Report from London - November 2010

Met various interesting parties while being in London last week .
First , journalist Robert Sellers - busy writing another Bond inclined book , due to be published next year in Britain .
Cannot talk about its subject yet , but it will deal with a proeminent figure of the Movie Bond universe ...
Also learnt interesting new titbits about the proposed Leo DiCaprio Ian Fleming biography movie ( still only in talks for the moment it seems )

Also met Mrs Sylvan Manson , daughter of screenwriter Jack Wittingham ( involved in the tortuous story of the creation of the first 007 movie screenplay in the late 50s ) .
Am still wondering if Mrs Manson is indeed allowed to sell reproductions of those early stroyboarded sequences of a proposed ' Thunderball ' adaptation though...Dangerous waters there...

Finally passed at the Fleming Art gallery and had a look on their latest exhibition ( not 007 related ).

Oh , and had the pleasant surprise of receiving back home Mr Jeffery Deaver's answers to my online interview of him sent some time ago ...

Everything that glitters is not gold

Readers of this blog already know my ( unbiased ) opinion about the new ' re-invention ' of the vintage Rare ' GoldenEye ' game - based on the Pierce Brosnan 1995 debut movie .

I just tested the new Activision game at the Paris 2010 Game Show ...

Activision had done things well : the GE stand was virtually the first stand the visitor will stumble upon when entering the huuuuge place .

A platform has been erected with multi-screens , allowing people to test various levels of the game .

An Aston-Martin DBS was parked besides it , and various glamourous hostesses were ' at hand ' if any male 007 afficionado looks a bit perplexed ...

The girls were all dressed in gold lamé dresses , and for a moment I thought I was transported back in time at the Premiere of ' Goldfinger ' ...

As for the game itself , well, I played a classic ' shoot your opponent ' dual screen level .

Nothing new there ( as usual , it took me some time to adapt to the split screen, allowing my adversary to blast me to smithereens in ten seconds the first time we played... ) .

That level was FPS-like , so the perspective of playing Daniel Craig playing Pierce Brosnan playing 007 wasn't too harsh to deal with ...

But it still remains nevertheless the main point of my angst : why, o why remaking a classic game ( and a classic film - to some extent ) and changing the lead with the current actor / incarnation of James Bond ?

A bright idea from the Activision Consumer dpt . , surely thinking potential buyers of the game won't remember an old movie from 1995 - and will associate only agent 007 with Daniel Craig ?

It feels somehow...awkward to see Craig performing ( re-acting ? ) Pierce's moves , and delivering his lines ( the actor dubbed himself for that game ) .

Perhaps to tone down that bizarre impression of deja vu , screen - and videogame - writer Bruce Fernstein changed some locations during the course of the story : for instance , the Tiger Helicopter theft in Monte-Carlo is replaced by a similar plot devise set in Dubaï...

As for the level I tested , nothing new under the sun I must say ...

I would have liked much more to be able to test Blood Stone , but this later title seems to be purposely ' toned down ' by Activision in favor of the GE one : only the opening credits sequence was screened on some monitors , and there was only one panel decorated with the title cum Daniel Craig pose...

My verdict is still dangerously low regarding the newest Activision efforts .

I will perhaps change my mind regarding Blood Stone when I'll get a complete preview version, but I'm pretty sure GE won't get my approval even if it turns out to be one of the very best game of all time ( which I greatly doubt ) ...

Book of the Century : George Lazenby's autobiography to be published !

Great news forwarded to me from the 2010 Frankfurt Book Fair via movie critic mastermind Tony Crawley : the autobiography of George Lazenby, the man who had the unenviable task of inheriting James Bond’s shoes after Sean Connery, has been taken off the table by Century.

John Elek of AP Watt sold the book by Lazenby, who was working as a car salesman and model before playing 007 in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.

Tentatively titled "The Other Fella", the book will be released by Century Publishing House in spring 2012.

At least , the man himself will put to rest all the rumours still surrounding the shooting of that film ( Dame Diana Rigg herself refused to answer my questions about it some years ago ... ) .

OHMSS remains the best of the non-Connery Bonds - if not the best of the entire series of films produced so far by Eon Productions .

Although it doesn’t have the so-so realistic approach of the most recent films , but stick instead to the original Ian Fleming novel ( thanks to Richard Maibaum's fantastic script ) , the 6th James Bond film can in all honesty still be descrided as nothing short of a masterpiece .

Many thanks to Tony Crawley

Not the Property of a Lady but...John Griswold's Ian Fleming / James Bond Collection Auction Sale

A one in a lifetime event : courtesy of a friend of the Ian Fleming Foundation, I've been forwarded the catalog of the future John Griwold's Ian Fleming - James Bond collection Auction , due to take place on October the 4th.

Prepare to be salivating like an enraged dog : Mr Griswold's Bond material collection is indeed astronomical ...

From an original Jonathan Cape Ian Fleming Casino Royale first printing edition ( priced between $ 10.000 / 30.000 ) to unknown Robert McGinnis Diamonds Are Forever film teaser posters , not forgetting rare promo material , a complete Queen Ann Press Ian Fleming novels limited edition set , a gold painted plaster bust of Ian Fleming or a unique hand painted porcelaine figure of Shirley Eaton , a 14k gold S.P.E.C.T.R.E ring , etc. , etc. that auction will certainly be remembered as one of the best 007 orientated style one ever .

A long life James Bond enthusiast since the early 1960s , Mr Griswold is best known as the author of the definitive Fleming 's work study , the unique " Ian Fleming's James Bond : Annotations & Chronologies for Ian Fleming Bond stories " , published in 2005 .

Direct link to catalogue of items :

www.artfact.com/catalog/searchLots.cfm?scp=c&catalogRef=PBJD2AI7NJ

Go ahead, Blofeld : Make my day !

It was more or less known amongst film fans & movie historians that Clint Eastwood has been aproached to replace Sean Connery as James Bond in the 1970s ( Cubby Broccoli recalled the event in his memoirs ' When the Snow melts ' ) .

Director Guy Hamilton confirmed me on a couple of times that United Artists wanted a big US name to carry on the franchise .

They were even considering Burt Reynolds ( fresh from John Boorman's Deliverance ) to step into the British spy's shoes ...

At the times , Clint Eastwood was best known for his parts in the Sergio Leone so called Spaguetti Westerns ( where he played some sort of recurrent character , promptly nicknamed ' the man with no name ' by Critics & audience alike ) .

" I was offered pretty good money to do Bond , confirmed today the acclaimed actor turned director , this was after Connery left . My lawyer represented the Broccolis and he came and said ' they would love to have you ' . But to me , well, that was somebody's else's gig . That was Sean's deal . It didn't feel right for me to do it . I always like characters that are more grounded in reality . Maybe they do super things or more-than-human things - like Dirty Harry he has a knack for doing crazy things - but still they're not caped crusaders ...

Although it could be considered as pure heresy to have an American actor impersonnating Ian Fleming's creation, I for one think that some of the Dirty Harry's best lines & quips would have perfectly worked in a more serious Bond context approach ( à la Daniel Craig ) ...But not , I repeat NOT , for the tongue-in-cheek approach chosen by the film producers for the 7th entry of the Eon series , the comedy-enhanced Diamonds Are Forever ...

Many thanks to Tony Crawley for sending me the original info .

Back in Bond Age ...

Back in Bond Age !

Wonderful surprise in my mail box today : a big package ( so big it completely fullfilled my box ) was waiting for me .

The sender ?

Hodder & Stoughton - London.

After unwrapping the big brown box ( posted from...Switzerland ) , I feverishly opened it , to discover various pieces of interest inside .

- A signed harcover copy of Jeffery Deaver's The Burning Wire .

- A copy of Jeffery Deaver's Garden of Beast .

- An enveloppe , marked ' Private & confidential ' , with an instruction letter and a personnalized encoded badge ( ' for future development ' ) .

- A copy of Ian Fleming's From Russia With Love ( not signed . Damnit ) .

- A cd with a video intervention of Mr Deaver himself ( a real - and completely unexpected - threat ) .

Now, that's what I call intelligent marketing .

Makes you feel like Jim Phelps at the beginning of a new mission of the I.M.F ( fortunately nothing catched fire after I read the instruction message ) .

Almost nothing revealed on Mr Deaver's future blockbuster ( correction...Nothing at all , to be honest ! ) , but having definitly the journalist hooked for more !

Congratulations to all parties involved - and of course to Mr Jeffery Deaver for kindly autographing me a copy of his book and taking time to record that video message , even if I couldn't attend last month's London event .

Blisterin' barnacles : has James Bond copied Tintin ?

It's common knowledge amongst movie-goers that next year will be the Tintin year with the release of the Steven Spielberg produced first movie , directed by unknown New Zealand filmmaker Peter Jackson...

Thought it'd be interesting to go back to the first live action movie inspired by the adventures of Tintin , and pinpoint some interesting trivias with another world wide known hero...

Shooting of the movie ( titled ' Tintin & the Golden Fleece ' ) began on May the 2cd of 1961 ( at the times , a certain Ian Fleming was still trying to get 007 on the screen via a movie tentatively called ' Thunderball ' ) .

Locations chosen for that first adventure were : Istanbul , Macedonia ( proemently featuring the Meteora area ) , Greece and Yugoslavia...
Which will then be used again by Eon production less than 3 years later for their second James Bond film, From Russia With Love .

Amazingly , the Meteora location is just used for the scenery ...While there is indeed a 'climbing' sequence of some sort in the Tintin adventure ,when the reporter had to escape a huge tower in Istanbul by slowly descending along its wall using a tigh rope (see pic ) .
Further on in the story Tintin & Captain Haddock have to meet a priest up in the San Stefano monastery , and casually climb up using a small track along the moutain ...Which has obviously disappeared in 1981 when James Bond and his party decided to pay a visit to the very same area in For Your Eyes Only .
( See caption of the Tintin movie when they passed by the house where the winch is located in the John Glen flick .)

Interestingly , although the Eon team had to make do with irrate protesting monks during their shooting of the For Your Eyes Only final sequence, the monastery had welcome Tintin with open arms...

Terence Young himself used to say that the James Bond movies were really only Tintin adventures for grown ups .
The man who created the screen 007 obviously knew what he was talking about ...