THE BOOK: COLONEL SUN
Year: 1968
Author: Kingsley Amis (as Robert Markham)
THE PLOT
Bond teams with a young Soviet agent and a Greek Resistance veteran to rescue a kidnapped M in Greece, only to discover a false-flag operation planned by the mysterious Colonel Sun — an operation in which Sun has planned a starring role for Bond.
THE COMMENTARY
Bond arrives at “Quarterdeck” to visit M, who is convalescing. He arrives to find the housekeepers murdered, and when he checks on M, kidnappers holding him. M is drugged, and the kidnappers drug Bond, too, but he escapes into nearby woods before passing out. The kidnappers can’t find him, and settle for M.
When Bond is recovered, he tells MI6 that the kidnappers were very professional. Also ruthless. One of them was killed on the scene by his fellows, because his face was too damaged in the fight with Bond to travel without notice. Various clues point to Athens.
This was a pretty good action scene. But why is it so easy to kidnap the head of MI6 on British soil? Are there no guards at Quarterdeck?
We’re introduced to Colonel Sun Liang-tan of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, on a Greek island with his cronies. He is keeping tabs on another group on a nearby island, who are Russians. He is tall, brilliant and inscrutable. Everyone’s afraid of him, and he likes to torture. We meet his crew, comprised of a discredited doctor, two Albanian prostitutes, an ex-KGB Russian and soon, a Nazi war criminal and his underage male assistant, referred to as his “boy-toy.”
He is Fu Manchu in almost everything but name. That strikes me as odd. I was alive in 1968, and I remember us being more worried about the Japanese than the Chinese. But maybe that was just my neck of the woods. And Hammer released a Fu Manchu movie in 1965, which may have influenced Amis. But he's too much like Fu Manchu — and too much like Doctor No. I'd have preferred a more original villain.
Sun also strikes me as an incredibly racist creation. And Amis doesn't stop with slandering the Chinese, whose chief characteristics he describes as having no more regard for human life than insects, and delighting in torture. Amis, like Fleming, has never found a foreigner he doesn't like to bash. Turks, Albanians, Koreans, Russians — you name it, they have deficiencies defined by their race. All of Sun’s assistants are described in nasty racial stereotypes. While I usually took Fleming's garbage in stride, this book's casual venom kinda shocked me now and then. And, naturally, even the evil bad guy recognizes how wonderful the British are.
We learn of Sun’s plot, which unlike Fleming, isn’t too over the top or complex. Sun plans a false-flag operation in which Sun will blow up the conference on the nearby island, a secret meeting held by the Soviets hosting representatives of various Middle Eastern and African states. Sun will pin the bombing on the British by torturing M and Bond to death, leaving their bodies amid the bomb debris and tinkering with the forensic evidence to make it look like M was building a bomb that went off accidentally. (Sun doesn’t have Bond yet, but he’s confident that, with the clues he’s left, Bond will come to him.) Then China will sit back and watch the two super-powers go at it, waiting to pick up the pieces.
I have some problems with this plan:
- Why would 1968 China do this?
- Why are the Soviets holding this meeting in a NATO country instead of one of the Soviet republics or a satellite country? There are plenty of Mediterranean islands in Albania, for example. This strikes me as writer’s fiat, in that the field of operation is one in which Bond has more access, allies and latitude, whereas the Soviets, who are holding the meeting, have less.
- The way that Sun plans to convince the world of British perfidy is pretty incredible, in the worst sense of the word. Who would believe the head of the British Secret Service would leave his safe office, travel thousands of kilometers to Greece, personally build a bomb and clumsily set it off? And if Bond is there, why wouldn’t that be his job, leaving M out of it altogether? This struck me as preposterous, and just writer's fiat to get Bond involved.
- And surely there are easier ways to pin this on the British — faked signals, having a Bond lookalike leave a trail from London to Athens, etc. And just Bond, please — there's no need for M to be there. He can be implicated with fake signals and paperwork. It probably wouldn't fool the security services, but it would muddy the issue in the press. And M is sidelined through the rest of the book, so he simply doesn't need to be there.
Bond goes to Athens, assuming he will be kidnapped, and doesn’t have long to wait. He’s picked up by a young, beautiful Greek girl named Ariadne, who wants to take him somewhere secluded, the Acropolis at closing time. But when the kidnappers show up, the girl indicates they are not the ones she expected, and they fight their way out.
She takes him to her chief, the head of the KGB cell in Athens, and Bond likes the man immediately. But the mysterious kidnappers return, and it turns into a running gun battle where only Ariadne and Bond survive. Bond discovers MI6’s Section A has been wiped out as well. The pair decide to team up to fight the mysterious third party, each checking in with their respective organizations.
I accept this alliance as the "whatever it takes" to get the mission done. But I am uneasy at how quickly Bond accepts Ariadne’s chief as a friend and ally, basically because he has the traditional “firm, dry” handshake. And he is blithe about Ariadne’s politics; she is a true believer in Marxism and does not waver in that, despite falling in love with Bond. It felt out of character for Bond and his politics, but I let it go. As it turns out, my instincts were on the money.
For the record, the Ariadne of myth helped Theseus escape the maze after he killed the Minotaur on Crete. There are a couple of different endings for this myth, but in both Ariadne is betrayed by Theseus and either hangs herself, or marries Dionysus.
Ariadne leads bond to her father's friend Litsas, a veteran of the Greek Resistance in World War II, who, unlike her, is loyal to the West. The three take Litsas' boat out to the island where the Russians are, in order to warn them. The Russian chief, who is depicted as gay and possibly pederast, does not believe her.
This is the second gay character in the book (if you don’t count Sun, who is probably more asexual anyway), and another unpleasant one.
They then take the boat to Sun's island to sneak in. To disguise their approach, assuming Sun knows what Litsas’ boat looks like, they swap boats with an innocent sailor — who ends up, with his son, being killed by Sun’s men. They are easily captured.
This is not one of Bond's finest hours.
Sun loves to torture British people, whom he considers superior basic material for his "art." (Americans will do in a pinch.) He begins his torture of Bond, with M on deck.
Fleming loved his torture porn, so this scene is not surprising in a book trying to ape his style. But there's way too much of it for me, and way too much detail. It’s kinda sickening.
Bond is saved by one of the Albanian prostitutes, who slips him a knife.
Again, not his finest hour. And it's never addressed how Bond gets up and walks away unharmed after having his eardrum violently penetrated and septum carved up. Ariadne notices he's "talking funny" but that's it. And there’s no follow-up medical care that we know about.
After the good guys win, the book winds up with Bond and his British masters and Ariadne with her Soviet masters at some sort of official get-together, celebrating British success in preventing deaths at the conference. Bond is offered the Order of Lenin but turns it down.
A number of unbelievable things happen here.
The Soviets acknowledge that the Brits saved their bacon (they would never do this). Let me say it again: The Soviets of 1968 would never do this, nor would Putin's Russia do it today. Instead, they would claim all the credit for the KGB, and say that the West was working against them the whole time, and were likely behind the whole thing. They certainly wouldn't offer a medal to the hero of From Russia, with Love!
Bond is sad because he's breaking up with Ariadne. She is going to the Soviet Union for further training as an intelligence officer. She is sad, too! But both know that duty to country overrides personal interests, which Bond respects.
Excuse me?
Bond doesn't even try to talk her out of going to work for the KGB. That isn't like going to work for the Moscow phone company! She will be working for the opposition, which could well mean death for some of his colleagues. Nope, it's fine, bye-bye Ariadne, have fun learning to kill me and destroy everything I've worked for!
But the reason for this, and the earlier team-up is made clear here. Kingsley Amis thinks the British and Soviet Union should team up against Communist China.
I say "Kingsley Amis" because there is nothing in the plot or the real world to suggest this. The Chinese were no threat in 1968 to anybody, turned inward with the Cultural Revolution. And it was the thick of the Cold War between the U.S. and Russia in 1968, with the Soviets invading Czechoslovakia in August of that year. Britain and the Soviet Union were mortal enemies in 1968, and any rapprochement would be decades in the future, during “glasnost,” and short-lived. This is beyond wishful thinking. So I say it's the author talking.
The book ends like that, too, with the thaw between the two countries virtually fait accompli. Sure.
SUMMARY
While this book goes for the spirit of Ian Fleming, it fails in some regards. Bond is entirely humorless, for example, and the prose lacks Fleming's zest. Plus the politics are wrong for Bond and MI6, who were not buddies with the Soviets.
STRAY BULLETS
- This is the first James Bond novel not written by Ian Fleming.
- World War II connection: Von Richter is a former Nazi, Litsas is a former Greek Resistance fighter.
- World war I connection: Von Richter's name is suggestive of Von Richtofen, a famous German flying ace in the first world war.
- The story takes place in Greece and not Jamaica. Thank you for that, Kingsley Amis!
- Amis, like Fleming, used a vacation abroad (to the Greek islands) to inform his setting.
- Amis, like Fleming, used real-world names for his fiction. "Legakis" and "Papadogonas" were people he met on vacation in Greece; the doctor who treats Bond in chapter two bears the name of Amis' real doctor, and the boat "Altair" was lifted from the Greek vacation.
- Altair, or Al Tair, is a star in the constellation Aquila, translating to "The Eagle" in Arabic. It was referred to as Al Nesr Al Tair ("The Flying Eagle") by Arab astronomers as far back as the 17th century, but the name goes back to the Babylonians, or even further. It's astronomic nomenclature is Alpha Aquilae. This has nothing to do with Bond, but I think it's kinda cool.
- A Guardian review said "Amis channels Fleming ... as a connoisseur of ethnicities." As my wife said, "Fleming never met a stereotype he didn't like."
- The movie Spectre uses a torture scene lifted from Colonel Sun. Blofeld uses some of Sun's dialogue from the chapter titled "The Theory and Practice of Torture."
- The movie The World Is Not Enough uses the M-kidnapping plot from Colonel Sun.
- The movie A View to a Kill uses the scene of Bond being offered the Order of Lenin.
- The movie Die Another Day features a Korean villain named Colonel Tan-Sun Moon, a jumble of sorts of Colonel Sun Liang-tan, the Chinese villain of Colonel Sun. The producers found they would have to pay royalties for the actual name, so they swapped it around a little. I don't believe Chinese and Korean names are constructed the same way, but I didn't look it up.
THE MOVIE: DIE ANOTHER DAY
Year: 2002
Director: Lee Tamahori
Writers: Ian Fleming, Neal Purvis, Robert Wade
Starring: Pierce Brosnan (James Bond), Halle Berry (Giacinta "Jinx" Johnson), Rosamund Pike (Miranda Frost), Toby Stephens (Gustav Graves), Rick Yune (Zao), Judi Dench (M), John Cleese (Q), Michael Madsen (Damian Falco), Will Yun Lee (Col. Moon), Kenneth Tsang (Gen. Moon), Emilio Echevarria (Raoul), Michael Gorevoy (Vladimir Popov), Lawrence Makoare (Mr. Kil), Colin Salmon (Charles Robinson), Samantha Bond (Miss Moneypenny), Ben Wee (snooty desk clerk), Ho Yi (Mr. Chang), Rachel Grant (Peaceful Fountains of Desire), Madonna (Verity), Vincent Wong (General Li), Joaquin Martinez (elderly cigar factory worker), Simón Andreu (Dr. Álvarez), Deborah Moore (airline hostess), Mark Dymond (Mr. Van Bierk), Oliver Skeete (concierge at fencing club)
Significant Music: The title song was co-written and co-produced by Mirwais Ahmadzai and performed by Madonna. It was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Original Song and the 2004 Grammy Award for Best Dance Recording, but also for a Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Original Song of 2002. I didn’t care for it.
THE PLOT
James Bond is sent to investigate the connection between a North Korean terrorist and a diamond mogul, who is funding the development of an international space weapon.
THE COMMENTARY
Bond breaks up a terrorist bazaar in North Korea, where a general’s son, Col. Tan-Sun Moon, is trading conflict diamonds for nuclear weapons. Bond appears to kill Moon, who goes over a waterfall in a hovercraft. Bond is captured and tortured for 14 months by the North Koreans. He is traded for Moon’s right-hand man, Zao, whose face is now imbedded with diamonds.
This was a well-done action scene. And it’s pre-credits, when in previous generations of Bond, the pre-credits scene had little to do with the rest of the movie. These scenes are pertinent, as are the torture scenes played out behind the opening credits. This is a serious movie.
Bond is suspended under suspicion of having given up information under torture, and under arrest because — as M says — he is “of no use to anybody.” Bond breaks confinement and goes after Zao in Cuba. There he finds a gene-therapy clinic that gives new faces and bodies to criminals, and meets NSA Agent Giacinta "Jinx" Johnson (Halle Berry). They mutually seduce each other.
These are more well-done scenes, and Berry’s character comes off well as a female Bond. (No-strings sex? Sure!)
Zao escapes them both. He leads them to British billionaire Gustav Graves, whose assistant is Miranda Frost (Rosamund Pike), who is secretly MI6. She appears to loathe Bond, and responds to his suggestive quips by basically saying “not if you were the last man on Earth.” Bond and Graves have a swordfight that gets progressively more lethal until Frost puts a stop to it.
Graves, or the way the actor plays him, is easy to dislike. He’s supposedly based on Richard Branson and Uday Hussein. (???) And if anybody in the audience doesn’t know that Frost is a double agent, and will become the Bad Bond Girl that is bedded and killed, they aren’t paying attention.
Graves has created a satellite called Icarus that focuses the sun’s rays on a given spot, promising year-round agriculture and other benefits. The presentation is in Iceland at the ice palace. Bond is reinstated and given a new Aston Martin (that can turn invisible) and both he and Jinx turn up in Iceland for some quick badinage.
Frost quickly falls into bed with Bond, but betrays him to Graves. Graves tries to kill both Bond and Jinx, using Icarus to melt strategic spots. Bond kills Zao, and saves Jinx from drowning in the melting ice palace.
More good action scenes, albeit a tad over the top in places. It’s almost funny, but makes perfect sense, that the bad guy has a car just as gimmicked up as Bond’s. The invisible car is a bit much at first, but they show how it might actually work, and not work, under the right circumstances. I thought Jinx should have saved herself, and if the movie were made today, she would have.
John Cleese is Q, and has too little screen time for my money.
Frost changes her mind on sleeping with Bond waaaay too fast, so if you didn’t know she was up to something before, you do now. Bond should have realized that, too, but you can argue he’s too accustomed to women falling into his bed.
I doubt there’s anybody reading this that doesn’t know that Icarus is the boy who flew to close to the sun in Greek myth.
Graves is secretly Moon, who did not die in Korea and had gene therapy to become, among other things, white. He is going to use Icarus to blow up the minefield in the Korean demilitarized zone, so that the North can easily invade the South — especially with Icarus carving up the southern defense forces. He reveals himself to his father, who wants peace with the South. So Moon kills him. Icarus tears up the minefield as Moon tries to escape in a plane, but Bond and Jinx slip aboard and manage to kill him.
Another series of action set-pieces. It’s a bit much sometimes. And I’m not sure how the threat of Icarus is ended — yes, it can be shot down now that it’s not in operation, but now that the tech exists, somebody could just build another one. I suppose we have to take it on faith that somehow this will be prevented.
The American NSA chief is portrayed as arrogant and doltish throughout. He gets a mild comeuppance here, but not as much as he deserves.
Gen. Moon is portrayed throughout as the Korean equivalent of Russian Gen. Gogol, who in previous Bond movies was the “good” Russian who wanted peaceful co-existence with the West. There are no such generals in North Korea, who do exactly what Dear Leader tells to do, believe what Dear Leader tells them to believe and say what Dear Leader tells them to say. If not, they are shot (or worse).
A pacifist North Korean general is beyond fantasy. In a way, it corresponds to the fantasy detente of Colonel Sun.
SUMMARY
A very good movie, I thought, and a much more serious one than anything Roger Moore ever did. I think it would be improved with more characterization scenes and less action. I’d like to see Rosamund Pike have more time to pretend to fall for Bond’s charms, for example, so that it’s not so abrupt as to telegraph to the audience (and presumably to Bond) that she’s faking it. More screen time for Halle Berry and John Cleese would have been appreciated. And we could always use more time with steel-spined Dame Judi Dench (M).
Pierce Brosnan, I think, was a very good Bond. He never smiles. He has a piercing gaze. He has athletic grace (or his stunt double does). He delivers those awful one-liners deadpan, which is the best you can hope for. If the screenwriters had written the Brosnan movies more like they wrote the Daniel Craig movies, I think he’d be remembered as up there with Craig and Connery.
STRAY BULLETS
- This was the fourth and last Pierce Brosnan movie.
- Brosnan does a title drop in all four of his movies.
- I like Samantha Bond’s Moneypenny. She shows the right amount of self-regard but hopeless infatuation with Bond. She’s not so young or so old for it to be icky. This plot device has gotten a little rickety, but Sam Bond does as much with it as the times allow. Her portrayal, I daresay, is bittersweet.
- As part of the 40th anniversary of Bond films, Die Another Day includes references to each of the preceding films. I didn't spot many of them, but Rosa Klebb's switchblade shoes and the notorious jetpack were hard to miss.
- This is the first movie since Dr. No that didn't feature Desmond Llewelyn as Q. Llewelyn had died in a car accident three years prior to the movie's release.
- Reportedly 20 companies paid for product placement, a record at the time, for which the film was criticized.
- Madonna, who sings the title song, has a cameo as a fencing instructor. She won a Razzie for her appearance, which I thought wasn’t really notable enough to comment on.
- Deborah Moore, Roger Moore's daughter, has a cameo as an airline hostess.
- Colonel Tan-Sun Moon has facial reconstruction to become British billionaire Gustav Graves, as does a Nazi war criminal in Moonraker to become British billionaire Hugo Drax.
THE MOVIE: THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH
Year: 1999
Director: Michael Apted
Starring: Pierce Brosnan (James Bond), Sophie Marceau (Elektra King), Robert Carlyle (Victor "Renard" Zokas), Denise Richards (Christmas Jones), Robbie Coltrane (Valentin Zukovsky), Desmond Llewelyn (Q), John Cleese (R), Maria Grazia Cucinotta (Cigar Girl), Samantha Bond (Miss Moneypenny), Michael Kitchen (Bill Tanner), Colin Salmon (Charles Robinson), Serena Scott Thomas (Dr. Molly Warmflash), David Calder (Sir Robert King), Ulrich Thomsen (Sasha Davidov), Goldie (Bull/Bullion), John Seru (Gabor), Claude-Oliver Rudolph (Colonel Akakievich), Judi Dench (M), Patrick Malahide (Lachaise), Gary Powell (submarine crewman).
Significant Music: The eponymous title song was written by David Arnold with Don Black and performed by Garbage. I didn’t care for it.
THE PLOT
James Bond uncovers a nuclear plot while protecting an oil heiress from her former kidnapper, an international terrorist who can't feel pain.
THE COMMENTARY
The kidnapping of M, and the plot to blow her up along with a whole lot of other people, is the tangential connection to Colonel Sun. I won’t go through the whole movie just for that. But I do have a few comments.
Like with Miranda Frost in Die Another Day, Sophie Marceau’s Elektra King is obviously going to break bad. We’re to assume it’s Stockholm Syndrome, but actually she’s the villain — the first female villain in the Bond films.
Elektra in the Greek myths was the daughter of Agamemnon, who helped her brother Orestes kill her mother Clytemnestra and her mother’s lover to avenge the murder of her father. I guess we were supposed to think that Elektra was out to avenge or honor her father, but then ironically turned out to be the one who killed him.
Marceau managed some good “crazed eyes” scenes. She plays a psychopath well, especially in the torture scene.
M is sort of an idiot when it comes to Sophie. Maybe she does need to think with her balls more often. (I have forgotten which movie it is where someone tells her, “Maybe you don’t have the balls for this job,” and she responds, “That just means I don’t have to think with them.”)
I did not find Robert Carlyle’s Renard very compelling as a villain. He was so … small. Further, he lasted too long. He was basically Elektra’s top henchman, and usually the henchman dies before the villain.
Robbie Coltrane reprises his role as Valentin Zukovsky from GoldenEye, and I found him a welcome member of the ensemble. Too bad he died.
The world has already pronounced judgment on what a bad casting choice Denise Richards was as a nuclear physicist. You will get no argument from me. Disastrous.
Hugo Drax was going to blow up London with an atomic bomb. Blofeld was going to hold the world hostage with an atomic bomb. Kamal Khan was going to blow up a USAF base in Germany with an atomic bomb. Elektra King was going to blow up Istanbul with an atomic bomb. I sense a pattern.
SUMMARY
Not as good as Die Another Day, mainly thanks to Christmas Jones and Renard, but another good outing for Pierce Brosnan. Consider my comments about his Bond in Die Another Day as a given here.
STRAY BULLETS
- This is Pierce Brosnan’s third outing as Bond (of four).
- This is Naomie Harris’ second outing as Moneypenny, one who is as much bodyguard and operative as secretary. A good upgrade for the character.
- The title is the translation of the motto on the Bond family coat of arms, seen first in On Her Majesty's Secret Service (book and movie).
- Q (Desmond Llewelyn) notes when he gives Bond his watch that it’s his 20th. This is a reference to this being the 20th Bond film.
- This is the last film with Desmond Llewelyn as Q, as the actor subsequently died in a car accident.
- Q’s last words to Bond are “That’s something I’ve been trying to teach you, 007. Always leave yourself an escape route.” Then he slowly drops out of sight on a hidden elevator, leaving Bond to be briefed by Q’s successor. I guess even the screenwriters knew it was his last time.
- Sharon Stone and Vera Farmiga were considered for the role of Sophie.
- Javier Bardem, who later played the villain in Skyfall, was considered for Renard.
- Robbie Coltrane reprises his role from GoldenEye.
- In the novelisation, the character "Cigar Girl" is given the name Giulietta da Vinci.
- In this movie, a kidnapped M is going to be blown up in Istanbul. In Colonel Sun, a kidnapped M is going to be blown up in Greece.
THE MOVIE: SPECTRE
Year: 2015
Director: Sam Mendes
Writers: John Logan, Neal Purvis, Robert Wade
Starring: Daniel Craig (James Bond), Christoph Waltz (Blofeld), Léa Seydoux (Madeleine), Ralph Fiennes (M), Monica Bellucci (Lucia), Ben Whishaw (Q), Naomie Harris (Moneypenny), Dave Bautista (Hinx), Andrew Scott (C, Rory Kinnear (Tanner), Jesper Christensen (Mr. White), Alessandro Cremona (Marco Sciarra), Stephanie Sigman (Estrella), Tenoch Huerta, Adriana Paz (Mexican couple in elevator), Domenico Fortunato (Gallo), Marco Zingaro, Stefano Elfi DiClaudia (Gallo’s accomplices)
THE PLOT
A cryptic message helps James Bond uncover the existence of the sinister organization named SPECTRE. Bond learns the terrible truth about the author of all his pain in his most recent missions.
THE COMMENTARY
The tangential connection to Colonel Sun is the scene where Blofeld (Christoph Waltz) tortures Bond. It is adapted from Chapter 19 of Colonel Sun, titled “The Theory and Practice of Torture.” Though Blofeld replaced Sun as Bond's tormentor, much of Blofeld's dialogue in the scene was written by Amis for Sun, resulting in an acknowledgement to Amis' estate in the end credits, though no mention of the book itself.
Some other comments:
- Christoph Waltz showed just how evil he could be in Inglorious Basterds, so I was glad to see him as the infamous Blofeld. You can’t pick a no-name to be Blofeld!
- Unfortunately, I think he was wasted in the next (and final) Daniel Craig Bond movie, No Time to Die. As in You Only Live Twice, Bond throttles Blofeld with his bare hands, shouting “Die, Blofeld, Die!” But it felt unearned, and Blofeld was essentially helpless.
- Audience familiar with Andrew Scott’s work were sure to guess that his “C” was going to be more than a foil for M. Why hire Andrew Scott to be a bit player? Answer: You don’t.
- Lea Seydoux is gorgeous, and a fine actress, but the lack of chemistry between her Madeline Swann character and Craig’s Bond was such that I never expected to see her again. Hence, I was surprised that she turned out to be the love of Bond’s life, and the mother of his daughter, in No Time to Die.
SUMMARY
Not the most memorable of Craig movies, but all them are pretty good.
RANDOM BULLETS
- This is the fourth (of five) Bond movies to star Daniel Craig.
- This is the first movie after the long-running dispute over Thunderball was settled, and the first use of SPECTRE and Blofeld since Diamonds Are Forever.
- This is Ralph Fiennes’ first appearance as M. The Judi Dench M died in the previous movie, Skyfall.
Replies
"And I've never read Colonel Sun."
"How come?"
I don't know. (I've owned a copy for 40 years.) Maybe I've been saving it for a "dry spell" but, since the advent of the Gardner novels, as well as additional films and whatnot, there just doesn't seem to have been one in decades. Perhaps now would be a good opportunity, but I've been on something of a roll reading comic books here lately (you may have noticed). Whenever I do decide to read it, I know this thread will be here.
I will never forgive the Mission Impossible film series for besmirching Phelps' memory.
Eh. The movies represent an entirely different continuity than the TV series AFAIAC. The fact that Phelps is played by John Voight rather than Peter Graves makes it even easier to willingly ignore my sense of disbelief.
I found that I had already started a Colonel Sun + movies post, with lots of information, so I went ahead and finished it, then replaced the original post to put "Colonel Sun" in the same format as the first 14 Bond-book posts. I hope y'all enjoy the new information and format.
Hey, I remember this from when you accidentally made the rough draft public and I happened to be online!
THE BOOK: Sounds intriguing... or at least curious. I think the real reason I've sat on this book for 40 years is that I never had much faith in Kingsly Amis to replicate Ian Fleming. You've got my curiousity aroused, but I'm just not in the mood to read it at the present time... but some day I will be.
DIE ANOTHER DAY: This is the first post-9/11 Bond and I got the distinct impression that Bond's 14-month imprisonment was to circumvent the unasked question, "If James Bond is so great, why didn't he prevent the WTC attacks?" I like this movie but I don't have anything to add that you haven't already pointed out. Pierce Brosnan is my third favorite Bond behind connery and Craig.
THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH:
The world has already pronounced judgment on what a bad casting choice Denise Richards was as a nuclear physicist.
The name "Christmas Jones" reminds me of a Dick Tracy supporting character from the '40s named "Christmas Early."
This is a reference to this being the 20th Bond film.
I didn't catch that!
"Always leave yourself an escape route.”
I'm so glad Desmond Llewelyn got an official "final scene."
SPECTRE: Nothing to add.
I hope y'all enjoy the new information and format.
I did!
I got the distinct impression that Bond's 14-month imprisonment was to circumvent the unasked question, "If James Bond is so great, why didn't he prevent the WTC attacks?"
That had not occurred to me. You might be right.
Pierce Brosnan is my third favorite Bond behind connery and Craig.
I hadn't seen any Pierce Brosnan Bond movies until last weekend, when my wife and I watched all four. And I agree with you. This also means I have watched all the James Bond movies that exist so far, including the 1967 Casino Royale and Never Say Never Again. I've never been able to say that before.
I'm so glad Desmond Llewelyn got an official "final scene."
Me, too. I may have choked up a little.
UK's The Avengers (1961-69):
(Were Steed and Peel a couple? What happened to Mrs. Peel's husband? Who did they work for?) These questions burned in the mind of the Li'l Capn, and went forever unanswered.
I’ve seen several episodes. Steed and Peel were never “together.” A couple of years ago I was able to see the final Mrs Peel episode. Her alive-and-well husband shows up to take her away. He is seen at a distance. He has a classic car and dresses exactly like Steed. She leaves with him.
Wild, Wild West (1965-69):
When I was watching this and the Batman TV show, I watched every episode until I found myself in the Army (Spring 1968). I felt then and still do that Wild, Wild West was more representative of comics than Batman (and I never noticed he was short.
Secret Agent (1964-67):
The Prisoner (1967-68):
(were they both UK shows?)
Yes, they were. I’ve never watched The Prisoner. I did see several episodes of Secret Agent back then. Before it came to the U.S. it was called Danger Man. This explains the awkward phase “secret agent man” which was substituted for “danger man” in the U.S. version of the theme song.
The Silencers (1966), Murderers’ Row (1966), The Ambushers (1967), The Wrecking Crew (1968):
There were 27 books in the Matt Helm series. I read several of them in the late 60s-early 70s. The movies are over-the-top silly and sophomoric girly shows. The relationship between the books and the movies that share their names are only that. In the books, he makes James Bond seem like a choir boy, being basically a government assassin. If he was born in the USSR, he’d be in SMERSH.
I Spy (1965-68) featured Robert Culp as Kelly Robinson, an international tennis player, which was his cover for being a spy.
My primary takeaway is that Culp's sidekick Alexander Scott (Bill Cosby) was the most interesting part of the show
When I watched the show I was a junior in high school. Culp, to me, was a little scary. He seemed like he really wanted to do edgy, violent things. I was vaguely aware that Cosby was a comedian. His character was not scary at all, but was very competent. Everything I remember had them as true co-stars and they both were recognized with nominations and awards. Culp wrote several episodes and was heavily involved in the show’s creation.
The original concept had an older (presumably white) mentor working with the Culp character. Sheldon Leonard (who produced the Dick Van Dyke, Danny Thomas, Andy Griffith and Gomer Pyle shows in addition to I Spy) reportedly saw Cosby on a talk show and began fighting for him to join the show as Culp’s tennis trainer. He had a lot of push-back before he was able to cast the first black man in a prominent TV role. On The Big Bang Theory, the characters Sheldon and Leonard were named in his honor.
Mission: Impossible (1966-73)
I was only around for the first two seasons, if I was home (couldn’t record anything), so I only saw the original cast. Season 2 wrapped up before I was drafted and I’ve never seen any episodes from seasons 3-7. It was a thinking person’s show. The movies by that name are all action. I saw the first two of them in appreciation for Tom Cruise’s doing his own stunts.
This is turning into a
but I can't help myself ... !
Richard Willis wrote:
Bill Cosby was the first Black actor to win the Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama, in 1966, and he won again in 1967 and 1968. Too bad we can't think of that alone as his legacy.
Captain Comics wrote:
Jeff of Earth-J wrote:
Richard Willis wrote:
I suppose Jeff has the best take -- that the movies are a different continuity than the TV series -- but I couldn't stand the first movie for besmirching Phelps' memory and I haven't watched it again nor have I seen any of the others, nor will I. By the way, Peter Graves was invited to reprise the role of Jim Phelps in the first movie. Unsurprisingly, he declined once he learned what the filmmaker's take was going to be.
As for Tom Cruise, I can admire his willingness to do ever-more insane stunts while still hating that this is just wrong for Mission: Impossible, because the show was NOT about stunts and action! It was a thinking person's show.
I grew up watching the Peter Graves years of Mission: Impossible and didn't even know he wasn't with the show from the beginning. Many years ago, I got to see the Steven Hill episodes and have subsequently purchased all of the DVD sets of the run. Hill was intense, but rather dull-looking; anyone might mistake his Dan Briggs for an insurance salesman. For that reason, the network didn't like him much, preferring a more typical leading-man type. They got what they wanted when Graves came aboard.
Here's one blogger's assessement of the entire run: "Every Episode of Mission: Impossible, Ranked"
This is turning into a
but I can't help myself ... !
If you can't beat 'em, join 'em!
Mission: Impossible was one of those shows, like Star Trek, I remember my brother watching (when I was a pre-schooler) but I could not understand. As a substitute for Star Trek, he steered me to Lost in Space, (which I loved!), but I continued to find M:I difficult... nay, "impossible"... to follow. In the '90s I bought two sets of four VHS tapes (one featuring Steven Hill, the other Peter Graves) and I was able to appreciate it more. I almost joined the Columbia House M:I VHS "club" but was already collecting Star Trek and ST:TNG. (When I think of how much money I spent on those tapes, and they they are all now virtually worthless...!)
Regarding the movies, I have seen the first two (once each, in the theater) but haven't gone beyond that primarily because I agree with Kelvin's assessment: Mission: Impossible is NOT about stunts and action. And I, too, recall that Peter Graves was offered the movie role but turned it down when he found out the direction they intended to take. Good for him!
Is it really a threadjack if the one who started it also started the thread on the Round Table he also started???
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