Hawaii Five-0′s fixation with Die Another Day

Goldfinger said, “Mr. Bond, they have a saying in Chicago: `Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it’s enemy action.”‘

We’re way beyond coincidence now. Clearly, the makers of CBS’s Hawaii Five-0, a remake of the 1968-80 television series, have a thing for Die Another Day, the 20th James Bond movie, released in 2002.

The April 15 installment featured an episode where the setting, for the second time in consecutive seasons, was set in North Korea. One of the villains was played by Rick Yune, who played Zao, the “physical villain” of Die Another Day.

Well, that could be happenstance, you say. Except, the show previously has had Will Yun Lee, who played North Korean Colonel Moon (who transforms himself into Gustav Graves, played by Toby Stephens), from the same movie. Lee has had a recurring role since the start of the show.

More tellingly, a November 2011 episode borrowed even more from Die Another Day. In that episode, scenes set in North Korea are photographed so they’re all dark while scenes set in other locales have bright colors. Also, there’s a scene where McGarrett 2.0 (Alex O’Loughlin) is tortured much the same way that Bond (Pierce Brosnan) is tortured in the 2002 Bond movie.

We’re definitely passed coincidence. Die Another Day these days tends to get mixed reviews among 007 fans. But it seems clear that it has fans among the Five-0 crew.

EARLIER POSTS:
McGarrett 2.0 clearly has never watched Die Another Day (Nov. 21, 2011)

Compare Die Another Day vs. Hawaii Five-0 (Nov. 24, 2011)

RE-POST: 30th anniversary of the last U.N.C.L.E.

David McCallum, left, and Robert Vaughn during filming of The Return of The Man From U.N.C.L.E.

Originally published March 4. Re-posted today, the actual anniversary

You can’t keep a good man down. So it was for former U.N.C.L.E. spies Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin, who made a one-time return 30 years ago.

The intrepid agents, again played by Robert Vaughn and David McCallum, were back after a 15-year absence. This time they appeared in a made-for-television movie broadcast in April 1983 on CBS, instead of NBC, home of the original 1964-68 series.

It was a mixed homecoming. Return’s script, penned by executive producer Michael Sloan, recycled the plot of Thunderball, the fourth James Bond film. Thrush steals two nuclear bombs from a U.S. military aircraft. Thrush operative Janus (Geoffrey Lewis) boasts that the criminal organization is now “a nuclear power.” Yawn. Thrush was much more ambitious in the old days.

The show had been sold to NBC as “James Bond for television.” Sloan & Co. took the idea literally, hiring one-time 007 George Lazenby to play “JB,” who happens to drive as Aston Martin DB5. JB helps Solo, who has just been recalled to active duty for U.N.C.L.E., get out of a jam in Las Vegas.

The original U.N.C.L.E. had been filmed no further out that about 30 miles from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s studio in Culver City, California. Return was really filmed in and around Las Vegas, with the desert nearby substituting for Libya, where Thrush chieftain Justin Sepheran (Anthony Zerbe) has established his headquarters.

Vaughn and McCallum, being old pros, make the best of the material they’re given, especially when they appear together. That’s not often, as it turns out. After being reunited, they pursue the affair from different angles. Solo has to put up with skeptical U.N.C.L.E. agent Kowalski (Tom Mason), who complains out loud about new U.N.C.L.E. chief Sir John Raleigh (Patrick Macnee) bringing back two aging ex-operatives.

Sloan did end up bringing in two crew members of the original series: composer Gerald Fried, who worked on the second through fourth seasons, and director of photography Fred Koenekamp, who had photographed 90 U.N.C.L.E. episodes from 1964 through 1967. Also on the crew was Robert Short, listed as a technical adviser. He and Danny Biederman had attempted to put together an U.N.C.L.E. feature film. Their project eventually was rejected in favor of Sloan’s TV movie.

In the end, the April 5, 1983 broadcast produced respectable ratings but CBS passed on committing to a new U.N.C.L.E. series. Despite many attempts, Return remains the last official U.N.C.L.E. production.

For a more detailed review, CLICK HERE.

Return of The Man From U.N.C.L.E.’s 30th anniversary

David McCallum, left, and Robert Vaughn during filming of The Return of The Man From U.N.C.L.E.

You can’t keep a good man down. So it was for former U.N.C.L.E. spies Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin, who made a one-time return 30 years ago.

The intrepid agents, again played by Robert Vaughn and David McCallum, were back after a 15-year absence. This time they appeared in a made-for-television movie broadcast in April 1983 on CBS, instead of NBC, home of the original 1964-68 series.

It was a mixed homecoming. Return’s script, penned by executive producer Michael Sloan, recycled the plot of Thunderball, the fourth James Bond film. Thrush steals two nuclear bombs from a U.S. military aircraft. Thrush operative Janus (Geoffrey Lewis) boasts that the criminal organization is now “a nuclear power.” Yawn. Thrush was much more ambitious in the old days.

The show had been sold to NBC as “James Bond for television.” Sloan & Co. took the idea literally, hiring one-time 007 George Lazenby to play “JB,” who happens to drive as Aston Martin DB5. JB helps Solo, who has just been recalled to active duty for U.N.C.L.E., get out of a jam in Las Vegas.

The original U.N.C.L.E. had been filmed no further out that about 30 miles from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s studio in Culver City, California. Return was really filmed in and around Las Vegas, with the desert nearby substituting for Libya, where Thrush chieftain Justin Sepheran (Anthony Zerbe) has established his headquarters.

Vaughn and McCallum, being old pros, make the best of the material they’re given, especially when they appear together. That’s not often, as it turns out. After being reunited, they pursue the affair from different angles. Solo has to put up with skeptical U.N.C.L.E. agent Kowalski (Tom Mason), who complains out loud about new U.N.C.L.E. chief Sir John Raleigh (Patrick Macnee) bringing back two aging ex-operatives.

Sloan did end up bringing in two crew members of the original series: composer Gerald Fried, who worked on the second through fourth seasons, and director of photography Fred Koenekamp, who had photographed 90 U.N.C.L.E. episodes from 1964 through 1967. Also on the crew was Robert Short, listed as a technical adviser. He and Danny Biederman had attempted to put together an U.N.C.L.E. feature film. Their project eventually was rejected in favor of Sloan’s TV movie.

In the end, the April 5, 1983 broadcast produced respectable ratings but CBS passed on committing to a new U.N.C.L.E. series. Despite many attempts, Return remains the last official U.N.C.L.E. production.

For a more detailed review, CLICK HERE.

Five-0 `Hookman’ remake’s similarities, differences

Feb. 5: Updated with a correction about the credit fonts.

CBS’s new Hawaii Five-0 followed the 1973 version of “Hookman” pretty closely in the remake that aired Feb. 4. But there were some significant differences, as well. Here’s a sampling of the similarities and differences:

Episode title: The new Five-0 repeated “Hookman” as the episode titles. The new show, that debuted in 2010, usually uses Hawaiian words as titles while not actually showing those episode titles on screen. (CLICK HERE for an example.) Apparently, “Hookman” doesn’t have a good Hawaiian equivalent. Also, the title “Hookman” was shown on screen just before the main titles. The villain had prosthetic hands rather than hooks, but “Prosthetic Hand Man” wasn’t nearly as good a title as “Hookman.”

Credit fonts: It appeared that Five-0 used the same, or at least a very similar font for the credits as the one used in the original show. Presumably this was intended for a “retro” look that CBS had hyped in promoting the episode. (Shoutout to Mike Quigley, webmaster of The Hawaii Five-O Home Page for pointing out differences in the fonts.)

Car chase: In both the 1973 and 2013 versions, the villain takes off in a Ford Mustang. In the original show, Ford Motor Co. was the supplier of vehicles. In the new show, General Motors Co. has that role (McGarrett 2.0 tools around in a Chevrolet Camaro). It looked like the crew attempted to obscure the Mustang logo in the front grille of the Feb. 4 show.

Meanwhile, in the original, McGarrett chased after the villain by himself. In the Feb. 4 show, both McGarrett 2.0 and Danno 2.0 are in McGarrett’s Camaro. Naturally a “cargument” (a schtick of the new show) ensues between the two men.

Things not shown in the original: In the 1973 “Hookman,” we don’t see the villain send his car into the bay; we’re just told about it later. Such a scene was staged in the remake. What’s more, the Feb. 4 show had a flashback sequence showing how the villain lost his hands. In the 1973 version, McGarrett provides a quick recap. Also, in the new version, it was McGarrett’s father who was involved in that case, rather than McGarrett himself.

Score: Morton Stevens won an Emmy for his “Hookman” score. The score on the Feb. 4 story keeps with the general Five-0 background music by Brian Tyler and Keith Power that seems like it’s the poor man’s Hans Zimmer from Christopher Nolan’s Batman movies.

New ending: McGarrett 2.0 “meets” the ghosts of the villain’s victims, something that didn’t happen at all in the original.

UPDATE (Feb. 5): You can CLICK HERE to watch the Feb. 4 episode on CBS’s Web site.

Hawaii Five-0′s remake of `Hookman’ to air Feb. 4

The new Hawaii Five-0′s remake of the “Hookman” episode from the original 1968-80 series is scheduled to be broadcast by CBS on Feb. 4, according to the TV LINE WEB SITE.

The story is presumably accurate because CBS promoted TV Line’s piece IN A TWITTER POSTING.

According to TV Line, the remake includes some scenes shot in the same locations as the 1973 original. The story includes stills from the new and original versions of Hookman, which features a villain who has no hands and must use hooks to operate weapons. Here’s an excerpt of the TV Line story:

Fans of the original series will remember the episode’s title and plot from the sixth season premiere, which nabbed an Emmy for the iconic drama. Only back then, a double amputee gunned for Jack Lord’s Steve McGarrett, who’d played a huge role in his accident.

Morton Stevens, composer of the Five-O theme, won the Emmy for his background music for the 1973 episode.

UPDATE (Jan. 23): We came across a CBS PRESS RELEASE for this episode and see a red flag. It has some credits near the end including “Written by Joe Halpin.” But what about the writers of the original episode, Glen Olson and Rod Baker?

In the 1990s, Lois and Clark: the New Adventures of Superman remade “Panic in the Sky,” an episode of the 1950s George Reeves series The Adventures of Superman. Jackson Gillis, the writer of the original, got a “story by” credit for the 1990s show. It would seem that Olson and Baker would be due similar treatment for the new version of “Hookman.”

UPDATE II: Back IN NOVEMBER: CBS said writer Halpin had consulted with Olson and Baker about the remake to get their blessing. Executive Producer Peter Lenkov said the remake would “stay true to each and every element that made ‘Hookman’ such a beloved hour of television.”

UPDATE III (Jan. 25): The Writer’s Guild of America has weighed in on the credit issue for Glen Olson and Rod Baker. See Rod Baker’s response to this post below. We’re glad to hear it. If you click on the link to the online CBS press release, it now has a credit for Olson and Baker.

UPDATE IV (Jan. 28): Peter Lenkov fielded a question from a fan on Twitter about Hookman:

Peter Lenkov‏@PLenkov

“@FangirLEEng: @PLenkov Currently watching the original Hookman. Are you guys going to remake every single scene of the episode? #H50” yep

That’s going to be a neat trick. In the 1973-74 season, Five-O episodes were 49-50 minutes without commercials. The new Five-0 is 42-43 minutes.

45th anniversary of the end of U.N.C.L.E. (and ’60s spymania)

The symbolism of a 1965 TV Guide ad for The Man From U.N.C.L.E. came true little more than two years later. (Picture from the For Your Eyes Only Web site)

Jan. 15 marks the 45th anniversary of the end of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. It was also the beginning of the end for 1960s spymania.

Ratings for U.N.C.L.E. faltered badly in the fall of 1967, where it aired on Monday nights. It was up against Gunsmoke on CBS — a show that itself had been canceled briefly during the spring of ’67 but got a reprieve thanks to CBS chief William Paley. Instead of oblivion, Gunsmoke was moved from Saturday to Monday.

Earlier, Norman Felton, U.N.C.L.E.’s executive producer, decided some retooling was in order for the show’s fourth season. He brought in Anthony Spinner, who often wrote for Quinn Martin-produced shows, as producer.

Spinner had also written a first-season U.N.C.L.E. episode and summoned a couple of first-season writers, Jack Turley and Robert E. Thompson, to do some scripts. Also in the fold was Dean Hargrove, who supplied two first-season scripts but had his biggest impact in the second, when U.N.C.L.E. had its best ratings. Hargrove was off doing other things during the third season, although he did one of the best scripts for The Girl From U.N.C.L.E. during 1966-67.

Hargrove, however, quickly learned the Spinner-produced U.N.C.L.E. was different. In a 2007 interview on the U.N.C.L.E. DVD set, Hargrove said Spinner was of “the Quinn Martin school of melodrama.” Spinner wanted a more serious take on the show compared with the previous season, which included a dancing ape. Hargrove, adept at weaving (relatively subtle) humor into his stories, chafed under Spinner. The producer instructed his writers that U.N.C.L.E. should be closer to James Bond than Get Smart.

The more serious take also extended to the show’s music, as documented in liner notes by journalist Jon Burlingame for U.N.C.L.E. soundstracks released between 2004 and 2007 and the FOR YOUR EYES ONLY U.N.C.L.E. TIMELINE.

Matt Dillon (James Arness), right, and sidekick Festus (Ken Curtis) got new life at U.N.C.L.E.’s expense.

Gerald Fried, the show’s most frequent composer, had a score rejected. Also jettisoned was a new Fried arrangement of Jerry Goldsmith’s theme music. A more serious-sounding one was arranged by Robert Armbruster, the music director of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Most of the fourth season’s scores would be composed by Richard Shores. Fried did one fourth-season score, which sounded similar to the more serious style of Shores.

Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin, however, weren’t a match for a resurgent Matt Dillon on CBS. NBC canceled U.N.C.L.E. A final two-part story, The Seven Wonders of the World Affair, aired Jan. 8 and 15, 1968..

U.N.C.L.E. wouldn’t be the first spy casualty. NBC canceled I Spy, with its last new episode appearing April 15, 1968. Within 18 months of U.N.C.L.E.’s demise, The Wild, Wild West was canceled by CBS (its final new episode aired aired April 4, 1969 although CBS did show fourth-season reruns in the summer of 1970) and the last episode of The Avengers was produced, appearing in the U.S. on April 21, 1969. NBC also canceled Get Smart after the 1968-69 season but CBS picked up the spy comedy for 1969-70. Mission: Impossible managed to stay on CBS until 1973 but abandoned spy storylines its last two seasons as the IMF opposed “the Syndicate.”

Nor were spy movies exempt. Dean Martin’s last Matt Helm movie, The Wrecking Crew, debuted in U.S. theaters in late 1968. Despite a promise in the end titles that Helm would be back in The Ravagers, the film series was done. Even the James Bond series, the engine of the ’60s spy craze, was having a crisis in early 1968. Star Sean Connery was gone and producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman pondered their next move. James Bond would return but things weren’t quite the same.

Purvis & Wade: who loves ya, baby?

Robert Wade, left, and Neal Purvis, going from Walther PPKs to lollipops.

Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, having concluding a run of working on five James Bond movies, have been hired to script a Kojak film starring Vin Diesel, according to the Deadline entertainment news Web site.

Here’s an excerpt:

EXCLUSIVE: Universal Pictures is getting serious about Kojak, hiring the scribe team of Neal Purvis & Robert Wade to script a movie around the tough-talking, smooth scalped cop played by Telly Savalas on the CBS series. Vin Diesel, who just wrapped Fast And Furious 6 for the studio, will play the chrome-domed cop in the film, which he’s producing with Samantha Vincent for their Universal-based One Race Films.

The original 1973-78 series originated with a made-for-TV movie called The Marcus-Nelson Murders that first aired in March 1973. That original project was scripted by Abby Mann, an Oscar winning screenwriter, and directed by Joseph Sargent. It gave Telly Savalas, normally cast as villains (including 1969′s On Her Majesty’s Secret Service), a chance to play a sympathetic role. The story was based on the Wylie-Hoffert murders, also known as the Career Girls Murders, which led to to Miranda warnings.

Director Sargent won an Emmy and a Directors Guild of America award for The Marcus-Nelson Murders while Mann was nominated for an Emmy.

The CBS series made Savalas a big star and, for a time, a sex symbol (starting in the second season he doffed neckties a lot and didn’t button the first button or two of his dress shirts). Kojak’s catchphrase was, “Who loves ya, baby?” Kojak, trying to quit smoking, frequently sucked lollipops. The cast included the star’s brother George as one of the New York City detectives that worked with Kojak. The first season of the series included Christopher Walken and Harvey Keitel as guest stars. Richard Donner directed some episodes.

Savalas reprised the role in a some TV movies on ABC (part of a Mystery Movie revival that included Peter Falk as Columbo). There was also a brief revival series on cable television in 2005, starring Ving Rhames as Kojak.

To read the entire Deadline story, just CLICK HERE.

New Hawaii Five-0 to remake “Hookman”

The new Hawaii Five-0 series is going to remake the “Hookman” episode of the original Hawaii Five-O, according to a story at ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY’S WEB SITE.

The first “Hookman” led off the 1973-74 season. The story concerned a double amputee out for revenge against lawman Steve McGarrett and others. It won an Emmy award for composer Morton Stevens, who also wrote the Five-O theme and established the musical template for the original series.

Here’s an excerpt from the EW.com article:

Peter Weller (RoboCop) is set direct the episode and guest star as the title villain, taking over the role originally played by double amputee Jay J. Armes.

“It was a stand-out and a fan-favorite,” says executive producer Peter Lenkov of choosing the episode from a batch of many contenders. “It sort of came to everyone’s mind — everyone remembered ‘Hookman.’”

Part of the episode is on YouTube, at least for now. It provides a sample of the score that won Stevens his Emmy:

REVIEW: 60 Minutes’s James Bond story

On Oct. 14, CBS’s 60 Minutes devoted one of its three segments to the 50th anniversary of 007 films and the upcoming Skyfall. There wasn’t a lot that hard-core fans didn’t know, but Anderson Cooper’s story was probably illuminating for casual fans.

Eon co-boss Barbara Broccoli and 007 star Daniel Craig

Among the better bits: Cooper (who works primarily for CNN but does occasional stories for 60 Minutes) visits the warehouse that stores artifacts from the series produced by Eon Productions. He also goes to a firing range to learn how to fire a Walther PPK (harder than it looks).

At the warehouse, Cooper had to don gloves to handle the older props, including a champagne bottle from Dr. No (Sean Connery’s Bond is prepared to break it when Dr. No’s lackeys take Honey Rider away), From Russia With Love’s gimmicked briefcase and one of Oddjob’s hats from Goldfinger (used in the villain’s finale scene when he gets electrocuted by Connery-Bond).

Cooper’s main interviews are with Eon’s co-bosses, Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson, as well as Skyfall star Daniel Craig. The newsman tries to probe but mostly gets some of the standard talking points. Broccoli talks about “electrifying” Craig was. Wilson teases she must be referring to the Casino Royale scene where Craig-Bond comes out of the water in a short pair of trunks. “How did you know that was what I was thinking of?” she teases back. Broccoli ends up doing most of the talking for the Eon pair.

The biggest problem with the story: Cooper refers to how the 007 series is “one of the most profitable” in film history than says it “earned” $5 billion. The $5 billion figure is total worldwide ticket sales, not profit.

Profit is revenue minus costs. The $5 billion figure is just revenue. Fan Web sites often make this mistake but CBS News and 60 Minutes should know better. An alternative way to say it: “It’s one of the profitable film series in history. The first film, Dr. No, just cost $1 million to make and had ticket sales of almost $60 million.” That doesn’t take much longer to say but gets across the point (even if one doesn’t know the exact profit figure) in a more accurate way.

Another factual error: Cooper says Harry Saltzman *bought* the Bond film rights for $50,000. He bought an *option* to purchase the rights and that was only good for six months. As the hard-core fans know, time was running out on Saltzman when he met Albert R. Broccoli, who had the studio connections needed to make a deal.

In any case, it was, an entertaining story. 60 Minutes usually likes to slip one entertainment story in each broadcast. The Bond story was the typical slickly edited segment. But there are a few gaps here and there. GRADE: B (mostly for the visuals of Cooper visiting the prop archive).

Meanwhile the 60 Minutes Overtime Web site has a story about BECOMING BOND FOR A DAY.

UPDATE: Stuart Basinger, who sometimes replies to posts here and has written about Bond elsewhere, mentioned this on Twitter: “Six degrees of separation. Anderson Cooper’s mother was once married to Cubby Broccoli’s cousin.” We looked it up and indeed, Gloria Vanderbilt (b. 1924) was married to Pat DiCicco from 1941 to 1945.

UPDATE II: If you CLICK HERE you should be able to access the 60 Minutes story.

Edward Asner back for Hawaii Five-0, Deadline says

Edward Asner, the only actor to play the same character in the original Hawaii Five-O and new Hawaii Five-0, is coming back for another appearance as (not really) reformed villain August March, the Hollywood Deadline Web site says.

An excerpt:

His storyline is being extended for the second episode of Season 3, we’re told, and he is headed to Hawaii next week to shoot his scenes.

You can view the entire (fairly short) Deadline story BY CLICKING HERE.

Peter Lenkov, one of the show’s executive producers, may have decided to follow Skyfall’s virtual marketing and Tweeted a clapperboard shot as third-season production got underway last week. He also Tweeted a shot of some of the cast as well as a call sheet.