Global Eye: James Bond Day
 This
is a very special year for James Bond fans everywhere. Not only are we
celebrating 50 years (!) of 007 on screen, but there are now just weeks
to go before the 23 rd Bond movie hits our screens, with Daniel Craig
back as MI6’s best operative. At one point, it looked as if this would
never happen. But Bond, as they say, is well and truly back. As part of
the special celebrations, Friday October 5 has been made Global James
Bond Day. The special day will see a series of 007-related events around
the world, including a global online (and live) charity auction
(organised by Christies in London), a global survey to discover the
favourite Bond film of people on a country-by-country basis across the
world, a film retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New
York, a special music of Bond evening in Los Angeles, and the opening of
the ‘Designing 007: 50 years of Bond Style’ exhibition in Toronto,
after its highly successful run in London recently. Other events on the
day include, for James Bond fans in the UK, a chance to see the new
James Bond documentary ‘Everything or Nothing’ at selected Odeon
Cinemas. This documentary provides a detailed history of the creation
and evolution of Bond on screen, and contains a host of new and rare
archive material.
It’s Official: The ‘Skyfall’ Theme Song is by Adele
 Many
Bond fans will know by now that the award-winning British artist Adele
will be singing the theme song to ‘Skyfall’. The song will be released
via her official website on Friday October 5, the anniversary day of the
release of the first 007 film ‘Dr. No’ in 1962. It is also, of course,
Global James Bond Day. The rumours about Adele had been around for some
time, and were fanned even more when Adele appeared as a special guest
on the Jonathan Ross Show some months back. When mischievous Ross hummed
the James Bond theme, Adele was placed in a very difficult position!
The JBIFC first got wind of the fact that it was officially Adele a few
weeks ago, when an insider at the recording studio became a bit of a
bigmouth (as the English would say). We should have fed him to the
sharks, or called the Spectre assassination branch.
Adele Fell For ‘Skyfall’
In an
official press release issued to the media on October 1, it was
revealed that Adele read the script to ‘Skyfall’ and then enlisted the
help of Paul Epworth to co-write and produce the theme song. Adele
commented: ‘I was a little hesitant at first to be involved with the
theme song for Skyfall. There’s a lot of instant spotlight and pressure
when it comes to a Bond song. But I fell in love with the script and
Paul had some great ideas for the track and it ended up being a bit of a
no-brainer to do it in the end. It was a lot of fun writing to a brief,
something I’ve never done which made it exciting. When we recorded the
strings, it was one of the proudest moments of my life’. The song was
recorded at the famous Abbey Road Studios in London, and a 77-piece
orchestra was utilised.
Never Say Never: Spectre Back Some Day?
 The November issue of the popular British sci-fi magazine SFX,
which hit British news-stands in late September, contained some
excellent coverage of ‘Skyfall’, together with an interview with Danny
Kleinman (the man charged with designing the title sequences for the new
Bond movie), and a rare piece by screenwriter Christopher Wood, who
wrote the screen treatments for ‘The Spy Who Loved Me’ (1977) and
‘Moonraker’ (1979). Wood also wrote the special tie-in novels that were
issued for both movies. In the magazine’s ‘Skyfall’ coverage, there was
some interview material with Bond producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael
G. Wilson. At one point, the producers made some intriguing comments
about future possible Bond movie plotlines. Responding to a question
about why the ‘Quantum’ organisation was not used in ‘Skyfall’, Wilson
revealed that they have not abandoned the organisation: ‘No, I think
it’s still out there, but we just don’t refer to it in this particular
film’. And tantalisingly, as SFX also noted, Wilson revealed
that they have the rights to bring back Blofeld and Spectre, which
played such a big role in the Bond movies of the 1960s before legal
issues with Kevin McClory stopped EON utilising them. Wilson added: ‘We
believe we can use them. They’re a little dated at the moment. We went
for the Quantum organisation, which was more business oriented, trying
to corner the market on scarce resources, rather than a criminal
organisation that did blackmail and bank robberies’.
Pay Attention, 007: ‘Skyfall’ Team to Return?
 Some interesting comments were made by the showbiz columnist Baz Bamigboye in the UK’s Daily Mail on
September 21. Bamigboye, who has broken various items of news about
‘Skyfall’ over the past year, said that we should expect to see Naomie
Harris, Ben Whishaw and Ralph Fiennes in future Bond films. Bamigboye
claimed in his gossip column: ‘It’s already known that Whishaw is the
new Q and this page revealed a while back that Naomie is the new
Moneypenny. The Skyfall trailer hints as to what Fiennes’s involvement
might be, but I’m not going to give it away – though I’ve known for more
than a year, and there are rumours galore on the internet’. Bamigboye
continued: ‘All three actors have options in their deals to return in
other Bond films (the 24 th in the series will start shooting in the
next 18 months)’. Meanwhile, Ralph Fiennes has been making an impact as
Magwitch in a new big screen version of ‘Great Expectations’, which had
its world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival.
A Diamond is Forever: In Praise of Harry
 John Patterson, writing in the Guardian newspaper’s
weekly ‘Guide’ magazine on September 29, paid generous tribute to Bond
producer Harry Saltzman. He opened his article by saying: ‘When it comes
time to celebrate 50 years of the James Bond franchise... I hope we
recall the half-forgotten man of the whole enterprise: the man who,
after reading Goldfinger, discerned the potential movie fortune lying
dormant in the novels of Ian Fleming; the man who made Sean Connery a
star, and sealed Michael Caine’s fortune by giving him his own spy
franchise...’. Patterson noted that Harry Saltzman was, by all accounts,
the ultimate caricature of the movie producer: warm, loud, crass, and a
consummate gambler, with a keen eye for the main chance ‘and a tight
fist around the purse strings’. But for all that, ‘Saltzman ended being
behind some of the most important movies in 1960s British cinema’.
According to Patterson, Saltzman was part of the large and largely
undocumented influx of creative Canadians that landed in London in the
late 1950s and early 1960s and, after a few failures, caught the
fleeting zeitgeist of the times with the movie ‘Saturday Night
and Sunday Morning’, a gritty kitchen-sink drama which made a star of a
young Albert Finney (who, coincidentally, is in ‘Skyfall’ as the Bond
ancestral home gamekeeper). Moreover, Saltzman pushed for Sean Connery
to be Bond, along with Broccoli, against the demands of the studio
bosses in America. Without Saltzman, wrote Patterson, ‘British cinema of
the 1960s – and ever after – would look decidedly different, and a lot
less fun’.
Try Another Way
 You
have to hand it to Sam Mendes: he went all out to get some really
talented stars for ‘Skyfall’. One of these was actress Helen McCrory,
who has a small but important part in the new Bond movie as a British
Member of Parliament. She has been in the UK’s newspapers quite a bit
recently because of her role in the ITV-1 drama ‘Leaving’, and also for
her part in ‘The Last of the Haussmans’, a play at London’s famous
National Theatre, which has received high praise from the critics.
Married to ‘Homeland’ actor Damian Lewis, 43-year old Helen is,
primarily, a stage actress, but has also played various acclaimed parts
on TV, such as Cherie Blair in the dramas ‘The Queen’ and ‘The Special
Relationship’. McCrory was persuaded to take a part in ‘Skyfall’ by Sam
Mendes, who personally asked her. And she is very loyal to Mendes:
various journalists have tried to prise some details out her concerning
‘Skyfall’, but she has not succumbed. Although she has remained very
tight-lipped about her Bond role in media interviews, she clearly
thoroughly enjoyed being in the movie. Back in April, she told the
London Evening Standard newspaper, for example: ‘It’s great,
and I am enjoying it tremendously. I can’t reveal too much about my part
but I think there is a lot of writing now for women who are in their
sexual prime in their forties’. She also told the Sunday Times,
which conducted a lengthy interview with her recently, that: ‘It’s a
Bond movie. Everyone wants to be in a Bond movie’. But she refused to
add any detail: ‘They are more secretive than the real MI5’. She joked
that she would be ‘abducted’ if she said anything more!
Radio Times Bond Special
 The BBC’s TV and radio listings magazine Radio Times was
something of a James Bond special on September 8, and featured an
attractive image of Craig, Connery and Moore on its front cover. Inside
the magazine, readers were able to peruse an article by the BBC film
expert Barry Norman, who at one point revealed that his father, the film
director Leslie Norman, had been on the short list to direct the first
007 movie ‘Dr. No’. Norman also gave recalled some memories of the time
when he interviewed Roger Moore in Rio de Janeiro, during the making of
‘Moonraker’. At the time, said Norman, Roger was at loggerheads with
Cubby Broccoli over his pay for Bond and whether he would make another
Bond movie. Just before the interview began, Cubby apparently said to
Norman: ‘Ask him – ask him if he’s going to do the next movie’. So Barry
Norman did ask Roger, only to get an evasive but smooth answer which
could be interpreted either way! Broccoli was not best pleased. The
magazine also contained an article on the music of 007 (to tie in with a
BBC Radio 2 special live evening of Bond music on September 14) and a
survey asking readers ‘Who is the best Bond?’, with a boxed set of
Blu-ray ‘Bond at 50’ discs as a prize, something guaranteed to put
somebody in 007 heaven.
A Whole Lot Moore
 Sir
Roger Moore, who was featured in the hour-long programme ‘Piers
Morgan’s Life Stories’ on the UK’s ITV-1 on Friday September 14, was
also profiled in the September 8 edition of the ITV magazine TVTimes.
The article, by David Hollingsworth, looked at Sir Roger’s illustrious
TV career, his charity work, his four marriages, and, of course, his
long service as Her Majesty’s Secret Servant 007. On TV, Sir Roger was
in ‘Ivanhoe’ (1958-59), ‘The Alaskans’ (1959-1960), ‘Maverick’
(1959-61), and ‘The Persuaders’ (1971-72). More famously, he was also
Simon Templar, otherwise known as ‘The Saint’ (1962-69). In fact, as
well as being the 50 th anniversary of the James Bond films, 2012 is
also the golden jubilee of ‘The Saint’. ‘Ah, yes, Simon Templar is
getting old, too’, said Roger. On James Bond, Roger recalled
particularly enjoying filming ‘The Spy Who Loved Me’ (1977). He said: ‘I
think, perhaps, we reached the right level of humour’. He also repeated
something he has said on previous occasions: that he would still love
to play a Bond villain: ‘They get all the best lines’. Sir Roger, who
was knighted in 2003, also reflected on his hard work for children’s
charity UNICEF: ‘I’d say it has become a full-time job. There’s a great
deal to do and it’s hard to know when and where to stop’.
The Man with the Golden Gong
 On
Tuesday September 18, at 8.00pm, the cable and satellite channel Sky
Arts 1 screened the first episode of its new series on ‘British Legends
of Stage and Screen’. The subject of the first programme was Sir
Christopher Lee, well known to Hammer Horror fans as Dracula but also to
the 007 fanbase as Francisco Scaramanga, the ruthless assassin with the
golden gun, who charged a million a shot. Directed by Anthony Fabian,
and narrated by Sue MacGregor, the special Sky Arts profile of Sir
Christopher inevitably touched upon his role as a Bond baddie in
1974-75. When he was offered the role and read the script, Lee said of
Scaramanga: ‘He had three nipples. When I read that I thought it’s a bit
odd. I asked my doctor and he said, oh no, it’s quite common’.
Reflecting further on the character, Lee pointed out that Scaramanga
‘had a sense of humour, was very polite, but also deadly’. He also
referred to the fact that Bond author Ian Fleming was Lee’s cousin, and
revealed that Fleming was at Eton school with a boy named Scaramanga who
he ‘disliked intensely’. It was left to viewers to draw the obvious
conclusions! Sir Christopher also gave some thoughts on his award of a
Knighthood in the New Year’s Honours List in 2009 (he was Knighted by
Charles, Prince of Wales). He also reflected on his award of a BAFTA
Fellowship in 2001, and said he felt ‘so emotional’ at the audience’s
reaction to his appearance on stage to accept the BAFTA award and, with
it, the recognition of his film peers. He said he had felt ‘so
overwhelmed’. You really earned it, Sir Christopher!
Shaken and Stirred
The October edition of the British monthly magazine History Today,
which appeared in late September, helped celebrate 50 years of the Bond
movies with a special article on James Bond in history, written by
University scholar Klaus Dodds. Starting with ‘Dr. No’ in 1962 and
analysing the 007 phenomenon from the 1960s right through to the present
day, Dodds speculated on how and why the Bond series as a filmic
formula has proven so remarkably resilient over the last 50 years. Key
to this in the beginning were the far-sighted producers Albert Broccoli
and Harry Saltzman, who purchased the rights to the Bond novels in
1961(except ‘Casino Royale’) and were instrumental in bringing Fleming’s
secret agent to the big screen. Dodds also pointed to the highly
talented team recruited by Broccoli and Saltzman, such as the
screenwriter Richard Maibaum and the set designer Ken Adam. In addition,
according to Dodds, the Bond films are action thrillers ‘with generic
qualities that follow a clear formula. A simple but dramatic narrative
arc was established from the outset’. Other factors that contributed to
the huge success of the Bond series included the actors who portrayed
Bond, the gadgets, the girls and the glamour, all elements which helped
broaden the reach of the Bond series in terms of global markets. More
importantly, as Dodds noted: ‘The James Bond phenomena persists not only
because it rests on a successful formula but because of the willingness
to adapt that formula’. The introduction of Daniel Craig, for example,
was significant in re-booting Bond. Dodds ended his article: ‘Bring on
Skyfall’. History Today, volume 62, no.10 (October, 2012), is on sale at UK newsagents, priced £5.20.
Bond in the West Indies
 Charlie
Higson as James Bond? Surely not? Yes, it’s true, but not quite in the
way you might have expected. The author of the ‘Young Bond’ book series
has penned the screenplay for a new adaptation of Agatha Christie’s
popular story ‘A Caribbean Mystery’, made for the British TV channel
ITV1 and to be screened in 2013. Higson has included a small role for
himself in the plot as ‘James Bond’, the real-life American
ornithologist, whose name author Ian Fleming ‘borrowed’ for his new
secret agent in his debut novel ‘Casino Royale’. The real James Bond,
who sadly died in 1989 (aged 89) was author of ‘Birds of the West
Indies’, one of Fleming’s favourite books, which often lay on the coffee
table at Fleming’s Jamaican home Goldeneye.
Did You Know?
Ian
Fleming actually met the real-life James Bond in person in 1964, at
Goldeneye, his home in Jamaica. The 007 author gave James Bond a
pre-publication first edition of his latest novel ‘You Only Live Twice’
as a souvenir of his visit to the birthplace of the fictional James
Bond. Fleming wrote in it: ‘To the real James Bond from the thief of his
identity’.
Bond Bits: Brief News Items You May Have Missed
Ian
Fleming’s wife Ann was portrayed on the British stage recently, when the
play ‘A Marvellous Year For Plums’ ran at the UK’s Chichester Theatre.
Set in 1956, around the time of the Suez Crisis, the play was about the
real-life secret affair that was conducted between between Ann Fleming
(played by Imogen Stubbs) and the Labour Party leader Hugh Gaitskell
(played by Nicholas Le Provost)...
British TV presenter and Radio-2 DJ Chris Evans, who is also a big James
Bond fan, turned some heads on August 23 when he drove the original car
from the movie ‘Chitty Chitty Bang Bang’ (which was based on Ian
Fleming’s story for children) through central London. Evans, who has a
collection of classic vehicles, purchased the car for £500,000 in
January 2012, the only working one used in the 1968 movie...
There
were several versions of the car made for ‘Chitty Chitty Bang Bang’,
but the only one that worked was designed by Bond set-designer Ken Adam.
It was built by the Ford Racing Team, and has a dashboard plate from a
World War One fighter plane...
Olga
Kurylenko (from ‘Quantum of Solace’), who stars in ‘To the Wonder’, a
love story with Ben Affleck and new Bond villain Javier Bardem, was the
only key star of the movie to be able to make it to the premiere of the
film at the Venice Film Festival on September 2...
Olga
plays a Frenchwoman in the movie who has a passionate affair with an
American (Ben Affleck) in Paris, but the relationship slowly begins to
unravel. The unusual film, directed by Terence Malick, contains hardly
any dialogue. Javier Bardem plays a priest in the movie, who is
struggling with his faith...
The
JBIFC was very sad to hear of the death of lyricist Hal David, who
passed away in Los Angeles on September 1. He penned some of the most
memorable songs of the 1960s, including ‘Walk On By’ and ‘Do You Know
The Way To San Jose’ for Dionne Warwick. His wide range of work also
included collaborations with John Barry on the Bond songs ‘We Have All
the Time in the World’ in 1969 and ‘Moonraker’ in 1979. Rest in Peace,
Hal...
007 novelist Sebastian Faulks (‘Devil May Care’) gave an interview to the London Metro newspaper
on September 20, to help publicise his new novel ‘A Possible Life’
(which is actually five novellas that range across time). He said the
book is about ‘how people change over the course of a life. I’ve been
interested in this for a long time’...
Who
was the heavily-disguised villain in ‘The Power of Three’, an episode of
the popular BBC sci-fi show ‘Dr. Who’ shown on September 22? The voice
of the villain ‘Shakri’ sounded eerily familiar: well, it was none other
than Steven Berkoff, who played renegade Russian General Orlov in
‘Octopussy’ (1983)...
Sean Connery as the Doctor who said No? According to the Sunday Times,
which contained extracts from the memoirs of Irish writer Edna O’Brien
on September 23, back in 1970 Sean strongly advised her against taking
LSD, recalling his own bad experience of it...
After
finding it difficult to cope with all the pressures of the fame that
went with the Bond mania of the mid-60s, Connery had consulted the
famous but controversial psychiatrist R.D. Laing, who had persuaded the
Scottish star to take a tab of pure LSD. Connery’s trip was deeply
traumatic. After O’Brien went ahead anyway, Connery and a friend came
around to her place to see how she was faring. They were so shocked at
her condition they stayed to look after her...
Speaking in central London in late September to help promote the new
James Bond Blu-ray collection, Britt Ekland (who played Mary Goodnight
in ‘The Man With The Golden Gun’), argued that, in her estimation, Sir
Roger Moore was the best Bond. She said Bond ‘was a bachelor,
unattached, luxurious, sophisticated. I think Roger really portrayed
that’. Britt was joined at the event by Richard ‘Jaws’ Kiel...
So, what can we expect after the lengthy pre-credits for ‘Skyfall’, when Adele’s song kicks in? Speaking to SFX magazine,
Danny Kleinman, who made such an impact with his iconic titles for
‘Goldeneye’ and ‘Casino Royale’, said about his new title sequences for
Craig’s third adventure: ‘I think it’s time to slightly reinvent it
again. Make it maybe a bit more vital and a bit more psychological – not
change everything, but just enough that it feels different and
fresh’...
Naomie Harris, who plays field agent Eve in ‘Skyfall’, has recently
finished work on ‘Mandela: A Long Walk Home’, in which she plays
Mandela’s (now former) wife Winnie Mandela...
Dame
Judi Dench, who reprises her role as ‘M’ in ‘Skyfall’ (and has a major
and pivotal role in the movie), attended a special event at Sotheby’s in
central London in early September, where leading ‘Bollywood’ stars were
out in force. The special evening was held to launch ‘India
Fantastique’, a book which celebrates Indian fashion and design....
The
new ‘Q’, Ben Whishaw, is keeping very busy. He is in the new movie
version of the cult story ‘Cloud Atlas’ and, in the near future, he will
be starring alongside Judi ‘M’ Dench in John Logan’s new theatre
production ‘Peter and Alice’, which will run at the Noel Coward Theatre
in London from March, 2013...
There were some fascinating comments from ‘Skyfall’ cinematographer Roger Deakins in a special free issue of Film and Digital Times in
September. Speaking about the ‘look’ of the new 007 film, he said: ‘I
can say that it’s got a lot of variety, from the very hot, bright, day
exteriors to very dark, underground, cavernous areas lit with little
practicals we made up. There’s huge variety, even more than you’d find
in a typical Bond film, I think’...
50 Years of Guns and Girls
Paul
Burch, music director for the Denmark Street Big Band in London has been
in touch and asked me to let you know that they are presenting two
amazing James Bond nights with music from all the James Bond films!! The
first is on Sunday 14th October At The Spice Of Life, Cambridge Circus,
London and Saturday 27th Oct At The Jazz Café Posk, Hammersmith.....
Finally,
we've had various media people contact us in the hunt for Bond fans
with large collections of Bond memorabillia and who may have met some of
the James Bond stars.
BBC online are particularly keen to find enthusiastic fans in the West Midlands area to appear on their web site.
A couple of the daily papers want to find serious Bond fans / collectors, some from outside the UK.
If anyone's interested in having their story told, please
email me an idea of what you collect and how much of a Bond fan you are,
my email is just below....
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