A mini-007 tour of New York

One of our intrepid HMSSers was recently in New York and (figuratively) retraced some of the steps that the literary James Bond took.
Sardi’s, 234 West 44th Street: In Chapter 8 of Diamonds Are Forever, Felix Leiter takes Bond to lunch at Sardi’s and they dine in the upstairs dining room. The friends have some martinis [...]

Memories of 007 double features

Elsewhere on this blog, Paul Baack shared his version of a poster for a double feature of Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace. In this home video era, such a double bill won’t reach movie theaters, at least for a general release. But that poster got us to remembering about Bond double features of the [...]

1975: ABC promo for Diamonds Are Forever

For the 1975-76 television season, ABC included Diamonds Are Forever among its slate of theatrical movies it would show. Unlike the 1972-73 season, however, 007 wasn’t the biggest draw for ABC.
In this promo, ABC begins showing previews of its movies around the 3:00 mark. Diamonds doesn’t show up until around the 6:15 mark. By contrast, [...]

TCM 007 update

On the Saturday afternoon telecast of Diamonds Are Forever, TCM weekend host Ben Mankiewicz didn’t mention his family’s connection to the movie. According to imdb.com, Ben is cousin once removed of Diamonds co-screenwriter Tom Mankiewicz.
Ben Mankiewicz in his introduction said United Artists paid Sean Connery $2 million to come back to the role. Robert Osborne, [...]

More HMSS (and reader) nominations for harebrained 007 movie ideas

Consider casting John Gavin as James Bond
After George Lazenby abruptly quit (or was fired, depending on which version of the story you believe), producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman and studio chieftains at United Artists gave a lot of thought to Americanizing Bond. Gavin was signed but UA wasn’t quite sold. So, the studio [...]

More HMSS (and reader) nominations for best line(s) from James Bond movies

Our post the other day about nominations for best lines from James Bond movies drew five responses. So here’s some of the feedback we got for additions plus a few we added.
The World Is Not Enough
James Bond: The world is not enough.
Elektra King: Foolish sentiment.
James Bond: Family motto.
Die Another Day
Q (following virtual reality exercise): [...]

An incomplete history of hacking 007 movies for television

The news that TCM is going to show the six Sean Connery 007 films produced by Eon Productions Ltd. got us to thinking about the rocky history of James Bond movies on television. Here’s a partial list:
1972: ABC airs Goldfinger, Eon’s third Bond movies and the 1964 film that became a blockbuster. ABC editors took [...]

007 *FINALLY* gets some respect on U.S. TV: Connery films coming to TCM

Finally.
TCM, the Time Warner cable channel that shows movies uncut and in their original form (e.g. widescreen, where applicable) will be showing the Sean Connery Bond movies in May. Or, to be more precise, the six Connery films in the “official” series produced by Eon Productions Ltd. since 1962.
In recent years, Bond has fared worse [...]

Meet 007 screenwriter Tom Mankiewicz

During its 2007 strike, the Writers Guild of America produced featurettes about its members. One was about Tom Mankiewicz (b. 1942), whose credits include three 1970s James Bond movies, Diamonds Are Forever, Live And Let Die and The Man With the Golden Gun.
Mankiewicz also did the final shooting scripts for two Christopher Reeve Superman [...]