James Bond

By noreply@blogger.com (Tanner) The project is described as having shades of La Femme Nikita and the Bourne movies. The story centers on a 14-year-old Eastern European girl who has been raised by her father to be a cold-blooded killing machine. She connects with a French family, forms a friendship with their daughter and g...

By noreply@blogger.com (Tanner) The Performance, the eagerly awaited new album from the great Shirley Bassey, came out in England this week. (There's no word yet on when we Americans can expect it. Let's hope we don't have to wait as long as we did for her last collection, Get the Party Started.) The Performance has been espec...

By noreply@blogger.com (Tanner) The University of Southern California will host a weekend long Centenary tribute to legendary James Bond producer Albert R. "Cubby" Broccoli this weekend in Los Angeles. The weekend will comprise screenings of many classic Bond films (including examples of every actor to play 007 in the...

By noreply@blogger.com (Tanner) Charlie Higson and Anthony Horowitz both remain key figures in the surprisingly robust young adult spy novel market. Higson may be taking a hiatus from his series of Young Bond novels, but that hasn't stopped him from penning a lengthy Young Bond short story in Danger Society: The Young Bo...

By noreply@blogger.com (Tanner) I've been waiting for this announcement for a long time! Since NBC's spy comedy Chuck isn't coming back for a third go-round until mid-season this year, that, of course, means delayed DVDs of Season 2. I really don't understand the studios' need to release DVD seasons to coincide with new s...

By noreply@blogger.com (Tanner) Fans of prolific spy TV actor Peter Wyngarde may like to know that the studio has also announced A Choice of Coward: The Complete Series. This 1964 anthology series features four Noel Coward plays introduced by the playright; Wyngarde stars in "Present Laughter."

By noreply@blogger.com (Tanner) Danger Society: The Young Bond Dossier, the official companion volume to Charlie Higson's series of James Bond novels about Bond's adventures as a schoolboy in the 1930s, is out today in the United Kingdom. It's available from Amazon.co.uk, and a signed edition is available in independen...

By noreply@blogger.com (Tanner) We're at the height of the spy season now! For some reason we're on a roll, which continues next week with Mission: Impossible: Season 7. But for today, we have a couple of major reissues! First up is Dorado Films' new release of the 1965 Ken Clark Eurospy classic From the Orient With Fury (als...

By noreply@blogger.com (Tanner) Surprisingly, and unlike a lot of other Bond villains, Wiseman didn't go on to act in many other spy roles. Such appearances were few and limited to semi-spyish TV series like T.H.E. Cat, MacGyver and The Equalizer. But his single appearance in a James Bond film left an indelible mark on the genr...

By noreply@blogger.com (Tanner) Previous Bond radio adaptations include "Doctor No" (2008), "You Only Live Twice" (1990, starring Michael Jayston) and "Moonraker" (1958, a legendary lost South African adaptation starring Bob Holness). Double O Section Home

By noreply@blogger.com (Tanner) The genre-borrowing got so out of hand that I would posit that The Spy Who Loved Me was "the James Bond Bond movie," borrowing from 007's own storied past instead of from a prevailing trend. Though many have pointed out that TSWLM is a virtual remake of You Only Live Twice (Raymond Benson was t...

By noreply@blogger.com (Tanner) Finally, and perhaps most impressively, Acorn Media unleashed Foyle's War: Sets 1-5: From Dunkirk to VE Day. While I knew that this British wartime mystery series was masterminded by Alex Rider creator Anthony Horowitz, I had never actually realized that it was a spy show! But I suppose t...

By noreply@blogger.com (Tanner) Hopefully that little taste of Cotton action will sell the naysayers on why, exactly, Jerry fits into the Eurospy canon. Technically, he’s not a spy; "G-Man Jerry Cotton" is an FBI agent who does most of his sleuthing in the US of A instead of abroad. (Or at least in German locations substitut...

By noreply@blogger.com (Tanner) He went into a few more details for WENN, confirming that this was indeed a Harry Palmer project:"I have a script called Cold War Requiem, which is Harry retired and he's living out his fantasy in some middle class area in London and the guys who he screwed have now got rich and they've decide...

By noreply@blogger.com (Tanner) Yeah, that's not much of a headline, I know. But that's how I talk in real life. Things having to do with things that I like tend to come out in blurts, usually with the words "James" and "Bond" somewhere in there, and occasionally with "Howard Chaykin." Ask my girlfriend. She puts up with that a lo...

By noreply@blogger.com (Tanner) As a fan of George Lazenby, I’ve wanted to see The Man From Hong Kong for some time now. But viewing the recent documentary Not Quite Hollywood–which features a lot of stellar clips from the film as well as an interview with Lazenby–really inspired me to finally watch it. A pariah in the mainst...

By noreply@blogger.com (Tanner) According to an official announcement on TomPetty.com, the new Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers Live Anthology, a four-disc set (or five-disc in a deluxe configuration) will include a number of covers the band has performed live over the years, including their legendary late ninetie...

By noreply@blogger.com (Tanner) Luc Besson is about to have some competition in his little cottage industry of turning out big Eurospy-style action hits on modest budgets. Ocean's 11, 12 and 13 director (as well as The Good German and lots more highbrow fare, of course, and next week's Matt Damon industrial espionage com...

By noreply@blogger.com (Tanner) All of The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes are thoroughly entertaining, from the crooks and the cads to the earnest do-gooders to the amateur spies to the snide, petulant misanthropes. Victorian fiction was awash with all sorts of gems of this sort, and the TV series does as good a job as Greene’s...

By noreply@blogger.com (Tanner) Upcoming Los Angeles Spy Screenings: On Her Majesty's Secret Service And From Russia With Love OHMSS is up first at 7:30, followed by From Russia With Love, which will probably start a little after 10PM. Go to the Egyptian's website for more details.Double O Section Home

By noreply@blogger.com (Tanner) On Thursday, August 12, Dante will host another screening of interest to spy fans. The movies aren't spy movies, but they are a tribute to one of the key personnel behind James Bond's screen success. It's a John Barry double feature of The Last Valley (1970, starring Michael Caine) and Alice...

By noreply@blogger.com (Tanner) When public disapproval grew for the utterly amoral Sadistik, the producer behind the photo novel attempted to recreate its success with a different genre: a more traditional spy formula. But the James Bond-inspired series (“Don” something... I wish I could remember the full title) faile...

By noreply@blogger.com (Tanner) As a reminder, two very rare spy movies starring the great James Mason (North By Northwest) will screen tonight (Friday, July 31) at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The double bill kicks off at 7:30 with Joseph Mankiewicz's 1952 WWII espionage dramedy 5 Fingers, in which Mason plays a...

By noreply@blogger.com (Tanner) Spielberg has famously long wanted to direct a popcorn spy movie. (I say "popcorn" to indicate that Munich doesn't count.) He approached the James Bond producers back in the late Seventies while still riding the success of Jaws, and Cubby Broccoli turned him down. Broccoli reasoned that a d...

By noreply@blogger.com (Tanner) Besides the sexpionage angle and the proto-Cold War Russia/Great Britain rivalry, there are other antecedents of popular spy fiction on display, including rudimentary gadgets. Pryde uses a telescope to spy on Dixon testing his torpedo, but also spies another spy–spying with binocul...

By noreply@blogger.com (Tanner) The best new spy DVD out this week is a Region 2 offering from Network in the UK: 1964's Hot Enough For June, starring Dirk Bogarde (Modesty Blaise), Leo McKern (The Prisoner's final Number 2) and Deadlier Than the Male's luscious Sylva Koscina. Released the same year as Goldfinger, Hot Eno...

By noreply@blogger.com (Tanner) Speaking of Bondmania, Seductive Espionage captures that as well. In the book’s parallel universe, Yuki 7 became nearly as big a phenomenon as 007 himself. (Yuki 7 actress Kimiko Suzuki tells the fashion magazine Elan about meeting Sean Connery at the Academy Awards, and the interviewer...

By noreply@blogger.com (Tanner) Benson also mentions in his latest update that he will be teaching an adult Continuing Education course on James Bond at the Oakton Community College in Illinois. The six-week course on the history of Bond is called "The James Bond Phenomenon." Benson reveals that "students will view film...

By noreply@blogger.com (Tanner) Future spy guys Tony Curtis and Dean Martin teamed up for a black and white spy comedy before the Bond boom: 1960's Who Was That Lady? Who Was That Lady? is incredibly dated for a number of reasons, the biggest coming at the very beginning and the very end. The whole plot is set into motion durin...

By noreply@blogger.com (Tanner) Not if Bond producer Harry Saltzman had his way. Saltzman still wasn't won over. In his autobiography, My Word is My Bond, Roger Moore recounts an oft-told story about how the producer was displeased with Paul McCartney's title song for his first Bond movie, Live and Let Die:

By noreply@blogger.com (Tanner) Palmer rebuffs Ross’s advances for the time being, but Ross isn’t the only one with a job for him. Soon he gets a phone call from a computerized voice demanding, "Is. This. Palmer. Private. Detective. Of. London. Confirm." When he eventually does so, he’s instructed to courier a package (a thermos)...

By noreply@blogger.com (Tanner) UPDATE: Variety confirms the story. The only information they add is reiterating the distribution arrangement we'd already been aware of: "Both Quantum of Solace and Casino Royale were co-productions between MGM and Sony, with the latter distributing. The new film will be the first to r...

By noreply@blogger.com (Tanner) Quantum of Bond is a very cool, copiously illustrated new French James Bond blog. It's got a unique take and manages to cover things that aren't just more of the same. Recent topics include a retrospective of Bond promotions at the Cannes Film Festival (with a great picture I'd never seen bef...

By noreply@blogger.com (Tanner) The Hollywood Reporter reports the troubling news that James Bond's home studio, MGM, is searching for "any sort of capital restructuring that can avert a forced Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization. One big motivator: MGM's long-standing hold on the 007 franchise could come into pla...

By noreply@blogger.com (Tanner) Finally, we have a new Blu-Ray edition of the 1978 WWII spy/commando movie Force 10 From Navarone, a sequel of sorts to the David Niven classic starring Harrison Ford and a whole slew of Bond alumni including Robert Shaw, Edward Fox, Barbara Bach and Richard Kiel, the last two fresh off The...

By noreply@blogger.com (Tanner) For readers only familiar with the modern OSS 117 revival series, the most important thing to know about the original films is that they are not parodies. They’re straightforward, very Bondian Eurospy films, based on a series of equally straightforward, pulpy novels by Jean Bruce. Bruce...

By noreply@blogger.com (Tanner) I have a lot of books in my house, almost a library or a bookshop. I have also realised that many are unread which is unforgivable. So to put things right I am setting about this task by reading the John Gardner “Bond” books and this has left me with a dilemma. I read the original Ian Fleming novels i...

By noreply@blogger.com (Tanner) Zencat at the Young Bond Dossier has some fantastic news this morning. Even though there's no new James Bond novel scheduled this year from Charlie Higson (and even though the future of his Young Bond series is totally unknown at this point), there will be a Young Bond companion book this fa...

Related articles from BISH'S BEAT and more.

By noreply@blogger.com (Tanner) The project in question is Remote Control, a spy novel by Mark Burnell. Burnell will adapt his own book while Broccoli, Wilson and Ileen Maisel produce. "Wilson and Broccoli aren't straying far from the Bond milieu," notes the Reporter. "Remote follows a war correspondent-turned-Britis...

By noreply@blogger.com (Tanner) Back at U.N.C.L.E., Sir John is having a bad first day. A ransom demand has turned up, and part of the demand is that it must be delivered by ex-U.N.C.L.E. agent Napoleon Solo. "Who is this guy?" asks Kowalski, incredulous, which naturally cues a reintroduction to the noticeably older but still undenia...

By noreply@blogger.com (Tanner) For those who were less than thrilled with Quantum of Solace, there are still plenty of other James Bond releases to thrill you today. Next up is the first ever Special Edition of Never Say Never Again, the 1983 renegade production that marked Sean Connery's return to the role. This Kevin McC...

By noreply@blogger.com (Tanner) It turns out Duplicity (good as it is) isn’t the only movie of interest to spy fans opening this weekend. The Paul Rudd/Jason Segel comedy I Love You, Man contains a lengthy James Bond reference that pays off later in the film. While it’s just one joke in a very funny movie, it will be a big laugh-...

By noreply@blogger.com (Tanner) The Young Bond Dossier reports that Charlie Higson's third James Bond novel, Double Or Die(full review here), has been released in paperback in the United States. This comes hot on the heels of re-covered reissues of the first two books a week ago. You should be able to find them all at your lo...

By noreply@blogger.com (Tanner) It’s a healthy cycle, and we still see it today: the unstoppable Bond franchise inspires countless imitators, and some of them turn out pretty good and inject something new into the genre. That, in turn, gets injected right back into the Bond films, and the creative cycle sustains the seri...

By noreply@blogger.com (Tanner) The new edition updates the picture of Judi Dench that accompanies M’s forward and replaces Brosnan with Craig on the "Bond Dossier" page in the front... but after that, it’s the same text and pictures that comprised the old version up through The World Is Not Enough. After sections on Bond’s w...

By noreply@blogger.com (Tanner) Meanwhile, CommanderBond.net unveiled the U.S. mass-market paperback cover art for Sebastian Faulks' adult James Bond novel Devil May Care last week. I held off on posting a link, because I felt I already had too much Bondian negativity going on with my disappointed review of Quantum of Sol...

By noreply@blogger.com (Tanner) As a dedicated follower of Fleming, and as a staunch admirer of Martin Campbell’s Casino Royale, I realize that it’s wrong for me to lionize the Roger Moore era of Bond. I shouldn’t want that. But for some reason, I do. When watching Quantum of Solace a second time recently, as Bond haphazardly...

By noreply@blogger.com (Tanner) Things don’t improve with the entirely lackluster title sequence, either, courtesy of MK12. Why was Danny Kleinman not brought back after doing the best work of his career on Casino Royale? I certainly hope he returns for the next Bond. Jack White’s theme song, "Another Way To Die," never r...

By noreply@blogger.com (Tanner) Remember to get your entries in by midnight, Pacific Time, tonight for an opportunity to win DK's superb new photo book Bond On Set: Filming Quantum of Solace in the Double O Section's Blogiversary contest. The winner will be announced tomorrow.

By noreply@blogger.com (Tanner) Second, and no less essential, is the paperback debut of Samantha Weinberg's final entry in her "Moneypenny Diaries" trilogy, Final Fling. This was a stellar conclusion to a truly phenomenal series, and every Bond fan should read it. Really, these books are much closer to the spirit of Fle...

By noreply@blogger.com (Tanner) Uh-oh. The London Quantum of Solace premiere proved to be one of those weird British fashion occasions, where female stars show up in odd get-ups sure to get them coverage in tabloids and bad fashion blogs. And a blog I'm told is pre-eminent among such blogs, Go Fug Yourself, has taken umbrag...

By noreply@blogger.com (Tanner) The Casino Royale book was better organized, generally progressing chronologically through sets and locations in the order they appeared in the movie. Daniel Craig himself provided some insightful and sometimes humorous recollections on the individual stills in a dialogue with Wil...

By Tanner James Bond: The Authorised Biography by John Pearson (author of The Life of Ian Fleming) is now the only continuation novel in print other than those in the two aforementioned series put out by the new regime at IFP. None of Kingsley Amis, Christopher Wood, John Gardner or Raymond Benson’s...

By Tanner Sir Roger Moore was honored today with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Fans crowded the street to witness an impressive ceremony presided over by Honorary Mayor of Hollywood Johnny Grant. As former James Bond co-stars like Richard Kiel, Lois Chiles and Gloria Hendry mingled with othe...

By Tanner In the Seventies, Lois Maxwell worked again with her old friend Roger Moore on The Persuaders shortly before he took over as the new James Bond. She continued to play Moneypenny throughout his tenure, acting in a total of fourteen Bond films (a record surpassed only by Desmond Llewelyn as Q...