DVD Review: Mission: Impossible: The Third TV Season

DVD Review: Mission: Impossible: The Third TV Season

Somewhere, there is a whole junkyard full of busted tape recorders like that field of duplicated hats at the beginning of The Prestige. Jim Phelps and his Impossible Missions Force went through one a week for twenty-five weeks, for eight seasons, and this was in the days before disposable electronics! But each smoking cassette player meant another taut, thrilling mission, and CBS/Paramount’s new Mission: Impossible: The Third TV Season offers up twenty-five more fine examples of such from the 1968-69 season.

Phelps was played by Peter Graves, and Graves mastered the furrowed brow while listening to those recorded mission briefings. (It must have resulted in a lot of premature wrinkles.) And when I say "mastered," I mean it! He’s not just crinkling up his forehead to have a bit of stage business to do while the tape recording does the talking; he’s acting. As he listens to the scant details with which he’s provided, we can see him already formulating his ingenious plan. Each furrow of the brow is a crucial step in an elaborate heist, another layer to the big con. Once I caught onto what he was doing here, Jim became a much more proactive character than he seemed at first. Later on in the episode, it’s electronics wiz Barney (Greg Morris), seductress Cinnamon (Barbara Bain), and (especially) master of disguise Rollin (Martin Landau) who will have the showiest roles, but Graves makes it clear that Jim is the man with the plan, the architect of the entire dazzling operation to follow.

The formula remains essentially the same this season (although the repetitive "team selection" sequence has been mercifully omitted, except for missions on which Jim requires a guest agent), but producer Bruce Gellar and his writers have still somehow managed to outdo themselves and come up with what is probably the show’s strongest season yet. Sure, there’s more of the same (more phony psychic powers, more doctored playing cards, more gullible foreign dictators, and more masks than ever), but there’s also a new, hitherto unseen personal layer to the proceedings. This season, the characters become more than just highly capable cogs in a masterful scheme; they’re humanized. This is thanks to a few episodes that drastically shirk the formula and give us more insight into Phelps and his team.

The best example of this is "The Exchange." Right away, the viewer is aware that he or she is in for something different. It doesn’t begin with the typical "your mission, Mr. Phelps, should you decide to accept it" taped briefing, and there’s no exploding player. Instead, it plunges us into the final moments of an unseen mission, like a Bond pre-credits sequence, or the opening of Brian DePalma’s Mission: Impossible film, for that matter. The team is in the Eastern Sector of an unnamed foreign city, an obvious stand-in for East Berlin. Cinnamon is in the military dress of this communist power. She photographs some documents, but suddenly alarms start to blare. She’s trapped! She has just enough time to heroically toss the camera out the window to Jim and strongman Willie Armitage (Peter Lupus, also in uniform) before she’s captured.

Back in the safety of the Western Sector, we see a very different Jim Phelps than we’re used to. His tie is off; his collar’s unbuttoned. And he’s worried. For once, events have not gone according to his precise plan. He’s sweating it. Clearly, the famous words we didn’t hear in this episode are weighing heavily on him: "Should you or any of your IM Force be caught or killed, the Secretary will disavow all knowledge of your actions."

"We let her down," laments a distraught Jim, clearly feeling the full responsibility of his role as team leader. "They can break anyone. She may not be the same Cinnamon we knew once they’re finished with her... but they’ll break her. Then they’ll kill her." Thus different stakes are set for this episode than those we’re used to. Instead of discrediting some unknown foreign dictator, the team must devise a plan to rescue one of their own.

That plan, too, goes against the grain of the show. Without the resources of the United States government behind them, the team goes rogue and breaks a captured Eastern agent out of his (presumably West German) prison in order to exchange him for Cinnamon! But in order for their plan to work, they need to break him first. Cinnamon proves remarkably adept at resisting torture and interrogation (especially for a fashion model, if we’re still meant to buy into the show’s initial conceit!), but once her captors pinpoint her fear of claustrophobia, things get a lot worse for her. Meanwhile, her IMF colleagues use their own tactics on their prisoner, staging an elaborate scenario in order to trick him. (Both sides seem to have been watching lots of Prisoner episodes!)

This tense episode leads up to a good old fashioned border-crossing prisoner exchange, a scene familiar to any fan of Cold War spy movies. The IMF gang even get to wear trench coats! Of course, in keeping with the genre there’s still one twist yet to come... "The Exchange" takes a number of surprising risks for a show of this era, especially one so entrenched in its regular, successful formula. The result is an espionage classic, and one of the very best episodes ever of Mission: Impossible. And it’s not the only episode this season to eschew the formula.

"Nicole" gives us another more personal story, focusing on Jim Phelps, and the result is good, though not equal to the success of "The Exchange." "Nicole" is a decidedly uncharacteristic Mission: Impossible episode. It feels a lot more like a Danger Man or a Saint. Most of the team sit this one out as Jim and Rollin infiltrate a swanky party in disguise (as Sidney Bristow would do so often several decades later) to steal the same MacGuffin that would fuel DePalma’s 1996 film, a NOC list. (This one identifies American agents who have been turned by the other side.) Rollin has a lot of fun playing a lecherous old general, perpetually hitting on the glam Sixties dollybirds (atypical for the show) who populate this surprisingly swinging Commie shindig. Jim, passing himself off as his aid, also finds himself flirting... with no less a femme fatale than Joan Collins as the titular agent Nicole. She sizes Jim up as "unmarried, but not un-scarred," leading to some James Bond-style banter.

It’s very strange to see Jim flirting. It’s not a side of him we’ve seen before, and he doesn’t seem that comfortable at it. I suppose that’s because he doesn’t often let his guard down as much as Nicole inspires him to do, but her allure proves great enough to cause this usually thoroughly professional spy to make some mistakes. A pressurized floor alarm (again, shades of the film) gets the best of Rollin, and the pair end up forced into some atypical but exciting gunplay. Rollin escapes with the list, but Jim is shot and captured. Nicole aids his recovery and his escape, but which side is she on? We’re treated to such spy tropes as double crosses, double agents (even one code-named "Sparrow!"), disfigured villains and arty shots through wine glasses as Jim flees for his life and tries to figure out whom he can trust. And by the time all is said and done, one IMF agent will have very uncharacteristically shot and killed a man himself, and another will have shed some equally uncharacteristic tears. The whole affair feels like one of those Prisoner episodes that feel like Danger Man episodes ("A, B & C" or "The Girl Who Was Death"); it’s one spy show masquerading as another. But it’s thrilling, different and highly entertaining. Its undoing, however, is that it’s also fairly predictable. It may not play by the standard M:I playbook, but it follows a formula nonetheless, and one with which spy fans will be familiar.

"The Mind of Stefan Miklos" proves that the show doesn’t have to break with its formula in order to excel. This one is by the book, but sublime in its execution. The Ameri-cans are feeding a known double agent, Townsend, misinformation. His assistant, Simpson (Ed Asner), suspects, and reports his boss to their controllers, who send their most brilliant strategist, Miklos (Steve Ihnat, looking as if he just stepped out of a Yaroslav Horak illustration), to investigate. For once, Jim must compete with an opposite number every bit his equal. The regular heist and con routine isn’t enough (although the episode features both); he needs to create a double bluff. He needs to let Miklos uncover one IMF plot in order to legitimize another. "His ego demands that he use his own brilliance to assemble the pieces of the puzzle," Jim informs his colleagues. But the game isn’t played mano a mano; the whole team chips in.

Martin Landau (pictured here in his leering general guise from "Nicole") really shines this episode when Rollin must play two different roles (without masks, for once) to trick two different people. One moment he’s excellently impersonating the assertive Miklos; the next the jittery, nervous Simpson. The sudden transformation is remarkable.

It spoils nothing for the astute Mission viewer to reveal that Jim and his team come out on top, but watching how they get there is particularly rewarding this time around, and demands close attention. At the end, Miklos, tricked into thinking that he has won, says, "I wish I could meet the man that masterminded their operation. He was brilliant. I feel sorry for him. He played the game well. But he lost. It’ll destroy him." Phelps is listening through a bug, fully aware of the irony and clearly feeling the same way.

"The Cardinal" is another of the many first-rate episodes in this collection, if slightly more run-of-the-mill. Theodore Bikel plays a delicious villain who plans to substitute an actor for a popular pro-Western Cardinal who opposes his bid for leadership of a progressive Eastern Bloc nation. Unfortunately for him, the IMF is onto his scheme, and sends Rollin in to double the double, making for three identical Cardinals running around at one point! Jim’s means of getting him inside is once more ingenious and fun to watch, as it involves a vacuum full of infected mosquitoes and a Maltese Cross that doubles as a tire jack good up to 3000 pounds of pressure! (Although it seems impossible to have foreseen that the bad guys would dump Rollin in a stone sarcophagus that required such a tool to escape from.) On top of that, we get to see Rollin make up a mask on the spot from his do-it-yourself face kit (which is neat), we get creepy skeleton-filled catacombs and ancient traps, and we get a henchwoman dressed as a nun. We also get an Orthodox monastery that looks suspiciously like the main Paramount business offices on their lot. (Though that's nothing compared to the Iron Curtain capitol with its own clearly visible, giant soundstage in "The Play!")

As fun as the show is, and as superb as this season is, Mission: Impossible is not without its shortcomings. Besides the obvious backlot sets, we get some of the same gimmicks we’ve seen before, and we get an annoying tendency for the agents to freeze up (practically giving themselves away) when it looks like some guard has caught onto their scheme just before a commercial break, only to learn when the show returns that they’d actually planned for this exact eventuality, so that display was purely for the benefit of the audience. We also get occasional episodes that collapse under their own convoluted intricacy, like "The Freeze." (The IMF spends millions and millions of dollars setting up a fake cryogenic laboratory and fake future of the faraway year 1980, complete with flatscreen TVs, 8-tracks that behave like DVDs, plastic shrinkwrap dresses, and bubble-topped future cars, just to convince a bank robber he’s been asleep eleven years for... well, it turns out there was really no reason at all to do it.) But perhaps hardest of all for a modern viewer to swallow are the heavy Cold War politics.

While Mission: Impossible doesn’t use actual countries or governments, they do use a Cold War shorthand relying on audiences to instantly identify certain buzzwords ("dictator," "anti-democratic," "anti-Western") as automatically evil. (Hm, sounds like a certain administration I can think of!) The writers often don’t bother to paint the various foreign leaders who fall at the hands of the IMF as evil beyond that shorthand, so in some cases the heroes come off looking like a bunch of jerks, often hurting people who don’t really seem like they should deserve what they get. In "The Elixir," for example, Riva, an Evita Peron-like would-be ruler of a South American country (whose only vice we witness is vanity, though we’re told she’d make a cruel dictator), ends up the victim of some very cruel plastic surgery, robbed of her face and, as a result, hauled off to an insane asylum. (Duped into having the procedure, if you can believe it, because of 37- year old Barbara Bain’s, ahem, "youthful" good looks!) And in "The Play," the IMF dutifully subverts the artistic freedom of playwrights and actors to further their pro-Western cause. It plays like The Lives of Others in reverse! In the course of this particular operation, they also claim a completely innocent victim, duping a sympathetic Eastern European actor into leaving behind his country and his life for a bogus offer of Broadway stardom! "The Bargain" is a great episode that actually affords Barney the chance to spy through a cracked doorway while disguised as a Cajun chef and Cinnamon the opportunity to dress like a French maid, but ultimately spells doom for an exiled Central American leader whose only crime we’re let in on is a passing similarity to Fidel Castro. In 1968, I suppose that was enough.

None of that should be enough to dissuade a spy fan (of any creed) from snatching up this fantastic DVD set, though. It’s easy to see past the dated Cold War politics (though it’s curious that the American Cold War spy shows have dated more poorly than their British equivalents) to some very tight writing, taut directing and splendid acting. Furthermore, any show that can consistently pull off so simple a trick as switching actors and saying it’s another person "wearing a mask" deserves a lot of respect. I’ll be honest; they get me every time with that. Even though it’s no longer Martin Landau on screen as soon as he pulls on that latex face, I remain convinced that I’m watching Rollin. And I don’t suspend disbelief so easily for just any show! There’s a reason why Mission: Impossible is one of the most famous spy series of all time, and it’s all on screen in The Third TV Season.

Unfortunately, there’s one piece of bad news to accompany this review. This set bears the same warning as Season 2 of Hawaii Five-O: "Some episodes may be edited from their original network versions." I suppose that means that Paramount was only able to find syndication masters for some of the episodes, and not original broadcast masters. I am not familiar enough with the series to identify which episodes this affects. On the upside, however, the picture and sound quality are phenomenal this time around, easily beating the previous seasons’ presentation. Mission: Impossible: The Third TV Season is one of the must-buy spy DVDs of the season.

Read my review of Mission: Impossible: The Seventh TV Season here.
Read my review of Mission: Impossible: The Sixth TV Season here.
Read my review of Mission: Impossible: The Fifth TV Season here.
Read my review of Mission: Impossible: The Fourth TV Season here.
Read my review of Mission: Impossible: The Second TV Season here.
Read my review of Mission: Impossible: The First TV Season here.

Upcoming Los Angeles Spy Star Appearances: Timothy Dalton In Person!

Timothy Dalton will join his Hot Fuzz director Edgar Wright for one night of Wright's upcoming "Right Stuff" film festival at the New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles. On December 5, the James Bond star will discuss his role as Prince Barin in Mike Hodges' cult classic Flash Gordon. Second on the bill that night is Mario Bava's pop art masterpiece Danger: Diabolik, a must-see for any Sixties spy fan. Joe Dante will help Wright introduce that one. The New Beverly does not sell tickets in advance.

On Wednesday, November 28, ubiquitous spy star Chris Cooper will attend a screening of Breach at the Aero Theater in Santa Monica. He will discuss his role as real-life spy Robert Hanssen. Presumably this appearance is the first salvo in an Oscar campaign, and I hope it works. Breach came out so long ago that Academy voters are likely to have forgotten about it, but Cooper's performance was definitely one of my favorites so far this year.

New Spy DVDs Out Today

We’re in the heart of a very busy spy season for DVDs right now. In the coming weeks we have The Bourne Ultimatum, Hot Fuzz 3-Disc Collector’s Edition (with Timothy Dalton commentary) and, of course, TimeLife’s mammoth The Man From U.N.C.L.E. complete series. But this week, we’re getting at least four big spy releases.

CBS/Paramount continues fulfilling Sixties spy fans’ insatiable desire for classic television with the third seasons of Mission: Impossible and Wild Wild West. This season of Wild Wild West gets a bad rap for departing from the fantastic and beginning the slide into more mundane Western territory, but from what I’ve watched of the set so far, while there might be fewer of the fantastical elements, there’s still spying a-plenty! Unfortunately, there are none of the wonderful extras found on Season One, such as Robert Conrad introductions or commentaries. I guess we should count ourselves lucky to have gotten one season’s worth of such treatment. Mission: Impossible keeps getting better, and there are a lot of good arguments for the third season being the best one yet. The classic team (Peter Graves, Martin Landau, Barbara Bain, Greg Morris, Peter Lupus) is still in tact, and some of the episodes ("The Exchange," "Nicole") depart the rigid, established formula and take on a surprisingly personal angle. Plus we get "The Mind of Stefan Miklos," one of the series’ very best episodes, a classic to rival Season Two’s seminal faked apocalypse in "The Photographer." Here, Jim Phelps needs all of his cunning to beat an equally brilliant enemy strategist at his own game in this bluff and counter-bluff classic of the espionage genre. For those who haven't picked up any seasons yet, but want the entire Landau and Bain run, you can also buy a three-pack of the first three seasons. Click here for my full review of Season Three.

There are also a few worthwhile re-releases in stores today, from opposite sides of the spy spectrum. First up, Criterion offers a truly beautiful new transfer of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Lady Vanishes packed with bonus features including the DVD debut of the spinoff movie, Crook's Tour, featuring Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne reprising their Lady Vanishes roles as Charters and Caldicott. Like most Criterion releases, even the packaging is outstanding (in plastic wrap that isn’t annoyingly stuck to the spine, a true mark of quality!), as is the lavish 22-page booklet inside. Second, Sony issues a long-awaited (by some) special edition of box office flop turned minor cult classic Hudson Hawk. Bruce Willis plays a very silly James Bond game as a cat burglar pressed into service for show-stealing CIA mastermind James Coburn in one of his final spy roles.

James Bond Returns To Comics

007 returns to the shelves of comic book stores this week, albeit in an unauthorized and frankly unflattering form! The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier finally came out today, after years or rumors, delays and missed release dates. No, it's not a sequel to Sean Connery's dismal cinematic swan song (if his retirement sticks, at least), but the latest in the series of brilliant Alan Moore graphic novels that inspired that wretched adaptation. The basic concept of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is that fiction's greatest (or most flawed) heroes have united throughout the ages to form "super-teams" (think Justice League of America) working for the British Secret Service. The first two volumes focused on the late Victorian incarnation of that team, including Allan Quatermain, Mina Murray (better known by her married name, Harker), Captain Nemo, Henry Jekyll and Hawley Griffin, H.G. Wells' Invisible Man. Black Dossier takes place in the late Fifties and features a few returning characters, as well as a slew of new ones from that decade. As it's an espionage tale, it should come as no surprise that Bond appears, identified as "Jimmy," grandson of the original series' Campion Bond. John Drake, Bulldog Drummond, "the Village" and Steed's boss "Mother" are at least name-checked, and a favorite Fleming villain makes an appearance, among other luminaries of spy literature. Moore has been known to take certain liberties with characters in the past, and his version of 007 is likely to rile many fans. He's certainly no "gentleman secret agent" as portrayed here. However, artist Kevin O'Neil's depiction of Fleming's Bond (complete with Hoagy Carmichael looks and that famous comma of black hair) is pretty dead-on!

DVD Review: DANGER MOUSE

DVD Review: Danger Mouse

From the same studio that brought you the Danger Man megaset on DVD comes another dangerous megaset: Danger Mouse: The Complete Series. Danger Mouse, billed as "the world’s smallest secret agent," is a white mouse in a white monogrammed sweater with a Nick Fury eyepatch, a John Steed accent, a Derek Flint mastery of any situation and a Sid James sidekick, a dim-witted, cockney hamster named Penfold. He operates out of a red London postal box, and reports to an oft-befuddled superior with a bushy RAF mustache named Colonel K.

Danger Mouse was the pro-duct of British animation studio Cosgrove-Hill (who also pro-duced the popular spin-off series Count Duckula), and ran intermit-tently throughout the ‘80s, on Nickelodeon in the Unites States, if memory serves me. Prior to watching the DVDs, I harbored vague (but positive) childhood memories of this series, but my mind had tricked me into recalling a slightly darker show. Now I remember why: as a child, I spent much of my Danger Mouse-watching time trying to figure out how he had lost his eye, a grisly contemplation that’s sure to color any impressionable imagination. Fortunately, that was just my own morbid curiosity; the series itself spares us any such details, and today I’m capable of accepting the patch as a cool design element and nothing more. (Thank good-ness!)

While Danger Mouse does serve up plenty of spy parodies throughout, the basic secret agent set-up is pri-marily used as a platform from which to branch off in all sorts of directions, sending up everything from Sher-lock Holmes to Indiana Jones, from sci-fi to superhero to horror. The animation itself is definitely "on the cheap," often reusing the same backgrounds, reusing entire repeated sequences each episode (DM and Penfold exiting their flat by couch elevator), or offering a camera move to substitute for actual motion within the frame, but the gang at Cosgrove-Hall actually use these limitations to their advantage, crafting a unique look for the show. One of the other things that stayed with me from childhood about Danger Mouse is the unique, retouched photographic cityscapes (primarily London) that serve as backdrops to the adventures of DM and Penfold, and cheap though they may be, there’s an undeniable artistry to these backgrounds. They look good! Another favorite money-saving trick of the Danger Mouse team is having the lights go out. It seems to happen at least once in every episode–and sometimes quite a bit more–and when it does, all you see is two sets of eyes. (At least until the inevitable third set of eyes opens, belonging to some terrifying lurking monster and unerringly leading to some Abbot & Costello antics!)

During the first season, Danger Mouse’s adventures are all shorts, about seven minutes long. Later, half-hour adventures are divided up into four or more short segments, so that each short ends on a serial-style cliffhanger and resumes with a narrated recap. While this may have worked well with commercials when originally airing in the United States, or stripped together with other cartoon shorts, it is a little bit annoying on A&E’s DVDs to have to sit through (or fast forward through) closing and opening credits, as well as recaps, at least four times during a given episode. Luckily, in later seasons, full twenty-two minute episodes are presented without interruption. I’m not sure if that’s because that was how they aired, or if A&E merely decided to omit the annoying interruptions, but either way it’s a welcome omission.

One of the most original things about Danger Mouse is its willingness to break the Fourth Wall. It’s a very postmodern cartoon. For example, in one episode the narrator himself (whose often erroneous voiceovers remind me a lot of those on Little Britain) becomes a character when everything he says comes true on the screen, much to Danger Mouse’s annoyance. In another, DM actually runs off the side of the "filmstrip," past the sprockets into a white void of nothingness where he’s stuck until he can find a way to get himself back into the picture. These absurdist episodes may have been a direct result of the show’s overriding penny-pinching edict, but they are very creative. As the show progressed into its final seasons, with full half-hour episodes, the plots became more straightforward. At the same time, the budget clearly increased, and Danger Mouse relied far less on still frames and more on real animation. The show may have lost a touch of originality at this point, becoming just another animated comedy adventure, but I actually prefer these episodes. The characters are still as engaging as ever, and the off-kilter (and ever-so-British) sense of humor remains intact. (I do miss the photographic backgrounds, though.)

Throughout all his adventures, psychedelic and nonsensical or efficient and somewhat trite, DM is accompanied by Penfold, who despite his many displays of cowardice, always stands by his "Chief." If Danger Mouse is somewhat unsympathetically flawless in his Flint-like perfection, Penfold is a bundle of ostensible flaws: lazy, timid, not in possession of the sharpest of wits (to put it kindly), and good-hearted and loyal to a fault. He’s Nigel Bruce’s Watson to Basil Rathbone’s Holmes. As in those movies, the humor in their relationship comes generally not at the expense of Penfold’s stupidity or DM’s arrogance, but in the collision of those two personalities, and the (usually) good-natured banter between them. They’re a good team, which is essential for a cartoon duo.

Their primary nemesis is the villainous frog Baron Greenback, equal parts Moriarty and Blofeld, who strokes a fuzzy white caterpillar named Nero. Greenback is the villain in almost every episode, and frankly Danger Mouse would have benefited from a larger rogues’ gallery. Greenback’s horse voice, repetitive plans for world domination and total lack of motivation (perhaps I expect too much from a cartoon villain, but even Gargamel was driven by a manic compulsion to capture Smurfs!) get old fast. It’s to his credit, though, that the archvillain never wavers in his belief in his own superiority, that this time, he’s sure to crush Danger Mouse! Lesser villains might be discouraged by the 88th failure.

Standout episodes include an excursion to a booby-trapped New York skyscraper more fiendish than "The House That Jack Built" (and Emma Peel endured) so surreal that they don’t even bother to give it a proper ending, the Indiana Jones-inspired globetrotting race against Greenback for "The Great Bone Idol," the Bondian spy farce "Danger Mouse on the Orient Express," and any episode with the vegetarian vampire Count Duckula, who’s always a welcome alternative to Greenback. And perhaps I was right after all in my eyepatch-obsessed memory of the show as being dark; it may be the only children’s cartoon ever to end its final episode (a rare Greenbackless affair) with the total destruction of London, obliterated into a post-apocalyptic wasteland around Danger Mouse’s unscathed mailbox headquarters!

A&E offer some good extras on their 9-disc Complete Series, too. There are two episodes of Count Duckula, each as enjoyable as the best Danger Mouse episodes. There are suites of incidental music from the series, and the unaired pilot, which is actually better than most of the first season shorts, and telegraphs the more plot-oriented direction in which the show will eventually go. The most fascinating aspect of this collection is the ability to watch the series mutate and evolve over the course of 89 episodes of varying length and absurdity. Danger Mouse has its share of misses, but they’re ultimately outnumbered by the hits, and hitting "Play All" on one of the discs is a great way for an animation-oriented spy fan to spend a Saturday afternoon. It’s certainly easier to recommend than other kid-friendly spy cartoons like Cool McCool, because it offers genuine entertainment on top of historical curiosity!

BLOGIVERSARY: The List Revisited
Revisiting a list made one year ago as the inaugural post on this blog.

5. Charlie Higson & Anthony Horowitz

There’s been no lack of coverage on the Double O Section of Charlie Higson and his Young Bond novels. In fact, two such volumes have been published since my original posting on the subject a year ago, Double Or Die and Hurricane Gold (as well as a Young Bond Rough Guide To London). Higson’s fifth and, as of now, final book in the series is due out in 2008. But that’s not all that’s happening on the Young Bond front. The first Young Bond graphic novel, illustrated by Kev Walker, is also due next year. It’s an adaptation of SilverFin, Higson’s first Bond novel. I’m very, very excited for this, as I dearly want to see more James Bond comic books in general. (This will be the first new material since Topps published two issues of an aborted four-part adaptation of GoldenEye in 1995.) However, I would honestly rather see original Young Bond adventures in comics than adaptations of the existing novels. (The last original Bond comics came from Dark Horse in the early ‘90s, and also included a half-finished mini-series.) I really hope that if the novel series truly concludes with Book 5, as it is supposed to, Higson turns his attention to penning some original comics about the teenage James Bond. I also hope that if the SilverFin adaptation is successful, Ian Fleming Publications doesn’t stop with Young Bond comics, but goes on to license original stories about the adult 007 as well.

On top of the new novel and the comic book, there are also rumors (courtesy of the Young Bond Dossier, naturally!) of a Young Bond short story in the offing. Higson told a group of fans that he was toying with the idea of writing one as a bridge between Hurricane Gold and the as yet untitled fifth book, wherein James is reunited with the SilverFin Bond girl Wilder Lawless aboard on ocean liner bound from Mexico back to England. He didn’t indicate where the story would see print, but maybe it could form the basis for a whole, For Your Eyes Only-like collection of Young Bond stories down the road!

Of course, Anthony Horowitz has already beaten Higson and IFP to the punch with teen spy short stories, just as he did with teen spy novels. (Though to be fair, Young Bond is not strictly a teen spy, like Horowitz’s Alex Rider, but a teenager who will one day grow up to be a spy.) Horowitz has produced two Alex Rider short stories so far, both of which are available online (which seems the most likely ultimate destination for a Young Bond story as well), one via The Daily Mail and the other on Horowitz’s official website (though you have to register to access it). The former is a Christmas story that serves as a prequel to the entire Alex Rider series; the latter takes place between Alex’s third and fourth adventures. These serve as good primers for potential readers to get a taste of Alex Rider without digging into an entire book (although the books are lightning fast reads).

I had thought that Horowitz’s teen agent series was originally slated to last for seven volumes, but the seventh Alex Rider novel, Snakehead, is due out tomorrow in the US and I’ve seen no fanfare about it being the final one, so plans must have changed. The movie version of the first book, Stormbreaker, trickled into US theaters for about one week last fall (after making a decent performance at the UK box office), then got dumped on an initially Wal-Mart-exclusive DVD courtesy of The Weinstein Company. Sadly, I think we can take its lack of American success as a sign that no one’s in a hurry to produce a sequel, which is too bad since the second book, Point Blanc, is a better story. Fans who want to see Point Blanc adapted into another medium can at least look forward to a graphic novel adaptation this Christmas. The first Alex Rider comic was adapted from the film; the second is a translation of the novel. As with Young Bond, I’d rather see original adventures in this format, but I am looking forward to Point Blanc.

I’ve only read the first several Rider books, but so far I stand by what I said about them last year. They’re not quite as well written nor as educational as the Young Bond books, but they are a lot of fun and quick, addictive reads. Alex Rider is definitely one of the better examples of the surprisingly fertile teen spy genre, even if the first few books are rather blatant repackagings of Ian Fleming plots.

Editorial: Stars And Strikes

Last week, Sony celebrated as Paul Haggis turned in a finished draft of Bond 22 ahead of the impending writers’ strike. This week, the writers are on strike, and Haggis is walking the picket line outside Sony. And now he says the script’s not quite done. "They haven't gotten the polish finished yet," Haggis revealed to the Los Angeles Times, going on to call the dispute "another example of corporate greed" [on the part of the studios] and declare, "It's my job as a member of the Guild to be here." [on the picket lines]. So if what Haggis says is true, what does that mean for Bond 22? It means that Daniel Craig’s second Bond film, the all-important follow-up to the most critically-acclaimed entry in the series, the BAFTA-nominated Casino Royale, might go into production this January without the best possible script.

Would Danjaq cross the Writers’ Guild of America and get someone else to finish it? Would Michael G. Wilson (who must be a WGA member, what with all his writing credits on the Bond series) turn scab and polish the script himself? Are Purvis and Wade Guild members, being British? Even if they aren’t, I highly doubt they’d cross picket lines, even proverbial overseas ones. [UPDATE: The Literary 007 spotted an ad in Variety in which Purvis and Wade, along with Goldeneye scribes Bruce Feirstein and Michael France, vow to do no writing "until all writers get a fair and reasonable deal."] So that leaves the option of delaying production until after the end of the strike (which could potentially be a long way off), or going into production with an unpolished screenplay and no writer on set to make last-minute tweaks. Neither option should appeal to fans, but I certainly hope the producers would opt to delay the movie rather than make a potentially sub-par one, especially after everything they did to get the franchise back on track. That seems unlikely, however, as they would risk losing director Marc Forster if the schedule changes drastically, or losing both him and Daniel Craig if the directors and actors strike next summer when their contracts expire. Neither option is a pleasant scenario.

The only good thing for the future of the Bond franchise (and for all the other big movies going into production between now and next summer, for that matter), is for the WGA and the AMPTP (American Association of Movie and Television Producers) to resume talks, come to an agreement on a contract, and end the strike.

Which means that the studios will have to compromise, something they’ve not yet shown any inclination to do.

Paul Haggis is right, and as much as I want a new Bond movie in theaters on time next Christmas, I also believe that the writers’ demands are perfectly reasonable. (Learn more about what the writers want and why here.) The Double O Section whole-heartedly supports Haggis and the Writers Guild of America in their efforts to get a fair contract. Furthermore, I think it’s important for other fan sites to do the same.

Yesterday’s Hollywood Reporter aptly calls the strike "a battle for hearts and minds," and it’s true. A massive work stoppage, especially a long one, will affect the product in theaters and on television, and will ultimately affect every filmgoer and TV watcher in America. Both the WGA and the AMPTP are trying to make that seem like the fault of the other party, and so far the AMPTP seems to be doing a better job with getting timely press releases out. (And it certainly helps that most major newspapers and magazines that report on entertainment just happen to be owned by the same media conglomerates, like Fox and Time-Warner, that the AMPTP represents.) Therefore, it is important for fan sites, especially influential ones with larger readerships than my own, to support the writers, the creators of the very product they’re dedicated to. It’s important that the American public understand the reasons for the strike, and understand that it could all end if the studios would simply agree to pay writers some meager residuals for "new media reuse" of the creative material they create.

I’m really not sure right now how best to convey that stand to the studios (although Aintitcool has linked to a petition, for what it's worth), but the first step is clear to me: the fan community must vocally support the people who write the movies and shows that they are fans of.

In this case, that’s spy movies. So how will the strike affect upcoming spy movies and shows? Here’s a sampling:

Bond 22
Daniel Craig’s next movie is scheduled to begin shooting in January as of now, but writer Paul Haggis, one of the men responsible for the franchise’s successful reboot, claims it’s not ready. I’ve already covered the ramifications of that above.

24
Apparently there are eight episodes of 24 in the can. As the show’s format doesn’t really lend itself to airing just eight episodes and then disappearing for who knows how long, Fox has decided to delay the seventh season (which was set to bow in February) indefinitely. That means the popular spy show might end up skipping a whole season altogether, and we might not see any more of Jack Bauer until sometime during the 2008-09 season, depending on the duration of the strike. Also, with the shooting schedule thrown off by the strike, it’s unclear if star Kiefer Sutherland’s jail time for DUI will still be compatible. That may delay things further.

Burn Notice
USA’s runaway summer hit was supposed to start shooting its second season in January. Obviously, with writers not currently generating scripts, that will have to be delayed at least somewhat, or else rushed, even if the strike is resolved soon. Since it wasn’t set to start airing until next summer, Burn Notice has a little more leeway than 24, but if the strike continues until next June as some pessimists prognosticate, we might not learn who really burned Michael Weston for quite some time. Would USA air it in the fall instead if circumstances so dictated? I hope so. The alternatives (delaying till summer ‘09, or giving up on the series altogether) are not appealing.

Get Smart
Next summer’s tentpole comedy has already wrapped, but star Steve Carrell (a WGA member himself) has refused to cross picket lines on his hit show The Office, effectively shutting down production on the sitcom. Does that mean he would be unavailable for reshoots on Get Smart should they be deemed necessary? Honestly, I’m not sure. But it’s something to consider. It’s not uncommon for big studio comedies to undergo some reshoots, and I hate to think that director Peter Segal might not be able to deliver the best product possible because the studios refuse to throw a little money the writers’ way.

Dollhouse

In the initial Hollywood Reporter story on the new Eliza Dushku show, Joss Whedon said, "I'll hit the ground running, and I'll work until I'm supposed to, then I'll stop dead in my tracks and will pick up my picket signs. I think the issues are extremely serious, and I think the studios are extremely entrenched. No one wants a strike, but it has to happen because (the studios) would not listen. I support it and will do anything to fight for the creative rights that the people deserve." So I guess that means that development of the new series is delayed indefinitely. Luckily, this wasn't supposed to debut until Fall 2008, so there's plenty of time to get things worked out and get the show up and running.

(If you know how the strike is affecting other spy-related entertainment in production, please contact me so I can keep people up to date.)

Tradecraft: The Champions Return!

Variety reports some extremely unexpected, out of the blue - and fantastic! - spy news today: Hellboy director Guillermo del Toro will write and direct a big screen version of the classic Sixties ITC series The Champions for United Artists. The Champions is a terrific (if dated) lesser-known show from the ITC stables that ran from 1968-69 and starred Stuart Damon, William Gaunt and the stunningly beautiful Alexandra Bastedo (The Blood-Spattered Bride). They played secret agents whose plane crashed in the Himalayas, only to be rescued by an advanced civilization who not only healed them but imbued them with super powers. The trio worked for NEMESIS, an elite intelligence unit of the United Nations based in Geneva. They had to keep their powers a secret from everyone, from rival agents and organizations and even from their own boss. Del Toro has traditionally made only horror movies (and once said he had no interest in venturing outside of that genre), including the Oscar-nominated Pan's Labyrinth last year. The fantastic element of The Champions probably appeals to him, and it's great to see him lured into the secret agent genre! Among his horror movies is Blade II, in which he demonstrated a true gift for action scenes. Hellboy successfully blended that talent with the rich characterizations characteristic of his Spanish language work. Hopefully The Champions will provide another such opportunity.

The first half of The Champions' only season (it ran for thirty episodes) is available on DVD in the US from A&E, but it's been available for years and there's still no sign of Volume 2. (Maybe the movie will prove the impetus for them to release the rest, but that's still years away.) In England, Network DVD released the whole series in a lavish special edition complete with actor interviews, commentaries, the Legend of the Champions TV movie which was cobbled out of existing episodes in the early '80s, and a new documentary. The Champions is one of the shows covered in James Chapman's excellent book Saints and Avengers: British Adventure Series of the 1960s.

Man From U.N.C.L.E. Movie Marathon

Video WatchBlog points out that TCM is running a marathon today of all the Man From U.N.C.L.E. films, which are not currently available on DVD in the US, and are not all included in TimeLife's eagerly anticipated upcoming DVD set of the TV show. The movies are, of course, cobbled together out of TV episodes, but Tim Lucas reveals that there's more to them than that, and provides an excellent guide as to which movies are airing when and what they have to offer that's different from their TV counterparts. Why not just head on over there and check it out?

New Spy DVDs

Help Is Here!

The Beatles' own Sixties spy spoof is finally available on DVD today! Help! stars the Fab Four along with The Prisoner's Leo McKern and features a groovy spy score by producer George Martin, channelling John Barry and prefiguring his own 1973 Bond score for Live and Let Die. The 2-disc set features some nifty packaging and lots of cool extras, including a documentary, a deleted scene, radio spots, featurettes and more. Snap this one up quick because Beatles DVDs have a nasty habit of going out of print.

James Bond Ultimate Collector's Set

For anyone who hasn't already bought all the James Bond 2-disc Special Editions released by Fox/MGM last fall in four box sets, now is the time to get a great deal on all four. Fox has bundled them all up in a big ugly box, along with Sony's DVD of the 2006 Casino Royale.

Dangerous Deal

Best Buy's early, early Christmas deals include a great price on A&E's recently issued Dangermouse: The Complete Series. Fans of classic spy animation can pick up all ten seasons' worth of adventures of "the world's smallest secret agent" for just $65.

BLOGIVERSARY: The List Revisited
Revisiting a list made one year ago as the inaugural post on this blog.

4. Nick Fury

Marvel has just released a beautiful hardcover collection of Nick Fury’s earliest adventures as an Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., culled from the pages of Strange Tales. Marvel Milestones: Nick Fury: Vol. 1 reprints classic material by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, and the legendary creator who made Fury his own, Jim Steranko. It’s a pricey volume (so I’ll probably hold off until Christmas), but its archival quality makes it essential for any serious Sixties spy collection. Some of the material reprinted here predates the stories that appear in Marvel’s must-have Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. trade paperback, which begins with Steranko’s first issue.

In the modern-day Marvel Universe, the eye-patched superspy is still MIA, as far as I know. I’ve fallen behind on the titles he might pop up in, Captain America and Iron Man (even though both were in the middle of very impressive runs, particularly Cap), but I haven’t heard otherwise. I hope this lengthy absence means he’s poised to make a triumphant return to comics sometime next year. In the meantime, Tony Stark (aka Iron Man) has filled his shoes as Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., and Stark enjoys a particularly spy-heavy adventure in this month's Iron Man Annual, which is said to be inspired by early Bond films and Steranko’s run on Nick Fury. Fury may or may not be played Samuel L. Jackson (on whom the "Ultimate Universe" version of the character is modeled in the comics) in next spring’s (awesome-looking) Iron Man movie, and occasionally we hear about possible movement on a solo movie for Nick.

BLOGIVERSARY: The List Revisited
Revisiting a list made one year ago as the inaugural post on this blog.

3. Greg Rucka

A year ago I was excited because issue 31 of Rucka’s phenomenal spy comic book Queen & Country (which at the time I called "the best current, ongoing spy saga in any medium") had just come out after a long delay. I’m sorry to report that since then, only one additional issue has materialized, part three of a four part storyline. That story, "Operation Red Panda," is set to be collected this month, so hopefully that means that the final issue, #33, will be on shelves before that time. As much as I love the series, I’ve actually given up on reading the individual issues because so much time goes by between them that I forget the whole plot up until that point. (They’re often pretty complex plots, too.) So I am looking forward to reading "Operation Red Panda" in its entirety this winter, but sadly don’t foresee any additional Q&C stories for quite some time. Rucka has given some fairly credible reasons for wanting to hold off before the next arc, but the fan in me really can’t wait. Hopefully we’ll at least see Queen & Country heroine Tara Chace in another novel before the next comic appears! In the meantime, Rucka’s slate is pretty full. In addition to writing scads of comics for DC (including the espionage-themed CheckMate which simply requires too much knowledge of the DC universe for me to follow, as much as I’d like to), he’s got another series on tap for Q&C publisher Oni Press called Stumptown. Although he describes it as taking place in the same world as Queen & Country (which is intriguing), he’s switching genres (and continents) on us. Stumptown is an American private detective series which the author describes as being "about as realistic as most private eye stories are going to be, which is to say not at all. Because, frankly, actual investigation work is pretty tedious and undramatic." Just as he’s frequently admitted to (very successfully) modeling Queen & Country on the sublime spy TV series Sandbaggers, Rucka cites The Rockford Files and one of my all-time favorites, Magnum PI, as being the primary influences on Stumptown. I’m sure it will be a great comic book and I look forward to it, but all the while I’ll be yearning for Q&C.

One thing that won't fill that void is the movie of Rucka's graphic novel Whiteout, due in theaters next year. Tara Chace (or Lilly Sharpe as she was known back then) has been cut out of the film version, replaced by a male character. Rucka assured audiences at last summer's San Diego Comic-Con that the movie would still retain an espionage element (personified by this new, male character), and argued that the change better served the plot by making main character Carrie Stetko (Kate Beckinsale) the only woman in the all-male world of Antarctica.

Luckily, Oni isn’t leaving Tara Chace out in the cold. They’re replacing the old trade paperback collections with new, longer compendiums of three or four stories per single, affordable volume, as opposed to just one. These new "Definitive Editions" will be a great opportunity for spy fans who haven’t yet done so to discover the amazing world of Queen & Country!

Random Intelligence Dispatches For November 3, 2007

Tradecraft: New Joss Whedon Spy Show!

Just before the writers' strike was called, Fox made public a deal with Buffy the Vampire Slayer mastermind Joss Whedon for a new TV series called The Dollhouse. The Dollhouse stars Buffy alum Eliza Dushku as one of a small group of secret agents who are reprogrammed for each assignment with different memories, abilities and an entirely new personality. "After each assignment," says Variety, "...the characters have their memories wiped clean, and are sent back to a lab (dubbed the 'Dollhouse'). Show centers on Dushku's character, Echo, as she slowly begins to develop some self-awareness, which impacts her missions." The network has given the series a seven episode commitment. I'm a huge fan of Whedon's previous work, and can't wait to see him turn his attention to the (sort of) spy genre! I just hope the strike doesn't seriously impact plans for this show.

Casino Royale 40th Anniversary DVD NOT Out Next Week

Despite some recent excitement over an updated Amazon listing with a November 8, 2007 release date for Fox/MGM's upcoming Casino Royale 40th Anniversary Edition DVD, I'm sorry to report that a Fox spokesman has confirmed that the title is definitely delayed until next year (when it will no longer be the 40th anniversary of the Peter Sellers/David Niven/Woody Allen spoof). My contact didn't provide any details as to why, but it's easy to speculate. Perhaps EON Productions, who've long made clear their desire to have no association between their legitimate series of James Bond movies and those red-headed stepchildren, Casino Royale ('67) and Never Say Never Again, requested that Fox not release the title to coincide with the release of their James Bond Ultimate Collector's Set this Tuesday.

Kaleidoscope Soundtrack Issued On CD

Speaking of Casino Royale, the '67 all-star spoof wasn't the only movie of its time to loosely borrow a plot from Ian Fleming's novel of that name! The 1966 Warren Beatty vehicle Kaleidoscope also takes the book's central device of British Intelligence sending a man in to bankrupt an enemy by beating him at cards... and plays it straighter than the Sellers version. Kaleidoscope is quite a fun little Swinging Sixties spy movie, co-starring Susannah York and the great spy character actor Clive Revill (Fathom, Modesty Blaise). Memorable Prisoner Number 2 Eric Porter plays the Le Chiffre role. It's certainly essential viewing for Ian Fleming fans for its unauthorized use of his famous plot, which was close enough to warrant coverage in the first published study of the Bond films, John Brosnan's James Bond in the Cinema. Unfortunately, I'm not mentioning all this because the movie is coming out on DVD (although it really should, WB!), but at least its soundtrack is officially available. The score by Stanley Myers, who also composed the music for another great Swinging London spy movie, Otley, is a fantastic fusion of Barry and Bacharach sounds, ideal Sixties spy/caper music. FSM recently released it on CD paired with Johnny Keating's music for Hotel. (I'm unfamiliar with that movie, although it starred The Liquidator himself, Rod Taylor.) I burnt my LP of the score onto CD a while ago and have listened to it often enough that I'm certainly eager to upgrade! It's good background sound when you're in a mod spy mood.

BLOGIVERSARY: The List Revisited
Revisiting a list made one year ago as the inaugural post on this blog.

2. Roger Moore

There’s been no lack of Roger Moore coverage here on the Double O Section of late. In October, he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (pictures here) days before his 80th birthday. Unlike Sean Connery (three years his junior), he hasn’t retired from acting; in fact, he recently returned to the spy genre by lending his voice to the Thunderbirds-style puppet animation Bond spoof Agent Crush, which is due out... next year, maybe? (There's a full trailer here, along with the news that current Bond composer David Arnold provides the theme, joining other Bond alum on the project.) Best of all, Sir Roger recently announced his autobiography! Anyone who’s heard his witty, self-deprecating, highly amusing audio commentaries on his Bond movies or on The Persuaders! knows what a great raconteur he is, and knows that he still remembers all sorts of fascinating details about his career and co-stars as if they happened yesterday. Hopefully the book, which is being ghost-written by his long-time assistant and author of The Pinewood Story, Gareth Owen, will achieve the same effect. It’s tentatively titled My Word Is My Bond. This won’t be the first time Moore has written about his 007 experiences, however. In 1973 he published Roger Moore's James Bond Diary, written on the set of Live And Let Die.

Additionally, the American Cinema-theque in Los Angeles is planning a celebration of Moore's Bond films at the Aero Theater in Santa Monica this winter to follow up on their success-ful series of Connery and Lazenby Bonds earlier this year.

Happy Birthday, John Barry

John Barry, the man most responsible for "the James Bond sound" and, consequently, the entire "spy sound" that took its lead from his queues, is 74 today. Barry was born on November 3, 1933, in York, England. He scored eleven James Bond films: From Russia With Love, Goldfinger, Thunderball, You Only Live Twice, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Diamonds Are Forever, The Man With the Golden Gun, Moonraker, Octopussy, A View To A Kill and The Living Daylights. Other estimable contributions to the spy soundscape include the superb Ipcress File, The Quiller Memorandum, The Tamarind Seed, Raise the Titanic!, Enigma and the memorable themes for such TV series as The Persuaders! and The Adventurer. Sadly, 2001's Enigma remains his last film score to date, spy or otherwise. He's been attached to several high-profile projects since then (including The Incredibles, which ended up with a fantastic Barry tribute score by Alias composer Michael Giacchino), but none of them have come to fruition. Here's hoping he creates another fantastic score in the near future!

The long-awaited new book on the composer, John Barry: The Man With the Midas Touch, by noted Barry experts Geoff Leonard, Pete Walker and Gareth Bramley, is supposed to be out sometime this fall, though past release dates have come and gone. Whenever it finally materializes, I'm sure it will be worth the wait.

BLOGIVERSARY: The List Revisited

As I mentioned in my last post, I'm going to revisit my spy list from a year ago and look at what's happened to those people or characters in the past twelve months, and maybe touch on some news I haven't previously covered. Naturally, I'll begin at the beginning:

1. Daniel Craig

It’s been a good year for Daniel Craig. Following rave reviews for his 007 performance in Casino Royale, he’s become one of the most in-demand actors out there. Right now he’s living every actor’s dream, alternating between big Hollywood projects like Ed Zwick’s WWII resistance epic Defiance and smaller, more personal independent films like Flashbacks of a Fool (stretching to play a big Hollywood movie star), which he’s currently shooting (alongside Spooks/MI-5 star Keeley Hawes) in South Africa for music video director Baillie Walsh. And, of course, he has Bond 22 on the horizon, slated to start lensing in January. Thanks to the tremendous buzz he generated in his first outing as the superspy, this is probably the most anticipated new Bond film in decades, leading him to an incredibly lucrative contract for three additional Bonds after that. The only film he’s yet had released since Casino Royale was the Body Snatchers remake The Invasion (with Royale co-star Jeffrey Wright and Nicole Kidman), which flopped this past summer. Luckily for him, we can’t really measure his post-Bond success from that one, as it was actually made before he landed the coveted spy role and shelved for nearly a year. The first post-Royale role we’ll see from him will be in New Line’s fantasy epic The Golden Compass, adapted from the beloved bestseller and due out this December. (Coincidentally, Craig plays the same role that Timothy Dalton played on the London stage!) The Golden Compass reunites Craig with Kidman and Bond Girl Eva Green, and looks fantastic from the trailer. It’s also spawned a terrifically detailed action figure line from Corgi, in which the actor’s plastic likeness is captured for the first (but hopefully not last!) time.