Lots of Los Angeles Sixties Spy Screenings Coming Up in August

There are a lot of very stylish Sixties spies playing on the big screen in Los Angeles this month.

First up, on August 7 and 8 (a Sunday and a Monday), Quentin Tarantino's New Beverly Cinema will screen the fourth and final Matt Helm movie, The Wrecking Crew (1968) on a Sharon Tate double fill with Roman Polanski's wonderful Hammer spoof The Fearless Vampire Killers. Besides Tate, The Wrecking Crew stars Dean Martin (The Silencers, Murderers' Row), Nancy Kwan (Wonder Women), Tina Louise (Fanfare for a Death Scene), Nigel Green (The Ipcress File, Deadlier Than the Male) and my own very favorite Sixties Spy Girl, the stunning Elke Sommer (Deadlier Than the Male, The Prize). Sure, the silly, spoofy Helm movies are very poor representations of Donald Hamilton's terrific, hard-hitting, and very serious novels, and sure, they're not very, er, good (in the conventional sense), but they are certainly entertaining! It's rare to see any of them play the revival circuit, and when one does it's usually one of the first two. I don't think I've ever seen The Wrecking Crew playing in a theater during the 16 years I've lived in L.A. The Wrecking Crew will screen in 35mm. Tickets are just $8.00 for both films, available at the box office or online.

Then, on Sunday, August 21, the American Cinematheque's Aero Theatre in Santa Monica will present a double feature of two particularly pop art spy movies, Our Man Flint and Modesty Blaise (both 1966) as part of their series "The Groovy Movies of 1966.") The first of the Derek Flint spy spoofs stars the inimitable James Coburn as the suave, know-it-all superspy, along with Lee J. Cobb, Gila Golan and Charlie Chan regular Benson Fong. But the film belongs, 100%, to Coburn. It simply wouldn't work without him, and because of him it's a must-see.

Joseph Losey's Modesty Blaise has about as much to do with Peter O'Donnell's series of novels and comic strips as the Dino Matt Helm films do with those books... and also like the Helm movies, it can't really be called good. But it's still an eye-popping miasma of glorious Sixties design excess with a wonderfully infectious score by Johnny Dankworth (The Avengers). In fact, it boasts by far the best production design of any of these three films, and would be well worth seeing on the big screen for that reason alone... except that there is another reason. And that reason is Dirk Bogarde (Hot Enough for June) as Gabriel--positively the greatest Sixties spy villain trapped in one of the decade's otherwise weaker mainstream genre entries. Bogarde is an absolute treat in this film. Every line delivery is exquisite, and surely this role ranks among the all-time great camp performances. Terrence Stamp (Chessgame), Harry Andrews (The Deadly Affair, Danger Route), Clive Revill (Fathom) and a hopelessly miscast Monica Vitti in the title role also star. These films will be shown on DCP. Tickets to the double feature (which kicks off at 7:30pm) are $11.00 for the general public and may be purchased online or at the theater box office.

L.A. spy fans, don't miss the rare opportunity to see any of these campy Sixties spy spoofs on the big screen!

Paul Gulacy Paints Modesty Blaise

Comic book artist Paul Gulacy, well known to spy fans for his work on James Bond: Serpent's Tooth, Black Widow, Master of Kung Fu, Sci-Spy and some particularly spyish Batman comics, has tried his hand at Modesty Blaise and kindly shared the result on his website.  Unfortunately, this does not indicate a new, Gulacy-illustrated Modesty comic. (How cool would that be?)  It's merely a commission piece, but it's always cool nonetheless to see new Gulacy spy art and new Modesty Blaise art!  For more of Gulacy's fantastic spy artwork, check out the great book Spies, Vixens and Masters of Kung Fu.

R.I.P. Peter O'Donnell

I just learned from Bish's Beat that Modesty Blaise author Peter O'Donnell has passed away, a week after celebrating his 90th birthday.  Ironically, this decidedly uncool news comes from Bleeding Cool, who have posted a good obituary here. 

Peter O'Donnell hated it when people simplified his greatest creation, Modesty Blaise, into "a female James Bond," insisting that she was not, in fact, a spy, but an adventuress and a reformed master criminal.  While it's true that reducing a character as dynamic and original as Modesty Blaise to "a female James Bond" does her a disservice, disowning that connection entirely actually does O'Donnell a disservice.  He should not be overlooked by any students of spy fiction; Peter O'Donnell should be long remembered for making a crucial contribution to the genre: he created the first female superspy to permeate popular culture. 

Even if she wasn't technically on the government payroll, Modesty Blaise frequently used her unique skills to aid Sir Gerald Tarrant, head of the British Secret Service.  That alone would qualify her as a spy in my book, but beyond that fact, the qualifications for spydom in the Sixties had more to do with the image a character projected and the lifestyle he or she embodied than with semantics.  There was more to James Bond's popularity than just his profession; he was the embodiment of cool as defined by the consumerist Jet Age.  It's this trait that any of his imitators took on, from filmdom's Derek Flint to Matt Helm to Diabolik to Bulldog Drummond (in his Sixties incarnation), none of whom were actually operational secret agents.  (Flint and Helm were both retired in their respective film series, persuaded again and again to come back.)  It's this trait that made spy surrogates out of many an insurance investigator in the Eurospy genre.  It's this trait that was specifically rejected by the spy writers who considered themselves the anti-Flemings (Harry Palmer and George Smiley are both spooks, but neither one is glamorous), and it's this trait that affords private adventurers and criminals (reformed or not) like Diabolik and Modesty Blaise membership in the Spy Club.  From the novels and comic strips penned by O'Donnell to the feature film directed by Joseph Losey (and loathed by O'Donnell), Modesty Blaise simply oozed 1960s cool. 

The slinky, catsuited adventuress debuted in a comic strip written by O'Donnell and drawn by Jim Holdaway in 1963, the year after TV's Cathy Gale and two years before TV's Honey West (an altogether different figure from the Honey of novels), forming a trinity of commanding, sexually liberated, catsuited women of action.  In 1965, O'Donnell wrote a script for a Modesty Blaise movie, then turned his script into a novel which came out before the film.  The film ended up bearing little resemblance to O'Donnell's book (in fact, from a story standpoint it's virtually incomprehensible, though from a style standpoint it's sublime) and flopping at the box office, both to the author's dismay, but the book sold well and launched a series.  In all, O'Donnell published eleven Modesty Blaise novels and two collections of short stories from 1965 to 1996.  1996's Cora Trap formed a definitive end to Modesty's print adventures, but O'Donnell continued to write the comic strip until 2001, when he retired.  Following Holdaway, John Burns, Pat Wright, Neville Colvin and, for the longest duration, the great Enriqe Badia Romero handled the art chores.  O'Donnell wrote every single Modesty Blaise story himself. 

Peter O'Donnell drew on his own wartime experiences in the Royal Signals Corps for Modesty's background.  He vividly remembered seeing a young girl, alone, fending for herself in a displaced persons camp, and that (according to his introduction to one of Titan's volumes of Modesty Blaise comic strip reprints) became Modesty's origin.  But Modesty herself wasn't the only memorable character to appear in the series.  Modesty's (mostly) platonic relationship with right-hand man Willie Garvin formed the backbone of the comics and novels, and will surely be remembered as one of the all-time great literary partnerships.  (Kingsley Amis compared the pair to Holmes and Watson.) 

In addition to penning the adventures of Modesty Blaise, Peter O'Donnell also scripted the comic strip adaptation of Ian Fleming's James Bond novel Doctor No, wrote the 1968 Hammer movie Vengeance of She, and wrote a series of swashbuckling romance novels under the pen name of Madeleine Brent.

Besides Joseph Losey's Sixties film, O'Donnell's most famous creation starred in a TV pilot in the early 80s (in the guise of Ann Turkel) and a 2003 direct-to-DVD film produced by Quentin Tarantino called My Name is Modesty.  O'Donnell's initial Modesty Blaise novel was also adapted into a graphic novel for DC Comics in the 90s, drawn by Dick Giordano.  A new Modesty Blaise movie is perpetually rumored (usually with Tarantino's name attached in some capacity), but has yet to materialize.  Personally, I hope it does, because the character deserves to live on, but even if there's never another movie, Peter O'Donnell's fantastic creation will always live on in his books (all of which are now back in print courtesy of Souvenir Press) and comics (Titan continues to reprint them in trade paperback, most featuring story introductions by O'Donnell). Furthermore, Modesty Blaise lives on in virtually every female action heroine created since the Sixties, all of whom owe her a debt. O'Donnell made an indelible mark on the spy genre, and leaves a lasting legacy. 

R.I.P. Johnny Dankworth

I'd missed this, but Modesty Blaise News reports that composer Johnny Dankworth passed away earlier this month at the age of 82. Dankworth (more respectably known in later years as Sir John Dankworth) composed several key spy scores in the 1960s.  I'll always think of him first and foremost as the composer of the quite quite fantastic Cathy Gale-era Avengers theme.  (Does anyone know a CD with a good version of this theme?  All I ever find is Laurie Johnson's later, Emma Peel-era theme.)  Most of his Sixties spy music accompanied the judo kicks of strong female secret agents; besides Honor Blackman's Cathy Gale he wrote the scores for Monica Vitti's Modesty Blaise and Raquel Welch's Fathom.  (In descending order of "strong.")  His Modesty Blaise score in particular is a masterpiece, featuring what might be the most infectious of all spy theme songs and easily on par with Burt Bacharach's 1967 Casino Royale score in terms of over-the-top, wacky espionage hijinks.  Dankworth's scores for both Modesty Blaise and Fathom are available on CD from the Harkit label; Fathom only just came out last December (as reported with additional information here).  Dankworth's other significant contribution to Sixties spy music was his score for the Peter Lawford/Sammy Davis, Jr. vehicle Salt and Pepper.  He also worked with Modesty Blaise director Joseph Losey and star Dirk Bogarde on The Servant and Accident, and with Bogarde again scoring John Schlessinger's outstanding Darling.  Other notable Dankworth scores of the Sixties include Morgan and the Michael Caine movie The Magus.  After pursuing other interests for a few decades, Dankworth returned to film scoring in 2000 to lend a suitably Sixties vibe to the British gangster movies Kiss Kiss (Bang Bang) and Gangster No. 1.  I have no doubt that Dankworth will live on forever, because the theme song for Modesty Blaise is indelibly stuck in the heads of anyone who's ever seen the movie!

Modesty Blaise Short Story Collection Back In Print

Modesty Blaise News reports that Peter O'Donnell's long out-of-print collection of Modesty Blaise short stories, Pieces of Modesty (surely one of the greatest titles of all time, I've always thought), is finally available again!  The title has been issued at last by Souvenir Press, who have reprinted all the other Blaise books (including O'Donnell's only other story collection, Modesty's swan song Cobra Trap), but took a few extra years in getting around to this one.  This edition will be of particular interest to collectors because of its cover art.  All of the other current Souvenir trade paperbacks reprint the cover art from the original Souvenir editions, but Pieces of Modesty was for some reason the only Blaise book that Souvenir didn't originally publish in England.  The artwork they've used is certainly of a piece with the covers for some of the previous books (including the UK first edition of the first novel); what's unknown is whether or not it's original artwork that's been on the shelf for years, or a newly commissioned work in the same style.  Modesty Blaise News has a fascinating publication history of this title, as well as a great gallery of all the covers. 

Collectors certainly aren't the only ones likely to be interested in this new edition, however.  Even casual Modesty Blaise readers–or those who have never read one of O'Donnell's books, but are curious about them–should rejoice!  In my experience, Pieces of Modesty has always been by far the scarcest Blaise title, which is too bad, because it's got some great stories and actually makes a wonderful introduction to the character.  When I was first tracking down all of these books (prior to Souvenir's current line of reprints), it took me a long time to find Pieces of Modesty.  I eventually lucked into the Mysterious Press hardcover first edition at remarkable bargain price, and subsequently acquired a couple of paperback versions–but paid a fair amound for them.  I'm really glad that this book will now be available in print for new readers to discover without having to go to the ends of the earth–or pay exorbitant prices–to own.  As I say, it's a great introduction to the literary incarnation of the character.  If you only know Modesty through Titan's excellent comic strip reprints, or through Joseph Losey's highly entertaining but also highly flawed–and utterly unfaithful–film adaptation, this is the book to get!

Souvenir Press's new edition of Pieces of Modesty is available now from Amazon.co.uk and due out at the end of March from Amazon.ca.  There's no US release date yet, but I'm sure if we're patient it will turn up on these shores soon enough.  All of the other Souvenir reprints are available through US Amazon. 

New Spy Comics From Titan: Bond And Blaise

Today sees the release of Titan's latest volume of Modesty Blaise comic strip reprints, The Lady Killers. The graphic novel collection features three adventures of the unfazeable female adventurer: "The Lady Killers," "Dossier On Pluto" and "Garvin's Travels." As with every volume in this remarkable series, author Peter O'Donnell provides insightful introductions to each story. While the last volume, Green Cobra, featured some of his artwork, The Lady Killers is the first volume in Titan's series to entirely showcase the work of new Modesty artist Neville Colvin. Next up for Modesty are two more Colvin-era volumes: The Scarlet Maiden in August and Death In Slow Motion in October.

Titan have also revealed what is presumably the final cover artwork for their next volume of James Bond newspaper strip reprints, The Girl Machine by Jim Lawrence and Yaroslav Horak. This volume (which is due in July) fills in some crucial gaps in Bond's comic history by reprinting three Seventies stories that Titan skipped over in their otherwise chronological publication schedule: "The Girl Machine," "The Nevsky Nude" and "Beware of Butterflies." Next up for 007 from Titan is The James Bond Omnibus Volume 1: The Graphic Novel Collection, a 300+ page bumper edition due out in September collecting the first eleven Fleming stories in chronological order. (That goes up through the abruptly-truncated "Thunderball" strip.) CommanderBond.net has all the details. It's unclear what the format will be, but I'm a fan of Marvel's Essential line and Dark Horse's Omnibuses, so I'm looking forward to this mammoth collection even if I already have all of the material already! (In some cases, in several previous editions.)

New Titan Cover Art

This may be old news, but I just noticed it. New cover images have appeared on Amazon.co.uk for the next volumes in Titan's James Bond and Modesty Blaise series of comic strip reprints. Yellowstone Booty features artwork in its titular story (plus rare sketches!) by the great John Burns, who only drew a couple of Modesty adventures, but whose spy oeuvre went on to include 007 and, more recently, Marvel's Silver Sable. Unfortunately, all of his spy works have gone unfinished. Dark Horse cancelled the promising James Bond: A Silent Armageddon after only two of its four issues were published (supposedly due to Burns' lateness with the art--though I've heard that at least pencils exist somewhere for the unreleased issues) and Marvel shrunk the Sable & Fortune series from six issues to four (if memory serves), only three of which were completed by Burns. (Again, rumors of tardiness swirled around the project.) His third and final Modesty strip (presumably set for the next volume), "Eve and Adam," was finished by Pat Wright. I don't know if Burns is cursed or if he brings it upon himself, but it's a shame because his work is fantastic. His Bond is one of my favorites, his Felix Leiter is dead-on, and he even draws a mean Aston Martin Vantage.

Another one of my favorite Bond artists, John McClusky, returns to 007 with the stories in The Paradise Plot. True, late era McClusky is quite different from his astonishing Fifties and Sixties work, but isn't that a great cover? It's great to see his Bond front and center on a Titan volume again!

Random Intelligence Dispatches For May 17, 2007

New Casino Royale Magazine Cover
Agent 007 isn't done getting media coverage for his last outing yet. Publisher Tim Lucas reveals on his blog that the cover for the next issue of Video Watchdog will feature Daniel Craig in Casino Royale! (And a nice card motif in the background reminiscent of Danny Kleinman's spectacular title sequence.) Apparently the June issue will ship on May 29. Video Watchdog has done good pieces on Bond DVDs in the past, so I expect this one to be no exception.

More Modesty
Titan’s latest volume of Modesty Blaise comic strip reprints, The Inca Trail, hit U.S. comic shops yesterday, even though it won’t be available from Amazon until July 3. In addition to the title story, this collection includes "The Reluctant Chaperon," "The Greenwood Maid" and "Those About To Die," each introduced with the usual excellent commentary from author Peter O'Donnell. I was a little bit alarmed that they didn’t include the preview for the next volume in back this time around, but reassured that Amazon already lists Death Trap for a November release, and even has cover art already, so the series appears to be continuing!

Craig Goes To War
Variety reports that Daniel Craig has chosen his next project. When he's not playing James Bond, he's avenging atrocities against Judaism. After playing a member of a Mossad-sponsored assassination team in Steven Spielberg's Munich, he'll now play a Polish Jew who fought back against the Nazis in Defiance. The trade says: "Storyline follows four Jewish brothers living in Nazi occupied Poland who escape into the forest, where they join up with Russian resistance fighters in battling the Nazis and trying to save the lives of other Jews." The movie is directed by Edward Zwick, who has turned out excellent war movies like Glory and Legends of the Fall... and not so excellent ones like The Last Samurai and Courage Under Fire. Here's hoping this turns out to be one of the former! The article goes on to give us a few hints about when the next Bond will film. It claims Defiance "is set to begin lensing in early September, meaning Craig will shoot [it] before he begins filming the next James Bond installment.... Bond 22 is eying a winter start date. Release is set for Nov. 7, 2008."

Pierce Is 54
A belated Happy Birthday to James Bond Number 5, Pierce Brosnan, who turned 54 yesterday. He's still younger than Roger was in A View To A Kill!

New Animated Spy Movie
Speaking of Sir Roger, MI6.co.uk reports that the actor is set to voice an M-like character in a new computer animated feature about a futuristic, Bond-like spy (voiced by Ioan Gruffudd), Agent Crush. They link to the film's official website where you can view the trailer (though it didn't work for me) and see some pictures. Bond set guru Peter Lamont is credited as "design consultant," and some of the designs do look neat, like the Aston Martin of tomorrow, but how much can we really expect from a film with a villain named Boris Goodfarter? Still, it's clearly 007-inspired enough to remain on my radar...

Hurricane Gold In Paperback Down Under
The Young Bond Dossier reports that Charlie Higson's next Bond novel, Hurricane Gold, which is coming out in hardcover in the UK this fall, will get a paperback release in Australia and New Zealand. I assume this means at the same time, but no release dates are mentioned.

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!