Gold!
Shady Tree
London, UKPosts: 3,012MI6 Agent
Bond aesthetics permated pop culture in the late twentieth century and no end of examples can be given. One favourite of mine is the video to Spandau Ballet's 1983 hit 'Gold', a song which continues to be ubiquitous on air time in advertising campaigns, 80s retrospectives, etc. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ntG50eXbBtc
The video is nicely conceptualised and well shot, for its vintage. Tony Hadley clearly indulges a Bondian, angled free-wrist gunbarrel pose (1.56 and 2.09-2.13), the like of which might have graced an 80s Bond movie poster (cf. 81's FYEO poster, AVTAK's 85 and - ultimately - TLD's 87 poster: is Dalton the 'Hadley Bond'?); the video's golden girl (0.47, a la Brownjohn) evades Hadley in fleeting shots (e.g 2.02) which perhaps anticipate the aesthetics of May Day fleeing Bond on Eiffel Tower stairwells (an AVTAK sequence used in the music video of 'A View To A Kill' for Spandau Ballet's fellow New Romantics, Duran Duran); and the final shots of the golden girl on the bed clearly tribute GF again, with her lifeless arm drooping down in 3.26 and Hadley looking wistfully over her.
Comments
Alas, I can't find the main titles for the 1974 film "GOLD" starring Roger Moore, lyrics by Don Black, titles by Maurice Binder- how much more Bond do we need?
So this'll have to do-
(218) Elmer Bernstein - Gold (Main Titles) [Vocals By Jimmy Helms] - YouTube
Ah, yes! And I'm sure that the bombast of that song may have been somewhere in the back of Gary Kemp's mind when he penned the Spandau Ballet hit of the same name! The overall effect, I'd suggest, is sub-Bondian at best, but Elmer Bernstein whets the appetite for action/ adventure and Jimmy Helms' performance of Don Black's lyrics is certainly in the spirit of GF and TB. A centre piece of Maurice Binder's titles was the word GOLD in heavily blocked letters, containing documentary footage from gold mines and smelting.
My memories of the film itself are vague, but I do remember the excitement of seeing it in on its re-release in the cinema in a double bill with DAF and the lure of the accompanying quad poster, screaming, 'At last - Moore and Connery together in one terrific all-action programme!' Unfortunately, perhaps, for Roger Moore as the incumbent Bond, this poster, and the double-bill itself, served only to reinforce a then-current notion that, by comparison, Sean Connery was the TRUE (Spandau Ballet again lol!) James Bond: the poster depicted Connery as Bond in a reworking of the original DAF artwork, side-by-side with an image of Moore (as Rod Slater), a counterpart to Connery but in a white suit, his legs crossed below the knee in the classic Bond pose but holding up a stick of dynamite beside his face in contrast to Bond's gun (so Moore is 'Bond'-but-NOT-Bond!)
A further note on Tony Hadley's 'gunbarrel pose' in the 'Gold' music video. Maybe it's a bit 'game show host'... more Ted Rogers than James Bond?
I watched the film again a couple of years ago. Good enough movie, but no desire to watch it any more (though I would listen to the music).
Anyway, enough of my ramblings- the Spandau Ballet song was one of their best, I think, and yes I agree that there are Bond touches in the video.
Shady speaks the truth!
Arguably, Moore got his own back with this...
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Hah! This interloping Moore Is at least one satellite, one moon buggy and one Vegas babe short of a montage which truly sparkles (not to mention a couple of frogmen!)