As I was flicking through Previous Convictions, Cyril Connelly's collection of essays and short articles, to find his Bond parody, 'Bond strikes camp', I came across a piece about collecting modern first editions. It got me thinking. What would be my advice for collecting James Bond novels and books about Bond?
I have well over 300 items in my Bond library, not including magazines or articles from newspapers. The library includes first edition novels, books about the film series, film tie-ins and annuals, academic tomes and criticism, parodies, graphic novels, biographies, and Fleming-related material.
I've amassed the library slowly. It grew out of a uniform set of paperback Flemings, published by Panther/Granada, which were the ones that happened to be in the shops when I started reading Bond. Initially, I wasn't interested in first editions, but I did start to buy books about Bond, and subsequent purchases tended to be devoted to building up that aspect of my library in my pursuit of Bondian knowledge. My first Fleming first edition was Goldfinger, bought from a secondhand bookshop near Inverness. It had no cover and was rather battered, but knowing that first editions were rarely seen, I was thrilled by the find. I was hooked, and over time, I acquired more first editions, including the prize of Casino Royale (admittedly a library edition). Now, I am something of a completist, and will buy any Bond-related book in order to build a very good Bond library.
My tips for collecting Bond-related books are as follows. If you have a limited budget, concentrate on one or two aspects, such as paperbacks and their various editions and covers, or graphic novels. Expand your collection when funds allow.
If you're buying secondhand books, buy the best copies you can afford. Trade up when you have the chance. The battered Goldfinger was all I could afford at the time, but later I had some money, and was able to buy a better-quality first edition with dustjacket.
Look for first editions, whether you're buying Fleming novels, graphic novels or books about the Bond phenomenon. New books will usually be first editions, of course, but take care you have the first printing. Popular books, like the latest Young Bond, quickly went to a second and third printing, even though the book was still 'just out'.
When you're buying new books, have a look for signed copies, or watch out for special author-signing events. There is some debate about whether personlised dedications made by the author detract from the value of the book; some collectors look for the author's signature only, and avoid any that say, 'To Edward, all the best, Raymond', or similar. I don't worry about this. I always ask for a dedication (it's so cold and calculating otherwise), and I'm happy buy books with such dedications in them.
Shop around. Ebay doesn't always have the bargains, and I always compare prices at Amazon marketplace and Abebooks. But with the success of online auction sites, the days of finding a first edition Fleming at jumble sales or charity shops are long gone. And if a first edition is donated to a charity shop, it rarely gets as far as the shelves, as the staff have already put it into auction. Not that it stops me from wandering hopefully into the shops just to check.
Wednesday, 28 September 2011
Wednesday, 21 September 2011
Some men who the press thought would be Bond
In the 1970s and '80s, the same names appeared in newspapers in connection with the role of James Bond. The part seemed to be up for grabs before filming of a new Bond film commenced, as the incumbent Roger Moore would often claim to be giving up the role. However, until A View to a Kill (1985), this was a negotiating tactic for an improved contract. This did not stop the speculation in the papers, and the names that were usually put forward included Ian Ogilvy, David Robb, and Tevor Eve. A few years ago, I spoke to these actors about their 'brush' with Bond.
Ian Ogilvy told me that he was never considered for the role, and certainly never screen-tested. He did, however, narrate a set of audio versions of Fleming's novels, which he supposed were an attempt by the producers of the recordings to cash in on his connection with Roger Moore via the Saint (both actors having played the role).
Trevor Eve, again, was never screen-tested, but did have an informal meeting with Barbara Broccoli, and occasionally dined with Cubby.
David Robb admits that there had been a flurry of interest in him with regard to the Bond role in 1979. He was prominent on television at the time, and was about to embark on the series, 'The Flame Trees of Thika'. Robb, however, had no meeting with the Bond producers. He mentioned, though, that later, in 1987, he was filming The Deceivers with Pierce Brosnan. They got talking about Bond on one occasion by the pool. Brosnan lamented the fact that he had been prevented from playing Bond in 1987 by the producers of Remington Steele. Robb remembers consoling him by saying that the Bond franchise was a dead duck and that Brosnan was well out of it.
Ian Ogilvy told me that he was never considered for the role, and certainly never screen-tested. He did, however, narrate a set of audio versions of Fleming's novels, which he supposed were an attempt by the producers of the recordings to cash in on his connection with Roger Moore via the Saint (both actors having played the role).
Trevor Eve, again, was never screen-tested, but did have an informal meeting with Barbara Broccoli, and occasionally dined with Cubby.
David Robb admits that there had been a flurry of interest in him with regard to the Bond role in 1979. He was prominent on television at the time, and was about to embark on the series, 'The Flame Trees of Thika'. Robb, however, had no meeting with the Bond producers. He mentioned, though, that later, in 1987, he was filming The Deceivers with Pierce Brosnan. They got talking about Bond on one occasion by the pool. Brosnan lamented the fact that he had been prevented from playing Bond in 1987 by the producers of Remington Steele. Robb remembers consoling him by saying that the Bond franchise was a dead duck and that Brosnan was well out of it.
Tuesday, 13 September 2011
Going for a Bond song
Have you noticed that the theme song that accompanies a new Bond film sounds a little bit like the song that preceded it? The rule is not an absolute one, but it happens with sufficient frequency to suggest that the previous theme tends to be influential, even in a slight way, to its successor. Then 
there’s the Shirley Bassey factor. Just as every so often the Bond producers ‘reset the clock’ and make a back-to-basics Bond film, the choice of artist regularly returns to the Bassey prototype seemingly at times of renewal.
It took three films for the film’s song to be used as the accompaniment to the opening titles and the musical break between the pre-title sequence and the start of the film proper. The original theme song, Monty Norman’s James Bond theme, is played straight after the opening gun barrel in Dr No (1962), while Matt Monro is heard crooning ‘From Russia with Love’ at the end of its film (1963). The film makers may not have recognised necessarily that they had found the ideal placement with the use of Shirley Bassey’s ‘Goldfinger’ (1964) with the opening titles, but repeating the trick with ‘Thunderball’ (1965) certainly helped to establish the formula.
The song ‘Goldfinger’ – a big and brassy number – was very different from Monro’s ‘From Russia with Love’ (although Anthony Newley’s subdued version of ‘Goldfinger’ is closer to it). However, ‘Thunderball’ by Tom Jones is reminiscent of ‘Goldfinger’ (as is, to a lesser extent, Dionne Warwick’s alternative theme song, ‘Mr Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang’). Probably the Bond producers wanted to repeat the success of ‘Goldfinger’ with the same sort of sound, but ‘Goldfinger’ was such a big hit, it would have been difficult not to think of it when writing the next Bond song. The love song returned in 1967 in the next film with Nancy Sinatra’s ‘You Only Live Twice’, and was retained for On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969), although ‘We have all the time in the world’, sung by Lois Armstrong, accompanied a mid-film romantic montage.
For the return of Sean Connery in Diamonds Are Forever (1971), the Bond producers looked again to Shirley Bassey to reassert a familiar Bond sound. However, a new Bond, in the form of Roger Moore in Live and Let Die (1973), permitted a new type of theme song, and Paul McCartney delivered with an explosive and rockier number. This seems to have influenced the next song. Lulu’s ‘The man with the golden gun’ (1974) certainly took the dramatic tone of McCartney’s effort, despite the innuendo-laden lyrics.
Cubby Broccoli needed The Spy Who Loved Me (1976) to re-launch Bond after the disappointing returns of The Man With the Golden Gun and a host of legal battles, and the theme song helped to achieve it. ‘Nobody does it better’ was loud and proud, and the singer Carly Simon evoked Bassey’s confident tones. By now Bond themes were strongly associated with solo female artists, rather than male solo artists or groups. The association was reinforced with the next three films. If you had to think of potential artists to sing a Bond song, the chances were you’d turn first to a female singer.
A View to a Kill (1985), though, marked a change, as the group Duran Duran was chosen to perform the title song. It was so successful (it reached no. 1 in the USA and no. 2 in the UK), that the next song, ‘The Living Daylights’ was also by a group, a-ha, and was something of a clone of its predecessor.
Timothy Dalton’s second Bond film, Licence to Kill (1989) was intended as a return to Fleming’s Bond, and fittingly Gladys Knight’s theme song returned to the Bassey’s prototype; its opening bars are especially reminiscent of ‘Goldfinger’. Inevitably, after a six-year gap, the next film, GoldenEye (1995), also had a Bassey-esque theme song, sung this time by Tina Turner. Female singers were chosen for the next three songs, although Garbage’s ‘The world is not enough’ could be described as hybrid of ‘Goldfinger’ and ‘A view to a kill’.
Given the four-year wait, and the desire to again film Fleming’s Bond, Casino Royale (2006) should have had a Bassey-style song. Instead, it was accompanied by a rock number, by Chris Cornell. It was a great song, and also influential. ‘Another way to die’ by Alicia Keys and Jack White, which featured in Quantum of Solace (2008), has the same rocky style. For the next film, if media reports of Adele singing the next theme are true, then the Bond producers appear to have turned once again to the Shirley Bassey prototype.
Bond title songs are to some extent influenced by the song that preceded it. ‘Another way to die’ sounds a bit like ‘You know my name’. ‘The man with the golden gun’ sounds a bit like ‘Live and Let Die. ‘Thunderball’ sounds a bit like ‘Goldfinger’. Also we can detect that, usually at times of renewal, the Bond producers turn to Shirley Bassey, or a Shirley Bassey-type singer to help put the audience back into the world of James Bond.
there’s the Shirley Bassey factor. Just as every so often the Bond producers ‘reset the clock’ and make a back-to-basics Bond film, the choice of artist regularly returns to the Bassey prototype seemingly at times of renewal.It took three films for the film’s song to be used as the accompaniment to the opening titles and the musical break between the pre-title sequence and the start of the film proper. The original theme song, Monty Norman’s James Bond theme, is played straight after the opening gun barrel in Dr No (1962), while Matt Monro is heard crooning ‘From Russia with Love’ at the end of its film (1963). The film makers may not have recognised necessarily that they had found the ideal placement with the use of Shirley Bassey’s ‘Goldfinger’ (1964) with the opening titles, but repeating the trick with ‘Thunderball’ (1965) certainly helped to establish the formula.
The song ‘Goldfinger’ – a big and brassy number – was very different from Monro’s ‘From Russia with Love’ (although Anthony Newley’s subdued version of ‘Goldfinger’ is closer to it). However, ‘Thunderball’ by Tom Jones is reminiscent of ‘Goldfinger’ (as is, to a lesser extent, Dionne Warwick’s alternative theme song, ‘Mr Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang’). Probably the Bond producers wanted to repeat the success of ‘Goldfinger’ with the same sort of sound, but ‘Goldfinger’ was such a big hit, it would have been difficult not to think of it when writing the next Bond song. The love song returned in 1967 in the next film with Nancy Sinatra’s ‘You Only Live Twice’, and was retained for On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969), although ‘We have all the time in the world’, sung by Lois Armstrong, accompanied a mid-film romantic montage.
For the return of Sean Connery in Diamonds Are Forever (1971), the Bond producers looked again to Shirley Bassey to reassert a familiar Bond sound. However, a new Bond, in the form of Roger Moore in Live and Let Die (1973), permitted a new type of theme song, and Paul McCartney delivered with an explosive and rockier number. This seems to have influenced the next song. Lulu’s ‘The man with the golden gun’ (1974) certainly took the dramatic tone of McCartney’s effort, despite the innuendo-laden lyrics.
Cubby Broccoli needed The Spy Who Loved Me (1976) to re-launch Bond after the disappointing returns of The Man With the Golden Gun and a host of legal battles, and the theme song helped to achieve it. ‘Nobody does it better’ was loud and proud, and the singer Carly Simon evoked Bassey’s confident tones. By now Bond themes were strongly associated with solo female artists, rather than male solo artists or groups. The association was reinforced with the next three films. If you had to think of potential artists to sing a Bond song, the chances were you’d turn first to a female singer.
A View to a Kill (1985), though, marked a change, as the group Duran Duran was chosen to perform the title song. It was so successful (it reached no. 1 in the USA and no. 2 in the UK), that the next song, ‘The Living Daylights’ was also by a group, a-ha, and was something of a clone of its predecessor.
Timothy Dalton’s second Bond film, Licence to Kill (1989) was intended as a return to Fleming’s Bond, and fittingly Gladys Knight’s theme song returned to the Bassey’s prototype; its opening bars are especially reminiscent of ‘Goldfinger’. Inevitably, after a six-year gap, the next film, GoldenEye (1995), also had a Bassey-esque theme song, sung this time by Tina Turner. Female singers were chosen for the next three songs, although Garbage’s ‘The world is not enough’ could be described as hybrid of ‘Goldfinger’ and ‘A view to a kill’.
Given the four-year wait, and the desire to again film Fleming’s Bond, Casino Royale (2006) should have had a Bassey-style song. Instead, it was accompanied by a rock number, by Chris Cornell. It was a great song, and also influential. ‘Another way to die’ by Alicia Keys and Jack White, which featured in Quantum of Solace (2008), has the same rocky style. For the next film, if media reports of Adele singing the next theme are true, then the Bond producers appear to have turned once again to the Shirley Bassey prototype.
Bond title songs are to some extent influenced by the song that preceded it. ‘Another way to die’ sounds a bit like ‘You know my name’. ‘The man with the golden gun’ sounds a bit like ‘Live and Let Die. ‘Thunderball’ sounds a bit like ‘Goldfinger’. Also we can detect that, usually at times of renewal, the Bond producers turn to Shirley Bassey, or a Shirley Bassey-type singer to help put the audience back into the world of James Bond.
Friday, 2 September 2011
Another anachronism in the BBC's The Hour?
The writer of the TV drama, The Hour, shown on BBC Two and BBC America, has admitted that the script contains anachronisms. Abi Morgan employed phrases such as ‘bottled it’ and ‘note to self’ that wouldn’t have been heard in 1956, the year in which the drama is set. But there may be another anachronism – repeated references to the relationship between James Bond and Miss Moneypenny – that has slipped by unnoticed.
The Hour focuses on two journalists, Bel Rowley, played by Romola Garai, and Freddie Lyon, played by Ben Whishaw. They join the team of new current affairs programme The Hour – Freddie as reporter, Bel as producer – and become involved in a plot involving communist spies at the BBC. Freddie is Bel’s soulmate, but for Freddie, who’s in love with Bel, the relationship is more than that. Freddie identifies himself as James Bond and calls Bel ‘Moneypenny’, alluding to the flirtatious relationship, with its hint of unrequited love, between Bond and M’s secretary.
By 1956, four Bond novels had been published. Miss Moneypenny is a peripheral figure in all of these, and in none is there a suggestion that Bond is in love with Moneypenny or has a relationship other than one involving friendly work-place banter.
In Casino Royale (1953), Bond shares no pages with Moneypenny, and so we learn nothing of their relationship. The follow-up was Live and Let Die (1954). Bond and Moneypenny share a scene, but it is very brief. In Chapter 2, Moneypenny gives Bond an encouraging smile as he enters M’s office, and Bond admits that Moneypenny is desirable. Chapter 2 of Moonraker (1955) reveals that Moneypenny knows that Bond admires her, and Bond seems to confirm this by commenting on her new dress. However, we have a briefer exchange in Diamonds Are Forever (1956). Bond ‘smiled into the warm brown eyes of Miss Moneypenny’ as he leaves M’s office.
I suspect that the writer of The Hour had the film-series version of the Bond-Moneypenny relationship (or meme) in mind when she wrote the script. In the films, Bond pursues a romantic relationship with Moneypenny, who gently fends off his advances, content, it seems, to be just good friends (although in Die Another Day (2002), we see Moneypenny enact a fantasy of a sexual relationship with Bond). The Freddie-Bel relationship appears to mimic this version better than it does the books. Given that the first film, Dr No, was released in 1962, the references in The Hour must be anachronistic.
Admittedly Fleming develops the relationship in later books, and if The Hour was set in 1961, when Thunderball was published, then the Bond-Moneypenny references would be more apt. Even so, in Thunderball it is Moneypenny who desires a relationship with Bond, not the other way round (‘Moneypenny... often dreamed hopelessly about Bond’ (Chapter 1)), although Bond does offer to give Moneypenny a spanking.
The Hour focuses on two journalists, Bel Rowley, played by Romola Garai, and Freddie Lyon, played by Ben Whishaw. They join the team of new current affairs programme The Hour – Freddie as reporter, Bel as producer – and become involved in a plot involving communist spies at the BBC. Freddie is Bel’s soulmate, but for Freddie, who’s in love with Bel, the relationship is more than that. Freddie identifies himself as James Bond and calls Bel ‘Moneypenny’, alluding to the flirtatious relationship, with its hint of unrequited love, between Bond and M’s secretary.
By 1956, four Bond novels had been published. Miss Moneypenny is a peripheral figure in all of these, and in none is there a suggestion that Bond is in love with Moneypenny or has a relationship other than one involving friendly work-place banter.
In Casino Royale (1953), Bond shares no pages with Moneypenny, and so we learn nothing of their relationship. The follow-up was Live and Let Die (1954). Bond and Moneypenny share a scene, but it is very brief. In Chapter 2, Moneypenny gives Bond an encouraging smile as he enters M’s office, and Bond admits that Moneypenny is desirable. Chapter 2 of Moonraker (1955) reveals that Moneypenny knows that Bond admires her, and Bond seems to confirm this by commenting on her new dress. However, we have a briefer exchange in Diamonds Are Forever (1956). Bond ‘smiled into the warm brown eyes of Miss Moneypenny’ as he leaves M’s office.
I suspect that the writer of The Hour had the film-series version of the Bond-Moneypenny relationship (or meme) in mind when she wrote the script. In the films, Bond pursues a romantic relationship with Moneypenny, who gently fends off his advances, content, it seems, to be just good friends (although in Die Another Day (2002), we see Moneypenny enact a fantasy of a sexual relationship with Bond). The Freddie-Bel relationship appears to mimic this version better than it does the books. Given that the first film, Dr No, was released in 1962, the references in The Hour must be anachronistic.
Admittedly Fleming develops the relationship in later books, and if The Hour was set in 1961, when Thunderball was published, then the Bond-Moneypenny references would be more apt. Even so, in Thunderball it is Moneypenny who desires a relationship with Bond, not the other way round (‘Moneypenny... often dreamed hopelessly about Bond’ (Chapter 1)), although Bond does offer to give Moneypenny a spanking.
Thursday, 25 August 2011
James Bond - licensed to model
We’re used to seeing the actors who’ve played Bond advertising products in character or surrounded by text or images to tie the product in with the Bond films. For example, Sean Connery advertised Jim Beam whiskey in 1967 during the release in America of You Only Live Twice. The product doesn’t feature in the film, but the film’s title shown at the top of the advert was enough to make a connection. The sub-text was that this was a drink that James Bond would choose. (Actually, the literary Bond, fond of Bourbon, certainly might.)
George Lazenby continued to trade into the 1970s and 80s on his single appearance as Bond and advertise, in the guise of a Bond-like character, products as diverse as Sony electronics and Benson and Hedges cigarettes. An advert for the Montblanc company and featuring Roger Moore, Desmond Llewelyn and Vijay Armitraj promoted the use of its pen in the film Octopussy (1983). More recently, Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig became ambassadors for Omega watches, which capitalised on Bond’s loyalty to the brand.
What is less well known is that even before Sean Connery hit the screens as James Bond, the first model to trade on the Bond image was James Bond himself. In 1961, a set of advertisements for Courtelle menswear was placed in the Daily Express. The model was James Bond (as depicted by an artist) and the content suggested in no uncertain terms that these were the clothes to wear if you wanted a James Bond lifestyle.
The first advert, published in March 1961, showed Bond in a city apartment. He has his back to us, and an attractive woman, seemingly having fainted, is draped over his arms. The text asks, ‘Where would you find James Bond?’ The answer? He’s the man being hustled through US customs (yes, I can see that). He’s the man driving the Bentley (certainly). He’s the man in white tie and tails at the embassy reception (sort of; Bond doesn’t really wear tails, but go on). He’s the man in the rough clothes of a sailor in a waterfront dive in Vladivostok (er...). Ah, I see. Courtelle is selling comfortable, good-looking, easy-care and rugged clothes in a new acrylic fibre which it thinks fit the active, outdoor lifestyle of James Bond. And to prove the point, in the advert Bond wears a rugged ‘Snowdon’ sweater.
In the second advert, dated April 1961, Bond wears trousers in Abrelle fabric; they're casual, but keep their crease. Just as well, since Bond is shown negotiating a moving train as he enters a carriage compartment occupied by a beauty, bound at the wrists and gagged. A captured enemy or a damsel to rescue? The text isn't clear on the matter.
The third advert appeared in May. 'How do you see Bond?', it asks. Panther-dark and dangerous as his plane flies over Tokyo? Or sipping a vodka martini, stirred, not shaken (sic) in tropical Goverment House? Or perhaps pulling on a soft, cool shirt? Yes, Bond is modelling a shirt - Courtelle by Holyrood, to be precise. Its rugged and comfortable qualities are well able to cope with what Bond is shown doing: shooting from the back of his Bentley at an unseen enemy as he protects a woman in the passenger seat.
Bond models another shirt in September's advert, this time in a lightweight knit, along with slacks in Abrelle. We see that the easy movement afforded by the combination helps in his close-quarter fight in a Caribbean cabin with a thug armed with a machete. The final advert appeared in November. Bond’s up against it. He’s looking at the wrong end of a loaded automatic pointed with determination by a female enemy agent. Bond doesn’t have many options, but at least he’s wearing a Stamford sweater by Byford, and his usual slacks in Abrelle fabric.
Across the set, the text (‘Bond wears...’; ‘James Bond is featured here with acknowledgement of Ian Fleming’) gave James Bond the tone of reality that gave credibility to the adverts. Bond was as real a model as, say, Roger Moore was when he advertised knitwear in the 1950s. By 1961, James Bond had been identified as an aspirational figure. Readers too could enjoy the James Bond lifestyle – a mixture of action, a little danger, sophistication, and a lot of cool – that Ian Fleming had described with frequent references to up-market products, food and drink among the adventure.
Today there are websites and books devoted to the James Bond lifestyle. These have been inspired largely by the films. However, the notion, or meme, of an attainable James Bond lifestyle emerged before start of the film series in 1962 and was adapted from the the pages of Fleming. There are few fictional characters who have achieved this degree of reality.
George Lazenby continued to trade into the 1970s and 80s on his single appearance as Bond and advertise, in the guise of a Bond-like character, products as diverse as Sony electronics and Benson and Hedges cigarettes. An advert for the Montblanc company and featuring Roger Moore, Desmond Llewelyn and Vijay Armitraj promoted the use of its pen in the film Octopussy (1983). More recently, Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig became ambassadors for Omega watches, which capitalised on Bond’s loyalty to the brand.
What is less well known is that even before Sean Connery hit the screens as James Bond, the first model to trade on the Bond image was James Bond himself. In 1961, a set of advertisements for Courtelle menswear was placed in the Daily Express. The model was James Bond (as depicted by an artist) and the content suggested in no uncertain terms that these were the clothes to wear if you wanted a James Bond lifestyle.
The first advert, published in March 1961, showed Bond in a city apartment. He has his back to us, and an attractive woman, seemingly having fainted, is draped over his arms. The text asks, ‘Where would you find James Bond?’ The answer? He’s the man being hustled through US customs (yes, I can see that). He’s the man driving the Bentley (certainly). He’s the man in white tie and tails at the embassy reception (sort of; Bond doesn’t really wear tails, but go on). He’s the man in the rough clothes of a sailor in a waterfront dive in Vladivostok (er...). Ah, I see. Courtelle is selling comfortable, good-looking, easy-care and rugged clothes in a new acrylic fibre which it thinks fit the active, outdoor lifestyle of James Bond. And to prove the point, in the advert Bond wears a rugged ‘Snowdon’ sweater.
In the second advert, dated April 1961, Bond wears trousers in Abrelle fabric; they're casual, but keep their crease. Just as well, since Bond is shown negotiating a moving train as he enters a carriage compartment occupied by a beauty, bound at the wrists and gagged. A captured enemy or a damsel to rescue? The text isn't clear on the matter.
The third advert appeared in May. 'How do you see Bond?', it asks. Panther-dark and dangerous as his plane flies over Tokyo? Or sipping a vodka martini, stirred, not shaken (sic) in tropical Goverment House? Or perhaps pulling on a soft, cool shirt? Yes, Bond is modelling a shirt - Courtelle by Holyrood, to be precise. Its rugged and comfortable qualities are well able to cope with what Bond is shown doing: shooting from the back of his Bentley at an unseen enemy as he protects a woman in the passenger seat.
Bond models another shirt in September's advert, this time in a lightweight knit, along with slacks in Abrelle. We see that the easy movement afforded by the combination helps in his close-quarter fight in a Caribbean cabin with a thug armed with a machete. The final advert appeared in November. Bond’s up against it. He’s looking at the wrong end of a loaded automatic pointed with determination by a female enemy agent. Bond doesn’t have many options, but at least he’s wearing a Stamford sweater by Byford, and his usual slacks in Abrelle fabric.
Across the set, the text (‘Bond wears...’; ‘James Bond is featured here with acknowledgement of Ian Fleming’) gave James Bond the tone of reality that gave credibility to the adverts. Bond was as real a model as, say, Roger Moore was when he advertised knitwear in the 1950s. By 1961, James Bond had been identified as an aspirational figure. Readers too could enjoy the James Bond lifestyle – a mixture of action, a little danger, sophistication, and a lot of cool – that Ian Fleming had described with frequent references to up-market products, food and drink among the adventure.
Today there are websites and books devoted to the James Bond lifestyle. These have been inspired largely by the films. However, the notion, or meme, of an attainable James Bond lifestyle emerged before start of the film series in 1962 and was adapted from the the pages of Fleming. There are few fictional characters who have achieved this degree of reality.
Sunday, 21 August 2011
Bonding with Dirk Pitt, Lucifer Box, Archie Noble and Asterix
Evidence of the significant place James Bond has in popular culture is found in a number of novels that cannot be called James Bond parodies – Bond is not the subject of the books, which instead usually feature a well-established character of their own – but contain allusions to Bond in tribute to Ian Fleming’s character and hint at the influence that Bond has in the shaping of the authors’ works.
For example, there is Clive Cussler’s Night Probe!, published in 1981. The hero of the novel is Dirk Pitt, a marine adventurer who works for the US National Underwater and Marine Agency. Pitt is dispatched to locate and retrieve the only copies from a shipwreck of an old, but potentially dangerous, treaty between Great Britain and the United States. Meanwhile, the British Government has brought the legendary spy Brian Shaw out of retirement to make sure the documents never get into American hands.
That Brian Shaw can be identified as James Bond is clear from Cussler’s descriptions. We meet Shaw at a funeral of, we learn, his old boss. ‘There were times I wanted to kill him, and there were times I could have embraced him as a father.’ A neat summary of the love-hate relationship between M and Bond. We also meet his chief’s old secretary (Moneypenny?) who lets slip that Brian Shaw is a pseudonym. Then there is reference to SMERSH, Shaw’s former enemy, and to the death of his wife, and Shaw’s home in the West Indies. At the end of the novel, Dirk Pitt thinks he’s discovered Shaw’s true identity. ‘James Bond would be proud of you’, he says. Shaw replies that Bond only exists in fiction. ‘Does he?’, Pitt asks. Cussler’s ‘Bond’ is largely the Bond of the books, but the cinematic Bond creeps in. ‘The same old flatterer’, the elderly secretary says when Bond tells her how sensual she looks. We can hear Lois Maxwell’s Moneypenny utter that line.
Dirk Pitt is something of a Bondian character himself, and Clive Cussler has acknowledged the influence of Bond in Pitt’s make-up: ‘I began researching and analysing all the series heroes, beginning with Edgar Allan Poe's Inspector Dumas. Next came Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes, and all the other fiction detectives and spies: Bulldog Drummond, Sam Spade, Phillip Marlow, Mike Hammer, Matt Helm, and James Bond. I studied them all.’
Black Butterfly, by Mark Gatiss and published in 2008, is the third novel to feature the bisexual secret agent, Lucifer Box. In the novel, he investigates the unexpected deaths of members of the establishment, which, he discovers is caused by a poison deriving from the black butterfly.
Bond references come thick and fast. On the cover of the hardback edition, the lettering of the title and author’s name is stencilled, and very much like the tea-chest font used in the Richard Chopping covers of Ian Fleming’s later novels. The cover art shows, in the manner of the cover for The Spy Who Loved Me, a commando knife piercing a playing card and the wood beneath. The artwork is a fine tribute to Richard Chopping. There is even a fly, Richard Chopping’s trade mark. Incidentally, the paperback cover nicely mimics the Pan covers of the 1960s.
The allusions to Bond continue inside. The action is set in 1953 (the year that the first Bond novel, Casino Royale, was published), and moves from England to Istanbul, then Kingston, Jamaica. The prologue, describing a dream of Lucifer Box, is a good Fleming pastiche, featuring expensive branded products (a Siebe Gorman wetsuit), the taking of Benzedrine tablets, and appearance of a Blofeld-like villain, Gottfried Clawhammer. Further into the novel, we meet Whitley Bey (a nod to Kerim Bey of From Russia, With Love) and Dr Cassivellaunus Fetch, the Man with the Celluloid Hand. There is even a reference to Jamaica’s Undertaker’s Wind, something that Fleming often mentioned in his books.
There are fewer Bond references in The Reavers, by Octopussy screenwriter, George MacDonald Fraser, but those that are present reveal the work of a Fleming aficionado. The novel, published in 2007, is a comic historical adventure set in the world of the Border reivers or raiders on the Anglo-Scottish border in the 16th-century. As usual with his novels, Fraser intersperses the narrative with factual snippets, among them the fact that ‘the original “M”’, Sir Francis Walsingham was Elizabeth I’s espionage chief. The hero of the novel is the spy, Archie Noble. He moves with ‘cat-like agility’ (a reference, perhaps, to how Harry Saltzman thought Sean Connery moved), is head of Station B for Border, ‘licensed to slay’, and a ‘double-nought operative’.
Finally, Asterix and the Black Gold (published in English in 1982), is a comic book adventure by Albert Uderzo, and features the indomitable Gaul on a mission to secure a supply of ‘black gold’ or rock oil, which is an essential ingredient in the druid Getafix’s magic potion. A wandering druid, who is really a Roman spy, joins an unsuspecting Asterix, and tries to sabotage the mission. The druid is Uderzo’s tribute to the early Bond films. The character’s name is Dubbelosix, and looks like Sean Connery. He drives a chariot, which, like Bond’s 1964 Aston Martin, hides many gadgets (for example retractable scythes on the wheels).
It is no surprise that Uderzo incorporates the cinematic Bond in his work. The comic strip medium is, of course, cinematic, but Uderzo is also a film buff who often references aspects of French and American cinema in the Asterix books. For example, Laurel and Hardy are portrayed as Roman soldiers in Obelix and Co, and Kirk Douglas, in Spartacus mode, has a role in Asterix and Obelix All at Sea.
All these works are testament to the continuing influence of both the literary and cinematic James Bond in popular culture, and it is a rare spy or adventure novel that features a spy that does not make a reference to Bond. Ian Fleming said that he wanted to write the spy novel to end all spy novels. The genre didn’t end, but the landscape of the spy novel was undoubtedly altered, with Fleming creating an archetype to which other novelists inevitably turn.
For example, there is Clive Cussler’s Night Probe!, published in 1981. The hero of the novel is Dirk Pitt, a marine adventurer who works for the US National Underwater and Marine Agency. Pitt is dispatched to locate and retrieve the only copies from a shipwreck of an old, but potentially dangerous, treaty between Great Britain and the United States. Meanwhile, the British Government has brought the legendary spy Brian Shaw out of retirement to make sure the documents never get into American hands.
That Brian Shaw can be identified as James Bond is clear from Cussler’s descriptions. We meet Shaw at a funeral of, we learn, his old boss. ‘There were times I wanted to kill him, and there were times I could have embraced him as a father.’ A neat summary of the love-hate relationship between M and Bond. We also meet his chief’s old secretary (Moneypenny?) who lets slip that Brian Shaw is a pseudonym. Then there is reference to SMERSH, Shaw’s former enemy, and to the death of his wife, and Shaw’s home in the West Indies. At the end of the novel, Dirk Pitt thinks he’s discovered Shaw’s true identity. ‘James Bond would be proud of you’, he says. Shaw replies that Bond only exists in fiction. ‘Does he?’, Pitt asks. Cussler’s ‘Bond’ is largely the Bond of the books, but the cinematic Bond creeps in. ‘The same old flatterer’, the elderly secretary says when Bond tells her how sensual she looks. We can hear Lois Maxwell’s Moneypenny utter that line.
Dirk Pitt is something of a Bondian character himself, and Clive Cussler has acknowledged the influence of Bond in Pitt’s make-up: ‘I began researching and analysing all the series heroes, beginning with Edgar Allan Poe's Inspector Dumas. Next came Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes, and all the other fiction detectives and spies: Bulldog Drummond, Sam Spade, Phillip Marlow, Mike Hammer, Matt Helm, and James Bond. I studied them all.’
Black Butterfly, by Mark Gatiss and published in 2008, is the third novel to feature the bisexual secret agent, Lucifer Box. In the novel, he investigates the unexpected deaths of members of the establishment, which, he discovers is caused by a poison deriving from the black butterfly.
Bond references come thick and fast. On the cover of the hardback edition, the lettering of the title and author’s name is stencilled, and very much like the tea-chest font used in the Richard Chopping covers of Ian Fleming’s later novels. The cover art shows, in the manner of the cover for The Spy Who Loved Me, a commando knife piercing a playing card and the wood beneath. The artwork is a fine tribute to Richard Chopping. There is even a fly, Richard Chopping’s trade mark. Incidentally, the paperback cover nicely mimics the Pan covers of the 1960s.
The allusions to Bond continue inside. The action is set in 1953 (the year that the first Bond novel, Casino Royale, was published), and moves from England to Istanbul, then Kingston, Jamaica. The prologue, describing a dream of Lucifer Box, is a good Fleming pastiche, featuring expensive branded products (a Siebe Gorman wetsuit), the taking of Benzedrine tablets, and appearance of a Blofeld-like villain, Gottfried Clawhammer. Further into the novel, we meet Whitley Bey (a nod to Kerim Bey of From Russia, With Love) and Dr Cassivellaunus Fetch, the Man with the Celluloid Hand. There is even a reference to Jamaica’s Undertaker’s Wind, something that Fleming often mentioned in his books.
There are fewer Bond references in The Reavers, by Octopussy screenwriter, George MacDonald Fraser, but those that are present reveal the work of a Fleming aficionado. The novel, published in 2007, is a comic historical adventure set in the world of the Border reivers or raiders on the Anglo-Scottish border in the 16th-century. As usual with his novels, Fraser intersperses the narrative with factual snippets, among them the fact that ‘the original “M”’, Sir Francis Walsingham was Elizabeth I’s espionage chief. The hero of the novel is the spy, Archie Noble. He moves with ‘cat-like agility’ (a reference, perhaps, to how Harry Saltzman thought Sean Connery moved), is head of Station B for Border, ‘licensed to slay’, and a ‘double-nought operative’.
Finally, Asterix and the Black Gold (published in English in 1982), is a comic book adventure by Albert Uderzo, and features the indomitable Gaul on a mission to secure a supply of ‘black gold’ or rock oil, which is an essential ingredient in the druid Getafix’s magic potion. A wandering druid, who is really a Roman spy, joins an unsuspecting Asterix, and tries to sabotage the mission. The druid is Uderzo’s tribute to the early Bond films. The character’s name is Dubbelosix, and looks like Sean Connery. He drives a chariot, which, like Bond’s 1964 Aston Martin, hides many gadgets (for example retractable scythes on the wheels).
It is no surprise that Uderzo incorporates the cinematic Bond in his work. The comic strip medium is, of course, cinematic, but Uderzo is also a film buff who often references aspects of French and American cinema in the Asterix books. For example, Laurel and Hardy are portrayed as Roman soldiers in Obelix and Co, and Kirk Douglas, in Spartacus mode, has a role in Asterix and Obelix All at Sea.
All these works are testament to the continuing influence of both the literary and cinematic James Bond in popular culture, and it is a rare spy or adventure novel that features a spy that does not make a reference to Bond. Ian Fleming said that he wanted to write the spy novel to end all spy novels. The genre didn’t end, but the landscape of the spy novel was undoubtedly altered, with Fleming creating an archetype to which other novelists inevitably turn.
Sunday, 14 August 2011
Carry On Bond
It occurred to me last week as I discussed the Bond traits or memes in Carry On Spying that there are other connections between the Bond and Carry On films. Both are enormously popular long-running series (although the Bond series is still a few films short of the 31 films produced by the Carry On team) whose production is based at Pinewood Studios. And some of the humour in the Bond films, especially that of Roger Moore, wouldn’t be out of place in a Carry On film either. The longevity and the fact of working out of the same base have inevitably meant that both series have shared actors and production staff. Here are a few of them.
An iconic image of the Bond films is Shirley Eaton covered head to toe in gold paint in Goldfinger (1964). The image may have been somewhat shocking to British film-goers, as Shirley Eaton was well known to them mainly as an actress in comedy films. Three of those films were Carry Ons. Her first was Carry On Sergeant (1958). Eaton played Mary Sage, who, on being deprived of her husband on her wedding day (he's been called up for National Service) joins the NAAFI (the forces' catering service) to be with him. Eaton followed this with Carry On Nurse (1959), taking a leading role as accident-prone nurse Dorothy Denton. In her third film, Carry On Constable (1960), she has the smaller part of Sally Barry, a victim of a burglary.
There have been other Bond girls who have also been in Carry On films. After appearing in Goldfinger as Dink, Margaret Nolan was seen in a minor role in Carry On Cowboy (1965).This was followed by appearances in a further five Carry On films, most memorably as Dawn Brakes in Carry On Girls (1973), who, in the course of her bid to be crowned Miss Fircombe in a seaside beauty pageant, has a scrap with Hope Springs, played by Barbara Windsor. Then there is Valerie Leon, who took roles in six Carry On films before featuring in The Spy Who Loved Me (1976) as a hotel receptionist. As a Carry On alumnus, she more than matches Roger Moore for suggestive dialogue and knowing looks in her exchanges with him. Eva Reuber-Staier had a small but notable role in three Bond films as General Gogol’s secretary, Rublevitch (or Rubelvitch). Before her first Bond film, The Spy Who Loved Me, the actress and former Miss World 1969 had appeared in Carry On Dick (1974) as a member of a troupe of saucy 18th-century entertainers.
Some of the production crew had also worked on both series. Alan Hume was one. The director of photography on For Your Eyes Only (1981), Octopussy (1983) and A View to a Kill (1985) was first a camera operator, then the director of photography for the Carry On series. He worked on twenty films, beginning with Carry On Sergeant, and finishing with the final Carry On film, Columbus, in 1992. Anthony Waye, executive producer on the Bond series and currently working on the forthcoming Bond 23, was the assistant director for Carry On Jack (1963), a naval romp set on board HMS Venus in the early 19th century. Another important Bond regular who was involved with the Carry Ons was Peter Lamont. The Oscar-winning production designer was assistant art director on Carry On Matron (1972).
Incidentally, apart from Carry On Spying, there is another Bond reference, albeit a small one, in a Carry On film. In Carry On Loving (1970), Sophie Bliss, one half of the Wedded Bliss marriage agency, has a private detective, Bedsop, played by Charles Hawtrey, follow her husband, Sidney Bliss (Sid James), who she suspects of infidelity. Bedsop ineptly disguises himself as an Indian gentleman, and is rumbled by Sidney Bliss. Bedsop tries to maintain his cover, much to Bliss' amusement, who calls Bedsop a ‘Bombay Bond’.
Reference:
Webber, R, 2005 The complete A-Z of everything Carry On, Harper Collins
An iconic image of the Bond films is Shirley Eaton covered head to toe in gold paint in Goldfinger (1964). The image may have been somewhat shocking to British film-goers, as Shirley Eaton was well known to them mainly as an actress in comedy films. Three of those films were Carry Ons. Her first was Carry On Sergeant (1958). Eaton played Mary Sage, who, on being deprived of her husband on her wedding day (he's been called up for National Service) joins the NAAFI (the forces' catering service) to be with him. Eaton followed this with Carry On Nurse (1959), taking a leading role as accident-prone nurse Dorothy Denton. In her third film, Carry On Constable (1960), she has the smaller part of Sally Barry, a victim of a burglary.
There have been other Bond girls who have also been in Carry On films. After appearing in Goldfinger as Dink, Margaret Nolan was seen in a minor role in Carry On Cowboy (1965).This was followed by appearances in a further five Carry On films, most memorably as Dawn Brakes in Carry On Girls (1973), who, in the course of her bid to be crowned Miss Fircombe in a seaside beauty pageant, has a scrap with Hope Springs, played by Barbara Windsor. Then there is Valerie Leon, who took roles in six Carry On films before featuring in The Spy Who Loved Me (1976) as a hotel receptionist. As a Carry On alumnus, she more than matches Roger Moore for suggestive dialogue and knowing looks in her exchanges with him. Eva Reuber-Staier had a small but notable role in three Bond films as General Gogol’s secretary, Rublevitch (or Rubelvitch). Before her first Bond film, The Spy Who Loved Me, the actress and former Miss World 1969 had appeared in Carry On Dick (1974) as a member of a troupe of saucy 18th-century entertainers.
Some of the production crew had also worked on both series. Alan Hume was one. The director of photography on For Your Eyes Only (1981), Octopussy (1983) and A View to a Kill (1985) was first a camera operator, then the director of photography for the Carry On series. He worked on twenty films, beginning with Carry On Sergeant, and finishing with the final Carry On film, Columbus, in 1992. Anthony Waye, executive producer on the Bond series and currently working on the forthcoming Bond 23, was the assistant director for Carry On Jack (1963), a naval romp set on board HMS Venus in the early 19th century. Another important Bond regular who was involved with the Carry Ons was Peter Lamont. The Oscar-winning production designer was assistant art director on Carry On Matron (1972).
Incidentally, apart from Carry On Spying, there is another Bond reference, albeit a small one, in a Carry On film. In Carry On Loving (1970), Sophie Bliss, one half of the Wedded Bliss marriage agency, has a private detective, Bedsop, played by Charles Hawtrey, follow her husband, Sidney Bliss (Sid James), who she suspects of infidelity. Bedsop ineptly disguises himself as an Indian gentleman, and is rumbled by Sidney Bliss. Bedsop tries to maintain his cover, much to Bliss' amusement, who calls Bedsop a ‘Bombay Bond’.
Reference:
Webber, R, 2005 The complete A-Z of everything Carry On, Harper Collins
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