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Monday, October 22, 2012
A large posse of excited journalists and other guests were able to see ‘Skyfall’ at a special press preview at the Odeon, Leicester Square, on Friday October 12, and many of the early press reviews of the new movie appeared in newspapers and on movie review websites over the weekend of October 13-14. 
During the final weekend before the premiere of the 23rd James Bond movie, the British media gave us another generous round of what has been a mini-avalanche of Bond-related material in recent weeks.
Three days before the premiere of ‘Skyfall’, an interview with Daniel Craig also appeared in the weekend magazine of the UK’s Daily Telegraph newspaper (October 20). Conducted last June, about a week after Daniel completed filming on the new James Bond movie, the interview took place at Claridge’s Hotel in London, where members of the British media had been invited as part of the publicity campaign for ‘Skyfall’. The interviewer, Vicki Reid, noted that, whereas Craig’s first two 007 adventures were ‘quite dark’, his third Bond movie will see a return of what might be called the more traditional ‘cinema’ elements of the film series, such as the wry humour, the gadgets, and the over-the-top villains. All these have featured in the most recent films, but had been played down. Craig said: ‘It’s got some fun in it, but it’s not forced. I’m not winking at the camera. The writing’s really good, and I think that lends itself to humour...’. 
Who is Daniel Craig’s favourite Bond woman? The UK’s Sunday Express tackled this interesting question on October 21. The answer may surprise some people, but possibly not dedicated Bond fans: it is Diana Rigg, who played Tracy Di Vicenzo in ‘On Her Majesty’s Secret Service’ (1969). The ‘Skyfall’ star was quoted by the Express as saying: ‘Diana Rigg is kind of my favourite, she’s just great in that movie, she stands out for me’. But the Express spoilt its report somewhat by claiming that the 1969 movie is regarded as ‘the least favoured of the franchise’. Really? We think not. However, the Express then tried to claw back a little bit of credibility by noting that Sir Roger Moore has said (again) that he would like to come back as a Bond villain. The newspaper offered a nice little cartoon of a surprised Daniel Craig discovering Sir Roger dressed as Blofeld, complete with white cat, and saying: ‘Ah, Mr. Bond. You weren’t expecting ME!’ 
Among the large number of Bond-related articles that have appeared in magazines over the last few weeks, there was one magazine that seems like an old friend from the past: Starburst magazine, which was a favourite of many Bond fans for its 007 coverage in the 1970s and 1980s. The glossy British magazine boasts that it is the world’s longest-running magazine of sci-fi, horror, and fantasy, and (pleasingly) it has seen something of a renaissance in recent times. Recent issues have included some great Bond coverage. The latest issue (no.381, for October 2012) has maintained this tradition with style. With Daniel Craig firmly on the front cover, the October issue (a ‘Skyfall’ special) contains a preview of the new Bond movie, an article on the world of Ian Fleming, a ‘Beginner’s Guide’ to Ian Fleming’s Bond novels, a short article on the original American TV version of ‘Casino Royale’ transmitted in the 1950s, an exploration of the Bond strip cartoon that appeared in the Daily Express, a profile of the Bond villains, a look at the 1967 film version of ‘Casino Royale’, a profile of Bond’s vehicles and gadgets, an article on the Charlie Higson ‘Young Bond’ adventures, a profile of the Bond women in the movies, a discussion of the ‘Bonds we never had’, an article on the Bond film that Quentin Tarantino wanted to make, a profile of the ‘Top ten’ Bond stunts, a Starburst readers’ poll on their favourite Bond movie, an interview with Honor Blackman, and an article on ‘Bond at Fifty’. Phew! All that for just £3.95. A bargain, 007. 
It has been called the most famous car in the world. Given that Bond’s iconic Aston Martin makes a welcome return in ‘Skyfall’ (including during the London and Scottish sequences), there has been a lot of interest again in the vehicles of 007, especially in the view of the fact that many of them have been on display at the special ‘Bond in Motion’ exhibition at Beaulieu, in the New Forest area of Britain, which has seen thousands of visitors. ‘Global James Bond Day’ on October 5 also saw Bond’s Aston Martin DBS from ‘Quantum of Solace’ makes the largest amount of money at an auction for charity held at Christie’s in central London. The UK’s ‘Collector’s Gazette’ magazine (no.344, for November 2012) has celebrated the Aston Martin with a special article on ‘Bond Collectables’, by Jim Stevenson, which explores the various diecast and other model versions of the Aston Martin which have appeared since the 1960s. Mint-boxed, the original Corgi Toys Aston Martin is now worth hundreds of pounds. Auric Goldfinger would be proud! Thursday, October 11, 2012
Thursday, October 4, 2012
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This is a very special year for James Bond fans everywhere. Not only are we celebrating 50 years (!) of 007 on screen, but there are now just weeks to go before the 23 rd Bond movie hits our screens, with Daniel Craig back as MI6’s best operative. At one point, it looked as if this would never happen. But Bond, as they say, is well and truly back. As part of the special celebrations, Friday October 5 has been made Global James Bond Day. The special day will see a series of 007-related events around the world, including a global online (and live) charity auction (organised by Christies in London), a global survey to discover the favourite Bond film of people on a country-by-country basis across the world, a film retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, a special music of Bond evening in Los Angeles, and the opening of the ‘Designing 007: 50 years of Bond Style’ exhibition in Toronto, after its highly successful run in London recently. Other events on the day include, for James Bond fans in the UK, a chance to see the new James Bond documentary ‘Everything or Nothing’ at selected Odeon Cinemas. This documentary provides a detailed history of the creation and evolution of Bond on screen, and contains a host of new and rare archive material. 
Many Bond fans will know by now that the award-winning British artist Adele will be singing the theme song to ‘Skyfall’. The song will be released via her official website on Friday October 5, the anniversary day of the release of the first 007 film ‘Dr. No’ in 1962. It is also, of course, Global James Bond Day. The rumours about Adele had been around for some time, and were fanned even more when Adele appeared as a special guest on the Jonathan Ross Show some months back. When mischievous Ross hummed the James Bond theme, Adele was placed in a very difficult position! The JBIFC first got wind of the fact that it was officially Adele a few weeks ago, when an insider at the recording studio became a bit of a bigmouth (as the English would say). We should have fed him to the sharks, or called the Spectre assassination branch. 
The November issue of the popular British sci-fi magazine SFX, which hit British news-stands in late September, contained some excellent coverage of ‘Skyfall’, together with an interview with Danny Kleinman (the man charged with designing the title sequences for the new Bond movie), and a rare piece by screenwriter Christopher Wood, who wrote the screen treatments for ‘The Spy Who Loved Me’ (1977) and ‘Moonraker’ (1979). Wood also wrote the special tie-in novels that were issued for both movies. In the magazine’s ‘Skyfall’ coverage, there was some interview material with Bond producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson. At one point, the producers made some intriguing comments about future possible Bond movie plotlines. Responding to a question about why the ‘Quantum’ organisation was not used in ‘Skyfall’, Wilson revealed that they have not abandoned the organisation: ‘No, I think it’s still out there, but we just don’t refer to it in this particular film’. And tantalisingly, as SFX also noted, Wilson revealed that they have the rights to bring back Blofeld and Spectre, which played such a big role in the Bond movies of the 1960s before legal issues with Kevin McClory stopped EON utilising them. Wilson added: ‘We believe we can use them. They’re a little dated at the moment. We went for the Quantum organisation, which was more business oriented, trying to corner the market on scarce resources, rather than a criminal organisation that did blackmail and bank robberies’. 
Some interesting comments were made by the showbiz columnist Baz Bamigboye in the UK’s Daily Mail on September 21. Bamigboye, who has broken various items of news about ‘Skyfall’ over the past year, said that we should expect to see Naomie Harris, Ben Whishaw and Ralph Fiennes in future Bond films. Bamigboye claimed in his gossip column: ‘It’s already known that Whishaw is the new Q and this page revealed a while back that Naomie is the new Moneypenny. The Skyfall trailer hints as to what Fiennes’s involvement might be, but I’m not going to give it away – though I’ve known for more than a year, and there are rumours galore on the internet’. Bamigboye continued: ‘All three actors have options in their deals to return in other Bond films (the 24 th in the series will start shooting in the next 18 months)’. Meanwhile, Ralph Fiennes has been making an impact as Magwitch in a new big screen version of ‘Great Expectations’, which had its world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival. 
John Patterson, writing in the Guardian newspaper’s weekly ‘Guide’ magazine on September 29, paid generous tribute to Bond producer Harry Saltzman. He opened his article by saying: ‘When it comes time to celebrate 50 years of the James Bond franchise... I hope we recall the half-forgotten man of the whole enterprise: the man who, after reading Goldfinger, discerned the potential movie fortune lying dormant in the novels of Ian Fleming; the man who made Sean Connery a star, and sealed Michael Caine’s fortune by giving him his own spy franchise...’. Patterson noted that Harry Saltzman was, by all accounts, the ultimate caricature of the movie producer: warm, loud, crass, and a consummate gambler, with a keen eye for the main chance ‘and a tight fist around the purse strings’. But for all that, ‘Saltzman ended being behind some of the most important movies in 1960s British cinema’. According to Patterson, Saltzman was part of the large and largely undocumented influx of creative Canadians that landed in London in the late 1950s and early 1960s and, after a few failures, caught the fleeting zeitgeist of the times with the movie ‘Saturday Night and Sunday Morning’, a gritty kitchen-sink drama which made a star of a young Albert Finney (who, coincidentally, is in ‘Skyfall’ as the Bond ancestral home gamekeeper). Moreover, Saltzman pushed for Sean Connery to be Bond, along with Broccoli, against the demands of the studio bosses in America. Without Saltzman, wrote Patterson, ‘British cinema of the 1960s – and ever after – would look decidedly different, and a lot less fun’. 
You have to hand it to Sam Mendes: he went all out to get some really talented stars for ‘Skyfall’. One of these was actress Helen McCrory, who has a small but important part in the new Bond movie as a British Member of Parliament. She has been in the UK’s newspapers quite a bit recently because of her role in the ITV-1 drama ‘Leaving’, and also for her part in ‘The Last of the Haussmans’, a play at London’s famous National Theatre, which has received high praise from the critics. Married to ‘Homeland’ actor Damian Lewis, 43-year old Helen is, primarily, a stage actress, but has also played various acclaimed parts on TV, such as Cherie Blair in the dramas ‘The Queen’ and ‘The Special Relationship’. McCrory was persuaded to take a part in ‘Skyfall’ by Sam Mendes, who personally asked her. And she is very loyal to Mendes: various journalists have tried to prise some details out her concerning ‘Skyfall’, but she has not succumbed. Although she has remained very tight-lipped about her Bond role in media interviews, she clearly thoroughly enjoyed being in the movie. Back in April, she told the London Evening Standard newspaper, for example: ‘It’s great, and I am enjoying it tremendously. I can’t reveal too much about my part but I think there is a lot of writing now for women who are in their sexual prime in their forties’. She also told the Sunday Times, which conducted a lengthy interview with her recently, that: ‘It’s a Bond movie. Everyone wants to be in a Bond movie’. But she refused to add any detail: ‘They are more secretive than the real MI5’. She joked that she would be ‘abducted’ if she said anything more! 
The BBC’s TV and radio listings magazine Radio Times was something of a James Bond special on September 8, and featured an attractive image of Craig, Connery and Moore on its front cover. Inside the magazine, readers were able to peruse an article by the BBC film expert Barry Norman, who at one point revealed that his father, the film director Leslie Norman, had been on the short list to direct the first 007 movie ‘Dr. No’. Norman also gave recalled some memories of the time when he interviewed Roger Moore in Rio de Janeiro, during the making of ‘Moonraker’. At the time, said Norman, Roger was at loggerheads with Cubby Broccoli over his pay for Bond and whether he would make another Bond movie. Just before the interview began, Cubby apparently said to Norman: ‘Ask him – ask him if he’s going to do the next movie’. So Barry Norman did ask Roger, only to get an evasive but smooth answer which could be interpreted either way! Broccoli was not best pleased. The magazine also contained an article on the music of 007 (to tie in with a BBC Radio 2 special live evening of Bond music on September 14) and a survey asking readers ‘Who is the best Bond?’, with a boxed set of Blu-ray ‘Bond at 50’ discs as a prize, something guaranteed to put somebody in 007 heaven. 
Sir Roger Moore, who was featured in the hour-long programme ‘Piers Morgan’s Life Stories’ on the UK’s ITV-1 on Friday September 14, was also profiled in the September 8 edition of the ITV magazine TVTimes. The article, by David Hollingsworth, looked at Sir Roger’s illustrious TV career, his charity work, his four marriages, and, of course, his long service as Her Majesty’s Secret Servant 007. On TV, Sir Roger was in ‘Ivanhoe’ (1958-59), ‘The Alaskans’ (1959-1960), ‘Maverick’ (1959-61), and ‘The Persuaders’ (1971-72). More famously, he was also Simon Templar, otherwise known as ‘The Saint’ (1962-69). In fact, as well as being the 50 th anniversary of the James Bond films, 2012 is also the golden jubilee of ‘The Saint’. ‘Ah, yes, Simon Templar is getting old, too’, said Roger. On James Bond, Roger recalled particularly enjoying filming ‘The Spy Who Loved Me’ (1977). He said: ‘I think, perhaps, we reached the right level of humour’. He also repeated something he has said on previous occasions: that he would still love to play a Bond villain: ‘They get all the best lines’. Sir Roger, who was knighted in 2003, also reflected on his hard work for children’s charity UNICEF: ‘I’d say it has become a full-time job. There’s a great deal to do and it’s hard to know when and where to stop’. 
On Tuesday September 18, at 8.00pm, the cable and satellite channel Sky Arts 1 screened the first episode of its new series on ‘British Legends of Stage and Screen’. The subject of the first programme was Sir Christopher Lee, well known to Hammer Horror fans as Dracula but also to the 007 fanbase as Francisco Scaramanga, the ruthless assassin with the golden gun, who charged a million a shot. Directed by Anthony Fabian, and narrated by Sue MacGregor, the special Sky Arts profile of Sir Christopher inevitably touched upon his role as a Bond baddie in 1974-75. When he was offered the role and read the script, Lee said of Scaramanga: ‘He had three nipples. When I read that I thought it’s a bit odd. I asked my doctor and he said, oh no, it’s quite common’. Reflecting further on the character, Lee pointed out that Scaramanga ‘had a sense of humour, was very polite, but also deadly’. He also referred to the fact that Bond author Ian Fleming was Lee’s cousin, and revealed that Fleming was at Eton school with a boy named Scaramanga who he ‘disliked intensely’. It was left to viewers to draw the obvious conclusions! Sir Christopher also gave some thoughts on his award of a Knighthood in the New Year’s Honours List in 2009 (he was Knighted by Charles, Prince of Wales). He also reflected on his award of a BAFTA Fellowship in 2001, and said he felt ‘so emotional’ at the audience’s reaction to his appearance on stage to accept the BAFTA award and, with it, the recognition of his film peers. He said he had felt ‘so overwhelmed’. You really earned it, Sir Christopher! 
Charlie Higson as James Bond? Surely not? Yes, it’s true, but not quite in the way you might have expected. The author of the ‘Young Bond’ book series has penned the screenplay for a new adaptation of Agatha Christie’s popular story ‘A Caribbean Mystery’, made for the British TV channel ITV1 and to be screened in 2013. Higson has included a small role for himself in the plot as ‘James Bond’, the real-life American ornithologist, whose name author Ian Fleming ‘borrowed’ for his new secret agent in his debut novel ‘Casino Royale’. The real James Bond, who sadly died in 1989 (aged 89) was author of ‘Birds of the West Indies’, one of Fleming’s favourite books, which often lay on the coffee table at Fleming’s Jamaican home Goldeneye. 
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