Cinema Retro Covers Deadlier Than The Male

The January issue of the stylish and glossy magazine Cinema Retro (whose publishers and contributors include such spy luminaries as Lee Pfeiffer and Ray-mond Benson) features a cover story on the great-est Bond knock-off film ever, Deadlier Than the Male, and its sequel Some Girls Do! The mag-azine's website promises new, exclusive interviews with stars Elke Sommer and Richard Johnson in a ten-page feature. I can't wait to get my hands on this! Deadlier Than the Male is a film worthy of a lot more attention than it's ever gotten, and I'm glad that someone is finally bothering to tell its story.

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New Spy DVDs

Today is a huge day for spy-related DVD releases!

The Company

First, and most directly spy-related, is Sony’s two-disc release of the Ridley Scott-produced TNT miniseries The Company, based on the book by Robert Littell. Chris O’Donnell stars as a young man caught up in the early days of the CIA; the great Alfred Molina plays his mentor, and Michael Keaton plays real-life spy hunter James Jesus Angleton. Angleton is, of course, the historical figure upon whom Matt Damon’s character was based in The Good Shepherd, and based on the special features (I haven’t had a chance to watch the miniseries itself yet), The Company looks to have a lot in common with that film. Not only does it cover many of the same actual events and feature the same characters (whom The Good Shepherd vaguely fictionalized), but it also looks very much the same, art direction-wise, and sounds the same, as Jeff Beal’s music is quite reminiscent of Bruce Fowler and Marcelo Zarvos’. Of course, my major complaint about The Good Shepherd was that, as long as it was, it was too short for the story it was trying to tell, so perhaps The Company fares better over three two-hour episodes. In one of the two making-of featurettes, producer Scott mentions some rival stories in production (The Good Shepherd and what else?), but he and John Calley proceeded undaunted, with a script by Black Hawk Down scribe Ken Nolan. Although relatively brief, both featurettes are worth watching, and fans of Littell’s books will be interested in Nolan’s comments on adapting one of them.

The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones: Volume 1

Regular readers certainly know how excited I am about this release, as I’ve written quite a lot about it in the past. I think this show was probably my most anticipated DVD of 2007, and Volume 1 is finally here! Twelve discs of historical Indiana Jones adventure, and dozens of meticulously-produced documentaries on the subjects featured in the episodes. Volume 1 doesn’t actually get into the lengthy espionage stage of Young Indy’s career, but it lays the groundwork for it. Going in chronological order (rather than the order in which they originally aired), this set features five adventures of the 9-year-old Indiana Jones (played by Cory Carrier), and two of the teenage adventurer, played by Sean Patrick Flannery. Each “episode,” however, is really a new movie-length adventure, made up of two actual television episodes put together. The original series, then titled The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, ran as hour-long episodes on ABC from 1992-93, and featured wrap-around segments with an elderly Indiana Jones (George Hall) recalling his exploits. These segments are not featured on the DVDs. The movie length seems appropriate, though, since the big name directors and guest stars, exceptionally high production values, and breathtaking location photography (shot in thirty-five countries around the world!) gave the series a very filmic quality.

The Mario Bava Collection, Volume 2

There are no spy movies to be found in Anchor Bay’s second box set of Bava films (the director’s Danger: Diabolik is available as a Special Edition from Paramount, and Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs has yet to see a DVD release, although I believe Fox/MGM own the rights), but plenty of other genres are represented, from giallo to gothic to Western to sex comedy. Best of all, this box sees the reissue of two-and-a-half long out-of-print ELKE SOMMER movies, Baron Blood and Lisa and the Devil! (The half is accounted for by House of Exorcism, an appalling version of Lisa re-cut by producer Alfredo Leone into an Exorcist knock-off.) Regular readers are no doubt familiar with my feelings on the sexy spy star Sommer, and her co-star in Lisa and the Devil (the Devil himself) is no less than the very best Blofeld, Telly Savalas. Her equally charming Deadlier Than the Male partner, Sylva Koscina, also appears. Ms. Sommer contributes a commentary track to House of Exorcism, and Tim Lucas does to four others.

Executive Action

Finally, Warner Bros. releases a catalog title today long in demand by fans of the Seventies conspiracy breed of spy movie: Executive Action, starring Burt Lancaster. Executive Action offers a believable, documentary-style account of a sinister plot behind the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

Upcoming Spy DVDs

Executive Action

Somehow I missed this title when it was announced, but that makes it all the sweeter now, because it's just around the corner! Warner Bros. will release the well-regarded but previously hard-to-see 1973 Burt Lancaster conspiracy thriller Executive Action on October 23, the same day The Company and the first volume of The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones (which is what they're now officially calling The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles) come out. That's shaping up to be a huge day for spy discs! Executive Action focuses on the Kennedy assassination and presents a plausible alternative to the official Warren Commission account. Retail will be $19.99.

Help! Is On The Way!

EMI have pushed back the long-awaited DVD premiere The Beatles' spy parody Help! by one week. The highly-anticipated double-disc set will now debut on November 6, 2007. I've updated my original story to reflect the new date.

The Name's Hope. Bob Hope.

Bob Hope is not really a name one readily associates with spy movies, but MGM's upcoming Bob Hope MGM Movie Legends Collection actually contains quite a few movies of interest to spy fans. In They've Got Me Covered (1943), Hope plays a reporter trying to crack a Nazi spy ring in Washington, D.C. Dorothy Lamour plays his girlfriend. Reading the plot description, I suddenly realized that I've seen this. I loved this movie as a kid, and have sometimes recalled scenes and tried in vain to remember what movie they were from. I guess I'll have my chance come December 4! (I hope it lives up to those memories...) The Road To Hong Kong finds frequent travelling companions Hope and Bing Crosby as vaudevillian con men caught up with Cold War spies. This last (and many would argue least) of the Road To movies was made in 1962, and predates the epic Sixties spy craze ushered in by 007 that same year. (Even at the bottom of their game, Hope and Crosby were ahead of the curve!) Spy stars Peter Sellers, Joan Collins, Robert Morley and Walter Gotell also appear. Boy, Did I Get the Wrong Number (1966, available on DVD for the first time ever in this set) co-stars sultry spy siren Elke Sommer as a European actress (quite a stretch!) famous for her bubble bath scenes who's grown sick of Hollywood. The Bob Hope MGM Movie Legends Collection will contain seven films total and retail for just $39.99.

Mini Review: Bava Book

The weekend before last, I was delighted to receive my copy of Tim Lucas’s long-awaited and highly anticipated magnum opus, Mario Bava: All the Colors of the Dark. The book, clearly the definitive work on the great Italian director, pleasantly ate up most of my weekend, but I still can’t help but feeling I’ve barely scratched the surface. That’s because it’s more than eleven hundred pages, and two and a half inches thick! It’s also nearly a foot tall and almost as wide, so that makes for a lot of words per page. Every time I walk through the living room and catch sight of it, I think, "Holy shit, that is one big book!"

Mario Bava is most famous for his horror movies, so what does all this have to do with spies? Plenty! Even though the better part of the book is obviously devoted to Bava’s revered horror output, it also covers the many other genres he worked in in extensive detail. (In fact, I had no idea just how much work he’d done in peplum prior to reading Mr. Lucas’s account!) One of those genres, of course, is spy.

For starters, there is an entire chapter on Bava’s pop masterpiece, Danger: Diabolik. (Yes, I consider that a spy movie through and through, though some may argue. True, it’s about a super-criminal instead of a super-spy, but it plays as a checklist of everything I look for in a great Eurospy caper: dashing hero, beautiful women, fast sports cars, wild action, underground lairs, amazing setpieces, bizarre deaths, and Emilio Largo himself, Adolfo Celi, as the villain!) Next, there is a very lengthy chapter on the making of what I’ve always considered to be Bava’s worst movie, and among the worst of the Eurospy genre, Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs. What I had never realized, though, and what Mr. Lucas sets the record straight about, is that there are two very different versions of this film... because it was shot so that it could be cut into a sequel to both Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine for American audiences, and to Due Mafiosi Contro Goldginger, for Italian audiences! That explains a lot. While the author admits neither version works particularly well, apparently the Italian one (which I’ve never seen) is far superior. Irregardless of the final product, the story of its making is absolutely fascinating, and the most detailed account I’ve ever read of a Eurospy production. I suspect that some of the problems Bava’s film encountered were not unique to it, but rather exemplary of how Eurospy movies were produced. Mr. Lucas also reveals that Bava was briefly attached to come aboard (and, it was hoped, to save) another troubled Eurospy production, Dick Smart 2.007, but ultimately opted out of it to make Girl Bombs.

Throughout these chapters and the whole book, we meet a succession of familiar faces from both behind and in front of the cameras in the Eurospy genre. Lucas takes the time to go off on welcome tangents and give mini-bios of varying depth on just about everyone Bava ever worked with, including Celi, Elke Sommer, Sylva Koscina, Tony Kendall, John Phillip Law, Christopher Lee, Telly Savalas, Antonio Margheriti, Daiah Lavi and many more! In some cases, these mini-bios are actually the most detailed accounts I’ve ever read on these people. He’s also found some amazing quotes from nearly all of them. Mario Bava: All the Colors of the Dark is not just a biography of one man, but ultimately functions as a cultural biography of the entire European film industry in the Sixties and Seventies. (It’s very fortunate for us, the readers, that the industry was so insular, and Bava’s career caused him to cross paths with so many people!) In fact, even though Bava officially directed only two straight-forward spy movies, there is probably enough information sprinkled throughout this massive tome to have filled a small volume on Eurospy stars alone... as well as several other genres! This book is a must-have not only for fans of the director, but for all serious students of film of that era.

If I have one complaint about the book, it would only be that it’s rather difficult to read comfortably. The text sucks you in, and hours pass while reading it, but as they do you really start to feel that twelve pound weight on your lap! This tome would probably be best read at a table or desk, but it’s so engrossing that I’d rather be able to curl up with it. Oh well, with all this information, that small problem was obviously unavoidable.

It’s a good time now for me to mention Mr. Lucas’s other work. The man is an extremely prolific writer, yet manages to remain devoutly factual and highly entertaining to read. In addition to spending the last thirty-two years working on Mario Bava: All the Colors of the Dark, he’s found time to publish an excellent bi-monthly magazine, Video Watchdog (for which he writes much of the content himself) and blog almost daily without overlapping content! I don’t know how he does it. On top of all that, he also manages to record audio commentaries for lots of Bava DVDs, including an enormously entertaining dialogue with John Phillip Law for Paramount's Danger: Diabolik special edition and an equally informative track for Dark Sky's sadly withdrawn Kill, Baby, Kill, which may never officially see the light of day (but is worth seeking out!). It bears mentioning that the last several issues of the magazine have all, coincidentally, been at least tangentially spy-related. Warner Oland’s Charlie Chan featured on the most recent issue, Wild Wild West graced the cover of the one before that, and Daniel Craig in Casino Royale on the one before that! The articles on all three subjects are typically in-depth and well worth seeking out. The blog also occasionally touches on spy-related topics, as it really runs the gamut on everything from Bava to Bob Dylan.

Reminder: Deadlier Than The Male screens in LA Tonight!!!

The Mods and Rockers Sixties film festival presents my favorite non-Bond spy movie, the greatest of the Golden Age knock-offs, Deadlier Than the Male, starring Elke Sommer, tonight at 7:30 at the Egyptian Theatre in Los Angeles. It's paired with another ultra-rare Eurospy film, Lightning Bolt, so be sure not to miss this unique opportunity if you're anywhere in the area.

Classic Eurospy Screenings In Los Angeles

As part of "Mods and Rockers," their awesome annual festival of Sixties movies, the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood, CA will screen the greatest Bond knock-off of all time, Deadlier Than the Male on Thursday, July 26. It will be a double bill with the ultra-rare 1966 Eurospy flick Lightning Bolt. Deadlier Than the Male (1966) stars the luscious Elke Sommer and Sylva Koscina as a pair of bikini-clad assassins and Richard Johnson as a Sixtified (or Bondified) Bulldog Drummond. Nigel Green (of Ipcress File fame) plays the villain. Lightning Bolt (like Thunderball... get it?) stars Anthony Iseley and is directed by Antonio Margheriti. I've never seen it, so I can't comment on it, but I'm eagerly looking forward to the opportunity!

Warner Spy DVDs

Representatives from Warner Home Video recently did a chat on the Home Theater Forum, as they graciously do several times a year, and, as always, The Digital Bits has posted the transcript. There’s a lot to wade through, but a few spy-related nuggets stand out.

If you’re one of the five people out there (like me) who would like to see a director’s cut of the ‘98 Avengers movie, you’re (not surprisingly) out of luck. Warner have "no plans to revisit The Avengers," they declared in response to a question on the subject. Too bad. As terrible as the movie turned out, there may actually be a better version out there. The script was actually pretty good, and it’s clear from the trailers that they shot a lot of the scenes that didn’t make it into the final release cut. It would at least be interesting to see what might have been, and good to have as a curiosity for Avengers completists. Of course, no amount of new scenes could correct Uma Thurman’s uncharacteristically awful performance!

Fans of that other Sixties TV staple The Saint are in better luck, however. WHV plans to release the original black and white Saint mystery movies (starring Louis Hayward, George Sanders and Hugh Sinclair as Simon Templar) in 2008. Judging from the excellent job they’ve done with other genre box sets from that era (like The Thin Man or Tarzan), this is definitely something to look forward to!

Finally, Elke Sommer fans have something to look forward to, too. (And who’s not an Elke fan? I sure am!) Her 1963 spy movie with Paul Newman, The Prize, is finally slated for release in 2008 as well. Writer Ernest Lehman shamelessly rips off his own script for North By Northwest in this lightweight Stockholm-set thriller co-starring Edward G. Robinson. Instead of a biplane, Paul Newman outruns a... truck. (Um, yeah. Not as exciting.) Instead of rudely interrupting an auction to evade the baddies by getting himself arrested, he rudely interrupts a nudist meeting for the same reason. It’s not a great movie, but it’s entertaining and it’s got Elke, and that’s all that really matters. And it gives me an excuse to post another picture of her, which I should do more often anyway!

Top (00)7 List

As I explained in my very first entry, I decided to commence my spy blog with a somewhat random list of the top seven people in the world of spy entertainment on my mind at the moment, in late October of 2006. You can now read that list in descending order below.
I’m still experimenting with my regular format, but overall I’m fairly pleased with how that list went. I like using a specific person, book, movie, etc. as a headline and starting point and then going off on (mostly) spy-related tangents from there, cramming in as much information and opinion, and as many links, as I can. It may not be the most organized method, but hopefully it makes for a fun read. Plus, the graphics and bold words should be able to key you in to what you’re missing if you’re skimming!

So I think I’ll continue in this fashion, mixed in with more timely news items and current reviews. Below, the initial list, which serves as a basic primer for what this blog is all about. Above and to come, probably more of the same! (But without numbers.)

7. Elke Sommer

Goddess. Spy goddess! Elke is the ultimate Bond girl who never was a Bond girl, for some reason. (Maybe Pink Panther girls couldn’t be Bond girls?) She epitomizes Sixties glamor and sex appeal. She turned up in quite a few non-Bond Sixties spy movies, and therefore I’ve chosen her to represent those movies on this list. Elke was in both Hollywood spy flicks (the final Matt Helm movie, The Wrecking Crew and the Paul Newman North By Northwest ripoff The Prize, among others) and European ones, like Deadlier Than the Male. Deadlier Than The Male is the very best of all the Sixties Bond knock-offs, and the best of the genre known as "Eurospy."

This term refers to the glut of 007esqe flicks shot quickly and on the cheap on the continent, mostly Italy or Spain. They tended to feature heroes with names like "James Tont," numbers like "077" and enemies like "Goldginger." (In fact, many of them had the word "gold" somewhere in their title, usually as part of a compound word that made no sense.) Even though they are knock-offs, they should not be dismissed by spy fans. Many of these movies are immense fun. And while they’re hard to find, they’re also enjoying a bit of a resurgence amongst a discriminating fanbase.

First, there’s the excellent Eurospy Guide, a book that belongs on every spy fan’s shelf. Even if you’ve never seen or never intend on watching a Eurospy movie, you’ll enjoy learning about them and reading descriptions of some of the outlandish plots. It’s an excellent primer if you’re just getting into the genre, and a fabulous guide of where to go if you’ve seen some of the more famous ones and want to dig a little deeper. No one could hope to ever become as well-versed as authors Matt Blake and David Deal, so I’m very grateful to them for sharing their knowledge. In some cases, they’ve sat through these movies so you don’t have to. Read a negative review and don’t waste your time tracking down that elusive title. But read a positive one, and it can be very frustrating trying to find a copy to watch! Most of these Eurospy movies are long out of print, many never released at all on video or DVD in the United States. Fortunately, that brings us to the second part of the current Eurospy Renaissance: Dorado Films.

Dorado Films International, a small boutique DVD distributor, seems to have specialized in spaghetti westerns until quite recently. Now, they’re branching out into the Eurospy genre and releasing some much sought-after titles. They’ve put out a few of the Ken Clark "077" movies, including the stellar Special Mission Lady Chaplin starring Bond girl Daniella Bianchi. If the trailers included on that disc are anything to go by, they’ve got a slew more Eurospy titles up their sleeve, including some I can’t wait to see on DVD like Danger Route and Assignment K.

So, back to Deadlier Than the Male. It barely qualifies as a Eurospy movie, really, since it’s an English film, but the Euro stars (Elke and the luscious Sylva Koscina) and locations qualified it for the Guide, so that’s good enough for me. It’s got a budget far higher than most of the Euro fare, but equally lower than the actual Bonds. It’s a great stepping stone between 007 and 077! And, best of all, it’s available on DVD in the USA, courtesy of a company called Hen’s Tooth. (Although the British disc offers some nice special features and comes bundled with the sequel.)
The male star is one-time Bond contender Richard Johnson (of The Haunting and Fulci’s Zombie 2), who does a nice job. But the real stars are Elke and Sylva. Case in point: the sequel, Some Girls Do, while mildly enjoyable, doesn’t come close to living up to DTM. And you need look no further than the posters to see who sold the tickets; it’s the two ladies, in bikinis and wielding spearguns.

I should probably mention that Deadlier Than the Male is technically a Bulldog Drummond movie. But it doesn’t bear much resemblance to Sapper’s pre-war potboilers. This is Drummond reinvented as a suave Sixties Bond clone, which is a bit ironic since it could be argued that Bond himself was in part inspired by the original Drummond... Anyway, it’s a movie well worth checking out and it stars Elke Sommer at her absolute sexiest. (And, yes... deadliest!) And in addition to having a great Bond Girl Who Wasn’t, it’s also got a great Bond Theme Song That Wasn’t, the title track performed by the Walker Brothers. It’s as good as any Bond song, and that’s saying a lot in my book! (Scott Walker eventually did record an actual Bond song, for the end credits of The World Is Not Enough. It’s nothing like Deadlier Than the Male, but a great track nonetheless that was sadly left out of the movie at the last minute. You can still hear it on the soundtrack CD, however.)


7. Elke Sommer
6. Mark Gatiss
5. Charlie Higson and Anthony Horowitz
4. Nick Fury
3. Greg Rucka
2. Roger Moore
1. Daniel Craig

List

For the first entry, to let potential readers know where I’m coming from, I’ll do a Top (double-oh) Seven list of people in the world of fictional spies to keep an eye on. People who are relevant right now. Such lists are by nature entirely arbitrary, and, for me, constantly changing. I’ll probably forget a bunch of people today that tomorrow or any other day might easily make such a list. But the point of this one is to let you know what kind of spy fan I am, what my tastes are. And to cram in a bit of news and some early reviews as well.

7. Elke Sommer
6. Mark Gatiss
5. Charlie Higson and Anthony Horowitz
4. Nick Fury
3. Greg Rucka
2. Roger Moore
1. Daniel Craig