Did Jeffrey Epstein see Kiss the Girls and Make Them Die?

Kiss the Girls and Make Them Die poster

You can’t make this up.

The New York Times today came out with a blockbuster story about Jeffrey Epstein, rich hedge fund manager accused of raping under-aged girls. Here are the first two paragraphs:

Jeffrey E. Epstein, the wealthy financier and accused sex trafficker, had an unusual dream: He hoped to seed the human race with his DNA by impregnating women at his vast New Mexico ranch.

Mr. Epstein over the years confided to scientists and others about his scheme, according to four people familiar with his thinking, although there is no evidence that it ever came to fruition.

This sounds uncomfortably like the 1966 spy movie Kiss the Girls and Make Them Die. It starred Mike Connors and Dorothy Provine as American and British agents trying to foil the plot of a rich adversary.

Said villain intends to make mankind sterile in order to avoid an ecological disaster. But the villain has many beautiful women in suspended animation. So when the time comes to repopulate the planet, he’ll take it upon himself to get all those women pregnant.

The plot is awfully similar to 1979’s Moonraker, the 11th James Bond film from Eon Productions. In that movie, Hugo Drax plans to wipe out most of Earth’s population while he operates an orbiting “stud farm.”

Regardless, the natural reaction is something like, “EEEEEEkkkkkkk.” This is supposed to escapist entertainment, not a serious plan.

Bond 25 questions: The Universal edition

Universal logo

With Bond 25, one of the biggest changes was how Universal, part of Comcast, would be in charge of international distribution.

For the past four 007 films, Sony’s Columbia Pictures handled all the distribution. With Bond 25, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Annapurna, through the United Artists Releasing joint venture, would handle the U.S. and Canada. Universal would deal with international distribution, which is the biggest piece of a Bond film.

With that in mind, the blog has a few questions.

Hey, what about that Bond 25 teaser trailer?

A favorite Bond fan theory was that a Bond 25 teaser trailer might be attached to Universal’s Fast & Furious Presents Hobbs & Shaw, a spinoff from the studio’s successful Fast and the Furious franchise.

Well, Hobbs & Shaw is being released this week. There’s no sign of a Bond 25 trailer. Perhaps it will still happen. Still, these days, trailers debut online days before they show up in theaters. Time is running out for a Bond 25 teaser trailer to be part of Hobbs & Shaw.

What does Universal mean for Bond 25 otherwise?

It may mean the situation is more complicated. Or, as Napoleon Solo once said in an episode of The Man From U.N.C.L.E., “It’s a three-cornered game.”

For the last four Bond films, Columbia managed marketing and releasing. MGM was the home studio for the Bond franchise but it lacked its own distribution operation.

Now, with United Artists Releasing, MGM and Annapurna are involved in addition to Universal. There’s no single distribution/marketing point.

So?

Recall that the late April “reveal” event in Jamaica didn’t have a title for Bond 25. The MI6 James Bond website has reported there was a title (A Reason to Die) ready to go but Eon Productions and its studio partners opted to hold off. The film still has no title three months later.

Essentially, there are more parties who need to be kept in the loop. United Artists Releasing is a proxy for two different (financially struggling) studios while Universal is a Bond newbie.

Anything else?

Back in 2015, Michael G. Wilson of Eon Productions said Eon really does the marketing for Bond films, its studio partners merely execute the plan.

But is that really the case this time? Or would Universal like to have a say? Perhaps we’ll see.

GoldenEye, Saltzman’s son show up on 60 Minutes

GoldenEye’s poster

A clip from GoldenEye plus an appearance by the son of Eon Productions co-founder Harry Saltzman were part of a 60 Minutes story about Monaco. The story originally aired this spring has was recent rerun.

Naturally, the GoldenEye clip is from the casino sequence where Pierce Brosnan’s Bond shows up to gamble. It was this scene where he got to utter his version of the line, “The name’s Bond, James Bond.”

Steven Saltzman is a Monaco resident and was one of those interviewed by Anderson Cooper, the correspondent for the segment on the CBS News program. (Cooper’s main job is for CNN, but he contributes to 60 Minutes.)

Monaco was carved out of the coast of France and, as the story notes, is very small. It’s less than 1 square mile. Only the Vatican is smaller. Monaco doesn’t impose an income tax, helping to draw the rich as residents.

Steven Saltzman has a job helping wealthy foreigners move to Monaco, according to the story. His father and the James Bond connection is briefly referenced. Harry Saltzman’s first name, however, isn’t mentioned.

Steven Saltzman does a sales job for Monaco in the story.

“Monaco is utopia,” the younger Saltzman says. “It’s a country with no sovereign debt where a hundred different nationalities live together protected, in peace, by a planet-loving prince.”

Just don’t move in unless you have many millions of dollars. As 60 Minutes points out, there are more luxury shops than grocery stores. It was appropriate that 60 Minutes sent Anderson Cooper, whose mother was Gloria Vanderbilt. He had a chance to rub shoulders with people with his wealth or greater.

Footnote: Steven Saltzman was interviewed in the late 1990s for documentaries about a number of Bond films. They were included as extras on home video releases. He also has A TWITTER ACCOUNT. However, don’t expect to pick up any 007 tidbits.

Naomie Harris talks (a bit) about Bond 25

Naomie Harris

The Daily Mail published a July 26 feature story on Naomie Harris. It included some comments by Harris about Bond 25.

On the James Bond character:

‘We’re seeing a real evolution of his character. He’s now having equal relationships with the female characters and he’s emotionally attached, making real connections. There’s real respect for the women in his life.”

On the movie’s women characters:

“There are now four women in the script and they all have incredibly strong roles and play a huge part in driving the story forward and assisting Bond.”

On Moneypenny in Bond 25:

“I can’t say what she gets up to. It’s very secretive. The scripts don’t disintegrate after reading, but they get hand-delivered and you have to sign non-disclosures.”

The Wrecking Crew-Golden Gun mashup

Bruce Lee supervises Sharon Tate (left) and Nancy Kwan during production of The Wrecking Crew

The new movie Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood prompted the blog to again watch The Wrecking Crew, the final Matt Helm film with Dean Martin.

The latter figures prominently in the Quentin Tarantino-directed Once Upon a Time.

After the latest viewing of The Wrecking Crew, I couldn’t help but notice some similarities with the 1974 James Bond film, The Man With the Golden Gun.

Wrecking Crew: Freya Carlson (Sharon Tate) is a klutz.

Golden Gun: Mary Goodnight (Britt Ekland) is a klutz.

Wrecking Crew: Freya works for British Intelligence.

Golden Gun: Goodnight works for British Intelligence.

Wrecking Crew: One of Freya’s colleagues is known as JB.

Golden Gun: One of Goodnight’s colleagues is James Bond.

Wrecking Crew: Matt Helm (Dean Martin) spends a portion of the movie commenting on Freya’s clumsiness.

Golden Gun: James Bond (Roger Moore) spends a portion of the movie commenting on Goodnight’s clumsiness.

Wrecking Crew: When the mission is completed, Helm’s boss, MacDonald (John Larch) unexpectedly calls Helm in the villain’s private rail car that is towing $1 billion in gold. (You’d think it’d have an unlisted number.)

Golden Gun: When the mission is completed, Bond’s boss, M (Bernard Lee) unexpectedly calls Bond in the villain’s private boat. (You’d think it’d have an unlisted number.)

Wrecking Crew: Movie ends with Helm and Freya making out, about to make love.

Golden Gun: Movie ends with Bond and Goodnight making out, about to make love.

A guide to references in Tarantino’s new film

Post for Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood

These aren’t plot spoilers but the spoiler adverse should avoid.

The Quentin Tarantino-directed Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood opens this weekend. Trailers and TV spots for the film promised references to 1960s entertainment. It delivers.

Here’s a guide to some of the references that may be of interest to readers of the blog.

The Wrecking Crew: Margot Robbie, playing Sharon Tate, goes to a movie theater to watch the fourth Matt Helm film starring Dean Martin. She’s depicted as gauging how the audience reactions.

As a result, for most of the sequence, you have the fictional Tate watching the real Sharon Tate opposite Martin and Nancy Kwan. At one point, a fight scene between Tate and Kwan is juxtaposed with scenes of  of Robbie’s Tate training with Bruce Lee (Mike Moh).

Burt Reynolds in The FBI episode All the Streets Are Silent. Leonardo DiCaprio replaces Reynolds in Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood

The FBI: Actor Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) and stuntman/gofer Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt) goes to Dalton’s house to watch the actor’s appearance in The FBI in an episode titled All the Streets Are Silent.

It’s an actual episode of the series. Except shots with Burt Reynolds, playing the episode’s lead villain, are replaced with DeCaprio as Dalton. “This is my big FBI moment,” Dalton says just before the freeze frame at the end of the pre-titles sequence where the villain’s name is on the screen.

All the Streets Are Silent was a 1965 episode. But the film is set in 1969. So the title card for the episode’s name is altered so it’s consistent with the series for the 1968-69 season.

Mannix: At one point, Booth goes home to his own trailer and watches an episode of the private eye drama. The title sequence does match the titles for the 1968-69 season.

The arrangement of Lalo schifrin’s theme uses strings instead of a piano (which began in the third season and lasted the rest of the series.

The Man From U.N.C.L.E., The Girl From U.N.C.L.E.: The two shows are mentioned in passing by a character played by Al Pacino. Girl went off the air in 1967 while Man’s final episode was in January 1968.

The Wild Wild West: The show isn’t mentioned by name, but Al Pacino also references “Bob Conrad and his tight pants.”

The Green Hornet: There’s a flashback scene depicting Cliff Booth getting into a fight with Bruce Lee on the set of the 1966-67 series.

Have Gun-Will Travel: Underscore from the 1957-63 Western is used with a fictional Western series where Dalton had been a big star. Details of specific music is cited in the end titles.

Batman: The theme music for the 1966-68 series shows up in the end titles, along with audio from what sounds like a radio ad featuring Adam West and Burt Ward.

These are just a fraction of movie and TV references in the film. There are other trailers, posters and billboards shown throughout the movie.

UPDATE (July 26): Matthew Chernov advises via Twitter that there also is music from Thunderball in the end titles of Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood.

“It’s a cue from Thunderball,” Chernov wrote in response to a tweet from me. “I saw both movies virtually back to back and it’s definitely part of a climactic action track.”

Chernov conducted a question and answer session with Luciana Paluzzi on July 17 at the Tarantino-owned New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles. The actress attended a showing of Thunderball at the theater.

Chernov also wrote a July 23 article for the James Bond Radio website about Pauluzzi’s appearance.

(July 29): Reader Matthew Bradford, in a comment on The Spy Command’s page on Facebook, advises the Thunderball music was part of the Batman radio spot cited above.

(July 30): Reader Delmo Waters Jr. identifies the Mannix episode as “Death in a Minor Key,” original air date Feb. 8, 1969. Guest stars include two future Bond film actors: Yahphet Kotto and Anthony Zerbe.

David Hedison dies at 92

David Hedison (1927-2019)

David Hedison, star of the original film version of The Fly, the Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea TV series and a two-time Felix Leiter, has died at 92, according to various reports, including The Hollywood Reporter.

Hedison died last week and the news was released by a family spokeswoman, THR said.

Hedison’s IMDB.COM ENTRY lists more than 90 acting credits beginning in 1954 and extending into the 21st century.

The actor also was a friend of Roger Moore. “David phoned Roger regularly throughout his final illness in 2017 and was a great support.” according to a tweet from Moore’s official account on Twitter.

The two worked together in an episode of The Saint. They acted together again, with Hedison as Felix Leiter in Live And Let Die, Moore’s debut as James Bond. Hedison reprised the role opposite Timothy Dalton’s James Bond in Licence to Kill.

Hedison also had a relationship with producer Irwin Allen. The actor was in the cast of Allen’s 1960 version of The Lost World.

Allen wanted Hedison for the 1961 film version of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea but the actor turned it down. Robert Sterling got the part instead. But Hedison signed on when Allen launched the 1964-68 television version.

The first season, shown in black and white, had a lot of espionage and international intrigue stories. As the series progressed, there were a lot of monster story lines.

After Voyage’s run concluded, Hedison didn’t lack for work, often getting guest star parts from producers Quinn Martin (The FBI, Cannon, The Manhunter and Barnaby Jones) and Aaron Spelling (The Love Boat, Dynasty, Fantasy Island).

Here’s the tweet from the Roger Moore account.

One of Roger’s oldest and closest friends was David Hedison, who we have learned passed away a few days ago. David phoned Roger regularly throughout his final illness in 2017 and was a great support. Our thoughts and love go out to Serena and Alexandra at this hugely sad time.

— Sir Roger Moore (Legacy) (@sirrogermoore) July 22, 2019

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Luciana Paluzzi attends Thunderball screening

Luciana Paluzzi and Sean Connery during the filming of Thunderball

Luciana Paluzzi, who played femme fatale Fiona Volpe in Thunderball, attended a screening of the fourth James Bond film and took some questions.

The film was shown at the New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles, owned by writer-director Quentin Tarantino.

“Today I moderated a surprise Q&A at the @newbeverly with THUNDERBALL star Luciana Paluzzi after watching a gorgeous Technicolor print of the film,” writer Matthew Chernov said on Twitter.

“It was a packed house, and Ms. Paluzzi wept in happiness because this was the first time her grandchildren saw her on the big screen.”

The theater is showing five 1960s James Bond films this month, with each showing at 2 p.m. local time on Wednesdays. Thunderball, starring Sean Connery and released in late 1965, came out at the peak of 1960s spymania.

Paluzzi, 82, also made appearances on The Man From U.N.C.L.E., The Girl From U.N.C.L.E. and Hawaii Five-O during her career.

Here is Chernov’s tweet:

Today I moderated a surprise Q&A at the @newbeverly with THUNDERBALL star Luciana Paluzzi after watching a gorgeous Technicolor print of the film. It was a packed house, and Ms. Paluzzi wept in happiness because this was the first time her grandchildren saw her on the big screen. pic.twitter.com/CXRHCMFWF1

— Matthew Chernov (@MatthewChernov) July 18, 2019

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A few things about Bond fan outrage

The past few days have been overheated in James Bond fandom. If you’ve followed the news, even casually, you can guess why. But here are a few things to keep in mind.

It’s only a movie: James Bond isn’t real life. If you want to get upset, get upset about real-life events. There are plenty to choose from.

Don’t go there: I saw a video that specifically made a homophobic reference to a Bond fan who does amusing YouTube James Bond videos. No, I am not going to link it.

Don’t go there. Don’t do it. There’s no need to do it.

Long-running characters change and evolve: Sherlock Holmes got “timeshifted” to the 1940s in movies made by Universal during World War II. Batman fought aliens in 1950s and early 1960s comic books. Dick Tracy had his own “space era.”

If you don’t like one era for a character, it’s likely a new era will occur sooner or later. Batman became darker after the end of the 1966-68 Batman TV show thanks to stories by Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams. Bond has had his own share of different eras.

Characters may change race or gender: Marvel’s Nick Fury went from white (in the original 1960s comics) to black. It happened with an “alternative universe” version where Fury was drawn to resemble Samuel L. Jackson. When Marvel began making its own films, Jackson got cast in the role. A 2010 Hawaii Five-0 television series (still in production) turned The Governor and Jonathan Kaye into women characters (Pat Jameson instead of Paul Jameson, Jenna Kaye instead of Jonathan Kaye. Also, Kono transformed into a woman character in the new series.

Meanwhile, Bond films came out with black versions of supporting characters. such as Felix Leiter and Moneypenny.

Blofeld: Why the character deserves fan admiration

Spoiler adverse should stop reading now.

Christoph Waltz in SPECTRE

By Gert Waterink, Guest Writer
Last week, the Daily Mail’s Baz Bamigboye reported that Christoph Waltz, who played Blofeld in SPECTRE, would reprise the role in Bond 25.

I support Waltz’s return. Yes, SPECTRE wasn’t a masterpiece of a Bond film. Far from it. The foster brother plot element was far fetched and perceived as a forced effort to bring back a new kind of Blofeld.

Most Bond fans and general movie audiences didn’t buy it. Nor did they buy the rather convoluted scheme from SPECTRE to sell large amounts of intelligence data packed in a new intelligence IT system to its highest bidder: the British intelligence community.

Execution, Smart Writing
Still, Blofeld is alive and Bond’s links to that man and his heritage have compromised the British Secret Service.

The history of Daniel Craig’s Bond (young bloke in Casino Royale while being an orphan from Scotland in Skyfall) is in place. Some sense needs to be made out of that.

By completely ignoring those elements, you risk producing an adventure that doesn’t do justice to Bond as a a fully rounded character.

Turning Bond 25 into an action flick reminiscent of the last 007 films of Roger Moore and Sean Connery doesn’t work.

I find it plot wise more logical to do something with the radical (and badly executed) fact that a legendary Bond villain (Waltz’s Blofeld)  has been left alive with a broken leg and a bloody scar on his face.

Only now it must be executed better.  Blofeld’s return will admittedly be a precarious affair..

Anthony Dawson (with Eric Pohlman dubbing the voice)  played puppet master Blofeld in From Russia With Love and Thunderball.

His uncredited Blofeld managed to have a tiny amount of screen time, while at the same time being a pivotal plot device to the overall villainous scheme and infusing some much needed horror and scare to movie audiences.

Add to that James himself, who after retiring from M6 isn’t aware about Blofeld shaking and stirring a new and much better executed villain’s plot. A return of Blofeld can become more palatable for even the most orthodox Bond fan.

Daniel Craig and Lea Seydoux at the end of SPECTRE.

Respect for an Antagonist
Apart from bringing back Blofeld, some fans should also try and find some love for a character that was, indeed, (co-)devised by Ian Fleming himself.

Ernst Stavro Blofeld in the books was the head of SPECTRE, but he introduced the character foremost to get out of too much political waters (an antagonist not bound to any nation has got its advantages).

Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman found that admirable. They changed the plot of the cinematic adaptation of From Russia With Love in such a way that Russia wouldn’t be the prime aggressor.

Instead, it was Blofeld all along! He was, together with Kronsteen, the author of all that humiliation to James Bond! Ian Fleming eventually was very pleased with the film.

Blofeld: A ‘Push the Buttons’ Villain
There is also a larger-than-life quality to Blofeld that makes his actions more defensible than many fans would like to see.

Blofeld has weird psychotic traits. Blofeld is much more the man who acts out of sheer psychotic…..fun. Just revisit The Garden Of Death in Fleming’s novel You Only Live Twice, and we are back with both feet on the ground: the world of Bond isn’t that logical sometimes!

Even in the first Bond films, Blofeld was the man who took great pleasure in torturing and killing his adversaries in an all too theatrical way. Pressing a button here, drilling a little hole in Bond’s skull there: that’s Blofeld. But it was fun, entertaining and, admittedly, slightly gory. And Fleming knew that aspect too.

More Logic, Better Explanations
Yes, I think it’s pivotal to get rid of that bit of foster brother backstory. It turned Blofeld and Bond into two brotherly losers who could not stay professional within their own organisations: MI6 and SPECTRE.

Yet, I think it’s not a big problem to simply ignore that aspect while at the same time let Blofeld return with some of the aforementioned brilliance.

Let us also not forget that the prime villain of Bond 25 will be played by Rami Malek. So we should also not panic like headless chickens now Christoph Waltz has been seen at Pinewood Studios.

It is Rami Malek who gets more screen time in Bond 25. It is his role who probably devises an ingenious plot, which, rumour has it is about genetic warfare.

Such a scheme, and a hopefully rich performance by Rami Malek, will probably leave not too much space for more complicated revelations about Bond and Blofeld’s failed childhood.

Patience, Please
In any case, ignoring SPECTRE is one way to create a more critically acclaimed Bond film in cinemas as of next year. But there are more ways to Rome, more ways to produce a masterpiece of a Bond film.

So patience is a virtue too. Perhaps the Bond fan community should look into that a bit more often, so that we don’t write off a film before it’s even released.