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Back in September, the blog participated in a “watchalong” of SPECTRE for the James Bond & Friends podcast. Part I (because the movie was so long) is now out.
After listening, the blog has some new questions about the most recent James Bond film. The following is an homage to a frequently used trope in a YouTube channel from The Critical Drinker.
How does one ring have the DNA of multiple villains?
Don’t know.
Does MI6 not know where its agents go when on leave?
Don’t know.
Does Bond care about instructions from his current, living boss?
Don’t know.
Does MI6 have any security measures to ensure its agents don’t steal agency vehicles?
Don’t know.
Does Bond have any misgivings becoming romantically involved with the daughter of one of his most prominent foes (Mr. White)?
Don’t know.
Did Blofeld become Bond’s arch enemy *only* because he was jealous of his foster brother?
Don’t know.
Did MI6 employee screening totally miss the connections between Bond and Mr. White and Blofeld?
Film and television music expert Jon Burlingame has started a YouTube channel called Reel Music. First up: a look at Burlingame’s picks for top 10 spy movie scores.
Burlingame has written books on television composers and James Bond music. In the initial video, launched on Aug. 11, his selections comprise a number of different composers.
Burlingame’s list is presented in chronological order and doesn’t attempt to rank the 10 selections. It begins with Bernard Herrmann’s score for 1959’s North by Northwest and ends with John Powell’s score for 2002’s The Bourne Identity.
Along the way, there are two John Barry scores (Goldfinger and The Ipcress File), three Bond films (including one not made by Eon Productions) as well as efforts by Lalo Schifrin, Quincy Jones and Dave Grusin.
You can take a look for yourself. While individual viewers might quibble with selections or argue for others, there’s no dispute that Burlingame knows the music territory.
Note: the image below shows posters for Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation and The Man From U.N.C.L.E. movie. Neither shows up on the list, but they present a “news peg” in journalism-speak.
A video was posted today on YouTube, promising that a new trailer for SPECTRE will be out on Access Hollywood on Friday.
However, the video looks extremely similar — shot for shot — like a video posted on YouTube March 27 promising that a new trailer would be on Access Hollywood. That was the teaser trailer.
Anyway, judge for yourselves. Here’s the July 12 video posted by Leonard Kirtley:
And here’s the March 27 video posted by JoBlo Movie Trailers:
The Henry Cavill News fan Web site got a brief interview with the British actor about his future plans. Cavill was asked about his preparations to play Napoleon Solo in a movie version of The Man From U.N.C.L.E.
“I haven’t had a chance to delve into it just yet,” Cavill said. “I’ve been dealing with the press stuff.” That’s an apparent reference to doing publicity for Man of Steel and last weekend’s announcement at the big San Diego comic book convention of a Superman-Batman movie in 2015.
In THIS VIDEO ON YOUTUBE (staring around the 1:00 mark), Cavill says he’ll get into full U.N.C.L.E. preparations when he returns to England. The U.N.C.L.E. movie, to be directed by Guy Ritchie, is to be based in the U.K.
Meanwhile, David Allcock, who worked in the art department of Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes movies, says on his Web site that Oliver Scholl is the production designer for the U.N.C.L.E. movie.
The IMDB.COM PAGE FOR THE MOVIE has been updated in recent weeks, mostly with credits for the art department. It doesn’t list Scholl as of July 26. IMDB.com, like Wikipedia.org, relies on volunteers for information.
The U.N.C.L.E. movie is supposed to start filming sometime in September.
If you call up the advertisement, the music plays continuously. For now, it’s impossible to determine if this is actually from the 23rd James Bond film or something worked up for the ad.
There’s certainly more interest than normal given Newman is the first new 007 composer in 15 years, has a long list of credits and comes from a dynasty of movie composers. He was brought into work on Skyfall because he has worked on other movies directed by Sam Mendes.
On Aug. 16, the U.K. Telegraph (with a time stamp of 12:58 p.m. BST) said it had a Skyfall exclusive, a video featuring star Daniel Craig and director Sam Mendes. You can CLICK HERE to see how the Telegraph presented the video.
Later in the day, 11:10 a.m. New York time to be precise, the U.S.-based Huffington Post Web site said it had this video exclusively. You can CLICK HERE to see the Huffington Post’s presentation.
Meanwhile, the official 007 Web site also put the video up. You can CLICK HERE to see that.
Finally, the official Web site also put it up on YouTube, where you can view it non-exclusively below. Mendes and Craig talk about filming in London. It’s OK but not nearly as elaborate as the maneuvering to claim being exclusive.
Over on the discussion boards of the MI6 James Bond fan Web site, there’s A THREAD about the 1976 ABC showing of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service where the U.S. television network did its own major re-working of the 007 film.
In this version, only shown once, right after the gunbarrel logo, the viewer is taken to the middle of the story. ABC hired an actor (who doesn’t particularly sound like George Lazenby, who played 007 in the original 1969 film) to perform a first-person narration by Bond. Well, see for yourself. Here’s a long YouTube video of that ABC broadcast:
We saw that original broadcast. ABC didn’t provide any warning it was reshaping the movie in such a dramatic way. The network’s first broadcast actually split Majesty’s into two 90-minute telecasts (including commercials, of course) over consecutive Monday nights. On the MI6 message board, there were a number of responses expressing shock that ABC had done this. And Bond fans certainly felt much the same way at the time.
But watching it again, got us to thinking: ABC, in a way, provided a preview of what YouTube users do routinely in the 21st Century.
Stop to think about it. How many 007 fans have checked out fan-edited new versions of old James Bond trailers using modern editing techniques. Like this one:
Nor do YouTube users stop at trailers. John Barry is the most famous Bond film composer. Ever wonder what one of the movies he didn’t score would look like with Barry music? Take a visit to YouTube and you’ll see videos like this one, where Barry scores from different 007 films is used for a Live And Let Die scene:
Most ambitiously, YouTube users like to do their own sequences, drawn upon a number of Bond films. For example, ever imagine what it’d be like if all the film Bonds got together to gamble together? Wonder no more:
They got more than they bargained for. Film directors complain that showing a movie on televison in the “pan and scan” format, rather than letterbox, is “re-directing” the movie. ABC, re-directed, rewrote and re-acted (via the Bond voiceover) Majesty’s. Still, in many ways, ABC was ahead of its time. Checking YouTube videos proves that.
For a more detailed article about the 1976 ABC broadcast of OHMSS, CLICK HERE to read an article on the Dr. Shatterhand’s Botanical Gardens Web site.
The term “lost episode” gets thrown away rather loosely. It usually refers to an episode that, for a variety of reasons, hasn’t shown up in syndication. In the case of the original Hawaii Five-O series, there’s an episode that wasn’t so much lost as buried — shown once on CBS, never rerun, never included in a DVD set.
That would be the second-season episode “Bored She Hung Herself.” One of the plot points involves a character who uses a yoga technique where he hangs himself from a beam without dying. He naturally becomes a suspect when somebody is killed by hanging. In 1996, Rose Freeman, widow of Five-O creator Leonard Freeman, told atendees that within a day or two of the epsiode airing somebody tried to duplicate the trick — and killed himself in the process. Mrs. Freeman said the decision was made there and then that the episode would never ben shown again.
Never is a long time. It’s on YouTube (at least for now). It’s clearly a faded film copy of the original. To be honest, the episode (written by Mel Goldberg and directed by John Newland) is hardly the best episode of the 1968-1980 series. (To read Mike Quigley’s review on his Hawaii Five-O fan Web site, JUST CLICK HERE AND SCROLL DOWN TO EPISODE NO. 39.) But it has taken on a mystique because it has never been shown officially since it was first broadcast. Here’s the start:
And here’s the conclusion where McGarrett (Jack Lord) and Danno (James MacArthur) crack the case:
YouTube recently cut a deal with Hollywood studios that is enabling complete episodes of some old TV shows to be on YouTube. One of the shows is I Spy, the groundbreaking 1965-1968 series that featured white and black agents paired together. It also helped make a star of Bill Cosby.
So far, only five episodes of the first season are on YouTube. Also, YouTube appears to have decided to not permit the episodes to be embedded on Web site. In any event, the episodes available (and we’re linking them via their titles) are as follows:
So Long Patrick Henry: Agents Kelly Robinson (Robert Culp) and Alexander Scott (Bill Cosby) are to present defected athlete Leroy Browne (Ivan Dixon) a chance to regain his U.S. citizenship. Written by Culp, this was the first episode broadcast but it’s not the pilot. Directed by Leo Penn, son father of actor Sean. Composer Earle Hagen actually incorporates The James Bond Theme (rather effectively) in the epilogue.
A Cup of Kindness: Russ Conley, Kelly’s old teacher in spy school, shows up in Hong Kong and gives Kelly and Scott an envelope. The contents, once decoded, are instructions saying Conley’s a double agent and has to be killed. Written by series creators Morton Fine and David Friedkin, with Friedkin playing Conley.
Carry Me Back to Old Tsing-Tao . A Chinese criminal wants to return to his home on Taiwan (called Formosa here). The U.S. will permit him to do so IF he makes good on $1 million in back taxes. The problem: the criminal has three badass sons-in-law (Bernard Fox, David Sheiner and Michael Conrad) who want the money for themselves.
Chrysanthemum . Composer Hagen incorporates a tune he originally wrote in the 1940s and which he’d revive in the 1980s for a Mike Hammer series starring Stacy Keach.
Dragon’s Teeth. Kelly runs into an old flame while on assignment. Don’t be surprised if it turns out badly.
Well, that didn’t take long. Over on YouTube, people have started to re-edit Quantum of Solace. Here’s one example where the gunbarrel is put at the start of the film:
Meanwhile, here’s a gunbarrel we predict (safely) will never appear in a James Bond film:
The Spy Command 