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Sherwood’s first Bond-related novel, Double Or Nothing, was published earlier this year. The official U.S. publication date is 2023.
Sherwood’s novels are timeshifted. James Bond has been missing for an extended time. The author introduces a new cast of 00-agents, including one named after one-time Bond screenwriter Johanna Harwood.
Whether intentional or not, Bond 26 may avoid competition from the next two Tom Cruise Mission: Impossible films.
Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part I is scheduled for 2023 and its follow-up, Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part II is supposed to be out in 2024.
Meanwhile, Barbara Broccoli, boss of Eon Productions, has said Bond 26 won’t start filming for at least two years. A 2024 filming date most likely means the movie won’t be out until 2025. Bond 26 will feature a successor to Daniel Craig, whoever that is.
Obviously, that’s not official. Bond 26’s filming date isn’t set in stone and, until we know more, the next Bond film might not go into production until later. Based on various Broccoli interviews, there’s no new Bond actor selected, and work on a script hasn’t started yet.
There has been a lot of filming done on Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning but work may remain to finish the two-part saga. The two films are expected to be the final bow for Tom Cruise’s M:I saga, which began in 1996.
The last time we had a M:I film and a Bond movie the same year was 2015. That’s when Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation came out in the summer while Eon’s SPECTRE debuted in the fall.
Cruise’s M:I movies feature stunt sequences that appear to be homages to earlier Bond films. Yet, some M:I enthusiasts say Cruise’s movies have a sense of fun lacking in recent Bond movies.
None of this may be significant. But there’s a possibility Eon’s next Bond adventure won’t take place until after Cruise, 60, concludes his M:I run.
Cover to Jon Krampner’s biography of Ernest Lehman
In Hollywood, there’s a trope about how the screenwriter gets the short end of the stick. It doesn’t matter how accomplished the writer is, stars and directors are at the head of the line for getting credit.
This even shows up in movies such as 1950’s Hollywood Boulevard or 1965’s In Harm’s Way. In the latter film, Burgess Meredith plays a reserve naval officer who had been a screenwriter. Meredith’s character had married separate starlets. He takes comfort in how one of his ex-wives never had a hit after he stopped writing her films.
Ernest Lehman was one of the most successful Hollywood screenwriters. Jon Krampner’s new biography examines Lehman career, warts and all.
Lehman was not the ideal subject for a biography. In his lifetime, Lehman provided conflicting accounts of his work. The scribe was not a personally colorful character. After reading Krampner’s biography, I might be tempted to call him nerdy. Regardless, he paid attention to detail and was very versatile.
“Lehman was a uniquely difficult subject,” Krampner writes in the book’s preface. “He was not larger than life. In fact, he was slightly smaller than life, although his films (most, but not all) are monster huge.”
For readers of this blog, the No. 1 example was North by Northwest, Lehman’s only original screenplay among films that were produced by studios.
North by Northwest, with its mix of drama and humor, helped set up the 1960s spy craze.
It’s generally accepted that the Lehman-scripted crop duster sequence (and Krampner makes a convincing case it was Lehman’s idea, not director Alfred Hitchock). Regardless, the sequence became an, er, “homage,” in From Russia With Love when a helicopter attacks Sean Connery’s James Bond.
But Krampner also provides details how Lehman sweated bullets over the development of North by Northwest’s script.
The audience is way ahead of Cary Grant’s Roger O. Thornhill. Eventually, Thornhill is filled in by Leo G. Carroll’s “The Professor.”
“One of Lehman’s core tenets as a screenwriter was to conceal exposition, not engaging in excessive explanation of plot details,” Krampner writes. So, in North by Northwest, when Thornhill and The Professor walk on the airport tarmac, there are airplane noises when The Professor says what the audience knows.
Intentional or not, this same technique was used in From Russia With Love. The audience twice sees Bond use a recognition code with allies. But it comes into play two more times when an enemy (Robert Shaw) uses it with another British agent (the real Captain Nash) as well as Bond. In both cases, the audience doesn’t hear it *because they don’t have to*. The audience knows what it is being said. Things move along quickly.
In terms of versatility, much can be cited about Lehman. His biographer cuts to the chase. Lehman could shift from The Sound of Music to Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Again, screenwriters often get the short end. This biography is a study of one of the screenwriting greats. GRADE: A.
10 years ago today, the Royal Premiere of SKYFALL took place in London. The film became the highest-grossing in Bond history. #60yearsofBondpic.twitter.com/zZLRcUaYuC
“I wanted to wait until the weekend was over before posting this because I wanted to give you all a chance to watch ‘Black Adam,’” Cavill said in a video posted to his Instagram feed. “But now that plenty of you have, I wanted to make it official: I am back as Superman.”
Cavill, once upon a time (circa 2005), was a contender to play James Bond in 2006’s Casino Royale. He received a screen test before Daniel Craig was hired.
The actor has been favored by some Bond fans to succeed Craig. He played Napoleon Solo in a 2015 movie version of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. as well as playing a villain in a 2018 Tom Cruise Mission: Impossible film.
Cavill probably is too old to be the new Bond. Also, Eon Productions (mostly) doesn’t like to cast actors associated with other franchises. Roger Moore and Pierce Brosnan were the most obvious exceptions.
For a time, it seemed Cavill had lost the Superman gig — which included a 2013 solo Superman movie as well as 2016’s Batman vs. Superman and 2017’s Justice League.
In Ian Fleming’s Moonraker novel (1955), James Bond is drawn into the affairs of Hugo Drax, a mysterious millionaire who is building a rocket, seemingly on behalf of the U.K.
In the 21st century, Elon Musk, chief of electric-vehicle maker Tesla and aerospace company SpaceX, has emerged as a real-life Hugo Drax. Musk is even a James Bond fan. He bought one of the submarine cars from The Spy Who Loved Me and had something he dubbed Operation Goldfinger.
Musk’s activities have expanded into buying Twitter (a bit of a soap opera but it appears about to happen) and commenting about global affairs, such as Russia’s war against Ukraine.
On Oct. 22, The Washington Post weighed in with an overview about Musk’s activities.
Between launching four astronauts and 54 satellites into orbit, unveiling an electric freight truck and closing in on taking over Twitter this month, Elon Musk made time to offer unsolicited peace plans for Taiwan and Ukraine,antagonizing those countries’ leaders and irking Washington, too.
Musk, the richest man in the world, then irritated some Pentagon officials by announcing he didn’t want to keep paying for his private satellite service in Ukraine, before later walking back the threat.
As Musk, 51, inserts himself into volatile geopolitical issues, many Washington policymakers worry from the sidelines as he bypasses them.
It appears we’ll be hearing more from the modern-day Hugo Drax going forward.
The 1960s was the era of the spy craze. But some folks will argue that point with you.
Some James Bond fans will say everything other than Bond are only “knockoffs.”
Meanwhile, some fans of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (on social media) argue that was actually “the U.N.C.L.E. Craze” with Get Smart, I Spy, and The Wild Wild West following.
A few facts:
The Man From U.N.C.L.E. originally was pitched as “James Bond for television.”
Television producer Norman Felton and Ian Fleming co-created the character Napoleon Solo on October 29-31,1962 during their meetings in New York City.
The Wild Wild West was pitched as “spies and cowboys.”
Get Smart originated as a mix of Bond and Inspector Clouseau.
The success of Bond created a market for an “anti-Bond.” John Le Carre (real name David Cornwell) benefited. Still, Le Carre and his prominent fans said Bond wasn’t up to Le Carre’s standards.
Danger Man (Secret Agent in the U.S.) and The Avengers came out before 1962’s Dr. No. Yet both British TV shows were influenced by the Bond films.
The 1960s spy craze was a high point for the genre. But, even to this day, there’s a lot of grumbling going on.
Mad magazine, which has mostly been dormant, is out with a 70th anniversary issue.
The satire publication debuted in 1952 as a comic book published by EC. Mad upgraded to a magazine as most of EC comic book titles (which included a lot of horror titles) went away.
Over the decades, Mad published various James Bond parody stories as well as parodies of The Man From U.N.C.L.E., I Spy and other examples of spy entertainment.
Here’s a description from Mad’s website:
MAD Magazine, one of the longest-running humor publications in America, is celebrating its 70th anniversary with a can’t-miss issue!
Nearly one-half of this 56-page anniversary celebration issue (issue #28) features original content, the most since the publication’s format change in 2019. Not only are current MAD staffers creating and contributing new content, but some of the original and most beloved members of “The Usual Gang of Idiots” are returning with new features, plus original contributions from celebrity MAD Magazine fans “Weird Al” Yankovic and filmmaker/comedian Jordan Peele.
Mad was founded by publisher William M. Gaines (1922-1992). In the early 1970s, he appeared on the syndicated version of To Tell The Truth. Long-time Mad contributor Dick De Bartolo is referenced. He contributed to the 70th anniversary issue.
Continuing the blog’s look at a March 1988 treatment by Richard Maibaum and Michael G. Wilson for Licence to Kill. The treatment was provided by Gary J. Firuta.
A shell “from a tank hits the bungalow and explodes, almost demolishing it,” the treatment says on page 40. “Evidently Kwang had been followed there.”
The treatment says General Rios, “in a command car with Sanchez, is directing an attack by regular Isthmus City troops on the bungalow.”
The attack is deadly. Rios sends troops inside. The roof has collapsed. Rios and Sanchez follow the troops inside.
“Kwang and Loti are still alive,” according to the treatment. “Rios hands Sanchez a revolver. He dispatches them with it.”
As in the final film, Bond is discovered, still alive.
“Rios lifts revolver to kill him,” Maibaum and Wilson write. “Sanchez stays his hand.”
“He tried to warn me,” Sanchez says.
The next morning, Bond awakens in a bedroom of the casino penthouse. Lupe is there.
“She tells him she prayed for him,” the treatment says. “And for herself, too.”
Soon, Sanchez enters with his personal physician, Dr. Mendez, who “wears a voluminous camel’s hair coat, a broad rimmed fedora and dark sunglasses.”
Mendez begins to examine Bond. Sanchez “expresses hit gratitude to Bond.”
“From now on they are hermanos,” according to the treatment. “And the East Coast territory might soon be his. They will discuss it when Bond has recovered.”
Sanchez instructs the doctor to give Bond a sedative “to knock him out for six hours.” After Sanchez exits the room, “he tells a man standing there to stay and keep an eye on Bond. It is Dario.”
Back in the room, Mendez is about to inject the sedative into Bond. But the agent “deftly snatches the needle” out of the doctor’s hand and injects him with it instead.
“The astounded Mendez pulls away, staggers a few feet and collapses.”
Dario’s suspicions are raised. He enters the room, his weapon drawn. Lupe is making the bed.
Dario pulls away the covers. Dr. Mendez is there. Bond gets into a fight with Dario. Eventually, Bond overcomes Dario. Bond tells Lupe “it is her last chance to get away from Sanchez and Krest.
“Will she come with him? She is still shaken but agrees.”
Angela Lansbury in The Manchurian candidate (1962)
Angela Lansbury (1925-2022) is, understandably, being celebrated for a stellar career that lasted decades. That long career included some stops in the spy/espionage genre.
Most prominent was The Manchurian Candidate (1962), concerning an attempt to take over the United States. Lansbury’s Eleanor Shaw Iselin is one of the plotters, who is working with the Soviet Union and China. Her plan calls for an assassination of a leading presidential candidate. One of the pawns in the plot is her own brainwashed son (Laurence Harvey).
Lansbury received an Oscar nomination for best-supporting actress for her performance.
In 2003, movie critic Roger Ebert took a look back at the film. His essay included this passage:
Lansbury’s Mrs. Iselin, nominated for an Academy Award, is one of the great villains of movie history. Fierce, focused, contemptuous of the husband she treats like a puppet, she has, we gather, plotted with the Russians and Chinese to use the Red Scare of “Iselinism” to get him into office, where she will run things from behind the scenes. But it comes as a shocking surprise that her own son has been programmed as the assassin. That so enrages her that, in another turn of the corkscrew plot, she tells him: “When I take power, they will be pulled down and ground into dirt for what they did to you. And what they did in so contemptuously underestimating me.”
After President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, the film went into the vault. It finally resurfaced in the late 1980s via home video releases.
In 1965, Lansbury had a chance to act in a more escapist take on the genre: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. episode The Deadly Toys Affair, which originally aired on NBC on Nov. 12, 1965.
Lansbury played Elfie van Donck, an international star. Her young nephew (Jay North) is a super genius, currently at a boarding school secretly run by Thrush, the show’s villainous organization.
U.N.C.L.E. is determined to get the nephew away. Lansbury’s character becomes involved. The episode is very escapist and Lansbury’s performance fits right in. She’s over the top, but in a pleasing way. Lansbury’s Elfie van Donck even pilots the helicopter whisking our heroes (Robert Vaughn’s Napoleon Solo and David McCallum’s Illya Kuryakin) to safety.
The Spy Command 