I seem to recall when we were discussing Fathom you said your folks had a home in the south of Spain. This film was shot in an old fort in Málaga, did you ever have a chance to visit the real life location?
There are dozens of old forts in Malaga province. I don't think it was filmed at one of three in Malaga city itself. If I have been there, I didn't realise it. I have a feeling it might be the interiors which were filmed in the fort. The exterior set was built in Capo de Gato, I believe. It's now a national park.
I saw ETERNALS last night, and my view is the polar opposite of Gymkata's. I thought it was terrible--an absolute mess. The characters are paper-thin, their powers are all things we've seen in other and better characters (one character is even called "Superman" at one point, and it's easy to see why), and the casting seemed to be to just check off boxes. It was also hard to figure out what the hell is going on--the movie bounces back in forth in time to explain how this group got together and how they broke up and why they need to get back together and who killed who, blah, blah, blah. I agree with Gymkata about the lack of fun part. . .it takes its own mythology with deep seriousness (um, the last Spider-Man movie was so good because it had fun with everything) and it goes on for more than two and a half hours. "Eternal" seems to describe the time I spent in front of the TV.
Vox clamantis in deserto
Asp9mmOver the Hills and Far Away.Posts: 7,541MI6 Agent
VENOM: LET THERE BE CARNAGE. Dumb, silly, even a touch nasty. . .but unlike the oh-so-serious ETERNALS, this is a comic-book movie that knows it's a comic-book movie and so it maintains a sense of fun. Good movie to watch with your brain in neutral.
ha! I thought the name looked familiar, but obviously could not be our Bill Tanner. He's the short chubby black marketeer in the gang, looking at his wikipedia entry I've seen him in a few things, mostly comedies like Help! and Willy Wonka.
Re Roy Kinnear, @caractacus potts - he was a character actor who generally always played the same character and did it very well - sort of comedic, bumbling, slightly nervous or shifty but that in itself doesn't convey it. He would have been in a good few episodes of The Avengers, maybe The Saint too. Also in the long-running Dick Emery Show, as the 'father' to Emery's gormless skinhead son, where each sketch tended to feature said son saying 'I think I got it wrong again, Dad!'
Never a young looking or fit looking actor, Kinnear died on the set of a Musketeers sequel in the aftermath of a horse accident, when originally one thought it was a death due to ill health. Sadly, Rory Kinnear's family has had its fair share of untimely deaths, as he recently wrote a moving piece in The Guardian newspaper about the death of his sister in a care facility, due to Covid, around the time the Government were having drinks parties at the height of lockdown. You can read it online.
thanks @Napoleon Plural I do like it when I begin to recognise these character actors who reappear in all the shows and movies of the era, and I appreciate when folks point them out. Funny how I can watch some of these a half dozen times before I realise I've seen some actor someplace before, then I look at wikipedia or imdb and turns out I've seen them in dozens of things!
and in another 50 years I'll learn to recognise the actors who are working today...
I'm going to cheat and quote IMDB on the plot: An epic fantasy adventure based on the timeless Arthurian legend, "The Green Knight" tells the story of Sir Gawain (Dev Patel), King Arthur's reckless and headstrong nephew, who embarks on a daring quest to confront the eponymous Green Knight, a gigantic emerald-skinned stranger and tester of men. Gawain contends with ghosts, giants, thieves, and schemers in what becomes a deeper journey to define his character and prove his worth in the eyes of his family and kingdom by facing the ultimate challenger.
This isn't an action-fantasy blockbuster. It's more an art film full of symbolism, myth and unusual and striking visuals. It's a challenging and rewarding movie to watch. Dev Patel is very good in the lead. He plays brash, imature, honourable, brooding and heroic equally well. In a straight historical medival movie I would have problems with the casting of a ethnically Indian actor, but this is the middle ages of myth, magic and fantasy and I donæ tmind. If EON choses a non-white Bond next time I hope it's Dev Patel. He's a great actor, the right age and build and I like his look.
Following the huge stateside success of Goldfinger and the excitement about all things spy as the Bond-craze took off, film makers were looking for material they could adapt into light-hearted espionage movies. The most obvious of these are Len Deighton’s The Ipcress File, Donald Hamilton’s The Silencers and Peter O’Donnell’s Modesty Blaise. There were others too, including The Man from UNCLE television show, and more serious fare such as Le Carre’s The Spy Who Came In From The Cold.
A literary series still in its foundling stage in 1964 was Jason Love, written by James Leasor, whose first novel became Passport to Oblivion. Leasor was not an unknown writer, but astutely following Eon’s lead, he saw an opportunity to enter the espionage market and create an urbane hero, whose adventures were globetrotting, suspenseful and cinematically appealing. The first Jason Love novel was a well described actioner taking place in Iran and Canada, featuring intrigue, gadgets, fights, gun battles and torture. It was well reviewed and sold decent copy, appealing to various movie executives before directors / producers / screenwriters Val Guest and Wolf Mankiewicz got their hands on it. Their intention wasn’t to spoof James Bond or create an imitation of him, but make a faithful representation of Leasor’s novel and his hero.
It is worth noting that while the movie does feature some tropes of the kind we are familiar with from OO7, these, as well as some less expected images do in the majority feature in Leasor’s own writings: there are gadgets, passwords, contacts and double-crosses, Jason Love is a novice spy, a gentleman lover and a man who shuns violence and the tricks of his adopted trade. The film stays remarkably close to the narrative of the novel and is much the better for it.
Iran was considered unreliable for filming in the sixties, so the action is supplanted to Beirut, which still has a suitably sleazy middle-eastern air to it. The movie begins in a Soviet briefing centre where an MI6 defector explains the gadgets MI6 agents are issued with, including poison pens, flash-light rings and code books. We meet Rosser, who in the novel is the unnamed agent K. Played by Cyril Cusack, Rosser / K is a older, slightly nervy man, who remains calm under pressure. After sending a telegram, he’s kidnapped by two enemy agents in the lobby of his hotel, taken to the Roman ruins at Baalbek where he attempts to escape using the flash-light ring. This is a neat gadget which has a smidgeon of authenticity to it. Rosser is shot, although his superiors in London don’t know that. Missing his last communication, they simply think he’s gone off grid and decide to send an agent to Lebanon to contact him.
Times are hard at this version of MI6. John Le Mesurier plays MacGillivray, the ‘M’ of the story, and he’s a frustrated, diffident, civil servant, cutting a solid, traditional look in pinstripes and waist coats. Le Mesurier usually only had small supporting roles in this kind of film, but he’s very prominent here, central to Jason Love’s recruitment and explaining the background of the mission. He has a neat turn of phrase as well. At one point Jason Love suggests he’s not cut out to be ‘Superman,’ “Just as well,” replies MacGillivray without a pause, “that sort of exhibitionism tends to get you killed.”
Jason Love, as epitomised by David Niven, carries a similar air of insouciance. He’s persuaded to undertake the simple task on the promise the Service can find him a rare 1930s Cord motor car. Love may be a country doctor, but he’s also an expert on Cord automobiles, which he considers the finest cars ever made. He drives one, the last of its kind, and later on his knowledge and enthusiasm helps him identify the men who assassinated K. He’s not a great spy, although his military training helps. He’s very disdainful of the briefcase of tricks, the poison pen and the tiny radioactive transmitter inserted into his tooth which, when activated by removal will disrupt any localised electronic equipment. This last eventually comes in handy at the film’s climax, but I did wonder about the health of poor Dr Love’s teeth.
David Niven is a touch too old to play this sort of hero. I rather fancy Omar Sharif might have graced it better. Nevertheless, Niven contributes all the attributes one would expect. He’s good looking, suave, easy on the eye and tongue and ear, he’s more than competent. The performance is very similar to the one he gave in The Pink Panther as Sir Charles Lytton, a role not a million miles away in its foundation. He takes the material seriously when needed, despatches villains effectively and has the charm to seduce Francoise Dorleac’s beautiful double-agent. He’s able to slum it too, accompanying Nigel Davenport’s hard drinking Parkington to the Shahnwa nightclub. Davenport’s good as the permanently jaundiced alcoholic. A cynic and a bull, Parkington prefers to shoot first and this results in him, well, getting shot.
There’s a clear class barrier established here. MacGillivray represents the upper classes, pushing pens and people around the world, like pins on a map, almost without a care. Jason Love is the middle class aspirational, swayed by a little comfort, easily pleased, willing, able, but not especially sensible. Parkington is the hard working, poor-man’s alternative, stuck in a job he fell into, under pressure and failing. This man can’t even best Dr Love in a fight. Dorleac’s Vikki, being French, displays a modern classless grace.
A magazine model and seductress, she meets Love at Rome Airport during his stopover – although it isn’t clear why this should be – and the two share a lovely, witty, believable seduction scene, where Love’s, or Niven’s if you will, gentlemanly behaviour stops the intense amor. When he decides against making love to Vikki, Jason Love mutters: “The things I do for England.” This predates Sean Connery’s line in You Only Live Twice where he deliberately continues his seduction of an enemy agent. The behavioural difference and the pathos is marked, establishing Jason Love as a non-Bond impersonation. Naturally though, this endears him to Vikki. Love also senses the attraction. At the airport, he rebooks his flight to Beirut and then watches as the original plane explodes in a ball of fire. The ringing telephone, unanswered in Vikki’s room speaks volumes for their sudden unrequited affections. Scenes like this are rare in the sixties spy genre and should be lauded. One thing Where the Spies Are does well is to stay grounded.
There’s an assassination afoot. King Faroud is visiting Beirut. The ruler of an unnamed Arab state, Faroud’s oil is vital to commercial British enterprises and the Soviets plan to destabilise his country, throwing the British out. This strand of the plot hints at old colonial prejudices, that the world is changing and the British are being left behind. When Vikki tells Love she’s betrayed him, he looks stupefied, she has to explain that the world is changing, that spies and spying is a business for professionals. Britain’s club of amateur ruling classes is fading as fast as a Cord motor car. Jason Love still has enough affection for his own Mother Country to continue on in Beirut and prevent the murder Rosser / K had uncovered. The JFK inspired public assassination sequence is the closest we get to the silliness of the spy spoof as Niven runs blindly around a Roman fortress, knocking out gunman, interfering in Vikki’s model shoot and escaping with the aid of a fortuitously arriving helicopter.
The film loses its way a bit once Love is captured by the Russians, who have covertly arrived on a Aeroflot Peace Plane. The enemy agents include the convincing Paul Stassino as Dr Simmias. Himself facing execution for incompetence, Simmias defects and reveals the whereabouts of Dr Love to the British. This is another believable incident, lowkey and presented with thorough and quick exposition. There’s no extensive fights or chases here. Instead Love is tortured by Ronald Radd’s Stanilaus, forces the Peace Plane to land in Canada by using the ingenious transmitter and makes good an exit following a fatal gun battle which ends Vikki’s life and finishes off the bad guys.
The closing scenes don’t quite match what came before. There’s a neat joke where Love states the new MI6 code book is the Kama Sutra, precisely because the book is banned in Russia, but otherwise this sequence is deadly serious, yet oddly tensionless, perhaps because there’s no real point to this exercise, as there wasn’t in the novel. Hence, the story drags at the moment it ought to thrill.
On the production side, Guest and Mankiewicz’s script proves functional. Leasor himself added some gloss. Val Guest’s direction sums up his career as it’s competent without ever being extravagant. He’s probably at his best in the opening sequence where Rosser is uncovered and kidnapped. There are real surprises here and a cloying atmosphere of Cold War anxieties and manners pervades the action. The location footage is all exteriors, but the interiors don’t disgrace anyone, although it is noticeable how large and uncluttered Ken Adam’s OO7 sets are – even the small ones – compared to those created here by John Howell. Adam gives his sets enormous scope and space and more than anything this gave Bond films an impression of size and grandeur. By contrast, Where the Spies Are and Jason Love can’t help looking like second-rate small fry. The music from Mario Nasimbene has a mid-sixties Mantovani lounge feel, which doesn’t sound as rough on the ear as it reads on paper, even if occasionally there’s some extravagance with the strings. Robert Brownjohn filmed the rather excellent title sequence. I do wish he’d done more Bond titles.
Where the Spies Are is a much better film than it’s given credit for. Chief among its assets is treating its subject with an element of seriousness. Yes, it’s funny. Yes, it is a little silly. But there’s no outrageous plot, no enormous grandstanding set, no over the top henchmen with steel rimmed bowler hats, no secret operatives with white cats and fancy names. Okay, I’m being unfair to James Bond now, but by not slavishly following the unwritten rules the industry created for spy-spoofs following Goldfinger, Where the Spies Are succeeds to rise above the general malaise.
If you want to view it, I finally tracked the movie down on this link. It took me ages to find, I’m not sure why, as it has been posted since 2018:
thanks @chrisno1 I've bookmarked that link. I skipped your review after the first couple paragraphs, cuz I want to watch this film first, then I'll go back to read your analysis.
I've been looking for the Jason Love books, as @Barbel has mentioned them several times, but never been able to find the first volume.
Got along to the cinema to see the first of the year for me, this is is by Paul Thomas Anderson who did Boogie Nights and also a shedload of music videos going by his resume, in fact more videos than actual movies.
Not sure what to make of this film, it took me out of my comfort zone a bit - not a bad thing in itself - but I could have walked out at times, it felt a bit like No Time To Die for me, sort of sitting there thinking, what's the point of this, I don't believe it exactly and I'm not charmed either. It isn't as credible as Boogie Nights, it has a sort of whimsical tone and that hey gang, let's set the film in the 70s! vibe.
Its opening is interesting and I had little idea what to expect. It's sort of The Way We Were for hipsters or something, following a romance through ups and downs and fall outs and not quite getting there except the time frame is a bit off, it's not sure or we're not sure if it's taking place over months or a year or two. Today one shouldn't comment on actors' looks, especially if you're a middle-aged man like me but, hmmm, not sure, the lead actor is meant to be 15 and looks like he could be 25 if he's a day, then again some kids do look older as teenagers, not having figured themselves out yet. The woman in this romance is meant to be mid-20s - hence the delay in them copping off - and could be, I don't know, 35 or 40, less surprising when I later found out she's one of Haim, the all girl valley band who have been around for a bit and probably knocked back the booze. She has a great physique, showed off to good effect, and I liked her spiky delivery, I suppose facially she's sort of 'unconventional', I don't know.
But this was just some of the things that didn't quite sit well with me, I sort of went with it, cameos in this episodic tale of the creepy middle aged actor played by Sean Penn - supposedly William Holden, I don't know - and some kind of intense narcissistic pop star in a white jump suit, it all meanders along and our love interests fall out for no real reason except to draw out the romance.
Some good soundtrack songs, in particular good use of a Wings track, and eagle-eyed Bond fans will spot a movie reference in a blink and miss scene in this movie set in 1973. There's also that song that always sounds like George Harrison but isn't, I'll have to look it up.
It picked up towards the end a bit and glad I stayed with it, a few minor subplots that go nowhere, just kind of distractions. You could hold out til it comes on DVD or whatever your home viewing is.
Trailers for a couple of upcoming movies, two comedies one with Nicolas Cage the other Sandra Bullock looked truly awful and makes one wonder if cinema is truly dead. Just three others in the matinee performance, cost me £13.
Thanks again to Chrisno1 who reviewed "Where the spies are" in the very long post above. I watched it earlier this week and I really liked it! In short it was far enough from 60's Bond not to be copycat, but close enough to be great fun for Bond fans. Fun, globe-trotting and espionage.
Barbra Streisand rightly dominates Funny Girl, the musical which catapulted her to stardom on Broadway and in the West End, launched her recording career and won her Tonys, Grammys and Oscars. She is remarkably good as actress / singer / comedienne Fanny Brice, although watching this now Streisand’s career is sixty years on and counting, you can already detect the ticks and flounces and attitudes she came to possess throughout all her later movies and songs.
I’ve not seen the stage musical, but I’m aware the producers, one of whom was Ms Brice’s son-in-law Ray Stark, decided to cut several songs from it and asked composer Julye Styne to write additional material specifically for the film. These also included non-Styne songs Second Hand Rose and My Man, neither of which were in the original, but were numbers Fanny Brice made famous. As if this strange behaviour isn’t enough, the musical arrangement of the songs is extremely poor. Streisand’s delivery isn’t great, being frequently rushed and unintelligible – a crime in a showl where the lyrics are essential to both character and story. And she’s clearly lip synching. Even the staging of the musical numbers is odd: People, the best song in it and Streisand’s famous showstopper, is hacked about so much it’s barely recognisable. It’s even sung at the wrong moment in the scene, interrupting an intimate conversation between Fanny and her suitor Nick Arnstein, when it should, by tradition, come after he’s departed, so she sings the song about them, not to him. Even stranger is the decision to go all On the Town on us and have Don’t Rain On My Parade filmed on location in New York, ruining any opportunity Streisand has to ‘act’ the song’s self-defining message; instead she’s simply running about with a suitcase or two, like Maria in The Sound of Music. Oh, and there are two quite appalling representations of the Ziegfeld Follies.
Early on, when the action is more about Fanny Brice the ugly duckling succeeding against the odds, living with her Jewish mother, falling in love and hashing up rehearsals, the piece is enjoyable, light-hearted and swift, even if it bears no relation to her real biography. The songs are better presented here, although the temptation of the director to mess about with I’m the Greatest Star is an indication things will go badly. He, or the producers, or musical arrangers, do a hatchet job on the climatic title track too, putting an echo on the rendition and shifting the scene mid-verse from a solitary window to an enormous empty theatre. Their star isn’t even shown singing the life affirming song.
William Wyler, an experienced director of many excellent movies, had never made a musical and you can see why. He’s simply no clue how to present the songs effectively. Choreographer Herbert Ross tries to assist, but I think he was undermined and overruled, either by the chair or the executives. Surprisingly, Omar Sharif sings, although his solo number was one of the songs cut. The star carries almost the entire songbook on her own, which makes it a wearisome, repetitive experience by the time the second half draws to a close. At least there’s a show walloping finale, but even My Man takes too long to get going and the impact is spoilt.
It’s interesting to compare Funny Girl to Oliver!, the other great musical whose film version hit the cinemas in 1968. Carol Reed was careful to ensure the songs take visual prominence. He doesn’t divert from what a theatre audience would expect to see: singers and dancers centre-stage, no elaborate crane shots or cross cutting; he lets the music and lyrics tell the story and the actors interpret characterisation without undue fuss. We feel for those Dickensian ruffians Fagin, Nancy and Dodger, because Reed has allowed us to care for them and their world through his straightforward framing. Trying to be too clever with a musical doesn’t always work. It’s noticeable even Bob Fosse, when adapting Cabaret, never ‘opened out’ the nightclub setting of the songs, retaining the atmosphere of the sleazy Kit Kat Klub. Likewise, West Side Story is careful to retain the character driven nature of its story through the staging and musical arrangement of the songs. Funny Girl seems to want to be a melodramatic movie and a musical and as such it’s all over the place, emotionally, physically and with lessening impact.
The costumes are great, the sets too, Streisand fantastic, and she looks gorgeous in soft focus, but the film isn’t a patch on what it could have been. Critics laud it, but I think they’ve got second hand rose tinted spectacles on.
LAST NIGHT IN SOHO. What a nifty--or, to use proper '60s Brit slang, gear--movie. It's basically a horror film, with the main character (who sees dead people--at least her dead mother) moving into an apparently haunted house where she relives the terrors of a go-go girl in the Swinging Sixties. Nicely paced, great soundtrack, beautiful production design, and lots to satisfy a Bond fan--the giant-sized marquee of THUNDERBALL (seen in the trailers), the main character(s) drinking a Vesper martini, and the final performance of the great Diana Rigg. Appropriately, the film is dedicated to her.
imagine if The Spy Who Loved Me wasted less time on the villains headquarters and the evil henchman and the Lotus and the scenery and all that boring stuff, and instead there were more scenes where naked ladies told Roger Moore he had to leave in a 'urry because 'er 'usbands comin' oop th'stairs but his trousers are down round his ankles and his heads stuck in the wash-bucket. Oh and instead everybody being posh, everybody's working class, and poor folk having to take humiliating jobs to earn a living is inherently funny. wikipedia actually has a fantastic analysis of the representation of class in this film, far more in-depth than they ever have for much "better" films.
@caractacus potts Those were the days when the British film industry was on its knees, only the Bond franchise was doing anything to uphold the status quo, the Carry On’s were on their last legs and then the Confessions series came along and spawned a whole legion of sex comedies starring hitherto “respectable” actors and actresses who took roles in these films to put bread on the table. The ‘Confessions’ series was the best of the bunch by far, with Robin Askwith, Anthony Booth and Bill Maynard at least putting in some half decent performances.
Willie Rushton, Christopher Biggins, Elaine Paige, Suzy Kendall, Diana Dors, Jon Pertwee, Angela Scoular, Judy Geeson, Roy Kinnear, John Le Mesurier, Rula Lenska and Joan Hickson are just a few of the well known names to be associated with this genre (not all had sex scenes).
Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
aw this just makes it so sad. So its not just the characters who're having to take humiliating jobs to earn a living. The actors all probably got into this business intending to do Shakespeare or something of serious social significance and instead they've got their trousers down round their ankles so the creepy lowbrow audience (i.e. me) can enjoy a cheap laugh and glimpse of something naughty. I'm ashamed for having brought attention to this lowpoint in their careers.
____________________________
EDI: I had asked which one has Angela Scoular, because I thought she was funny in both her BondFilms. Then I looked her up in wikipedia, and see she came to a tragic end, I had no idea. It may be having to make films like this that undermined her self-confidence, and now I feel even worse for having objectified her: her performance in Casino Royale was funnier than Sellers or Niven.
@Gymkata Some years back I was lucky enough to catch the four hour four minute version of Cleopatra on the big screen. I agree with you. It looks absolutely ravishing. The film is not the disaster many commentators claim. As you say, the performances are very good, although Liz Taylor's stateside accent drops in a little too often. Burton and she smoulder effectively as the doomed lovers. Rex Harrison is great, yes, never more so than when receiving Cleopatra, who arrives in a rolled up carpet. The best performance is from Roddy McDowell as Octavian, dominating every scene he's in with his fawning, bitter, latent megalomania. He should IMO have won an Oscar for best supporting actor, but 20th C. Fox put him up for the best actor category along side Harrison and Burton. Dumb executives. Great sets, costumes, photography, editing, the only thing it lacks is decent military spectacle; for all the bluster, its quite an intimate drama. The solitary sea battle is a bit of a let down. It's one of my favourite epics alongside El Cid, Fall of the Roman Empire and Spartacus.
I agree. Cleopatra is by no means a bad movie. The scandal wasn't that the final product was bad, it's a good movie. The scandal was the horrible handling of the finances. Those were out of control.
Just chipping in to agree that "Cleopatra" isn't a terrible film, but it runs out of steam when Rex Harrison's Caesar dies with a lot of running time to go.
No disagreement about him being staggeringly good here, and better than he was in such high profile performances as "My Fair Lady" and "Dr Doolittle", but have you checked him out in his earlier performances in, say, "Blithe Spirit"? A very enjoyable film: despite Margaret Rutherford stealing the whole thing Harrison holds his own.
Comments
thanks for pointing out your own review @chrisno1
I seem to recall when we were discussing Fathom you said your folks had a home in the south of Spain. This film was shot in an old fort in Málaga, did you ever have a chance to visit the real life location?
There are dozens of old forts in Malaga province. I don't think it was filmed at one of three in Malaga city itself. If I have been there, I didn't realise it. I have a feeling it might be the interiors which were filmed in the fort. The exterior set was built in Capo de Gato, I believe. It's now a national park.
I saw ETERNALS last night, and my view is the polar opposite of Gymkata's. I thought it was terrible--an absolute mess. The characters are paper-thin, their powers are all things we've seen in other and better characters (one character is even called "Superman" at one point, and it's easy to see why), and the casting seemed to be to just check off boxes. It was also hard to figure out what the hell is going on--the movie bounces back in forth in time to explain how this group got together and how they broke up and why they need to get back together and who killed who, blah, blah, blah. I agree with Gymkata about the lack of fun part. . .it takes its own mythology with deep seriousness (um, the last Spider-Man movie was so good because it had fun with everything) and it goes on for more than two and a half hours. "Eternal" seems to describe the time I spent in front of the TV.
Bound to be good. I’m in it. Three times
We have a movie star among us! 😄
How nice for you, ASP9mm. The movie and your performance wasn't stoopid at all!
Indeed 😁
How did you get in the movie?
Did you get to stalk any of the other stars?
Just dropping in to point out what fans of The Hill already know - that one of its stars if Roy Kinnear, dad of Rory 'Bill Tanner' Kinnear.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
VENOM: LET THERE BE CARNAGE. Dumb, silly, even a touch nasty. . .but unlike the oh-so-serious ETERNALS, this is a comic-book movie that knows it's a comic-book movie and so it maintains a sense of fun. Good movie to watch with your brain in neutral.
ha! I thought the name looked familiar, but obviously could not be our Bill Tanner. He's the short chubby black marketeer in the gang, looking at his wikipedia entry I've seen him in a few things, mostly comedies like Help! and Willy Wonka.
Well done that man- congratulations!
Re Roy Kinnear, @caractacus potts - he was a character actor who generally always played the same character and did it very well - sort of comedic, bumbling, slightly nervous or shifty but that in itself doesn't convey it. He would have been in a good few episodes of The Avengers, maybe The Saint too. Also in the long-running Dick Emery Show, as the 'father' to Emery's gormless skinhead son, where each sketch tended to feature said son saying 'I think I got it wrong again, Dad!'
Never a young looking or fit looking actor, Kinnear died on the set of a Musketeers sequel in the aftermath of a horse accident, when originally one thought it was a death due to ill health. Sadly, Rory Kinnear's family has had its fair share of untimely deaths, as he recently wrote a moving piece in The Guardian newspaper about the death of his sister in a care facility, due to Covid, around the time the Government were having drinks parties at the height of lockdown. You can read it online.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
thanks @Napoleon Plural I do like it when I begin to recognise these character actors who reappear in all the shows and movies of the era, and I appreciate when folks point them out. Funny how I can watch some of these a half dozen times before I realise I've seen some actor someplace before, then I look at wikipedia or imdb and turns out I've seen them in dozens of things!
and in another 50 years I'll learn to recognise the actors who are working today...
The green knight (2021)
I'm going to cheat and quote IMDB on the plot: An epic fantasy adventure based on the timeless Arthurian legend, "The Green Knight" tells the story of Sir Gawain (Dev Patel), King Arthur's reckless and headstrong nephew, who embarks on a daring quest to confront the eponymous Green Knight, a gigantic emerald-skinned stranger and tester of men. Gawain contends with ghosts, giants, thieves, and schemers in what becomes a deeper journey to define his character and prove his worth in the eyes of his family and kingdom by facing the ultimate challenger.
This isn't an action-fantasy blockbuster. It's more an art film full of symbolism, myth and unusual and striking visuals. It's a challenging and rewarding movie to watch. Dev Patel is very good in the lead. He plays brash, imature, honourable, brooding and heroic equally well. In a straight historical medival movie I would have problems with the casting of a ethnically Indian actor, but this is the middle ages of myth, magic and fantasy and I donæ tmind. If EON choses a non-white Bond next time I hope it's Dev Patel. He's a great actor, the right age and build and I like his look.
WHERE THE SPIES ARE (1966)
Following the huge stateside success of Goldfinger and the excitement about all things spy as the Bond-craze took off, film makers were looking for material they could adapt into light-hearted espionage movies. The most obvious of these are Len Deighton’s The Ipcress File, Donald Hamilton’s The Silencers and Peter O’Donnell’s Modesty Blaise. There were others too, including The Man from UNCLE television show, and more serious fare such as Le Carre’s The Spy Who Came In From The Cold.
A literary series still in its foundling stage in 1964 was Jason Love, written by James Leasor, whose first novel became Passport to Oblivion. Leasor was not an unknown writer, but astutely following Eon’s lead, he saw an opportunity to enter the espionage market and create an urbane hero, whose adventures were globetrotting, suspenseful and cinematically appealing. The first Jason Love novel was a well described actioner taking place in Iran and Canada, featuring intrigue, gadgets, fights, gun battles and torture. It was well reviewed and sold decent copy, appealing to various movie executives before directors / producers / screenwriters Val Guest and Wolf Mankiewicz got their hands on it. Their intention wasn’t to spoof James Bond or create an imitation of him, but make a faithful representation of Leasor’s novel and his hero.
It is worth noting that while the movie does feature some tropes of the kind we are familiar with from OO7, these, as well as some less expected images do in the majority feature in Leasor’s own writings: there are gadgets, passwords, contacts and double-crosses, Jason Love is a novice spy, a gentleman lover and a man who shuns violence and the tricks of his adopted trade. The film stays remarkably close to the narrative of the novel and is much the better for it.
Iran was considered unreliable for filming in the sixties, so the action is supplanted to Beirut, which still has a suitably sleazy middle-eastern air to it. The movie begins in a Soviet briefing centre where an MI6 defector explains the gadgets MI6 agents are issued with, including poison pens, flash-light rings and code books. We meet Rosser, who in the novel is the unnamed agent K. Played by Cyril Cusack, Rosser / K is a older, slightly nervy man, who remains calm under pressure. After sending a telegram, he’s kidnapped by two enemy agents in the lobby of his hotel, taken to the Roman ruins at Baalbek where he attempts to escape using the flash-light ring. This is a neat gadget which has a smidgeon of authenticity to it. Rosser is shot, although his superiors in London don’t know that. Missing his last communication, they simply think he’s gone off grid and decide to send an agent to Lebanon to contact him.
Times are hard at this version of MI6. John Le Mesurier plays MacGillivray, the ‘M’ of the story, and he’s a frustrated, diffident, civil servant, cutting a solid, traditional look in pinstripes and waist coats. Le Mesurier usually only had small supporting roles in this kind of film, but he’s very prominent here, central to Jason Love’s recruitment and explaining the background of the mission. He has a neat turn of phrase as well. At one point Jason Love suggests he’s not cut out to be ‘Superman,’ “Just as well,” replies MacGillivray without a pause, “that sort of exhibitionism tends to get you killed.”
Jason Love, as epitomised by David Niven, carries a similar air of insouciance. He’s persuaded to undertake the simple task on the promise the Service can find him a rare 1930s Cord motor car. Love may be a country doctor, but he’s also an expert on Cord automobiles, which he considers the finest cars ever made. He drives one, the last of its kind, and later on his knowledge and enthusiasm helps him identify the men who assassinated K. He’s not a great spy, although his military training helps. He’s very disdainful of the briefcase of tricks, the poison pen and the tiny radioactive transmitter inserted into his tooth which, when activated by removal will disrupt any localised electronic equipment. This last eventually comes in handy at the film’s climax, but I did wonder about the health of poor Dr Love’s teeth.
David Niven is a touch too old to play this sort of hero. I rather fancy Omar Sharif might have graced it better. Nevertheless, Niven contributes all the attributes one would expect. He’s good looking, suave, easy on the eye and tongue and ear, he’s more than competent. The performance is very similar to the one he gave in The Pink Panther as Sir Charles Lytton, a role not a million miles away in its foundation. He takes the material seriously when needed, despatches villains effectively and has the charm to seduce Francoise Dorleac’s beautiful double-agent. He’s able to slum it too, accompanying Nigel Davenport’s hard drinking Parkington to the Shahnwa nightclub. Davenport’s good as the permanently jaundiced alcoholic. A cynic and a bull, Parkington prefers to shoot first and this results in him, well, getting shot.
There’s a clear class barrier established here. MacGillivray represents the upper classes, pushing pens and people around the world, like pins on a map, almost without a care. Jason Love is the middle class aspirational, swayed by a little comfort, easily pleased, willing, able, but not especially sensible. Parkington is the hard working, poor-man’s alternative, stuck in a job he fell into, under pressure and failing. This man can’t even best Dr Love in a fight. Dorleac’s Vikki, being French, displays a modern classless grace.
A magazine model and seductress, she meets Love at Rome Airport during his stopover – although it isn’t clear why this should be – and the two share a lovely, witty, believable seduction scene, where Love’s, or Niven’s if you will, gentlemanly behaviour stops the intense amor. When he decides against making love to Vikki, Jason Love mutters: “The things I do for England.” This predates Sean Connery’s line in You Only Live Twice where he deliberately continues his seduction of an enemy agent. The behavioural difference and the pathos is marked, establishing Jason Love as a non-Bond impersonation. Naturally though, this endears him to Vikki. Love also senses the attraction. At the airport, he rebooks his flight to Beirut and then watches as the original plane explodes in a ball of fire. The ringing telephone, unanswered in Vikki’s room speaks volumes for their sudden unrequited affections. Scenes like this are rare in the sixties spy genre and should be lauded. One thing Where the Spies Are does well is to stay grounded.
There’s an assassination afoot. King Faroud is visiting Beirut. The ruler of an unnamed Arab state, Faroud’s oil is vital to commercial British enterprises and the Soviets plan to destabilise his country, throwing the British out. This strand of the plot hints at old colonial prejudices, that the world is changing and the British are being left behind. When Vikki tells Love she’s betrayed him, he looks stupefied, she has to explain that the world is changing, that spies and spying is a business for professionals. Britain’s club of amateur ruling classes is fading as fast as a Cord motor car. Jason Love still has enough affection for his own Mother Country to continue on in Beirut and prevent the murder Rosser / K had uncovered. The JFK inspired public assassination sequence is the closest we get to the silliness of the spy spoof as Niven runs blindly around a Roman fortress, knocking out gunman, interfering in Vikki’s model shoot and escaping with the aid of a fortuitously arriving helicopter.
The film loses its way a bit once Love is captured by the Russians, who have covertly arrived on a Aeroflot Peace Plane. The enemy agents include the convincing Paul Stassino as Dr Simmias. Himself facing execution for incompetence, Simmias defects and reveals the whereabouts of Dr Love to the British. This is another believable incident, lowkey and presented with thorough and quick exposition. There’s no extensive fights or chases here. Instead Love is tortured by Ronald Radd’s Stanilaus, forces the Peace Plane to land in Canada by using the ingenious transmitter and makes good an exit following a fatal gun battle which ends Vikki’s life and finishes off the bad guys.
The closing scenes don’t quite match what came before. There’s a neat joke where Love states the new MI6 code book is the Kama Sutra, precisely because the book is banned in Russia, but otherwise this sequence is deadly serious, yet oddly tensionless, perhaps because there’s no real point to this exercise, as there wasn’t in the novel. Hence, the story drags at the moment it ought to thrill.
On the production side, Guest and Mankiewicz’s script proves functional. Leasor himself added some gloss. Val Guest’s direction sums up his career as it’s competent without ever being extravagant. He’s probably at his best in the opening sequence where Rosser is uncovered and kidnapped. There are real surprises here and a cloying atmosphere of Cold War anxieties and manners pervades the action. The location footage is all exteriors, but the interiors don’t disgrace anyone, although it is noticeable how large and uncluttered Ken Adam’s OO7 sets are – even the small ones – compared to those created here by John Howell. Adam gives his sets enormous scope and space and more than anything this gave Bond films an impression of size and grandeur. By contrast, Where the Spies Are and Jason Love can’t help looking like second-rate small fry. The music from Mario Nasimbene has a mid-sixties Mantovani lounge feel, which doesn’t sound as rough on the ear as it reads on paper, even if occasionally there’s some extravagance with the strings. Robert Brownjohn filmed the rather excellent title sequence. I do wish he’d done more Bond titles.
Where the Spies Are is a much better film than it’s given credit for. Chief among its assets is treating its subject with an element of seriousness. Yes, it’s funny. Yes, it is a little silly. But there’s no outrageous plot, no enormous grandstanding set, no over the top henchmen with steel rimmed bowler hats, no secret operatives with white cats and fancy names. Okay, I’m being unfair to James Bond now, but by not slavishly following the unwritten rules the industry created for spy-spoofs following Goldfinger, Where the Spies Are succeeds to rise above the general malaise.
If you want to view it, I finally tracked the movie down on this link. It took me ages to find, I’m not sure why, as it has been posted since 2018:
https://ok.ru/video/985706859188
thanks @chrisno1 I've bookmarked that link. I skipped your review after the first couple paragraphs, cuz I want to watch this film first, then I'll go back to read your analysis.
I've been looking for the Jason Love books, as @Barbel has mentioned them several times, but never been able to find the first volume.
Well, you could try the recent audio version starring George Lazenby (yes!) which is available on Amazon.
Thanks for the review, Chrisno1! I'm enjoying the movie tonight.
Got along to the cinema to see the first of the year for me, this is is by Paul Thomas Anderson who did Boogie Nights and also a shedload of music videos going by his resume, in fact more videos than actual movies.
Not sure what to make of this film, it took me out of my comfort zone a bit - not a bad thing in itself - but I could have walked out at times, it felt a bit like No Time To Die for me, sort of sitting there thinking, what's the point of this, I don't believe it exactly and I'm not charmed either. It isn't as credible as Boogie Nights, it has a sort of whimsical tone and that hey gang, let's set the film in the 70s! vibe.
Its opening is interesting and I had little idea what to expect. It's sort of The Way We Were for hipsters or something, following a romance through ups and downs and fall outs and not quite getting there except the time frame is a bit off, it's not sure or we're not sure if it's taking place over months or a year or two. Today one shouldn't comment on actors' looks, especially if you're a middle-aged man like me but, hmmm, not sure, the lead actor is meant to be 15 and looks like he could be 25 if he's a day, then again some kids do look older as teenagers, not having figured themselves out yet. The woman in this romance is meant to be mid-20s - hence the delay in them copping off - and could be, I don't know, 35 or 40, less surprising when I later found out she's one of Haim, the all girl valley band who have been around for a bit and probably knocked back the booze. She has a great physique, showed off to good effect, and I liked her spiky delivery, I suppose facially she's sort of 'unconventional', I don't know.
But this was just some of the things that didn't quite sit well with me, I sort of went with it, cameos in this episodic tale of the creepy middle aged actor played by Sean Penn - supposedly William Holden, I don't know - and some kind of intense narcissistic pop star in a white jump suit, it all meanders along and our love interests fall out for no real reason except to draw out the romance.
Some good soundtrack songs, in particular good use of a Wings track, and eagle-eyed Bond fans will spot a movie reference in a blink and miss scene in this movie set in 1973. There's also that song that always sounds like George Harrison but isn't, I'll have to look it up.
It picked up towards the end a bit and glad I stayed with it, a few minor subplots that go nowhere, just kind of distractions. You could hold out til it comes on DVD or whatever your home viewing is.
Trailers for a couple of upcoming movies, two comedies one with Nicolas Cage the other Sandra Bullock looked truly awful and makes one wonder if cinema is truly dead. Just three others in the matinee performance, cost me £13.
Next up, either that Spidey movie or Belfast.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Thanks again to Chrisno1 who reviewed "Where the spies are" in the very long post above. I watched it earlier this week and I really liked it! In short it was far enough from 60's Bond not to be copycat, but close enough to be great fun for Bond fans. Fun, globe-trotting and espionage.
Thanks, Number24, glad you enjoyed it. You sum up the movie and my review very well !
FUNNY GIRL (1968)
Barbra Streisand rightly dominates Funny Girl, the musical which catapulted her to stardom on Broadway and in the West End, launched her recording career and won her Tonys, Grammys and Oscars. She is remarkably good as actress / singer / comedienne Fanny Brice, although watching this now Streisand’s career is sixty years on and counting, you can already detect the ticks and flounces and attitudes she came to possess throughout all her later movies and songs.
I’ve not seen the stage musical, but I’m aware the producers, one of whom was Ms Brice’s son-in-law Ray Stark, decided to cut several songs from it and asked composer Julye Styne to write additional material specifically for the film. These also included non-Styne songs Second Hand Rose and My Man, neither of which were in the original, but were numbers Fanny Brice made famous. As if this strange behaviour isn’t enough, the musical arrangement of the songs is extremely poor. Streisand’s delivery isn’t great, being frequently rushed and unintelligible – a crime in a showl where the lyrics are essential to both character and story. And she’s clearly lip synching. Even the staging of the musical numbers is odd: People, the best song in it and Streisand’s famous showstopper, is hacked about so much it’s barely recognisable. It’s even sung at the wrong moment in the scene, interrupting an intimate conversation between Fanny and her suitor Nick Arnstein, when it should, by tradition, come after he’s departed, so she sings the song about them, not to him. Even stranger is the decision to go all On the Town on us and have Don’t Rain On My Parade filmed on location in New York, ruining any opportunity Streisand has to ‘act’ the song’s self-defining message; instead she’s simply running about with a suitcase or two, like Maria in The Sound of Music. Oh, and there are two quite appalling representations of the Ziegfeld Follies.
Early on, when the action is more about Fanny Brice the ugly duckling succeeding against the odds, living with her Jewish mother, falling in love and hashing up rehearsals, the piece is enjoyable, light-hearted and swift, even if it bears no relation to her real biography. The songs are better presented here, although the temptation of the director to mess about with I’m the Greatest Star is an indication things will go badly. He, or the producers, or musical arrangers, do a hatchet job on the climatic title track too, putting an echo on the rendition and shifting the scene mid-verse from a solitary window to an enormous empty theatre. Their star isn’t even shown singing the life affirming song.
William Wyler, an experienced director of many excellent movies, had never made a musical and you can see why. He’s simply no clue how to present the songs effectively. Choreographer Herbert Ross tries to assist, but I think he was undermined and overruled, either by the chair or the executives. Surprisingly, Omar Sharif sings, although his solo number was one of the songs cut. The star carries almost the entire songbook on her own, which makes it a wearisome, repetitive experience by the time the second half draws to a close. At least there’s a show walloping finale, but even My Man takes too long to get going and the impact is spoilt.
It’s interesting to compare Funny Girl to Oliver!, the other great musical whose film version hit the cinemas in 1968. Carol Reed was careful to ensure the songs take visual prominence. He doesn’t divert from what a theatre audience would expect to see: singers and dancers centre-stage, no elaborate crane shots or cross cutting; he lets the music and lyrics tell the story and the actors interpret characterisation without undue fuss. We feel for those Dickensian ruffians Fagin, Nancy and Dodger, because Reed has allowed us to care for them and their world through his straightforward framing. Trying to be too clever with a musical doesn’t always work. It’s noticeable even Bob Fosse, when adapting Cabaret, never ‘opened out’ the nightclub setting of the songs, retaining the atmosphere of the sleazy Kit Kat Klub. Likewise, West Side Story is careful to retain the character driven nature of its story through the staging and musical arrangement of the songs. Funny Girl seems to want to be a melodramatic movie and a musical and as such it’s all over the place, emotionally, physically and with lessening impact.
The costumes are great, the sets too, Streisand fantastic, and she looks gorgeous in soft focus, but the film isn’t a patch on what it could have been. Critics laud it, but I think they’ve got second hand rose tinted spectacles on.
LAST NIGHT IN SOHO. What a nifty--or, to use proper '60s Brit slang, gear--movie. It's basically a horror film, with the main character (who sees dead people--at least her dead mother) moving into an apparently haunted house where she relives the terrors of a go-go girl in the Swinging Sixties. Nicely paced, great soundtrack, beautiful production design, and lots to satisfy a Bond fan--the giant-sized marquee of THUNDERBALL (seen in the trailers), the main character(s) drinking a Vesper martini, and the final performance of the great Diana Rigg. Appropriately, the film is dedicated to her.
Confessions of a Window Cleaner, 1974
directed by Val Guest, based on a novel by Christopher Wood
that's two of ours, so its almost essential viewing for a BondFan innit?
I was inspired by mention of the novel over in @CoolHandBond 's Book Covers thread
imagine if The Spy Who Loved Me wasted less time on the villains headquarters and the evil henchman and the Lotus and the scenery and all that boring stuff, and instead there were more scenes where naked ladies told Roger Moore he had to leave in a 'urry because 'er 'usbands comin' oop th'stairs but his trousers are down round his ankles and his heads stuck in the wash-bucket. Oh and instead everybody being posh, everybody's working class, and poor folk having to take humiliating jobs to earn a living is inherently funny. wikipedia actually has a fantastic analysis of the representation of class in this film, far more in-depth than they ever have for much "better" films.
and theres several exciting sequels!
@caractacus potts Those were the days when the British film industry was on its knees, only the Bond franchise was doing anything to uphold the status quo, the Carry On’s were on their last legs and then the Confessions series came along and spawned a whole legion of sex comedies starring hitherto “respectable” actors and actresses who took roles in these films to put bread on the table. The ‘Confessions’ series was the best of the bunch by far, with Robin Askwith, Anthony Booth and Bill Maynard at least putting in some half decent performances.
Willie Rushton, Christopher Biggins, Elaine Paige, Suzy Kendall, Diana Dors, Jon Pertwee, Angela Scoular, Judy Geeson, Roy Kinnear, John Le Mesurier, Rula Lenska and Joan Hickson are just a few of the well known names to be associated with this genre (not all had sex scenes).
aw this just makes it so sad. So its not just the characters who're having to take humiliating jobs to earn a living. The actors all probably got into this business intending to do Shakespeare or something of serious social significance and instead they've got their trousers down round their ankles so the creepy lowbrow audience (i.e. me) can enjoy a cheap laugh and glimpse of something naughty. I'm ashamed for having brought attention to this lowpoint in their careers.
____________________________
EDI: I had asked which one has Angela Scoular, because I thought she was funny in both her BondFilms. Then I looked her up in wikipedia, and see she came to a tragic end, I had no idea. It may be having to make films like this that undermined her self-confidence, and now I feel even worse for having objectified her: her performance in Casino Royale was funnier than Sellers or Niven.
@Gymkata Some years back I was lucky enough to catch the four hour four minute version of Cleopatra on the big screen. I agree with you. It looks absolutely ravishing. The film is not the disaster many commentators claim. As you say, the performances are very good, although Liz Taylor's stateside accent drops in a little too often. Burton and she smoulder effectively as the doomed lovers. Rex Harrison is great, yes, never more so than when receiving Cleopatra, who arrives in a rolled up carpet. The best performance is from Roddy McDowell as Octavian, dominating every scene he's in with his fawning, bitter, latent megalomania. He should IMO have won an Oscar for best supporting actor, but 20th C. Fox put him up for the best actor category along side Harrison and Burton. Dumb executives. Great sets, costumes, photography, editing, the only thing it lacks is decent military spectacle; for all the bluster, its quite an intimate drama. The solitary sea battle is a bit of a let down. It's one of my favourite epics alongside El Cid, Fall of the Roman Empire and Spartacus.
I agree. Cleopatra is by no means a bad movie. The scandal wasn't that the final product was bad, it's a good movie. The scandal was the horrible handling of the finances. Those were out of control.
Just chipping in to agree that "Cleopatra" isn't a terrible film, but it runs out of steam when Rex Harrison's Caesar dies with a lot of running time to go.
No disagreement about him being staggeringly good here, and better than he was in such high profile performances as "My Fair Lady" and "Dr Doolittle", but have you checked him out in his earlier performances in, say, "Blithe Spirit"? A very enjoyable film: despite Margaret Rutherford stealing the whole thing Harrison holds his own.