Upcoming Spy DVDs: It Takes A Thief

It's been rumored for almost a year now, and now that rumor is finally taking shape.  A vague shape, but shape nonetheless!  It Takes a Thief, one of the few great Sixties spy series that remains elusive on DVD, will finally come out on that format next February, and now we know the studio who will be releasing it: eOne Entertainment (formerly E1 Entertainment).  This news comes courtesy of TV Shows On DVD (who else?), who back it up with photographic evidence sent in by a reader showing a tiny advertisement for the title included in eOne's upcoming release of Ellery Queen.  E1 was the company responsible for the Region 1 release of the ITC series The Baron. The bad news there is that that release created a lot of fan ire about the video jumping in a number of episodes and one episode with the audio out of sync.  Personally, that didn't affect me too much. I may not have watched that particular episode on E1's set (because I also have Umbrella's Region 4 version), but I did watch a number of them in Region 1 and wasn't particularly bothered. And as frustrating as it is, I'm used to audio sync issues with ITC shows thanks to A&E's Persuaders DVDs.  The good news is that E1 actually went to the trouble of porting over the audio commentaries and episode introductions from Umbrella's R4 set, something other American companies have generally neglected to do with ITC releases.  Plus, the packaging was pretty nifty.  They seem to care about their content, so hopefully we'll see some special features on It Takes a Thief (which would be highly doubtful were it just released by the studio rather than licensed out).  And hopefully the technical issues on The Baron are a lesson learned, and we won't encounter those in the company's new eOne incarnation.

It Takes a Thief starred Robert Wagner as a cat burglar named Al Mundy who's forced to use his skills for Uncle Sam's spy organization. Fred Astaire sometimes played his dad, and Peter Sellers guest-starred on one episode in dual roles. This is a major spy release on the horizons, so mark your calanders for February, 2011! Now if someone would just announce The Girl From U.N.C.L.E., T.H.E. Cat and Amos Burke, Secret Agent...

Tradecraft: 007 Pieces Falling Back Into Place For Mendes, Craig, MGM?

There's a been roughly a rumor a day about the fate of the Bond franchise since MGM started falling apart financially, and I've ignored most of them because they all amount to speculation; there's been very little in the way of actual news.  And this bit falls in the same speculative category, and doesn't really give us anything new, but does assert that the old remains in place.  So in the interest of preserving the status quo, I'm passing along a tidbit from a Deadline story today in which Mike Fleming says that things are slowly falling back into place for Bond 23 (believable, given that MGM is apparently near an agreement with the directors of Spyglass Entertainment that would enable it to start making movies again, if not distributing them), and that the original players attached before the project went on hold are still attached.  In explaining why director Sam Mendes bowed out of the race to direct the hot young adult property Hunger Games (already billed as "the next Twilight"), Fleming writes, "I’m told it was because the MGM picture is clearing up and it looks like production on 007 could begin by late summer or early fall, 2011 with Mendes at the helm and Daniel Craig back in the Aston Martin."  At this point, I'm still a lot more predisposed to believe that things are exactly where they stood before, and not that Bond will be delayed for another half decade and then recast.  Then again, I did make a $5 bet at school in 1993 that despite the swirl of rumors to the contrary, Timothy Dalton would be back in the next Bond movie, so perhaps I'm overly optimistic...

DVD Review: Night Train To Munich (1940)

DVD Review: Night Train To Munich (1940)

Carol Reed’s Night Train to Munich is another stellar and deserving addition to the Criterion Collection. As usual with Criterion releases, I’ll begin reviewing the disc on the outside, because I just love their packaging. It’s a standard clear Amray case, but boy does this DVD look good! Criterion’s designers should be commended; they routinely do such a great job. The carefully chosen poster detail (stylized artwork of a man hanging from an Alpine cable car) makes a visually striking cover graphic and serves as excellent shorthand for what to expect of the movie. The back is equally attractive, and the fonts are all well chosen. I know, I know; it’s weird to talk about fonts in a DVD review, but Criterion packaging is so attractive that I feel they bear mentioning! The thick plastic (none of that cheap, flimsy, eco-friendly casing that the studios favor these days!) and hefty 16-page booklet inside give some satisfying heft even to a single disc release. Criterion DVDs always weigh a bit more than a regular DVD, and I like that about them too. It really makes you feel like you’ve got something special in your hands, which in most cases (including this one), you do. The interior artwork is equally satisfying.

Moving beyond the tactile to the reasons most normal people buy DVDs, the actual disc contents, Criterion’s Night Train to Munich disc is no less impressive than its packaging. The 1.33:1 full-frame transfer is as crisp as you could possibly hope for, looking much better than VHS versions or even TCM broadcasts of this film. This is the way black and white films should look. Since Fox (once a leader in terms of catalog releases) aren’t really giving this kind of lavish treatment to their older titles anymore (or releasing them at all, really; I think Man Hunt may have been the last of its kind), I’m glad that they licensed Night Train to Munich to Criterion. It’s a special film, and it deserves special treatment.

Night Train to Munich is one of many spy films that popped up on the eve of America’s involvement in WWII, and it’s one of the better ones, almost in the same class as Hitchcock’s Foreign Correspondent (review) and The Lady Vanishes (review). I like the fairly unique tone of the spy films of this era, still unsure about audience reaction to the cataclysmic events going on in Europe, and therefore tentatively injecting lighthearted Thirties-style romantic adventure with a dangerous edge, and a perceptibly volatile backdrop.

The film’s Prague-set opening moments (cut together with actual newsreel footage) effectively convey the terror of living in a country being invaded by Germany. They’re actually not that indicative of the film to follow, whose lighter approach never generates the same sort of suspense as Fritz Lang’s much darker Man Hunt (review here), but they set the scene well not only for the adventure to come, but for the grim new era dawning on the world in 1940.

Leaders of Czech industry arrange the exciting escape of Axel Bomasch, a scientist working on a new kind of armor plating (whose plane takes off mere seconds ahead of a Nazi staff car tearing after it down the runway), but his daughter Anna (The Lady Vanishes’ Margaret Lockwood, playing a different character) isn’t so lucky. The Gestapo meets her at her front door as she tries to make her getaway, and promptly interns her in a concentration camp in hopes of using Anna to get at her father. There she meets Karl (Paul Henreid), an outspoken fellow prisoner (visciously beaten immediately upon his internment for standing up to his captors) who uses his connections to help her escape. Their escape together leads to a rapid-fire series of unexpected twists and turns. Is Karl just a schoolteacher, as he claims? Or is he a Nazi agent, orchestrating some larger plot? Or is he a British agent, tasked with extricating Anna? Or a double working for both sides? Like Cary Grant in Charade, his identity keeps changing.

For a movie that I expected (from its title) to get on a train fairly early and be all about escaping Nazi-occupied territory, I was surprised when the action shifted quickly to England. But we don’t stay there long, as Anna and her father are recaptured by the Nazis, and transported to Germany! Rex Harrison (who confusingly looks a bit similar to Paul Henreid at this age) is Gus Bennett, the smooth British agent who volunteers to get them back. (Smooth agents are rarely named Gus anymore.) His brazen plan involves masquerading as a Nazi officer with forged papers, relying upon the bureaucratic quagmire inherent in any army to fool German authorities at the highest levels.

Harrison is good as the dashing hero, but he’s upstaged by two returning characters from The Lady Vanishes: the cricket-obsessed quintessentially English tourists Charters and Caldicott (Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne, reprising their respective roles). In the Hitchcock movie, the duo were purely comic relief. But in Night Train to Munich, these two play a much more proactive role in the plot. In fact, they’re integral to the second half of the film. That doesn’t mean that they’re not also funny, though.

We meet Charters and Caldicott (who, despite seeming the very opposite of cosmopolitan, always seem to be traveling Europe via spy-infested railroad cars) more than halfway through the film at the German station where all parties involved are finally boarding the titular night train. When Charters can’t locate a copy of Punch at the local newsstand, he settles on an amusing alternative. “Bought a copy of Mein Kampf,” he tells his traveling companion. “Occurs to me it might shed a spot of light on all this how-do-you-do.” And therein lies the brilliance of these characters. With their utterly stereotypical comical Britishness, they are capable of reducing even the most seemingly insurmountable challenges–like the threat of pure evil enveloping the world–to a bit of “how-do-you-do.” It’s a very humorous image to see a man dressed in such a way that he couldn’t possibly be anything other than an English tourist clutching a copy of Mein Kampf. Typically, when he hears that England has declared war on Germany, Charters’ first thought is of his golf clubs, which he lent to someone in Berlin saying he wouldn’t need them back until Wednesday.

While at first their role seems to be one of standard farce (Caldicott recognizes Bennett because they went to school together, but can’t fathom why he might be in a Nazi uniform; after all, he played cricket for the Gentlemen!), Charters and Caldicott soon prove integral to the spy plot. After learning a crucial bit of intelligence by accident, they engage in a Marx Brothers-ish secret meeting with Bennett inside the cramped quarters of a train lavatory, the comic setting offsetting the dire life and death consequences of their discussion. Eventually this pair of unmistakable Brits even end up disguised in Nazi uniforms themselves. (This leaves two stormtroopers tied up in a train compartment in their underwear–Charters’ copy of Mein Kampf gagging one of them, spine out! Who would have thought you could get two first-rate sight gags out of a book by Hitler?)

The thrilling finale begins with a breakneck chase along Alpine roads in a cool-looking armored car and culminates in the cable car hijinks you expect from that poster image on the cover. By the Sixties, nearly every Eurospy movie would have a cable car fight (although 007 himself doesn’t get around to it until Moonraker in ‘79), but few of them come close to this early entry in the spy movie cable car sweepstakes. In a well-staged setpiece involving model work and matte paintings, Bennett shoots it out with Nazi agents from a cable car suspended between two Alps and two nations–Germany and neutral Switzerland. As you can tell from that cover, he also ends up dangling from one, while trying to switch cars in mid-flight. It’s a stunning climax to a solid movie with an especially solid second half.

Night Train to Munich starts off well enough, but doesn’t transcend its genre until that second half. The payoff is definitely worth sticking around for, though. The comic presence of Charters and Caldicott may ensure that tension never gets too high, but that’s okay. (Frankly, I prefer it to the more white-knuckle dread of the similar Man Hunt.) After the German invasion at the beginning, we’re never too concerned about stakes. Like any good train trip, we’re along for the ride, and it’s quite an enjoyable one with great scenery, entertaining company and one hell of a destination.

Besides that thick booklet (containing informative critical text essays as well as production information), there’s only one major special feature on Night Train to Munich, but it’s a good one: a thirty plus minute video essay discussing all aspects of the film from its script to its production and reception to a critical analysis. I really love Criterion’s video essays! They’re much closer to a film school lecture than a standard making-of, and, personally, I like that. This one is actually billed as a dialogue, not an essay, between authors Bruce Babington (author of Launder and Gilliat, a biography of the film’s writers, who also penned The Lady Vanishes) and Peter Evans (biographer of director Carol Reed). But to spruce things up and (quite successfully) disguise the fact that this is just clips cut in with two people having a conversation, Criterion’s features producers film the conversation aboard a train, which was a really brilliant choice. It makes the whole presentation feel more special than standard talking heads against a generic background, which is typical of the Criterion brand.

There are a few pertinent clips from The Lady Vanishes (but surprisingly none from Crooks’ Tour, the other Charters and Caldicott film included as a supplement to the Hitchcock film on Criterion's DVD of it) and some stills relevant to the topics under discussion, including one of crowds outside the London theater (adorned with giant banner ads) where the film premiered. The two film scholars discuss the period in which the movie was set and made and the role of Charters and Caldicott–both in the film itself and in a larger cultural context. They make an excellent point that in The Lady Vanishes, made prior to England’s involvement in the war, they only speak English, but now Charters appears to speak German and Caldicott French. They see this as indicating that Britain can no longer afford to be isolationist; war has broken out and it must be part of Europe. That’s just one of many insightful points made in this video essay. Like most Criterion features, it’s just really well made and informative and never dull. Criterion's DVD of Night Train to Munich is an easy recommend for the whole package–feature, supplements and even case.

Tradecraft: Johnny English Lands A Bond Girl

Decades after being humiliated by 007 and laughed at by Domino, Nigel Small-Fawcett has finally landed a Bond Girl of his own!  The Hollywood Reporter reports that Die Another Day's Miranda Frost herself, Rosamund Pike, has joined Rowan Atkinson in the highly-anticipated (well, by me, anyway) spy spoof sequel Johnny English Reborn.  Also coming aboard is The Wire's Dominic West. The pair join the previously announced Atkinson, Gillian Anderson and Daniel Kaluuya. There's still no mention, unfortunately, of Ben Miller, whose long-suffering Bough (Johnny's assistant) was the funniest character in the first film.  I really do hope there's a place for him in the sequel's script, penned by Hamish McColl and William Davies. (Davies co-wrote the first film with regular Bond scribes Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, who are also sadly not involved with the sequel.)  I'm afraid that he's been replaced by Kaluuya, though.  The trade also offers the first glimpse I've yet seen of the sequel's storyline, revealing that Johnny "finds himself embroiled in trying to stop a plot by a group of international assassins hunting down the Chinese premier." Sounds like a lot of potential for OSS 117-style laughs...

The Hollywood Reporter also reports that "the movie shoots for 13 weeks in the U.K. and Hong Kong beginning this week."

Tradecraft: True Lies Lives Again

Deadline reports that James Cameron is reviving True Lies... but not in the long rumored (and long hoped for) sequel movie, but instead as a TV show.  I'm not quite sure why, since J.J. Abrams' new TV series Undercovers looks like it  deals with very similar themes (the similarity is no doubt what inspired Cameron to revive his own franchise).  Perhaps Cameron is banking on Undercovers flopping, or perhaps he just feels that his brand is strong enough to survive in a competitive marketplace.  I'm not sure if that's true without the presence of the original movie's star, Arnold Schwarzenegger, but I guess we'll see! 

I probably haven't seen True Lies since it first came out in 1994, but I've always had mixed feelings about it.  The action scenes were incredible, but rather than tiding me over in that long gap between Bond movies, they basically just made me long for the real thing.  The marital comedy aspects never quite gelled for me, but of course that's the story's selling point as both a film and a potential television series.  It's certainly regarded as one of the more successfull attempts at that difficult blend of action movie and romantic comedy, so I should probably revisit the film.  (I've actually been meaning to for a while; this news gives me the excuse.) 

The gimmick was that Arnold was a superspy, Harry Tasker, but had to keep that a secret from his wife, Helen (Jamie Lee Curtis), who thought he was a boring, nerdy computer salesman.  Helen sought escape in the arms of sleazy car salesman (Bill Paxton), who appealed to her sense of adventure by pretending that he was a spy. Harry eventually got wind of that, and set out to teach his wife a lesson.  (That's the part that never really worked for me.)  Eventually, she learns the truth and they both end up on a big, exciting mission.  As it ended, it looked like the couple would spy together in the future. 

If that's the direction that the TV series goes, then it would be very similar to Undercovers.  But perhaps Cameron and showrunner/executive producer Rene Echevarria (Castle) will instead revisit the concept at its inception, picking up with Harry as a spy deceiving his family?  Then it becomes more like Covert Affairs or the first season of Abrams' previous spy drama, Alias.  Or perhaps the short-lived My Own Worst Enemy.  There's no question that just about every variation on this concept has been tried a lot (Mr. and Mrs. Smith put the best spin on the material by having the married couple actually be rival agents, neither one knowing the truth about the other; that film was also developed as a TV series that sadly never made it past a pilot), but that doesn't mean that Cameron won't be the one to nail it once again.

I hope I don't come off sounding down on this news. I think it's exciting; I'm just trying to figure out how it will manage to standout in a very competitive environment.  Personally, I hope that Cameron ups the ante when it comes to the action.  The action scenes were the best part of the movie, and the big-budget, movie-scale action scenes made his previous TV foray, Dark Angel, stand out.  Based on the trailers for Undercovers, action also seems to be in relatively short supply on that series, which looks to focus more on the romantic plot.  I would definitely tune in each week to watch a weekly spy series with a James Cameron level of action! Owing to the involvement of the highest-grossing filmmaker twice-over, I have little doubt that this series will actually make it to the air.  Personally, though, I would rather see a movie sequel with Arnold Schwarzenegger, who will soon be looking for work.

Tradecraft: Christopher Marlowe, Spy

The Hollywood Reporter reports that Sam Riley (Control, Brighton Rock) has been tapped to play one of history's most famous celebrity spies--playwright Christopher Marlowe. Michael Elias has adapted Anthony Burgess' novel A Dead Man in Deptford for the screen, and Nick Copus (the Day of the Triffids remake) will direct. Almost-Saint James Purefoy will co-star, along with Ray Winstone (Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Edge of Darkness), Ed Speleers (Eragon) and Adam Sinclair. Burgess is probably most famous for his novel A Clockwork Orange, though he also wrote an unused early draft for the Bond movie The Spy Who Loved Me, and later introduced some late-90s UK paperback editions of Ian Fleming's 007 novels. A Dead Man in Deptford, his final novel, reinforces his interest in spies.  According to the trade, "the movie will play with the idea that Marlowe, a notorious bar room brawler, was also a royal spy for Elizabeth I [a fairly widely-held idea, abely supported by Charles Nicholl in his Marlowe biography) and that his death in Deptford at age 29 may have been an assassination ordered by the English Secret Service." I've always been fascinated with the spy angle of Marlowe's career (and Elizabethan espionage in general), though I haven't read that novel.  I'm certainly excited for the movie, though!  Production is scheduled to begin in the spring.

Rupert Everett previously played Marlowe in a memorable cameo in Shakespeare in Love.

James D'Arcy Plays Ian Fleming

Well, who would have thought it?  One of those many Ian Fleming movies in development has actually come to fruition!  I first reported last March about Age of Heroes, the British film about Fleming's "Red Indians," the 30 Assault Unit he formed while working for Naval Intelligence during WWII.  At the time, I had no idea how close that film actually was to production.  (Often things reported in the trades take years to actually get made, if ever.)  Well, apparently this one got made.  It actually filmed over the summer!  There are even some reports of an October 1 UK release date, which is right around the corner.  (Can anyone in the UK confirm this?)  When I wrote that first report, I speculated as to how large a role Fleming would have in the picture (since he didn't actually participate in the commando unit's raids, as was depicted in the 1990 TV movie Spymaker: The Secret Life of Ian Fleming starring Jason Connery) and who would play him.  Well, now we know thanks to both the IMDb and a Fujifilm magazine story reprinted on the Sean Bean fansite The Mighty Bean (who also supply that poster) that James D'Arcy is playing Fleming.  How large a role it is is still to be determined.  According to that article:

"During the filming James D’Arcy, whose previous roles have included British navy First Lt. Tom Pullings in Master and Commander (2003), Father Francis in Exorcist: The Beginning (2003), and numerous British TV roles, offered some brief thoughts on his role as Ian Fleming to the Norwegian press. He said: ‘Fleming lived an unreal life. It’s strange, really, that the story of his life isn’t better known’."

Hm. I can't recall him from Master and Commander; the role I most immediately associate with James D'Arcy is Sherlock Holmes, whom he played in an ill-received (and decidedly non-canonical) 2002 TV movie called Sherlock: A Case of Evil (which actually pre-figured both the Robert Downey Jr. film and the current contemporary TV version in some key ways).  He doesn't look much like Ian Fleming, but then again he doesn't categorically not look like him either, so make-up should be able to do the trick.  Fleming has previously been played by Jason Connery, Charles Dance (who was a dead ringer for the author) and Ben Daniels.

TV Review: Nikita Pilot (2010)

The spy season began in earnest this week with the series premiere of The CW’s newest version of La Femme Nikita, simply titled Nikita. Nikita is the opening salvo in a fall television season as rife with secret agents as any since the Sixties. The character of Nikita began life in Luc Besson’s 1990 French film Nikita, released in America as La Femme Nikita and starring Anne Parillaud in the title role. It was a great movie, but hardly the most original premise. It’s basically Remo Williams meets My Fair Lady (with perhaps a dash of Callan thrown in for good measure*): a punk street kid is arrested for murder after a drug-related robbery gone wrong, her execution is faked, and instead she’s pressed into service for a top secret government agency, given no choice but to become a highly trained assassin. That’s not all she’s trained in, though. Her handler proves to be a closet Henry Higgins, and she’s trained to be a proper lady as well. The character showed a remarkable shelf life that no one could have guessed at back then, sustaining an unsanctioned 1991 Hong Kong remake, Black Cat (which also spawned a sequel), a 1993 American remake, Point of No Return (starring Bridget Fonda), a Canadian TV series (called La Femme Nikita again) that ran on the USA cable network from 1997-2001, starring Peta Wilson, and now another, unrelated TV version.

Nikita’s latest incarnation is very much its own animal, but full of homages to past versions. Instead of following the basic Nikita story of a violent girl plucked off the streets and trained to spy, this series picks up six years after that all happened, with Nikita on the run, having escaped her mysterious government handlers three years ago, and prepared to take the fight back to them. Even though the origin scene (for Alex, a new recruit, though, not Nikita) is right out of Besson’s film, the new show seems to owe more to Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse than any previous version of the Nikita story. There’s a whole stable of spy recruits who train in a big white gym for a shadowy organization known this time around as “Division.” There’s a tough, security-conscious male boss (24's Xander Berkeley) and a poised female one (Melinda Clarke, ably holding her own in a role previously played by Jeanne Moreau and Anne Bancroft). There’s a nerdy tech guy who looks (but doesn’t sound) like he just stepped off a Whedon set. Nikita is actually an improvement over Dollhouse in one respect, since it simplifies the premise (dropping the whole “programming empty vessels” thing), but doesn’t come close to living up to the Whedon show from a character perspective. Or to matching his snappy dialogue. Instead, Nikita trades in cliches like:

“I broke their most important rule.”
“What rule was that?”

You guessed it...

“I fell in love.”

Or, in a flashback with her dead fiancé:

“Promise me one thing.”
“What?”
“Promise me this isn’t a dream that I’ll wake up from.”

Yeah, dialogue isn’t its strong suit, but the new Nikita pilot certainly has its moments. The opening kill (with Nikita in a red bathing suit) is spectacular, and sure to hook viewers in, and there’s a great scene where Nikita (pushing a room service cart loaded with the tasered body of a guy she wants to question) comes face to face with Division’s nastiest cleaner in a hotel hallway, and their standoff is interrupted by a family walking between them. Another standout moment finds Nikita, while all of Division hunts for her, walking right up to former boss Berkeley at a fancy Washington DC shindig and threatening to hit him where it hurts the most. “My feelings?” he asks, sarcastically. “No,” she replies, “your funding.”

Berkeley is his reliably slimy self, and clearly relishing the role. Maggie Q looks hot, and gets lots of opportunities to parade about in bras or bathing suits. The script for the pilot doesn’t afford her the opportunity to explore much character depth yet, though. Shane West, who starred opposite the original TV Nikita, Peta Wilson, in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (for which both were woefully miscast), plays Michael, the agent in charge of training new recruits at Division. West positively drips Evil, and I was prepared to write him off as a ham-fisted over-actor, but his over-the-top approach actually blinded me to an interesting twist with his character that I probably should have seen coming a mile away, so perhaps there’s more to him as an actor than seems to meet the eye in the pilot.

Nikita describes Division as “a US weapon that the United States has lost control of.” Instead, she insists that the agency takes its wetwork contracts from big corporations and oil companies–the worst of the worst! Furthermore, their target this week is an African diplomat who will do great things for his people, but probably kick out the oil companies. It’s always African diplomats in this sort of scenario. (See: The Bourne Identity.) All that makes Division a pretty generic Evil Organization for this day and age, but it’s also modern narrative shorthand to justify her outsider status and her hellbent desire to take apart her old bosses. In other words, it’s SD-6 all over again. The Alias references are inevitable, but Covert Affairs has shown that it’s definitely possible for other series to carve out their own niches within the Alias subgenre. The Nikita pilot wasn’t as promising as that show’s, but despite its flaws it was promising enough (especially a good last act twist involving the Alex character) for me to tune in again next week. (Even though it feels a bit weird to be watching The CW again, for the first time since they cancelled Veronica Mars, in my thirties, seeing all those ads for stuff like Gossip Girl and 90210!) After all, the Nikita concept basically comes down to a hot girl with a big gun (which means the pilot delivered exactly what was promised in that sexy advertising campaign), and there will always be a certain appeal in that...

*An influence that came full circle when Edward Woodward guest-starred in a recurring role on the final season of the USA TV series.

New Spy Music: FSM Releases Hawaii Five-O Soundtrack

Well, I suppose it's not really spy music, but I think a lot of the tracks on this album actually come from Hawaii Five-O pilot episode, "Cocoon," which was a spy story (review here).  And chances are this will be of interest to a lot of readers of this blog and fans of Sixties and Seventies TV nontheless.  Film Score Monthly has released composer Morton Stevens' original soundtrack album, first released on LP by Capitol Records in 1968, on CD for the first time.  Happily, according to FSM, "unlike many TV albums of the 1960s which involved new arrangements and re-recordings of series themes, the Hawaii Five-O album was drawn from the actual TV recording sessions. Working with his friend and album producer Mel Taylor, Stevens chose to include a balance of both dramatic underscore and more radio-friendly jazz and rock material from the series." Since the program on the CD is exactly the same as the LP, it only contains about half an hour of music.  Therefore, FSM is offering it (through Screen Archives Entertainment, where you can also listen to samples) for a bargain price - just $12.95. Unlike the original LP, FSM's release also includes the authoritative liner notes we're used to from the company. Read more about it on FSM's website.

Upcoming Spy DVDs: Saigon: Year Of The Cat

On October 4, Network will release Stephen Frears' 1984 historical spy romance Saigon: Year of the Cat on Region 2 PAL DVD. This BAFTA-nominated film has somehow fallen into the public domain here in America (I think), so there are many shoddy Region 1 versions available and it sometimes turns up on those multi-film collections. (I have one that it's supposed to be on, but in fact it's another movie.) Hopefully Network's version (which I believe marks its UK DVD debut) will finally present a quality transfer. Like the American releases, it's 1.33:1 full-frame, but that's actually the film's original aspect ratio. 

Future M Judi Dench stars as an English woman working in Saigon during the chaotic final days of the Vietnam war who falls in love with a CIA analyst played by Frederic Forrest (Permission to Kill). They begin a torrid affair just as Vietcong forces advance on the city forcing a frenzied evacuation.  The script is by acclaimed British playwright David Hare (The Hours, The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles). Fun fact: Frears was at one time attached to direct the first ever spinoff from the James Bond series, Jinx, starring Halle Berry reprising her Die Another Day role with a script from Bond regulars Purvis and Wade. That project fell apart. (Read People's hilarious time capsule of a story on the matter here, which says the project was shelved in favor of Bond 21 starring Pierce Brosnan, set to film in 2005, and also gushes with positive buzz on Berry's upcoming Catwoman.)

Retail on Saigon: Year of the Cat is £12.99, but it can be pre-ordered from Network's website for £7.99.

Emma Frost Channels Emma Peel For Real!

A few weeks ago we learned that Matthew Vaughn's X-Men: First Class, a prequel focusing on the younger days of the characters played in the other movies by Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen, would be set in the 1960s, thus justifying the casting of James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender in those roles (and necessitating Fassbender's subsequent departure from Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy). We also learned recently that Mad Men's January Jones would play Emma Frost, a character whose costume (a white version of Jean Grey's Black Queen costume... it's complicated) was based on Emma Peel's costume as The Queen of Sin in the Avengers episode "A Touch of Brimstone." (See a revealing costume comparison here.) Producer Brian Singer said that Vaughn was going for a "James Bond vibe."  Clearly, he's taking this Sixties setting to heart, and he's also, appropriately, going for an Avengers vibe!  AICN ran this set picture yesterday (depicting Jones and her stunt double in costume) along with a link to lots more great pictures at The Daily Mail.  (Check out that awesome Cold War era helicopter!) It looks like Emma Frost is Emma Peel!  Look at that dress! Is that an Emma Peel frock or what? And those boots! This is awesome.  I'm so excited for this movie now.  I hope that all of Jones' costumes are white variations on Diana Rigg's famous wardrobe. Will she wear a white Emmapeeler catsuit?  I have little doubt that eventually we'll see that skimpy leather Queen of Sin outfit... Personally, I love what Vaghn is doing.  The AICN Talkbacks are kind of disturbing, though, with a million variations on, "Is he making X-Men or Austin Powers?"  Yes, even nearly a decade on, Austin Powers is still tainting any references to Sixties spywear.  It's too bad.  Austin Powers is like the atom bomb; what was unleashed (while it seemed like a very good idea at the time) can't be put back in the tube.  It's out in the world now, and we've just got to deal with it.  Hopefully Vaughn makes an amazing Sixties superhero movie that finally makes people say "Austin who?"

Tradecraft: Malin Akerman And Ethan Hawke Enter Numbers Station

Variety reports that Malin Akerman (Watchmen) has joined Ethan Hawke in what the trade describes as a "CIA thriller" called The Numbers Station.  "The $10 million pic sees Hawke play a disgraded Black Ops agent tasked with a dead-end job of protecting a young woman in the middle of the Nevada desert.  When the two come under attack, they have to fight to stay alive."  Based only on that log line, it sounds kind of like a lower budget, less high-profile version of the Denzel Washington/Ryan Reynolds project Safe House... Of course that doesn't mean it won't turn out to be the better of the pair. (Personally, I'd rather watch Akerman than Reynolds any day.) F. Scott Frazier wrote The Numbers Game, and Kaspar Barfoed (The Lost Treasure of the Knights Templar) will direct.  Hawke produces along with Sean and Bryan Furst.

Reminder: CW's Nikita Debuts Tonight!

The spy season starts tonight (Thursday, September 9) with the CW's Nikita leading the onslaught of all the new spy-related programs populating the new TV season. The fourth incarnation (or maybe fifth?) of the female assassin created two decades ago by Luc Besson drops the "La Femme" and finds Nikita (as the show is known) embodied by the beautiful Maggie Q (Mission: Impossible III).  The provocative poster campaign was certainly hard to ignore; I hope the series lives up to it! Watch a trailer on the show's official site or check out my earlier post here for more of those sexy poster images. Or just tune in tonight at 9/8 Central and judge for yourself.

More Kiddie Spies

Bish has a look on his Beat at a new series of kids' spy books by Jill Marshall being published in the UK about the adventures of Jane Blond, Sensational Spylet.  (And her spy-cat, Trouble.) He calls her a "British Kim Possible," which sounds good to me, but the descriptions make it sound like this series might skew even younger - and the in the illustration she looks more like a Powerpuff Girl than KP.  Head on over to Bish's Beat to learn more about the series.

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Comes To Blu-ray

While there's still no word on any future Bond Blu-rays (come on, MGM; you're holding out on some of the best! Give us On Her Majesty's Secret Service! Give us The Living Daylights! Give us Tomorrow Never Dies! Give us You Only Live Twice!), MGM Home Entertainment isn't entirely ignoring the works of Ian Fleming, Cubby Broccoli and Harry Saltzman in the high-def format.  On November 2, they will release the Bond producers' 1968 film musical adaptation of Fleming's children's book, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, in Blu-ray/DVD combo packs.  Chitty Chitty Bang Bang was scripted by You Only Live Twice screenwriter Roald Dahl and features Bond alums Desmond Llewelyn and Gert Frobe. Dick Van Dyke stars as inventor Caractacus Potts, and Sally Ann Howes plays the Bond Girlishly-named Truly Scrumptuous. The new combo release will come in two configurations: a BD/DVD combo pack in a Blu-ray size case, and a DVD/BD combo in a more kids' section-friendly standard DVD Amray.  All of the special features are on the Blu-ray.  The only new ones (besides the high-def transfer, of course, and newly upgraded 7.1 audio) are kid-oriented (“Toot Sweet Symphony melody maker – the Toot Sweet Toots Musical Maestro" and “Chitty's Bang Bang Driving Game”), but happily all of the interviews and vintage promotional material from the last DVD edition is ported over, including "Remembering Chitty Chitty Bang Bang with Dick Van Dyke," the featurette “A Fantasmagorical Motorcar” (about the actual car used in the film and its current owner, if memory serves), the original Sherman Brothers demos of the film’s most popular songs, vintage featurettes including “The Ditchling Tinkerer,” “Dick Van Dyke Press Interview,” and “The Potts Children's Featurette,” a photo gallery and a vintage advertising gallery including English and French versions of the theatrical trailer and several television spots. There's also a sing-a-long version of the film for the tots.

Reminder: George Lazenby In LA Tonight!

As reported last week, George Lazenby will appear for an in-person discussion in Santa Monica tonight (Wednesday, September 8) following a screening of On Her Majesty's Secret Service at the Aero Theatre. The fun begins at 7:30. You can try to purchase tickets through Fandango, but you might end up with a message saying the show is sold out.  Don't be deterred, though, because I don't believe that's actually the case. You might have more luck tonight at the box office (get there early) or by calling Fandango.

New Spy DVDs Out This Week

The big release this week is Chuck: The Complete Third Season, available from Warner Home Video on DVD and Blu-ray. (Too bad they based the artwork on this campaign instead of this one.) The third season finds everyone's favorite nerdy spy becoming a master spy, as an upgrade in the Intersect imbues him with all sorts of untapped superspy skills. I got behind and ended up missing most of this season, so I'm anxious to catch up on DVD before Timothy Dalton joins the show for Season 4! Extras include deleted scenes, a gag reel and the featurettes "Chuck-Fu... and Dim Sum: Becoming a Spy Guy" and "The Jeffster Revolution: the Definitive Mockumentary." The DVD retails for $59.98 and the Blu-ray for $69.98. (As usual, you shouldn't actually have to pay that much if you know where to shop.)

Also out today is Killers, from Lionsgate Home Entertainment, on DVD and Blu-ray.  I had meant to check this Katherine Heigl/Ashton Kutcher spy comedy in the theater, but missed it, so I'll definitely give it a try on DVD, even if Kutcher seems, to me, all wrong for the part as it was written.  Heigl plays a woman who falls in love with the perfect man and marries him... only to find out that he's actually a spy.  (My favorite line in the trailer was when he confessed that he worked for the "blah blah blah" and had a "license to blah.")  So when he accidentally brings his work home with him, that means gunfights and car chases in their perfect suburban neighborhood.  Tom Selleck plays her father, which is by far the biggest selling point for this Magnum fan.  Extras on both the DVD and the Blu-ray include deleted, alternate and extended scenes, a gag reel and a featurette called “Killer Chemistry: Behind the Scenes with the Killers Cast.” Retail is $29.95 for the DVD and $39.95 for the Blu-ray, but of course both are available much cheaper from Amazon and other online retailers.

Finally, from Universal comes MacGruber, available (of course) on DVD and Blu-ray. MacGruber was the action/spy spoof spun off from a Saturday Night Live sketch that came and went at the beginning of the summer.  It's certainly no masterpiece, but I laughed a lot.  (Read my review here.) The DVD and Blu-ray both come with rated (91 minutes) and unrated (a whopping 95 minutes, making this the Titanic of SNL movies) versions of the film, as well as further deleted scenes, a commentary and a gag reel.  SRP on the DVD is $29.98 and the Blu-ray is $39.98, but of course (fortunately!) those prices don't remotely reflect what you'll actually pay if you know where to shop. 

Tinker Tailor Cast Shapes Up

More details are being revealed (or at least rumored) about who's playing who in Tomas Alfredson's new feature version of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.  Dark Horizons points the way to a story in The Daily Mail alleging that Inception's Tom Hardy has replaced Inglourious Basterds' Michael Fassbender... and reveals the role that he'll be playing to be that of rogue "scalphunter" (Le Carré slang for agents who handle dirtier jobs, like murder or kidnapping) Ricky Tarr.  Makes sense, as Tarr's pretty much the only other young character in the cast besides Peter Guillam, who we know is being played by Benedict Cumberbatch.  Besides Gary Oldman, who's confirmed to play the unassuming spymaster George Smiley, the tabloid states that the cast will be rounded out by Ciaran Hinds (Munich), Jared Harris (Mad Men) and Colin Firth.  That's the first I've heard of Hinds or Harris being involved, but the list omits previously rumored Ralf Fiennes and David Thewlis.  Does that mean they're out? And who are the ones who are in playing? I'm dying to know. Hopefully, all will be clear soon, as the newspaper reports that filming is set to begin in just a few weeks.

Tradecraft: Lots Of Ludlum Developments, Including TV Series

Deadline files two reports today on Robert Ludlum adaptations.  First, the trade blog reports that writer Jesse Wigutow has signed on to do a quick rewrite on Summit's remake of The Osterman Weekend.  Presumably the draft he'll be polishing is Simon Kinberg's, since Deadline asserts that Kinberg (who at one time was set to make this his directorial debut) is still involved as a producer, along with Peter Davis, Bourne Identity director Doug Liman (who probably deserves his own blog label by now, since his name comes up here so often) and Jeffrey Weiner, who controls the rights to Ludlum's books.  As previously reported, RED director Robert Schwentke is circling the project, and apparently the purpose of this rewrite is to entice him to commit to it as his next film. Yes, please! Bring on more Ludlum movies, especially while the most promising one of the many in development, The Matarese Circle, is tied up in the hell that is MGM at the moment.

Second, and perhaps more interestingly, as though there have been several mini-series, there has never been a TV series based on the works of Robert Ludlum before, Deadline also reports that just such a series is now in development at CBS. According to the trade blog, Anthony Zuiker, the creator of CSI, is developing a spy series called Treadstone. Treadstone "centers on the workings of Treadstone 71, the black-ops arm of the CIA featured in the Ludlum novels. Yes, that's the shadowy group for which David Webb worked in Ludlum's novels, with whom he created and assumed his more famous identity as assassin Jason Bourne. Deadline doesn't indicate whether or not this Treadstone will be more closely affiliated with the organization in Ludlum's novels, or the one in Universal's recent Bourne movies. Whereas the motivation behind Treadstone in the novels is basically heroic, the Treadstone of the movies is a much more sinister organization.  It was also, I believe, officially shut down by Brian Cox's character, Abbott. If the series takes place in the movie universe (which seems likely), then it would make more sense to feature a reactivated Treadstone under new leadership than for it to be a prequel to the films set in the late 90s or early 2000s.  I think this is actually a really good way to keep the brand alive while the studio figures out how to progress with the Bourne film series without Paul Greengrass and very possibly without Matt Damon.  Depending on how closely the TV show is tied into the film universe (would Joan Allen do TV?), it could also serve as a breeding ground for new agents to carry the film franchise.  The project has a script commitment from the network, and considering Zuiker's involvement, I'd say it has a good chance to progress further quickly. John Glenn (Eagle Eye) is writing the pilot.

Tradecraft: Paula Patton Accepts Impossible Mission

Deadline reports that the latest actress to come aboard Mission: Impossible 4 (or whatever they end up calling it, which supposedly won't be that) is Paula Patton. Patton, 34, has had roles in Precious, Idlewild and Deja Vu.  She joins Tom Cruise, Jeremy Renner, Ving Rhames and Simon Pegg in the Brad Bird-directed, J.J. Abrams-produced sequel/reboot.  Despite the claims that this one will eschew the team formula the previous entry barely embraced in favor of a dual lead approach (Cruise and Renner), the ever-expanding cast sure makes it sound like a team movie... According to Deadline's Michael Fleming, "Patton will play a young operative who works with Tom Cruise's Ethan Hunt character." Fleming also asserts that Cruise and Abrams "always envisioned [the fourth entry] as a franchise reboot," but that sounds like some revisionist spin. We didn't start hearing these "reboot" rumblings until Knight and Day tanked at the domestic box office.

More LA Spy Screenings
George Lazenby In Person!

Hot on the heels of last month's You Only Live Twice/Billion Dollar Brain double feature, Angelenos have another chance to see spies on the big screen... the most famous spy of all, in fact: Bond, James Bond.  The American Cinematheque's Aero Theatre in Santa Monica (which surely holds the revival theater record for showing Roger Moore Bonds!) will screen Live and Let Die and The Man With the Golden Gun on Wednesday, September 2 at 7:30 p.m.  (Yes, that's tonight!) This pairing makes complete sense since it is billed as a memorial tribute to the late, great screenwriter Tom Mankiewicz (whose obituary I sadly never got around to writing last month, though not for lack of respect). However, I do wish that the Aero would delve into Moore's later filmography at some point and show Octopussy and A View To A Kill, since they've actually shown the first two Moore outings quite a few times over the last several years. Oh well; this is a great pairing anyway - and still a refreshing change of pace from the umpteenth screening of Goldfinger! Tickets are available through Fandango.

Then, next Wednesday, September 8, the Aero offers an even more exciting night of Bondian entertainment: the best Bond movie of all, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, followed by a rare in-person discussion with that film's 007 himself, George Lazenby!  Again, the fun begins at 7:30, and tickets can be purchased through Fandango.