Best/Worst Bond Spoofs

IanFryerIanFryer Posts: 327MI6 Agent
I'm about to watch Carry on Spying for research for something I'm working on - funnily enought I've never seen the film before, despite being very familiar with the series.

It led me to wondering what other spy/bomd spoofs people might recommend/warn me away from. Personaly, I regard Our Man Fint very much as a Bond spoof, and among the best. Here's the very From Russia With Love influenced Carry On Spying poster art.

Carry_On_Spying.jpg

Comments

  • Dirty PunkerDirty Punker ...Your Eyes Only, darling."Posts: 2,587MI6 Agent
    Well, let's get the obvious one out of the way.
    Austin Powers, International Man of Espionage (something like that).
    To date, it's the only one I've ever seen and it was well, meh.
    I can't see why people thought it was good in the first place.
    I also can't see why such a film would have such a strong cult following!
    Being a Bond fan, I don't really pay much attention to spoofs but the ones I really do want to see are Carry On Spying and Casino Royale '67 which were both released at the height of the 60's spy craze.
    There was also one with Connery's brother (Hello Connery?), that's also one to look out for.
    a reasonable rate of return
  • HigginsHiggins GermanyPosts: 16,618MI6 Agent
    I loooooove Austin Powers!!!!
    There is so much love for the 60s and for 007 in the first movies.

    OSS117 is hilarious, too though the storyline often is dragging.
    I don't like Casino Royale '67
    President of the 'Misty Eyes Club'.

    Dalton - the weak and weepy Bond!
  • Matt SMatt S Oh Cult Voodoo ShopPosts: 6,596MI6 Agent
    I've seen lots of them. Here are my thoughts on a few:

    OSS117: Cairo, Nest of Spies is excellent. It copies the style of the Bond films so well and has many hilarious jokes.

    The TV series Get Smart is one of my favourites. It's more than a direct spoof of Bond, as it spoofs other things too.

    OK Connery (it's also known by a few other names) is amusing for starring Sean Connery's brother and being cast almost entirely with Bond alumni, but it's a terrible film.
    Visit my blog, Bond Suits
  • IanFryerIanFryer Posts: 327MI6 Agent
    Well, let's get the obvious one out of the way.
    Austin Powers, International Man of Espionage (something like that).
    To date, it's the only one I've ever seen and it was well, meh.
    I can't see why people thought it was good in the first place.
    I also can't see why such a film would have such a strong cult following!
    Being a Bond fan, I don't really pay much attention to spoofs but the ones I really do want to see are Carry On Spying and Casino Royale '67 which were both released at the height of the 60's spy craze.
    There was also one with Connery's brother (Hello Connery?), that's also one to look out for.

    Interestingly Carry On producer Peter Rogers registered the title Carry On Spying soon after Dr. No was released in 1962. Rogers was very quick to see the potential and this may even be the first Bond spoof on screen. This might explain why Carry On Spying references The Third Man and other older spy films since there was less Bond material to work with at the time.

    I'm with you on Austin Powers. I loved the idea and the character more than the execution.
  • IanFryerIanFryer Posts: 327MI6 Agent
    Higgins wrote:
    I loooooove Austin Powers!!!!
    There is so much love for the 60s and for 007 in the first movies.

    OSS117 is hilarious, too though the storyline often is dragging.
    I don't like Casino Royale '67

    Interesting to see a German perspective on OSS 117, as the originals were European productions. Are you familiar with the 1960s versions to say if they are references the film uses?

    Have you seen the Jerry Cotton reboot, which I gather is similar?
  • IanFryerIanFryer Posts: 327MI6 Agent
    Matt S wrote:

    OK Connery (it's also known by a few other names) is amusing for starring Sean Connery's brother and being cast almost entirely with Bond alumni, but it's a terrible film.

    I've seen far worse Eurospy movies, to be honest. Fabulous theme song, too!
  • caractacus pottscaractacus potts Orbital communicator, level 10Posts: 3,907MI6 Agent
    Austin Powers, International Man of Mystery.
    To date, it's the only one I've ever seen and it was well, meh.
    The second one was better than the first one. Third one was worst of the three, but still better than its remake: SPECTRE.


    Get Smart was more of a broad spoof of the spy genre, I don't remember much being specific to the Bond films. Awesome stuff (created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry, Buck Henry was head writer throughout the show), good production values for a 60s sitcom, much less formulaic than the other sitcoms of the time, and the stories actually work as proper spy stories if you ignore all the jokes

    The 1980ish Get Smart film did parody Bond, specifically Moonraker, but I remember it as being lousy. I think Don Adams was the only one involved from the original creative team.


    wasn't there a Flintstones special where Fred became a spy?
  • HigginsHiggins GermanyPosts: 16,618MI6 Agent
    edited July 2017
    IanFryer wrote:
    Higgins wrote:
    I loooooove Austin Powers!!!!
    There is so much love for the 60s and for 007 in the first movies.

    OSS117 is hilarious, too though the storyline often is dragging.
    I don't like Casino Royale '67

    Interesting to see a German perspective on OSS 117, as the originals were European productions. Are you familiar with the 1960s versions to say if they are references the film uses?

    Have you seen the Jerry Cotton reboot, which I gather is similar?

    No, I haven't seen the 1960 versions.
    Keep in mind that there is no "The Europe". You drive 250 km and you'll get totally different cultural background. It's a bit like throwing the USA together with Mexico and Canada.

    OSS117 is a french production with many french characteristics. The main actor looks hilariously similar to Connery (when he wants) and only what he does with his eyebrows - throws me on the floor laughing.

    I've not seen Jerry Cotton reboots we've had here a Jerry Cotton TV series in the 60s, which was made entirely in Munich and Hamburg with some added snippets from New York.
    President of the 'Misty Eyes Club'.

    Dalton - the weak and weepy Bond!
  • IanFryerIanFryer Posts: 327MI6 Agent
    Very good point regarding European culture, Higgins. I'm very familiar with a lot of 60s popular filmmaking from Germany, such as the Jerry Cottons and the Edgar Wallace movies, partially from visiting often and seeing them on TV.

    I guess my point with the OSS 117 movies is that they may have had more cultural impact in Europe than Britain, the latter tending to have an insular attitude to films not made in the English language. Although they were shown at British cinemas in the 1960s they are not well known even to most film buffs.
  • HigginsHiggins GermanyPosts: 16,618MI6 Agent
    In general french movies are just that.

    Usually they only focus on the home market and if one succeeds outsides of the country - it's sheer luck.
    So if you are having a french movie, generally it's one made by french people for french people only.
    I see the OSS 117 movies in that tradition as well.

    I love the Jerry Cotton 60s series for some nostalgic shots from Manhattan and Munich (where they staged a "modern NYC" that did not exist. In preparation for the 1972 olymipcs, there where some very progressive architectures build and you can see lots of them (including not paved construction site roads inbetween) in the JC episodes. The storylines where rather pathetic, but you can see a lot of german actors that became famous later - not because their involvement with the JC movies I guess.
    President of the 'Misty Eyes Club'.

    Dalton - the weak and weepy Bond!
  • IanFryerIanFryer Posts: 327MI6 Agent
    One of the things I love about the Jerry Cotton films is that even I aren't convinced for a minute that they are shot anywhere but Central Europe. To me it's part of their charm.

    Also George Nader was cruelly cast aside by Hollywood because of his sexuality, so it's really good to see him going on to being in a successful film series.
  • Bond44Bond44 Vauxhall CrossPosts: 1,581MI6 Agent
    Funny I was just watching Everything or Nothing over breakfast this morning as Mike Myers came on and said his family loved James Bond and would watch them together.

    He clearly says Austin Powers was made out of pure love for JB. :D

    Cheers :007)
    My name is Bond, Basildon Bond - I have letters after my name!
  • Dirty PunkerDirty Punker ...Your Eyes Only, darling."Posts: 2,587MI6 Agent
    Bond44 wrote:
    He clearly says Austin Powers was made out of pure love for JB. :D
    Yeah, and I saw the speech he gave at Connery's Life Achievement ceremony-award-celebration-thing.
    I can believe that it was out of pure love for the franchise (with even Lazenby's ruffled shirt etc.) but it wasn't that well executed.
    Personally, I didn't like the movies but it's just my opinion, there are many people who like them but I don't seem to understand why. Looking back at it now, it could must've been the push the Bond movies needed back then to become even sillier.
    a reasonable rate of return
  • Napoleon PluralNapoleon Plural LondonPosts: 10,239MI6 Agent
    I like clips of Austin Powers more than the film from start to finish, a bit like Ferris Bueller. Settle down to watch it and it drags, but the individual scenes and sketches are brilliant imo. It just doesn't have a narrative flow. It's best on YouTube. I think AP really took off ie bagged a sequel when it came out on video, because you can sort of rewind fave scenes and dawdle off for a coffee when it drags.
    "This is where we leave you Mr Bond."

    Roger Moore 1927-2017
  • IanFryerIanFryer Posts: 327MI6 Agent
    Here's a thing. I just watched Carry on Spying and they do a gag in which Bernard Cribbins steps on a bed of nails in an Algerian market to which a (not very convincing) beggar cries "When you've quite finished, that's my bed!".

    Yes, exactly the same gag done on Octopussy nineteen years later!

    Also, the headquarters of the evil organisation STENCH has its own miniature railway three years before SPECTRE got one in You Only Live Twice!
  • ThunderpussyThunderpussy Behind you !Posts: 63,792MI6 Agent
    You should watch the youtube video showing
    the similarities between carry on spying and TLD.
    "I've been informed that there ARE a couple of QAnon supporters who are fairly regular posters in AJB."
  • IanFryerIanFryer Posts: 327MI6 Agent
    Ooh thanks, I didn't know about that.
  • IanFryerIanFryer Posts: 327MI6 Agent
    Now watching Hot Enough for June, released in the UK in March 1964, making this another very early Bond spoof. A Rank production directed by Ralph Thomas, brother of Carry On director Gerald, this is a much more restrained affair than Carry On Spying. Dirk Bogarde plays a layabout writer who discovers that the well-paying new job he's landed (with suspicious ease) is actually a cover for spying when he's sent to Prague.

    A very nice production with some great dialogue, especially between intelligence chief Robert Morley and his assistant John Le Mesurier, who fully expect poor naive Dirk to get killed. Cheekily, we discover that his deceased predecessor was agent 007!
  • IanFryerIanFryer Posts: 327MI6 Agent
    Watched a bit of Operation Kid Brother this morning while doing the washing up and getting ready for work. It hadn't occurred to me before but Adolfo Celi sounds like he's been dubbed by Eric Pohlmann, making yet another Bond connection for the film. Can anyone confirm this?
  • caractacus pottscaractacus potts Orbital communicator, level 10Posts: 3,907MI6 Agent
    5174PMHZRWL._SX298_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg
    has anybody else read Alligator: a J*mes B*nd Thriller, by the Harvard Lampoon?
    I think it came out in the early 60s, saddlestitched but otherwise designed exactly like the old Signet paperbacks
    I forget who the actual writers were, a few years later Henry Beard and Doug Kenney wrote Bored of the Rings under the Harvard Lampoon brand, and that parody was so successful it led to the National Lampoon monthly magazine ... but I believe Alligator was completely different aspiring humourists from Harvard university

    the one joke I remember best was J*mes B*nd ordering meals in restaurants. Every other page he'd end up in a restaurant and spend three paragraphs reciting increasingly ridiculous instructions for the chef. I don't think this was really a thing in Fleming's books, moreso the movies. Anybody ever try this stunt when eating out? I've certainly been tempted too, for example when they don't know how to prepare eggplant, bu never had the nerve. J*mes B*nd does, however, every other page in his one and only adventure.
  • IanFryerIanFryer Posts: 327MI6 Agent
    I've heard about it but never seen a copy. Would love to get hold of one sometime.
  • BarbelBarbel ScotlandPosts: 36,053Chief of Staff
    has anybody else read Alligator: a J*mes B*nd Thriller, by the Harvard Lampoon?

    Yes, it's pretty good (at least to start with).
    I forget who the actual writers were

    Michael Frith and Christopher Cerf, who both went on to work on The Muppets/Sesame Street (among other things, of course).
  • MrGoreMrGore Posts: 129MI6 Agent
    I know not strictly a spoof but:

    The OSS 117 movie, Atout cœur à Tokyo pour OSS 117 came out a year before YOLT.

    It had a story written by Bond director Terence Young.

    There are some really excellent parts in it. There is a fantastic fight scene between the Connery lookalike Frederick Stafford (OSS 117) and a huge Jaws type martial arts fighter. The guy must be 7 feet tall plus.

    Also it finishes with a violent showdown on a ocean going liner.

    OSS 117 books date back to the late 1940s and were a huge success in France throughout the 1950s and beyond.
  • BondJasonBond006BondJasonBond006 SwitzerlandPosts: 870MI6 Agent
    There are two "new" OSS 117 films. Both very, very good. Jean Dujardin actually would have been much better as Bond than what we got, but of course he is French.

    you can look him up...here:

    http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0464913/mediaviewer/rm2390608896

    scroll through the pics and I can recommend this film and the sequel, very.
    Dalton Rulez™
  • MrGoreMrGore Posts: 129MI6 Agent
    There are two "new" OSS 117 films.

    The thing about the 1960s OSS 117 movies is that they're played absolutely straight. Not for laughs at all. They are much more like Bond movies, only without the budget. Particularly the ones where Stafford plays OSS 117. They are spy movies with exotic locales, nasty villains and some good action set pieces.

    There's plenty to enjoy in them. They're solid if not that spectacular.

    The Dujardin movies are fun, I agree.

    As far as the influence of Italian Eurospy movies of the mid 1960s on subsequent Bond movies? Well, let's say that's a topic for further analysis.
  • IanFryerIanFryer Posts: 327MI6 Agent
    MrGore wrote:
    I know not strictly a spoof but:

    The OSS 117 movie, Atout cœur à Tokyo pour OSS 117 came out a year before YOLT.

    It had a story written by Bond director Terence Young.

    There are some really excellent parts in it. There is a fantastic fight scene between the Connery lookalike Frederick Stafford (OSS 117) and a huge Jaws type martial arts fighter. The guy must be 7 feet tall plus.

    Also it finishes with a violent showdown on a ocean going liner.

    OSS 117 books date back to the late 1940s and were a huge success in France throughout the 1950s and beyond.

    I've got a few of the books. Would love to see the 60s films but the DVDs are expensive and I haven't found the films online to stream
  • MrGoreMrGore Posts: 129MI6 Agent
    IanFryer wrote:
    I've got a few of the books.
    I've been planning to read some of them for ages. I know that only a handful were translated into English at the height of Bondmania in the 60's.

    I think there are about 200 novels in total.

    Starting in 1949 Jean Bruce started the series a few years before Fleming wrote Casino. I think Bruce was writing about 10 novels a year in the series at one point during the 1950s.
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