The world of James Bond

Never watched The Prisoner. I can never forgive that white blob for what it did to Moleman.
 
White blob? You mean the weather balloon? At any rate, McGoohan would have been a bad choice. He never came off as a ladies' man.
 
It's been a while since I saw them, but I enjoyed watching Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and Smiley's People with Alec Guinness.

Love these series, I managed to find grainy copies a few years back and get them out every now and then.

RED with Bruce Willis, Helen Mirren, John Malkovich, Brian Cox, Morgan Freeman and Richard Dreyfuss was equally entertaining.

RED (retired extremely dangerous) is terrific fun. I've never heard of The Worricker Trilogy but will see if I can find a copy as it's pretty hard to go wrong with Bill Nighy.

If you haven't seen it yet Nobody, is a fun but darker play on the retired spy angle. Well worth a look.

Turns out that Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and Smiley's People are both on Amazon Prime Video (the streaming service). For those that are interested.
 
Turns out that Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and Smiley's People are both on Amazon Prime Video (the streaming service). For those that are interested.

I tried watching the Gary oldman version of "Tinker." I really did. But holy frijoles, that movie is *dull.* Who would have ever imagined that "Gary Oldman" and "dull" would be used together, but here we are.
 
Turns out that Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and Smiley's People are both on Amazon Prime Video (the streaming service). For those that are interested.

I tried watching the Gary oldman version of "Tinker." I really did. But holy frijoles, that movie is *dull.* Who would have ever imagined that "Gary Oldman" and "dull" would be used together, but here we are.

Hmmmm, then you probably won't like the TV Series versions very much. It's essentially the same story but spread out over 5 and half hours. It is closer to le Carre's style of story telling though, sort of a long murder mystery where the clues slowly come together.

Production values are very 70's UK though. Talk about making a TV series on the smell of an oily rag, wow. :rolleyes:
Sir Alec Guinness is of course, very good.

Le Carré created Smiley as an intentional foil to James Bond, a character who he believed depicted an inaccurate and damaging version of espionage life...

...The character is held in high esteem in Britain, where he has become a pop-culture icon on par with Bond. The Guardian has called him "the sort of spy [Britain] believes it ought to have: a bit shabby, academic, basically loyal, and skeptical of the enthusiasms of his political masters."
 
The TV series was closer to I Claudius than to 007.
 
The TV series was closer to I Claudius than to 007.

Le Carré cited the series as his favourite film adaptation of his work, attributing this to his experience collaborating with Guinness.

In a retrospective review in The New York Times, Mike Hale lauded Guinness's performance, ("It’s conventional wisdom that Guinness’s performance is a landmark in TV history, and you won’t get an argument here, though if you’re watching it for the first time, you may wonder at the start what all the fuss is about.") and cited the production's pacing versus current techniques; "Audiences used to the pace of the modern TV crime or espionage drama will need to reorientate themselves." Retrospective reviewers favourably compared the series with the 2011 film version, also citing le Carre's praise of the original and referring to Guinness's performance.

As Arjen says and as it says here (Wikipedia), the pacing is very different to modern tv dramas.
 
And the American Bond...

iu
 
Taking my cue from the preceding item I have a script for the sequel to the current Bond film
"A time to Die A time to Live"
Emma Watson plays Bond. A Transwoman serving on an RN Vanguard class submarine who joins SIS in time to avenge the destruction of the Cop Conference in Glasgow by Qanon.
Her boss (and lover) is the new M played by Gwynnie Paltrow (using her impeccable English accent from "Emma").
The villain is the former British Prime Minister (played by Eddie Izzard) who has escaped to Florida in Drag.
A shadowy orange haired former President played by a Baldwin also appears.
The film has subtitles for the audially impaired.
 
As some have pointed out, the 1960s brought us a whole range of actors playing characters similar to Bond. Michael Caine as Harry Palmer carved his own character from Len Deighton's novels and later starred with Sean Connery in "The Man who would be King".
Daniel Craig might have been better served by starring as a character other than Bond.
On the other hand once the films departed from the original stories the options widened. "You only live twice" and "Diamonds are forever" introduced the space angle to match public interest at the time.
Sean Connery's departure from the franchise opened the door twice to new actors. Neither George Lazenby nor Roger Moore played Bond in the stylish, hard sardonic way Connery perfected. In some ways, Craig has taken Bond back to the hard Connery era.
Both Connery and Craig in other films play grittier roles. Moore and Brosnan on the other hand were famous for playing the suave Simon Templar and Remington Steele respectively.
Rather like that other early 60s British invention Dr Who, Bond is a superhero without cape and tights.
Idris Elba has become known on British TV for his roles in The Wire and Luther. He is always worth watching. Given that Bond now has a very loose back story, Elba could fit as well as anyone.
The idea of a gender changed Bond which I satyrised above might be a change too far in 2021. But who is to say where things might be in 2031.
 
Vous vous souvenez du Bond de Roger Moore descendant une côte dans une Citroën 2CV ? Rien que pour vos yeux?
To be just this 2CV was rigged with a 4-cylinder engine of GS ... 60 hp are more classy than 29 ... ;)
 
Vous vous souvenez du Bond de Roger Moore descendant une côte dans une Citroën 2CV ? Rien que pour vos yeux?
To be just this 2CV was rigged with a 4-cylinder engine of GS ... 60 hp are more classy than 29 ... ;)
It would be fair to say that all those horrible "Spanish" peasants who dedicated their miserable existence to picking olives were actually Greek actors. The bus of the fifties had to be taken out of some museum.
 
The idea of a gender changed Bond which I satyrised above might be a change too far in 2021. But who is to say where things might be in 2031.
It's obvious that James Bond is a Time Lord. Hence the constant changes of appearance which his employers, HMSS (*cough* UNIT) are too blase to notice. Moreover, Timothy Dalton has played both Bond and Rasilon. I think the next Bond should regenerate as a Dalek. Now try to imagine "Bond, JAAAAMES BOND" in that voice.
 
007 AKA Bond, Blonde or whatever has already trans gendered. in the time to die thing he was a she who replaced blonde but was herself replaced BY blonde and then back again. Also a radical racial change though without the preference and pregnancy associated with common folk lore for advancement.
 
The RPF has a thread on a model of Stromberg's sea base-likely the design influence of the Hall of Doom from Superfriends-that and the airport with similar eye shape windows.
 
The idea of a gender changed Bond which I satyrised above might be a change too far in 2021. But who is to say where things might be in 2031.
It's obvious that James Bond is a Time Lord. Hence the constant changes of appearance which his employers, HMSS (*cough* UNIT) are too blase to notice. Moreover, Timothy Dalton has played both Bond and Rasilon. I think the next Bond should regenerate as a Dalek. Now try to imagine "Bond, JAAAAMES BOND" in that voice.
The Daleks always lose, though. On the other hand, a 007/Doctor Who mashup could be oodles of fun...
 
Tangential, IIRC, Stross ("The Laundry") did a wry deconstruction of Bond & Co etc etc...

Afterword to 'The Jennifer Morgue', the semi-retired Ernst Blofeld insists that SPECTRE is actually an acronym for, 'Société professionelle et éthique du capital technologique réinvesti par les experts', a non-profit charity based in Paris...
;-)
(Apologies if misplaced accents...)
 
I thing the Death Probe (Venus Probe) from the Six Million Dollar Man should have been made into a Dalek—it was half-way there in Heartbeeps
 
Tangential, IIRC, Stross ("The Laundry") did a wry deconstruction of Bond & Co etc etc...

Afterword to 'The Jennifer Morgue', the semi-retired Ernst Blofeld insists that SPECTRE is actually an acronym for, 'Société professionelle et éthique du capital technologique réinvesti par les experts', a non-profit charity based in Paris...
;-)
(Apologies if misplaced accents...)
Aah, yes. The novel's Bond Girl was also quite a lot more powerful than the Bond
 
El "padre" de la franquicia cinematográfica de J.Bond fue Cubby Broccoli, un ex "asistente" de H.Hughes. La inspiración para la actitud de "rompecorazones" (o hijo de puta) fue Hughes y su larga lista de actrices perseguidas.

En Los diamantes son para siempre, el personaje de W. White era un claro homenaje al exjefe de Broccoli: Rico, prisionero, viviendo en Las Vegas En lo alto de un Hotel. As real Hughes
 
El "padre" de la franquicia cinematográfica de J.Bond fue Cubby Broccoli, un ex "asistente" de H.Hughes. La inspiración para la actitud de "rompecorazones" (o hijo de puta) fue Hughes y su larga lista de actrices perseguidas.

En Los diamantes son para siempre, el personaje de W. White era un claro homenaje al exjefe de Broccoli: Rico, prisionero, viviendo en Las Vegas En lo alto de un Hotel. As real Hughes
OMG, I wrote in Spanish.

The "father" of the J.Bond film franchise was Cubby Broccoli, a former "assistant" of H.Hughes. The inspiration for the "heartbreaker" ( or every woman fucker) attitude was Hughes and his long list of persecuted actresses. In Diamonds are forever, the character of W. White was a clear homage to Broccoli's former boss: Rich, prisoner, living in Las Vegas on top of a hotel. As real Hughes
 

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