The James Bond Fan Club Newsletter Dec. 2012

Newsletter                                               December 2012

Snowfall: Merry Xmas, 007 Seasonal greetings to all our members, supporters and readers. We hope you have enjoyed the Club’s coverage of the latest James Bond film Skyfall during 2012, a fantastic 007 movie which has been both a critical success and a huge global box office smash-hit. We also hope you liked the JBIFC’s monthly Newsletters, and have now visited our re-launched Club website in 2012, which took many months and hours of hard work, but has allowed us to provide you with even more coverage of everything James Bond. Any comments and suggestions are always appreciated. What a truly special year 2012 turned out to be: Bond exhibitions, special auctions, TV and radio programmes, music concerts, new books, new printings of old editions, a Global James Bond Day, and even a specially-commissioned official Bond documentary in the cinemas, Everything or Nothing, which will also be released on DVD in late January, 2013. And, to add icing to the 50 th Anniversary birthday cake of 007 on screen, along came Skyfall. Wow! Bond certainly enjoyed his ‘resurrection’. But then, as far as we are concerned, he never really went away, did he? May we wish you a Merry Christmas and a great 2013. Mendes Ambivalent About Bond 24? The Skyfall director Sam Mendes was interviewed by Kate Kellaway in the British Sunday newspaper The Observer on December 9, and offered some brief reflections on his experiences of overseeing the 23 rd James Bond movie. He also appeared to dampen down some of the rumours that have already automatically linked him to the next 007 film. As Bond fans are well aware, Daniel Craig’s third 007 adventure has been breaking numerous records in the UK and across the globe generally, and the 007 producers, Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson, went on record recently to especially thank the UK’s cinema-going public. They also thanked Daniel Craig and Sam Mendes in particular. At one point in the new Observer interview, however, Mendes, in response to a question from Kellaway about whether he would make the sequel, said: ‘It’s not true that I’ve worked out a new plot for Bond. Nor have I made any commitment to another Bond movie. I have said that I put everything I wanted into this film. The idea that I can simply start again makes me feel physically ill. I need to get back to the theatre, spend more time at home and then... and then it might be someone else’s turn’. Sky Redux? Above all, as Kellaway noted in the interview, Mendes needs a ‘good story’ when he directs a movie. Mendes pointed out to Kellaway that making Skyfall had been exhausting, ‘like making four movies in one’. It was half-pleasure and half-pain. A Bond film is ‘frightening’ because ‘one’s personality could be consumed by the machine’, he said. On the other hand, at the same time, Mendes also acknowledged that doing Bond had been ‘liberating’, too. After all the worries and pressures of his previous mixed-genre and art-house ‘relationship’ movies, Bond was different. According to Mendes: ‘It was nice to say: my sole job here is to tell a great story’. So, the question this raises is, can John Logan, who is apparently working on the storyline for Bond 24 by himself, now deliver ‘a story’ that will help persuade Mendes back on board? And what part will Daniel Craig play in such lobbying? Daniel has hinted very strongly in publicity interviews for Skyfall that he would he very happy to see Mendes resume directing duties on the next 007 film. Time will tell. New ‘M’ Interviewed on BBC Radio With the recent demise of James Bond’s boss ‘M’ (Judi Dench) in the climax to Skyfall, there is now great interest in how Ralph Fiennes (Mallory in the movie) will play the new ‘M’ in Bond no. 24.In various interviews, Fiennes has remained notably tight-lipped about this. However, he has been offering a few comments about Skyfall in relation to the overall direction of the Bond movies. Some of his most interesting comments came when he was a guest on BBC Radio-4’s The Film Programme on November 29. Fresh from Skyfall, Fiennes talked mainly about his role as Magwitch in the new big-screen adaptation of the famous Charles Dickens novel Great Expectations, directed by Mike Newell. But, at one point in the interview, the programme’s host Francine Stock turned the discussion to Skyfall, noting how the new 007 movie had been ‘fantastically successful’. Stock quizzed Fiennes about his views on this, asking whether he thought the success was down to the mixture of ‘classic and contemporary’ in this particular Bond film? Ralph Fiennes responded: ‘Well, it seems that this new version with Sam Mendes directing has, sort of, somehow, the mix has worked – it has chimed with the time’. He continued: ‘I think people did feel with the last Bond film, Quantum of Solace, that perhaps it was trying to emulate the Bourne high kinetic editing style of the Bourne movies, and the charm, if you like, of the Bond thing – some of the spirit of it – had gone, so I think Sam, with the support of the Broccolis, wanted to reinvent it and remould it’. Fiennes added that both he and Mendes were of the same generation, now in their forties and fifties, who had grown up with Bond and saw a Bond film as ‘a mystical, exciting, sexy thing’, a kind of male cartoon escapism. Aston Martin from Skyfall Joins Beaulieu The ‘Bond In Motion’ exhibition of 50 original James Bond movie vehicles, currently being staged at the UK’s National Motor Museum at Beaulieu, in the New Forest area of England, recently announced two pieces of exciting news for James Bond fans. First of all, the Beaulieu 007 exhibition has been such a resounding success that it has now been extended to run throughout 2013, and will now officially close on January 5, 2014. Secondly, the Motor Museum has announced that the iconic Aston Martin used in Skyfall is joining the exhibition, thus joining the two Honda CRF205R motorbikes and the Land Rover Defender 110 which featured in the dramatic Turkish opening sequences to the new Bond movie. The Museum’s Commercial Director, Stephen Munn, recently revealed in a press release that: ‘Since its opening, BOND IN MOTION has been an outstanding success, attracting over 400,000 visitors from all over the world’. You Only Live Once: New Statue of Fleming According to www.thisiskent , which carries general news about the county of Kent in the south-east area of England, a new statute commemorating James Bond author Ian Fleming will be put up in the port town of Dover. In a press release issued on Monday, December 17, the local authorities in the area announced that Ian Fleming is the third of three famous people with local connections to Kent who have been chosen to be celebrated with a special statue, the other two being the singer Vera Lynn and the Olympics torch-bearer Jamie Clark. Moreover, whereas the first two figures were chosen by local government officials, Ian Fleming was chosen through a poll of the general public, who were able to vote for their choice from a short-list of historical figures. The Bond author received 45% of the votes cast. Fleming will now be immortalised in a steel statue on the seafront in Dover, which is bound to be a strong draw for Fleming and James Bond fans in the near future. From Fleming With Love The James Bond author undoubtedly loved Kent. In 1952 he purchased a beautiful house called ‘White Cliffs’, from his famous playwright friend Noel Coward (who was also an occasional guest at Fleming’s seaside residence). Fleming treated the property, located near the beach at St. Margaret’s Bay, as his weekend home and occasional holiday retreat when he was editing the ‘Atticus’ column while working at the Sunday Times newspaper. Interestingly, the Pines Garden Museum at St. Margaret’s Bay has a small exhibition of memorabilia relating to both Ian Fleming and to One of Fleming’s regular Pubs was the Duck Inn, Kent, where he would go for his favourite steak and kidney pie (and today there is a seat in the garden of the Pub which has a plaque dedicated to the creator of 007). Fleming’s love of the area can also be seen in his James Bond novels. He included the famous white cliffs at Dover and the surrounding areas in his early 007 adventure Moonraker and, again, references to nearby Margate can be seen in Goldfinger. Fleming, of course, was also a keen golf enthusiast and was a member of the Royal St. George’s golf Club in Kent (which in the novel Goldfinger became the fictional ‘Royal St. Mark’s golf Club’). In fact, it was at the St. George’s where the Bond author had a fatal heart attack in August, 1964, and tragically died soon after, aged just 56. Bond’s ‘Cool Club’ Former Bond woman Rosamund Pike, who played the ice-cold Miranda Frost in Die Another Day (2002), was profiled in the Baz Bamigboye column in the UK’s Daily Mail on October 19. She was also interviewed in London’s free commuter newspaper the Metro on December 20, as part of the publicity for the new Tom Cruise thriller Jack Reacher, in which Rosamund plays lawyer Helen Rodin. The movie is based on the popular character created by author Lee Child. The 33-year old actress has been very busy recently: in 2012 she could be seen as the warrior princess Andromeda in Wrath of the Titans, and she has been filming more recently in the Simon Pegg comedy The World’s End. In her Mail profile, Pyke said she had found all the publicity glare of Die Another Day (her first big movie) quite ‘startling’, and said she had no comprehension then that she would be associated with Bond history for ever. But, ten years on, she sees it differently: ‘Now I’ve got perspective. Now it just seems like a very cool punctuation mark on the CV. It’s a cool club to part of’. Act Another Day At one point in the Metro interview, she reflected on what it was like to meet Tom Cruise for the first time, as she grew up watching films like Top Gun: ‘It’s startling, the first time you meet someone with a famous face like that. But one of the worse things you can do on a movie set is be too awestruck’. She said it happened to her on Die Another Day: ‘On Bond, I wish I could do so many things again. I was so awe-struck with Pierce Brosnan and Judi Dench because I didn’t have that familiarity or ease with them’. But she revealed that she has at least got another chance with Brosnan: she is appearing alongside him again in A Long Way Down, a forthcoming adaptation of Nick Hornby’s novel. Brosnan plays a disgraced chat-show presenter, and Rosamund is his former co-host. Pike researched her role by hanging out with Philip Schofield, who presents This Morning (a British TV breakfast show). Pike said she was delighted to be back filming with Brosnan: ‘It was me and Pierce, back on the sofa. We even talked about one day having a chat-show ourselves. Not breakfast - that’s too early. More like lunchtime: “James and Miranda”.’ Say Yes to No Looking for a Christmas treat just for you? The team behind Cinema Retro magazine, a publication which explores and celebrates all aspects of the cinema of the 1960s and 1970s, recently produced a superb ‘movie classics’ special issue devoted solely to the first James Bond movie Dr. No. Packed full of breathtaking coverage and containing detailed discussion of Sean Connery’s debut film as 007, it has numerous rare photos and no less than 148 pages. The magazine really is a must-buy for dedicated Bond fans. There is, for example, a special article on how Ian Fleming’s 1958 novel was adapted for the big screen, plus an article on set designer Ken Adam written by Sir Christopher Frayling, and an exclusive interview with Johanna Harwood, who co-wrote the screen treatment for the 1962 movie. There are also fascinating pages on how the first Bond movie was received in the press and marketed around the world. Visit: www.cinemaretro.com Catching Bond’s Bullets Here is another possible idea for a great Christmas gift. Mark O’Connell, a dedicated Bond fan, recently penned a highly-entertaining paperback book entitled Catching Bullets: Memoirs of a Bond Fan, which has a prelude by Barbara Broccoli and a foreword by another uber-Bond fan, the actor Mark Gatiss. Mark O’Connell has a truly unique set of insights into the world of the Bond films: he is the grandson of Cubby Broccoli’s personal chauffeur! Already a successful comedy writer, the book is Mark’s first foray into writing a book based on his own personal memories of viewing the Bond world in the 1970s - from the perspective of a teenager whose granddad kept Cubby’s Rolls-Royce in his driveway! Cubby’s chauffeur was able to take his grandson Mark onto the sets of the Bond movies as they were being made, and it left a lasting impression on him. But the book is also about cinema culture in general. For example, in an interview in the Surrey Advertiser (October 26), designed to help promote his new book, Mark said: ‘It’s also a look at the last 50 years of British pop culture that hopefully will chime with a lot of people’. If you love Bond movies, this is a must-have book. Bond’s Windfall British newspapers seemed very excited at one point in November about some information concerning Daniel Craig’s 007 wages. Both the Sunday Times and the Mail on Sunday gave coverage to the news that the James Bond star has now become Britain’s highest-paid actor, after signing a deal to reprise his role as 007 in the next two Bond movies. Both newspapers believe Daniel Craig’s deal is worth £31.4 million ($50m). According to the Sunday Times, the pay deal in fact places Craig near the top of the Hollywood pay league, vying with Tom Cruise and Leonardo DiCaprio. Moreover, it marks a huge increase for Craig, who earned $3m for Casino Royale (2006) and $7m for Quantum of Solace (2008). It is estimated that his third Bond movie, Skyfall, has earned him $17m, but that may be a underestimate, as the main stars of the movie have additional clauses in their deals which can earn them extra bonuses depending on how well the movie does and whether it gains movie awards recognition. We think it is safe to say that, given the massive success of Skyfall at the global box-office, Daniel will not be short of mince pies this Christmas, that’s for sure! Did You Know? When Sean Connery made Dr. No in 1962, it is estimated that he earned just $17,000 (still a nice sum for the then-relatively unknown star). By the time he was wooed back by United Artists chief David Picker to play 007 again in Diamonds are Forever (1971), Sean’s (at the time) record deal saw him earn a cool $1.25m, together with 12.5% of the movie’s profits, and an agreement by UA to finance two non-Bond films of his choice starring Connery. The Scottish star famously used his fee for his sixth Bond movie to establish the Scottish Educational Trust. Bond Bits: Brief News Items You May Have Missed Former Miss Moneypenny, Samantha Bond, who also attended the London Skyfall premiere, was one of the celebrities at a special charity event at London’s famous dining venue The Ivy in Covent Garden in late November. The charity event was designed to help raise money for some of London’s struggling theatres. Samantha worked alongside bar staff making cocktails for customers. Were they ‘shaken not stirred’, by any chance?... Mads Mikkelsen, who was ruthless Le Chiffre in Daniel Craig’s first Bond movie Casino Royale (2006), has received much praise from film critics for his role in The Hunt, which went on general release in the UK on November 30. One critic in the British Telegraph newspaper said: ‘This is cinema that sinks its claws into your back’, while others have called this perhaps a career-defining role for the former Bond villain... Daniel Craig, who featured prominently in tuxedo on the front cover of a recent issue of Rolling Stone magazine, gave a lengthy interview to the same issue of the mag while promoting Skyfall. At one point, Daniel revealed that he discovered the opposite sex very early: ‘I’ve been kissing girls, like stolen kisses in playgrounds, for as long as I can remember’. He added: ‘When puberty hit, my head exploded’... But while he was happy to share his teenage ‘sexcapades’ with the magazine, the Bond star was much more coy about his new wife, Rachel Weisz, who he married in a private ceremony in 2011. He made it clear he was still intent on keeping the relationship out of the limelight: ‘I’m in love and I’m happy. That is as far as I am prepared to go’... Live and let live? Fans of Sir Roger Moore were in luck recently – according to the ‘property’ section of the UK’s Sunday Times newspaper (December 9), two homes that belonged to the former Saint and James Bond are on the property market. One is Sherwood House, in Denham, Buckinghamshire, where the Bond star lived in the 1970s with his third wife Luisa. It has a £4.5m price tag. More (or should that be Moore?) affordable, perhaps, is Roger’s old holiday cottage near Great Yarmouth, Norfolk. He used the converted windmill as a retreat in the 1960s. It is on the market for £379,950.... Sir Roger Moore’s new book Bond on Bond, complete with a personalised inscription from the author, was one of the special Lots on offer in an online Christmas charity auction run by the Independent newspaper in the week before Xmas, designed to help former boy-soldiers in Africa. Bidding ended at 2.00pm on December 20, and the winners will be announced in January... Ex-Bond villain Christopher Walken, who played Max Zorin in Roger Moore’s final Bond adventure A View To A Kill (1987), gave a fairly rare, but characteristically honest, interview to the magazine of the UK’s Sunday newspaper The Observer on December 2. When asked what was the worst thing about his job as an actor, Walken replied: ‘Learning lines, for sure. I don’t know how people learn their lines quickly. It’s always been a tedious, agonising chore for me. I hate it. I just wish I could do movies with cue cards. That way, it’s easy. Not lazy, but easy. You know what? I wish I could live my whole life with cue cards. I really do’... The singer Grace Jones, who played Max Zorin’s sidekick May-Day in A View To A Kill, cut a striking figure at a tribute to the acclaimed Spanish director Pedro Almodovar on the evening of December 13. The 64-year old former Bond woman wore a distinctive fur hat, slinky black outfit and elevated high-heels. The event, hosted by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences at the Curzon Theatre, helped mark the career of Almodovar... Another former Bond woman from the Moore years, Britt Ekland, was interviewed in The Times newspaper on December 15. The Swedish beauty, who has just turned 70, talked about her early career and the extent to which her first husband, Peter Sellers, effectively sabotaged her first seven-film contract with Twentieth Century Fox. Britt loves Britain and is currently in the popular Pantomine ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’ at the Theatre Royal, Windsor. She is playing a character called ‘Fleshcreep’. Surely not??!... The theatre and film music of the late composer Marvin Hamlisch, who wrote the music for The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), was celebrated in a special concert recorded at London’s Mermaid Theatre and transmitted on BBC Radio-2 on Friday, December 7... After the Bond screenwriters Neal Purvis and Robert Wade issued a press release on November 19 confirming that they have stepped down from 007 writing duties (as we noted in the JBIFC’s November Newsletter), there was considerable interest in what the talented duo would do next... Some new clues emerged on December 17, when Deadline broke the news that Universal Pictures have signed up Purvis and Wade to write the screenplay for a big-screen version of the famous 1970s American detective series Kojak, who was originally played, of course, by Telly ‘Blofeld’ Savalas. The new Kojak will be Vin Diesel... Psst... the British media recently revealed that Britain’s spy chiefs have recruited Charles, the Prince of Wales, as a patron who will preside over top secret ceremonies to award gongs to the country’s best intelligence agents from MI5, MI6 and the eavesdropping centre GCHQ. They are officially known as the Prince of Wales’s Intelligence Community Awards... Interestingly, the Prince, who attended the Royal Premiere of Skyfall in London, requested that some of the profits from Skyfall should benefit the special charities that support former and serving members of the UK’s spy agencies...

Read More