James Bond Fan Club Newsletter Oct. 2012

Newsletter                                                    October 2012

Global Eye: James Bond Day 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. It’s Official: The ‘Skyfall’ Theme Song is by Adele 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. Adele Fell For ‘Skyfall’ In an official press release issued to the media on October 1, it was revealed that Adele read the script to ‘Skyfall’ and then enlisted the help of Paul Epworth to co-write and produce the theme song. Adele commented: ‘I was a little hesitant at first to be involved with the theme song for Skyfall. There’s a lot of instant spotlight and pressure when it comes to a Bond song. But I fell in love with the script and Paul had some great ideas for the track and it ended up being a bit of a no-brainer to do it in the end. It was a lot of fun writing to a brief, something I’ve never done which made it exciting. When we recorded the strings, it was one of the proudest moments of my life’. The song was recorded at the famous Abbey Road Studios in London, and a 77-piece orchestra was utilised. Never Say Never: Spectre Back Some Day? 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’. Pay Attention, 007: ‘Skyfall’ Team to Return? 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. A Diamond is Forever: In Praise of Harry 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’. Try Another Way 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! Radio Times Bond Special 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. A Whole Lot Moore 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’. The Man with the Golden Gong 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! Shaken and Stirred The October edition of the British monthly magazine History Today, which appeared in late September, helped celebrate 50 years of the Bond movies with a special article on James Bond in history, written by University scholar Klaus Dodds. Starting with ‘Dr. No’ in 1962 and analysing the 007 phenomenon from the 1960s right through to the present day, Dodds speculated on how and why the Bond series as a filmic formula has proven so remarkably resilient over the last 50 years. Key to this in the beginning were the far-sighted producers Albert Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, who purchased the rights to the Bond novels in 1961(except ‘Casino Royale’) and were instrumental in bringing Fleming’s secret agent to the big screen. Dodds also pointed to the highly talented team recruited by Broccoli and Saltzman, such as the screenwriter Richard Maibaum and the set designer Ken Adam. In addition, according to Dodds, the Bond films are action thrillers ‘with generic qualities that follow a clear formula. A simple but dramatic narrative arc was established from the outset’. Other factors that contributed to the huge success of the Bond series included the actors who portrayed Bond, the gadgets, the girls and the glamour, all elements which helped broaden the reach of the Bond series in terms of global markets. More importantly, as Dodds noted: ‘The James Bond phenomena persists not only because it rests on a successful formula but because of the willingness to adapt that formula’. The introduction of Daniel Craig, for example, was significant in re-booting Bond. Dodds ended his article: ‘Bring on Skyfall’. History Today, volume 62, no.10 (October, 2012), is on sale at UK newsagents, priced £5.20. Bond in the West Indies 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. Did You Know? Ian Fleming actually met the real-life James Bond in person in 1964, at Goldeneye, his home in Jamaica. The 007 author gave James Bond a pre-publication first edition of his latest novel ‘You Only Live Twice’ as a souvenir of his visit to the birthplace of the fictional James Bond. Fleming wrote in it: ‘To the real James Bond from the thief of his identity’. Bond Bits: Brief News Items You May Have Missed Ian Fleming’s wife Ann was portrayed on the British stage recently, when the play ‘A Marvellous Year For Plums’ ran at the UK’s Chichester Theatre. Set in 1956, around the time of the Suez Crisis, the play was about the real-life secret affair that was conducted between between Ann Fleming (played by Imogen Stubbs) and the Labour Party leader Hugh Gaitskell (played by Nicholas Le Provost)... British TV presenter and Radio-2 DJ Chris Evans, who is also a big James Bond fan, turned some heads on August 23 when he drove the original car from the movie ‘Chitty Chitty Bang Bang’ (which was based on Ian Fleming’s story for children) through central London. Evans, who has a collection of classic vehicles, purchased the car for £500,000 in January 2012, the only working one used in the 1968 movie... There were several versions of the car made for ‘Chitty Chitty Bang Bang’, but the only one that worked was designed by Bond set-designer Ken Adam. It was built by the Ford Racing Team, and has a dashboard plate from a World War One fighter plane... Olga Kurylenko (from ‘Quantum of Solace’), who stars in ‘To the Wonder’, a love story with Ben Affleck and new Bond villain Javier Bardem, was the only key star of the movie to be able to make it to the premiere of the film at the Venice Film Festival on September 2... Olga plays a Frenchwoman in the movie who has a passionate affair with an American (Ben Affleck) in Paris, but the relationship slowly begins to unravel. The unusual film, directed by Terence Malick, contains hardly any dialogue. Javier Bardem plays a priest in the movie, who is struggling with his faith... The JBIFC was very sad to hear of the death of lyricist Hal David, who passed away in Los Angeles on September 1. He penned some of the most memorable songs of the 1960s, including ‘Walk On By’ and ‘Do You Know The Way To San Jose’ for Dionne Warwick. His wide range of work also included collaborations with John Barry on the Bond songs ‘We Have All the Time in the World’ in 1969 and ‘Moonraker’ in 1979. Rest in Peace, Hal... 007 novelist Sebastian Faulks (‘Devil May Care’) gave an interview to the London Metro newspaper on September 20, to help publicise his new novel ‘A Possible Life’ (which is actually five novellas that range across time). He said the book is about ‘how people change over the course of a life. I’ve been interested in this for a long time’... Who was the heavily-disguised villain in ‘The Power of Three’, an episode of the popular BBC sci-fi show ‘Dr. Who’ shown on September 22? The voice of the villain ‘Shakri’ sounded eerily familiar: well, it was none other than Steven Berkoff, who played renegade Russian General Orlov in ‘Octopussy’ (1983)... Sean Connery as the Doctor who said No? According to the Sunday Times, which contained extracts from the memoirs of Irish writer Edna O’Brien on September 23, back in 1970 Sean strongly advised her against taking LSD, recalling his own bad experience of it... After finding it difficult to cope with all the pressures of the fame that went with the Bond mania of the mid-60s, Connery had consulted the famous but controversial psychiatrist R.D. Laing, who had persuaded the Scottish star to take a tab of pure LSD. Connery’s trip was deeply traumatic. After O’Brien went ahead anyway, Connery and a friend came around to her place to see how she was faring. They were so shocked at her condition they stayed to look after her... Speaking in central London in late September to help promote the new James Bond Blu-ray collection, Britt Ekland (who played Mary Goodnight in ‘The Man With The Golden Gun’), argued that, in her estimation, Sir Roger Moore was the best Bond. She said Bond ‘was a bachelor, unattached, luxurious, sophisticated. I think Roger really portrayed that’. Britt was joined at the event by Richard ‘Jaws’ Kiel... So, what can we expect after the lengthy pre-credits for ‘Skyfall’, when Adele’s song kicks in? Speaking to SFX magazine, Danny Kleinman, who made such an impact with his iconic titles for ‘Goldeneye’ and ‘Casino Royale’, said about his new title sequences for Craig’s third adventure: ‘I think it’s time to slightly reinvent it again. Make it maybe a bit more vital and a bit more psychological – not change everything, but just enough that it feels different and fresh’... Naomie Harris, who plays field agent Eve in ‘Skyfall’, has recently finished work on ‘Mandela: A Long Walk Home’, in which she plays Mandela’s (now former) wife Winnie Mandela... Dame Judi Dench, who reprises her role as ‘M’ in ‘Skyfall’ (and has a major and pivotal role in the movie), attended a special event at Sotheby’s in central London in early September, where leading ‘Bollywood’ stars were out in force. The special evening was held to launch ‘India Fantastique’, a book which celebrates Indian fashion and design.... The new ‘Q’, Ben Whishaw, is keeping very busy. He is in the new movie version of the cult story ‘Cloud Atlas’ and, in the near future, he will be starring alongside Judi ‘M’ Dench in John Logan’s new theatre production ‘Peter and Alice’, which will run at the Noel Coward Theatre in London from March, 2013... There were some fascinating comments from ‘Skyfall’ cinematographer Roger Deakins in a special free issue of Film and Digital Times in September. Speaking about the ‘look’ of the new 007 film, he said: ‘I can say that it’s got a lot of variety, from the very hot, bright, day exteriors to very dark, underground, cavernous areas lit with little practicals we made up. There’s huge variety, even more than you’d find in a typical Bond film, I think’... 50 Years of Guns and Girls Paul Burch, music director for the Denmark Street Big Band in London has been in touch and asked me to let you know that they are presenting two amazing James Bond nights with music from all the James Bond films!! The first is on Sunday 14th October At The Spice Of Life, Cambridge Circus, London and Saturday 27th Oct At The Jazz Café Posk, Hammersmith..... Finally, we've had various media people contact us in the hunt for Bond fans with large collections of Bond memorabillia and who may have met some of the James Bond stars. BBC online are particularly keen to find enthusiastic fans in the West Midlands area to appear on their web site. A couple of the daily papers want to find serious Bond fans / collectors, some from outside the UK. If anyone's interested in having their story told, please email me an idea of what you collect and how much of a Bond fan you are, my email is just below....