Casino Royale Opens #2 At US Box Office with $40 Million

According to Box Office Mojo, Casino Royale made $42,600,000 at the American Box Office this weekend, which was enough for the Number Two spot, behind the computer animated kids' penguin movie Happy Feet. In comparison, Die Another Day earned $47,072,040 its opening weekend in 2002. So 007's taken a bit of a drop, but that's not surprising given the changing of the guard in the title role and the change in tone for the series. Still, $40 million is quite an impressive opening, and certainly enough to make Daniel Craig officially a movie star! Sony's vice chairman, Jeff Blake, said "I think a $40 million-plus start for a new series of Bonds with Daniel Craig is a great beginning."

Casino Royale also impressively pulled in another $42.2 million internationally this weekend.

In honor of Casino Royale, Box Office Mojo has also posted some relevant box office stats. Check out their list of spy movies' earnings, and of the James Bond series.

"You Know My Name" Single

Chris Cornell's title song for Casino Royale, "You Know My Name," is now available to download as a single from iTunes. There is still no CD single available, and the Interscope song is not on the Sony soundtrack album. Unfortunately, the single version is not the version that plays over the movie's main titles. Instead, it plays at the end of the end credits. The title version is not currently available in any medium.

Casino Royale (2006) Full Review

I promised a full review soon when I posted my initial thoughts on the new Bond movie a few days ago, and I'm sorry I'm only just getting around to putting this up now. After seeing the movie three nights in a row, this is how I feel about it. Again, I'll avoid heavy spoilers, but I will address certain plot points, so proceed with caution if you haven't seen it yet.

I really liked Pierce Brosnan as James Bond, but I didn’t much care for his last two outings. They were, in fact, pretty awful, especially Die Another Day. Halle Berry’s redundantly pointed delivery ruined double-entendres for everyone for decades to come, the invisible Aston Martin marked a nadir for gadgets, and that blatantly CGI wave crossed the line from the impossible stunts the series is famous for into implausible greenscreen ones. Something needed to change, and I’m glad the producers realized that despite the last movie’s record grosses.

Casino Royale is definitely a change. And for that alone it will reap loads of well-deserved praise from critics and fans who have been craving something different. It’s a good change, too. A change in the right direction. Less cartoony, more down-to-earth and grounded in reality. But it’s not the first time the Bond producers have made this change. They know when to reel their series in, and that’s what’s kept it so healthy and long-living.

After the volcanic excess (and success) of You Only Live Twice, they gave us the personal, emotional, gadget-free On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. And the box office took a hit. The movies steadily inflated like a Yaphet Kotto balloon until they reached the out-of-this-world overindulgence of the bloated Moonraker, again a bench-mark box office hit. Wisely recognizing that another spectacle of that size would burst like the aforementioned Yaphet, they brought things back down to earth with the gritty (for Moore), real-world For Your Eyes Only. (Which did well.. but not Moonraker well.) And now they’ve done it again, saving and rejuvenating the series just in time. And the box office may well fail to reach the heights of Die Another Day. But the future of the franchise itself is now safeguarded.

In each of these cases, the solution has been to bring Bond back to the source, closer to Ian Fleming. OHMSS was probably the most faithful adaptation they ever did, FYEO very cleverly blended Fleming’s title story with the lesser-known "Risico," and this time they’ve gone as far back to the basics as possible. All the way back to Fleming’s very first Bond novel, Casino Royale.* In the novel, Bond is clearly not the experienced superspy he will become, but I never got the impression that it was supposed to have been his first mission. Still, it makes sense for the film producers to proceed as if it is, and give the series a thorough reboot.

The result is an undeniable success. We follow the cocky, rough-hewn rookie assassin as he learns by making mistakes. Whenever the Bond we know and love would turn left, this version tries right. It makes it difficult to directly compare Daniel Craig to those who have gone before him, because he is playing 007 at such a different phase of his life and career. Maybe a few movies down, he’ll be at the point that we can make better comparisons. For the time being, he does exactly what the script calls for him to do and gives one hell of a performance. It’s thrilling to see Bond become Bond.

As for the stunts, the dreaded CGI is gone. We’re back to unbelievable, breathtaking physical feats performed by people. (Often, it appears, by Craig himself.) The initial foot chase in Africa is really incredible. Daniel Craig has a physicality that no Bond has had since Connery (or maybe Lazenby), and the fights in those days weren’t done in such a way as to take full advantage of that. In other words, the fights in Casino Royale are brutal, believable... and painful.

These action scenes have, of course, been added on to the plot of the book, which had very little action away from the card table. We expect that from Bond movies, though; even when the movies followed the books fairly closely they beefed up the action (like FRWL’s climactic helicopter chase). Storywise, I have no problem with that at this point. After all, I want action in my Bond movie as much as everyone else!

The main action of Fleming’s novel occurs at the gaming table, and he’s a skillful enough writer to make that quite exciting. In the movie, the card game (which has been changed from chemin-de-fer to the infinitely less Bondian "No Limit Hold ‘Em Poker") is shot well, and played more as bluffs between Bond and Le Chiffre, so you don’t really need to actually follow the action of the game. Which is good, because it’s never explained. Fleming explained the game of chemin-de-fer very clearly in the book, and even the American TV version managed that. So it’s a bit of a shame that a poker novice can’t really tell what’s going on with the cards, but certainly not detrimental. There are plenty of reaction shots on Vesper and Mathis to tell us if the hand was good or not, or to alert dummies that "That's the Tell! He's bluffing!"

Late in the movie, Bond is captured and brutally tortured. This is a scene right out of the book, and one that many readers couldn’t believe would ever be filmed. We’ve never seen 007 put through such anguish on screen before. Sounds unpleasant, and it is... but it’s the moment when Craig really, really shines. His performance in this scene is what will solidify his image as Bond for the Jack Bauer generation. This is one tough Bond. The audience actually cheered when I saw it. It’s horrific, but it’s also the movie’s best scene.

Unfortunately, shortly after that comes its worst. The movie falters in its third act. If only they’d just filmed the book, it would have been great. For the whole first two thirds of the film, the filmmakers have presented a very adult Bond movie and treated the audience as intelligent viewers. Before finishing the movie on that note, they cop out and shoehorn in another, completely unnecessary action scene. The high human drama of Fleming’s book plays out amidst the chaos of a gunfight in a sinking Venice building. (I’m not even entirely clear on why the building is sinking.) Sadly, some of the book's best character moments are lost in the action.
This whole sequence feels out of another movie, a refugee from one of the late era Brosnan films. Even though 007 is still capable of superhuman feats, the previous action sequences in Casino Royale are fairly grounded. This one goes for scale, and it’s worse off for it. It’s also awfully reminiscent of the fight on the sinking submarine at the end of The World Is Not Enough.

Still, the whole "wobbly building affair" manages to conclude on a moment of suitably high-stakes emotional suspense, and this leads us into a very strong coda. All in all, the film only steers seriously off course for about ten minutes, but in a movie of this length you feel every one of them.

Martin Campbell, who directed Brosnan’s spectacular debut in GoldenEye in 1995, has managed to make another stellar Bond movie. His direction may not be flashy, but it’s exactly what the series calls for. Despite the radical departure Casino Royale takes with Bond himself, it still looks and feels like a classic Bond movie. Much moreso than Lee Tamahori’s Die Another Day or Michael Apted’s The World Is Not Enough. I’m thankful to Campbell for restoring the beautiful "travelogue moments" that used to be hallmarks–and highlights–of the series. The locations are all stunning, from the Bahamas to Europe. And the camera takes a moment to linger on them as David Arnold’s excellent score (his best since Tomorrow Never Dies) fleshes them out. The Art Direction team has done a fantastic job with interiors as well as exteriors. The casino itself looks exactly how I always imagined it, and its colors are particularly vibrant.

All the performances are first rate, with special attention going to Giancarlo Giannini, who embodies Fleming’s Bond ally Rene Mathis perfectly, and Eva Green as Vesper. Vesper is not a cardboard cutout; she’s a rich, believable and very complex character. I’d say she’s the best female part Fleming ever wrote, and Green really conveys that. Whereas some Bond girls become mere decorations the moment they stop delivering their lines, Green is constantly acting. Even if Vesper is, as Bond puts it, "unreadable," we’re still aware that she’s constantly thinking, conflicted, emotional. As much as I love Michelle Yeoh in Tomorrow Never Dies, I have to say that Eva Green gives the best performance as a Bond girl since Diana Rigg in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.

Casino Royale is a successful reboot of the Bond franchise, and I can’t wait to see where they go from here. Hopefully we will see Craig’s Bond remain an interesting character, and over several films gradually develop into the suave, cool-as-ice "gentleman spy" who first introduced himself to the world 44 years ago at a gaming table, in the guise of Sean Connery, as "Bond. James Bond."

*This is the third version of that book. Fleming sold the film rights to that title early, resulting in the black and white American TV production starring Barry Nelson as "Card Sense Jimmy Bond" of the CIA. After Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman bought the rights to the rest of the series from Fleming, producer Charlie Feldman managed to acquire the Royale rights. Realizing he couldn’t make a straight version of the story without Sean Connery at the height of Bondmania, he instead produced a disastrous all-star spoof. Broccoli’s heirs finally acquired the rights, along with MGM, from Sony, as part of some serious legal wrangling that also allowed Sony to make Spider-man. (Then, of course, Sony bought out MGM, so none of that really mattered.)

Pierce’s New Spy Role

Either Brosnan’s still really bitter about being dumped by the Broccolis and eager for further revenge (a strong possibility, given the timing of this announcement), or else he’s totally over it and game for anything. Hard to tell from his newest role... in which he’ll be sending up 007... again. Whatever his motivations for doing it, I’ll be looking forward to the movie. It sounds like a potentially funny premise, and, as I’ve said before, I always like it when Brosnan sends up his Bond image. (His best performances to date are doing just that in The Tailor of Panama and The Matador!)

According to Hollywood Reporter, Brosnan is set to star in and produce a movie for New Line called Spy Vs. Stu. When regular guy Stu takes his girlfriend to a Caribbean island for a romantic getaway, he doesn’t realize that on the other end of the island is a superspy (Broz, naturally) recovering fresh off saving the world. And when that certain suave spy (who has an eye for the ladies, it seems) takes a liking to Stu’s girl, it’s war between the two men. Like I say, could be fun. I’ll be keeping an eye on this one.

(Shame about that title, though...)

Initial Thoughts on Casino Royale (2006)

Well, using my best undercover operative techniques, I did manage to infiltrate one of the secret, high security Hollywood press screenings! I'll probably need to see the movie again before I can actually review it, but I'll try to post a "rough draft" review tomorrow. In the meantime, here are some initial post-screening thoughts. I'll definitely give away some little stuff, so if you want to remain totally pure, don't read it. But I will definitely avoid any major spoilers.

One thing that I never considered, in all of my fevered excitement for this movie, was that it would be a different viewing experience than any other Bond movie I'd ever seen. The first Bond movie I saw in a theater was Licence To Kill in 1989. That was around the time I first started reading Ian Fleming, too. I'd seen all the others already on video or on ABC. (Remember when they used to air them on Sunday nights during the summers every year? Those were the days! Sigh. Whiffle ball in the front yard until the sun started to disappear, and then running inside for Bond on TV... OK, nostalgia attack over.) So, the point is, in all the cases where there was a movie based (to whatever degree) on a Fleming book, I'd already seen the movie. Usually they were such different animals that having seen the movie had little effect on reading the books, and even when the stories were the same, they were never ruined. And from LTK on, the movies themselves were all original stories, made up for the screen.

So, the point is, this is the first time I've ever gone into a new Bond movie not only as the latest installment in my favorite movie series, but also as a screen adaptation of one of my favorite books. (And Casino Royale is one of my favorites.)

That thought had never occurred to me prior to seeing the movie. So it produced some conflicting emotions during the screening. "Holy shit! This is awesome!" / "Wait! That's not how it is in the book! Aww." I still haven't quite reconciled those thoughts, and it may take another viewing (knowing exactly what to expect) to do so.

Yes, this is the most faithfull adaptation of Casino Royale put on screen yet (though, honestly, that's not saying much considering the two previous attempts). Yes, this is actually "based on the novel by Ian Fleming" according to the credits! Yes, this is the closest Movie Bond has come to Fleming since the days of Dalton. But is it my Casino Royale? The version I've carried around in my head ever since reading it for the first time? No, and it won't be yours either, so remember that when you're going into the theatre and adjust your expectations accordingly. That's a basic caveat for all movies based on beloved books, but I'd forgotten to heed it tonight. But the BIG question, that everyone's asking, and tons of critics have already told you the answer to (94% positive on Rotten Tomatoes right now!) is, "Is the movie any good?"

Unequivocally, yes.

It's a great movie, and a great Bond movie, too. Definitely the best since Goldeneye. Will I go back as far as On Her Majesty's Secret Service as some critics have? I'll need to see it again before I let you know. And How's Danny Boy? He does a great job. It's hard to compare him with those who have gone before, because he's playing Bond at a different point in his career than they did. Maybe in the next movie, or the one after that, we'll finally be able to tell where he stands in the pantheon of Bonds. But he's a great actor and he delivers exactly what the script calls for. And he's SO good in the infamous torture scene, that in that scene alone he will win over any who doubted him and seal his place as THE Bond for the Jack Bauer generation.

Random thoughts:
The Danny Kleinman credits sequence is fantastic, and without even one dancing girl! Yes, I wouldn't have thought it possible to have a great bond title sequence without any girls, but it comes off as one of the very best. VERY retro.

The song over the titles is a different version from the one that's been making the rounds on the net and on the radio (presumably the single version). Maybe this one?

The traditional "pre-credits" sequence is about 40 minutes this time... and it's not before the credits. Yes, there is a short "pre-credits" bit in black and white, but that's basically prologue. After the credits come two long (and amazing) action sequences pretty much back-to-back. Then it's into the book's main plot.

True, there aren't one-liners per se, but Craig NAILS the humorous lines that are there, often with a threatening undercurrent.

Eva Green is great. So is Giancarlo Giannini, though Bond's relationship with Mathis is changed from the book in a way I didn't entirely approve of. So is Jeffrey Wright, though Felix doesn't have too much to do in this movie. I hope they keep him around and really develop the great friendship he and Bond enjoy in the books.

Crying tears of blood is a cool quirk for a villain to have.

The torture scene IS there, basically intact, and, as I mentioned before, plays even BETTER than it does in the book, mainly thanks to Craig.

I still wish Moneypenny had been in it. The "Villiers" character played by Rome's Tobias Menzies is kind of a combination Tanner and Moneypenny. He even answers M's phones. (I thought he was going to be more Tanner, and that "Villiers" was a tribute to James Villiers who played the part in For Your Eyes Only. Michael Kitchen made the best Tanner to date in Goldeneye and The World Is Not Enough.)

I didn't really like the ending. I can't say too much about it without spoiling, but the book was much better, and much more economical storywise. This adds another final, unnecessary action sequence set in a sinking building in Venice. It felt like the end of another Bond movie, a relic from the late Brosnan era. The drama happening inside (from the book) almost got lost amidst the chaos, which was too bad, because it was more in keeping with the rest of this movie.

The famous last line from the book is in the movie... sort of. It's not quite the same, and it's no longer the last line. (The last line of the movie, however, is a good one, and had the audience cheering...)

Anyway, it's a great movie, well worth your precious box office dollars. Go see it this weekend!

Stormbreaker on DVD in UK

The movie version of Anthony Horowitz’s first Alex Rider novel, Stormbreaker, hits Region 2 DVD in the UK this week. Which gives me an excuse to talk about this movie.

Stormbreaker actually got a legitimate release in England, so they’re making a big deal out of the DVD. Here in the US, it was horribly mishandled by The Weinstein Company, and barely saw any kind of release at all.

After two amazing international trailers, which appropriately played up the action in Horowitz’s young spy saga, the eventual US trailer instead played up the jokes, dubbed a couple of the British actors, and tried to look a lot more like a kids’ movie. Worse still, the American poster was a truly hideous thing, with the horrible tag line "Rule the school. Save the world." (Ruling the school has absolutely nothing to do with either book or movie.) It changed the title to the unwieldy Alex Rider: Operation Stormbreaker, despite the fact that the book was a bestseller under its own title. And it sold the movie as an Agent Cody Banks clone.

Now, one of the primary selling points of Horowitz’s series is that he doesn’t talk down to his young readers. Yes, they are kids’ books ("young adult," actually), but they aren’t the Bobsey Twins. They feature a young hero, but they have death and violence and suspense. They’re written for young teenagers, and they’re books that a middle-schooler can feel cool reading. They feature a hero the same age as the target audience.

Agent Cody Banks was a movie aimed at much younger kids, featuring a kid hero slightly older than them. Stormbreaker is a legitimate action movie that teenage boys would actually enjoy; Cody Banks is a joke. What I’m saying is, it was a terrible mistake to label this movie as something it isn’t. The Weinstein Company had a much cooler property on their hands than they realized. They may be a bigger phenomenon in Britain, but the books are New York Times bestsellers over here! They had a built-in audience and they didn’t even use it!

Other than the horrible poster, the movie was not marketed at all in the US. No TV spots, no print ads (that I saw, anyway), nothing. The release date was changed twice, and when it finally dribbled out in the box office dead zone of early October, it was only to a very few theaters. I saw it with my girlfriend in one of only two it played at in the Los Angeles area (and LA is a fairly large market), and there were four other people in the theater. If kids who read the books somehow realized the movie existed and wanted to see it, they probably couldn’t find it.
The one place it was actually marketed was in bookstores, and that was by the publisher, not the film company. In Borders at that time you could find front-of-store displays full of Alex Rider books, including a making-of the movie book, the published screenplay by Horowitz, the movie tie-in edition of the novel, and a comic book adaptation of the movie. But the movie itself was nowhere to be found.

Perhaps it will find its market on DVD here in the US, whenever it comes out, but I doubt it. I hear rumors that TWC is planning to release it exclusively at Walmart. Which means it will actually get a lot of shelf space at America’s largest retailer... but none whatsoever at all the others.

It’s all too bad because the movie itself isn’t bad. It’s better than a lot of dreck that got legitimate theatrical runs this year. It doesn’t quite live up to the full potential of an Alex Rider movie, but the kid in the lead does a good job and the supporting cast is made up entirely of wonderful, mostly British, actors, like Ewan McGregor, Stephen Fry, Bill Nighy and Andy Serkis. All do predictably good jobs.

I hope this British DVD performs wonderfully. It will have to if there’s any hope of seeing a sequel, since Stormbreaker never had a chance in the crucial American market. And the best books in the series are yet to come, so a sequel would be good news.

Casino Royale Soundtrack

Tomorrow’s the big day for fans of spy music: the release of a new James Bond soundtrack! David Arnold’s score for Casino Royale comes out as a CD from Sony, and as a download on iTunes. The iTunes version is considerably longer than the CD version, presenting what Sony’s calling a "complete score." It’s a nice change for Bond fans who are used to getting only half of Arnold’s scores. (Most of the best music was left off the CD for Die Another Day, and the resulting album was the most unlistenable Bond disc in quite some time.) Strangely, though, neither the CD nor the iTunes album features the title track performed by Chris Cornell, even though the tune is said to recur throughout the score. Presumably this is because Cornell is on Interscope and Sony is releasing the soundtrack. According to the movie posters, there will be a single on Interscope, though there’s no sign of it yet...

Those who haven’t red the book Casino Royale should also be well warned: there are MAJOR SPOILERS on the tracklisting for the soundtrack album, so you may want to hold off on buying or downloading until after you’ve seen the movie.

Random Intelligence Dispatches

Real Life
Of course the big real world spy news this week is that former CIA Director (1991-1993) Robert Gates has been appointed to replace Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense. So now there’s a military man in charge at the CIA, and an Agency man running the military. I hope that combo makes for better cooperation and communication, and, most of all, better intelligence! But there’s lots of places where you can read about that in much more detail than here...

The Bourne Antagonist
Edgar Ramirez has been cast as the baddie (described in the Hollywood Reporter as a "superkiller") in The Bourne Ultimatum. Could this "superkiller" finally be Bourne’s sworn literary enemy, Carlos the Jackal? I don’t expect Ultimatum to resemble the book of that title any more than Supremacy did (or Moonraker did, for that matter) but it would be cool to see Carlos appear in the Matt Damon series. Producers had been in discussions with Gael García Bernal, which would have been awesome casting, but couldn’t come to a deal.

See the new Bond early...
Advance screenings of Casino Royale are going on all over the place! (Press screenings mostly, and some contests.) Arrrgh! Why can’t I get into one??? If you know of one, please let me know! (Thanks.)

...and sing its praise!
Speaking of Casino Royale, Variety and Hollywood Reporter both gave it very positive reviews! (Although both noted that it ran a bit too long.) Be warned, though, both reviews are a bit spoilery, especially the Variety one. Here's a taste from the Reporter's review: "What a relief to escape the series' increasing bondage to high-tech gimmicks in favor of intrigue and suspense featuring richly nuanced characters..." The British press has also been lauding the movie... and new Bond Daniel Craig.

Luciana Paluzzi DVD
The 1967 Eurospy rarity One-Eyed Soldiers starring Thunderball’s femme fatale Lucianna Paluzzi has been available on DVD for a while, but it’s suddenly much easier to find. It’s from a tiny distributor, though, and the transfer is as bad as you would expect from the bootleg-quality low-res box art.

Huge DVD sale
You can get that and tons of other spy movies (well, and non-spy movies also for people who are into that sort of thing...) at DeepDiscountDVD.com’s twice-a-year 20% off sale! I find that this sale is really the way to get the very best prices on just about anything, and the shipping’s all free. The primary coupon code is SUPERSALE although there are usually several others enabling you to place a few separate orders. DDD always seem to have especially good prices on A&E DVDs, and A&E puts out a lot of spy shows like The Avengers, The Prisoner, The Persuaders!, The Saint, Danger Man, Secret Agent, The Champions, The Protectors and Randall & Hopkirk, Deceased (though that one’s really more detective than spy). If you’ve been meaning to check out one of these series, now’s a good chance to get a good buy!

New Modesty Blaise Shipping Now

The latest in Titan's supurb series of Modesty Blaise comic strip reprints is now available. Modesty Blaise: Cry Wolf is currently shipping early from Amazon.com or available at your local comic book store. In addition to the title strip, this one reprints the strips "Take Me To Your Leader" and "Highland Witch." Bonus material includes the usual introductions to each story from Modesty creator/author Peter O'Donnell, an interview with him from the 70s, character sketches by illustrator Enric Badia Romero, and an introduction by Russell Mael of the glam/new wave band Sparks. Yeah, that last bit seemed a bit weird to me, too. But then, I didn't know the very interesting connection Sparks turn out to have to Modesty!

Mael explains that they were contacted to write the theme song for the proposed Modesty Blaise American TV series in the early 80s. (I believe this is the one that was to have starred miscast American blonde Ann Turkel as Modesty; only a pilot was ever filmed.) They wrote the song, their record company liked it... and then the series wasn't picked up. But the label wanted to release the single anyway, so they changed the name (but didn't actually re-record the lyrics!) to "Modesty Plays" for legal reasons and released it anyway!

Well, this was very intriguing to me. It meant there was another Modesty Blaise theme song out there that I had never heard! (Johnny Dankworth's infectious theme from the gloriously awful 1966 film is a real guilty pleasure of mine.) I went to iTunes and, sure enough, there it was, "Modesty Plays" by Sparks. You can listen to some sound clips for free, but I went ahead and downloaded it. If you're a big Modesty fan, I recommend you do, too. It sounds very, VERY 80s, and a little too "remixy" to be a TV theme, but it's definitely a Modesty Blaise song!

Casino Royale Magazine Roundup

Here, FINALLY, are the covers for High Roller and Empire I promised to post so long ago.


007 (but not Daniel Craig) also made the covers of Arena (British, with Eva Green on front) and Out (American, with a random model in a Bond pose on front). The latter’s quite a strange piece of Bond coverage, only for die-hard completists or gay Bond fans. Articles include one rating each Bond actor on his "gayness" and "shagability," a 16-page photo spread of a model in various Bondian scenarios with a gay twist (such as framed by a man’s legs, ala the famous For Your Eyes Only poster) or at a casino table surrounded by lots of pouty young men, and the requisite story analyzing Fleming’s text for coded gay content. I’ve read plenty of essays that do a pretty good job addressing that topic academically, but this one loses all credibility with me with some factual errors right off the bat. Take the time to do your research!

Hugh Jackman Spying After All?

Variety reports that Tony-winning Wolverine actor, singer, dancer and self-proclaimed James Bond candidate Hugh Jackman will produce and star in a new movie of Robert Littell's 1981 spy novel The Amateur. Evan Katz, an executive producer on 24, is writing.

"Jackman will play a CIA cryptographer whose fiancee is killed in a suspicious plane crash. When he discovers that the plane was broughtdown by terrorists, he finds the leverage that forces his bosses to train him to exact revenge."

There was a previous movie of the book made in 1981, but apparently it differed greatly from the book. According to the trade, the new version will be based on the novel, and not a remake of the movie. But they will update it, as Universal did with Robert Ludlum's The Bourne Identity. The new movie will have a contemporary setting.

I'm not familiar with either the book or the original movie (though it is on DVD), so I can't really add anything to the report. But any potential new spy franchise is a good thing, I think, and I like Hugh Jackman. I don't know if the character is a one-off in the book, or if he features in a series. The implication is that Jackman is hoping the movie will be the first in a series, though.

Review: Another New Bond/Moneypenny Short Story, "Moneypenny's First Date With Bond" by Samantha Weinberg

Another New Bond/Moneypenny Short Story!

The always on-the-ball Young Bond Dossier reports that a SECOND brand new James Bond short story by Moneypenny Diaries author Samantha Weinberg (again writing as Kate Westbrook) has been published! This time it's in the UK weekly The Spectator, which has a special Bond supplement this week in conjunction with the imminent opening of Casino Royale. It looks like quite an interesting supplement, with additional articles on 007 by Weinberg (this time under her own name), Young Bond author Charlie Higson, and even Old Bond author Ian Fleming! I'm not sure how easy it is to get ahold of The Spectator here in the USA, but at least they've made the new Bond/Moneypenny story and other Bond articles available online to those who register. Registration is free and painless. (Still, I'll need to track down that hard copy for my collection eventually...)

This makes the second new Bond short story in as many months after Ms. Weinberg's previous story in the November issue of Tatler. That's rather historic since before that one it had been seven years since we'd had a Bond short story see print (by Raymond Benson), and even a couple more years between that one and Benson's first short story! (None of these stories have been collected.)

Weinberg/Westbrook's latest appears to be titled "Moneypenny's First Date With Bond," which makes the awkward and overly derivative "For Your Eyes Only, James" seem as good as Live And Let Die in comparison! Fortunately, the story is much better than the title.

Moneypenny Review

It's extremely short, less than three pages. And it will play hell with continuity buffs! It tells the story of Moneypenny's first meeting 007, and appears to take place immediately prior to the events of Ian Fleming's first novel, Casino Royale. There is no date given at the beginning of this one, like in the Tatler story, but Fleming's novel was published in 1953. And according to Weinberg's first Moneypenny Diaries, Moneypenny didn't even join the service until, I think, 1956. She also hints that M wasn't yet at his post in '53. Furthermore, this story implies that Bond was sent on his Casino Royale mission immediately after receiving his Double-O status, which was not the impression I ever got from the book. It is, I think, the premise of the new Casino Royale movie, though. Which doesn't feature Moneypenny. So this story doesn't seem to quite fit into any currently established Bond timeline, but sort of works in all of them. My guess is the intention is for it to serve as a complement to the new movie, filling in the Moneypenny scenes we'll wish were there. But also work in the 007 literary canon, thus requiring M to be a man rather than a woman. Make sense? Sort of?

Anyway, it's certainly not worth spending too much time thinking about all that. The story is well-written (though, I suspect, greatly cut by the Spectator editors) and serves as a quite plausible origin story to Bond and Moneypenny's relationship as seen in the film series, and, to a lesser extent, the books. It really does feel like exactly the scenes I would want to see in the "Bond Begins" Casino Royale!

As with all of Ms. Weinberg's Bond work, intelligence professionals constantly tend to blurt out highly secret information in public places to people they would probably not really reveal it to. (By "really," I suppose I mean in Fleming's world, as well as the real world.) But she presents a logical reason for the instance that occurs in this story, and it is the crucial moment of the story.

Her descriptions of Bond here are dead-on with Fleming's, and she does a better job of showing him through a woman's eyes than he did in The Spy Who Loved Me. "I found myself looking into a pair of blue-grey eyes that appeared to be at once cold and inviting, like the Atlantic Ocean in mid-summer," she writes. That's really a nice turn of phrase, and a good way of summing up the dichotemy of Bond's eyes that IF is always describing as being cold and cruel with a touch of warmth or warm with a shade of cruelness. (Sounds like a weather report the way I say it!) It's been a while since I've read TSWLM, but I don't think the Atlantic Ocean comparison comes from Fleming.

"Moneypenny's First Date With Bond" strays even further away from the diary format than "For Your Eyes Only, James." There's no mistaking this for anything but a short story, narrated by Moneypenny. I've been impressed with both of Ms. Weinberg's Bond stories so far, and I hope we see more. (Furthermore, I hope they're eventually collected!) I'd even like to see her try her hand at a straightforward Bond story without Moneypenny, just for once. It could be interesting!

I'm also very impressed with the publicity IFP and publisher John Murray are giving to this latest volume of The Moneypenny Diaries, since the first one had none but that ill-conceived and half-hearted attempt to dupe some papers into thinking the diaries were real! (That backfired and resulted in almost no coverage or reviews in major papers.) By getting these short stories out there in various publications, hopefully they're churning up some serious reader interest. They've done a women's magazine and a news magazine; I'd say the one remaining market to tap would be a men's magazine. I know this series started out as an explicit attempt to lure female readers, but since the core audience are probably men (who would like these books if they could get past the, er, girlie covers!) the next step should probably be to publish another short story in Playboy, the traditional home of new Bond stories since Fleming's days. Or, if they were afraid that might alienate the female audience they're so desperate for, then maybe something a little more "acceptable" in the current climate like Maxim or Stuff. (Trashier magazines, but less nudity!)

The Gun Seller

This has been out for a little while now, but it still bears mentioning that actor/author Hugh Laurie’s classic 90s comic spy novel The Gun Seller is back in print at long last. (Can a novel from the 90s be classic already? Read it and decide for yourself! I say yes.)

I loved Laurie as the vacuous P.G. Wodehouse hero Bertie Wooster on Jeeves & Wooster, and when he followed his esteemed co-star Stephen Fry into fiction (a spy novel, no less!) I was eager to read the result. I think it got described at the time as "Wodehouse meets Fleming," which is near the mark, but it might be more accurate to call it a Robert Ludlum thriller as written by P.G. Wodehouse. It’s a legitimate Ludlum-style globetrotting thriller, with a hapless hero accidentally thrust into the world of international intrigue and arms dealing, written in a deft comic style surely inspired by Wodehouse, which makes for a hell of a lot more fun a read than Ludlum’s own rather artless prose. The hero is certainly smarter than Bertie (who isn’t?) but his winking narration as he tries hopelessly to understand each new predicament he finds himself in really elevates The Gun Seller above the perfectly acceptable category of "entertaining beach read." It’s been too long since I’ve read it. I should really go back and read this one again, and if you missed it the first time and you’re a fan of spy novels, or Hugh, or both, definitely pick it up!

If you’ve seen his British comedy stuff, then you won’t be able to help picturing Laurie in the lead role as you read the novel. (If you only know him from House, maybe not.) It was originally optioned as a film to be written by Laurie and star (I think) Hugh Grant, since Laurie wasn’t a big enough name at the time to sell a movie. Then September 11 happened, and it was scrapped along with any other script concerning terrorism. Now that we’ve moved on a bit from then, and now that Hugh Laurie’s finally the huge star in America that he deserves to be, thanks to the success of House, maybe it will finally get made. Laurie’s a bit old to play the lead now, but he can probably rework it appropriately. He did mention that he was working on the script in a recent Entertainment Weekly interview, though he didn’t mention if he intended to star or not. I hope so. And I also hope he gets around to writing a sequel someday!

The Liquidator

Fantastic soundtrack news! (If a bit old, now.) SpyBopRoyale reports on the Eurospy Forum that Film Score Monthly will release Lalo Schifrin’s complete score to The Liquidator (including Shirley Bassy’s Bassytastic title song: "The-Li!-Qui!-Day!-TOOOOOOOOOOR!") on CD for the first time ever. In fact, it’s available NOW from FSM!

FSM puts out a wonderful series of "Golden Age Classics" and "Silver Age Classics" releasing long out-of-print and highly sought after film scores, remastered, on CD, usually with extensive liner notes and often bonus tracks. They’re kind of hard to find in stores (I still haven’t been able to track down a copy of John Barry’s Alice/Petulia they issued early this year) and tend to go out of print quickly, so you might want to order directly.

The Liquidator, of course, is Boysie Oakes, John Gardner’s pre-Bond anti-Bond. His Oakes books are sort of a direct response to Fleming’s Bond books, and a parody of them. The US paperback covers were suitably lurid in a Sixties way, and some of them are worth reading. None of them, however, scream out "PICK ME TO WRITE THE JAMES BOND CONTINUATION NOVELS IN THE EIGHTIES!"

While there was a whole series of books, there was sadly just one movie, and it didn’t really live up to its amazing Bob Peak poster, or its classic Schifrin score. Still, it’s worth a look, for sure. And I would scoop it up in a second if someone put it out on DVD! Rod Taylor of The Birds fame stars as Boysie, and Jill St. John’s along for the ride looking great and maybe even contributing just a little bit more to the plot than does her useless Tiffany Case character in Diamonds Are Forever! (The film, that is. Tiffany was actually quite an enjoyable character in the novel.) I guess it didn’t do well to warrant a series, which is a shame.

Taylor did, however, go on to star in another Eurospy treat called The High Commissioner (aka Nobody Runs Forever), which is, surprisingly, on DVD, courtesy of MGM. It plays like an overlong episode of an ITC series, and I think Dahlia Lavi is supposed to be Vietnamese(!), but Taylor and Christopher Plummer each do a great job and the fairly realistic (for a Eurospy movie, anyway!) plot is pretty good.

Casino Royale movie tie-in

Penguin's official paperback movie tie-in edition of Casino Royale is currently all over the shelves at your local bookstore. Strangely, it doesn't feature Daniel Craig movie artwork, like the British edition. It's just the same (excellent, in my opinion) Richie Fahey artwork as the regular Penguin paperback, with the addition of a circle that says "Now a major motion picture!" (Why are book blurbs the only thing that still talk like a 40s Hollywood executive? Who says "major motion picture" anymore?) The intersting thing is, it's a mass market paperback, priced at only $7.99 and much smaller than the $14 regular tradepaperback version that's been available for the past few years. What's significant about this is that this is the first time an Ian Fleming title has been in print in a mass market edition in America in quite some time. (Since the "silhouette cover" Bantam editions in the mid '90s, I think... or maybe the last Signet editions of TMWTGG and Octopussy came a little later.) Penguin's current line (the best looking American editions in decades!) is in trade only. So, it's of interest. Frankly I'm surprised Penguin passed on the opportunity to put Daniel Craig on the cover, and really brand the book like the movie. It probably would have sold a few more copies. And that original Style A teaser poster, with Craig at the poker table, would have made a great paperback!

The Quiller Memorandum

Today Fox releases its batch of "Classic Spy Films" to coincide with the Bond release. This includes The Quiller Memorandum, The Chairman and The Ultimate Flint Collection. All the discs come in very nice packaging utilising stunning original poster artwork. Boy, I really sound like a studio press release there, don't I? I can't help it. I like original poster artwork. I like it a lot, and I can't understand why other studios DON'T use it! (I'm looking at you, MGM, with your lousy photoshop Bond covers!) Furthermore, each disc (or discs, in the case of Flint) is housed in a glossy cardboard slipcase with the same artwork. Sure, it makes it a little bulky, but it looks very classy. And Quiller even features alternate poster artwork on the back!

This is the first time on DVD in the US for The Quiller Memorandum. Quiller was written by playwright Harold Pinter based on a novel by Adam Hall (the pseudonym of Elleston Trevor) and stars George Segal, Alec Guiness, Max Von Sydow and Eurospy favorite Senta Berger.

I'll post my thoughts on the movie tomorrow. As for the features, apparently we get less than was offered on Network's Region 2 release earlier this year. I believe that release had some original on set interviews with the stars, among other things. What Fox offers is the original trailer and a commentary with "film historians" Eddie Friedfeld and Lee Pfeiffer. Spy fans will probably be familiar with Pfeiffer as the co-author of such books as The Incredible World of 007, The Essential Bond and The Films of Sean Connery. I'm naturally dubious about any commentary tracks from "film historians," especially when talent from the movie is still alive. (Where was George Segal? Where was Harold Pinter??? That would have been some commentary!) However, I'm happy to report that Pfeiffer and Friedfeld do a good job on this one. They do go off on tangents and make some of those annoying jokes that "experts" tend to make, but they know the material and they're clearly friends and have a good chemistry with each other. There's rarely a pause on the track, and they sometimes cut one another off or finish each other's sentences. What makes their track really interesting is that they disagree about the movie. One of them (I'm afraid I can't recall which) really admires it and the other is more ambivilant. They debate Segal's somnambulent performance and Pinter's refusal to ever give us any information about his characters. Both make good points. It's definitely worth a listen.

Overall, I'd say the movie is more a Pinter movie than a spy movie, but it still belongs in any thorough Sixties spy collection.

Review: James Bond/Moneypenny Short Story "For Your Eyes Only, James"

New James Bond Short Story!

The November issue of British magazine Tatler is finally hitting US newsstands! Why is this of interest to spy fans? Because it contains the first new James Bond short story in seven years!*

The story is (rather unoriginally) titled "For Your Eyes Only, James" and credited to Kate Westbrook. Of course, we all know that "Kate Westbrook" is really Samantha Weinberg, author of the clever and entertaining Moneypenny Diaries series of Bond continuation novels. It runs 4 two-column magazine pages (but might just make 10 in book form) and features three cartoonish illustrations by Mick Brownfield.

Since the story is so brief and basically hinges on a gimmick, I’m not going to reveal any of the plot in my review. Instead I’ll focus on the details and remain as spoiler-free as possible.

The story is dated "September 1956" but, other than that, does not read like a diary entry. It features no slang or shorthand, as the Moneypenny Diaries do, and no footnotes. It reads like a short story (narrated in the first person by Moneypenny), and is structured as such. It reminds me most closely of Fleming’s "007 in New York" (originally published in the American edition of his non-fiction Thrilling Cities) or Raymond Benson’s "Live at 5" because if its brevity and structure. All three of those are almost vignettes more than short stories, and in all but the last, the actual action of the story is related quickly in the final paragraph by an omniscient narrator. (Fleming in the case of "007 in New York," presumably "Kate Westbrook" [supposedly Moneypenny’s niece who "discovered" her "diaries"] in the Tatler story.)

I quite enjoy Ms. Weinberg’s writing, and it’s a treat to see her cut loose from the constrictions of the diary format, however briefly. While I might not have pegged Miss Moneypenny as one to go in for Flemingesque prose, the author has fun with variations on Fleming’s own language and style in describing the casino at Royale-les-Eux. (Yes, that casino!)

Try: "The atmosphere was heavy with barely suppressed tension, almost sensual in its intensity: for the first time I understood what made men into gamblers."

Or: "As he passed us, I caught the scent of sweat merged with stale smoke."

While the latter is about as direct and obvious an homage to Fleming’s famous opening line of Casino Royale as Charlie Higson gave us describing Eton at the beginning of SilverFin, the former is first rate pastiche. It’s not distracting in its context, but it might well be a lost Fleming passage! Well done, Ms. Weinberg.

As with The Moneypenny Diaries, it is clear that the author has done her research. There are plenty of Easter eggs for readers familiar with Fleming, including a nice reference to a certain dress in Casino Royale. The character of James Bond is even a bit more spot on than in Guardian Angel, the first Diary. He exhibits the same easy charm with Moneypenny that he does with many of Fleming’s Bond girls, and the lines sound right (with the possible exception of one that follows the bit about the dress). Then he switches abruptly to business. Moneypenny’s reaction ("The switch from pleasure to business was a jolt, yet I couldn’t let it show") could easily be that of Vesper Lynd, Tatiana Romonova, Honey Rider, or any of the other women who have witnessed 007's sudden transformation. Vesper in particular makes similar note of it in Casino Royale.

Bond uses Benzedrine, as he does when preparing for his epic card battle against Hugo Drax in Moonraker and on several other occasions in the midst of a mission. (Strangely, in Casino Royale it was villain LeChiffre who popped the drug, and at that point 007 saw it as a disgusting habit. Guess he changed his mind!) Surprisingly, he carries a revolver instead of his trusty Beretta. Since this takes place before Doctor No, when he received his one-time use Smith & Wesson snub-nose (along with his famous Walther PPK), I guess we’re to assume it’s the long-barrel job he keeps in his Bentley.

My only nitpick with the story involves its gadgets. Q-Branch issues Moneypenny with a dictaphone wristwatch capable of playing back twenty minutes worth of conversation. Could such technology exist before microchips? (Maybe it could; I’m certainly not an expert.) Also, the main gimmick hinges on the use of "heat cameras," presumably infra-red technology. Did this exist in 1956? Perhaps it did; I think the OSS used some variation on the technology in WWII. Still, something about it just didn’t sit right with me.

Overall, though, "For Your Eyes Only, James" is a fun and fully legitimate James Bond short story. I’d recommend every fan of the literary exploits of 007 track down the November issue of Tatler. It’s a bit hard to find in the US, but better newsstands and some bookstores should carry it. At $8.99, it’s a more affordable taste of Ms. Weinberg’s take on James Bond than importing the Moneypenny Diaries from Amazon.co.uk, since the books have yet to see publication over here. And, as a bonus, you get that sexy Kirsten Dunst cover!

*The last one was "Live At 5" by Raymond Benson, published in an issue of TV Guide with Pierce Brosnan on the cover around the time The World Is Not Enough hit theatres in 1999. Benson published three Bond short stories all told, the other two both appearing in Playboy. None have been collected. The last collection of Bond short stories was Octopussy and The Living Daylights, published posthumously in 1966 collecting those two Fleming stories. The American paperback also included "The Property of A Lady," and the most recent edition adds "007 in New York."

Daniel Craig's Infamous Hair Color

What does this, the infamous "second Capote movie," have to do with spies? It co-stars new Bond Daniel Craig, that’s what. The producers of this movie decided to dye Craig’s infamously blond hair and eyebrows black for the part of In Cold Blood killer Perry Smith. And it works. He looks believable as a brunette. So I don’t know why the Bond producers opted not to. Well, maybe I do: in some shots the darker Daniel actually looks a bit like Sean Connery. (A, er, "rougher" Sean Connery, at least...) Maybe they consciously kept him blond to avoid, or at least lessen, the inevitable comparisons. In some shots he even has something close to the comma of hair Fleming describes 007 as having.

But enough about Daniel’s hair color. How is he? He’s pretty good in this decidedly un-Bondlike role. Craig’s Perry is very different from Clifton Collins Jr.'s Perry in Capote. Whereas Collins played up Perry’s sensitive side more, Craig more embodies his temper-prone, deadly side. Actually, the two performances together add up to accentuate Smith’s dichotemy. Sure, Dan does sensitive, too, like the much talked about kissing scene. He even sings. But you’re always aware that this man harbors the capacity to kill. He’s dangerous. That instinct comes to the surface most in a scene where Perry confronts Capote about the title of his book, In Cold Blood, which he feels will de-humanize him. In the other version, as I recall, Perry was mad but mostly kind of cried about it, pouted, and refused to talk to Truman. Craig’s Perry seizes Capote, shoves a rag in his mouth, puts him in a strangle hold and very nearly kills him. I’m curious which account, if either, is true, but the differences in those scenes ably demonstrate the differences in the two actors’ approaches.

The Devil In Amber

I received my copy of The Devil In Amber from Amazon.co.uk the other day, a few days ahead of its scheduled Nov. 6 release date. Unfortunately, there’s no way I’ll have a chance to read it any time soon (with the second Moneypenny Diaries sitting next in my queue already) but I should at least have a review up well before the book hits American shelves in January!

The Devil In Amber is the second Lucifer Box adventure, a follow-up to Gatiss’s highly entertaining Vesuvius Club. It takes place some twenty years after that book, and again the book’s design and illustrations reflect the period. This time the endpapers are filled with blurbs for other (fake) books from the same publisher with titles like Dead Man's Sock and The Mauve Teapot by authors like Emelia Roundfoot and Carter Dick-Johnson, each with a hilarious description. It runs 248 pages, a little longer than The Vesuvius Club.

"You Know My Name" single?

As has been widely reported on the web, the Casino Royale soundtrack album will feature only score music by David Arnold, and not the title theme, "You Know My Name," performed by Chris Cornell. This is a first for a Bond soundtrack, and an unfortunate one, in my opinion. Good or bad, the song belongs on the album. And I happen to like this song quite a bit. Sure, it took time to grow on me, but it's definitely very Bondian.

Anyway, there's been a lot of online speculation that the song will not even be released as a single. However, new Casino Royale posters clearly say at the bottom score album on Sony and "You Know My Name performed by Chris Cornell, single on Interscope." So it looks like there will be a single yet, which is good news! Of course, I suppose "single" in this day and age could easily just mean iTunes download, but I really hope there's a physical CD of it too, hopefully containing all the different mixes of the song that have turned up so far.

You can see details of the Casino Royale soundtrack CD at Amazon, but be forewarned if you haven't read the book, the tracklist contains HUGE SPOILERS!!!

Pulp's unused Tomorrow Never Dies song

A recently issued 2-disc Deluxe version of sublime 90s Britpop band Pulp's album This Is Hardcore features a "rough mix" of their rejected title song for the Pierce Brosnan Bond movie Tomorrow Never Dies. Pulp worked with Bond composer David Arnold on his essential 007 tribute album Shaken And Stirred (a top-notch collection of Bond song covers by the likes of Aimee Mann, Iggy Pop, David McAlmont and more which spawned the popular Propellerheads single "On Her Majesty's Secret Service") and presumably tried to parlay that relationship into recording the theme song for the next movie. Clearly, they were barking up the wrong tree since Arnold didn't even have enough clout to get his own theme song in the title slot. Instead, it ended up as "Surrender," the closing credits song performed by k.d. lang. Sheryl Crow got the title song, "Tomorrow Never Dies," despite Arnold's "Surrender" theme recurring throughout his score. (I happen to quite like both songs, even though many Bond fans dismiss the Crow one.) Anyway, Pulp's version was re-recorded as "Tomorrow Never Lies" and ended up as a B-side on the single Help the Aged. Now, for the first time, we can finally hear how it sounded in its original Bondian version as "Tomorrow Never Dies."

Overall, it's an interesting curio for a Bond fan, and an essential purchase for a Pulp fan. I love Pulp, and I really like the song (though I prefer the B-side version to the sparser demo offered on the new set), but ultimately the song just lacks the Bond sound essential to any Bond theme. Lead singer Jarvis Cocker is more of a whisperer than a belter, and that just doesn't work for 007, in my opinion. (Although I do actually prefer his Shaken And Stirred version of "All Time High" from Octopussy to Rita Coolidge's original version. Go figure.)

New Bond Magazine Covers

Daniel Craig makes the cover of Empire Magazine for the second time this year! Check out the new cover here.

Also, Caterina Murino is on the cover of the American magazine High Roller. I'll post an image soon.

Moneypenny Diaries

The Moneypenny Diaries Vol. 2: Secret Servant by Samantha Weinberg is now shipping from Amazon.co.uk! Order now! My copy arrived this week, and I can't wait to read it.

Don’t be put off by the incredibly lame chick-lit cover. The Moneypenny Diaries isn’t derivative chick-lit, as I had feared when it was first announced. It sounded like such a blatant attempt to cash in on another successes. First IFP announced their Bond version of Harry Potter (Young Bond), then their Bond version of Bridget Jones (which just seemed like such a weird combination to begin with, and missed the "diary" craze by about two years). But just as Charlie Higson defied expectations and made his Young Bond so much more than a HP ripoff, so has Samantha Weinberg (writing as "Kate Westbrook") done with The Moneypenny Diaries.

The first volume, Guardian Angel, may not have been perfect, but it was a highly enjoyable read set distinctly in the world of Ian Fleming’s Secret Service. Ms. Weinberg had clearly done her research well (although some purists insist on nitpicking about a few little continuity details she gets wrong... but then Fleming wasn’t so good on the continuity either, was he?) and I found myself fascinated to see Fleming’s incredible supporting cast (Moneypenny, Tanner, M, Goodnight), who made such indelible impressions in their brief recurring appearances in his books, fleshed out into leading roles. With the slight exception of 007 himself, the characterizations seem dead-on to me. Like the Young Bond series, which asks us to go along with the shaky concept that James might have stumbled into all these incredible adventures serendipitously as a child, you’ve got to buy into the notion that Moneypenny actually got out of the office from time to time and had a more active role in the Secret Service. But if you can swallow that (which isn’t too difficult, once you start reading), Bond fans are bound to enjoy these books. The best part is that they’re set in the early Sixties, and fit in between events in Fleming’s own novels! This one begins when Bond is presumed dead following the events of You Only Live Twice. So presumably we’ll get to see his less-than-triumphant return (from The Man With the Golden Gun) from the point of view of Moneypenny and the MI6 staff, which should prove especially interesting!

I have no idea why the publisher is marketing them as chick-lit. Maybe IFP was hoping to expand Bond’s readership, but that obviously didn’t work (based on the undeservedly poor sales of the first entry). Now they should focus on the core audience and cater to them. Once again, don’t go by the cover. These are legitimate Bond novels!

Unfortunately, there are currently no plans for publication in the US.

Nick Fury Mini Mate

Aw, isn’t he a cute little tough guy? The latest line of Marvel MiniMates (lego-like figures) is now in stores. They’re packaged in two-packs for about $8, and one of the two packs is Captain America and NICK FURY!!! Even though Marvel cranks out hundreds of action figures in all shapes and sizes every year (dozens of them variations on Wolverine alone!) Fury figures are pretty rare. The only other ones in recent memory are the amorphous Hero-Clix game piece which looks nothing like the one-eyed super-spy, and the definitive Fury figure in the 8 inch Marvel Legends line, which is now out of print. If you prefer your action figures more adorable, this is the Fury for you! Check your local comic shop.

Intellipedia

U.S. Intelligence Czar John Negroponte's office announced a new "spy's version" of Wikipedia, and supposedly it's the future of intelligence. Officers at dozens of different agencies in the Intelligence Community can contribute to entries (as the general populace does to Wikipedia), and also view those written by others. It seems like another good step towards getting some famously combatative Intelligence agencies to cooperate.

According to the Reuters story, "[Intelligence officials] also said it could lead to more accurate intelligence reports because the system allows a wider range of officials to scrutinize material and keeps a complete, permanent record of individual contributions including dissenting points of view. That might help avoid errors of the kind that led to the widely criticized 2002 national intelligence estimate that said Saddam Hussein possessed large stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction."

On the downside, they also acknowledge there is a greater risk of sensitive intelligence data being leaked when so many people have access to it.

Get Smart on DVD

TVshowsonDVD.com has posted pictures of the full, impressive box art and packaging for Time-Life's feature-filled Get Smart DVDs. They're releasing the entire series at once in nifty phone booth packaging, but it will only be available by mail order for a year. Next November you'll be able to buy individual seasons (or, I think, the megaset) from all your favorite retailers, presumably at a better price. But the packaging sure does look nice!

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