"The Assassination Bureau" (1968) An unappreciated treasure

Paramount Pictures did not give this stylish (and quite expensive) adventure/comedy much love in 1968. The US release added "Limited" to the title to make the title less dark.
Michael Relph's art direction is especially noteworthy. Diana Rigg and Telly Savalas would star together a few months later in the Bond flick "On Her Majesty's Secret Service".

The sumptuous Assassination Bureau conference room

Venice palazzo

The ficticious Ruthenian castle is actually Karlstejn Castle, 30 km SW of Prague

"Madame Sin" (1972) - From the Video Vault

Like campy spy thrillers? This one was made as Bond-mania was waning. Casting the grand dame was a fun idea. Robert Wagner was a popular leading man, having just finished "It Takes a Thief".

Sir Lew Grade was throwing buckets of cash into film and television in the 1970's. "Madame Sin" was intended to be a television series (each week - another fiendish plot??). At the end of this pilot, the Madame Sin (Bette Davis - on brand - chewing the scenery) is planning to steal the Russian Crown Jewels as she eyes off Windsor castle as a future HQ.

Pros:
Scottish locations (Isle of Mull)
Brian Eatwell (Dr Phibes films) set decoration - a nod to Bond's Ken Adam (Madame Sin's lair is very "Dr No", it even has an underground aquarium).
Excellent  British supporting cast (plus Roy Kinnear has a funny cameo)

Cons:
Annoying electronic soundtrack
Even though it is under 90 minutes, the pacing is slow.
The scene with a deaf Wagner trying to communicate the villain's plans is either embarrassing or comic.
Some scenes seem to have been trimmed.

James Bond films ranked from worst to best

This is a purely personal response to The Guardian's Bond films ranking by Peter Bradshaw (August 24, 2018).


26. "Octopussy" (1983) Worst title song of the franchise.

25. "Quantum of Solace" (2008) Who can remember the plot?

24. "Casino Royale" (1966) Burt Bacharach score and Woody Allen are the only saving graces.

23. "Die Another Day" (2002) Really... an invisible car??

22. "For Your Eyes Only (1981) There's a good bit with Maggie Thatcher.

21. "A View To A Kill" (1985) Walken is a wet Bond villain. Duran Duran score helps.

20. "The World Is Not Enough (1999) Forgettable movie, great Garbage score.

19. "The Living Daylights" (1987) Dalton tries hard, excellent supporting cast (Jeroen Krabbe, Joe Don Baker, John Rhys-Davies, Art Malik.

18. "Licence to Kill" (1989) Killer Gladys Knight title song, even though it is not by John Barry.

17.  "Moonraker" (1979) Blame "Star Wars" mania.

16. "Goldeneye" (1995) Great tank chase around St Petersburg.

15. "Thunderball" (1965) - great first 10 minutes, the underwater scenes are interminable.

14. "Casino Royale" (2006) Classy but morose.

13.  "The Man With The Golden Gun" (1974) Silly fun in Thailand. Sheriff Pepper returns. Casting Hammer's Dracula as Scaramanga was inspired.

12. "The Spy Who Loved Me" (1977) The Union Jack parachute ranks as one of the great pre-title sequences.

11.  "Never Say Never Again" (1983) Endless fun. Connery has a ball sending up his Bond character. Improves on "Thunderball".

10. "Tomorrow Never Dies"(1997) Nifty idea to have a Murdochian villain.

9.  "Spectre" (2015) Beautifully filmed.

8.  "Live And Let Die" (1973) Producers jump on the Blaxpoilation bandwagon. Moore's best Bond.

7.  "Skyfall" (2012) Just for the return of the original DB5.

6.  "From Russia With Love" (1963) Most faithful adaptation, released only 5 years after novel.

5.  "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" (1969) Lazenby impresses, Great Swiss location work, getting ex-Avengers Diana Rigg also helps.

4.  "Diamonds Are Forever" (1971) Naff but wildly enjoyable. Charles Gray is the best Blofeld.

3.  "Dr No" (1962) Holds up extremely well. Joseph Wiseman's villain evokes Fu Manchu. First time we see Ken Adam's amazing sets. Looks great on such a small budget.

2. "You Only Live Twice" (1967) Best score, Kobe docks scene is sublime, Ken Adam's volcano set is a stunner.

1.  "Goldfinger" (1964) Ticks all the boxes - Score, Sets, Villain, Locales, Gadgets, Bond girl (Honor Blackman - another former TV's "The Avengers" actress). Improves on the plot of the novel by planning to nuke Fort Knox so the gold can't be removed for decades.

"Trigger Mortis" (2015) A James Bond tribute by Anthony Horowitz

Better known for teenage fiction "Stormbreaker" series, Horowitz has tried to stay true to the Ian Fleming books with his 2015 stand alone novel. 
It is 1957. Bond having just polished off Goldfinger and Oddjob, returns to London for a bit of R+R with, you guessed it, Pussy Galore. But things don't go as planned.
Horowitz takes some excepts from an unfinished Ian Fleming television script about Grand Prix racing and then moves the action from a Swiss castle to east coast U.S. The rocket launch sabotage plot pays homage to "Dr No". This time it's a Korean millionaire/psychopath/super villain (nicknamed Jason Sin). His backstory is just as interesting.
SMERSH rears its ugly head. Bond's new female companion/ally is the feisty Jeopardy Lane (also possessing a cool back story). Attention to 1950's detail - locales, social mores, transport, food, alcohol - is a delightful pastiche to Fleming.

NB.
"Solo" by William Boyd (2013) is also a cracking read and probably the best written of the James Bond spinoffs. Faithful to Ian Fleming's James Bond, it is less spectacular but more believable.

Vintage James Bond - 007 novel car scenes

1. "Dr No" 1962 - the hearse plummeting over a Jamaican cliff. Bond makes some sardonic comment (the first of many in the series) like "They were on their way to a funeral."
2. Bond pulls up outside Government House, Kingston in a Pontiac convertible, a slumped (body in front seat). He turns to the sergeant with the throwaway line: "Make sure he doesn't get away."
3. "Goldfinger" 1964 - Bond tailing Goldfinger (in the 30's Rolls Royce) through the Swiss alps (the 60's version of sat nav.).
4. The DB-5 making short work of Goldfinger's Korean henchmen. I never tire of the ejector seat.
5. In a Kentucky scrapyard, Oddjob's Lincoln Continental being compacted into a nifty cuboid.
6. "You Only Live Twice" 1967 - A baddie-packed Toyota Crown being picked up by a helicopter with an electro-magnet, then dropped into Tokyo Bay.
7.  "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" (1969) Tracy (GoT's gran Diana Rigg) gatecrashes (literally) an alpine stock car race to escape Blofeld's henchmen. Bond, gobsmacked, is in the passenger seat (for once).

My list of great train movies

I have omitted some obvious ones (like "North by North West" and "Murder on the Orient Express"). This list is purely personal.

• 1932 Von Sternberg's "Shanghai Express" 
• 1945  Deanna Durbin is terrific in "Lady on a Train"
• 1951 "Strangers on a Train" (you have to have at least one from Hitch)
• 1952 "The Narrow Margin" (the little B movie that could)
• 1963 "From Russia with Love" (just for Robert Shaw)
• 1964  Frankenheimer's superb "The Train"
• 1976 "Silver Streak" (great cast, great ending)
• 1978 "The First Great Train Robbery" (ingenious Michael Crichton period piece, helped by knockout cast and Jerry Goldsmith score)
• 2013 "Snowpiercer" (imaginative sci-fi, incredible sets)

Guilty pleasures:

• 1968 "The Wrecking Crew" (cheesy Matt Helm, saved by Sharon Tate's performance)
• 1971 "Live and Let Die" (not a great Bond, but has its moments)

The best 5 minutes of any James Bond film: "You Only Live Twice"

Start at the 42 minute mark of "You Only Live Twice". In those glorious five minutes you get a lot of bang for your buck:

• Bond and Aki zipping around Japan's newly completed motorways in a nifty white sportscar (Toyota 2000GT) with rear seat Sony TV.
• The helicopter picking up the baddies' Toyota Crown with a giant magnet, dropping it in Toyko Bay (to the strains of John Barry's soaring "A Drop in the Ocean"). Tanaka (head of Japanese Secret Service) asking: "What do you think of Japanese efficiency now?"
• Cut to a cheesy front projection on a country road (Tokyo to Kobe is over 500 km!) with Aki not moving the steering wheel as they turn tight corners. 
• Next, the nifty chase/fight scene in Kobe docks with a splendid helicopter shot of Bond being pursued by dozens of surly stevedores, complemented by more sublime John Barry.

At 47 minutes (on board the Ning Po) it just gets silly. 

Richard Maibaum, screen writer of classic Bond

New Yorker, Richard Maibaum (1909-1991) wrote screenplays for the first 13 Bonds (except "You Only Live Twice" - part witty but sexist, Roahl Dahl script/part "Thunderbirds" - and the dated, blaxploitation effort, "Live and Let Die").
His last Bond script was "Licence to Kill".
He was responsible for some of the classic Bond lines delivered by Sean Connery.

Maibaum co-wrote the 1949 version of "The Great Gatsby".

Five classic chairs from 60's spy movies

• The sheik's (Eames) executive lounge chair atop his hydrofoil in "Modesty Blaise" (1966)
• The swivel (Eames again?) chair Derek Flint straddles in the poster for "Our Man Flint" (1965)
• The chaise longue James Bond is dropped into, falling from a chute in the Tokyo underground (Tanaka's HQ) "You Only Live Twice" (1967)
• Blofeld's super wide supervillain wing chair in his volcano lair (accurately lampooned in the Austin Powers trilogy).
• The tan leather armchairs in the Pentagon in "You Only Live Twice" (Ken Adam again). 1967 was the high water mark for cool movie chairs.

"Penny Dreadful" TV review, Season 1, Pilot, Episode 1, Showtime/Sky Not cheap, not dreadful, great gothic fun

Victorian England seems to be in fashion. This lush production promises lots of scares, gore (the first confrontation with the nest of vampires was spectacular) and camp silliness. More graphic than NBC's "Dracula", more fun than "Ripper Street" (this show doesn't take itself too seriously).
 I am reminded of the patchy but rollicking flick (2003)/graphic novel "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" with its 19th century horror characters. In this show we have vampires and Mina Harker, Dr Frankenstein and like the aforementioned film, Dorian Gray.
All the Victoriana staples are here: opium dens, Egyptologists, foggy gaslit alleyways, ritzy gentlemen's clubs, Ripper-like mayhem.
The cast is terrific: retired Bond, Timothy Dalton as the intrepid explorer; Eva Green (another Bond link) as the cool but gutsy Vanessa Ives (with the deductive powers of Sherlock Holmes) and Josh Hartnett as the troubled sharpshooter/adventurer.
Sam Mendes is the executive producer, John Logan (Skyfall), the creator/writer (two more links with James Bond).
The idea of a "demi monde" is an intriguing one.
More please. Looking forward to seeing Rory Kinnear as The Creature.
PS. the camera isn't shy with the male nudity.

"Fleming; The Man Who Would Be Bond" BBC America, 4 part miniseries, review

Well, the title says it all. This is enjoyable codswallop. Much like the films. The fun is to try and spot the links with the movies/novels e.g. martinis, exotic locales, playing chemin de fer with abandon, starains of Monty Norman's original James Bond theme in the score, the red leather door on the boss's office, Miss Moneypenny/Monday character in naval intelligence ("Why Monday, I don't know what I'd do without you!" exclaims Fleming). But it really is incredibly cheesy and surprisingly dull and predictable in parts. The first scene lost me with the too modern-cut red bikini worn by Ann Fleming (1952?).
This fluffy mini-series looks great, is mercifully short (each of the 4 episodes only 42 minutes) and Dominic Cooper (Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter) is suave but far too good looking for the hawk-nosed author/bon vivant.
Episode 3 features the phrase "licence to kill" as well as a heavy dose of sado-masochism.
Clunky dialogue: "this bloody war" "You're playing with fire"... and exclamations like, "Surely the Germans won't take Paris!" I can imagine "The Guardian" reviews now....
I rather enjoyed the final episode, though. Fleming anticipating the Cold War, his shenanigans in the Tambach fortress (blurring the lines between fact and fantasy), the exploding pens/micro cameras and Ken Adam inspired set in the opening scene. Later I spotted the fabulous glass ceiling in the German lab, last used in NBC's "Dracula".

If you want a more accurate tale full of booze and bitchery, seek out the docu-drama "Ian Fleming: Bondmaker" (2005). In this version the Flemings fought constantly. Ann Fleming had an affair with the then Labour Party leader.
The 1956 film of  "The Man Who Never Was" is also recommended (see Episode 3).

11 things you might not know about the James Bond films

• In "Dr No" Ursula Andress's voice was dubbed by Monica Vander Zyl because her Swiss accent was unacceptable. The casting director said she sounded like "a Dutch comedian".
• Noel Coward (Ian Fleming's Jamaican neighbour) was offered the role of Dr No. Coward's telegram read: "Dr No. No, no, no."
• In "Goldfinger" Gert Frobe's voice was dubbed by Michael Collins. Frobe knew little English. 
• Both he and Sean Connery were golf novices. Connery developed the love for the game during filming.
• In 1962, Ian Fleming's wife, Ann was having an affair with the then leader of the U.K. Labour Party, Hugh Gaitskell.
• Pussy Galore was nearly changed to Kitty Galore for the U.S. censors.
• "Diamonds are Forever" owes its plot about a kidnapped Las Vegas billionaire (Willard Whyte) to a dream producer Cubby Broccoli had about his friend, recluse Howard Hughes.
• Christopher Lee (Scaramanga in "The Man with the Golden Gun") was a cousin of Ian Fleming.
• Aston Martin was saved from near bankruptcy in 1964. Sales nearly doubled after the release of "Goldfinger". Thanks goes to Sir Ken Adam (the brilliant production designer) who plugged for Aston Martin instead of Lotus.
• The "Moonraker" title song was offered to Frank Sinatra, then Kate Bush before Shirley Bassey.
• "A View to a Kill" villain Max Zoran - David Bowie, then Sting were considered before Christopher Walken was cast.

I'm reading a great book about the James Bond franchise. The above trivia is from this book. With thanks:

"The Man with the Golden Touch" (2008) by Sinclair McKay

Movies you can see again .... and again

I normally watch a movie once, never wishing to repeat the experience. But there are a few special films that are worth revisiting. Some are classics, some just damn good entertainment. I am ignoring cult movies like the overrated "Rocky Horror Picture Show".
Here's my list. I could probably add more musicals but I will restrain myself....

• The Wizard of Oz (1939)
• Gypsy (1962)
• A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1966)
• Mrs Doubtfire (1993)
• Tootsie (1982) It has to have the best cast ever assembled for a comedy (let's not talk about Kramer's misfire, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World)
• Goldfinger (1964)
• M*A*S*H (1970)
• Bring It On (2000)
• any film from the Austin Powers trilogy (just scratch Fat Bastard - unfunny)
• Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994)
• To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) - if my tearducts are up to it
• You Only Live Twice" (1967) - yes, I am a Bond tragic
• The French Connection (1971)
• Chinatown (1974)
• All about Eve (1950)
• The African Queen (1952)
• Young Frankenstein (1975)
• Blazing Saddles (1974)
• My Favourite Year (1982) - Loosely based on '50s live TV comedy show "Your Show of Shows", featuring Peter O'Toole as boozy Errol Flynn-ish character, Lainie Kazan steals scenes, warm and funny script, Mel Brooks produced.
• The Producers (1968) - yes, I am a Mel Brooks fan also
• Some Like It Hot (1959)
• The Night of the Hunter (1955) Sublime Southern gothic/German Expressionist influenced, Charles Laughton pulling out all the stops as director, Mitchum is chilling.
• Jaws (1975)
• Taxi Driver (1976)
• The Godfather (1972)

any suggestions?

James Bond girls - ludicrous, lurid names

Ian Fleming took the name "James Bond" from the author of a book of exotic birds. He wanted the most mundane name possible. On the other hand, Bond "birds" had very exotic names. Here are the most colourful.
Key:
F - featured in Bond film
N - featured in original Bond novel

Honey(chile) Ryder "Dr No"   (F)N
Pussy Galore "Goldfinger"   FN
Domino "Thunderball"   FN
Kissy Suzuki "You Only Live Twice"   FN
Tiffany Case "Diamonds are Forever"   FN  Plenty O'Toole, Bambi and Thumper   F
Solitaire "Live and Let Die"   FN
Mary Goodnight "The Man with the Golden Gun"   FN  Chew Mi (I'm not kidding)  F
Dr Holly Goodhead "Moonraker"
May Day "A View to a Kill"   F
Fatima Blush "Never Say Never Again"   F
Dr Christmas Jones "The World Is Not Enough"   F
Strawberry Fields "Quantum of Solace"   F

Honourable Mentions (2 classics from Matt Helm spy spoofs):

Lovey Kravezit "The Silencers"
Yu Rang "The Wrecking Crew"