1965: NYT Observer column declares 007 a bungler

Oops.

Thanks to @3octaves on Twitter who referenced this column.

In early 1965, James Bond was big business. Goldfinger had been a huge hit the previous year. The next film installment, Thunderball, was in production. A double feature of the first two Bond films would be released to take advantage of Bondmania.

At The New York Times, the paper’s satiric Observer column offered a different take on April 15, 1965.

Columnist Russell Baker (1925-2019) said Bond was being analyzed by intellectuals “in terms of Freud, of Jung, of the Brothers Grimm and in one case, believe it or not, of Barry Goldwater.”

“This is a waste of good brainpower,” Baker continued. “The simple-minded truth about Bond is on the surface for everyone to see. Bond, quite simply, is a bungler.”

Wait, what?

In Goldfinger, Baker wrote, “Bond bumbles from disaster to disaster and avoids the death he so richly deserves only because his opponent, Auric Goldfinger, is even more grossly incompetent.”

Baker proceeds to examine the plot of the movie in detail, deploying a similar tone. As the column concludes, Baker summarizes Bond’s appeal. “We watch him with delight because, excepting his fatal charm with the cuties, he is one of us. He is no more qualified to handle Goldfinger than we are.”

Obviously, James Bond fans would disagree. And Baker’s column wasn’t intended to be taken seriously.

Still, reading the column is like revisiting a certain era. Baker, for example, refers to women as “cuties.” Baker won two Pulitzer Prizes (one for commentary, one for biography) and other major awards.

Haggis found liable in civil rape case, NYT says

Quantum of Solace’s soundtrack. The movie was co-scripted by Paul Haggis.

Paul Haggis, who co-scripted two James Bond films in the 2000s, has been found in a civil trial “liable for raping a former film industry publicist in his Manhattan apartment in 2013,” The New York Times reported on Nov. 10.

Haggis was ordered by a jury to pay the former publicist, Haleigh Breest, at least $7.5 million, the Times reported.

Haggis, 69, worked on 2006’s Casino Royale and 2008’s Quantum of Solace as a writer. The filmmaker also “wrote ‘Million Dollar Baby’ and co-wrote and directed ‘Crash,’ consecutive best picture winners,” the Times noted.

The newspaper said Haggis met Breest “while she worked at film premiere events in New York. In a lawsuit filed in the early months of the #MeToo movement, she alleged that after one such event, Mr. Haggis invited her to his loft in SoHo, where he forced her to give him oral sex, penetrated her digitally and proceeded to rape her.”

An excerpt from the story:

Mr. Haggis’s lead lawyer, Priya Chaudhry, said in a statement that the defense was “disappointed and shocked” by the verdict, accusing the plaintiff’s lawyers of portraying Mr. Haggis “as a monster” and lamenting the judge’s decision to allow testimony from four other women who have accused Mr. Haggis of sexual misconduct.

The $7.5 million figure is for compensatory damages. The jury is to return next week to consider punitive damages, the Times said.

State of the Bond franchise: Mid-2022

I just did one of these posts in April. I really thought that would take care of things for a long time. I was wrong.

Comments from Eon Productions boss Barbara Broccoli, originally reported by Deadline, suggest the Bond movie franchise is adrift.

If Broccoli is to be believed, Eon doesn’t know who should play Bond following Daniel Craig. It hasn’t determined the direction of future 007 films after Craig has retired from the part with 2021’s No Time to Die.

The key Broccoli quotes from the Deadline story

“We’re working out where to go with him, we’re talking that through. There isn’t a script and we can’t come up with one until we decide how we’re going to approach the next film because, really, it’s a reinvention of Bond. We’re reinventing who he is and that takes time. I’d say that filming is at least two years away.”

Eon has been adrift before. Following Die Another Day in 2002, the company that has made 007 films had no idea where to go.

The source of this? Michael G. Wilson, Barbara Broccoli’s half-brother in a 2005 New York Times story.

“I was desperately afraid, and Barbara was desperately afraid, we would go downhill,” said Michael G. Wilson, the producer of the new Bond film, “Casino Royale,” with Ms. Broccoli. He even told that to Pierce Brosnan, the suave James Bond who had a successful run of four films, he said.

“We are running out of energy, mental energy,” Mr. Wilson recalled saying. “We need to generate something new, for ourselves.”

In a 2012 speech, Wilson further described the period involved.

“We had been working on a new script for a year and getting absolutely nowhere,” he said then.

As told by Wilson, Eon got out of its funk at that time when he and Barbara Broccoli talked and each wanted to adapt Casino Royale, Ian Fleming’s first Bond novel, start the film series over and recast the Bond role. The result, 2006’s Casino Royale, was a highlight of the Eon series.

What is old is new again. Except, for now, there hasn’t been an attempt at a script. Also, there’s no complete Fleming novel to use. Eon didn’t get the rights to the Casino Royale novel until a few years before pre-production began on the 2006 movie.

Michael G. Wilson turned 80 earlier this year. Barbara Broccoli is 62. Wilson has been involved *full-time* with Eon for 50 years. Broccoli has been involved *full-time* with Eon for 40 years.

The movie business is in flux. It is being battered by streaming and new technology. Bond (created by Ian Fleming in 1952) and its movie makers (whose first movie came out 60 years ago this year) are anchored in the 20th century.

Eon has had a lot of time to ponder a post-Daniel Craig future. No Time to Die, Eon’s most recent effort, wrapped filming in fall 2019.

If you take Barbara Broccoli at her word, in mid-2022, the Bond filmmakers still haven’t figured out where to go.

To be sure, keeping a film franchise going for 60 years is a great achievement.

Yet, where does it go from here? We don’t know. And the answer won’t be known soon.

Skyfall cited as example of censorship in China

A new book about Hollywood’s dealings with China includes citing 2012’s Skyfall as an example of China censoring Western movies.

Red Carpet, Hollywood, China, and the Global Battle for Cultural Supremacy by Erich Schwartzel is scheduled to be published on Tuesday.

The author was interviewed on CNN on Sunday morning, U.S. time. During the interview, Schwartzel said a James Bond film cut out a scene of Bond killing a Chinese security guard because the Chinese government believed it made the Chinese look weak.

Schwartzel didn’t identify the movie on CNN. But a Feb. 1 review of the book in The New York Times said it was Skyfall.

But China is not a democracy, and its economic leverage over Hollywood allows its leaders to subject American movies to an unprecedented process of ideological filtration. In the movies approved by China’s censors you will find no mention of an afterlife, no time travel and no masturbation. (There’s a great joke in there somewhere.) “Underdog narratives” — little guy takes on the system — are a problem. Hollywood stars on promotional visits have to follow the rules (don’t mention Tibet or Taiwan) and negative images of China are to be expunged. “Red Carpet” itemizes the removal of clotheslines in a Shanghai street scene from “Mission: Impossible III” (drying underwear too retrograde); the rewriting of “World War Z” to clarify that the apocalyptic zombie virus did not actually originate, as previously thought, in China; the cutting of a scene in “Skyfall” in which James Bond Bondishly offs a Chinese security guard (makes Chinese people look weak); and — most spectacularly — in a remake of “Red Dawn,” the postproduction pixel-by-pixel transformation of an entire invading Chinese army into an army from North Korea. (“The flags are one nightmare unto themselves,” a weary special-effects wizard tells Schwartzel, “and then there are all these subnightmares.”) (emphasis added)

Second sampling of NTTD reviews

No Time to Die poster (date affected by COVID-19)

A bunch of No Time to Die reviews came out the same evening as the movie’s world premiere. But some critics didn’t rush their takes out as fast.

So here is a second sampling of reviews. The excerpts contain no spoilers. Make what you will of the excerpts.

JOE MORGENSTERN, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: “‘No Time to Die’ is the latest James Bond episode and the last one to star Daniel Craig. His performance elevates—all but ennobles—the dramatic core of an otherwise choppy narrative, a succession of impressive but impersonal action sequences and affecting interludes that lead to a stirring climax.”

LOU AGUILAR, THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR: “The last thing James Bond needs today is feminist input to match every other Hollywoke production. But No Time To Die is full of it – and worse stuff.”

KEVIN MAHRE, THE TIMES: “The film is a huge thundering epic (163 minutes long) expertly directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga (of True Detective) and features a couple of audacious stylistic flourishes…It’s visually astonishing too. As filmed by the Swedish cinematographer Linus Sandgren (La La Land), it is easily the best-looking Bond to date, with each set piece an excuse to frame gorgeous compositions with richly covered lighting.”

A.O. SCOTT, THE NEW YORK TIMES: “As someone who grew up in the Roger Moore era, when defiance of every kind of gravity was the hallmark of the series, I have trouble adjusting my eyes to the darkness and the possibility of tears. I don’t entirely trust the emotions that the director (Cary Joji Fukunaga) and the screenwriting committee (Fukunaga, Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and Phoebe Waller-Bridge) put into play, or the weighty themes they reach for.”

K. AUSTIN COLLINS, ROLLING STONE: “It’s to (Daniel) Craig’s professional credit that his performance in No Time to Die, which comes out on October 8th (in the U.S.), bears little sense of that lack of giving a fuck. It wouldn’t fit this movie, which, directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga, very much carries the weight of culmination.”

Eon endorses 2 current MGM execs amid Amazon deal

MGM logo

Eon Productions has endorsed the efforts of two current Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film executives in the wake of Amazon’s pending $8.45 billion acquisition of James Bond’s home studio.

Eon’s Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson issued a statement for a story today in The New York Times. They spoke up in support of Michael De Luca, chairman of MGM’s Motion PIcture Group, and his deputy, Pamela Abdy.

“Mike and Pam understand that we are at a critical juncture and that the continuing success of the James Bond series is dependent on us getting the next iteration right and will give us the support we need to do this,” Broccoli and Wilson said in the statement to the Times.

The tenure of Daniel Craig, the current cinema Bond, is coming to an end with the upcoming No Time to Die.

“Amazon has assured us that Bond” films will come out first in movie theaters, Broccoli and Wilson added. “Our hope is that they will empower Mike and Pam to continue to run MGM unencumbered.” 

De Luca has been in his post since early 2020.

The Times story primarily concerns efforts by De Luca and Abdy to reinvigorate MGM’s film efforts. The studio emerged from bankruptcy in 2010. Since then, it has attempted to build up its film slate under the MGM and Orion brands.

Amazon has a major streaming service. Purchasing MGM secures Amazon a large film library and programming source.

The Times also details how Amazon also has purchased films from studios “looking to offload their movies because theaters were largely closed” during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Major executive changes often take place following an acquisition. “

“There are some in Hollywood’s film community who are hopeful that Mr. De Luca and Ms. Abdy will oversee Amazon’s movie business once the merger is complete,” the Times said.

Amazon’s purchase of MGM is subject to regulatory approval.

No Time to Die, Eon’s 25th Bond film, is scheduled to be released Sept. 30 in the U.K. and Oct. 8 in the U.S. It’s uncertain whether Amazon’s deal with MGM will be completed before then.

G. Gordon Liddy dies at 90

National Lampoon parody of G. Gordon Liddy, Agent of C.R.E.E.P., as drawn by Dick Ayres

G. Gordon Liddy, one of the most colorful figures in the Watergate scandal that brought down U.S. President Richard Nixon, has died at 90, The New York Times reported.

Liddy “concocted the bungled burglary” that led to the scandal. Liddy worked for the Committee to Re-Elect the President.

Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein abbreviated that to CRP. But it was popularly abbreviated as C.R.E.E.P. The National Lampoon eventually published a comic book parody of G. Gordon Liddy, Agent of C.R.E.E.P. Artist Dick Ayres did a cover that emulated a 1968 cover of Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. by Jim Steranko

An excerpt from the obit by the Times:

As a leader of a White House “plumbers” unit set up to plug information leaks, and then as a strategist for the president’s re-election campaign, Mr. Liddy helped devise plots to discredit Nixon “enemies” and to disrupt the 1972 Democratic National Convention. Most were far-fetched — bizarre kidnappings, acts of sabotage, traps using prostitutes, even an assassination — and were never carried out.

Liddy was among the many Watergate figures who did prison time. He was sentenced to six to 20 years but only served 52 months.

Liddy defied the saying that crime does not pay.

The one-time felon wrote an autobiography published in 1980. It was turned into a 1982 made-for-TV movie starring Robert Conrad as Liddy. Liddy went on to host a nationally syndicated radio talk show. Naturally, Conrad was a guest on one installment. Anyone who listened could tell Liddy loved that Conrad had played him.

Liddy also wrote spy novels along the way, such as Out of Control. And he picked up about 20 acting credits, according to his IMDB.COM ENTRY.

Tanya Roberts dies amid media circus

Tanya Roberts in a publicity still for A View to a Kill

Tanya Roberts, who appeared in A View to a Kill, the Charlie’s Angels TV series and That ’70s Show, has died at 65, The New York Times reported, citing the actress’ companion/boyfriend, Lance O’Brien.

Her death was the center of a media circus.

TMZ reported the death on Sunday night. Roberts’ publicist put out a press release. Numerous outlets picked up on it.

Then, O’Brien was taped by Inside Edition, a “TV tabloid” show for an interview on Monday. He sat in front of a green screen, the type used to create fake backgrounds on TV. During the taping, he got a call that Roberts hadn’t died yet.

Naturally, an intimate, emotional scene followed. Inside Edition also posted the segment on YouTube for its 8.44 million subscribers.

TMZ followed up with its own “she’s alive” story. The website was glib about the whole affair. “As for how this could happen … beats us.”

The Roberts publicist, Mike Pingel, said in an earlier NYT story: “It’s a human miscommunication, unfortunately…It’s a shame this happened.”

Do tell.

Anyway, many “Tanya Roberts is still alive” stories ran while the “Tanya Roberts dies” stories were taken down. (The blog ran one of each.) Some of the “she’s alive” stories noted that Roberts was not in good shape. She had been at Cedars-Sinai Hospital since Dec. 24.

On social media, Bond fans made the inevitable 007-related puns because of the bizarre turn of events, including variations on “You Only Live Twice,” such as “this is her second life.” There were also comments evoking Mark Twain saying reports of his death were extremely exaggerated.

Now, O’Brien tells the Times that Roberts did pass away Monday night. TMZ came out with its third story Tuesday morning. Fox News said it got the same information from O’Brien.

In 1985’s A View to a Kill, Roberts played Stacey Sutton, who becomes the ally of James Bond (Roger Moore in his last 007 film) to foil a plot to destroy California’s Silicon Valley.

Stacey Sutton wasn’t the favorite of some Bond fans for the way she screamed “James!” There was also a 28-year difference between Moore and Roberts, who shared a romantic scene at the end of the movie.

Roberts was in the cast of Charlie’s Angels in its final season, 1980-81. She was in That ’70s Show from 1998 to 2004.

As for the media circus that surrounded Roberts’ passing, the MI6 James Bond website had a tweet that summed it up.

In 20 years of covering James Bond news daily, we’ve never encountered such a sad and troublesome story of Tanya Roberts’ passing.
Life lesson: choose your partners well. Avoid folks with green screen curtains, TMZ on speed dial and a hankering for the limelight.

— James Bond (@jamesbondlive) January 5, 2021

Aston Martin deflects current crisis with 2-year-old news

Aston Martin playbook? Play up your connection to the 007 film series. 

Aston Martin, amid a plunging stock price, falling sales and many other challenges, dumped its CEO and selected a replacement. How do you deflect bad news?

If you’re Aston, play up two-year-old news and your connection to the James Bond film series.

Aston said in August 2018 that it planned to build 25 replica DB5 cars complete with gadgets from Goldfinger The cost: (in U.S. dollars) $3.5 million each.

Warning: The cars were not “road legal” (or “street legal” as the term is used in the United States).

Regardless, Aston said deliveries wouldn’t take place until 2020.

Flash forward to late spring of 2020, Aston Martin has gotten a new CEO. After years of saying it needed to diversify from James Bond, Aston is as tethered to Bond as ever.

How do you get out of this?

Play up your Bond connections. Again.

The New York Times bit in a May 25 story. So did the Hindustan Times in a May 28 story.

The Times’ story referenced how Chris Corbould, who has worked on special effects for many Bond films, was involved in the project. But, that wasn’t news, either. An August 2018 release by Eon Productions mentioned how Corbould was involved in the project.

Safe to say, Aston Martin has many challenges ahead. But the 25 DB5 replicas aren’t going to save the company.

The blog’s complicated feelings about Moonraker

Moonraker teaser poster

This week, I participated in an upcoming episode of the James Bond & Friends podcast where everybody watched Moonraker and commented about it in real time.

Afterward, I reflected on my own conflicted feelings about the 11th James Bond film.

When Moonraker came out in the summer of 1979, I was all in. The Spy Who Loved Me two years earlier had re-energized the franchise. Producer Albert R. Broccoli promised he was going all out with his next effort.

When the movie came out, Broccoli delivered. It even got favorable reviews from The New York Times (Vincent Canby wrote it was “one of the most buoyant Bond films”) and Time magazine, which likened Broccoli to the proverbial Jewish mother who doesn’t let anyone go away hungry. And it was a big hit.

Later, after the initial hit waned, I noted the lack of Fleming material in the movie. And, yes, that double-taking pigeon was a reminder the movie went for comedy in places.

I probably felt the lowest toward the movie in the 2000s. I was a contributor to the now-offline site Her Majesty’s Secret Servant. The site asked its contributors to rank all the movies up through 2006’s Casino Royale. We were also asked to write some remarks and mine about Moonraker were pretty tough.

Since then, my opinions toward the movie have mellowed. Here in the 21st century, there’s been a lot of bad news, including two major financial recessions a decade apart. Escapist entertainment, such as Moonraker, looks a lot better now. I appreciate it a lot more for what it is.

My stock line about Moonraker is, whatever you think of it, is it’s not pretentious. That’s not true of all Bond films.

Also, at this point, we have 25 Bond films from Eon Productions. The fact we can’t see the 25th (because of the release delay because of COVID-19) is another indicator of just how the 21st century has a lot of bad news.

That’s yet another reason why escapist entertainment like Moonraker is better appreciated.