New Spy DVDs Out This Week

There aren't many spy discs out this week, but the main one's a biggie. BBC’s MI-5: Volume 5 comes out today, with Rupert Penry-Jones returning as agent Adam Carter leading a team that will be mostly familiar to those who’ve watched religiously through Season 4, but completely alien to someone who last tuned in during, say, Season 2. That’s right, the mortality rate on this show remains exceptionally high, which keeps it fresh in its fifth "series" (as they say in England, where they also refer to this show by the better title "Spooks"). It’s taut, suspenseful, quality television, where anything can happen and even the main character is never safe. As of Season 4, MI-5 had lost a bit of the more realistic edge that separated it from 24, but was still a long way from devolving into the soap opera of that program. As usual, the last season ended with a cliffhanger, and I’m very much looking forward to seeing what happens next...

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New Bond Girl On The Cover Of Femme Fatales

The new Bond Girl, Olga Kurylenko, is featured on the cover of the January issue of the magazine Femme Fatales, on newsstands now. The timing with her casting is purely a coincidence, but a nice one for the magazine, sales-wise, I'd imagine! The actual article has no Bond content whatsoever, not even of a "what if?" nature. I think this casting really caught everyone off guard! It does, however, offer some sexy shots of Miss Kurylenko, including a centerfold. Ironically, this issue seems to replace the previously announced Bond Girls issue, which, as best I can tell, never materialized.

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Tradecraft For Jan. 7, 2008

Bond Girls Galore!

Both trades have stories on Bond 22 casting today, and each one announces a different Bond Girl! The Hollywood Reporter confirms rumors that have been swirling for the past month about British newcomer Gemma Arterton, who will play an MI-6 agent named "Fields." At 21, she seems a little young to serve Her Majesty's Secret Service (and to pair up with the soon-to-be-40 Daniel Craig), but she's pretty. I've never seen her in anything, though I'm interested in her upcoming St. Trinian's comedy with Rupert Everett.

Variety, meanwhile, boasts the out-of-the-blue scoop that 28-year-old Hitman co-star Olga Kurylenko will play "the female lead," Camille. The Ukrainian Kurylenko has caught my eye in both of her most recent roles, as the vampire who seduces Elijah Wood in Paris, Je T'Aime and opposite Timothy Olyphant in Hitman. In my review of that movie, I said, "The obligatory girl, a Russian prostitute (Olga Kurylenko), is easy on the eyes and not a bad actress despite, once again, having virtually nothing to work with, so she fulfills all the demands of a classic Eurospy leading lady." I stand by that, and I hope that Bond 22 offers her more opportunities to show off her acting abilities! (Hitman allowed her to show off other assets.) I like that the producers are continuing to hire exotic European actresses instead of Hollywood leading ladies like Halle Berry or Teri Hatcher. It feels more in keeping with Sixties Bond. I also like the idea of a "Eurospy Girl" (essentially) becoming a Bond Girl, even if it's four decades late!

Both articles list off the rest of the cast, as has been widely reported elsewhere in recent weeks. Mathieu Amalric, who's drawing rave reviews for his current performance in The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, and who stood out in Steven Spielberg's Munich (opposite Daniel Craig) plays villain Dominic Greene. (With addition Jesper Christiensen reprising his Casino Royale role as "Mr. White," does this mean that all the villains in this mysterious organization take Clue-like color surnames?) Giancarlo Giannini returns as Mathis, as does Judi Dench as M and Jeffrey Wright as Felix Leiter. This makes Wright the second actor ever to play Felix twice in the franchise's 46-year history; only David Hedison held that honor previously.

For more information on the whole cast, check out the official press release at CommanderBond.Net.

Bond On The Xbox

No, it's not a new game... The Hollywood Reporter reports that Microsoft has inked a deal with MGM to make the Bond films (and others from the MGM library) available for download and viewing on Xbox Live. The article states that some films in the MGM deal will be made available in high-def, but doesn't clarify whether or not that includes 007.

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Cinema Retro Covers Deadlier Than The Male

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

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The Laughing Prisoner

As a huge fan of the comedy of Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie, and as a spy fan, I’ve long wanted to see The Laughing Prisoner, their 1987 parody of the Patrick McGoohan classic The Prisoner starring British TV presenter Jools Holland. I’ve searched high and low for a bootleg DVD to little avail, and I’ve hoped for the short to turn up as a bonus feature on some official Prisoner release, but when it wasn’t included on Network’s more or less definitive UK edition last year, that hope seemed to dissipate. Last week, I discovered that the entire forty-minute program had been lurking for some time right beneath my nose, on YouTube! And, unfortunately, with a script by Fry and Holland with "additional material" by Laurie, it didn’t live up to my expectations.

While Stephen Fry looks good wandering around Portmeiron dressed as Number 2, and there are a few good, surreal moments like Siouxsie and the Banshees performing Iggy Pop’s "The Passenger" in The Village, most of the humor is not up to Fry’s usual, intelligent standard. It’s more along the lines of:

-You are the new Number 6?
-No, I’m Number 7. You’ve got the wrong number, I’m afraid.

Even the better jokes fail to rise above rather obvious potty humor, like Fry’s comments about Number 6: "He’s known more No. 2's than the gentleman’s lavatory at Waterloo Station!"
Sigh. I’d hoped for so much more... Oh well. The Laughing Prisoner probably isn’t worth your time, but if you’ve been dying to see it for yourself, like I was, you can do so here, in four parts.

Those who haven’t seen The Prisoner through to its finale should be warned, however, that elements of the fourth segment could be considered somewhat spoilery. Rest assured, however, that you won’t miss much by avoiding it. True, you’ll miss out on Hugh Laurie, but he doesn’t really have much to do other than pull a few faces you’ve probably seen him pull before, and clap his hands while Jools sings... and dances. A lot.

But, if you want, see for yourself:

PART ONE



PART TWO



PART THREE



!!!SPOILER ALERT!!!

PART FOUR

I just saw this poster for the first time in a movie theater tonight. It doesn't necessarily scream "Get Smart" to me (well, other than the fact that it does, in big letters at the bottom), but it is a pretty cool spy poster! I like it.

Looking Forward...

The New Year has me feeling a bit listy what with all the typical best of stuff, so why stop with yesterday’s list of looking back? Why not another list looking forward? But not to the stuff I mentioned yesterday, the stuff we know is happening, to the unknown! What would I like to see in 2008 in terms of spy media? Well, I’d like to see Devil May Care be good (fingers crossed), but that’s already written and waiting for our voracious consumption, so I won’t waste a wish on something so esoteric. Here’s my wish list for 2008, of the spy products I’d like to see appear:

Top 7 Spy Wishes For 2008

1. Kim Possible seasons on DVD
Come on, Disney, make it happen! They’ve been steadily releasing all their classic Disney Afternoon animated shows, and I think some of the recent ones like Lizzie Maguire even have season sets, so why not Kim, now that her run of new episodes is complete?

2. More Eurospy DVDs
I hope Dorado manages to get back on schedule and put out some of the other Eurospy titles in their catalog, like Assignment K and the long-promised Fuller Report, and I hope that other niche labels get in on the act and cash in on this largely untapped market. I’d really, really love to see Retromedia (or someone) put out a second volume of Kommissar X movies. I know it doesn’t help that sales weren’t great for the first batch, but I think with the right marketing approach someone could really find a way to exploit the abundance of titles out there. There are even some owned by big studios! Wouldn’t it be great to see a few Eurospy double features make it into Fox/MGM’s next wave of Midnite Movie double features?

3. Guillermo Del Toro’s Champions
Ever since that tantalizing, out-of-the-blue announcement, I haven’t been able to quell my excitement for the Pan’s Labyrinth director’s version of this ITC classic. Del Toro has stated in many interviews that his schedule is in constant flux, and there are clearly other projects that he’d rather make next. But The Champions’ basic concept (spies with superpowers) is one that could definitely do it, and based on his work on Hellboy and Blade 2, I’d say that Del Toro could pull it off, even if he seems an odd fit. There’s the potential for greatness here...

4. More A&E Spy DVDs
For years, A&E was in the forefront of releasing classic British spy shows on DVD in America. They’re still the only label anywhere in the world to issue the entire run of The Avengers! But in the past few years, they haven’t offered anything new. They’ve repackaged their Danger Man DVDs in a very appealing megaset, but where is The Champions, Vol. 2? Where are the rest of the black & white episodes of The Saint? Don’t leave us hanging, A&E! Finish putting those series out on DVD and then you can bundle them as megasets and sell them all again. It’s very frustrating to have incomplete runs of these series here as other countries and other regions get the whole thing. If a Del Toro Champions movie ever actually happens, I’m sure that would inspire A&E to finally finish that series. But don’t make us wait till then!

5. James Bond comics
Why have there been no original James Bond comic books since Dark Horse lost the license in the mid-nineties? 007 seems like a natural for the four-color treatment! There are probably more licensed character books on the market now than ever before, but no James Bond. The martini-swilling superspy would seem like a natural for Dynamite’s stable of quality licensed books (The Lone Ranger, Army of Darkness, Battlestar Gallictica, Darkman, Zorro), though I’d love to see him end up back at Dark Horse where they did such a good job with him in the Nineties. (The Moench/Gulacy Serpent’s Tooth (pictured) is a high water mark for 007 in comics.) The company is reviving their other dormant licensed superstar, Indiana Jones, in 2008, so why not Bond? With Daniel Craig having rejuvenated the film series, and Sebastian Faulks hoping to do the same with the books, it only makes sense!

6. Nick Fury comics
Not only do comics fans have no James Bond books on the shelf; we don’t even have the comic world’s equivalent! Marvel’s one-eyed superspy (created in the Sixties to cash in on the popularity of Bond and The Man From U.N.C.L.E.) sat out all of 2007 and most of 2006 thanks to big, dumb crossovers like "Civil War" and "World War Hulk." S.H.I.E.L.D. is omnipresent in the modern Marvel Universe, but it’s being run by Tony Stark (Iron Man) now, and its most famous agent is nowhere to be found. It’s time to bring him back! There have been rumors that this will happen in ‘08. I hope it does, and I hope Fury gets his own book again!

7. A Casino Royale Special Edition
The DVD Sony gave us, despite continuing to set sales records worldwide, is pretty bare bones. The only special features on Disc 2 are short featurettes and made-for-television promotional pieces. Where are the deleted scenes (we know from the trailers some exist!) and the audio commentaries with Martin Campbell, Michael G. Wilson, and Paul Haggis? (I really, really doubt Craig would do one.) Campbell has stated several times that a Special Edition was in the works, but it has yet to materialize. It would make sense for its release to coincide with the theatrical release of Bond 22 next fall, except that as I understand it Sony only has a narrow window left of DVD distribution for the title before it reverts back to MGM and Fox. I’m worried that if they don’t issue a Special Edition soon, they’ll end up deeming it financially unfeasible. So let’s see it, already, Sony! Take our money!

"If I fail to report, '008 replaces me!"

Looking Back On 2'007

Well, the year of 007 has come to an end, and neither the James Bond publishers nor movie producers took advantage of the number. (Ironically, the year of Bond’s frequently-threatened replacement, 2008, looks to be much more promising for the British superspy.) In fact, the only people who did take advantage of the year, weirdly, were the cover designers of the Cool McCool DVD set! (Which has now managed to date itself, I suppose.) Without a new entry in The Moneypenny Diaries series, it was up to Charlie Higson’s Young Bond to represent 007 in his year, which he did admirably (in not one, but two new books), but in adventures set long before James earned his deadly prefix. Both Casino Royale and the remastered boxsets of Bond DVDs were released in 2006, so the only Bond movie event of this past year was the release of Casino Royale on DVD, and Sony even failed to capitalize on the fortuitous year in the marketing for that! But with 007 M.I.A., 2007 still proved to be a fantastic year for spies. Here’s my Top 7 of ‘007:

1. The Bourne Ultimatum
2007 brought us the best action spy movie in years, a truly fantastic achievement for director Paul Greengrass and star Matt Damon despite straying so far from their Robert Ludlum source material.

2. The Man From U.N.C.L.E.
The classic American spy show, long demanded by fans, was finally released on DVD–and in lavish style courtesy of Time-Life. The 40-disc set contained all four seasons packed in an elaborate attache case box along with six discs’ worth of terrific bonus material!

3. Double or Die
Charlie Higson continued to reward Bond fans with another excellent entry in his series of "Young Bond" novels, which has proved to be far, far better than such a far-fetched premise ever had any right to be. The novel was accompanied by a very impressive companion piece, The Young Bond Rough Guide to London, which served as a guidebook to all the locations James visits on his breakneck chase across the British capital. Fans were surprised and delighted by the arrival of the follow-up novel, Hurricane Gold, in the same year, but that one, while still entertaining, failed to live up to the high marks set by Double or Die and Blood Fever.

4. Breach
This unassuming little reality-based spy drama proved a surprise treat espionage spy fans early in the year, and turned out to be a better movie–and DVD–than Universal’s much more flashy, more highly-budgeted spy epic The Good Shepherd. Chris Cooper gave a peerless performance as FBI turncoat Robert Hanssen, one certainly deserving of Oscar consideration if only the Academy members can be bothered to remember a movie from February....

5. Burn Notice
Another surprise treat. USA’s escapist summer spy show started its debut season as entertaining fluff most notable for the presence of co-star Bruce Campbell, but ended up compulsory viewing for fans of the genre as series star Jeffrey Donovan won us over with his appealing, sarcastic voice-over and ability to move effortlessly from action to drama to comedy.

6. Tie: Mission: Impossible: The 3rd TV Season and The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones: Vol. 2
In addition to U.N.C.L.E., we also got the best season yet of another Sixties TV chestnut, Mission: Impossible. Season 3 is the perfect starting point for anyone thinking about sampling this excellent series for the first time. On top of that, spy fans were spoiled with even more great TV-on-DVD, foremost among them the long-awaited DVD debut of another fantastic spy series, this one from the Nineties and rarely thought of as a spy series at all. Still, Young Indiana Jones spends the better part of this nine-disc set in the employ of French and Belgian Intelligence, and we're also treated to some great documentaries on WWI espionage and its most infamous practitioner, Mata Hari.

7. Left On Mission
Another out-of-the-blue surprise! Chip Mosher and Francesco Francavilla’s beautiful and well-paced comic book mini-series provided more intrigue, exotic locations, and rich characterizations than most new spy novels or movies in 2007.

A special mention should also be made of Tim Lucas’ long-in-the-making tome, Mario Bava: All the Colors of the Dark. While the percentage of spy material in this mammoth volume (devoted mostly, like Bava’s career, to the horror genre) is too low to merit a place on a best-of list devoted specifically to spies, Lucas still manages to give us the most insight yet published on the Italian film industry of the Sixties that spawned the whole Eurospy genre, and thoroughly in-depth accounts on the making of two such movies, Bava’s masterpiece Danger: Diabolik and disasterpiece Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs. The latter is a very insignificant entry in the Eurospy cycle, but I suspect the account of its making to be fairly universal for that genre.

So what’s ahead? Most of the highlights of 2007 came as surprises, but it’s fairly easy to telegraph the spylights of 2008 from this vantage point. As the Centenary of Ian Fleming’s birth, ‘08 promises to be the kind of Bondian year that ‘007 should have been, by all rights. In addition to Sebastian Faulks’ eagerly-anticipated, Cold War-set continuation novel, Devil May Care, we’ll also get Charlie Higson’s final Young Bond novel, the first Young Bond graphic novel (an adaptation of Silverfin), and the one that I’m personally most looking forward to, the conclusion of Samantha Weinberg’s Moneypenny Diaries trilogy, Final Fling. On top of all that, the Centenary will also bring us some more books about 007 and his creator, some cool exhibits (if you’re lucky enough to be in London this summer), a nifty line of British postage stamps and, oh yeah, a new movie starring that Daniel Craig guy! The movie will no doubt be accompanied the usual slew of Bondian publications that come out whenever a new film debuts, ensuring that both spring and fall burn holes in the wallets of Bond aficionados...

In addition to the still-untitled Bond 22, ‘08 will bring us the bigscreen version of Get Smart (as well as a direct-to-DVD companion movie), Tom Tykwer’s Interpol adventure The International, starring Clive Owen, Ridley Scott’s contemporary spy drama Body of Lies, and plenty of other spy movies. Even James Bond’s most famous cinematic progeny returns to the screen after nearly twenty years, when Indiana Jones throws his hat into the Cold War spy arena taking on Russian agents instead of Nazis. Of course, on top of all that we’ve got to expect and look forward to, there could be more of those nice surprises in store as well. What will be 2008's Burn Notice or Left On Mission? I look forward to finding out!

In conclusion, I want to wish a Happy New Year to all Double O Section readers. I hope that 2008 proves to be a great year for all!

The Prisoner Is Coming To Blue-Ray!

...in the UK, at least. (Hence the British spelling of "Blu-Ray.") Network DVD, the company that produced this year's definitive release of the classic Patrick McGoohan show, has promised a Blue-Ray release for sometime in 2008. Sorry to get American fans' hopes up with that headline, but A&E has yet to make the move into any high-definition format with the series, or even to remaster it the way Network has...

New Prisoner Soundtrack CDs

There is another announcement of interest to spy fans (besides the exciting DVD news) on Network DVD's recently updated website... They've finally made good on their promise of a year ago to release some soundtrack CDs for some of the classic ITC shows they've been doing such a great job of issuing on DVD! First out of the gate is a new CD set of original music from The Prisoner, a nice companion piece to their recently issued, remastered special edition DVD set of that show. Compiled from the original master tapes for the series by music editor Eric Mival, Network promises, "This album comprises the vast majority of music specially composed for the series (including a number of unused cues) presented in the order they were recorded." No doubt that will mean some overlap with the existing Silva Prisoner CDs, but Silva's discs contained a lot of library music featured in the show, and Network's seems to focus on original material, so there should be lots of previously unavailable treasures as well. The discs come out January 14 exclusively available through Network's website, and can be pre-ordered now at a £5 discount.

Last year's announcement also promised soundtrack releases for The Saint and The Champions, so hopefully those are still forthcoming! I remain ever-hopeful that this soundtrack series will also eventually produce a disc of Ken Thorne's amazing incidental music from The Persuaders, by far my favorite unreleased spy music...

Department S
Due In Britain

It's not just America getting some great new classic spy TV DVDs in 2008... The UK's unrivaled specialty house Network DVD has recently done one of their semi-annual updates of their website, and announced a complete series release of the ITC classic Department S for April 30, 2008. The eight-disc set will include all twenty-eight episodes of the series plus, presumably, the bounty of extra features fans have come to expect from a Network release. No specific features are mentioned yet on the site, but they do provide an enticing clip of a new interview with series star Rosemary Nicols, so that must portend great things... Umbrella released a terrific Department S set in Australia a few years ago, packed with great features like commentaries and original promotional material, but Network seems to have made it their goal to one-up Umbrella with their ITC releases, so we can probably expect even more goodies here.

Department S is, in my estimation, the best of the Avengers knock-offs that ITC produced in the wake of that series' success, and the one that comes closest to the quirky tone of The Avengers. Nicols and Joel Fabiani may get less press than their more flamboyant co-star, Peter Wyngarde, but they're equally crucial to making the show work. (I enjoy Wyngarde's solo spin-off, Jason King, but that show pales in comparison to Department S. King is much better suited to a supporting role than a lead one.) The trio specialize in solving insoluble conundrums, each one contributing a different talent to the team. King brings wits and wit (and a sense of style that may seem questionable in retrospect, but certainly lends the show some flair), Stewart Sullivan (Fabiani) brings fists and levelheadedness, and Annabelle Hurst (Nicols) brings technical-savvy, gorgeousness, and a propensity to strip down to her bra. Department S is not available at all in the US, though Jason King came out from Image earlier this year.

More Spy TV Coming To DVD In 2008

TVShowsOnDVD.com has had a slew of news lately on new (and old) spy TV titles coming to DVD early next year! First, and most excitingly, they reveal that Image Entertainment plan to re-release the classic Robert Culp/Bill Cosby series I Spy in newly-remastered season sets on April 29, 2008! All three seasons will come out the same day, each very reasonably priced at just $19.98. So hold off and don't shell out $80 for those old, out of print boxes from Amazon sellers! I Spy was originally issued very early on in the TV-on-DVD game, and episodes were released in single-disc themed collections (generally by location, but sometimes by director like "The Robert Culp Collection Vols. 1 and 2," to which the star/director contributed commentaries). These were soon bundled up into three box sets (Vols. 1-3), but ended up in a random order and not by season. Interestingly, these old Image boxset releases were the very first DVDs ever to utilise the "slimline" packaging which has now become (thankfully!) common with boxsets. Unfortunately, they still hadn't figured out that you can actually fit two discs to one slim case, so now those old sets that were once impressively compact actually stand out on the shelf as being rather bulky. No word on how the new season sets will be packaged, but I would guess it will be more economical.

The site also reports that Dark Sky Films will bundle their two season sets of of the 1958-59 series H.G. Wells' Invisible Man together as H.G. Wells' Invisible Man Collection on February 26. Retail is $39.98. This incarnation of The Invisible Man re-invisioned Wells' creation as Dr. Peter Brady, an agent for British Intelligence. (Brady even got a cameo in Alan Moore's recent graphic novel The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier, though he was described as an inferior stand-in for the original Invisible Man, Hawley Griffin.) It was the first attempt at a spy show for producer Ralf Smart, who went on to perfect the genre when he created the incomparable classic Danger Man, starring Patrick McGoohan. Invisible Man also features scripts from future Avengers mastermind Brian Clemens (as well as other writers who would go on to contribute to both of those shows), and early appearances from a number of actors who would become familiar faces in British spy shows and movies of the Sixties, including Honor Blackman, Desmond "Q" Llewelyn, and soon-to-be Moneypenny Lois Maxwell. Both seasons were previously available individually with very cool lenticular artwork. I hope the collected version retains this packaging!

Finally, our friends at TVShowsOnDVD also provide the tantalizing revelation that America's own leather-clad answer to Emma Peel and Cathy Gale, Honey West, is at long last headed to Region 1 DVD! Honey (Anne Francis) was technically a private detective and not a spy, but the show took a lot of cues from The Avengers--and not just in the wardrobe department! One of the best episodes found Honey battling some evil robotized toys, the very sort of plot Steed and friends foiled on a regular basis. Others, of course--as with any Cold War adventure series--featured more traditional espionage plots as well. Honey West lasted for one season of thirty episodes. They're currently available on a Region 2 set in England, but will land Stateside sometime next year courtesy of VCI Entertainment.

Too Many Christmas Trees!

Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas 2'007 from the Double O Section! I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday, whatever one you celebrate, in good spirits and good health. And I hope you're enjoying some spy-related gifts, like a Marvel Masterworks: Nick Fury, or a Mission: Impossible: The 3rd TV Season, or a James Bond Encyclopedia, or Criterion's The Lady Vanishes, or, if you're really lucky, a Man From U.N.C.L.E. Complete Series DVD set! Or maybe one of the new spy DVDs that came out this week, like The Kingdom or the vaguely spyish Eastern Promises. (Or Pierce Brosnan's new one, Shattered.) If you're looking for spy entertainment in the movie theaters this Christmas, you're a bit harder pressed than last year, but Charlie Wilson's War is a good if not fantastic choice, and Philip Seymour Hoffman makes one of the screen's most memorable spies of 2007 in an outstanding, show-stealing performance. (I'll get a full review up as soon as I can.)

Clive Spies

Dark Horizons points the way to some new pictures from Tom Tykwer's upcoming European-set spy thriller The International, starring Clive Owen, Naomi Watts and Armin Mueller-Stahl. The website with the pictures, BlackFilm, also provides a release date (August 15, 2008), and some more plot details than I'd seen mentioned before. The Run Lola Run director alone is reason enough for me to see it (he's long been my number one choice to do a Bond), but the locations they mention sell me even more on the project: Obsessive Interpol agent Owen and Naomi Watts take on the international banking establishment and "follow the money from Berlin to Milan to New York to Istanbul. Finding themselves in a high-stakes chase across the globe, their relentless tenacity puts their own lives at risk as their targets will stop at nothing – even murder – to continue financing terror and war." And that picture really clinches it! (Regular readers will be aware of my particular fondness for good European locations in spy movies...) Opening in that late summer timeslot, this could well shape up to be the Bourne of 2008. Tykwer's certainly got it in him, and Owen was born to be a spy star.

Raymond Benson Revisited

Former James Bond author Raymond Benson has announced on his website that three of his Bond books will be re-released next year as an omnibus--along with the highly sought after short story "Blast From the Past!" I'm a little bit surprised, since Ian Fleming Publications has been pretending like none of the previous continuation novels ever existed in their publicity for Sebastian Faulks' upcoming Devil May Care, but I'm also thrilled. I've been hoping for a while that Benson's and John Gardner's Bond novels would be reissued as omnibuses, and now that's exactly what's happening... with Benson, anyway. Pegasus Books will publish this anthology, comprising the author's "Union Trilogy" of High Time To Kill, Doubleshot and Never Dream of Dying. The middle title is Benson's very best book, and one of the strangest Bond stories ever told. The other two are unfortunately his weakest. (Never Dream of Dying contains a bold twist sure to irk Fleming purists for years to come. I respect Benson for attempting it, but it didn't work for me.) The real treat of this collection is the inclusion of "Blast From the Past" (which I think was also the title of a completely unrelated James Bond Junior episode...), a short story initially published in Playboy and never before collected. It will also be appearing in its entirety for the first time in English, as the Playboy version was severely cut. Pegasus are also planning a second volume (presumably depending on sales of the first one), which would hopefully contain the author's remaining original novels and two other short stories. I'm so glad that Benson's short stories are finally being collected somewhere. Tracking down old magazines can be tough, and there aren't enough of them to warrant a collection, so inclusion in an omnibus is the perfect solution. Maybe this format will one day provide a place for Samantha Weinberg's Moneypenny short stories, too--in an omnibus of all of her James Bond writing. In the meantime, it's great news that Benson's Bonds will be back in print! His tenure as continuation author has been unfairly overshadowed (coming at the end of the last regime at IFP, and never properly promoted by the publisher), but like the overshadowed Dalton era of films, uncovering it is rewarding. Benson also wrote the best companion book ever about 007, The James Bond Bedside Companion, which is currently out of print.

For more information on the new omnibus, visit The Literary 007.

CONTEST WINNER ANNOUNCED

The results of the latest Double O Section contest are in! Congratulations to Steve Carroll, of Georgia, USA, who won CBS/Paramount's DVD set of Mission: Impossible: The Third TV Season. Steve broke down his favorite spy shows quite methodically, selecting The Avengers as his favorite "Classic-UK," and a tie between Mission: Impossible and I Spy as his favorite "Classic-US." He picked Burn Notice as his current favorite. He's got good taste, as did everyone who entered. The Avengers was far and away the clear favorite, which actually surprised me a little bit (even though it would be my own choice as well). I think I was expecting Mission: Impossible or runner-up The Man From U.N.C.L.E. to take the top spot.

Thanks to everyone who entered, and take heart! You'll have another opportunity soon. Check back for a chance to win The Wild Wild West: The Third Season, also from CBS/Paramount.

Spies On DVD Today: Balls of Fury

Yes, this is a spy movie. And it's out today. You may remember the ads last summer with Christopher Walken doing an amusing Fu Manchu act and a guy getting hit in the balls a lot. (With balls.) Well, that pretty much sums up the movie, but it does gloss over two important points: 1. The ping-pong story is grafted onto an Enter the Dragon-style espionage plot, and 2. The movie is actually pretty funny, as long as you're not expecting too much. George Lopez plays the 007-wannabe professional spy who handles the amateur.

Spies On DVD Today: Young Indiana Jones Volume Two

The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones Vol. 2: The War Years (slimmer and more attractive than Vol. 1) is simply packed with espionage adventure. Though they feature a younger version of a hero best known for his swashbuckling archaeological exploits, in this series we discover that Indy cut his teeth as a secret agent for (wait for it) French and Belgian Intelligence during WWI. Not every episode of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles featured a spy plot, but most of those included in Vol. 2 (here re-edited into feature length "movies") do.

One need look no further than Disc 2, "Demons of Deception," for a fantastic example of this. Not only is the feature, one of the best in the series, a gripping and adult spy drama, but the truly fantastic extras take the form of documentaries like "Reading the Enemy’s Mind - Espionage in World War I." The feature itself is cobbled (rather successfully for once) out of two TV episodes. The first depicts bloody and brutal action on the front when Indy finds himself at the Battle of Verdun in 1916. He serves first as a motorcycle courier, zooming important messages between the horrors of the front and the luxury of the officers’ lives. The epic scope and impressive budget of the series are well demonstrated by a spectacular chase in which Indy, on his motorcycle, is pursued by a German biplane armed with machine guns and bombs, while the show’s intimacy and artfulness are visible in a well-cut montage at a moment when Indy must make a crucial decision. We also see Indy’s first spy work when he’s assigned to crawl across No Man’s Land and listen at the wall of the German bunker.

The second half of this feature may be the series’ finest moment. Directed by the great Nicholas Roeg (The Man Who Fell To Earth) from a script by Carrie Fisher and story by George Lucas, it depicts Indy’s brief involvement with Mata Hari while on furlough from the front. It’s very risque for 90s TV, with typically Roeg-ish slow motion shots of Indy and Mata in bed together (yes, the famous adventurer loses his virginity to the notorious spy) and even some full frontal nudity of models in an art class. The episode isn’t just adult in content, however, but in themes as well. Fisher scripts Mata as a very three-dimensional character (fleshed out beautifully by actress Domiziana Giordano), and weaves a complex May-December relationship between her and Indy, bringing out an especially good performance from series star Sean Patrick Flannery. Their final scene together, a shouting match that ends tenderly in which he denounces her as nothing more than a prostitute and she calls him out for what he is: a child pretending to be a man, is as good as any you’ll find on TV of that decade. Despite its admirable educational mandate, The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles was not just a kids’ show.

Lucasfilm’s exemplary extras are equally adult. "Flirting With Danger - The Fantasy of Mata Hari" treats its subject very seriously, and doesn’t skirt around her central skill set. "I like making comparisons between diverse nations," they quote Hari as saying about sleeping with the officers and diplomats of varied European countries. The documentary portrays Hari as the victim of a witch hunt by men suspicious of a successful and promiscuous woman more than of a legitimate espionage trial. Various experts point out that spies convicted on far more tangible evidence than her managed to escape the firing squad, and that the only evidence that Hari was a spy at all is the fact that she accepted money from both the French and German intelligence services. Then again, they argue, that’s what she did. She accepted money from men.

"Reading the Enemy’s Mind - Espionage in World War I" is a shorter but no less fascinating or informative documentary. "What you’re seeing in a way with intelligence during the first world war is how modern intelligence is born," says one expert, and indeed we do see it. The featurette conveys how ill-prepared all nations were for espionage going into WWI (especially the United States), and covers subjects I’ve always found captivating, like German sabotage in America and the notorious "Zimmerman Telegram" sent by Germany seeking Mexico’s help against the US. There are twenty-seven more such documentaries on this set, as well as seven more feature-length films, each comprised of two TV episodes. I can’t wait to delve further into revisiting this childhood favorite, and most spy fans should be delighted to find this set underneath the tree come Christmas. In addition to the espionage content, this volume also features some familiar faces, such as Christopher Lee and some blond guy named Daniel Craig, exhibiting even then (albeit briefly!) the swagger that would one day make him famous.

DVD Review: The Wild Wild West: The Third Season

DVD Review: The Wild Wild West: The Third Season

The first two seasons of The Wild Wild West followed the Avengers formula, albeit in a more compressed time-frame. Season One, in black and white, was a slightly grittier, slightly more realistic secret agent show set in the Old West and populated by eccentrics. In Season Two, the eccentrics took over–literally! The season premiere–and first color episode–saw Jim West face off against a nefarious cabal called "The Eccentrics." The landscape was no longer recognizable as the Old West, but a highly fictionalized–and stylized–version of it, just as the color Avengers seasons take place in a highly stylized fantasy version of Sixties Britain. The threats faced by West and his partner, master of disguise Artemus "Arte" Gordon, became more science fiction in nature, no longer grounded in ordinary secret agent stuff. This was largely thanks to diminutive recurring villain Dr. Miguelito Loveless (Michael Dunn), whose increasingly far-out schemes for world domination came to involve elements of pure fantasy, such as a method of teleporting oneself into and out of paintings in order to steal crown jewels! Another one of his plots shrank West down to a few inches tall, the same fate that befell Steed in the Avengers episode "Mission: Highly Improbable." The Avengers never came back down to earth after venturing so far out (in fact, the series ended with Steed and then-partner Tara King blasted out into space!), but The Wild Wild West does, in Season Three.

The colors, like Jim’s electric blue suit, are still as vibrant and bright as in the second season, but the Western landscape has been tamed. There are no signs of shrinkage or jaunts into paintings this season. In fact, Dr. Loveless is limited to just one appearance, after four in each previous season, effectively neutered in the weird science chaos he loves to cause. It’s as if the producers felt they’d stretched credulity as far as they could in Season Two, and had no choice but to reign themselves back in. However, the eccentric villains are still in place, ensuring that The Wild Wild West never becomes a run-of-the-mill Western. In fact, the most traditional Western storylines, as the one found in "Night of the Iron Fist," are made more fantastic by the inclusion of a bizarre villain, in that case a Serbian nobleman with a literal iron fist. The villains are usually the last person you’d expect to encounter in the Old West–a sheik or knight or an Indian rajah, often embodied by a major guest star. And they ensure that The Wild Wild West won't be mistaken for any other Western.

Another trait that separates The Wild Wild West from that genre is the gadgetry. Jim’s spy gadgets go a long way toward keeping one spur-heeled foot distinctly in the realm of espionage. He’s still outfitted with a quick-loading rig up his sleeve that surreptitiously delivers a Derringer into his hand at the twist of a wrist. This season, the tiny pistol has been modified to accommodate a Batman-like piton trailing some lightweight rope strong enough to hold Jim. That apparatus comes in handy time after time, as does Jim’s "Rosa Klebb" boot, which springs a knife from its toe, as well as one-off gadgets like a nifty glass-cutting ring. And Jim and Arte still ride around in their 19th Century Aston Martin–a customized train car equipped with all sorts of useful spring-loaded gizmos.

The glass-cutting ring appears in the season premiere, "Night of the Bubbling Death," which nicely establishes the back-to-the basics formula by evoking the series premiere. Following an updated credits sequence, Jim and Arte venture into an entire lawless town that’s against them (a source of contention between the United States and Mexico) in order to ferret out the villainous Victor Freemantle, who’s stolen the Constitution. In keeping with past seasons, Arte is introduced in disguise–just in time to save Jim from a hulking, shirtless henchman (decked out in bandoleers) named Clint Cartwheel. We get to see the inside of Arte’s jacket, and it’s lined with enough gadgets to make Q jealous. Arte also supplies a 3D scale model of the Freemantle’s hideout (an old conquistador fortress), enabling Jim to virtually retrace his blindfolded steps and infiltrate it later, bypassing the titular "bubbling death" (acid, naturally) via his piton gun. As usual, there is a beautiful woman, Carlotta. Her treachery sets the tone for this season. In seasons past, about half the time Jim was able to seduce such vixens onto the side of law and order, but this time around the women are far more often treacherous than trustworthy. Jim rarely gets the girl in Season 3, instead awkwardly ending up with a random floozy as arm candy for the tag scene.

“Night of the Firebrand” features an exception in the form of Vixen O’Shaugn-essy (played by Diamonds Are Forever’s Lana Wood), who despite the most treacherous of names is convinced to give up her lawless ways... but not by Jim’s charm. The strong-willed young woman (the titular “firebrand”) is a senator’s daughter who’s run off from Miss Primwick’s Finishing School to stand up for her (admittedly misguided) political ideals. She hasn’t been brainwashed like Patty Hearst; she’s doing what she thinks is right. Yet she’s treated as a comical character for her beliefs, and becomes the victim of a running gag in which Jim shuts her up whenever she goes off on a rant by knocking her out with the touch of a pressure point. In the end, once she’s seen the error of her ways, she starts talking about all the good she can do in the world, standing up for the oppressed, only to fall victim once more to the old pressure point trick. It’s all pretty chauvinist, even for the Sixties. Still, the same episode offers some good action, like Jim taking another page from 007's book and rigging his covered wagon with a smoke screen during an exciting chase, or Arte proving he’s handy enough with throwing knives to join the Eccentrics himself.

Loveless’s one appearance finds the troublesome doctor faking his death and then impersonating his own “uncle,” a celebrated Swiss neurologist who exhibits a striking family resemblance. (Yes, Jim actually falls for that, somehow.) The whole scheme falls short of the criminal mastermind’s most diabolical ploys of the past, with the simple goal of revenge. Loveless does, however, retain his flair for the absurd, and the episode provides some of the season’s most Avengers-ish moments, like the doctor’s “recording” of his will, squawked out by a trained minah bird! He’s also still got style (delightfully Sixties style), accessing his cliff-side clinic via an ornate elevator lined in purple silk. Missing (and decidedly missed) once more is the fantastically love-crazed Bonnie to Loveless’s Clyde, Antoinette (Phoebe Dorin). A character named Triste fills a similar role, but it isn’t the same.

There aren’t many bad episodes in Season 3, but there also aren’t nearly as many outstanding ones to highlight, either. Most of the plots are pretty standard-issue Western or spy (with the occasional clever twist, like an OPEC-like Arab consortium trying to corner the market on cotton), but contained therein are a number of memorably off-kilter moments and striking images. Samurai warriors attack Jim and Arte in downtown San Francisco! Arte battles it out in the middle of a horde of Kubrickian mannequins! All we see of a mysterious villain is his arm on the armrest of a large chair, but when Jim turns the chair around, it turns out all there is is a disembodied arm... and a phonograph speaker issuing the voice. Jim follows some Mexican henchmen through into an Adobe hut that turns out to house a harem chamber out of the Arabian Nights, complete with a lounging Cleopatra-like consort. Mutated boll weevils get it on. Masked bandits broadside a bank with a cannon mounted on their armored wagon. Jim is lured into a stagecoach by a beautiful woman, only to have the windows suddenly shut and gas pumped into the coach, Number Six-style. And so on and so forth. Great moments instead of great episodes.

The aforementioned “Night of the Iron Fist” best exemplifies how the show’s producers tailor more traditional Western plotlines to meet their needs. It’s essentially a remake of 3:10 to Yuma, with Jim transporting the criminal Count to prison while Arte lures his gang away by impersonating the nefarious nobleman. Along the way, they encounter a lot more stock Western characters (roughnecks and bumpkins) than traditionally populate The Wild Wild West, but the fun lies in watching how sophisticates Jim and Arte deal with these types, because it isn’t usually how Marshall Dillon does it. Arte, though dressing more and more like a cowboy this season, generally does so through disguises. But, frankly, he’s no Rollin Hand, and it’s usually easy for the audience, at least, to see through them. Arte also gets to show off his tough side a bit, saving Jim’s hide more times than in the past.

It’s not all the same old thing in Season 3, however. The final disc of this set contains the season’s two best episodes, both cut from horror movie cloth. “Night of the Undead” is a good old-fashioned Southern Gothic in the guise of a zombie story. It’s got lost love, faked deaths, and revenge from beyond the grave, all served up with the creepy atmosphere of the classic Universal shockers. From its unsettling beginning (Jim interrupting a Voodoo ritual, ala Live and Let Die, and shooting a “zombie” in the heart without killing him) to its evocative bayou finale, this one’s a real treat. It also provides one of the season’s best surreal moments when a phrenologist talks to the mapped, bald model of a human head on her shelf. Suddenly the "head’s" eyes open, and the shelf itself opens up, revealing it to be a person! It’s a bizarre image, and an effective jolt. (Though it makes no sense.) The ending, with glowing, radioactive zombies enslaved by the mad Dr. Articulus, reminded me quite a lot of Mark Gatiss’ novel The Vesuvius Club. I wonder if Gatiss saw this episode?

“Night of the Simian Terror”* may tip its twist too much with that title, but it serves up another very atmospheric horror, this time mimicking the then-contemporary product coming out of England’s Hammer Studios rather than Universal. The boys visit the isolated Kansas estate of a senator who hasn’t been seen in D.C. in some time. The constant wind blowing on the eerie exteriors paints Kansas like Conan Doyle’s Dartmoor, and sure enough, there’s an inhuman creature on the loose killing people. It continues as a classic “Old Dark House” style mystery, with dark family secrets and forbidden rooms. Jim uses a stethoscope and a periscope to spy through some floorboards, and Arte dons one of his best disguises as a humorously simian ape expert. All of this leads to a very dark finale, with Jim fighting both Richard (“Jaws”) Kiel and, of course, a brutish gorilla. (At one point, the gorilla actually flings a barrel at him! Could this be the origin of Donkey Kong?) This very effective pair of atypically horrific episodes (which, somewhat distractingly, share a few sets as well as their tone) provides a satisfying conclusion to Season 3, and the hope that Season 4 (due on DVD this March) will benefit from this home-stretch burst of creative energy.

If you’re a Cathy Gale Avengers fan, give this season a miss and pick up The Wild Wild West: The Complete First Season for starters. If you prefer Emma Peel, go straight to the sublimely surreal Season 2. But if you’re already a dedicated follower of Jim and Arte’s exploits, then by all means pick up Season 3. It’s not the best, but there’s more than enough great material to make it worthwhile for fans of the series.

*When watching this episode on my DVD player, the disc inexplicably skipped an entire, crucial chapter. Suddenly Jim was fighting Jaws! The only way I was able to watch that chapter was to rewind; I couldn't skip back to it. Irritating, though I have no idea if this flaw is specific to my brand of player or universal.

New Moneypenny Cover Art

Over the weekend, CommanderBond.net exclusively debuted the final cover art for Samantha Weinberg's (writing once again as Kate Westbrook) third book in The Moneypenny Diaries trilogy, Final Fling. As promised in her interview with the Double O Section last summer, Stina Persson once again provides the artwork, and once again it's excellent. (Take a note, Devil May Care!) Head on over to CBN to see the whole cover in all its glory! Personally, I don't like the colors quite as much as on the last one, but it's still a stunning, retro eyecatcher, and a vast improvement over the lame art on the first two hardcovers. And they finally saw fit to mention James Bond on the cover! (Fitting, since it is a James Bond novel, and he is the primary selling point...) Final Fling comes out in the UK on May 1, 2008; the first book in the series, Guardian Angel, finally sees a US release that same month.

And speaking of Ms. Weinberg, The Literary 007 recently posted a link to her new environmental blog, Green Wife, which isn't Bond-related at all, but does make for good reading from an excellent writer - on a subject that might just be even more important than 007... if that's even fathomable!

Movie Review: Hitman (2007)

If Hitman were made in the Sixties, I’d probably love it. But it wasn’t. It was made in 2007, and, for better or for worse, I have different expectations from a modern movie and a Sixties movie. Don’t ask me why. Maybe the amazing fashions, colors and hairdos of that decade go far enough that I don’t care as much about little things like plot and characterization? I’ll admit, I’m a huge sucker for Sixties glamor. Or maybe Sixties movies, with their sparse and paint-colored blood, somehow seem a little bit more innocent, thus acquitting the sleaziest of heroes as a product of his time? Probably a bit of both.

Hitman is essentially a Eurospy movie, but one made today. A sort-of suave hero (known only as Agent 47) with no discernible morals travels throughout (limited) exotic European and near-Eastern locations in the company of a beautiful woman and some third-rate gadgets, getting into (comparatively) low-budget bash-ups here and there and killing with no regard for human life, all the while playing off the CIA against Russian Intelligence and Interpol in order to find out who betrayed him. And all on a fairly tight budget of European money, with European crews, and just a couple of second-tier American or British stars thrown into the mix to lend a tad of box office clout. That’s the pattern for dozens of Sixties Eurospy scenarios, and it’s also the blueprint for Hitman.

The latest Die Hard villain, Timothy Olyphant plays the titular assassin, Agent 47, and M:I:II villain and Enigma star Dougray Scott plays the tireless Interpol inspector determined to bring him down. In a nod to the videogame on which it’s based (which I’ve never played), Agent 47 has a shaved head with a barcode tattooed on the back of it. For an agent who is supposed to be "a ghost," such an attention-grabbing appearance seems a little counter intuitive, but I’m willing to grant the movie this indulgence. In theory, it’s a cool look, although they should have cast an actor who looks badass bald (where’s Jason Statham when you need him?) instead of one who looks kind of doofy. All of the other agents of his shadowy assassination bureau also sport the same look, not only making them easy to spot in a crowd, but also hard to tell apart in a melee. There are a lot of bald guys in the movie. Most, but, confusingly, not quite all, are assassins, so be sure to look for the telltale barcode.

Despite a look that does him a disservice, Olyphant is thoroughly decent in the lead role, although the script offers him little to work with. The scenery is great. Whether it was actually shot in Moscow and St. Petersburg or not (I’m not sure), Hitman makes the most of the Eastern European locations at its disposal. (In fact, the modern Bond movies could take a note in terms of letting the camera sight-see just a bit longer!) There’s even a welcome side-trip to Istanbul, a fantastic staple of Sixties spy movies not put to enough use these days. And none of the action scenes are bad, although none are good enough for me to easily recall them a day later, either. The obligatory girl, a Russian prostitute (Olga Kurylenko), is easy on the eyes and not a bad actress despite, once again, having virtually nothing to work with, so she fulfills all the demands of a classic Eurospy leading lady. So where does it fall short?

I think it’s just in the spirit. It was those fashions, those colors, that glamor, that seething sexuality, that made the Sixties Eurospy films work so well. Unlike its forbears, Hitman is utterly sexless. It may offer more nudity (actually taking advantage of its R rating in that department, as well as the violence), but its hero is so chaste that he not only displays zero chemistry with Kurylenko, but rebuffs all of her blatant advances by zapping her with some sort of knock-out ring. Were he Tony Kendall or Ken Clark, he would have had no compunction about sleeping with her and several other random women as well! Perhaps it’s the removal of several decades that makes their brand of sleaziness so watchable, but Hitman’s (limited to remorseless killing rather than sleeping around) a little off-putting. Whatever the reason, I’ve come to expect just a tad of characterization from modern action films, and the Eurospy shorthand just doesn't work anymore.

Eurospy enthusiasts will still derive some enjoyment from Hitman (as I did, primarily from its locations), even if it's devoid of that apparently unreproducible Sixties soul. It's probably best to wait for DVD, though, rather than shelling out to see it in theaters.

CONTEST:
Win Mission: Impossible Season 3!

Win a copy of the the best season yet of one of the greatest spy shows ever just in time for the holidays! Mission: Impossible hits its stride in the third season, with the classic line-up (Peter Graves, Martin Landau, Barbara Bain, Greg Morris and Peter Lupus) in place for the last time. Entering is easy. Simply send an email with the subject heading "MISSION SEASON 3" including your name, mailing address and favorite spy show to the DoubleOSection by midnight, Pacific Time on Tuesday, December 18, 2007. (The favor-ite show has no bearing on results; I’m just curious!)

Read my full review of Mission: Impossible: The Third TV Season here.

One entry per person, please. Double entries will be disqualified. One winner will be drawn at random and announced in one week’s time on December 19, 2007. Winners’ names will be posted here and they will be notified via email. All entries will be deleted immediately after the contest’s close, and no personal information will be retained or transmitted to any third parties. The contest is open to anyone, but please be advised that these are Region 1 NTSC DVDs. They should play fine in any North American player, but may require special region-free players in other parts of the world. Unfortunately, the Double O Section cannot assume responsibility for items lost or damaged in transit.

Bourne Again?

Universal have started promoting The Bourne Ultimatum "For Your Consideration In All Categories" as of today's Hollywood Reporter. It would be nice if this stellar spy movie actually gets some legitimate recognition! Meanwhile, poducer Frank Marshall talked to ComingSoon.net about the prospects for a fourth Bourne movie:

"There were only three books written. I know they've written a fourth [The Bourne Legacy by Eric Van Lustbader, who also wrote a fifth] but it wasn't written by Ludlum," Marshall said. "Look, we would love to continue the franchise. We just need a great story, and we're not going to do it unless we have a great story, but we are working on coming up with one, and Matt said to me, ‘Look, you hand me a great script, I'm in.' Unfortunately, we're not able to do any writing at the moment [due to the writers' strike], but we're all thinking about it."

Sounds to me as close to an announcement as we're likely to get. Damon's in, Marshall's in; it all depends on a good script, and presumably that's just a matter of time. Great news!

Be sure to read the rest of ComingSoon's interview for bits on Marshall's other projects, including Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Best Buy Books Bonus Bourne

Normally I recap the week's new spy DVD releases on Tuesdays, but I wanted to make sure to give an advance heads-up to potential Bourne buyers before tomorrow. Best Buy will offer an exclusive edition of The Bourne Ultimatum in a limited edition "steelbook" case (which I find kind of annoying) with a bonus disc containing an additional 40 minutes of material. I don't know exactly how limited this is, but the Best Buys around me all sold out of the steelbook versions of the two Grindhouse movies (which also contained bonus discs) by midday.

No. 1 Of The Secret Service And Other Eurospy Treats On DVD

Videoasia released a DVD collection last week containing a number of hard-to-find spy and spy-related movies: The Grindhouse Experience Volume 2. You get twenty films on five discs, so I can't imagine the quality is much to brag about, but there are some very appealing films in the mix, including No. 1 of the Secret Service (released here as Her Majesty's Top Gun)! The Seventies didn't produce nearly as many Bond knock-offs as the Sixties (the heyday of the Eurospy genre), but director Lindsay Shonteff pretty much single-handedly kept the genre alive with his two Charles Bind films, No. 1 of the Secret Service starring Nicky Henson and No. 1: Licensed To Love and Kill starring The New Avengers' Gareth Hunt as Bind. Both movies also featured the Moore-era Minister of Defense, Geoffrey Keen, in the M-like role. In addition to being full-blown knock-offs in their own right of Seventies Bond, these were also unofficial follow-ups to the Sixties Bond knock-off series of Charles Vine movies, which Shonteff originated with Licensed To Kill (1965) starring Tom Adams. Supposedly Shonteff made another pair of "Bind" movies in the early Nineties, Number One Gun and The Running Gun, but I've never heard of anyone having actually seen them. (Please sound off below if you have!) But all of that is just a history lesson; the only Bind/Vine title included here is No. 1 of the Secret Service. One must go into any Shonteff movie with a certain willingness to settle, but it's a fun movie sure to please avid fans of Seventies 007.

But wait! That's not all you get in this set, spy fans! Also of interest is one of one of the few other lost Seventies Bond knock-offs (via blaxploitation), Mr. Deathman, the Eurospy classic O77: Mission Bloody Mary, 3 Supermen Against Godfather (1979) and Diabolik rip-off Phenomenal and the Treasure of Tutankamen (1968)! Chances are this print of Mission Bloody Mary won't hold a candle to the excellent one put out a few years ago by Dorado Films (who have finally updated their website and are having a fabulous sale during the month of December!), but it's a fun film nonetheless. As far as I know, those others haven't seen any sort of official release in the US before. I'm particularly excited about Phenomenal; it's one I've always wanted to see. The rest of the movies in this budget-priced set will probably also appeal to Eurospy fans in one way or another; a lot of them features actors well known from the genre.