Johann at the Eurospy Forum has sounded the alert that Peter Thomas's wonderful, jazzy music for the Jerry Cotton Eurospy series will be reissued on CD on March 12 to coincide with the release of the new Jerry Cotton movie in Germany. The music was previously available on a great, long out-of-print two-disc set called 100% Cotton
. That set contained sixty-four tracks; the new 
, contains only twenty-eight. However, six of those are previously unreleased and two more were not on the original CD, and only previously available on a rare vinyl issue. So to have every possible piece of Jerry Cotton music available, a Eurospy fan would need to track down both CD releases. But just to have a good sampling of the score music, the Beat Records release seems like a good bet, and as added incentive, Beat's website claims all the tracks are remastered and the disc will come with a 24-page booklet (in German and English). Thomas's music isn't typical, Barryesque spy music; it's unique, it's jazzy and it's lots of fun! Perhaps the best compliment I can pay these scores actually comes from my girlfriend. When she heard the CD playing in my car once, she was surprised and said, "I thought those movies were low budget?" Indeed, there's nothing low budget-sounding about Thomas's music, and it elevates the films.Jerry Cotton: FBI's Top Man is available for preorder on Amazon
.View complete track list and full details at the Allscore Media website.
Read my review of the Jerry Cotton movie Death in a Red Jaguar here.
Read my review of the Jerry Cotton movie Death and Diamonds here.
Read more about the new Jerry Cotton movie here.
), I very much liked 
. J.J. Abrams, who co-wrote and directed that one, is aboard to produce the fourth one, so hopefully it will remain on track. Particularly encouraging was the news we heard late last year that Abrams was looking for ways to incorporate original series stars Leonard Nimoy and/or even Peter Graves into the next movie! I've said it before and I'll say it again: Abrams could easily rectify my, er, gravest issue with the Paramount film franchise with one simple line. "Good to see you, Jim. Boy, it's too bad that guy we let assume your name after you retired turned out to be such a traitorous asshole." Or something to that effect. Please, J.J.! We know you're a fan of the original TV series; do it for all the other fans out there! 
. 
, you should really check out the original TV series on which they're ostensibly based. All seven seasons are now available on DVD (start with 
, which introduces Peter Graves as Jim Phelps), and they're highly entertaining!
. If you haven't entered yet, get your entry in by midnight tonight! 
came out before I started this blog, so I never reviewed it here (guess I need to revisit that!), but you can still...
, and likely always will, with only the original Star Wars coming close to it for Number 2.) But 
still remains ahead of such gargantuan modern-day blockbusters as 
and 
, which isn't too shabby! 
clocks in at Number 41, ahead of both the Spider-man sequels. And both of these Connery come in well ahead of all the 
, all the Harry Potter movies and all the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. It's just good to put things in perspective sometimes, and good for Bond fans (while certainly not denying the character's undying popularity with contemporary audiences) to reflect on what an unstoppable juggernaut the franchise was at its truly dizzying peak.
was originally a 1990 Luc Besson film about a drug-addled young woman pulled off the streets and Henry Higgins-ed into a glamorous government assassin. It was quickly remade for American audiences as 
in 1993 (starring Bridget Fonda), then made into an unrelated USA TV series (called 
again) starring Peta Wilson (and guest-starring Callan himself, Edward Woodward, as her father in 
). The CW version will be called simply Nikita. "In this version," says the trade, "Nikita goes rogue and a new assassin is trained to replace her." It's unclear right now whether or not there will be any connection to the USA series, but I would guess not. Still, that premise does leave the possibility open...
, as well as the Nineties spy movie 
. Most recently he wrote and directed the utterly fantastic private eye meta-spoof 
, the movie responsible for Robert Downey Jr.'s career resurgence. Now he's planning to direct this spy movie, but it's (surprisingly) not one he wrote; the script is by Charles Mondry. This is one of the spy movies in development that I'm most excited about, but there's been no public movement on it for quite a while... until today. Now, according to 
Edge of Darkness. 
), has now apparently reached that purgatory for character actors of a certain age: fatherhood. Hence, he will play Carano's dad. Bandaras is "a foreign operative drawn into the mission of revenge" whatever exactly that means. Soderbergh is certainly standing by his pledge to surround his non-actor star with lots of big names; so far the all-star line-up includes Ewan McGregor, Michael Douglas, Micahel Fassbender, Channing Tatum and Dennis Quaid.
from Acorn Media. As I stressed in 
and 
, and should be the first thing you buy out of this week's batch. (It's also 
. (Or Spooks, as its known in its native country of Britain.) Season 6 was a real return to form for MI-5, and I can't wait to dig into the seventh season of this addictive drama. No character, no matter how beloved, is ever safe in this ever-changing cast, but at least right off the bat Rupert Penry-Jones returns once more as Adam Carter. Hermione Norris and Miranda Raison also reprise their roles from previous seasons, and Richard Armitage joins the cast as agent Lucas North. (Uh-oh! Longtime viewers will be aware the the addition of a new cast member usually signals death for one of the existing ones. Who will it be?) It's Peter Firth's crusty spy boss Harry Pearce, however, who has emerged as the series' true hero, and one of the only ones at this point who's been around since 
from VCI unites four near-lost gems of Sixties and early Seventies spy and caper action featuring such stars as Robert Stack, Jean Gabin, Stephen Boyd, Cameron Mitchell, Edward G. Robinson, Ray Milland, Martha Hyer, Jan Murray and Eurospy goddess Margaret Lee. Colorful heist movies Action Man (1967) and Day of the Wolves (1973) will likely appeal to Sixties spy fans just as much as spy movies The Big Game (1972) and Peking Blonde (1967), although the latter, a Eurospy entry from the writer of 
, is undoubtedly the (ahem) spylight of this collection. 
. You can read my review of that set 
. That's right, it's not a spy movie at all, but fans of Sixties spy movies generally tend to be fans of Sixties caper movies, and this really is one of the best of them, ever. Plus, I would imagine most readers of this site also enjoy a good Michael Caine movie, so this rarity definitely bears a mention. 
