The resilient 007 fan

Part of Gatherall 4 in Fairfield, New Jersey (Photo by The Spy Command)

FAIRFIELD, New Jersey — As the cliche goes, nature abhors a vacuum. In the absence of actual James Bond news, fans pick up the slack.

An example was Gatherall 4, held this weekend in Fairfield, New Jersey, about 25 miles from New York City.

The event was very much a “come one, come all” model. Previous editions of the fan event had to cap the number of attendees. So for the August 2023 edition, a new venue in New Jersey (The Clubhouse) was selected to accommodate the number of Bond fans interested.

By comparison, there are other regular Bond gatherings that are by invitation only.

Gatherall 4 was organized by David Zaritsky of The Bond Experience YouTube Channel, and Joseph Darlington of Being James Bond. Many of those attending were from the eastern U.S., but there were people attending from other U.S. regions, and some came from outside the U.S.

(Disclosure: I know both organizers and have appeared on their social media outlets. I also participated in a Gatherall 4 panel.)

James Bond is not the most fan-friendly. The last time Eon Productions blessed a 007 fan convention occurred in October 1994 in Los Angeles and November 1995 in New York. Both official conventions were part of efforts to revive the Bond film series, which went into an extended hiatus following legal fights with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

As a result, the Bond fan community is making efforts to keep the 007 flame alive. There are more Bond events in the U.K., the character’s home, which is perfectly understandable.

For American Bond fans, things are dicey. The two Americans who did the most to promote Bond were Hugh Hefner (1926-2017), publisher of Playboy magazine, whose publication serialized Bond short stories and novels, and President John F. Kennedy (1917-1963), whose list of his 10 favorite books included the 1957 Ian Fleming novel From Russia With Love.

There aren’t many prominent Americans these days speaking the praises of Fleming’s gentleman spy.

Nevertheless, Bond fans, including the Yanks, are doing their best to keep things going. They, indeed, are resilient.

A look at Skyfall in Concert

The orchestra is applauded by a Toronto audience after Skyfall in Concert has concluded. The Spy Command photo

TORONTO — This weekend, there were two performances in Toronto of Skyfall in Concert, where an orchestra performed the score of the 23rd James movie live, synched up to a showing of the film.

The show was performed Feb. 21 and 22 at Meridian Hall in downtown Toronto.

The Thomas Newman score sounded subtly different in places with the live performance compared with the film’s original soundtrack.

There were also some changes to highlight the score. Some sound effects were dialed back a bit.

An example: In the movie, there were loud crashing sound effects when Eve Moneypenny (Naomie Harris) loses the side mirrors of the vehicle she’s driving in the pre-titles sequence. With Skyfall in Concert, you still heard the effects but they weren’t as overpowering. Also, the film had subtitles for the dialogue.

The orchestra was stationed below the screen where the movie was shown. As a result, audience members could observe the musicians playing as the film played.

As Skyfall drew to an end, the orchestra played a rousing rendition of The James Bond Theme after the “James Bond Will Return” title card. This took place without the end title crawl. That began after the orchestra finished its performance of the Bond theme.

A number of James Bond fan groups, including James Bond Canada, The James Bond Complex, The Bond Experience, Being James Bond and many others were present for the Feb. 22 performance. The Bond fans had pre- and post-show gatherings.

A look back at the blog’s other media appearances

2019 was an interesting year for the blog because of appearances on podcasts and one YouTube video. So what follows are some highlights. Thanks to all involved for having me on.

James Bond & Friends logo

James Bond & Friends podcast: This is a podcast produced by the MI6 James Bond website and MI6 Confidential magazine. It debuted in March and I was on some episodes.

Part of the format is the title of an episode is based on the often freewheeling conversation among participants. During recording, I’m often not sure what the title of an episode will be until it’s out.

I ended up contributing a few titles including these:

Episode 0012: Cai-Cai-Cairo (May 20): The episode’s main topic was how unused parts of Bond screenplays show up in later films. The title is from the pre-titles sequence of Diamonds Are Forever where the dialogue and lip movements didn’t quite match.

Episode 0013: The Peeing Dog (May 28): Somewhere in the conversation (which primarily was about how perception of Bond films can change over the years), I referenced the dog that’s urinating in the middle of a frame during Thunderball’s Junkanoo sequence.

Episode 0016: Powered by Explodium (July 3): The episode primarily explored “defending the indefensible.” But the title referred to the apparent power source for the hotel in the middle of nowhere featured in Quantum of Solace.

Other highlights for me (where I had nothing to do with the title) included Episode 0029 Survey Says, based on the game show Family Feud. I blew the climatic question that lost my team the game.

Also, Episode 0024 Freddy’s Got a Cold was pretty fun. That episode had suggestions for alternate takes on James Bond songs. The idea was to put together something similar to David Arnold’s 1990s album Shaken and Stirred.

My suggestions were offbeat: Tony Bennett singing Goldfinger (similar to the arrangement Anthony Newley once performed) and Hugh Jackman performing Thunderball.

Spybrary podcast logo

Spybrary: Spybrary is for fans of spy books and movies. Host Shane Whaley interviewed me in a July 31 episode. We discussed Bond films and novels, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., I Spy, Mission: Impossible and Donald Hamilton’s Matt Helm novels.

I discovered what it’s like to host a podcast in a Nov. 23 episode of Spybrary that provided an overview about The Man From From U.N.C.L.E. The other participants were academic Cynthia Walker and Robert Short, a film industry professional and long-time U.N.C.L.E. fan. He has the distinction of appearing in both an U.N.C.L.E. episode and a James Bond movie (Diamonds Are Forever in an out-of-focus way).

Hosting a podcast is harder than it sounds. You have to recruit guests and then keep an eye on the clock during recording. Shane Whaley was on hand to handle production, which was a big help.

Being James Bond: The podcast hosted and produced by Joseph Darlington interviewed me for an Oct. 11 episode. We covered a lot of ground about Bond, the blog and the former Her Majesty’s Secret Servant website.

The Bond Experience: David Zaritsky, host of the YouTube channel, asked me to discuss how James Bond marketing has evolved. The video was posted Oct. 27 and is embedded below.

Fan sites post videos about Laz at the Spy Museum

On Oct. 5, Global James Bond Day, there was a James Bond-related event at the International Spy Museum in Washington. The headliner was George Lazenby, 79, who played 007 in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.

Proprietors of James Bond fan sites have now posted videos about the event.

Here’s the video posted by the James Bond Experience. There’s a short introduction followed by Lazenby talking to the audience.

Also posting a video was Being James Bond’s Joseph Darlington. It’s a summary of the event and a an exhibit about Bond villains that will close at the end of the year.

Discussion of the event begins around the 15:45 mark. The video below is set up to begin then when you click on it. However, you may want to check the preceding segment. Darlington presents his wish list of five things he’d like to see in Bond 25 and future 007 films.

About the SPECTRE gunbarrel logo

Original gunbarrel as seen from Dr. No through Goldfinger.

Back in 2012, this blog ran a post that raised the question whether the gunbarrel logo would ever begin a James Bond movie again.

In 2015, the answer, finally was yes with SPECTRE.

At the time, this blog didn’t comment much. After all, it doesn’t seem like good form to complain about getting something you wanted.

Since then, we’ve been reminded there were a few oddities about SPECTRE’s gunbarrel. For example, the Being James Bond website, IN THIS VIDEO, noted that Daniel Craig’s 007 wildly swings his right arm so that you can see Bond openly is carrying a gun. Not exactly an inconspicuous wielding of a firearm by a secret agent.

The website also noted that the three-dimensional gunbarrel effect that began with GoldenEye wasn’t used in SPECTRE.

Something else to consider: The SPECTRE gunbarrel uses a different musical arrangement from previous Bond movies. There’s a soft arrangement of The James Bond Theme that plays under the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Columbia Pictures/Sony logos.

Back in the “old days,” there was no music over studio logos. Music didn’t begin until the white dots began moving across the screen.

With SPECTRE, the music with the studio logs is followed by the start of gunbarrel music per se. But there’s a delay between the start of the white dots going across the screen and the time the last dot opens up to reveal Bond on the right side of the screen.

On the Being James Bond video, there’s speculation that the filmmakers really didn’t want to put the gunbarrel at the start of the film.

We guess Being James Bond is correct. With Skyfall, there was a song and dance about how a gunbarrel at the beginning just wouldn’t, couldn’t, etc. work. IN A 2012 INTERVIEW, Eon Productions co-boss Barbara Broccoli clearly was NOT promising the gunbarrel would be at the start of the next movie. “It will vary from film to film,” she said at the time.

As an aside, it should be noted that Daniel Craig is the only Bond to get to film a different gunbarrel for each 007 film he did.

Prior to Craig:

–Stuntman Bob Simmons’ gunbarrel was used for the first three Bond films.

–The same Sean Connery gunbarrel was used for three movies (Thunderball, You Only Live Twice and Diamonds Are Forever).

–George Lazenby only did one, naturally. (On Her Majesty’s Secret Service)

–Roger Moore did two (one for Live And Let Die and The Man With The Golden Gun, the other for his other five 007 films)

–Timothy Dalton and Pierce Brosnan only had one on-screen gunbarrel in their films (although Brosnan got another for a trailer only).

Regardless, the SPECTRE gunbarrel will have to do. It doesn’t appear we’ll be seeing another version anytime soon.

Being James Bond analyzes SPECTRE

The Being James Bond website has done a detailed analysis of SPECTRE, the most recent 007 film.

The analysis runs more than an hour, taking on everything from the return of the gunbarrel logo to the start of the film (for the first time since 2002’s Die Another Day) and whether it was well executed, to the movie’s troubled third act (which was revealed before the movie went into production because of the hacking at Sony Picturies in 2014).

Readers may agree or disagree with the points presented, but it’s clear a lot of effort went into this. So, if you’re interested, you can view the embedded video below:

 

‘Being James Bond’ now available in paperback and Kindle

Being James Bond: Volume One – Pocket Edition has been released on Amazon.com in paperback and for Kindle editions.

It’s a guidebook on living more like 007 by mastering the same skills Bond has. The book serves as an instruction manual “for the reader to make James Bond’s knowledge and skills his own,” according to a press release by its publishers.

Being James Bond is the first volume in a series of eight, is a collection of eight instructional essays on the various abilities of James Bond. In addition to the introduction chapter, ‘Volume One’ explores such topics as playing Texas hold’em poker, learning to ski, traveling to London, drinks and mixology, horseback riding, bungee jumping and learning to fly an airplane.

You can CLICK HERE to order the paper edition on Amazon.com or CLICK HERE to order the Kindle edition.

Copies of Being James Bond: Volume One – Pocket Edition can also be ordered at Lulu.com at 20 percent off through Jan. 1 by CLICKING HERE. It’s also available from Lulu.com as a digital download BY CLICKING HERE.