Carmine Infantino, notable comic book artist, dies

Carmine Infantino’s cover to Flash No. 123, “The Flash of Two Worlds.”

Carmine Infantino, one of DC Comics’ main artists during the Silver Age, died the other day at the age of 87. He helped popularize a concept that the makers of James Bond movies would use when rebooting the franchise in 2006.

Infantino, as noted in AN OBITUARY IN THE NEW YORK TIMES, was assigned to work in a revamp of the Flash in 1956. Instead of bringing back the original Flash character, DC started over with a different character in a new costume.

Infantino, according to various accounts, would draw potential covers and show them to editor Julius Schwartz (1915-2004) — in effect daring the editor to devise a story line to match the drawing. In 1961, five years after the new Flash debuted, Infantino showed Schwartz a drawing of the new and old Flashes racing to save the same person.

That became the basis of a story embracing the concept of alternate universes. Flash No. 123 wasn’t the origin of the idea but it helped popularize it and DC would soon use the notion to bring back old versions of other characters. As we’ve written before,, Eon Productions adapted the idea when it decided to start the series over with 2006′s Casino Royale while retaining the services of popular actress Judi Dench as M. Dame Judi simply played a different M than the one she portrayed before.

Carmine Infantino’s cover to Detective Comics No. 327 in 1964, which introduced the “New Look” Batman

Also, as noted in the New York Times obituary, Infantino was assigned to draw Batman in 1964 when DC, facing falling sales, decided to revamp the character. Infantino’s Batman was more realistic at least compared with versions published up until that time.

Here’s how it was described in the Times’ obituary:

In 1964, Mr. Infantino and the writer John Broome were asked to work similar magic on Batman. In Mr. Infantino’s hands, Batman took on an urbane, Bondian aspect. This “new look” Batman, as he was known to the trade, inspired the ABC television series starring Adam West and originally broadcast from 1966 to 1968. (emphasis added)

Infantino later became a DC Comics executive before leaving the company while continuing to draw for other publishers.

Malachi Throne, remarkable character actor, dies

Malachi Throne’s credit on It Takes A Thief

Malachi Throne, a busy character actor who appeared in a number of ’60s spy shows, has died at 84 according to obituaries including THIS ONE on the Web site of the Hollywood Reporter.

What was he in? What *wasn’t* he in? His credits included guest appearances in Mission: Impossible, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., The Wild, Wild West, I Spy and The Blue Light, a short-lived World War II spy series starring Robert Goulet. He was also Alexander Mundy’s boss, Noah Bain, in the first two seasons of It Takes A Thief, where a U.S. intelligence agency recruits a thief to steal the secrets of enemy powers.

Also, he was one of the most memorable villains of the 1966-68 Batman television series with Adam West and Burt Ward. He played False False, a master of disguise. Throne wasn’t credited by name until the end titles of final part of the single two-part story in which he appeared. Until then, the credits merely said, “Special Guest Villain ? as False Face.” He was also in the only two-part episode of the original Star Trek television series.

Throne appeared in many television shows beyond his ’60s spy and super hero credits. To view a long list, CLICK HERE to view his biography on IMDB.com

How British are 007 films?

BAFTA winner for Outstanding British Film

Of course James Bond films are British. They concern a British icon and are filmed in the U.K. What could be more obvious? That’s like asking if Jaguar, Land Rover and Bentley are British.

Well, that might not be the best comparison given that Jaguar and Land Rover are owned by India’s Tata Motors Ltd. and Bentley is owned by Volkswagen AG. Still, 007 films have always been considered British.

Still, the answer isn’t as easy as it might appear.

In the early days, the series made by Eon Productions Ltd. was U.K.-based. While producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman were born elsewhere, they were operated out of the U.K. and the movies were full of British film talent such as director of photography Ted Moore, (naturalized citizen) production designer Ken Adam and editor Peter Hunt. Of course, the U.S.-based studio United Artists financed the movies.

It pretty much remained that way until Diamonds Are Forever. The Inside Diamonds Are Forever documentary directed by John Cork notes that the producers initially intended to Americanize Bond, even hiring an American (John Gavin) for the role. It was going to be based out of Universal Studios.

Things changed. Sean Connery returned as Bond (at the insistence of United Artists) and U.K.’s Pinewood Studios was again the home base. Yet, some key jobs were split between British and American crew members, including stunt arranger, assistant director, art director, set decorator, production manager and visual effects.

Also, as the years passed, Eon for a variety of reasons (financial among them) based some films primarily outside of the U.K. They included Moonraker (the first unit was based out of France, Derek Meddings’s special effects unit still labored at Pinewood), Licence to Kill (Mexico) and Casino Royale (Czech Republic, with some sequences shot at Pinewood).

What’s more, movies not thought of as British, such as Star Wars (1977), Superman (1978) and Batman (1989) were based out of the U.K. Each had key British crew members, including: Star Wars with production designer John Barry (not to be confused with the 007 film composer), whose group won the art direction Oscar over Ken Adam & Co. (The Spy Who Loved Me); Superman with Barry again, director of photography Geoffrey Unsworth, and second unit director John Glen; Batman with art director Terry Ackland-Snow, assistant director Derek Cracknell and special visual effects man Derek Meddings. Batman was filming at Pinewood at around the same time Licence to Kill’s crew was working in Mexico.

Still, Superman and Batman (which both debuted during the Great Depression) are American icons and Star Wars, while set in a galaxy far, far away, is too.

At the same time, Skyfall, which came out on DVD and Blu-ray on Feb. 12, is very British. Much of the story takes place there and many of Shanghai and Macao scenes were really filmed at Pinewood, with the second unit getting exterior shots.

On Feb. 10, Skyfall picked up the Oustanding British Film award at the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. It was a first and a lot of 007 fans are still taking it all in.

In truth, movies generally are an international business these days, Bond films included. But 007 isn’t likely to lose his identification as being a British product anytime soon, much the way Jaguar, Land Rover and Bentley have a British identity regardless of ownership.

The 007-Dick Tracy-Batman mashup

James Bond fans often discuss how Ian Fleming’s original novels and short stories compare with literature or comment about the 007 movies (in particular the 2006-2012 movies) shape up as cinema.
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There’s often little commentary about how they compare to pulp stories or to comic strips such as Dick Tracy or comic books such as Batman

In fact, 007 shares many of the same elements as Tracy (who made his debut in 1931) and Batman (whose first appearance was in 1939).

All three characters encounter larger-than-life villains: Flattop, Mumbles, Pruneface and many others for Tracy; Goldfinger, Dr. No, Ernst Stavro Blofeld for Bond; and the Joker, the Penguin, Two-Face and the Catwoman for Batman. All three characters dabble in science fiction: two-way wrist radios/televisions/computers/space coupes for Tracy; high-tech Batmobiles, Bat-computers and other devices for Batman; various gadgets (especially in films) and tricked-out cars for Bond.

The comparisons between 007 and Batman have been out in force this year after Skyfall director Sam Mendes said Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy influenced Skyfall. The Tracy comparison doesn’t get talked about as much for obvious reasons. There hasn’t been a Tracy movie since 1990, when Warren Beatty directed and starred in a Tracy film.

Still, Tracy, created by Chester Gould (1900-1985), had many of the same elements of 007 and Batman and was out earlier. Tracy doesn’t get much attention these days but if you CLICK HERE you can catch up on his newest exploits.

The main difference among the characters: Tracy married Tess Trueheart on Christmas Day 1949 and raised a family.

The joke U.N.C.L.E. and Batman shared

We picked up a copy last weekend of Billion Dollar Batman, the new book by Bruce Scivally, examining the origins and television and movie adaptations of Batman. Scivally was part of the crew that in the 1990s turned out documentaries about the making of James Bond films that are part of the DVD extras.

“Holy recycling, Batman!”

We were skimming the chapter about the making of the Adam West-Burt Ward 1966-68 television series and were reminded of how writer Stanley Ralph Ross (1935-2000) managed to get the same joke in a third-season episode of The Man Man From U.N.C.L.E. and Batman.

The joke first appeared on The Thor Affair on Oct. 28, 1966, scripted by Ross and Don Richman. Character actor Bernard Fox was the title character, Brutus Thor, who has made a fortune selling weapons. Thor hatches an elaborate plot to assassinate a Ghadhi-like character (Harry Davis) who has pressured major countries into a peace conference. At one point, Thor is interrupted by his butler. “Yes, Rhett, what is it?”

Flash forward to Dec. 15, 1966, and The Bat’s Kow Tow, the second half of a Catwoman story on Batman, scripted this time by Ross solo. The Catwoman (Julie Newmar) has “stolen” the voices of British sensations Chad and Jeremy (don’t ask). Batman and Robin, at one point, visit a British official in the U.S. to discuss the Catwoman’s ransom demands. They’re interrupted by, you guessed it, the official’s butler. “Yes, Rhett, what is it?” Moreover, the same actor plays the butler.

In 1997, Ross contacted The Man From U.N.C.L.E. episode guide by e-mail because its reviews of third-season episodes noted the joke in the U.N.C.L.E. episode and how it also appeared on Batman. Apparently because the writer was pleased that somebody spotted the joke (both times). Ross granted an interview via e-mail where he discussed his work on U.N.C.L.E. and Batman (he appeared as an actor on both as well as writing episodes) as well as other shows.

UPDATE: Oops. We should have provided this link before. To get more information on Billion Dollar Batman (including how to order), CLICK HERE to go to the author’s Web site.

007 degrees of separation of James Bond trivia

001: Barry Nelson (1917-2007) was the first actor to play James Bond in the 1954 CBS adaptation of Casino Royale.

002: Barry Nelson also played the captain of the airline plane in 1970′s Airport. (Dean Martin was only the co-pilot.)

003: Aiport was the last film to be scored by Alfred Newman (1901-1970), who was also composer of the “20th “Century-Fox Fanfare” that starts every film released by that studio.

004: Alfred Newman is the father of film composer Thomas Newman (b. 1955).

005: Thomas Newman is the composer for Skyfall, the 23rd James Bond film made by Eon Productions. It’s his first 007 assignment. He got the gig because he has done other films directed by Sam Mendes, the director of Skyfall.

006: Barry Nelson was once a panelist on an installment of To Tell The Truth, the game show hosted by Bud Collyer (1908-1969), who was the first person to play Superman (albeit on radio, later as the voice of Clark Kent/Superman in movie and television cartoons).

007: That’s all we got; we’ll conveniently ignore the often-cited trivia that Skyfall producer Michael G. Wilson is the son of Lewis Wilson (1920-2000), the first actor to play Bruce Wayne/Batman in a 1943 serial.

Adapt or die: what 007 and Batman have in common

When following debates among James Bond fans — whether on Internet bulletin boards, Facebook or in person — people sometimes say “try reading Fleming” (or a variation thereof) as if it were a trump card that shows they’re right and the other person is wrong.

Read Fleming. That shows Bond is supposed to be a “blunt instrument.” Therefore, Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace are really true to Fleming.

"Read Fleming!" = "I'm right, you're wrong!"

Read Fleming. That shows Bond is a romantic hero, not a neurotic antihero, therefore, (INSERT BOND ACTOR HERE) was true to Fleming. Meanwhile, (INSERT BOND ACTOR HERE) meant the 007 film series had reached a nadir.

In reality, over a half-century, the Bond films have passed through multiple eras. To some, Connery can never be surpassed and Moore was a joke. Except, the Connery films have more humor than Fleming employed (on the “banned” Criterion laser disc commentaries, Terence Young chortles about how Fleming asking why the films had more humor than his novels). The Moore films, for all their humor, do have serious moments (Bond admitting to Anya he killed her KGB lover in The Spy Who Loved Me or Bond being hurt but not wanting to admit it after getting out of the centrifuge in Moonraker). Other comments heard frequently: Brosnan tried to split the difference between Connery and Moore, Craig plays the role seriously, the way it should be, etc., etc.

Lots of different opinions, all concerning the same character, dealing with different eras and the contributions of multiple directors and screenwriters. Which reminded of us another character, who’s been around even longer than the film 007: Batman, who made his debut in Detective Comics No. 27 in 1939.

Early Batman stories: definitely dark. “There is a sickening snap as the cossack’s neck breaks under the mighty pressure of the Batman’s foot,” reads a caption in Detective Comics No. 30.

Then, things lightened up after Batman picked up Robin as a sidekick. Eventually, there was Science Fiction Batman in the 1950s (during a period when superhero comics almost disappeared), followed by “New Look” Batman in 1964 (which could also be called Return of the Detective), followed by Campy Batman in 1966 (because of popularity of the Batman television show), followed by Classic Batman is Back, circa 1969 or ’70, etc., etc. All different interpretations of the same character.

In the 1990s, there was a Batman cartoon that captured all this. A group of kids are talking. Two claim to have seen Batman. The first provides a description and we see a sequence resembling Dick Sprang-drawn comics of the 1940s, with Gary Owens providing the voice of Batman. The second describes something much different, and the sequence is drawn to resemble Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns comic of the 1980s, with Michael Ironside voicing Batman.

Eventually, the group of kids gets into trouble and we see the 1990s cartoon Batman, voiced by Kevin Conroy, in a sequence that evokes elements of both visions.

With the Bond film series, something similar has occurred. In various media, you’ll see fans on different sides of an argument claiming Fleming as supporting their view. Search hard enough, and you can find bits of Fleming or Fleming-inspired elements in almost any Bond film. The thing is, the different eras aren’t the result of long-term planning. They’re based on choices, the best guess among filmmakers of what is popular at a given time, what makes a good Bond story, etc.

In effect, both the film 007 and the comic book Batman have had to adapt or die. Fans today can’t imagine a world without either character. But each has had crisis moments. For Bond, the Broccoli-Saltzman separation of the mid-1970s and the 1989-95 hiatus in Bond films raised major questions about 007′s future. Batman, meanwhile, faced the prospect of cancellation by DC Comics (one reason for the 1964 revamp that ended the science fiction era) but managed to avoid it.

None of this, of course, will stop the arguments. Truth be told, things might become dull if the debates ceased. Still things might go over better if participants looked at them as an opportunity. An opposing viewpoint that’s well argued keeps you sharp and might cause you to consider ideas you overlooked.

Cesar Romero and a Man From U.N.C.L.E. mystery

A video has surfaced on the Internet from 1966. An Austin, Texas, television station interivewed cast member of the 1966 Batman movie, based on the 1966-68 Batman TV series. The movie had its world premier in Austin in the summer of 1966. In one of the interviews, Cesar Romero (in full Joker makeup but wearing an undershirt and smoking a cigarette) says one of his upcoming project is a two-part episode of The Man From U.N.C.L.E.

Romero had earlier played a villain in a first-season episode of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. By the time of the Austin television interview, production had begun on the show’s third season. In August of 1966, The Concrete Overcoat Affair, a two-part episode, would begin filming. Later, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer would re-edit the show into a movie for international markets called The Spy With the Green Hat.

The plot of The Concrete Overcoat/The Spy With the Green Hat had U.N.C.L.E. enlisting the aid of three old mobsters, the Stiletto brothers, against Thrush, the criminal organization that was U.N.C.L.E.’s main opponent. Romero likely would have been portraying one of the Stiletto brothers. Initially the U.N.C.L.E. production team wanted Edward G. Robinson to play the Thrush chieftain of the story; instead, Jack Palace got the part.

Still, why did Romero bow out? We’ll probably never know. Romero died on Jan. 1, 1994. Key U.N.C.L.E. production staff of that era (producer Boris Ingster, associate producer Irv Pearlberg and supervising producer David Victor) are no longer with us. To view the Austin television station footage JUST CLICK HERE.

The Romero footage appears in the middle of the video. It begins with Lee Meriwhether (in full Catwoman costume), followed by Romero, followed by Adam West (also in full costume) and producer William Dozier (who also was the narrator of both the 1966 movie and the 1966-68 television series).

1965: The men from U.N.C.L.E. present some Emmys

In 1965, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. was at or near its peak of popularity. So it was natural that stars Robert Vaughn and David McCallum would be selected as presenters during the Emmy broadcast.

Viewing it more than four decades later, a few observations come to mind:

1) It’s a reminder of far *technically* television has come, especially for live broadcasts. 2) It’s a reminder that awards shows haven’t really improved that much despite the better techology; the sequence begins with an awful joke from Danny Thomas. 3) For people of a certain age, this is a chance to see the people who had received credits on familar 1960s TV shows, such as 20th Century Fox television special effects whiz L.B. Abbott whose name appeared on Irwin Allen’s various series and Batman 4) Both Vaughn and McCallum would end up working with director of photography William W. Spencer during The Man From U.N.C.L.E.’s third season when Spencer would substitute for regular DOP Fred Koenekamp on The Matterhorn Affair. 5) Winners in those days knew how to keep the speeches short.

Here’s how it went:

Michael Gough, Batman’s Alfred and Avengers villain, dies

Character actor Michael Gough died April 17 at the age of 94. Most obituaries, LIKE THIS ONE IN THE U.K. NEWSPAPER THE GUARDIAN lead with how he played Alfred Pennyworth, Batman’s trusted aide, in four movies from 1989 to 1997. But he also holds a spot in spy entertainment.

Gough played the inventor of “The Cybernauts,” one of the best episodes of The Avengers TV series, starring Patrick Macnee and Diana Rigg. It was written by Philip Levene, one of the best scribes for that series, and it inspired a sequel the following season (with Peter Cushing playing the brother of Gough’s character) and an episode of the 1970s series The New Avengers.

Here’s a look at the original episode. Gough shows up just before the 5:00 mark. RIP, Mr. Gough.

UPDATE: We couldn’t resist. Here’s the conclusion. Counting Macnee and Rigg, there are at least six people in either the cast or crew who have James Bond movie credits in this particular episode: