New Spy DVDs Out This Week: The Prisoner and Wish Me Luck

EDIT: Whoops, guess I jumped the gun on The Prisoner!  It's not actually out until next week.  Hawaii Five-O: The Complete Eighth Season is out this week, however, so maybe use that to tide you over... 

Here's a release that's sure to split Prisoner fans into two groups: purists and completists.  Purists likely won't have anything to do with this disappointing miniseries remake, though completists will probably want to pick it up for it's innovative production design and cinematography, for its fairly extensive bonus material, or as a curiosity and minor footnote in the annals of Prisoner history.  If you turn the volume off and just focus on the visuals, it's a very pretty show to look at.  The music is good, too, so an isolated score track would be ideal!  Sadly, that's not a feature on this DVD, but there are some nice ones, including unaired scenes, commentary tracks on two episodes, the featurettes "Beautiful Prison: The World of The Prisoner" (that sounds like a good one to me; I really did like the art direction) and "A 6-Hour Film Shot in 92 Days: The Diary of The Prisoner," plus the Prisoner Comic-Con Panel (which was very cool, if misleading, and succeeded in turning me from apprehensive to excited for this project) and "The Man Behind '2': Jamie Campbell Bower interviews Ian McKellen."  The 3-disc set from Warner Home Video retails for $29.98, but it's cheaper on Amazon, of course.  (Sadly, it's not available on Blu-ray, because these visuals would actually benefit from a high-def transfer.)  If you've never seen The Prisoner, though, it's definitely the McGoohan version you want!

Also out today, from Acorn, is Wish Me Luck: Series 1, the first season of a British show that ran from 1988-90 based on the true stories of female intelligence agents behind Nazi lines. It's not a series I know well, but it sounds interesting so I'm looking forward to checking it out.  For Your Eyes Only's Julian Glover plays a Special Operations Executive colonel who recruits civilians to work undercover behind enemy lines in order to gather vital intelligence. Based on the real-life stories of women recruited by Britain’s SOE, this suspenseful drama series follows wife and mother Liz Grainger (Kate Buffery) and half-Jewish factory girl Matty Firman (Suzanna Hamilton) from training in England through the terror of their daily lives in Nazi-occupied France.  Jeremy Northam and Jane Asher co-star. Besides all eight episodes of the first series, this 2-disc set includes historical background on the real operation that inspired the series and a photo gallery. Retail is $39.99, but naturally it's also cheaper on Amazon.

I missed this a few weeks ago, but the latest remake of The 39 Steps (first reported on here), starring MI-5's Rupert Penry-Jones, came out on DVD from BBC on March 1.  The action-heavy version of John Buchan's famous novel, set in the days before WWI, updates the story for the Bourne era.  At 90 minutes, it also truncates it and covers huge slices of narrative in voice-over.  This aired recently on PBS's Masterpiece Theatre.  The DVD retails for $19.99, but can of course be found for less online.

Upcoming Spy DVDs: Burn Notice: Season 3

TV Shows On DVD reports that Burn Notice: Season 3 will be available on DVD from Fox Home Video on June 1–just in time for the summer debut of the fourth season!  The website gets its information from a trade ad which makes no mention of a Blu-ray release. TV Shows On DVD speculates that that might be due to the negative reaction in the fan and critical communities to the Blu-ray transfer of Season 2.  Since the show is shot on 16mm, it doesn't really benefit from a high-definitition transfer, and therefore we may not see Season 3 on Blu.  Personally, I haven't seen the Blu-ray of Season 2, but judging by the user reviews on Amazon that might not be a bad thing!  According to the website, the trade ad hints at at least one bonus feature, but if previous season releases are anything to go by there are likely to be more.

Upcoming Spy DVDs: Maroc 7

Network will release the 1966 Gene Barry Eurospy movie Maroc 7 on DVD (PAL Region 2) on April 12.  Barry plays secret agent Simon Grant who pursues a chic fashion editor (Cyd Charisse) and her retinue of models and photographers to Morocco, where they're allegedly planning a fashion shoot.  Grant suspects more nefarious motives (international jewel smuggling), and he's right... but before he can pin anything on them, he finds himself framed for murder.  Denholm Elliot and Elsa Martinelli co-star.  In Gene Barry's spy career, this film came after his American series Amos Burke, Secret Agent but before his British series The Adventurer.  Barry also starred in another Eurospy entry, Subterfuge, with Joan Collins.  Maroc 7 was previously available on DVD in Germany, and in England as a free promotional disc that came with a newspaper or something like that (copies are still rampant on Ebay), but those were both bare-bones, fullscreen versions.  True to the company's usual standards, Network's edition is digitally restored from its original film elements and presented in its original widescreen aspect ratio of 2.35:1, which is much more condusive to savoring the film's beautiful North African location photography!  Furthermore, this release also includes the original theatrical trailer, three image galleries (including behind-the-scenes and publicity shots) and a PDF of the film's original publicity booklet.  Retail is £12.99, but it can be pre-ordered through Network's website and Amazon.co.uk at the reduced price of just £7.99.

Peter Graves' Other ITC Western Coming To DVD

Hot on the heels of the sad news of Mission: Impossible star Peter Graves' passing comes some more upbeat Graves news, and further proof that his legacy is secure for future generations.  Following their release last winter of Graves' Australian ITC Western, Whiplash, UK company Network will put out the first season of the actor's other ITC Western series, the children's series Fury.  Although I tend to think of Fury as an American show (it was set and shot in California), it was actually a co-production between British TV factory ITC and the newly formed American company TPA.  The series was syndicated in the US.  Fury (which ran from 1955-1960) actually came before Whiplash, and I've joked before that Graves played second fiddle to a horse.  It's true.  The titular stallion, Beaut, was more famous than Graves at the time, and (according to Network's website), won several Patsy awards, the animal equivalent of an Oscar.  Graves plays Jim Newton, the only cowboy who can tame Fury.  Graves went on to star in one more series for ITC, Court Martial (not a Western, but a WWII drama about JAG lawyers), before becoming a fullblown star on Mission: Impossible in 1967. (Perhaps Network will eventually get around to putting that one out, as well.)  A handfull of Fury episodes are available on single-disc, budget DVDs in America, but Network's 4-disc set marks the first time all 30 episodes of the first season will be available.  Fury: The Complete First Series will come out in the UK as a Region 2 PAL DVD from Network on April 19 and retail for £34.99, though it can be pre-ordered more cheaply through Network's website.

Read my obituary of Peter Graves here.
Read my review of Network's Whiplash: The Complete Series here.

R.I.P. Peter Graves

It is with great sadness that I report that Jim Phelps has accepted his final mission.  According to The Associated Press, Mission: Impossible star Peter Graves passed away today in Los Angeles, just weeks shy of his 84th birthday.  Graves was a titan of the spy genre, and he will be greatly missed by fans the world over.  Mission: Impossible began airing on CBS in 1966, with Steven Hill playing team leader Dan Briggs.  But the series didn't fully gel until Graves replaced Hill the following year as new team leader Jim Phelps.  Graves's iconic performance in that role, in conjunction with Lalo Schiffrin's unmistakable theme music and the trademark opening in which Phelps receives his new mission each week via an exploding tape player, made Jim Phelps one of the most famous TV spies of all time.  In fact, thanks to those elements, I'd say that Mission: Impossible is probably the most famous today of all the American spy series to come out of the Sixties. 

Graves was at once an undeniably commanding presence on the series.  His prematurely white hair and straight-arrow earnestness (and his ability to maintain his dignity as his wardrobe changed from blue suits to orange turtlenecks as the series entered the Seventies!) made him a natural team leader, and he clicked with audiences in a way that Hill never had a chance to.  All of the characters on Mission: Impossible were intentionally written as blank slates.  They were cryptic men and women who could become anyone as the mission of the week dictated, government agents and professionals in their fields of expertise who didn't generally bring any baggage to their jobs.  Later seasons attempted to flesh them out a bit, sprinkling a few more "personal" episodes throughout the year.  (My own favorite found Graves falling in love with doomed guest star Joan Collins.)  But in the early seasons of the show, it was up to the actors alone to bring a personality to their enigmatic characters.  Peter Graves has taken some slack over the years for his no-nonsense, straight-arrow, some might even say stiff performances (Graves himself described the parts he was famous for best as "straight-shooting, iron-rod-up-the-back kind of fellows"), but the fact is, that was exactly what the role demanded.  Steven Hill approached his role as someone who should just blend right into the background, which he saw as appropriate for a spy.  Well, yes, it was appropriate for a spy, but ultimately not for a TV spy.  He blended too much into the background. Peter Graves brought exactly the earnestness, exactly the straight-shooting, iron-rod-up-the-back qualities to the role of team leader necessary to read on television as a man who could command a team of specialists in life-or-death situations, a man who could mastermind the most complex operations imaginable.  Martin Landau and later Leonard Nimoy had the flashier roles as the masters of disguise who got to play a different part each week, but it was Graves who grounded the series.  And it was Graves who carried the series.  While there were many great supporting players on Mission: Impossible, and they all contributed to its overall success, Graves was the only constant over the years in both incarnations of the show.  (It was revived for two seasons in 1988-90.)  Once he appeared in Season 2, he was instantly irreplacable.

That didn't stop filmmakers from trying to replace him, however, in the first theatrical Mission: Impossible movie, wherein Jon Voight played a traitorous character named Jim Phelps who's nothing like Peter Graves's dyed-in-the-wool patriot.  For many fans (myself included), this left a dark stain on the film series as a whole.  Late last year, however, J.J. Abrams, who is producing the next installment in the series, intimated that he hoped to rectify that disgrace by putting Graves into the next movie.  (As I've said many times, it would be so simple to undo the damage wrought by David Koepp and Brian De Palma with one simple line: "Too bad that guy who you gave my name to after I retired turned out to be such a jerk.  Oh well.")  Abrams' exact words were, "I got a call that Peter Graves is in great shape!" which makes the actor's passing even sadder.  I wish that he could have lived long enough to have seen his famous character vindicated on screen.  I think now more than ever Abrams and Cruise owe it to Graves to do right by his character.  Another possibility that Abrams mentioned was having Graves's M:I costar Leonard Nimoy appear in the next film, as he did in Abrams' recent Star Trek reboot.  I now hope more than ever that that happens, and that Abrams uses Nimoy's character, Paris, to clear Jim's name.  Sure, it would require a bit of cleverness, but Abrams proved himself perfectly adept in Star Trek at harmonizing incongrous continuities!  Make it so, J.J.!  It would be a fitting tribute to the great Peter Graves.   

There was more to Graves's career, of course, than just Jim Phelps.  Early on, he earned wide acclaim for another spy role (one as far from TV's Jim Phelps as you could get), in Billy Wilder's WWII prison drama Stalag 17.  He also made a number of B-movies in the Fifties, including the giant grasshopper invasion classic Beginning of the End. From there he went on to star in a few TV Westerns, following in the footsteps of his older brother James Arness (Gunsmoke).  Graves played second fiddle to a horse in Fury and then starred in Whiplash, the latter an Australian Western shot on the actual Outback and produced by Britain's ITV, a brand name well familiar to spy fans. (Whiplash was recently issued on DVD in England by Network.)  After the original Mission: Impossible series wrapped up, Graves gleefully sent up his "stiff" straight man image in two Airplane! films, proving that he had more range as an actor than any of his critics ever suspected.  He also sent up his Jim Phelps role pretty directly in the Hong Kong spy spoof Mad Mission III: Our Man From Bond Street.  Following the Mission: Impossible revival series, Graves continued to work right up until the end of his life.  Besides hosting and narrating A&E's Biography for many years, he had a recurring role as the Camden family patriarch on 7th Heaven and guest-starred on House and American Dad.  He was honored late last year with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Ojai Film Festival.  (He gave a great interview to the LA Times on the occasion.)

Unlike an IMF agent who fails in his mission, the Secretary (or anybody else, for that matter) will never disavow all knowledge of Peter Graves.  Though Jim Phelps's name (with Jon Voight's face) may have been unceremoniously slandered in the first Mission: Impossible movie, Graves's incarnation of Phelps–the true, definitive and only real version of the character–lives on, with all seven seasons of the original series (six starring Graves) now available on DVD.  Graves's legacy also lives on in the countless characters inspired by Phelps, currently personified on TV by Timothy Hutton on the Mission: Impossible-inspired Leverage.  Peter Graves's lasting contribution to the spy genre will never be disavowed, and never be forgotten.  He was a true icon, in every sense.  And he was one of my own personal favorite spy stars.  I miss him already.

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 Third TV Season here.
Read my review of Mission: Impossible: The Second TV Season here.
Read my review of Whiplash: The Complete Series here.
Read my review of Mad Mission III: Our Man From Bond Street here.
Read my review of the Peter Graves TV movie Where Have All the People Gone? here.

Tradecraft: Noyce Sticks With Spies

Variety reports that Phillip Noyce is making yet another spy movie after Salt: Wenceslas Square.  This one's got a weird pedigree: it's from the writers of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the producer of National Public Radio's This American Life and the director of Sliver.  Of course, Noyce is better known to spy fans as the director of numerous (better) movies in the genre, including Patriot Games, Clear and Present Danger, The Quiet American and this summer's Salt.  But he still makes strange bedfellows with NPR's Ira Glass. 

The script is based on a short story by Arthur Phillips published in his 2003 collection Wild East: Stories From the Last Frontier. He read it on Episode 337 of Glass's This American Life, which explains that connection. According to the trade, Wenceslas Square takes place in Prague during the late Cold War era and involves "a young CIA officer and a beautiful Czech spy." Noyce described it as "a gripping story about two young spies intoxicated by the espionage game and their passion for each other."  I love it!  Can't wait for this one.

The Ian Fleming Movie That Might Have Been
Okay, I meant to post this a week ago, but better late than never!  Wes Britton of Spywise and The Spy Report alerted me that the Times of London had an article by Jeremy Duns about prolonged attempts in the Fifties and Sixties to turn Ian Fleming's 1958 non-fiction, non-Bond book The Diamond Smugglers into a film.  In my obituary of actor Richard Todd, I mentioned that, according to his autobiography, he had attempted to make a movie of The Diamond Smugglers in the Sixties.  I've long been curious for more information on that film that might have been, and Duns' fantastic article fills in many details.  Duns, of course, should be familiar to spy fans as a spy fan himself (and longtime contributor to the CommanderBond.net forums) who became a (quite distinguished) spy writer with the publication of his first novel, Free Agent, last year.  He's been researching this topic for quite a while before publishing this article, and he's dug up some really amazing information on a previously unknown chapter in the history of spy movies.  The story involves famed British studio Rank, Richard Todd, Steve McQueen and novelists Fleming, Kingsley Amis and John Cleary, all of whom contributed to the treatments and scripts for the film that wasn't.  Duns also draws connections between some of these players and Cubby Broccoli and Harry Saltzman. 

What he doesn't cover, however, is who holds the film rights to The Diamond Smugglers today.  While the book is based on actual people and events, Fleming fictionalized the lead character as secret agent John Blaze.  That means there's a whole potential Fleming-based franchise still waiting for some enterprising studio to exploit... and I can't believe it hasn't been done yet!  Just the marquee value of "Ian Fleming's John Blaze" should carry serious weight with audiences, even today.  And even though Fleming only wrote one book about Blaze, presumably that wouldn't stop an intrepid producer from further exploiting the character in the same way Broccoli and his heirs have with 007 since running out of Fleming novels.  Pay attention, studio execs, this is gold!  Or, should I say, diamonds.  (Sorry.)

Avengers-Inspired Fashion: Catsuits On The Catwalks Of Paris

Fashion designer Jean-Paul Gaultier has been watching a lot of Avengers lately, it seems.  His new collection for French fashion house Hermès is entirely inspired by the cult Sixties spy series.  According to The New York Times, Laurie Johnson's Avengers theme music accompanied his runway show as fifty-four looks inspired by John Steed's (Patrick Macnee) trademark umbrella and bowler and Emma Peel's (Diana Rigg) catsuits and mod gear strutted down the catwalk.  This certainly isn't the first time The Avengers has inspired fashion; the iconic series and its stars spawned their own apparel lines in their day, and have continued to influence designers every since.  A flurry of new looks inspired by the show's wardrobe accompanied the ill-fated 1998 film version of The Avengers as well.  Gaultier's unique twist on the concept is in combining Steed and Mrs. Peel's signature outfits. Besides the traditional "Emmapeeler" leather catsuit that led off the show (molded onto a model looking more like Uma Thurman than Rigg), other female models sported Steed-like suits–many in leather.  All were accompanied by bowlers.  Other leatherware owed more to Honor Blackman's Cathy Gale wardrobe, and even some of Emma's more mod looks have been leatherized.  It just goes to prove that The Avengers never goes out of style!  Vogue adds that the show tipped its bowler to another spy as well; after "The Avengers Theme" wrapped up, the music segued into "The James Bond Theme" and then Duran Duran's "A View To A Kill." The Times has a (mixed) review of the collection here, and you can see the whole thing for yourself in a slideshow at New York Magazine. or watch an edited video on YouTube or below:

Callan Winners

Thanks to everyone who entered the Callan contest!  I wish you could all be winners, but of course that's not possible... this time.  But there's always next time, so please try again!  The next prize will be that James Bond one I hinted at before, and it will be soon, so be sure to check back.  Without further ado, here are the lucky winners of Callan: Set 2, courtesy of Acorn Media.  And if you didn't win, I still very much encourage you to pick up a copy of this when you can.  It's essential stuff!

Michael Baskett of Kansas
David Morefield of Virginia
Paul Bishop of California

Tradecraft: International Intrigue

I'm not totally sure if this will actually turn out to be a spy movie or not, but it sounds like it has the potential to be a great, fun, international thriller of the sort they haven't really made since Hitchcock's day.  And the trade story promises "international intrigue," so for now I'll deem it worth mentioning here.  Variety reports that Kevin Macdonald (The Last King of Scotland, the State of Play movie) will direct a murder mystery called Murder Mystery.

According to the trade, the script by Zodiac's James Vanderbilt (who's writing the new Spider-man movie) "revolves around an American couple honeymooning in Europe who are implicated when they witness a murder and wind up embroiled in international intrigue."  One of the film's producers describes it as "pure entertainment. It's exciting, suspenseful and romantic." Murder Mystery will be shot on location across Europe. 

From that description, the film sounds to me like it could have a Charadevibe, which would certainly be a good thing.  It also reminds me of those giallos that border on espionage, like Assassination in Rome.  It definitely sounds cool!  I'll be keeping my eye out for this one.

CONTEST REMINDER:
Last Day To Enter To Win Callan: Set 2 On DVD

Remember to get your entries in by midnight tonight (Pacific Time) if you want to win one of three copies of Acorn's recent release, Callan: Set 2!  It's one of the greatest spy series ever, and if you read this blog, chances are you'll like it.  Click here for all the details on how to enter. 

Read my review of Callan: Set 1 here.
Read my review of Callan: Set 2 here.

Tradecraft: Are Jack Bauer's Long, Awful Days Numbered?

Jack Bauer's had a lot of really bad days over the last decade.  Now, it appears his future may be brightening... even as 24's dims.  Is a peaceful retirement really in the cards for Grampa Jack?  Variety reports that Fox "appears ready to end the long-running hit after this season, the show's eighth," adding that "it's believed that the final decision will be made in the next day or two." The Emmy-winning, real-time spy drama still gets good ratings, but they're apparently no longer good enough to justify its massive budget.  "The cost of producing 24 has continued to increase," according to the trade, "while ratings have dipped. A one-time critical darling, 24 has also received its share of knocks from critics this season." 

Personally, I thought this season started out quite strongly, and benefitted from another change of location (to New York) and solid new cast members (it's the first time I've ever liked Freddie Prinze Jr. on anything, and at first he seemed to be being groomed as a possible Kiefer Sutherland replacement).  It quickly proceeded to go off the rails, however, as it always does–just not quite as quickly as it has in recent years.  Frankly, I think the concept has outstayed its welcome on TV anyway.  It was a great concept centered around one of the best characters in modern spy fiction, but always somewhat lacking in the execution.  While I think that the world-threatening terrorist plots alone would have been enough to drive the series each season–especially coupled with realistic office politics–the producers never seemed comfortable relying on them.  Instead, they inserted ludicrous soap opera subplots and petty workplace squabbles that belonged on a sitcom, not a gritty drama.  This filler padded out season after season and got worse as it went along. 

It was recently announced that Fox was moving forward on a long-rumored feature film version of 24, starring Sutherland and written by Breach's Billy Ray.  I firmly believe that this is exactly where the future of the franchise should lie.  As I've said here and numerous times before, Jack Bauer is a great character who I'd love to see in a more traditional format, ala Bond or Bourne.  A lean feature won't have time to get bogged down with the lesser aspects of the series, and provides Jack the opportunity to travel the world.  The series was somewhat rejuvenated by getting out of LA; I think the movie will be even moreso by taking him to Europe. 
Of course, rumors of 24's cancelation are purely speculation at this point.  Is there still hope for 24 on TV?  Sure.  Variety asserts that "the studio is said to be considering shopping 24 to other [networks] -- but given the thriller's age and pricetag, it's believed interest from other outlets will be limited."