A James Bond musical?

Coming soon to a stage near you?

The website BROADWAY WORLD.COM said June 29 there’s a planned James Bond stage musical in the works and that a daughter of Eon Productions co-founder Harry Saltzman is involved.

The title is simply James Bond: The Musical and, according to the website the curtain may rise in 2017 on the production.

Here’s an excerpt with more details:

(Merry) Saltzman, daughter of legendary Bond film producer and impresario Harry Saltzman, said the world’s favorite spy will soon be singing, dancing, and laughing his way into audiences’ hearts in an original production with songs and lyrics by Jay Henry Weisz and a book by Dave Clarke.

The spelling of Merry Saltzman is correct. Documentaries about the making of James Bond movies included interviews of Saltzman children Steven and Hilary but Merry Saltzman didn’t participate. You can see Merry Saltzman referenced in THIS 1994 OBITUARY BY THE NEW YORK TIMES.

To read the entire Broadway World.com story, CLICK HERE.

In 1965, Mad magazine presented a parody of a 007 stage musical. Mad’s version, written by Frank Jacobs and drawn by Mort Drucker, had songs all sung to the tune of classic Rodgers and Hammerstein songs from Oklahoma! (“Ohhhhhhhhhhhh-07! Is the greatest spy there is today! Though the Empires’s gone, He keeps right on…So you’d better not get in his way!”)

To view that parody, CLICK HERE for a 2012 post by the James Bond 007 Dossier website. It has PDF images of the Jacobs-Drucker work.

UPDATE (July 4): A June 30 story in PLAYBILL has some additional details.

Ms. Saltzman is quoted as saying the stage production will use “several Bond villains, plus some new ones.” She also told Playbill the show will feature ” our own Bond girl.” She also told Playbill the stage production might not start until early 2018.

Warner Bros. gives an early press screening of U.N.C.L.E.

Logo for The Man From U.N.C.L.E. movie

Warner Bros. has conducted an early media showing of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. movie, according to the editor of an entertainment news website.

Steven Weintraub, editor in chief of Collider.com, took to Instagram and Twitter tonight to say he was attending.

“Going back to the 60s with Guy Ritchie tonight,” Weintraub wrote in a caption accompanying a photo he put on Instagram. “Seeing an early screening of THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. Wb. must think they’ve got the goods to show us the film 6 weeks early.”

The movie, starring Henry Cavill and Armie Hammer, doesn’t arrive in theaters until Aug. 14. Warners originally scheduled the Guy Ritchie-directed film for mid-January, usually seen as a studio dumping ground for movies.

Warners later switched U.N.C.L.E. to August and kept it there, even after Paramount moved up Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation to July 31 from Dec. 25. The M:I movie features star/producer Tom Cruise, who had been courted to play Napoleon Solo in U.N.C.L.E. but opted against it. That paved the way for Cavill’s selection.

UPDATE (June 30): A writer for the Reuters news service put out a tweet after the screening. No other details provided.

Just came out of an early screening of #ManFromUNCLE – slick, funny and loved the cast. The rise of Alicia Vikander continues!

— Piya Sinha-Roy (@PiyaSRoy) June 30, 2015

A cool U.N.C.L.E. publicity still (1965)

Toward the end of the first season of The Man From U.N.C.L.E., David McCallum, playing Illya Kuryakin, posed for a series of publicity stills during production of The Girls of Nazarone Affair, the next-to-last episode of the show’s first season.

In this photo, he’s in a convertible with Sharon Tate, who had a small role in the episode. Tate, in this photograph, shows off her personality that made an impression on casting directors. She soon would soon get larger roles.

Looking at this image, you can understand why Dean Martin wanted Tate to return for a planned fifth Matt Helm movie, The Ravagers. Tate had been his co-star in The Wrecking Crew.

It wasn’t to be. Tragically, she would be murdered in 1969 by the Charles Manson family.

SPECTRE enters its final days of filming

SPECTRE, the 24th James Bond film, has been filming in Morocco as the production winds down.

The official 007 Twitter feed sent this tweet out on June 28. Not much explanation. There rarely is.

Dust to dust. #SPECTRE pic.twitter.com/OGv10abjDT

— James Bond (@007) June 28, 2015

Lea Seydoux says SPECTRE’s theme is ‘family’

Lea Seydoux, who plays Madeleine Swann in SPECTRE, says the theme of the 24th James Bond film is “family.”

Seydoux, who turns 30 on July 1, gave an interview to L’EXPRESS. It was published in French. She made this comment: “The theme of the family is central” in SPECTRE “and everyone will have to live” with the past. (Google Translate, for what it’s worth, changes “Spectre” to “Spectrum.”)

Seydoux’s remark is consistent with SPECTRE’s teaser trailer. Naomie Harris’ Moneypenny says to Daniel Craig’s James Bond that he’s hiding some kind of secret after a photo taken during Bond’s childhood was found in the ruins of Skyfall.

Assorted other comments by Seydoux:

–“I said yes to (SPECTRE director) Sam Mendes without even reading the script. I think all roles, whatever they are, are good to take. I never rewrite anything for me. In Midnight in Paris, Woody Allen, I had a small role and it amused me to do something.”

–“I have no career plan, that’s why I do not like to talk about my work. To talk too much, you lose the magic.”

To view the entire interview, CLICK HERE.

007 veteran crew member talks to James Bond Radio

The Internet series James Bond Radio today debuted a new podcast featuring veteran James Bond crew member Terry Bamber.

Bamber worked on Bond films from The Man With The Golden Gun through Skyfall. He’s not involved with SPECTRE (though his wife is a crew member). He was also assistant director and production manager of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. movie, which debuts Aug. 14.

Bamber’s father worked on the early 007 films. Given the family history, he makes some observations of note:

Favorite Bond movies: On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (“fantastic film, fantastic film”), followed by Casino Royale and Diamonds Are Forever (“I could watch it over and over again.”) The Living Daylights is “in my top third” of Bond films.

First experience on a Bond set: Being taken by his father to the You Only Live Twice volcano set.

Favorite Bond: By “millimeters of a point,” Sean Connery.

Why he’s not working on SPECTRE: He says he got a phone call saying the production team decided “to go in a different direction.”

Bamber also makes some brief comments about his work on The Man From U.N.C.L.E. movie, where he was assistant director and production manager on the second unit.

The interview lasts more than 90 minutes and covers more ground than this post can really cover. You can listen to the podcast below. The Terry Bamber interview starts around the 17:00 mark.

Patrick Macnee, an appreciation

Patrick Macnee’s image in a titles sequence of an episode of The Avengers

Patrick Macnee had a career that last decades. His acting credits in his IMDB.COM ENTRY begin in 1938 and run through 2003.

During that span, he didn’t get the role that defined his career — John Steed on The Avengers — until he was 39.

Even then, it took a while for The Avengers to become a worldwide phenomenon. Macnee’s Steed was the one consistent element in a show that changed cast members often.

It’s easy to see why. John Steed didn’t just know the right wines. He knew which end of the vineyard where the grapes had been grown. Steed could handle himself but — as the epitome of the English gentleman — he could adeptly out think his foes as well as out fight them.

It was all outrageous, of course. Steed and his various colleagues encountered robots, mad scientists, Soviet agents and all sorts of dangers. All were dispatched with a sense of style and elegance.

After that show ran its course, he seemed to transition effortlessly to an in-demand character actor. The captain of a cruise ship on Columbo. An alien menace on Battlestar Galactica. Dr. Watson in the made-for-TV movie Sherlock Holmes in New York.

All done with style, seemingly without effort. It seemed like he’d go on forever. He couldn’t, of course. He died today at 93.

Anytime it seems like a performance was effortless, chances are it wasn’t. To keep getting acting gigs is tough. However, watching Macnee it’s understandable why casting directors would keep turning to him.

Even with lesser material, he established a presence. For example, the 1983 TV movie The Return of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. had an uneven script. Yet Macnee shined as new U.N.C.L.E. chief Sir John Raleigh. When performing great material — such an Avengers script by Brian Clemens or Philip Levene — Macnee made it even more special.

Part of it was his distinctive voice. In the 1990s, when documentaries were made about James Bond movies for home video releases, he was a natural to narrate them. (He didn’t narrate Inside A View to a Kill, presumably because he was in the cast of the 1985 007 movie.)

On social media today, fans all over the world expressed sadness. That’s very understandable. Macnee was so good, for so long, it was easy to take him for granted. Nobody is doing so today.

Patrick Macnee dies at 93, BBC says

Patrick Mcnee and Diana Rigg in a publicity still for The Avengers

Patrick Macnee, debonair actor best known for playing John Steed on The Avengers, died today at 93, according to the BBC, WHICH CITED MACNEE’S SON RUPERT.

There was also a statement ON THE ACTOR’S WEBSITE that said Macnee “died a natural death at his home in Rancho Mirage, California…with his family at his bedside.”

Macnee enjoyed a long career, playing dozens of characters. Still, The Avengers and his character of John Steed, with his bowler and umbrella, became Macnee’s career trademark. The show first went into production in 1961. Its greatest popularity came when he was paired with Diana Rigg’s Emma Peel.

The actor saw two of his co-stars — Honor Blackman and Rigg — leave the series to take the lead female role in James Bond movies (Goldfinger and On Her Majesty’s Secret Service). Another Majesty’s actress, Joanna Lumley, was Macnee’s co-star in a 1970s revival, The New Avengers.

Macnee finally got his turn at a Bond movie, A View to a Kill, in 1985, playing an ally of Bond (Roger Moore) who is killed by henchwoman May Day (Grace Jones). Macnee, years earlier, had played Dr. Watson to Moore’s Sherlock Holmes in a made-for-television movie. Macnee also made a properly dignified chief of U.N.C.L.E. in 1983’s The Return of the Man From U.N.C.L.E.

UPDATE: For the second time this month (Christopher Lee’s death was the other), Roger Moore bids adieu to a colleague:

So very sad to hear Pat MacNee has left us. We were mates from 1950s and I have so many happy memories of working with him. A true gent.

— Sir Roger Moore (@sirrogermoore) June 25, 2015

Will Solo’s moral streak make it into the U.N.C.L.E. movie?

“I sincerely hope so,” Solo said.

According to actor Henry Cavill, in an SFX magazine interview, Napoleon Solo is different than James Bond because Solo is “not for Queen and country. He’s for Napoleon Solo and Napoleon Solo.”

Cavill, of course, is the only actor who has experience with both, having auditioned for Bond in 2005 and having played Solo in The Man From U.N.C.L.E. movie coming out in August.

This caused the Spy Commander to have a Lt. Columbo moment where “little things — LITTLE THINGS” were bothering him. What about the moral streak of the original Solo, seen in the 1964-68 series in the person of actor Robert Vaughn?

We ran a DECEMBER 2014 POST, outlining how the two heroes associated with Ian Fleming are different. Namely, Solo has a moral streak that Bond doesn’t display.

Here’s the part of the post that related to Solo:

(start excerpt)
In the first-season episode The Finny Foot Affair, the “innocent” is a young boy played by Kurt Russell. Russell’s character has a rough time. He witnesses an U.N.C.L.E. agent fight to the death. The agent, with his dying breath, entrusts the boy with an object that may be of assistance to Solo.

Later, on a flight to Norway, the boy describes what he saw to Solo. The U.N.C.L.E. agent attempts to deceive the boy that what he saw wasn’t as serious as it seems.

Later, the boy witnesses Solo kill some of his opponents. “Chris,” Solo tells the boy at one point, “you know now this is for real.” At the end of the episode, the Russell character decides Solo may not be the best potential mate for his “beautiful widowed mother.”

The best example of Solo’s moral streak occurs during the last episode of the series, broadcast by NBC on Jan. 15, 1968. Its one of the best scenes in the entire show for star Robert Vaughn. Solo confronts a group that plans to bring the entire world under its control, ending the “fight between good and evil” once and for all. The leader of this scheme is named Kingsley (Barry Sullivan), a former top U.N.C.L.E. official.

SOLO: You intend — you seriously intend — to make the world world act and think like you want it to?
(snip)
It’s a blasphemy. Your plan denies humanity its freedom to find its own way to better times.

At the end of the episode, there’s this exchange between Solo and his boss, Alexander Waverly.

WAVERLY: Good job, gentlemen.

SOLO: Kingsley sincerely believed history would have said the same of him, sir.”

That’s not the kind of thing that Bond stops to reflect about.
(end excerpt)

It remains to be seen whether this quality will be present in the Guy Ritchie-directed movie, of if it fell by the wayside along with some of the show’s memes such as the secret headquarters, etc.

Sony shows new SPECTRE footage, THR says

Sony Pictures showed some new footage from SPECTRE, the 24th James Bond film, at the CineEurope event according to THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER.

Here’s an excerpt from the story as it relates to SPECTRE. Warning: There aren’t many details.

“Who can forget the last James Bond?” asked Sony Pictures president of marketing and distribution Josh Greenstein to the CineEurope crowds at the studio’s presentation on Wednesday.

Skyfall, as he pointed out, earned over $1 billion dollars, but to get the excitement rolling for the 24th 007, Spectre, he introduced Miss Moneypenny herself, Naomie Watts, to debut new unfinished footage that featured the entire top cast of Daniel Craig, Christoph Waltz, Lea Seydoux, Monica Bellucci, Andrew Scott, Ben Whishaw, Ralph Fiennes and Dave Bautista. “For your eyes only,” she told the assembled audience of EMEA exhibitors.

Presumably, The Hollywood Reporter meant Naomie Harris, rather than Watts, but that’s what the story says.

Users on Internet message boards have speculated this may mean a new SPECTRE trailer could be released soon.

So far, a teaser trailer has been released as well a one-minute commercial during ABC’s telecast of the NBA Finals.