Trailer for George Lazenby Docu-Drama Becoming Bond

For the past year or so we've heard little about that George Lazenby documentary that was rumored to be in the works. But today it careened onto the internet in a spectacular way, with a fantastic trailer and the announcement that it will premiere at the South by Southwest Film Festival next week. And the trailer reveals that it's actually quite a bit more than a traditional documentary. It's a "documentary-narrative hybrid," which combines interview material with Lazenby today with recreations of the larger than life tales he narrates. The recreation cast includes Josh Lawson (House of Lies) as Lazenby, Jeff Garlin (Curb Your Enthusiasm) as Harry Saltzman, and Dana Carvey (Saturday Night Live) as Johnny Carson. Jane Seymour (Live and Let Die) and Jake Johnson (Drinking Buddies, Jurassic World) also star, the latter playing a presumably made-up or composite character with an inside joke name that may tickle hardcore Ian Fleming fans: Peregrine Carruthers.

Lazenby is an incredible raconteur, and the tale of how he basically conned his way into the most coveted role in the world, taking over from Sean Connery as James Bond despite zero acting experience, and went on to make a movie that many (myself included) consider to be the best in the series, On Her Majesty's Secret Service... and then promptly pissed away his sudden success... is certainly one deserving of this kind of lavish treatment! 

Director Josh Greenbaum's Becoming Bond premieres at SXSW on March 11 and makes its streaming on Hulu on May 20. EW premiered the stunning trailer, which you can see below: 

Now, if only Lazenby would finally write that autobiography he's been promising for years! Hopefully this movie will be a resounding success and spur him to do so.
Thanks to Sybil for the heads-up!

Tradecraft: NBCUniversal Developing NSA/U.S. Cyber Command TV Series

Deadline reports that NBCUniversal International Studios, Participant Media, and the production company behind Downton Abbey, Carnival Films, are developing a TV series based on Going Clear director Alex Gibney's incredibly compelling documentary Zero Days. The trade reports that Gibney will direct (it's unclear if they mean the whole series or just the pilot) and Stephen Schiff (The Americans) will write, and the two will produce along with Marc Shmuger. Zero Days will form the basis of the first season. The documentary tells the true story of a joint U.S.-Israeli operation to create a computer virus, known as Stuxnet, to damage Iran's nuclear program. But the virus gets out of control and, Skynet-style, takes on a life of its own. The thriller series is "tentatively titled" Stuxnet, but since that is obviously one of the worst titles ever bandied about for a television series, presumably that will change. (What's wrong with the enigmatic Zero Days?)

According to the trade, "Season 1 of Stuxnet will focus on what happens when a self-replicating computer virus developed by the West to disable and destroy nuclear facilities in the Middle East starts to spread beyond its intended targets, threatening the security of those it was intended to protect. The drama will tell a tale of hackers, spies, nuclear secrets and how one clandestine mission opens the Pandora’s box of cyberwarfare forever – a new era of global conflict without rules." Presumably, like the documentary, it will offer a glimpse inside the ultra-secretive worlds of the NSA (a more or less defensive SIGINT agency) and America's offensive cyberspook outfit, U.S. Cyber Command. Definitely fertile ground for a spy show!

Tradecraft: CNN Announces Spy Documentary Series Declassified

Even CNN participates in the upfronts, announcing their new programming for the coming season. And among those programs announced, according to Deadline, is a new documentary series about covert operations called Declassified. Here's how the trade describes the series:

Declassified is an eight-part series that looks at America’s covert operations around the world. This morning at Turner’s Upfront presentation to media buyers, CNN will announce that the series will be hosted by former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, also the former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. Each episode will feature a newly declassified mission told firsthand by the agents involved, giving CNN viewers “unprecedented access to world of espionage.” Eli Holzman, Aaron Saidman, Stephen Lambert and Rogers serve as executive producers on the series from All3Media America.

Declassified will premiere in 2016.

Look At... The Berlin Wall

Network recently relaunched their website as Networkonair, and one of the primary features of the new site is their streaming "On Demand" section. I really enjoyed the episode of Scotland Yard they posted there (now gone), but  it's another video I'm directing you to today. Anyone who reads as many books as I do about divided, Cold War-era Berlin should definitely check out the 10-minute episode of  the 1960s theatrical documentary short subject series Look At Life entitled "The Wall." It contains lots and lots of contemporary glimpses of the Berlin Wall, in color no less. It makes a great supplement to famous Berlin-set spy novels like Funeral in Berlin, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and The Quiller Memorandum. I don't know how long it will be available for, though; these free streaming episodes don't remain for too long on the site. This segment comes from the forthcoming Region 2 PAL DVD set Look At Life Volume 6: World Affairs, which also includes a short entitled "James Bond's Island" examining Early Sixties Jamaica. I'd sure like to see that one! As a matter of fact, I'd like to see all of these.

Upcoming Spy DVDs: Top Gear: 50 Years of Bond Cars

TV Shows On DVD provides the cover art for BBC's upcoming Region 1 DVD of the Top Gear special 50 Years of Bond Cars. The special, presented by Richard Hammond last fall to tie in with the theatrical release of Skyfall, is one of the best James Bond TV specials I've ever seen. It's a must-see for fans of Bond cars especially, and I'm so glad that it's getting a DVD release because it's one I definitely want to own for posterity. Not only does Hammond interview a number of 007 production personnel (including Guy Hamilton, Roger Moore and Daniel Craig) and test drive some original Bondmobiles, but he also pilots an actual working Lotus submarine car! Top Gear's version is based on an Excel rather than an Esprit, but unlike the production version(s) used in The Spy Who Loved Me, this one actually functions as both a street car and a submarine! The run time for the DVD is listed as 135 minutes, which is substantially longer than the TV version. According to the BBC America blog, extended interviews account for some of that extra length. Best of all, it's a real steal with a bargain SRP of just $9.95... and it's available to pre-order on Amazon for even less than that!

New James Bond Documentary Everything or Nothing Airs Tonight

Everything or Nothing: The Untold Story of 007, the feature-length James Bond documentary celebrating 007's fiftieth anniversary that we first heard about back in January, debuts tonight in America on the HD channel EPIX. It's the main attraction in the celebration of Global James Bond Day. And you don't even need to subscribe to the cable channel to see the movie. If you have DISH, Cox, Verizon or Charter cable, then you can take advantage of the EPIX free preview weekend and watch Everything or Nothing on TV. (It premieres at 8pm tonight.) Otherwise, you can also sign up on their website for a free trial (you don't even have to enter credit card info), and watch the documentary online for free. EPIX have released a number of clips to give you a taste of what's in store:  

Movie Review: The Man Nobody Knew (2011)

Movie Review: The Man Nobody Knew (2011)

In The Man Nobody Knew: In Search of My Father, CIA Spymaster William Colby, William Colby’s son, filmmaker Carl Colby, seeks to better know his own father—and, in the process, share the senior Colby’s fascinating story with the world. And William Colby’s story is fascinating. It was on his watch as Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) in the mid-Seventies that the ultra-secretive CIA opened up many of its most secret files to the public and adopted a new policy of (relative) transparency during the Senate’s Church Committee hearings. Not only did that lead to a new era of increased Congressional oversight for the Agency, but it also led directly to the publication of a slew of new books on a subject formerly difficult to glean much information on. Therefore, as someone who became interested in the CIA a little over a decade after the Church Committee (or United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, to use its lengthy official moniker), I came across William Colby’s name quite a lot in the library books I checked out in middle school. In fact, whenever you opened to the ten or fifteen pages of black and white photographs in the middle of any paperback about the CIA, there was a picture of Senator Frank Church holding up an electric CIA poison dart pistol that he asked Colby to identify and explain. As we can now ascertain via declassified information in books like Robert Wallace and H. Keith Melton’s Spycraft: The Secret History of the CIA's Spytechs, from Communism to Al-Qaeda, it wasn’t the sexiest of the CIA’s Cold War spy gadgets, but it was the one there was a picture of on the public record, and as such bound to turn up in any attempt to sensationalize the business of spying. In addition to playing a key role in many of the non-fiction books about the Agency published in the late Seventies and Eighties, Colby himself penned or introduced a few of them—and even lent his name to a computer game. (I never got the game, although I desperately wanted it.)

Unlike some CIA directors, William Colby did not come in from the outside. Like many of the Agency’s earlier bosses, he spent his whole career in intelligence and rose through the ranks to his ultimate position. Carl Colby combines his family’s rare home movies and photos with an impressive array of historical footage and audio from sources like Corbis and various Presidential libraries to ensure that his documentary never dwells for too long on the countless (and impressive) talking heads (including the likes of former agents, family members, politicians, Bob Woodward, James Schlesinger, Seymour Hersh and even Donald Rumsfeld) who tell its story. That story begins back in WWII when William Colby volunteers for hazardous duty behind enemy lines with the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the wartime predecessor to the CIA. This section includes some interesting and—now buffered by the passing of a number of decades—humorous newsreel footage of OSS agents in rigorous training. The humor comes from the fact that, to protect their identities at the time, they all wear Lone Ranger masks as they work out, fire guns and practice hand-to-hand combat.

Around this time, Colby also marries his wife, Barbara (Carl’s mom), who serves as one of the story’s main narrators. Thus the two storylines are established of Colby’s private and professional lives. While the family would move with Colby when he was stationed in Rome and later Saigon, these two lives remain strictly separate. This is part of the reason that the spymaster’s son is only now managing to assemble a full portrait of his father. While growing up in far-flung locales, he knew as little about his dad’s job as anyone else. (He does have recollections of going on family picnics in Italy, from which his father would slip away to go meet someone and exchange brown envelopes or inconspicuous bags.) Colby’s wife reveals that she only found out he was working in Intelligence again (after a brief post-war career in the private sector) when a neighbor told her that her husband got out of his carpool each morning and hopped a bus to Langley!

We learn about Colby’s successful mission to stifle the spread of Communism in Italy, and hear insightful (if overlong) accounts of the beginnings of America’s involvement in Vietnam. This section includes some revelatory audiotapes of President Kennedy’s cabinet debating covert action in the Far East. We also learn, from veterans who were part of it, about the Colby-spearheaded Phoenix Program, a controversial Agency initiative (and forerunner of today’s hunter-killer drone operations) that some critics labeled an assassination program. At the same time, Colby’s devout Catholicism is explored. This proves to be an interesting topic, and some contributors posit that it may have been Catholic guilt that drove him to “confess” many of the Agency’s darkest secrets to the Church Committee years later.

The most interesting section of the documentary comes, not surprisingly, during those years. Following the dispiriting duration of the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal, the American people had lost faith in their government and become sick of covert action. A Nixon appointee, Colby displeased his boss when he refused to let the Agency take the blame for Watergate, which was a White House operation. Following Nixon’s resignation, the public pushed for more and more transparency from the CIA, and despite Senator Church’s outraged performance at his committee’s hearings, Colby gave them more answers than any other DCI likely would have—and more than President Ford would have liked. (He drew the line, however, at the Agency’s notorious “family jewels”—files so explosive he believed their exposure could ruin the CIA.) At every turn, Colby did what he truly believe was best for the Agency.

Personally, I’ve never been sure why Church and the American people were so mortified and surprised at the revelations that the CIA had engaged in illegal covert actions and attempted assassinations. Yes, the Agency has a spotty record (particularly in the 1950s) and many of their attempts to shape the political futures of other nations (Iran, Chile) directly created the mess the world's in today, but I’m not talking about the morality of their actions. I’m talking about the mere fact that they were happening. Today, we’d be pretty shocked if the CIA weren't trying to assassinate the likes of Bin Laden and his ilk! (And no one complained when their intelligence led to the JSOC operation that killed the Al Qaeda leader.) It’s easy to say it was a different time and people were more naïve, except that they really shouldn't have been! After all, as readers of this blog are well aware, the 1960s were chock-full of depictions of covert action in popular culture. Of course people knew that James Bond and Mission: Impossible were total fiction, but didn’t they guess that there was some kernel of truth at their heart? If Ian Fleming could dream up a license to kill and screenwriters could dream up exotic gadgets, and Bruce Gellar could dream up complicated plots to overthrow unfriendly governments, didn’t people guess that the real spooks could dream up similar things? I feel like the only shock registered by a senator at the existence of a secret dart gun should have been, “Why is it so big? James Bond’s fit into a cigarette!” instead of incredulity at its very existence. Senator Church’s reaction reminds me of Louis being “shocked… shocked!” to discover that gambling is going on in Rick’s establishment in Casablanca, right before he’s given his winnings.

But that brings us back to Vietnam and Watergate. The mid-Seventies were a crucial junction for spies not only in real life, but in popular culture. The Watergate scandal broke in March of 1973. That’s also the year and even month that the last remaining Sixties spy show, Mission: Impossible, went off the air—and it's no coincidence. Although certain spy elements would turn up in fantasy shows later in the decade (like The Six Million Dollar Man's OSI), there wouldn’t be another hit spy show on American TV screens for the duration of the Seventies. (For the next hit, we have to look all the way to Scarecrow and Mrs. King in the Eighties, at a time when Reagan heated up the rhetoric of the Cold War once more.) And in the Cineplex, the steady stream of spy movies that rolled out in the Sixties ground to a halt. Those that did still trickle out were decidedly different in tone from those of the decade prior, too. Either they hitched their wagons to other, more popular genres (witness the Roger Moore James Bond films emulating the success of kung-fu movies or Star Wars), or they took a much more cynical view of the profession of spying, as in Sam Peckinpah’s The Killer Elite or Michael Winner’s Scorpio. The American public lost its appetite for spy shows and escapist spy films at the same time it became disgusted with the CIA, the war, the Nixon Administration and government in general. That disgust with the CIA manifested itself in the Church Committee hearings in 1975. All this may seem like a lengthy tangent in a review of a film that doesn’t itself delve into popular culture, but it’s illustrative of why The Man Nobody Knew should be of interest to all spy fans, and not just history buffs. It’s important to understand how actual events shape the popular genres of entertainment we consume.

After the Church Committee hearings, Colby was eventually dismissed from his post. In interview footage in the film, he tells a reporter that the important thing is that his successor not be a partisan political figure, but someone whose first concern is always the good of the Agency. From this quote, the film cuts to a shot of George H. W. Bush being sworn into the post.

Surprisingly, Carl Colby basically wraps things up after his father’s departure from the CIA. While a traditional documentary on Colby might well end there, it seems like an abrupt place to leave the story for a personal documentary like this one, which jumps ahead to the former DCI’s death under mysterious circumstances decades later. It seems as if the filmmaker hasn’t yet found the catharsis he was seeking when he set out to explore his father’s life, and he backs away just as he’s getting close. He allows his mother to deliver a shocking bombshell about the family, but then veers away, seemingly unwilling to dig too deeply into the motivations behind this surprising development. The upshot is that though we learn a lot about the facts of William Colby’s life, and get a clear sense of his place in the history of the 20th century, we never do get to know The Man Nobody Knew. This, of course, is the point that the younger Colby is making, but it seems as if he could have gotten to know his distant father a bit more if he’d been willing to dig a little deeper. Of course, it’s very easy to understand why perhaps he wouldn’t want to, but the result is a documentary that falls just short in the personal story it’s telling even as it succeeds in telling the professional story. Of course, it’s that professional side of Colby’s life that spy enthusiasts will be eager to learn about, and it’s easy to recommend this film for that reason. It offers an eye-opening look at a controversial figure at the very center of the CIA’s most tumultuous period, and as such will enhance your appreciation and understanding of pop cultural spies as well as real ones.

The Man Nobody Knew continues to roll out in a platform release across the country through mid-December. Check the film's website to learn when it will play in your area.

New Spy Documentary: The Man Nobody Knew: In Search of My Father, CIA Spymaster William Colby

New Spy Documentary: The Man Nobody Knew: In Search of My Father, CIA Spymaster William Colby

A story in Variety that manages the neat trick of being neither a review nor a news item at least served to alert me to the existence of a new spy documentary. I hadn't previously been aware of The Man Nobody Knew, despite the fact that it's currently rolling out in limited release around the country and about a subject that's interested me since seventh grade. Despite a relatively brief (if tumultuous) tenure as DCI, William Colby is one of the more famous Directors of Central Intelligence in the history of the CIA, largely because he became the Agency's face during the Church Committee Congressional hearings in the mid-Seventies, when many of its darkest secrets came to light. But who was the man himself? That's the subject of his son Carl Colby's new documentary, the full title of which is The Man Nobody Knew: In Search of My Father, CIA Spymaster William Colby. Here's distributor First Run Features' official synopsis:

A son's riveting look at a father whose life seemed straight out of a spy thriller, THE MAN NOBODY KNEW: IN SEARCH OF MY FATHER, CIA SPYMASTER WILLIAM COLBY uncovers the secret world of a legendary CIA spymaster. Told by William Colby’s son Carl, the story is at once a probing history of the CIA, a personal memoir of a family living in clandestine shadows, and an inquiry into the hard costs of a nation's most cloaked actions.

From the beginning of his career as an OSS officer parachuting into Nazi-occupied Europe, William Colby rose through the ranks of "The Company," and soon was involved in covert operations in hot spots around the globe. He swayed elections against the Communists in Italy, oversaw the coup against President Diem in Saigon, and ran the controversial Phoenix Program in Vietnam, which sparked today's legacy of counter-insurgency. But after decades of obediently taking on the White House's toughest and dirtiest assignments, and rising to become Director of CIA, Colby defied the President. Braving intense controversy, he opened up to Congress some of the agency's darkest, most tightly held secrets and extra-legal operations.

Now, his son asks a series of powerful and relevant questions about the father who was a ghost-like presence in the family home – and the intelligence officer who became a major force in American history, paving the way for today’s provocative questions about security and secrecy vs. liberty and morality. The film forges a fascinating mix of rare archival footage, never-before-seen photos, and interviews with the "who's who" of American intelligence, including former National Security Advisers Brent Scowcroft and Zbigniew Brzezinski, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, former Secretary of Defense and Director of CIA James Schlesinger, as well Pulitzer Prize journalists Bob Woodward, Seymour Hersh and Tim Weiner. Through it all, Carl Colby searches for an authentic portrait of the man who remained masked even to those who loved him most.

If that description still doesn't fascinate you, check out this great trailer:



Despite telling a tale more than a quarter of a century old, this documentary seems especially timely. Senator  Bob Kerrey's recollection of his time spent on the CIA's controversial Vietnam anti-insurgency initiative the Phoenix Program particularly resonates today. "By the time I got there in 1969, it felt more like an assassination program," he reveals. That carries a new resonance in the wake of a recent Washington Post story that levels the same claim against the Agency of today.

"In the decade since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks," write journalists Greg Miller and Julie Tate, "the agency has undergone a fundamental transformation. Although the CIA continues to gather intelligence and furnish analysis on a vast array of subjects, its focus and resources are increasingly centered on the cold counterterrorism objective of finding targets to capture or kill.

"The shift has been gradual enough that its magnitude can be difficult to grasp. Drone strikes that once seemed impossibly futuristic are so routine that they rarely attract public attention unless a high-ranking al-Qaeda figure is killed." In that light, Colby's story takes on a new relevance today. While I'm not sure if it's really fair to compare today's Agency's primary ongoing mission against terrorism to Vietnam-era intervention, the CIA is always going to provoke debate, and in order to understand its place in today's world it's crucial to understand its past. Personally, I find the real-life histories of the CIA, MI6, the KGB, the Mossad and other intelligence agencies every bit as engrossing as a great spy novel, and I'm eager to see The Man Nobody Knew.

Further connecting the worlds of spy fact and spy fiction, is it just me or does Gary Oldman's George Smiley bear an uncanny resemblance to Colby? I'm not sure John Le Carré would appreciate the comparison, but I wonder if the makers of the new Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy examined a number of real-life spy chiefs of that era to create their Smiley's look?

The Man Nobody Knew opened in New York last week and expands to other markets this weekend and over the next few months. (The Los Angeles run begins October 14 at the Nuart.) Visit the film's official website for more details and play dates in your area. Next year, the movie's DVD release will be accompanied by a companion book by Carl Colby of the same name.

Upcoming Spy DVDs: Network To Release Man In A Suitcase Documentary Individually

I love Network. I know I sound like a shill for them half the time I talk about them, but there's a reason for that: this is a company that really treats spy fans well. Not only does the UK company release rare soundtracks like I was talking about yesterday, not only do they release excellent Region 2 DVDs of many classic British spy shows and produce wonderful special features for those releases, but they've also released some of those special features on their own for the benefit of fans who can't afford the whole set, or who already have the series on a Region 1 or Region 4 release lacking Network's original features. In the past they've released the Prisoner documentary Don't Knock Yourself Out (now out of print) and the Saint documentary The Saint Steps In... To Television (review here) on their own; now they are releasing the main attraction from their Man in a Suitcase DVD set on its own. In Character: Richard Bradford is a 69-minute long interview with the man who played McGill, the star of the series. Here's the copy from Network's website:

Richard Bradford found great critical acclaim for his sensitive and realistic portrayal of McGill, the discredited ex-CIA agent reduced to working for hire as a private investigator. A perfectionist and Method Actor, he quickly came into conflict with some of the crew and his fellow actors - gaining a reputation of being awkward to work with. Interviewed in the summer of 2004, he candidly talked about his time working on Man in a Suitcase and the problems he encountered while trying to make what is, for some, the finest of ITC’s action/adventure series.

Originally filmed for the best-selling Man In A Suitcase DVD, this is the full interview in which Richard talks with great honesty about his early career, including his time at Lee Strasberg’s highly acclaimed Actors Studio, working with Marlon Brando, and more.

In Character: Richard Bradford will be available to order through Network's site starting on October 12.

COMIC-CON: Movie Review: The Diabolikal Super-Kriminal (2009)

COMIC-CON: Movie Review: The Diabolikal Super-Kriminal (2009)

Director SS-Sunda's documentary The Diabolikal Super-Kriminal enjoyed its U.S. premiere at the San Diego Comic-Con on Saturday night with producer Mort Todd in attendance. Todd explained how he came to be involved with the project. After attempting to secure the license to publish Diabolik fumetti (Italian comic books) in English and failing, Todd looked into what other Italian fumetti sensations were available. He discovered that the skeleton suit-clad sociopath Sadistik (also known as Killing) was available, and ended up buying the character outright. An Italian company then approached him about doing a documentary on the character, and the project was born.

The Diabolikal Super-Kriminal isn’t just a movie about Sadistik (himself a rip-off of–er, variation on the original skeleton-suited sociopath Kriminal, who was in turn a Diabolik rip-off), but about the entire fumetti neri genre so popular in mid-Sixties Europe. Fumetti neri simply means “dark comics,” but it’s great to learn the technical term for all these masked criminals like Diabolik, Sadistik, Kriminal, Mister X, etc. When I reviewed a bunch of these movies in April, I used the term “costumed adventurer” as it was less specific about the characters’ motivations than “superhero.” Whereas Americans preferred their costumed adventurers to be heroic, Italians and Germans gravitated instead toward shadowy figures operating outside the law, taking on the system and getting away with it. Todd speculates that this identification with the “bad guys” is the result of losing two world wars, and he may be onto something there. The movie focuses on the ways in which the comics pushed the boundaries of sex and violence (not to mention good taste) in a predominantly Catholic country subject at the time to Draconian censorship by Church-sponsored morality police. Indeed, the lurid covers and interior artwork showcased in the film are positively dripping with both eroticism and sadism. Unfortunately, the images flash by so rapidly that it’s a bit tough for a non-Italian-speaking viewer to take them all in while also keeping up with the subtitles. (Luckily you can see a bunch at the film's official website!)

Diabolik was the first (and by later standards also one of the tamest–or classiest) of these fumetti neri, and the movie makes interesting points about his creators, the Giussani sisters, using the character to not only embrace the anarchic spirit prevalent in post-Mussolini Italy, but also to overcome–through their escapist male creation–the rampant sexism of the era. The huge success of Diabolik quickly spawned countless imitators who pushed the boundaries of taste as far as they could go. Too far, in fact, resulting in a sudden tightening of censorship on comic books following the brief period of greater creative freedom. Unable to meet the public’s insatiable desire for sex and violence with drawings, director Rosario Borelli and his editor decided to take their latest character, Sadistik, in new directions–as a photo comic. (I'm simplifying here; the documentary goes into fascinating detail about the various iterations of this character prior to the photo novels, as does the producer's website.)

Photo comics were exactly what they sound like: a series of sequential panels of photographs of actors and actresses–complete with costumes and props–telling a story. They were movies on paper, and they were for the most part shot and created by veterans from the world of film. Even the actors came from that world. Future giallo mainstay George Hilton portrayed Sadistik’s relentless adversary, Inspector Grant, in the first eight issues, and other familiar faces from the Eurospy and Spaghetti Western genres popped up again and again. (The actor who played the gangster who casually stops the bullet hole in Valmont’s plane with chewing gum in Danger: Diabolik played one of the main roles in the Sadistik photo comic.)

The considerable section of the film dealing with photo novels is fascinating, since the whole genre is pretty much alien to American audiences save for the occasional film-based paperback. (I think I have a photo novel of Star Wars buried somewhere in my parents’ basement.) Many actors are interviewed, and some took their work quite seriously and remember it fondly, while others scoff at the whole fad and pretend to have forgotten it, as they clearly don’t appreciate a documentarian dredging up that embarrassing part of their career! Sadistik himself is always pictured in his mask except when seen in bed with his girlfriend, Dana–but even then his face is turned away. Therefore, the filmmakers try to build up a big mystery over who it was behind the mask. This bit may play well in Italy if these potential candidates are well-recognized there (the producer said that one of them went on to become the Italian Regis Philbin), but since American audiences have no vested interest in these people and presumably just met them on film, the whole mystery angle fails to generate much intrigue and plays rather tediously. Todd mentioned that the film would be re-cut for American audiences before its release, and hopefully this sequence is one that will be tweaked.

When public disapproval grew for the utterly amoral Sadistik, the producer behind the photo novel attempted to recreate its success with a different genre: a more traditional spy formula. But the James Bond-inspired series (“Don” something... I wish I could remember the full title) failed to catch on the way Sadistik did, and folded after seven issues. This brief snippet of the film really caught my attention though! If these play out like Eurospy movies on paper, then I would love to get my hands on some of them!

Overall, I learned a lot from The Diabolikal Super-Kriminal. It covers a little-known pocket of Sixties pop culture, and for that I found it fascinating. It could have benefited from the inclusion of Kriminal or Kilink film footage, but presumably there were rights issues precluding that. (A potential sequel teased at the end looks like it will focus more on the films.) The filmmakers make a valiant effort to make up for the lack of clips by staging their own filmed recreations of scenes from the photo novel, and their success at creating a suitably vintage feel for these clips is aided immeasurably by the soundtrack (featuring contributions by El Reverendo M, Neuropa and the Charles E. Hall Band), which has an appropriately Sixties Euro vibe to it. If the idea of a masked antihero in a skeleton suit (which is revealed to have been designed by Carlo Rimbaldi!) holds any appeal to you, then you should not pass up any opportunity you have to watch The Diabolikal Super-Kriminal.

Todd hopes for a limited US theatrical distribution (probably at midnight showings) before releasing the film on DVD. In the meantime, fans can slake their thirst for Sixties Euro-sleaze by purchasing reprints of the photo novels through Comicfix, available in English for the first time ever! Todd plans to license the character further. He had with him the prototype for a twelve-inch Sadistik doll (similar to Sideshow figures) complete with skeleton suit and distinctive Sadistik pistol! The doll should be available later this year, and Todd hopes there will be variations in the future with different versions of the suit, including those worn by Sadistik’s unauthorized imitators like Kilink. There are also plans for the aforementioned second documentary, focusing specifically on all those imitators around the world. Apparently the character lived on in South America into the 1990s! Thanks to The Diabolikal Super-Kriminal, he’s likely to live on still all over the world.

Spy Screenings In Los Angeles This Weekend

Including New Geroge Lazenby Movie Opening In US - UPDATED

As a reminder, two very rare spy movies starring the great James Mason (North By Northwest) will screen tonight (Friday, July 31) at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The double bill kicks off at 7:30 with Joseph Mankiewicz's 1952 WWII espionage dramedy 5 Fingers, in which Mason plays a social-climbing valet in the British embassy in Ankara plotting to sell Allied secrets to the Germans. His machinations get him pursued by agents of both sides. 5 Fingers is followed at 9:30 by The Deadly Affair, Sidney Lumet's excellent 1966 adaptation of John Le Carré's novel Call for the Dead. Mason plays George Smiley, only Columbia couldn't call him Smiley because Paramount owned the rights to the name for their film of The Spy Who Came In From the Cold, in which Smiley plays a relatively small part. So Mason's Smiley is called Charles Dobbs. But he's quite excellent in the role, and local Le Carré fans should definitely make a point of catching this screening if they've never seen this film. I was hoping to attend myself, but it looks like I won't be able to make it. If someone else does, please post a comment! Neither movie is available on DVD in the United States, although The Deadly Affair is available in Britain and 5 Fingers is available in South Korea.

Visit the LACMA website for more information on this screening.

Read more about 5 Fingers in The LA Weekly's piece on the whole James Mason retrospective.

Read my whole review of The Deadly Affair here.

Also playing this weekend in Los Angeles and New York is Not Quite Hollywood, that documentary about Australian grindhouse (or "Ozploitation") movies that features one-time James Bond George Lazenby. I first reported on this when Aintitcool linked the trailer last fall. The movie covers a ton of insane Aussie exploitation films from the 70s and 80s and the insane people who made them. Included on the roster is Lazenby's The Man From Hong Kong (1975); I wouldn't be surprised if Stoner (1974) and maybe some of his other action films of the era turned up as well. Lazenby appears in the trailer in some amazingly-remastered clips, as well as in a brief snippet from a new, on-camera interview, but Quentin Tarantino dominates the proceedings in the trailer, as he does most things related in any way to cult cinema. Boasting the tagline, "Finally a documentary full of gratuitous nudity, senseless violence, car crashes... and a bit of kung fu," this looks quite entertaining, and I'm definitely hoping to check it out! Not Quite Hollywood opens in Los Angeles (at the Nuart) and New York (at the Village East) tonight; it expands the following week to the E Street Cinema in Washington, DC, and then to Berkeley, San Francisco, Denver, Minneapolis, St. Louis and Seattle on August 14. Then it opens in Cambridge and Philadelphia the week after that, and presumably other markets will depend on how it performs in the first stages of its platform release. So check your local listings, as they say! It's already on DVD in Australia.

DVD Review: The Saint Steps In.. To Television (2008)

Time and again, U.K. company Network has proven itself one of the greatest allies to fans of classic British television. Not only do they release more cult series from ITV’s Golden Era than anyone else, but they do it in style. No other company in Britain or America (or even Australia, where Network’s only serious competitor, Umbrella, operates) regularly produces as many DVD series sets (or CD soundtrack sets) with as many excellent extras as Network. Most of their sets include an embarrassment of archival extras, ranging from original promos to films made out of two-parters to PDFs of scripts and annuals. But Network doesn’t stop there. They often include newly-produced extras, ranging from the excellent commentary tracks and interviews of the sort Umbrella sometimes includes to lavish, newly-produced feature-length documentaries. Each volume of The Saint that the company has released (The Complete Monochrome Series, The Complete Colour Series and Return of the Saint) has contained a documentary in the neighborhood of forty minutes, and the company has gone above and beyond what most of their kind do: they’ve edited the three together into one two-hour-plus documentary feature and released it on its own disc, affording Saint fans worldwide the opportunity to see what amounts to the definitive story of the series without buying (or re-buying) the entire, expensive series!

The Saint Steps In... To Television is comprised of the original, shorter "The Saint Steps In... To Television" (named after author Leslie Charteris’s novel The Saint Steps In), "The Saint Steps In... To Colour" (both narrated by Seventies Saint Ian Ogilvy) and "The Saint Steps In... To the Seventies" (narrated by Roger Moore). Since the three pieces focus on different eras of the character and are edited sequentially, they easily come together to form a cohesive whole that for the most part avoids repetition and proceeds chronologically.

After a brief introduction showing headshots of every actor to play The Saint (from Louis Hayward to Val Kilmer), some background on Charteris with shots of some of the paperback covers and comic strips (featuring Moore’s likeness) and an exciting montage of clips from the show, the first third settles into a series of talking heads. I found myself wondering why they didn’t edit in more clips to illustrate the speakers’ points (that may be an American thing, since we seem to have shorter attention spans than Brits–or it may just be a budgetary issue), but it didn’t really matter because the speakers are all key figures in the history of The Saint. Fans of the series will be so fascinated by what they’re saying that they don’t require clips.

The speakers cover some stories that die-hards will have heard before (like how the Saint came to drive his trademark Volvo after Jaguar stupidly refused to lend or even sell the production an E-Type) but are crucial to the overall story of the show–and many that are fresh. Those interviewed include Moore and Ogilvy, Charteris’s daughter, script supervisor Harry Junkin, guest stars like Kate O’Mara, Burt Kwouk and Alexandra Bastedo, and many key behind-the-scenes production personnel. All share fond, not-so-fond and humorous anecdotes about the making of The Saint. The late Leslie Charteris himself serves as a commentator throughout the entire documentary in the form of his many, many memos addressed to the writers, which are read by the narrators. They are nearly all derisive, berating the producers for ruining his masterful short stories in the adaptation. Particular vitriol is reserved for Junkin, whom the author didn’t seem to realize was very successfully shepherding his character from the page into a wildly popular TV show. ("As usual, this script is fit for Junkin(g)!") If I have one minor criticism of The Saint Steps In... To Television, it would be that they perhaps travel to this well one or two times too many, since the tenor of all the memos is pretty much the same. But then again, they are too amusing to neglect.

Ogilvy has fun narrating the portions on the Moore show, and doesn’t take any of it too seriously. I think it’s the appropriate tone for the subject matter, but I could see the style being a bit off-putting to some viewers. Also, since the narrator isn’t introduced in the course of the documentary, it falls to the audience to know why he gives an exaggerated, comically annoyed sigh every time he says the name "Roger Moore." Then again, if you’re watching this disc, you probably know exactly who Ian Ogilvy is and why he’s doing that! I suppose that was the producers’ assumption.

The comic tone doesn’t just come from Ogilvy; it’s in the script as well–and it keeps the whole 124-minute feature from ever getting remotely dull. There are various snide remarks about some of the actors at the beginning (particularly Kilmer and Jean Marais) and pretty hilarious cigar-chomping portraits used to depict ITV mogul Lew Grade every time he comes up. On top of that, Ogivly does an amusing (and I assume accurate–if exaggerated) impression of the man. (Most of the narrated bits amount to comic relief, as the principal talking heads do a great job of telling the relevant story on their own.) Later on, as the transition to color is discussed–as well as The Saint’s contemporaries and imitators–there’s an amusing series of variations on the famous Saint stickman logo representing each of the other shows mentioned. While most of them are pretty straightforward, the producers slip in a laugh-out-loud hilarious in-joke about The Adventurer. I had to go back and pause the screen to tell what the drawing was, but when my girlfriend and I realized that it was a very short stick figure next to a taller one (and you just know angry about it!)–with a height scale included to drive the point home–we both cracked up. If you’ve ever watched Network’s fantastic extras on their DVD of The Adventurer (or followed this amazing website devoted to the series), you’ll know that star Gene Barry incurred the enmity of all who worked on the show for his refusal to work with actors and actresses who were taller than he was–which was pretty much everyone. Clever, Network, clever!

Certain episodes get singled out for individual attention, including the color highwater mark "The Fiction Makers" (a two-parter combined as a feature for sale in Europe because "there’s always a demand for theatrical product"–or apparently was back then!), the infamous foray into ludicrous, giant ant-driven sci-fi in "The House On Dragon's Rock" and the stellar episode that served as an unofficial pilot for The Persuaders!, "The Ex-King of Diamonds."

Moore takes over narrating duties as the story shifts to the Seventies–and the Saint switches to a Jaguar after all. While some of Ogilvy’s anecdotes are recycled from his interview and commentary on Umbrella’s Return of the Saint set, there’s a lot of fascinating new information here about the revival–which has generally received less attention than Moore's longer-running series in the past. The scenic European location filming that makes the show so good is covered, as well as Charteris’s increased involvement with (and generally increased approval for) this incarnation of his character. Ogilvy and Charteris formed an unlikely alliance, united against the worst of the scripts. Together, they dug their feet in about an episode entitled "The Prince of Darkness" which would have found the Saint fighting vampires. While I can see their point (that that’s way out of the standard realm of The Saint), I personally would have loved to see such an episode! How cool would it have been to see Ogilvy’s Simon Templar wander into a Seventies Hammer movie? Oh well. Missed opportunities.

The documentary concludes a little abruptly with the implicit promise of more to come by briefly mentioning the Eighties version (powered by Simon Dutton) and stating via narration that "that’s another story." I’d heard that Network had abandonned its ambitions to release the Dutton series (which was at one time rumored to also include the misguided 1987 Andrew Clarke pilot which found a mustached Saint bombing around Manhattan in a Lamborghini like a third-rate Magnum), but this tease makes me hope that’s not true! I’d love to see another chapter of this top shelf documentary about The Saint stepping into... whatever he stepped in in the Eighties. I suppose that’s a subjective question, but the producers of this documentary never shy away from the subjective...

The Saint Steps In To... Television is far more than what we’re accustomed to in DVD special features–especially on TV shows. It’s a legitimate, full-fledged documentary on the history of one of the cornerstone Sixties spy shows, and it’s absolutely essential viewing for fans of Simon Templar and Roger Moore. The producers manage to find a way for their documentary to both serve as a good primer on The Saint for neophytes just dipping their feet in, but at the same time entertain and enlighten even the most hardcore halo-heads. Network should be applauded not only for making such an in-depth documentary on the subject, but also for making it available to viewers independently of the show. It’s a Region 0 PAL disc, so anyone with a DVD drive on their computer should be able to play it, no matter what country they’re in. Since A&E didn’t offer any extras on their Saint DVDs, I would recommend it as ideal supplemental viewing to Americans. Even Australians with the Umbrella DVDs should order this Network web exclusive, as it contains completely different, new material.

Network has previously made their Prisoner documentary, Don’t Knock Yourself Out, available independently of the series set. I hope this sells well, and they continue that trend. I’d love to be able to buy their Persuaders documentary next!

The Saint Steps In... To Television

UK company Network has announced a DVD containing just the acclaimed documentaries from each of their three Saint DVD releases edited together and expanded into a feature-length documentary. I've been salivating for this disc since reader Delmo mentioned it in a comment on my post about the since-cancelled Australian Saint documentary. When the company's first Saint set debuted, Network posted clips from the documentary on their site, and they looked amazing. A&E offered no such features on the Region 1 Saint releases. Sadly I, like many American Saint fans, I presume, was in no position to spring for a whole new set just to get the bonus features. This new DVD combines "The Saint Steps In... To Television" from Network's release of the black & white Roger Moore episodes, "The Saint Steps In... To Colour" from their set of the Moore color series (both narrated by Ian Ogilvy) and "The Saint Steps In... To the 1970s," narrated by Moore, from their Return of the Saint set (starring Ogilvy). Here's Networks own copy on what's certain to be a stellar Region 2 release:

Previously only available with the best-selling Saint and Return of the Saint DVD box sets, this series of highly acclaimed documentaries has now been revised and expanded with new interviews to form one feature-length documentary. The Saint Steps In... To Television is the definitive look at the series’ production for Lew Grade’s ITC company, as told by those involved in its creation. It covers the full story of how Simon Templar came to the small screen in the early 1960s, the series’ evolution into colour and its revamping and reformatting to fit the shifting trends of a late 1970s audience. Featuring extensive contributions from Roger Moore, Ian Ogilvy, Robert S. Baker, Johnny Goodman, Patricia Charteris and many more, this two-hour documentary is the final word on Simon Templar’s time at ITC.

The Saint Steps In... To Television is currently available only as a Network website exclusive. While you're on their site, you might also want to check out their 40% off sale on select titles, including both Moore Saint sets as well as The Persuaders! which runs through Christmas.

George Lazenby In New Documentary

Aintitcool has the trailer for a new George Lazenby movie! Well, make that a movie with George Lazenby in it... a documentary about the Australian film industry in the 70s and 80s called Not Quite Hollywood. It covers a ton of insane Aussie exploitation films and the insane people who made them. Included on the Ozploitation roster is Lazenby's The Man From Hong Kong (1975); I wouldn't be surprised if Stoner (1974) and maybe some of his other action films of the era turned up as well. Lazenby appears in some amazingly-remastered clips, as well as in a brief snippet from a new, on-camera interview, but Quentin Tarantino dominates the proceedings in the trailer, as he does most things related in any way to cult cinema. (And I wouldn't have it any other way.)

TV Review: Mythbusters James Bond Special

Last night’s new episode of the Discovery Channel series Mythbusters was Part 1 of a two-part James Bond special. Mythbusters follows a group of special effects experts who attempt to debunk (or validate) popular urban legends by recreating them (or spectacularly failing to do so). Movies are notorious propagators of such myths, and James Bond movies especially. I’d never seen the show before, but based on this episode it appears to be a very well-made cable reality series.

This episode opened with series regulars dressed in tuxes and gowns and other Bondian attire playing various spy-types in a short, silly skit. This was probably funnier if you were familiar with the hosts, but all of them seem amiable and their own obvious enjoyment of the scenario proved infectious. They chose several Bond "myths" to refute, then broke up into teams to formulate their test strategies. The show revisits each team several times throughout the episode, culminating in a stamp of "Busted" or "Validated." One team headed out into the desert with a load of firearms to try to explode a propane tank with a gunshot as 007 does in Casino Royale; another worked on recreating the boat jump from Live and Let Die to see if such a craft would truly remain seaworthy after jumping over J.W. Pepper’s police car, and tried to deflect a bullet with an electromagnetic watch like the one M gives Bond in that same movie. (As I’m sure you’ll recall, it was M and not Q who doled out the gadgets that one time!)

They were all charming and funny, and clearly enjoyed blowing things up and destroying speedboats. They remained dressed in their Bondian attire until such time as basic safety required a change of clothes. The desert team quickly proved that a 9mm round shot from a Walther P99 like Bond’s couldn’t possibly penetrate your average propane tank, let alone ignite it. But they didn’t stop there. They kept going with more powerful weapons (building up to a mini Gatling gun firing incendiary bullets!) until they got a nice big explosion... which singed the tux of their mannequin Bond! Likewise, it ended up taking way more electromagnets than could possibly fit in a wristwatch to actually alter the course of a bullet. The boat jump wasn’t entirely successful (though no less spectacular in its implementation!), but still managed to earn a stamp of validation. (Which should come as no surprise to Bond fans who know the stunt was done for real... even if it took, as the Mythbusters inform us, seventeen tries to accomplish!)

The producers evidently couldn’t afford the rights to use actual Bond film clips in the show (those can be expensive unless your special is made within the publicity window of the opening of a new movie), but they compensated creatively by animating professional-looking storyboards to recreate (or, in the case of the bullet deflection, create) the applicable moments from the series. Suitably appropriate music (sounding just different enough from the Bond Theme to avoid legal trouble) completed the effect–even if it occasionally ventured too far into surf music territory. The writers worked as many legitimate (and even impressive!) 007 references into the narration as they did cheesy puns ("That myth’s busted in royale style!"), and the narrator delivered them gamely. The Mythbusters James Bond Special proved to be a lot of fun, and one of the more entertaining Bond-related TV specials I’ve seen. It’s well worth tuning into Part 2 for Bond fans, or watching for a rebroadcast of Part 1. (Discovery appears to be airing it a lot this weekend.)

Movie Review: The Champagne Spy

Nadav Schirman’s excellent documentary The Champagne Spy tells the story of Israeli spy Ze'ev Gur Arie, aka Wolfgang "Wolf" Lotz. Lotz posed as a German ex-Nazi living the playboy lifestyle in ‘60s Cairo while his wife and young son waited patiently in Paris. (Owing to the great difficulty in running spies directly from Israel to Egypt, Paris served as the European headquarters of the Mossad at the time.) It’s not so much the story of his actual spying, but the story of his descent into his double identity, and the havoc that wreaked on him and anyone close to him.

The central interviewee in the documentary is Oded, Lotz’s son. Young Oded took Super-8 home movies of his father’s visits (Lotz would return to Paris every five or six months to report to his handlers and see his family) and allowed the filmmakers full access to this footage. As an adult, Oded revisits some of the sites of his childhood, and you can see the memories flooding into his eyes–the ones he shares, and the ones he doesn’t.

Schirman also had unprecedented access to former Mossad agents, Lotz’s colleagues and handlers. Despite one handler’s assertion that it was always best for an agent to keep his family in the dark about the true nature of his frequent business abroad, Lotz ignored that advice and told his young son exactly what he did on one return visit. "You can’t tell anyone," he cautioned him. "My life depends on it." And so Oded was burdened with the huge secret–and responsibility–he would carry throughout his youth. Still, at that point it felt good for him being let in; it made him feel closer to his father. When they went to see From Russia With Love together on one visit home, his dad told him the real life stuff was much more interesting.

In Cairo, Lotz lived as a German horse breeder in a community of German scientists who were helping Egypt develop weapons of mass destruction to use against Israel. He enjoyed the high life–the gambling, the clubs, the women. His handlers worried that he was enjoying it too much, but he was far too ensconced in the community to remove such a valuable asset. Eventually, against his handlers’ wishes, Lotz went so far as to marry a young German woman, Waldrud, in his cover identity. The Mossad did not tell his actual wife.

When Lotz and his new wife were arrested as spies, it was reported in world newspapers. Oded saw the headline first, and it fell on him to break the news to his mother that her husband had another wife. She refused to believe that Waldrud was anything more than a fellow agent the Mossad had assigned that cover to. She and Oded kept vigil for years, praying that Lotz would one day be released, but unable to speak of him to their friends. The only reason he avoided the death sentence in Egypt was because his cover was so good. They believed that he was actually German, not Israeli. If Oded spoke to anyone about his father and revealed the truth, he risked dooming him.

When Lotz was finally released, his Israeli family was relieved, but forced to face the truth; he had slipped further than they could imagine into his fictional identity, and he loved another woman, another wife. Schirman’s film only becomes more fascinating once Lotz is released. Obviously useless as an agent after being so publicly exposed, he had a difficult time adjusting back to his real life. He was used to the high life and tried to continue to live it, but with the Mossad no longer picking up the tab for such lavish expenses, he went heavily into debt, and actually ended up working in a department store at one point.

It’s an angle I’ve never seen a spy film take before. What happens to an agent accustomed to the James Bond lifestyle when they can no longer afford it? (Well, to those few agents ever lucky enough to live it at all, I suppose!) What happens to a man who is more used to a blown undercover identity than to his own? What does that do to his relationships with superiors, friends, wives and son? The Champagne Spy is a fascinating examination of such a man told by those who knew him best–or perhaps not at all. It’s the story of a son coming to grips decades later with his complex feelings about his father, a man he revered as a hero, but couldn’t forgive for what he did to his family. For anyone with interest in real life espionage and the toll it takes on its practitioners, this documentary is worth seeking out. It’s playing the festival circuit right now, but it’s such a good movie that it’s bound to get a release deal of some sort, possibly limited theatrical, definitely on DVD.

And for those who prefer narrative features to documentaries, Schirman has already signed a deal to turn The Champagne Spy into a fictionalized English language feature. During a Q&A at the Los Angeles Film Festival this past weekend, he told the crowd that the feature version would have a different hook. Instead of taking the son’s point of view, it will be told from the point of view of the young German wife, Waldrud. She meets a charming stranger on a train, and he whisks her away into the seductive scene of the Cairo jet-set. Then she slowly learns his true identity, and gets caught up in a world she never imagined... Sounds like the makings of another good movie!

Schirman had other interesting things to share as well. The making of the movie, if he’s to be believed, is almost as incredible as the story it tells. The director found a book Lotz had written, also called The Champagne Spy, in a used bookstore and couldn’t believe the tale it told. The book had been out of print since the early seventies, but he tried to track down the film rights by contacting publishers on three continents. In all cases, the rights had reverted to the author. Tracking down the author himself proved even more difficult. Some people told him Lotz was running guns in Australia; others said he was training mercenaries in South Africa. When Schirman discovered Lotz was actually dead, he was about to give up but for a chance meeting at the swimming pool.

Schirman was sitting poolside while his son took swimming lessons when a stranger sat down beside him. The stranger asked him what he was working on, and he told him. The man was interested. A few days later, Schirman received an anonymous phone call telling him how to get in touch with Lotz’s son and executor of his estate. By pure coincidence, the stranger at the pool had been a former Mossad agent himself! That man was later instrumental in lining up interviews with other intelligence officers. Apparently the Mossad, an organization more secretive than the CIA, gave Schirman fuller cooperation than they’ve ever given any filmmaker before. When a viewer asked Schirman how he managed to track down so many spooks, he answered, "Networking." Apparently Hollywood isn’t so different from the shadowy world it so often portrays!

DVD Review: Modern Marvels: James Bond Gadgets

DVD Review: Modern Marvels: James Bond Gadgets

Made for television as an hour-long segment of the History Channel’s Modern Marvels series, James Bond Gadgets was recently released by A&E on Region 1 DVD to cash in on the home video debut of Casino Royale. But whatever the motivations for the release, this documentary should not be dismissed by spy fans as just another knock-off. It’s actually very well done: an informative program with lots of visual treats for Bond fans and technology enthusiasts alike.

The first segment covers flying machines, and focuses on two of my very favorite 007 gadgets, the Thunderball rocket belt and "Little Nellie" from You Only Live Twice. The producers have dug up some really good footage of early tests of the actual, working Bell rocket belt, and interview several aerospace engineers and test pilots who worked on its development. One of those pilots also doubled for Sean Connery and flew the device in the movie. All the b-roll here is really amazing, including shots of a test pilot soaring over trees and shots from the pilot’s point of view.

We then move on to Ken Wallis, an energetic octogenarian familiar to Bond fans as the inventor and pilot (also doubling for Connery) of Little Nellie, 007's heavily-armed autogyro. Wallis shows off a hanger full of nineteen of autogyros he’s built over the years, including the one from the movie (whose prop machine guns still "fire") and more practical models made for the military and police (including a sleek looking machine with a covered cockpit). Wallis is erudite and interesting, and gives a concise explanation of how autogyros work, comparing them to sycamore seeds. He estimates that his autogyro is one of the safest aircraft there is to fly, which came as a surprise to me. It doesn’t look safe, but it sure looks fun, and there’s plenty of film of Wallis flying his various models. This footage rekindled my childhood desire for a Little Nellie of my own! (For now, though, I’ll have to make do with my Corgis...)

The focus then shifts from aircraft to boats, and we visit renowned Bond collector Doug Redenius in Illinois. Redenius owns the Q-boat from The World Is Not Enough, which he proves actually works by taking it for a spin on the river! (He says it’s only the second time the tiny craft has been in the water since filming on the Thames.)

At his home, we briefly see a few other Bond boats, like the speedboat from Moonraker and mini-sub from For Your Eyes Only, and get a tantalizing glimpse at his vast collection of 007 memorabilia. Doug has my dream basement, filled floor-to-ceiling with pristine props and toys, many in their original packaging. I paused the DVD and zoomed in several times, identifying the many items and sighing more than once with jealousy. He shows off a few prop replicas, which segues nicely into interviews with the special effects men who created the originals. (We get the oft-told but always amusing story of how a government engineer called up a prop designer and inquired as to how Connery’s Thunderball rebreather actually worked, only to be humiliated when told it was movie magic!)

The program next turns to cars, and footage taken at a 2001 exhibition in England offers a look at many of Bond’s best, including Goldfinger’s Rolls, a submarine version of the Lotus from The Spy Who Loved Me, the Aston Martins from Goldfinger and The Living Daylights (a personal favorite), and some relics of 007's ill-advised flirtation with BMW. We’re treated to shots of the then-new Vanquish out for a road test, and a gorgeous red DB5 owned by a West Coast collector who sought the car out because of its indelible Bond connection. The ubiquitous Dave Worrall pops up briefly, and it’s a pity there isn’t more of him since he’s probably the expert on all of James Bond’s wheels.

James Bond Gadgets stumbles a little when it segues into "real life" gadgets near its conclusion, as such devices tend to pale in comparison with the ones dreamed up for the movies. The owner of the Counterspy Store in Beverly Hills shows off a briefcase he says is like the one in From Russia With Love, but it fails to live up to 007's version. All it really seems to offer is the ability to remotely shock anyone who’s stolen it! Neat, I guess, but where are the knives, the hidden gold coins, the stun gas? We also get a peek at a thermal imaging scope on a rifle at the Special Tactical Services training facility in Virginia (a school for body guards and private security), but this too fails to generate much excitement. I know from experience in television documentaries that cable networks often want a "real life" component to movie-based shows, and it can be difficult to work in. Maybe I wouldn’t have even noticed the drop in quality in this section if I didn’t empathize with the writers and segment producers desperately trying to shoehorn it in as best they could to please faraway bosses. Luckily, James Bond Gadgets is more successful than most programs of this nature at integrating this aspect, and the show rallies with a good recap.

Overall, James Bond Gadgets should prove highly satisfying viewing for Bond fans and particularly fans of Q’s inventions. The rare footage of the rocket belt in action and brief archival video of Redenius’s impressive collection alone make it a necessary purchase for completists, and the additional footage of Little Nellie and her sisters in action will certainly please viewers like me who play that chase in You Only Live Twice again and again, and can’t get enough of the tiny autogyro. The SRP of $24.99 seems a bit steep for a 42 minute (not 50, as the box indicates) documentary, but it’s well worth the lower prices at online retailers like DeepDiscount. For more casual spy fans, I definitely recommend at least a rental.

Modern Marvels: James Bond Gadgets is a well-crafted program that makes a solid companion piece to the excellent documentaries included in MGM’s 007 DVD sets. I hope it portends the release of other cable shows about Bond that always air around the time a new movie comes out; every channel from MTV to TLC has done one, and it would be nice to have a whole collection.