never before (to my recollection, anyway) been a book focusing exclusively on 007's adversaries, which is kind of weird. While I might enjoy a more thorough dossier on these bad guys and the actors who played them than “The confrontation with SPECTRE’s mastermind proves to be the most volcanic of Bond’s career,” I wasn’t expecting it after reading the first two books in the series. Therefore, I was prepared for what we get, and what we get isn’t half bad. It’s pretty cool to flip through a nicely laid-out scrapbook of Bond’s myriad foes–masterminds and henchmen, men and women alike–from over the years. And it’s equally enjoyable to encounter a familiar shot of Donald Pleasence’s Blofeld stroking his cat or Largo giving orders to his frogmen (this one gets a nice double page spread) or a more unexpected full-page portrait of Necros dressed as a milkman and pointing his pistol. Bond Villains is, like its companions, a picture book, but it’s a picture book on a subject for which we haven’t had one before.

The same can’t be said of Bond Girls, as 007's women have already been the subject of The James Bond Girls by Graham Rye (mostly pictures, like this one), The Bond Women: 007 Style by Tim Greaves (all text, and very informative text at that, making up for what it lacks in its picture-free presentation) and Bond Girls Are Forever by Maryam D’Abo and John Cork, which offered the best of both worlds, combining the pretty pictures of the former book with informative text of the latter in a beautiful oversize volume. But DK’s book on the subject still manages to bring its own spin to the material. Of all the aspects of the James Bond movies, the Bond Girls are probably the most suited to this sort of photo book. The layout is once more superb, and serves these beautiful actresses to their fullest advantage. Four whole pages are devoted to Ursula Andress in her bikini, and why shouldn’t they be? They’re all fantastic images. And just check out that title spread of Daniella Bianchi:

Every page of this book is as gorgeous as the women on it. Despite traveling in some well-tread tracks, DK’s Bond Girls holds its own. It’s got a wider range of pictures than Rye’s original book on the subject, which stuck mostly with the most publicized stills from each film. (Which was appropriate for its time.) It lacks any information about the actresses themselves, but in that respect makes a nice companion volume to Greaves’ book, which lacks images. It couldn’t begin to compete with Bond Girls Are Forever, which remains the definitive book on the subject, but what this one’s got that that one doesn’t is portability. I know Bond fans who lug around Cork and D’Abo’s book to conventions collecting actresses’ signatures in it, which I thought was a great idea. But this new book is better for that purpose. (Bond Villains would be great for the same thing.) All of these books are like miniature coffee table books, and sometimes a more manageable size is preferable. It’s nice to have a bunch of photos of Bond cars or Bond Girls all bound together in such a pretty package.

No seasoned Bond fan can expect to learn anything new from this quartet of books. But that doesn’t mean they won’t derive pleasure from them. For presentation alone (which is, I think it’s fair to say, their primary raison d’etre), most fans will feel the need to own these books. And nearing the holiday season, they’ll make ideal gifts for Bond fans of any stripe. The casual fan and the die-hard alike can appreciate sumptuous picture books in lavish binding. (Not to mention a great autograph book to carry around easily to conventions and premieres!)

James D'Arcy Plays Ian Fleming

Well, who would have thought it?  One of those many Ian Fleming movies in development has actually come to fruition!  I first reported last March about Age of Heroes, the British film about Fleming's "Red Indians," the 30 Assault Unit he formed while working for Naval Intelligence during WWII.  At the time, I had no idea how close that film actually was to production.  (Often things reported in the trades take years to actually get made, if ever.)  Well, apparently this one got made.  It actually filmed over the summer!  There are even some reports of an October 1 UK release date, which is right around the corner.  (Can anyone in the UK confirm this?)  When I wrote that first report, I speculated as to how large a role Fleming would have in the picture (since he didn't actually participate in the commando unit's raids, as was depicted in the 1990 TV movie Spymaker: The Secret Life of Ian Fleming starring Jason Connery) and who would play him.  Well, now we know thanks to both the IMDb and a Fujifilm magazine story reprinted on the Sean Bean fansite The Mighty Bean (who also supply that poster) that James D'Arcy is playing Fleming.  How large a role it is is still to be determined.  According to that article:

"During the filming James D’Arcy, whose previous roles have included British navy First Lt. Tom Pullings in Master and Commander (2003), Father Francis in Exorcist: The Beginning (2003), and numerous British TV roles, offered some brief thoughts on his role as Ian Fleming to the Norwegian press. He said: ‘Fleming lived an unreal life. It’s strange, really, that the story of his life isn’t better known’."

Hm. I can't recall him from Master and Commander; the role I most immediately associate with James D'Arcy is Sherlock Holmes, whom he played in an ill-received (and decidedly non-canonical) 2002 TV movie called Sherlock: A Case of Evil (which actually pre-figured both the Robert Downey Jr. film and the current contemporary TV version in some key ways).  He doesn't look much like Ian Fleming, but then again he doesn't categorically not look like him either, so make-up should be able to do the trick.  Fleming has previously been played by Jason Connery, Charles Dance (who was a dead ringer for the author) and Ben Daniels.

Ian McKellen To Play Auric Goldfinger!

...on the radio.  Remember that news item last October when we first heard that EON Productions had sanctioned a follow-up to the "Dr. No" radio adaptation that aired on the BBC in celebration of Ian Fleming's Centenary?  Well, now there's a press release from Ian Fleming Publications revealing the spy star-studded cast of the new radioplay!  (Thanks to CBn for spreading the news on this.)  The great Ian McKellen (most recently seen as Number Two on AMC's remake of The Prisoner) will star in the title role, while Die Another Day alumni Toby Stephens and Rosamund Pike will reunite as James Bond and Pussy Galore, respectively.  (Stephens is reprising the 007 role from the "Dr. No" radioplay.)  Tim Piggot-Smith (Quantum of Solace, Spooks, Johnny English) plays Mr. Solo, and we'll get to hear former Saint Ian Ogilvy deliver the lecture on gold as Col. Smithers.  Lloyd Owen, who essayed Sean Connery's role of Professor Henry Jones, Sr. on The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, will play Felix Leiter, and Tom Hollander and Hector Elizondo round out the cast.  Quite a line-up!  The radioplay (a dramatisation of Ian Fleming's novel, not the film) is from producers Jarvis & Ayres, the same people behind "Dr. No."

I'm really excited to hear McKellen as a Bond villain.  Surely they'll keep the famous film line, "No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die!" even though it's not from the novel?  I can hear his delivery already!  I really wish the filmmakers would cast McKellen or someone of his ilk as a villain.  I miss the day of older, distinguished villains who could really relish their villainy.  I know that in the Brosnan era it was decided that younger villains, more equal physical matches for 007, were better, but I don't wholly agree.

R.I.P. Joseph Wiseman

The Associated Press reports (via Yahoo) that Joseph Wiseman, the actor who played Dr. No, has passed away at the age of 91. I've always felt that Wiseman is too often overlooked for his lasting contribution to the James Bond legacy. He was later overshadowed by flashier villains like Gert Frobe's Auric Goldfinger and Donald Pleasence's Ernst Stavro Blofeld, but with Dr. Julius No, Wiseman established not only the quintessential screen Bond villain, but also the cinematic supervillain. Aside from a couple of antiheroes in early foreign silents like Fantomas or Dr. Mabuse, prior to 1962's Dr. No supervillains as we know them today were relegated mostly to taking on comic book heroes in serials. But after Dr. No, they were suddenly everywhere. Not only spies faced them (in droves) during the Sixties, but cops, detectives, cartoon characters and eventually even Homer Simpson. Who is state policeman Steve McGarrett's arch-rival on Hawaii Five-O, Wo Fat, if not another guise of Dr. No? True, Ian Fleming's half-Chinese doctor owed a considerable debt to Sax Rohmer's Fu Manchu, but it was Fleming's notion of blending the last century's xenophobic "Oriental menace" with contemporary espionage that captured the imaginations of 1960s cinemagoers. In fact, the success of Dr. No led directly to a cinematic revival of Fu Manchu, absent from movie screens since the Thirties, re-tooled for the Bond-Age while keeping a period setting. The actor who played the Sixties incarnation of Fu, and became most associated with the role, was a distant cousin of Ian Fleming's who the author recommended play Dr. No in the film: Christopher Lee. (This was the era, remember, of Caucasian actors playing Asian roles.) Lee went on to memorably portray another Bond villain, Francisco Scaramanga, and the first cinematic Bond baddie role went to Wiseman, who clearly made the part his own. His clipped delivery (painstakingly–and thankfully–avoiding a cliched Charlie Chan-style Western version of a Chinese accent), careful posture, emotionless face and deliberate mannerisms literally defined "Bond villain" for all time–and all those actors who played 007's later, more famous adversaries owe him a debt.

Surprisingly, and unlike a lot of other Bond villains, Wiseman didn't go on to act in many other spy roles. Such appearances were few and limited to semi-spyish TV series like T.H.E. Cat, MacGyver and The Equalizer. But his single appearance in a James Bond film left an indelible mark on the genre, for which he should always be remembered.

Could Blofeld Come Back?

No, I'm not speaking medically. I don't mean could James Bond's greatest foe come back from being dropped down a smokestack, or smashed into the side of an oil rig in a Bathosub. I don't even mean can the character legally return in EON's James Bond series following the decades-long custody battles with Kevin McClory. I mean would audiences accept Ernst Stavro Blofeld in a modern, Daniel Craig Bond movie? A rumor run by Aintitcool this week had Frost/Nixon co-star Michael Sheen slated to fill the shoes of Donald Pleasence, Telly Savalas, Charles Gray and others. Since that rumor apparently originated in a British tabloid (the first of billions, I'm sure, that we'll see over the next two years pertaining to Bond 23) and since the producers have only just hired writers and no script even exists yet, I put very little stock in it. Casting is still a long, long way off on this movie. I wouldn't even mention such a rumor here if it hadn't gotten me thinking about the possibility of bringing Blofeld into the New World of Daniel Craig's James Bond.

I think it would be a great choice to bring him back… and I'd think it must have occurred to Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson as well. Because The Dark Knight proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that audiences like villains, and they're nostalgic for the classic ones. I'm not saying that Blofeld is on the level of the the Joker in the public psyche, but he certainly is the classic Bond villain, and filmgoers are hungry for that. Of course, the thing that sustains Blofeld most is also the biggest obstacle to overcome in bringing him back:

That's right, Dr. Evil. Sadly, a whole generation now knows that look as Dr. Evil's look, and not Blofeld's. You don't want them laughing at your villain, obviously. But I think the way to overcome the Dr. Evil Factor is to embrace it. Go with the Donald Pleasence look, with the white cat* (you have to!), and make him so bad that you can't even laugh at Austin Powers anymore. Really give him the full Joker treatment. Make him a direct Osama bin Laden analogue. An evil, psychotic terrorist bastard who Bond has to take down. Of course, on top of all that, make him charming, too. He is, after all, a Bond villain. But the Blofeld of Ian Fleming's You Only Live Twice is a downright psychopath, who's whole plot is making people commit suicide because he "collects" death! Not to mention the fact that he dresses up like a samurai! That guy's seriously screwed up. Use it!

I think it would be huge. If they bring back a white-cat-stroking villain and make him scary, people will flock to that movie. It will be the biggest Craig movie yet. I can already here the cheers in the theater the first time a trailer ran showing hands stroking a fluffy Persian. True, the Blofeld iconography has been co-opted by popular culture over the years as ludicrous shorthand for villainy. But precisely because it's such an archetype, I think audiences would love to see it in its own context again, treated seriously.

Done right, the Bond producers could even subtly use the Dr. Evil assumptions to really mess with the audience and totally subvert their expectations. Go all out! When I discussed this idea with a friend, he suggested that they could extend the facial scarring. Blofeld could be bald because of horrible burns, further adding to his grudge against the world. I think people would really respond to that.

Furthermore, it would be great to do what Fleming did and plan a filmic Blofeld Trilogy. A recurring villain worked wonderfully in the Sixties, but now things are more serialized and people expect conclusions. So plan from the start an arc that will see Blofeld make trouble for three installments and then come to a definitive end with a really satisfying comeuppance! (Like, maybe, getting dumped down a smokestack after promising Daniel Craig that they could "do a deal" and if Bond put him down, he'd buy him a delicatessen... in stainless steel! Or maybe something different.) In a best-case scenario, they could actually use the darkest elements from Fleming's You Only Live Twice that never made it into the movie of that name in the final film of the trilogy. A mano-a-mano confrontation along those lines between 007 and his arch-nemesis would be truly satisfying.

So who could play this Jokerized Blofeld? It would need to be a stroke of brilliant casting similar to Heath Ledger. I think both Christopher Nolan and the Bond producers are both (clearly) on the right track in plucking their villains from the ranks of well-respected indie film heave-hitters. The tabloids have already trotted out Al Pacino and now Sheen. The latter's more inspired than the former, but I don't think either's right. I'm sure the fanboys would go for Michael Clark Duncan, but he's not right either. Neither is Samuel L. Jackson (definitely not!), although I'm sure he'd feel differently. And, please, keep Nicholas Cage and John Travolta far away! It's easy to think of actors who have no business playing Blofeld. But who could?

Maybe Michael Chiklis? He could be pretty damn imposing on The Sheild. It might work better to have a little more star weight, though–maybe. On the other hand, Ledger wasn't really that big a star before his death. You don't want someone like Pacino or Anthony Hopkins who will overshadow the role with their own personae... I'm sure Jackie Earl Haley could do the part justice, but that's not a very original idea after Watchmen, and he lacks the height and the bulk to make the part physically imposing enough. Gary Oldman could definitely pull it off and make it creepy, but he doesn't feel quite right either. Not outside-the-box enough. Javier Bardem would probably do an excellent job. But he's not my top choice. No, my top choice would be Forrest Whitaker. My girlfriend suggested him, and it was a eureka moment for me. I thought, that's perfect! He can be charming and he can be creepy and he can be scary all at once. Anyone who played Idi Amin can handle Ernst Stavro Blofeld!

So this isn't news. It's not a rumor. (Although I wouldn't be surprised if it became one; I think an opinion expressed on a blog qualifies as a checked fact for some of those tabloids!) It's purely my opinion. It's my nomination. I'm launching that campaign right here, right now: Forrest Whitaker for Blofeld in Bond 23! And I'm salivating at the possibilities. I think it would be amazing.

*The cat, of course, was an invention of the filmmakers (or possibly of Kevin McClory's, depending on whose story you believe), and not mentioned in Fleming's novels.

Christopher Lee To Be Knighted

At the end of Ian Fleming's The Man With the Golden Gun, James Bond turns down a knighthood. Now his adversary in that adventure, Scaramanga, is getting one instead! One of James Bond's greatest foes will be recognized with a well-deserved honor in a ceremony this year, and the great Christopher Lee will be knighted. (It even made the front page of Yahoo.) Congratulations to the future Sir Christopher! From his James Bond role to Dracula to Sherlock Holmes to The Wicker Man to The Lord of the Rings, Lee has performed in hundreds of films and always lends even the least of them an undeniable gravitas. His contribution to the British film industry–and to film in general–is tremendous, and it's only right that he be a knight. I'm sure he'll relish the title. Lee's next role will see him return to the studio that made him famous to begin with when he stars in the new Hammer movie Invasion of Privacy.

Tradecraft: Nick Nack Biopic And Smart Sequel

Da plane, boss, da plane!

One of James Bond's most unusual adversaries will soon be the subject of a big budget Hollywood biopic: Variety reports that My Dinner With Hervé chronicles the wild, tragic life of diminutive superstar Hervé Villechaize, who played Scaramanga's henchman Nick Nack in The Man With the Golden Gun and went on to star as Tattoo on Fantasy Island. Schindler's List writer Steve Zaillian will produce, and Terminal writer Sacha Gervasi will write and direct. Gervasi conducted the last interview with the actor days before his suicide in 1993. The trade quotes Gervasi as saying, "Hervé wasn’t just a pop culture icon; he was one of the most charming, cultured and dangerous people I’ve ever met. His is the story of a unique misfit trying to find his place in the world." No word yet on who will play Villechaize (though I bet Leonard DiCaprio is trying to think of ways to appear smaller), or who will play Roger Moore. (I nominate Steve Coogan!)

This is a very exciting project, and one I can't wait to see come to fruition. Villechaize, a notorious ladies' man, was an amazing, larger-than-life personality, and Moore, Christopher Lee, Britt Ekland and others have all related hilarious stories in the past about working with the actor on The Man With the Golden Gun.

Smart Writers

In a story about Steve Carell signing on to play Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Brigadier Gerard in a Napoleonic comedy (which sounds as potentially delightful as it does weird, doesn't it?), Variety mentions in passing some new information about Warner Bros.' Get Smart sequel. The trade reports that it will be written by the same scribes as the first film, Tom Astle and Matt Ember, and that Carell is still mooting the second Smart movie as one of two he'll try to fit into his next Office hiatus.

DVD Review: Mad Mission 3: Our Man From Bond Street (1984)

DVD Review: Mad Mission 3: Our Man From Bond Street (1984)

In this 1984 entry in the goofy celebration of stunts and effects–Hong Kong style–known as the Mad Mission series (or the Aces Go Places series depending on your geography), director Tsui Hark turns his attention full-on to one of the obvious influences on the series: the James Bond films. As the movie begins, our hero is in Paris (we don’t know why) when a beautiful woman in Geordi La Forge glasses suddenly tries to kill him with a missile. He chases her up the Eiffel Tower, where he encounters Jaws and Oddjob. (As you do.) They all fight, then Oddjob leaps off with a parachute. Jaws tosses his parachute off the tower, and for some reason the hero (whose name is Sam) jumps after it, grabs ahold, and fights Oddjob while they’re dropping. But why did he have to jump after the parachute? He wasn’t falling from a plane like Bond when he fought Jaws in freefall; he was standing on solid footing! Oh well. If you’re the sort of person who constantly asks those kinds of questions, then the Mad Mission movies aren’t for you. Surprisingly, all this Eiffel Tower action happens a year before 007 himself does it in A View To A Kill!




Sam’s escape from Oddjob takes him under the Seine, where he’s immediately devoured by a giant submarine with a SPECTRE space capsule-style mouth adorned with pointy shark teeth. Inside the cavernous shark submarine, he meets someone who claims to be James Bond while carefully avoiding any copyrighted phrases. Fake James Bond is played by a Sean Connery impersonator who perpetually wears a white dinner jacket and actually looks a little bit like Never Say Never Again-era Connery in certain light. Sometimes. He’s aided by the Oddjob lookalike we already met (who really likes to laugh and goes the real Oddjob one better by having a metal arm in addition to a deadly derby) and the Jaws lookalike, who’s named "Big G" and who’s actually played by the real Richard Kiel. Rounding out Fake Bond’s motley crew is the beautiful seductress/assassin who fired the initial missile at Sam, Jade East, and a woman who appears to be Queen Elizabeth II. Yep, it’s that kind of movie, and this scene really has to be seen to be believed. Fake Bond introduces himself with a very clever "fake arm" gag, and the "Queen" appears to emerge from a painting. All inside a giant mechanical shark, you’ll recall, with Jaws and Oddjob looking on. It’s an Avengers level of delightful spy surrealism.

For those just joining the series, or even those who have forgotten what’s gone before (it’s easy to do), we learn at this point that Sam is a famous jewel thief. "Bond" and "the Queen" convince him to steal the crown jewels for them, claiming they’ve already been stolen and his job is to get them back. The jewels are on display in Sam’s home city of Hong Kong. Sam thinks he’s doing this for James Bond and the Queen of England, so how can he turn them down? What we learn soon enough, however, is that Fake Bond is really a notorious international thief only posing as 007–and that the so-called Queen is really a notorious Queen impersonator! (Sam doesn’t realize any of this, though.)

There are so many spy movies with dull Bond-clones in the lead that it’s a very refreshing take to cast the Bond clone as a villain. And I just love the fact that a measly thief travels the world in a giant shark submarine with a Queen impersonator. I know I’m repeating myself, but this is stuff that bears repeating!

Peter Graves, meanwhile, plays the real "man from Bond Street," specifically from "Bond Street Exports," whose telephone exchange ends in "007." Fake Bond may have avoided potentially litigious terms, but in this case, "Bond Street" and "007" are mentioned again and again by the telephone operator connecting Graves. Other than hitting us over the head with the number "007," the whole phone call is rather superfluous, given that Graves receives his orders via exploding tape recorder, as he once did on Mission: Impossible. (And would again, for that matter, a few years later on the 80s revival of his signature series.) Unfortunately for him, though, the five second self-destruct delay doesn’t give him much time to escape the rickshaw he’s riding in, and the dead-serious Mr. Phelps (ah, that is, "Tom Collins") ends up the butt of a predictable physical gag. He then sits out the bulk of the movie until the finale. Presumably, the film’s producers could only scrounge up enough Hong Kong dollars to lure Peter Graves for a few days’ shooting at most.

Upon his return to Hong Kong, Sam quickly meets up with his old partners, police people Kodyjack and his wife Nancy. Sam and Jade East concoct an elaborate scheme to use Kodyjack as his alibi while Sam swipes the first of the jewels. Like many of the best moments in this movie, it involves fake arms, as well as Jade East’s seductive skills. While much of the humor falls flat to my modern, Western tastes (whether it's because its Hong Kong humor, because it’s dated 80s humor, or because it was never really that funny to begin with I cannot say), this alibi trick does lead to one of the movie’s genuinely hilarious scenes. Thinking he’s caught onto Sam’s trick, Kodyjack questions his old friend with the aid of a lie detector. Nancy operates the machine, and Sam carefully calculates all of his responses to incriminate Kodyjack ("You were too busy with that beautiful woman!") in front of his wife until she storms out, ending the potentially dangerous interview.

The bulk of the movie consists of a number of unnecessarily elaborate heists (utilising a lot of very early CGI) and lots of cool stunts, governed for the most part not by the laws of physics but by the laws of extreme silliness. We get personal jets (watch for the wires), car chases, dirt bikes ridden by Santa Clauses (yes, that's a plural), and dune buggies aplenty manned by leather-clad punks. Let’s discuss that phenomenon for a moment. It’s easy to underestimate the perplexing amount of influence Mad Max had on a generation of filmmakers. For some reason, though, no 80s action movie could resist leather-clad punks riding motorcycles and dune buggies and wielding medieval weapons, even if they’re totally out of place—which they always are, of course. Mad Mission III: Our Man From Bond Street falls into the leather punk trap as easily as so many of its contemporaries.

Eventually, Sam realizes he’s been duped thanks to Peter Graves, and he begins collaborating with Nancy and Kodyjack against Fake Bond. Fake Bond arranges to sell the crown jewels Sam stole for him to a wealthy Arab sheik who’s already tried to purchase the Statue of Liberty. The exchange it to take place on the sheik’s yacht. Graves leads a team of helicopters to intercept the exchange, though, and uses powerful magnets to lift the Sheik’s yacht out of the water. A British submarine then surfaces, flips over and reveals itself to be a duplicate yacht on the other side! This fake yacht replaces the real one. All this leads to a couple of finales, an imperiled baby, and a final showdown with Fake Bond. They also manage to work in one final celebrity impersonator: Ronald Reagan. (Unlike the others, I think he’s supposed to be the real Reagan.) Yes, I realize that my summary doesn’t make a lick of sense, but neither does the movie. And that doesn’t matter one iota. The Mad Mission movies aren’t about sense-making; they’re about the crazy stunts, which I can’t really do justice to in mere words. If you have a soft spot for inanity and the bizarre, and if there’s even a part of you that smiles at over-the-top Hong Kong action, I promise you’ll get a kick out of Mad Mission III: Our Man From Bond Street. It’s surprisingly one of the only Bond parodies of its era, and one of the more enjoyable entries in that subgenre.

Movie Review: Dimension 5 (1966)

Movie Review: Dimension 5 (1966)

Contradictory to the geographical implications of the word, there were actually a few "Eurospy" movies made in America during the Sixties. Sure, purists might argue that a true Eurospy flick should boast some sort of Italian or Spanish or German or, better yet, Franco-Italian-Spanish-German pedigree, but I prefer to categorize films generically rather than geographically. And Dimension 5, though produced with American dollars (albeit very, very few of them!), fits quite nicely into the Eurospy genre. James Bond ripoff plot? Check. Low budget stretched creatively? Check. Second-rate gadgetry? Check. Babes aplenty? Check. Loathsome, misogynist hero? Big check! Dubbed villain? You got it. And, for bonus points, former Bond baddie playing said dubbed villain? Another big check! The only crucial Eurospy element Dimension 5 is lacking is the fabulous European locations (cut-rate Los Angeles landmarks like Long Beach Harbor and Ontario Airport are poor substitutes), but it fulfills enough of the other prerequisites to let that one slide. Most importantly, it has that Eurospy sense of low budget fun going for it, which counts for a lot.

In true Eurospy tradition, we’re introduced to our hero, Justin Power (Star Trek’s original captain, Jeffrey Hunter), just as he’s showing off what a jerk he is. In his first scene, he kisses one of those aforementioned babes, then proceeds immediately to punch her out. True, she was fingering a gun in her purse while they were snogging, but it’s still a little crass. Besides punching women, the opening sequence features a speeding sports car, a helicopter, armed Chinese soldiers and lots of running, but all disparately. In fact, it's possible that none of those formulaic elements were ever even in the same shot! Still, they’re clearly meant to give the impression of excitement and budget, so we’ll award points for trying. Amidst all these familiar elements, however, we’re also introduced to the movie’s one major stroke of originality. Pursued by the soldiers (again, not actually in the same shot, I don’t think), Justin Power touches his belt and, momentarily sporting a glowing red outline, disappears. Like he was just beamed up by Scotty. The soldiers are understandably confused, and Power handily re-materializes somewhere behind them, gives them the slip, and gets away in the helicopter. (At least a shot of him running off is cut together with a shot of a helicopter, creating the implication.)

What happened? What was that device? Did he teleport? No, in fact he time-traveled. Which is later explained as travel to another dimension, "the fifth dimension." Not explained: why they skipped the fourth dimension, or how dimensional travel equals time travel. Nor any of the science behind this fantastic device, but who cares? The screenplay is credited to Arthur C. Pierce, not Arthur C. Clarke. We’re not here for the latter’s style of "thinking man’s sci-fi"; we’re here for the former’s brand of inane spy adventure, and this one just happens to have a time travel device. The device is surprisingly ignored for long chunks of the film, but that’s okay. If someone gave me a time travel device, I’d probably be using it all the time, or at least constantly asking questions about how it worked. Luckily for us, not so Justin Power. He’s content to accept it at face value and use it only when it suits the mission, as he might any other spy gadget. Which is a good thing, because if he did ask those questions or use it all the time, the film would become a time travel movie with spying and not a spy movie with time travel, and it’s really the spy factor I’m in the theoretical theater for.

After the titles, we follow Power to the bargain basement U.N.C.L.E. where he works, a Los Angeles outfit cleverly called Espionage, Incorporated. Although its exterior is a shiny skyscraper, the wood-paneled rooms inside look suspiciously like someone’s basement. At least it’s populated by a bevy of gorgeous secretaries, taking another page from the U.N.C.L.E. playbook. Here, Power gets briefed by his boss, Mr. Kane. The briefing goes on forever, which sets a trend in this film: most scenes last about twice as long as they need to (especially the ones in the cheapest locations) in an attempt to pad the movie and stretch the budget. Kane says the bad guys are a group called the Dragon Agency, and mentions "gravitons" and "anti-gravitons" and how dangerous it might be if some Dragons got their hands on one or the other. All that turns out to be entirely beside the point though, as the Dragons’ real plan is to destroy Los Angeles "unless all allied forces are withdrawn from Southeast Asia." This plot is surprisingly topical for a Eurospy movie, as most escapist Sixties spy fare studiously avoided any hint of the war in Vietnam. The Dragons’ means of achieving their goal is also impressively forward-thinking (and much more practical than anything actually involving anti-gravitons); they’ll smuggle a hydrogen bomb into the city in pieces. Unlike, say, launching spaceship-eating spaceships from a phony volcano, this plot is essentially the very thing that Western intelligence agencies really do strive to protect against today. Perhaps Arthur C. Pierce had one of those time belts himself!

The only other important information to come out of the briefing is that Power will "have an associate on this assignment," and that Kane goes to great lengths not to use any gender pronouns in describing this associate. Later, when Power receives his associate’s time travel belt, he marvels at how small it is and seriously guesses that the mysterious associate might be either a "small boy" or a "dwarf" before any more logical conclusions occur to him. Even with this clue, he’s still astonished when she turns out to be [gasp!] a woman! A woman named Kitty, played by France Nuyen. By 1966, shouldn’t even the most sexist of secret agents have caught onto the sexual revolution that seemed (if movies are anything to go by) to be happening even faster in their profession than anywhere else at the time? Not Justin Power, who immediately upon discovering her gender instructs his new associate, "Lesson number one... when you work for Justin Power, you do as he says."

But before we even meet Kitty, though, the film takes a detour to Manilla, where two American Espionage, Incorporated agents are guarding a Dragon prisoner while transporting him back to Los Angeles for interrogation. The Dragon agent complains how his fellow Dragons will kill him rather than risk his talking, and the Americans laugh that he’s better protected than the U.S. president. Then one of them gets up to go to the bathroom, leaving only his friend protecting the prisoner. Better protected than the U.S. president, really? Naturally, that’s when the dragons move in. Perhaps this was intended as a commentary on U.S. foreign policy in Southeast Asia at the time? (Probably not.)

Somehow (well, with some unexpected outside help), the agents manage to fend off the first attempt and get the guy to California. But there’s another assassin (improbably wearing a cowboy outfit as ridiculous as it is conspicuous) waiting at the airport to finish the job. It’s true that Power should be able to identify this suspicious character on sight, but instead he uses his time belt in a pretty cool way. Our hero sits back and allows the assassination to take place, then travels back a few minutes earlier and, with full knowledge of all the players, successfully prevents the inevitable.

Espionage, Incorporated manages to interrogate the prisoner and learns that a Dragon operative named "Big Buddha" is masterminding the operation. Power and Kitty set off to discover Big Buddha’s true identity, but not before having a leisurely dinner at a Chinese restaurant with a waiter who speaks in Charlie Chan epigrams. The dinner conversation takes a full ten minutes of screen time, but reveals nothing. Charlie Chan gives Power a gift, which Kitty (who’s quicker than Power to catch onto things) tries to warn her partner is really a bomb. Power shuts her up by telling her to "forget that fortune cookie stuff!" even though she’s making perfectly logical sense. (I’m not sure if he’s judging her because she’s Asian or a woman, but he clearly doesn’t put much stock in either.) Then he gets lucky when a stop for cigarettes (a carton, not a pack) conveniently saves him from the ensuing explosion. One hopes the experience enlightens him somewhat.

Power teaches Kitty how to time travel with the belt, and lays out some interesting rules: only use tranquilizer guns in the past, because killing anyone then could cause chain reactions affecting the present; make sure you do your time traveling in areas that will still be there in the future, like beaches. Since shorelines change fairly drastically over time, I’m not sure the latter rule is really the best piece of advice, but the reasoning behind it is sound, and the first rule certainly makes sense! After all that buildup, the time travel device (both in a physical and narrative sense) isn’t really used all that well in the climax. It enables the heroes (and, mercifully–surprisingly–us) to skip three weeks of waiting for a ship to come in, and gets them out of a few tight situations. But it does beg the question: if the good guys have a time travel device, then what’s the point of any of Power’s investigation? Couldn’t he just jump forward, see how Big Buddha’s plan pans out (like he did with the assassination), and then go back and use that knowledge to keep it from happening? Oh well, best not to worry about that sort of thing.

Big Buddha turns out to be none other than Oddjob himself, Harold Sakata. For some reason he’s wheelchair bound, making him somewhat less of a physical threat than he was to 007, but he does sit around shirtless in his wheelchair, showing off his glistening, muscled torso. I guess that’s sort of imposing. At least he gets some great dialogue (dubbed by Marvin Miller) like, "I desire to know more about you and your Espionage Organization, Mr. Power!" The finale gets a little heavy for Eurospy fare when Kitty reveals that she wants revenge on Big Buddha because he "tortured her, used her, and then left her to die" as a child after forcing her to watch him execute her parents and sister.

Besides that (and the casual misogyny, of course–par for the genre), the overall tone of Dimension 5 is one of fun. Luckily, unlike some Eurospy leading men, Hunter actually has enough charisma to help us overlook the character's less endearing traits. The rest of the acting is pretty decent too, and everyone’s game for the B spy movie shenanigans. Furthermore, the time travel aspect, while oddly handled, is an interesting enough twist on the genre to elevate this film above some of its low-budget brethren. I really like that such an outlandish device is treated as just another spy gadget, and it doesn’t stretch credulity much further than James Bond’s invisible car. But the movie’s pacing is rather unforgivable. There isn’t much action at all (I made that note several times while watching), and every single scene lasts longer than it ought to, desperately stretching the budget... and the audience’s patience. Your enjoyment of Dimension 5 will ultimately depend on your tolerance for this. There’s enough there, though, to make it a worthwhile watch for Eurospy or Grindhouse aficionados.

ADDENDUM: Nine years after I wrote this review, Kino-Lorber defied all expectations by actually releasing Dimension 5 on DVD and even Blu-ray!

Order Dimension 5 on Blu-ray from Amazon.
Order Dimension 5 on DVD from Amazon.