Neil Connery, footnote to ’60s spy craze, dies

Neil Connery in a lobby card for Operation Kid Brother

Neil Connery, younger brother of James Bond star Sean Connery and a footnote to the 1960s spy craze in his own right, has died.

His death at age 83 was reported on social media by two James Bond fan sites, 007 Magazine and From Sweden With Love. The latter site then published a detailed obituary.

Neil Connery was signed to spy in his own spy movie, Operation Kid Brother, also known as OK Connery.

The 1967 Italian production was released by United Artists, Bond’s home studio in the 1960s and ’70s. It featured five actors who had been in the Bond movie series (Daniela Bianchi, Adolfo Celi, Bernard Lee, Lois Maxwell and Anthony Dawson).

In an example of originality, Neil Connery’s character was dubbed Dr. Neil Connery. His IMDB.COM ENTRY lists 11 accting credits.

Before James Bond movies were shown on American television, Operation Kid Brother was shown in prime time on NBC. Years later, the film got the Mystery Science 3000 treatment, where a man and “robots” comment on the proceedings. Here it was called Operation Double 007.

Some early fan suggestions for Bond 25

Image for the official James Bond feed on Twitter

As SPECTRE winds down its run in theaters, there have been some fan suggestions for what should come next.

The James Bond Dossier, IN ITS SURVEY of 007 bloggers and website editors included prescriptions from participants for Bond 25.

Here are some excerpts:

Anders Frejdh (From Sweden With Love): Fingers crossed for a continuation of the Blofeld saga with a twist. And an older woman as his sidekick.

Marcos Kontze (James Bond Brasil): My bet: Irma Bunt will be back as Blofeld’s allie, they will kill Madeleine in the PTS at some beach location, and then Blofeld you’ll be hidden in the Amazon Jungle in Brazil, and we’ll be seeing the Garden of Death from YOLT’s novel. Yes, BOND 25 is Shatterhand 😀

Some background: At one point in the scripting process, SPECTRE was a bit of a remake of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.  The script even specified that the main titles have images from the earlier Daniel Craig films.

As late as Dec. 1, 2014, the last line in the script was Bond saying, “We have all the time in the world,” before he and Madeleine Swann drive off. Also, in earlier drafts, there was an Irma Bunt henchwoman. Both ideas weren’t in the final film.

Some fans are looking for Bond 25 to be a de facto adaptation of the You Only Live Twice novel (the 1967 movie had characters from the 1964 novel but dumped the plot). After Tracy’s death in the On Her Majesty’s Secret Service novel, Bond went to pieces but unexpectedly gets another shot at Blofeld in Japan.

Jeffrey Westhoff, author of the novel “The Boy Who Knew Too Much,” suggested a different path IN AN ESSAY HE WROTE on his Culture Spy page.

Here’s an excerpt, where he argued against having Swann killed at the start of Bond 25:

Murdering her also would undercut Bond’s decision to not kill Blofeld on the bridge. The moment was supposed to point out Bond’s sense of morality. So what point would it prove if Bond’s sense of morality gets his girlfriend killed?
(snip)

Finally, I go back to wish No. 1 on my list (for Bond 25). I don’t want to see any more James Bond revenge stories. They have become tired. I read fans saying that Bond 25 finally could be what Diamonds Are Forever should have been, or the movies finally might bring the themes of Fleming’s You Only Live Twice to the screen. I say it’s too bad Diamonds Are Forever turned into a cartoon and that You Only Live Twice was filmed out of order. They were blown opportunities, but the time to correct them is long past.

To read more, CLICK HERE for The James Bond Dossier post. (This blog was a participant, but didn’t provide a plot idea for Bond 25). CLICK HERE for Jeffrey Westhoff’s essay titled, “My Seven Wishes for the Next James Bond Movie.” It covers quite bit of territory and is worth a look.

Lamont book being moved to another publisher

Peter Lamont

UPDATE (7:30 a.m.) — Max Pemberton, Peter Lamont’s co-writer of a memoir on the production designer’s career, said in a written statement that the project has been “moved to another publisher”  other than Tomahawk Press and will proceed. He didn’t provide additional details.

UPDATE II (8:50 a.m.) — Pemberton IN A STATEMENT ON FACEBOOK says, “We have simply moved on to a different publisher due to creative differences. The book is still going ahead. The new publisher and availability will be announced in due course.”

ORIGINAL POST: Tomahawk Press, IN A MARCH 7 ANNOUNCEMENT ON ITS FACEBOOK PAGE, said a memoir by former 007 production designer Peter Lamont had been canceled.

Here’s the text:

It is with the greatest regret that we have to announce that the authors of Peter Lamont – The Man With the Golden Eye have decided not to continue with this project. Tomahawk Press is highly regarded worldwide for the quality of our books, and we had planned something really special with this book – a beautifully designed large-format publication to do justice to all of Peter Lamont’s work. We are saddened by the authors’ decision, and apologise to the hundreds of you that had expressed interest and the dozens of reviewers that had been put on our list for review copies.

An item on the website FROM SWEDEN WITH LOVE says the memoir is to be published “from a different publisher [to be revealed later].” No other details were provided in that post. Tomahawk originally announced the Lamont memoir in September 2013.

Lamont, 85, began working on the 007 film series as a draftsman on Goldfinger. He succeeded Ken Adam as art designer for 1981’s For Your Eyes Only. His last Bond film was 2006’s Casino Royale.

From Sweden With Love serves up 2 Skyfall interviews

From Sweden With Love, a James Bond fan Web site run by Anders Frejdh, posted two Skyfall-related interviews recently.

ONE is with actor Ola Rapace, who played an assassin in the employ of Silva, the film’s villain.

THE OTHER is with Belle Williams, the stunt double for Naomie Harris, who played Miss Moneypenny as a field agent.

To see other features on the site, you can CLICK HERE for the start page in Swedish or CLICK HERE to see the start page in English.

RE-POST: Happy 60th anniversary, Mr. Bond

Casino Royale’s original cover

Originally posted April 1. Reposted for the actual anniversary.

Sixty years ago, readers sampled the start of a novel by a new author. “The scent and smoke and sweat of a casino are nauseating at three in the morning,” it began. The world hasn’t been quite the same since.

The novel, of course, was Casino Royale by Ian Fleming, published April 13, 1953. About 5,000 copies of its first edition were printed and it sold out quickly. Fleming combined the skills and experiences of two lives: his work as an intelligence officer during World War II and his experience as a journalist in spotting the right, and telling detail.

Casino Royale was a short novel. But it had an impact on readers. The story’s hero, British secret agent James Bond, first loses and then wins a high-stake game of cards with Le Chiffre, the story’s villain. Later, Bond is helpless, the victim of torture by Le Chiffre. But before Le Chiffre can finish the torture, he is dispatched by an operative of Smersh for being “a fool and a thief a traitor.” The Smersh operative has no orders to kill Bond, so he doesn’t. But he carves up the back of Bond’s right hand. “It would be well that should be known as a spy,” the killer says.

What seems to be novel’s climax happens less than three-quarters of the way through the story. But the new author had some other ideas to keep readers turning the pages until the real resolution. Bond is betrayed Vesper, a woman he had fallen deeply in love with. She commits suicide by taking a bottle of sleeping pills.

Bond, after all this, doesn’t collapse. He emerges more resolute, determined to “attack the arm that held the whip and the gun…He would go after the threat behind the spies, the threat that made them spy.”

Writer Jeremy Duns in an essay PUBLISHED IN 2005 argued “there’s a strong case to be made for it being the first great spy thriller of the Cold War.” Toward the end of his article, Duns writes, “Before Casino Royale, the hero always saved the damsel in distress moments before she was brutally ravaged and tortured by the villain; Fleming gave us a story in which nobody is saved, and it is the hero who is abused, drawn there by the damsel.”

For Fleming, Casino Royle was just the start. More novels and short stories followed. He lived to see two of his novels, Dr. No and From Russia With Love, turned into movies in 1962 and 1963 (following a CBS adaptation of Casino Royale in 1954). The author visited the set of the third film, Goldfinger, but died in August 1964, just before 007 became a phenomenon, spurring a spy craze.

Six decades later, the 23 movies of the Eon Production series (plus a couple of non-Eon films) are what most people think of when the name James Bond is mentioned. 2012’s Skyfall had worldwide ticket sales of $1.1 billion.

Oh, the Fleming books remain in print. Ian Fleming Publication hires a continuation novel author now and then (William Boyd, the latest continuation author, is scheduled to disclose his novel’s title on April 15). Periodically, there’s a new book about some aspect about the film series.

Fans can fuss and debate about Bond (and do all the time). But there is one certainty: without Casino Royale’s publication six decades ago, none of that would be possible.

UPDATE: Other 007 blogs and bloggers are noting the anniversary today, including THE JAMES BOND DOSSIER, BOND BLOG, MARK O’CONNELL, JAMES BOND BRASIL, FROM SWEDEN WITH LOVE and THE BOOK BOND You can also read an article in the Express newspaper by CLICKING HERE.

Finally, Spy Vibe, part of the COBRAS group of blogs, has a post including a graphic of various Casino Royale covers. You can check it out by CLICKING HERE.