James Bond Fan Club Newsletter October 2021

Newsletter Autumn 2021

Bond is Back! And Nobody Does It Better.

We had been expecting him, and it has taken six long years.  But welcome back, 007.  After the inevitable delays to the release of No Time To Die due to the global Covid pandemic, September, 2021, will go down as another watershed moment in Bond history: the 25th film in the EON series, the fifth Daniel Craig 007 adventure, and his final one as Ian Fleming’s iconic spy, had finally arrived. As momentum built over the summer, you could sense the growing excitement in the air again by late August, 2021.  Given the premiere of No Time To Die had been confirmed as taking place at the Royal Albert Hall in London on 28th September, and the general release of the movie at the end of September to British cinema screens, the UK’s media began gearing up again for the return of Britain’s favourite fictional spy.  At the same time, various Bond-related news items also began to appear right across the globe. It is difficult to convey to non-British audiences just how big Bond truly is in the UK, however. It would be no exaggeration to say that the release of a new James Bond movie is a major cultural event, a moment which always reminds us about the power of the cinema and the opportunities it creates for complete escapism from the realities of life. And boy do we need that!

You Know His Name

With the release of each new James Bond movie, EON and their backers invest huge effort into mounting a comprehensive media campaign, including in the weeks prior to the film hitting the big screens. It is essential to tease audiences and get them excited for what is to come.  After a couple of false starts due to the Covid pandemic, this media strategy became even more important for No Time To Die. Much depends on Bond wooing back his loyal fans and 007 is seen by the industry as a key part of reinvigorating cinemas and regaining some sense of ‘normality’ after all the damage exerted by Covid-19 in the last year or so.  The British market, naturally, is a key part of this. Newspapers in the UK in August quickly began to feature arts highlights for this coming autumn (fall) and, inevitably, the new James Bond adventure was high up on those lists.  And rightly so.

007 and Counting

The UK’s Guardian newspaper, for example, in its G2 arts supplement on 24th August, put Craig’s gun-toting Bond prominently on the front page of its autumn arts preview and noted inside: ‘Daniel Craig is hanging up his Walther PPK, his tux and sky-blue swimming briefs and bowing out of the 007 role with the latest Bond thriller. Veteran Bond screenwriters Neal Purvis and Robert Wade have teamed up with Fleabag creator Phoebe Waller-Bridge for what is purportedly a funnier, savvier Bond for Craig’s last hurrah’.  The newspaper’s film critic Peter Bradshaw also supplied a separate short article on what cinema may look like after the impact of Covid-19 and, inevitably, this included reference to the new James Bond film. Bradshaw noted how the autumn will see new films mixed in with product delayed from the distant ‘before times’ of pre-Covid. And, at one stage, he reflected with humour that: ‘If the forthcoming James Bond film were to be pushed back again, there could be rioting in the streets. Or, at any rate, an unruly crowd of 007 fans, film journalists and industry professionals might run through central London gibbering. Bond is the gold standard of British cinema’.  Never was a truer word said.

The Spy We All Love

Similarly, the UK’s London Times newspaper (28th August), in its ‘Coming Soon! What to Watch’ section in its Saturday review supplement, featured on its front cover a large still of a very determined looking Craig as Bond riding his motorbike through an Italian town in the new movie, and inside the supplement asked: ‘What kept you, Mr. Bond? After a string of Covid-inflicted false starts Daniel Craig’s swansong as 007 is finally here. Craig was recently named as the best paid actor in Hollywood, his $100 million salary boosted by two Knives Out sequels. Before we see him again as Benoit Blanc, however, he’ll play Bond one more time…’. The piece was also accompanied by another photo still of Craig, this time looking suave in his tux alongside Ana de Armas, standing in a bar. It was great teaser material. The very same day (28th August) also saw the front cover of the ‘Review’ supplement of the UK’s Daily Telegraph newspaper adorned with a large still of Craig’s smart grey-suited Bond emerging from his (Living Daylights) Aston Martin in a London street and crossing the road: ‘Ah, Mr. Bond… We’ve been expecting you’.  According to the Telegraph, the new movie, which it called ‘Daniel Craig’s much-delayed swan song’, sees 007 ‘hauled out of retirement to deal with Rami Malek’s terrorist demagogue’. It is no surprise that this photo still of Craig, with him emerging purposefully into a London street, has already become something of an iconic image, and was used extensively throughout September in large tie-in newspaper adverts by Omega watches, which proclaimed that the Omega Seamaster Diver 300m was ‘James Bond’s choice’. Eye-catching billboards saying the same thing could also be caught at key billboard, transport and other sites in London.

Being Bond: Craig reflects on 15 years of 007

In the week prior to the UK premiere of No Time To Die, the media interest went up to new levels, and there was plenty for Bond fans to read, watch and enjoy. The BBC’s TV and radio weekly Listings magazine, Radio Times, was a very good example: it’s front cover for the 25thSeptember -1st October edition, which went on sale on 22nd September, carried an especially eye-catching image of Daniel Craig with Naomie ‘Moneypenny’ Harris. The magazine was displayed prominently in many newsagents and retail outlets across the UK, and this must have been deeply satisfying for the Bond publicity team. Inside the magazine, a 4-page main article discussed what was said by Craig and EON producer Barbara Broccoli when they were interviewed in New York. What did we learn? Craig described how his approach to being Bond had evolved over his 15-year tenure, where 007 had just earned his ‘double-o’ status in Casino Royale but gradually became more sophisticated over the course of the next four films. Broccoli also reinforced this in her own comments: ‘Daniel has given Bond an inner life. His Bond is allowed to be vulnerable. We see him bleed, we see him cry, we see him struggle with the emotional rollercoaster that Bond has gone through over the last five movies’. Craig, echoing this, commented: ‘I don’t make apologies for Bond. He’s really flawed… but I think that’s interesting’.

Golden High

Further tie-in activities for the new movie took place in the days prior to the premiere. Craig and key members of the cast (Lea Seydoux, Lashana Lynch and Rami Malek) appeared in a Bond special edition which heralded the return of the BBC’s very popular late-night series The Graham Norton Show. Craig looked relaxed and in top form. He emphasised how pleased he was that No Time To Die would be in the cinemas and on the big screen, as (he said) it would have been a ‘tragedy’ had it gone straight to streaming.  He said: ‘We want people to see it in the cinemas’. Craig praised his co-stars, and also said Rami Malik is ‘brilliant’ in the movie. He also admitted that he felt a ‘mixture of emotions’ over the fact that his time as Bond was now coming to an end. In the very same evening that this recording of the Norton show was transmitted, Craig made a personal appearance at London Leicester Square’s famous Odeon cinema (once the regular site for Bond premieres in years gone by). The occasion was a live interview event for BAFTA, and Craig responded to questions from interviewer Edith Bowman.  Naturally, security was very tight at the event, which also included plenty of anti-Covid precautions; only mask-wearing fans with both jabs and negative lateral flow tests or proof of naturally immunity were admitted. But there was much to please the audience, and Craig (again) was in top form as he looked back over his career and his service as Fleming’s James Bond.

Reporting For Duty

At one point during the BAFTA interview Daniel said he had thought the makers of the 007 films had ‘got the wrong guy’ when he was offered the part of Bond by Barbara Broccoli.  He had apparently made a list of pros and cons while deciding whether to accept the role or not, and was finally swayed by one of his very close friends, who had said that not playing 007 would become the biggest regret of Craig’s life: ‘He said, “You’re gonna regret this for the rest of your life if you don’t do this” and like yeah, sitting in a bar going I could have been Bond’. Interestingly, Craig revealed that starring in the crime movie Layer Cake in 2004 had an ‘amazingly positive’ effect on his career and had led him to being offered more leading roles. He also offered some thoughtful but humorous reflections on his decision to play Bond for a fifth time after having had serious doubts at the end of Spectre. He pointed out that he had suffered injuries during the filming of Spectre but Barbara Broccoli ‘bullied me’ into returning for a fifth time and he was ‘so happy I did’. Asked about his last day of filming on No Time To Die, which took place on set at Pinewood studios, Craig recalled: ‘It was the last shot and you know we were in the right place – we were in a dirty back lot in Pinewood, pretending to be in Cuba’. Sounding emotional, he continued: ‘I was gonna say goodbye and Barbara came down and then everybody came down, everybody came out of the offices, the heads of department, all the riggers. I realised I’ve been working with these people, some of them, for nearly 30 years in the film industry. It’s just always about the team. Barbara makes an atmosphere on set where we’re a family’.

On Her Majesty’s Special Naval Service: Craig awarded Bond’s RN rank

In another publicity coup for No Time To Die, Bond’s naval connections became a big story in the UK press. As many fans know, Bond creator Ian Fleming made good use of his own memories of wartime service with the British Royal Navy (RN), and naval references and themes featured at various points in the James Bond novels. Now 007 actor Daniel Craig has something directly in common with the fictional James Bond of both the books and the EON films: they share the military rank of Commander. There was major media interest in the news that the current James Bond star has been given a special honour by Britain’s RN: it was announced that Daniel has been made an honorary Commander, the same rank attained by the fictional James Bond. The news came just days before the premiere of No Time To Die at the Royal Albert Hall in central London. Referring to his new real-life RN rank, Craig said: ‘I am truly privileged and honoured to be appointed the rank of honorary commander in the senior service’. The Bond star is especially keen to support the families of RN service personnel (the RN is known as the ‘senior’ service as it is the oldest of the three branches of the British Armed Forces). The First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, presented Craig with the honour and said: ‘I am delighted to welcome honorary commander Daniel Craig to the Royal Navy. Our honorary officers act as ambassadors and advocates for the service, sharing their time and expertise to spread the message about what our global, modern and ready Royal Navy is doing around the world’. Admiral Radakin added: ‘Daniel is well known for being Commander Bond – a naval officer who keeps Britain safe through missions across the globe. That’s what the real Royal Navy does every day, using technology and skill the same way as Bond himself. I look forward to him getting to see more of our sailors and marines over the coming months and years’.

For Special Services

The fantastic news came as details emerged about the extent to which the RN gave crucial support to the filmmakers during production of the new Bond movie, which includes an appearance by the British warship HMS Dragon. The production also received generous help from both the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the British Army. The RAF allowed the base RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire (doubling for a NATO base in Norway) to be used by the production as a backdrop for a sequence where James Bond boards a C-17 Globemaster plane, while the Army supplied troops from the Household Cavalry when some sequences were shot in Whitehall in central London (there were some great publicity shots of Craig posing with members of the Cavalry during pauses in filming, much to the delight of those who were lucky to witness this).

The Name’s Bond… Commander Bond, RN

As many 007 aficionados know, Bond author Ian Fleming, of course, was made a Lieutenant Commander in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve (RNVR) in 1939, and served as an assistant to Admiral John Godfrey, the Director of Naval Intelligence, in Whitehall during World War Two. Godfrey was said to be the model for ‘M’, who was given a Naval background in the James Bond books. Similarly, Fleming gave his fictional creation James Bond the rank of lieutenant in the Special Branch of the RNVR and, according to 007’s obituary, Bond had ended the war with the rank of Commander. Significantly, the producers of the James Bond movies have made good use of this Naval background over the years.  A number of the 007 movies have had sequences where Bond is referred to as ‘Commander Bond’ (such as in Sean Connery’s Diamonds Are Forever) or is seen in Naval uniform (Sean Connery in You Only Live Twice, Roger Moore in The Spy Who Loved Me, and Pierce Brosnan in Tomorrow Never Dies). Moreover, the Bond productions have been given close cooperation by the Ministry of Defence (MOD), such as with the naval sequences in Tomorrow Never Dies and in the latest production, No Time To Die. Craig’s movie Skyfall was also given permission by the MOD to use some MOD-owned land in Surrey, located next to some MOD firing ranges. And let’s not forget that when Craig was first introduced to the world’s media as the new James Bond, he was escorted up the River Thames to his first press conference by members of the Royal Marines.

You Only Live Once

Interestingly, Ian Fleming’s wartime service as a Naval Intelligence officer will be featured in Operation Mincemeat, a new movie directed by John Madden, and due for release in January, 2022. It is based on the best-selling non-fiction book penned by the historian and Bond expert Ben Macintyre, which told the story of Fleming’s involvement in the creation of a wartime deception operation designed to fool the Germans into thinking that the Allies were planning to invade Greece and Sardinia in 1943, instead of their real target of Sicily.  This deception operation, which in many ways was the brainchild of Commander Fleming, involved use of a preserved corpse which was dressed up in an officer’s uniform and planted with false papers and ‘invasion’ details. The ‘officer’ was left at sea by a British submarine, deliberately timed so that it would be found and the officer’s details would end up in the hands of the Germans. The operation proved highly successful in diverting German troops away from Sicily, and thus saving numerous Allied lives. Commander Fleming in the new movie will be played by Johnny Flyn. As an assistant to Admiral Godfrey, Fleming developed a reputation for thinking up imaginative deception and other secret operations, and was also instrumental in setting up 30AU, a special naval assault unit. Some Bond historians have speculated that one or two members of 30AU may have influenced Fleming’s later creation of James Bond in the early 1950s. Fleming, as we know, put a lot of his own character traits into James Bond, but may have also ‘borrowed’ some from certain servicemen he met and admired during the war, including one or two of the brave commandos who served with 30AU. He once famously explained that 007 was ‘a compound of all the secret agents and commando types I met during the war’, including his own brother, Peter Fleming, who had operated behind enemy lines.

No Time To Sigh

Fans of the award-winning singer Billie Eilish, who sings the main theme for No Time To Dieand is the youngest artist to do a Bond song, have been used to seeing Billie wrapped in voluminous layers of goth-like clothes, with raven and green hair. However, she surprised many of her fans in March when she revealed she had adopted bleach-blonde hair to mark her latest album, Happier Than Ever. She then launched an even greater surprise: she appeared in a photoshoot for the British edition of Vogue magazine, adopting what she calls a ‘classic, old-timey pin-up’ look, which she was at pains to point out was ‘entirely her idea’. Social media went into meltdown as soon as the photos were previewed: her younger fans in particular couldn’t get enough of this new look, and there were thousands of ‘likes’ recorded. Billie’s new glitzy look, slightly toned down this time, could also be seen when she made a live appearance at the Global Citizen Live music festival, held in New York’s Central Park over the weekend of 25th-26th September. It was evident that a huge number of her fans were present.

Quantum did not bring him Solace

The JBIFC was sad to hear of the death of the highly talented theatre and film director Roger Michell, who passed away on 22ndSeptember, aged just 65. Michell’s directing career included two movies with Daniel Craig, The Mother (2003) and Enduring Love (2004), both notable for their emphasis on character and emotion. Both movies helped Craig’s film career enormously, and the star was keen to work with Michell again when it came to finding a director for Craig’s second 007 adventure Quantum of Solace (2008). However, Michell, much to Craig’s disappointment, pulled out, walking away from a reported $8 million fee. Michell prided himself on meticulous preparation and plenty of rehearsal, an approach he had used in his theatre work. He was apparently worried that there was no workable script for Craig’s second 007 movie and felt the project was being rushed to meet an unrealistic production schedule. At one point, Michell explained: ‘The Bond people are used to going into these massive productions in a chaotic “Oh, we’ll fix that later” way. I panicked and the more the money went up, the worse it made me feel’. Some years later he also confessed that even thinking about it still made him ‘want to have a lie down’. It is interesting to speculate how Quantum may have been a very different Bond film compared to what emerged, but that will will remain one of the big unknowns in Craig’s Bond history. Roger Michell (1956-2021), R.I.P.

Licence Renewed Again

Aficionados of John Gardner’s revival of the literary James Bond in the early 1980s (he went on to pen no less than 14 original Bond novels and 2 novelisations of the EON films) were very pleased to see the re-issue in August 2021 of Gardner’s debut 007 novel, Licence Renewed, first published in 1981. Orion books have published it in a brand new 40th Anniversary edition, with a new introduction by the writer M.J. Arlidge. The book, of course, features the devious villain Dr. Anton Murik, who has hatched a plan to hijack six nuclear power plants around the world and start a global meltdown. It also conjured up memories for the JBIFC of the sheer excitement that arose back in 1981 when it was dramatically announced that Gardner had been commissioned to revive Ian Fleming’s hero for a new generation of potential Bond book readers. Gardner was a special guest at a JBIFC Convention and was interviewed on stage by the then JBIFC chair, Ross Hendry. Gardner was full of entertaining anecdotes. In fact, Gardner was always gentlemanly and well-dressed, with a good sense of humour. One of Gardner’s first appearances on British TV to promote and discuss his revival of Bond also came on the popular lunchtime BBC programme Pebble Mill at One, where he was interviewed by host Bob Langley (who was evidently a big Bond Fan himself). Gardner talked about his past life, his time as a Royal Marines Commando, his brief career as a man of the cloth (he trained to be an Anglican priest in the 1950s, but he quickly realised he had made a big mistake), the personal crisis that led to him hitting the bottle for a while (see his very moving autobiography Spin the Bottle), his recovery from alcoholism, and then his early career as a novelist. He found big success in the 1960s with his hugely entertaining series of Boysie Oakes spy novels – Oakes was a kind of anti-Bond, a reluctant secret agent who did not like killing, and paid someone else to do it for him! Gardner’s first Oakes novel, The Liquidator (1964), was made into a movie with Rod Taylor as Oakes (interestingly, with Jill St. John as a co-star and a superb theme song by Shirley Bassey!). Fascinatingly, on the Pebble Mill at One programme, Gardner revealed that his original title for Licence Renewed had been Meltdown. Gardner, who sadly passed away in 2007, also revived the literary Professor Moriarty, the nemesis of detective Sherlock Holmes.

Horowitz is Back for 003

Another author who has dipped his pen into Sir Arthur Conan Doyles’ literary world is Anthony Horowitz, who wrote two Sherlock Holmes novels. The current official Bond novelist, who has written two bestselling Bond novels, Trigger Mortis and Forever and a Day to wide critical acclaim, revealed to his fans on social media on August 13ththat he had just sent his 3rd Bond novel to his literary agent. The book will be published in the UK by Jonathan Cape in May, 2022. Naturally, Horowitz is remaining tight-lipped about the plotline and where he will take Fleming’s secret agent 007 next. However, Horowitz did drop an intriguing clue or two in a comment that appeared on his personal website: ‘The new book begins with the death of Scaramanga and Bond’s return from Jamaica to confront an old enemy’. Sounds good to us. We can’t wait!

From Mexico With Love?

While on the subject of ‘lost’ or newly imagined 007 novel plotlines, another fruitful source for such items is the world of the pre-Horowitz Bond book continuity authors, and the books or stories they planned to write but never did. A few years ago one of the Bond discussion forums carried some interesting speculation about the possible 007 book sequel plans of author Kingsley Amis, who had penned the first post-Fleming Bond book Colonel Sun, under the pseudonym ‘Robert Markham’. Amis, who was a big Fleming and Bond fan, had shown his love of the character in two non-fiction books, The James Bond Dossier and the more light-hearted The Book of Bond, a guide for budding spies supposedly written by Bill Tanner. Amis was commissioned by Glidrose Publications to write the first Bond continuation adventure, which was published in March, 1968. The forum discussion focused on whether Amis had considered writing a second James Bond adventure, or whether this was just a rumour that has developed over the years. But the availability in recent years of his extensive correspondence to friends offers us some clues: it does appear that there may have been something to this rumour, in the sense that Amis briefly contemplated writing not another full Bond novel but a short 007 story instead. Earlier in 1968, Amis had visited Mexico, travelling from St. Louis to Mexico City by train. Amis had remembered that Fleming had enjoyed placing his secret service hero on trains and, according to his correspondence (Amis was a prolific letter writer), Amis considered a short Bond story involving an incident on a train in Mexico, possibly with an assassination attempt on Bond’s life. Alas, there is no evidence Amis took this any further.

The Double O in Triple Cross

It seems months ago now, but the news remains raw. Early February, 2021, saw the very sad news that the Oscar-winning Canadian actor Christopher Plummer had died, aged 91. Although many people associated him with the musical The Sound of Music, Plummer had a love/hate relationship to his famous role, and was always keen to remind interviewers that he had an extensive theatre career and a wide-ranging filmography. British TV still can occasionally surprise us, and in recent years we have been treated to some rare showings of the 1966 war film Triple Cross, which starred Plummer as the real-life spy and womaniser Eddie Chapman (who was known by his Military Intelligence handlers as agent 'Zigzag'). The movie has quite a ‘Bondian’ feel to it. Directed by 007 veteran Terence Young, fresh from Thunderball (1965), the film has a number of familiar faces from the James Bond films, including Gert Frobe who, of course, played the main villain in Goldfinger (1963), Claudine Auger, who was the beautiful Domino in Thunderball, and Anthony Dawson, who was the traitorous Professor Dent in the first Bond movie Dr. No(1962). The biographical film, which traced Chapman's role as an agent for both sides in World War Two, was clearly trying to tap into the spy film mania of the mid-1960s, and has some very Bondian-sounding opening and end-credits music. One can also clearly see why Christopher Plummer, who portrayed Chapman as a suave devil-may-care playboy in the movie, was seen as a possible candidate for James Bond at one time by the EON producers Cubby Broccoli and Harry Saltzman. But Plummer’s reputation for partying and hard-drinking (his drinking partners included Richard Burton and Peter O’Toole) may have put the EON duo off. In interviews, Plummer had what one of his obituaries noted was ‘biting candour’ about his film projects. In relation to Triple Cross, for example, Plummer once commented: ‘It wasn’t very good, that movie. The story is fascinating – I just don’t think we were very good. Of course, we were all blind drunk most of the time’.

They Never Said 'No' Again

As we once noted in a past JBIFC newsletter, Christopher Plummer was a friend of Sean Connery and his then-wife Diane Cilento, and Plummer recalled in interviews how he had witnessed the unrelenting pressures that fame and super-stardom placed Connery under during the 1960s. Plummer also expressed his strong debt to Connery for the former Bond's single-mindedness in the 1970s ('Connery saved my life', as he put it). In 1976, when studio executives threatened to cut the part of Rudyard Kipling (played by Plummer) from the John Huston classic movie The Man Who Would Be King, the Scottish former Bond actor made it very clear that if they did so he would walk off the film! Knowing Connery's no-nonsense reputation, the executives quickly caved in. Much to Plummer's relief, the part of Kipling stayed in the film. And quite right, too! It's a great film, beloved by many.

From Kronsteen With Love

New Year, New Avengers: It is a good few months ago now, but for fans of the cult 1960s TV series The Avengers, it was a great introduction to 2021 to see a rare screening of the 1970s-made sequel series The New Avengers on the Sony Channel in the UK. It was also a great opportunity, of course, to do some serious ‘Bond star watching’, as various stars from the 007 movies also popped up in episodes of the original 1960s Avengers series and its 1970s sequel. On 12th February, for example, when episode 5 of season 1 of The New Avengers was shown on Sony, viewers were able to see none other than Vladek Sheybal, who played the memorably sinister SPECTRE agent Kronsteen in From Russia, With Love (1963), and also popped up briefly in the rogue Bond film Casino Royale made by Charles K. Feldman in 1967. In the New Avengers episode, Sheybal played a character named Zacradi, who carried out several murders by directing flocks of kamikaze birds using a special flute. Bizarre, yes – but hugely entertaining, and Sheybal (1923-1992) always managed to invest his villains with that something ‘extra’.

From a TV View To a Thrill

As many 007 aficionados will know, the original version of The Avengers was something of a conveyor belt in supplying the EON Bond movies with rising stars, Honor Blackman and Diana Rigg being prime examples. Interestingly, though, in a sense, the reverse happened in the case of Joanna Lumley, who was one of Blofeld’s Angels of Death in OHMSS (1969). Her role in George Lazenby’s one-off Bond movie set her on the road to TV and film fame, and she became the iconic character Purdey in The New Avengers. And, of course, Patrick Macnee, who played the suave agent John Steed in The Avengers and reprised the role in The New Avengers, went on to play the role of Sir Godfrey Tibbet to Roger Moore’s 007 in A View To A Kill (1985).

Did You Know?

Polish actor Vladek Sheybal, who had been both an acclaimed stage actor and director in his home country, also brought his theatre directing skills to England. When Bond director Terence Young, who was impressed with Sheybal’s heavy-lidded eyes and quite distinctive ‘special voice’, offered the part of Kronsteen to Sheybal, the actor was initially hesitant. But Sheybal was persuaded to take the role by Sean Connery, whose then girlfriend, Diane Cilento, had been directed on stage by Sheybal. Once he broke into movies in the 1960s, Sheybal never looked back, and went on to play numerous villainous roles.

Bond Bits: Brief Items of News You May Have Missed in 2021

Bonding with James: If you could stomach what ITV’s over-zealous censors do to the Bond films, together with the numerous advert breaks, what better way was there to see in the New Year than with 007? The UK’s main ITV channel decided to see out 2020 with a screening of Daniel Craig’s Bond movie Skyfall, which was shown on New Year’s Eve. On New Year’s Day, 2021, itself, eager Bond fans could switch to ITV2, which screened Spectre to herald in 2021…  Bondathon - ITV’s New Year Bond Season: The UK’s ITV4 channel kicked off New Year 2021 with screenings of all the EON Sean Connery 007 films, starting with Dr. No on Monday 4th January, at the rather odd time of 5.45pm. One could watch a Bond film per day. The same cycle of screenings started again the week after, starting with No again on Monday, 11th Jan. It was a great way to take your mind off all the gloomy news… Bonding with Brosnan: The UK’s main ITV channel decided to stay with their 007 screenings by also having a Brosnan season, with all four of his Bond adventures shown at 11.05pm on consecutive Saturdays: Goldeneye was screened on 13th February, TND on 20th February, TWINE on 27th February, and DAD on 6th March... Spying on Brosnan’s Bond: It is always interesting to read the mini-reviews of Bond films in Listings magazines whenever they are screened. The Radio Times, for example, reviewing TND, argued: ‘For the first hour or so, this 18thJames Bond movie is up there with the best of them: it has terrific pace, Pierce Brosnan’s 007 has romantic and rough-house appeal, Michelle Yeoh’s Chinese agent is more than a match for him in the action stakes, and the story has grip and even plausibility. Sadly, the second half doesn’t quite sustain the momentum, while Jonathan Pryce’s media mogul… proves to be an unthreatening villain’ (ouch!). But the review then added: ‘Flaws aside, this was at the time the best Bond movie since the heyday of Connery’… The World Is Not Another Day: The same magazine, Radio Times, gave Brosnan’s next two films enthusiastic reviews: TWINE was called a ‘welcome return to the gritty glamour of such early outings as From Russia With Love: ‘Pierce Brosnan is clearly comfortable as 007, both in the dramatic sequences and during the spectacular stunts… Matching him every step of the way are Sophie Marceau, the best Bond girl in ages, and Robert Carlyle, who is perfect as a vicious villain’. Refreshingly (given the bad press it so often gets), the magazine’s review a week later of DAD gave Brosnan’s final Bond outing high praise: ‘Pierce Brosnan is on fine form as a betrayed and vengeful 007, combining the secret agent’s charm and throwaway wit with true toughness and a streak of venom. Such character-broadening traits ensure that the format never feels stale, while the introduction of Halle berry as an equal, if underdeveloped, female sidekick is a coup’… Mo(o)re Bond: The ITV-4 channel of the UK’s ITV network also had in a full season of all the Roger Moore 007 films, showing each one weekly and consecutively, culminating in A View To A Kill on Friday, 28th May, 2021. It was double-0 heaven… Bond on the Box Again: The ITV network in the UK were then back with Bond movie TV screenings during August, 2021, this time of Connery’s James Bond films as the momentum built up for the release of Bond 25. George Lazenby’s one-off film OHMSS was also included in the season, and Connery’s sixth movie as 007, Diamonds Are Forever, was screened on ITV-1 on Sunday, 26th September, in a mid-afternoon slot. Clearly, it was all timed to tap into NTTD fever… No Time To Diet: A recent edition of the BBC Radio-4 comedy series Dead Ringers had a nice 007 sketch. After being confined to Covid ‘lockdown’, James Bond returns to work at MI6 HQ and discovers all MI6 staff are still working from home. Moreover, he finds that he himself has put on extra weight and urgently sends out a request to ‘Q’ branch: ‘Bring me some elasticated trousers!’…  Golden Touch: Fans of film soundtrack music were given a real treat back in January when, on Monday, 25th January, BBC-4 screened a special documentary, Score: Cinema’s Greatest Soundtracks. An impressive ‘Who’s Who’ of the leading film composers discussed in the documentary included – naturally - John Barry, and also the latest Bond composer Hans Zimmer. If you get the opportunity to view this, then do so. It’s a real treat… For Your Car Ears Only: Interestingly, on 7th May, 2021, the UK’s Daily Mailnewspaper carried a profile of Hans Zimmer, and revealed that the latest 007 composer had recently been hard at work for the motor company BMW (Zimmer is a big fan of cars, and BMWs in particular). His mission? To create new soundscapes for the inside of cars. Zimmer explained: ‘We have an extraordinary opportunity to turn electric driving in a BMW into a very special experience with the help of great sounds’. The composer, who has his main studio in Santa Monica, California, had been working closely with a BMW sound engineer to create a sound repertoire for a variety of driving modes in BMW models. It sounded intriguing! Zimmer’s postponed 2021 live European music tour will now take place in 2022, and will include gigs in London, Manchester and Dublin. And, of course, there is his long-awaited soundtrack for No Time To Die which, we understand, will form part of his repertoire on the 2022 tour…  Bonding with Graham: The lovely and highly-talented Rosamund Pike, who played double-agent Miranda Frost in Die Another Day, was one of the guests on The Graham Norton Show, shown on BBC-1 on 19th February. Rosamund was on the show to help publicise her new dark comedy thriller I Care a Lot, for which she had been nominated for a Golden Globe… Another Way To Try: The UK’s Daily Telegraph newspaper (20th February, 2021) published an enthusiastic - if slightly late - review of The Lost Adventures of James Bond (2020), the fascinating new book by American journalist and author Mark Edlitz (the JBIFC did an item on the book in our Xmas, 2020, Newsletter). The Telegraph, perhaps inevitably, zoomed in on some of the more bizarre plot proposals that never made it on to the big screen. It’s a great read for those fans who like to speculate on the ‘what if’ and ‘lost Bond’ aspects of James Bond history… Reporting for Duty Again: It was so good to see Daniel Craig return, even if briefly, as James Bond for a humorous sketch for the BBC’s Comic Relief charity fundraising evening, held on Friday, 19th March, otherwise known as ‘Red Nose Day’ in the UK. This can still be caught on the internet if you search carefully… From a View To a Thrill: Fans of Duran Duran, who provided the great title song for Roger Moore’s 007th and final adventure as Bond in 1985, were able to catch ‘Duran 40’, a two-part BBC radio-2 programme transmitted on 8th May (part 1) and 15th May (part 2), presented by Claudia Winkleman to mark the 40th anniversary of the UK chart run of their single ‘Planet Earth’. The Bond dimension always gets coverage in any profile of them and it is clear the band remain very proud of their dalliance with double-0 music heaven… Seydoux interviewed: Acclaimed actress Lea Seydoux, who reprises her role in No Time To Die, was profiled in the UK’s Guardian newspaper on 17th July. Unfortunately, she had experienced a major piece of bad luck when she was due to make an appearance at the 2021 Cannes film festival: she had tested positive for the dreaded Covid-19, and so had to spend the festival period in isolation in Paris. Her interview with the newspaper thus had to take place on the phone, and the main thing that emerged was that Lea was feeling very bored being in lockdown in her house. Bond was inevitably mentioned in the interview. On her reprisal of Madeleine Swann, Lea commented: ‘The challenge with Bond is adapting to a different genre. I’ve done more independent films in my career, so to be on a big machine like James Bond is interesting. And yes, of course, it’s an entertainment… it’s made to entertain’. She added that making Bond took her out of her ‘comfort zone’ and was also ‘fun’. It was, she said: ‘Great stunts, great locations. Something bigger than life’…  No Time To Try: The creator the best-selling Jack Reacher novels, author Lee Child, revealed in the Sunday Times on 12th September that, in the early 2000s, he was twice approached to write a Bond novel to coincide with the 2008 centenary of Fleming’s birth. He said it would have been ‘an uneconomic use of my time’ because he would have had to share royalties. Instead, Sebastian Faulks was given the challenge, and penned Devil May Care. Lee Child also commented that he couldn’t figure out how to make the Bond story ‘relevant to the modern day’. Well, perhaps something called your creative imagination was necessary, Mr. Child? Other authors have managed the challenge admirably…  Sky High: The UK’s ‘Sky Max’ cable and satellite channel screened a great documentary on Saturday, 25th September, entitled 007: The Daniel Craig Years, which looked back on his five films as James Bond as he prepared for the release of the latest movie. Superb… Welcome Back Graphic Bond: As part of all the tie-in publicity around No Time To Die, the UK’s Sunday Express newspaper on September 26th began a re-run of the famous Express Bond cartoon strip, drawn by John McLusky (and, later, others), starting with Casino Royale. The cartoon strip first began back in 1958 and ran for many years, serialising all the Fleming books, the Kingsley Amis Bond continuation novel, and various original stories. It was pure gold and now is the opportunity to revisit an old friend, brilliantly drawn… Bond at his Best: The UK’s ITV-1 TV channel screened a truly excellent documentary on the evening of Sunday, 26th September, two days prior to the NTTD premiere. Entitled Being James Bond, the programme enabled Craig to look back and reflect on his 15 years as 007. He was in great form, taking time to offer a range of thoughts on his long service as Fleming’s ‘blunt instrument’. And, in a great bonus for Bond fans, it included some unseen behind-the-scenes footage. It was another dose of double-0 heaven, and included interesting comments from the EON producers…

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