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The Medal of Freedom is given out by the U.S. president each year. It’s awarded to those who have made “an especially meritorious contribution to the security or national interests of the United States, world peace, cultural or other significant public or private endeavors,” according to its definition on Wikipedia.
Many politicians receive the award. This year the award was given to former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, former Vice President Al Gore, and former Secretary of State John Kerry. The current U.S. president, Joseph Biden, was given one when he was vice president under then-President Barack Obama.
But such awards are given to people in various fields, including sports, business, and entertainment. Another one of the 2024 recipients was Medgar Evans, a civil rights activist, who was assassinated in 1963.
Yeoh played agent Wai Lin in Tomorrow Never Dies. She and Pierce Brosnan’s James Bond are both investigating a media baron played by Jonathan Pryce. The businessman is trying to start a war between the U.K. and China to expand the ratings of his worldwide news channel. Yeoh’s martial arts skills were a highlight of the Bond movie.
Once upon a time, being a Bond woman was seen as a curse: You get a big movie and then disappear into obscurity. That hasn’t been the case for a while but Yeoh’s post-Bond career stands out.
Cover to the original soundtrack release of The World Is Not Enough
Updated from previous posts.
The World Is Not Enough, the 19th film in the 007 film series made by Eon Productions, marked a transition.
Producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli hired a director, Michael Apted, with little experience in action movies. Apted was brought on because of his drama experience.
Apted also was charged with increasing the female audience for a Bond film.
“I didn’t understand why they picked me to do (The World Is Not Enough),” Apted told The Hollywood Reporter in an October 2018 interview.
“It turned out, they were trying to get more women to come and see it,” Apted said. “So, we really wanted to do a Bond with a lot of women in it. I was right person because I’d done a lot of successful films with women in them. But they didn’t tell me that until right before we started. When I found out, I finally understood.”
The producers also hired a new writing team, Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, to develop the story. They’re still in the world of 007 well into the 21st century.
The script development established a pattern the duo would soon be familiar with. They delivered their script, which would be reworked by other writers. In the case of The World Is Not Enough, Dana Stevens, Apted’s wife, revised the story. Another scribe, Bruce Feirstein, worked on the final drafts. Purvis, Wade and Feirstein would get a screen credit.
Meanwhile, Judi Dench’s M got expanded screen time, something that would persist through 2012’s Skyfall. The film also marked the final appearance of Desmond Llewelyn as Q. John Cleese came aboard as Q’s understudy.
Pierce Brosnan, in his third 007 outing, was now an established film Bond. In interviews at the time, he talked up the increased emphasis on drama. In the film, Bond falls for Elektra King, whose industrialist father is killed in MI6’s own headquarters. But in a twist, Elektra (played by Sophie Marceau) proves to be the real mastermind.
Q’s Good-Bye
The movie tried to balance the new emphasis on drama with traditional Bond bits such as quips and gadgets, such as the “Q boat” capable of diving underwater or rocketing across land. Some fans find the character of Dr. Christmas Jones, a scientist played by Denise Richards, over the top.
Years later, Richards did an interview with the SpyHards podcast. “Why is it on CNN that I am a Bond girl?” Richards said on the podcast, quoting her comments to her agent. The agent’s response: “Do you not know how big this movie is?”
Afterward, Richards told SpyHards, “I wanted to educate myself on the franchise” and she saw earlier films in the series.
For the actress, things were rough at times. She endured ridicule for playing a scientist. “I would go to my hotel and cry because the reviews were making fun of me,” Richards told the podcast.
Sometimes, the dual tones collided. Cleese’s initial appearance was played for laughs. In the same scene, however, Q, in effect, tells Bond good-bye in what’s intended to be a touching moment. It was indeed the final good-bye. Llewelyn died later that year as the result of a traffic accident.
The movie was a financial success, with $361.8 million in worldwide box office. Broccoli and Wilson, meanwhile, would return to the idea of increased drama in later entries after recasting Bond with Daniel Craig.
Good-bye, United Artists
The World Is Not Enough also dispensed (mostly) with the name of United Artists. UA cut the deal with Eon founders Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman in 1961 that led to the 007 film series.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer acquired UA in the early 1980s. But UA retained some kind of presence via corporate logos and such. (CLICK HERE for a history.)
With The World Is Not Enough, the film was branded as an MGM release, not a United Artists one. An MGM 75th anniversary logo appeared at the start of the movie. Deep into the end titles, the copyright notice listed “DANJAQ LLC” and “UNITED ARTISTS CORPORATION” as the owners of the movie. By this time, UA existed on paper only as part of MGM.
In 2019, MGM revived the UA name with United Artists Releasing, a joint venture with Annapurna, which distributed MGM and Annapurna movies in the U.S. Even so, with Bond films, the United Artists Releasing name appeared in small print on posters and wasn’t shown at the start of movies. No Time to Die had logos for MGM and Universal (which distributed the film outside the U.S.) or MGM only (in the U.S.)
Remember when The Sun said last month that actor Aaron Taylor-Johnson had been offered the part of James Bond? Supposedly, the actor would sign the contract in a few days. Many, many other outlets did stories, citing The Sun.
We’re almost halfway through April. No sign yet a deal has been struck.
As the blog has pointed out before (including a March 7 post), British tabloids count on readers having amnesia about what the publications have posted before. When real life catches up to tabloid stories, the tabloids have a tendency to forget what they’ve “reported.”
There have been other tabloids who’ve “reported” ATJ’s possible co-stars for Bond 26. I’m not going to link because things have been in ridiculous mode for a while now.
To be honest, Eon Productions has gotten a TON of free publicity thanks to The Sun.
There have been no visible signs that Eon and its partners at Amazon/MGM have been doing much work on Bond 26. Remember, Eon can’t make a Bond film without Amazon/MGM. Amazon/MGM can’t do a Bond film without Eon.
But thanks to The Sun (and outlets who cited the tabloid), Bond has stayed in the public eye — in a cynical way, to be sure.
Robert MacNeil, a long-time television journalist, died this week at the age of 93. During his day job, he covered the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963 and hosted the MacNeil/Lehrer Report (later the PBS News Hour) for years.
MacNeil also had a spy entertainment footnote: He hosted PBS’s presentation of the Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy miniseries in 1980. The miniseries debuted in 1979 in the U.K.
MacNeil made clear in his introductions that he was a big fan of David Cornwell/John Le Carre. In one of his Tinker Tailor introductions, he took a dig at Ian Fleming and James Bond. Bond was a cardboard figure, as MacNeil told it. Le Carre wrote well-developed, complicated characters.
Essentially, MacNeil mirrored a decades-long debate. In 2017, there was a debate in London about whether Le Carre or Fleming was the better spy novelist.
Personal note: That Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy miniseries is when I discovered Le Carre. I then bought some of the author’s novels. They’re all quite good. But I never liked how some Le Carre fans (such as MacNeil) felt the need to slam Fleming and Bond.
For more about MacNeil’s career, you can view obituaries by The Washington Post and The New York Times. These are gift links meaning there should be no paywall issues.
Khigh Dhiegh, who appeared in The Manchurian Candidate (1962) and in many episodes of Hawaii Five-O.
The SpyHards podcast recently had an episode reviewing the 1969 movie The Chairman, where Gregory Peck goes into China on a mission. During the episode, there was a discussion concerning Mao Zedong and how he ranked with real-life figures such as Hitler and Stalin.
This post won’t make a judgment. But in the 1960s, into the 1970s, Mao was viewed as a really, really bad guy. This showed up in popular entertainment.
The Manchurian Candidate (1962): This movie, based on a Richard Condon novel, details a joint Chinese-Russian plot to assassinate a U.S. presidential candidate. The lead Chinese operative was played by Khiegh Dhiegh (1910-1991), who has brainwashed U.S. soldiers during the Korean War. One of them (Laurence Harvey) will ultimately pull the trigger.
Goldfinger (1964): In Ian Fleming’s 1959 novel, Auric Goldfinger worked for the Russians. When the book was adapted, Goldfinger formed an alliance with the Chinese government, including agent Mr. Ling.
Real life (1965): In real life, the U.S. still didn’t recognize the communist government of China until the end of the 1970s. It was extremely difficult for American reporters to get into China. On the July 5, 1965, installment of To Tell The Truth (see game 2), a Canadian-born reporter for a U.S. outlet described her experiences in China.
Hawaii Five-O pilot (1968): Five-O debuted as a two-hour TV movie in September 1968. Written and produced by Leonard Freeman, the show introduced Wo Fat (Khiegh Dhiegh again) as the arch-villain who would bedevil Steve McGarrett (Jack Lord) for the next dozen years.
Hawaii Five-O, Presenting…In The Center Ring…Murder (1974): In the early 1970s, the U.S. had begun to normalize relations with China. So what to do with Wo Fat? In this episode, the villain has gone independent and is plotting to kill a high-ranking Chinese government official because he believes the leadership of the country is too weak toward the Americans.
Wolfgang Thurauf, a prominent German fan of James Bond, has died.
Thurauf’s passing was reported on social media on Tuesday. His many friends posted about his passing.
I had exchanges with Wolfgang. I asked — pleaded, even — for more details from his friends. Age? Bond affiliation? Nothing was forthcoming. Over the years, I had seen photos of him at different Bond movie premieres.
Based on the social media announcements, Wolfgang had a huge impact on other Bond fans.
As the 007 film franchise advances, the likes of fans such as Wolfgang are passing from the scene. Such fans are no longer around.
UPDATE: I’m told Wolfgang was 62 and was the vice president of the German James bond Fan Club.
UPDATE II: Wolfgang’s DOB was April 29, 1962, meaning he was 61, 11 months, when he died.
The model’s first cinema appearance took place during the filming of 1964’s Goldfinger.
James Bond (Sean Connery) was driving the soon-to-be-iconic Aston Martin DB5 while following Auric Goldfinger. Suddenly, a woman (Tania Mallet) driving the Mustang initially passes the DB5 on the roads of Switzerland. After Bond seems to have been targeted for a killing attempt, the British agent passes the Mustang.
Bond uses the DB5’s gadgets to pull a Ben-Hur maneuver to tear apart the Mustang and run it to the side of the road.
Things turn out to be more complicated and the Mallet character ends up as one of the movie’s sacrificial lambs. Regardless, in Goldfinger, the Mustang is almost as iconic as the DB5.
The Mustang would also be seen in 1965’s Thunderball, driven by SPECTRE killer Fiona Volpe (Luciana Paluzzi). In 1971, a muscle car version of the Mustang was seen in Diamonds Are Forever, with Sean Connery dodging law-enforcement cars in Las Vegas.
As the Mustang’s design evolved, it would also be featured prominently in 1968’s Bullitt, driven by Steve McQueen as the film’s title character. What’s more, the Mustang would be featured on American television shows such as The FBI (1965-74). In the first four seasons of that series, star Efrem Zimbalist Jr. drove Mustangs in the end titles.
This year marks the 100th anniversary of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. MGM was created by a merger of three companies in 1924.
At one time, it was the most glamorous studio in Hollywood before entering a state of decline. It also had an impact on the spy genre with The Man From U.N.C.L.E. television series in the 1960s and later when it acquired United Artists, which released the James Bond films.
MGM came to be in April 1924 when Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures and Louis B. Mayer Pictures merged. The new company would adopt the lion logo of Goldwyn Pictures.
MGM over the decades would release movies such as The Wizard of Oz, Gone With the Wind, Mrs. Miniver, The Band Wagon, Gigi, Battleground, 2001: A Space Oydessey, and two versions of Ben Hur, among others. Its Culver City, California, backlot was one of the biggest in Hollywood.
By the 1960s, MGM’s best days were behind it although the backlot was still intact.
MGM entered the spycraze via The Man From U.N.C.L.E. Arena Productions, headed by Norman Felton, worked out of MGM. Felton met with James Bond author Ian Fleming in New York in October 1962. That was the first step in how U.N.C.L.E. came to be, with writer-producer Sam Rolfe doing the heavy lifting.
The series ran from September 1964 until January 1968. MGM re-edited U.N.C.L.E. episodes into eight movies for international release, with a few of the early ones getting released in the U.S. MGM, in 1966, also had U.N.C.L.E. stars Robert Vaughn and David McCallum be the leads in separate feature films (The Venetian Affair and Three Bites of the Apple, respectively) that were released in 1967.
After U.N.C.L.E. had run its course, MGM got bought and sold, getting diminished in the process. Much of MGM’s Southern California real estate got sold off. Costumes and props from MGM movies were auctioned off. By the mid-1970s, what few MGM movies being made (such as 1976’s Network) were distributed by United Artists, the original 007 studio.
What’s more, as a result of all the deal-making, the pre-1986 MGM film library eventually was acquired by corporate parent companies of Warner Bros. That’s why the 2015 film version of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. was released by Warners.
UA, owned by insurance conglomerate Transamerica, had its own troubles at the end of 1970s and the start of the 1980s. MGM bought UA, a deal that closed in 1981. Now, the James Bond film franchise fell under the sway of MGM.
Eon Productions, which controls creative issues related to Bond, had a series of confrontations with various MGM management regimes. Eon and MGM had legal fights, which resulted in no Bond films being made from summer 1989 (Licence to Kill) to fall 1995 (GoldenEye). Even after that conflict was settled, Eon had plenty of differences with MGM.
For much of the Bond era of MGM, the studio was a shadow of its former self. A notable low was when MGM went into bankruptcy in 2010.
In 2021, Amazon acquired MGM for $8.45 billion. That may have firmed up MGM’s finances, but to date, it hasn’t resulted in a steady production of Bond movies.
Regardless, a merger of almost a century ago, has had a big impact on the spy film and TV genre.
Licence to Kill, which came out 35 years ago, is mostly known for a series of “lasts” but also for a first.
–It was the last of five 007 films directed by John Glen, the most prolific director in the series.
–The last of 13 Bond films where Richard Maibaum (1909-1991) participated in the writing.
–It was the last with Albert R. Broccoli getting a producer’s credit (he would only “present” 1995’s GoldenEye).
–It was the last 007 movie with a title sequence designed by Maurice Binder, who would die in 1991.
–And the it was last 007 film where Pan Am was the unofficial airline of the James Bond series (it went out of business before GoldenEye).
It was also the first to falter badly in the U.S. market.
Economy Class
Bond wasn’t on Poverty Row when Licence to Kill began production in 1988. But neither did 007 travel entirely first class.
Under financial pressure from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (which acquired half the franchise after buying United Artists earlier in the decade), Eon Productions moved the home base of the production to Mexico from Pinewood Studios.
Joining Timothy Dalton in his second (and last) outing as Bond was a cast mostly known for appearing on U.S. television, including Anthony Zerbe, Don Stroud, David Hedison (his second appearance as Felix Leiter), Pricilla Barnes, Rafer Johnson, Frank McRae as well as Las Vegas performer Wayne Newton.
Meanwhile, character actor Robert Davi snared the role of the film’s villain, with Carey Lowell and Talisa Soto as competing Bond women.
Wilson’s Role
Michael G. Wilson, Broccoli’s stepson and co-producer, took the role as lead writer because a 1988 Writers Guild strike made Richard Maibaum unavailable. Maibaum’s participation didn’t extend beyond the plotting stage. The teaser trailer billed Wilson as the sole writer (“Screenplay by Michael G. Wilson”) but Maibaum received co-writer billing in the final credits (“Written by Michael G. Wilson and Richard Maibaum”).
Wilson opted for a darker take, up to a point. He included Leiter having a leg chewed off by a shark based on the Live And Let Die novel. A man gets his heart cut out (off-screen). Zerbe’s Milton Krest dies when his head explodes. Looking back today, the mayhem is relatively tame but it was a big deal at the time.
The writer-producer also upped the number of swear words compared with previous 007 entries. But Wilson hedged his bets with jokes, such as Newton’s fake preacher and a scene where Q (Desmond Llewelyn) shows off gadgets to Bond.
Licence would be the first Bond film where “this time it’s personal.” Bond goes rogue to avenge Leiter. Since then, it has frequently been personal for 007. Because of budget restrictions, filming was kept primarily in Florida and Mexico.
The end product didn’t go over well in the U.S. Other studios had given the 16th 007 film a wide berth for its U.S. opening weekend. The only “new” movie that weekend was a re-release of Walt Disney Co.’s Peter Pan.
Nevertheless, Licence finished an anemic No. 4 during the July 14-16 weekend coming in behind Lethal Weapon 2 (in its second weekend), Batman (in its fourth weekend) and Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (also fourth weekend).
At the end of the day, Glen and Maibaum were done with Bond, the latter being part of the 007 series since its inception.
Bond 17’s Fembot
Initial pre-production of the next 007 film proceeded without the two series veterans. Wilson wrote a treatment in 1990 for Bond 17 with Alfonse Ruggiero that included a deadly fembot. Scripts with other scribes were then written based on that treatment. Author Mark Edlitz, in a 2020 book, detailed other attempts at writing a third and fourth Dalton movie.
None of the Dalton scripts were ever made.
That’s because Broccoli would enter into a legal fight with MGM that meant Bond wouldn’t return to movie screens until 1995. By the time production resumed, Eon started over, using a story by Michael France as a beginning point for what would become GoldenEye. Maibaum, meanwhile, died in early 1991.
Former studio executive Jeff Kleeman in a 2024 interview with the SpyHards podcast said the MGM leadership wasn’t enthusiastic about retaining Timothy Dalton while Eon wanted to continue with the actor. In the give-and-take that followed, Dalton stepped aside and GoldenEye would star Pierce Brosnan.
Today, some fans like to blame MGM’s marketing campaign or other major summer 1989 movies such as Batman or Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade for the 1989 box office results. But Licence came out weeks after either of those blockbusters.
And, it needs to be repeated, Bond couldn’t best Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, which also came out weeks earlier.
In the end, the U.S. audience didn’t care for Licence compared with other offerings. The movie’s total U.S. box office of $34.7 million didn’t match Batman’s U.S. opening weekend of $40.5 million. Licence’s U.S. box office was almost a third less than its 007 predecessor, The Living Daylights.
Licence to Kill did much better in other markets. Still, Licence’s worldwide ticket sales represented an 18% decline from The Living Daylights.
Blood Is Thicker Than Water
As stated before, some 007 fans blame a lackluster U.S. advertising campaign. However, Michael G. Wilson said in 2015 that Eon officials “really run the marketing ourselves” and studios involved merely “execute it.” Did that apply to Licence to Kill? Or was Licence somehow an exception?
For Dalton, Glen, Maibaum and even Broccoli (he yielded the producer’s duties on GoldenEye because of ill health), it was the end of the road.
Michael G. Wilson, despite his enormous impact on Licence to Kill, remained in place. Blood (even adopted blood), after all, is thicker than water — or even box office receipts.
This week, the 007 Store announced the sale of James Bond-themed Faberge eggs. They don’t resemble the Faberge eggs seen in Octopussy (1983). Rather they are “inspired” by the 13th James Bond movie.
Price: £ 115,200 (more than $145,000). Here’s part of the description:
Introducing the Fabergé x 007 Octopussy Egg Objet – Numbered Edition, a precious collector’s piece, hand crafted from 18k yellow gold, green guilloché enamel, diamonds and blue sapphires, in a limited edition of 50 (only 1 available for immediate delivery).
This is the first in a series of Fabergé x 007 collections taking inspiration from the film series. The 2024 objet is inspired by the Fabergé egg at the centre of the Octopussy story, with itsrich green enamel carefully selected for its similarity to the enamel used on the Fabergé egg in the 1983 film.
As eye-popping as that may seem, it’s hardly the most expensive Bond-related item put up for sale. Recall these:
There have been other pricey items such as a $6,000 backgammon set offered in 2019. The original link on the 007 Store page has been removed.
Some fans suggest this has been exaggerated, saying they’ve found bargains on the 007 Store site.
Perhaps. The pattern seems to have been set. The mega-high-priced items get the most publicity from the 007 store. Here’s a video from The Bond Bulletin about this week’s announcement:
UPDATE: I am reminded how the literary Bond was a British civil servant (albeit one who had an inheritance from his parents). But he was never mega-rich, hardly in the league of Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, etc.
The Spy Command 