There's a bit in The Man With The Golden Gun where Bond - having just seen Gibson shot in the head and lost the Solex - is told by M to take Goodnight to Thailand with him. "After tonight's debacle," says M, "an efficient liaison officer wouldn't go amiss."
In 2017, this is a line that elicits guffaws. Mary Goodnight: efficient? This is the girl who nearly fries 007 with her out of control buttocks, yes?
And they're right: Goodnight is a mess, a terrible wimp of a character. But stop and rewind. At that point in the film, what has she done? She's picked up Bond at the ferry terminal. She's proved her local knowledge by telling him about the green Rolls-Royce limos. She's flirted with him, then peevishly noted that he's probably going to shag someone else instead. She has, in short, been an efficient liaison officer.
Oh, she goes downhill fast. Like Tiffany in Diamonds Are Forever, she makes a great first impression, then slips into bimbo mode. Tiffany, however, declines over the course of the film, and still shows smarts at the end. Mary makes a shift change.
Look a bit closer at the film and you can actually pinpoint the moment when efficient Goodnight turns into inefficient Goodnight. When Bond dines with Mary and she rejects his advances, she's cool and capable and funny. When she turns up in his bedroom in the very next scene, she's needy and desperate and the kind of girl who doesn't mind sitting in a cupboard while her intended beau diddles someone else. Her change of mind has always annoyed me, but I think I've finally worked out what happened. Those two scenes were written by two different writers.
Rewind back to the early seventies, and it looks like the as yet unreleased Live and Let Die is going to be great. Broccoli and Saltzman reassemble the winning team, including screenwriter Tom Mankiewicz. Mankiewicz has a concept for Golden Gun, based on Shane: the two greatest guns in the world finally square off. Bond vs Scaramanga. It would be a grittier film than its predecessor - no gadgets, more down to earth.
Something happens though during the process - some have said that Mankiewicz was burned out from the effort of writing his third Bond in as many years, some say there was a falling out with Guy Hamilton. Mankiewicz leaves (with no hard feelings - he returns with ideas for the next two Bonds) and veteran Richard Maibaum is brought in. Maibaum adds the entire Solex subplot to add a MacGuffin 007 and the villain can both pursue. The two storylines mesh badly, clunking from one side to the other and never really satisfying - it's never adequately explained why Scaramanga would be interested in the Solex.
Maibaum also reintroduces humour to the "gritty" script, amping it up for Roger Moore's style. And this is where Goodnight was broken, for me. Until the Phuyuck scene, Goodnight has been - well, not witty, as such, but she's got in a few zingers, and her rejection of 007 comes from a place of strength. In the next scene, she gets locked in a cupboard. Then she gets locked in the boot of a car. Then she activates a laser with her arse.
It occurred to me that all this stupidity only happened in scenes that mentioned the Solex. Andrea and Bond are bargaining over it while Goodnight's in the cupboard. She has it in her handbag when she's locked in the boot. On Scaramanga's island, she's actually funny and doing her best at the dinner table, but when Bond is trying to dig the Solex out she can't even find an off switch on the console. In short, she's only a bimbo when Maibaum writes her.
Now I'm not saying Mankiewicz's Goodnight would've been one of the greatest Bond Girls, up there with Tracy and Vesper. His previous female characters were not great - Tiffany, as mentioned, de-evolves to the point where she falls off an oil rig; Plenty is a hooker who's thrown in a pool topless; Rosie is naive to the point of stupidity and is killed; Solitaire is a drippy virgin. But Andrea, in the same film, is great; she's sophisticated and exotic and haunted.
Part of Andrea's success is of course down to Maud Adams, so a word about Britt Ekland. She's very pretty, and... that's it. Tiffany is a far better Bond Girl than Goodnight, despite the same downward slide, because she was being played by Jill St John, a gifted comic actress. Britt Ekland is not funny, and it harms Goodnight as a character. Britt is adequate in the early scenes, but when she's being chucked about she's just there. Maibaum's vision of a woman who can't control her own buttocks may have worked with someone else: imagine what Goldie Hawn would've done with it! As it is - not so much.
Watch the film again and switch it off after Phuyuck and you'd think that Mary Goodnight was a competent agent in Her Majesty's secret service with a flirtatious side and the power to say no to 007. I'm sure that was how Goodnight would've been throughout the film, if there hadn't been these last minute rewrites. (I'm also sure that the dinner scene was a Mankiewicz creation - the dialogue is sharp and barbed, and Mary's role is similar to Tiffany's on the oil rig). She's not that exciting, which is why I can see Maibaum would introduce easy gags as a way to give her a bit more colour and personality. They were working on a deadline so, yeah, stick the blonde in the boot of a car and let's move on.
Of course, this is all theory. I don't have access to the original scripts to compare and contrast (if you want to send them to me, feel free). But I'm glad to finally have an explanation for Goodnight's change of heart in Thailand. It's so sudden, so out of character, and so wrong, it's irritated me for years. I'm happy to have my own headcanon to explain it away.
Tuesday, 27 June 2017
Monday, 20 March 2017
If my demands are not met, I shall proceed with the systematic extinction of a whole series of cereals and livestock all across the world.
There's been a minor piece of Bond 25 news lately, as apparently Neil Purvis & Robert Wade have been hired to write a script. This has been met with horror in certain quarters, because apparently we've reached the stage where Spectre is the worst film ever made; a film can no longer just be "not very good", it has to be apocalyptically awful. Somehow, Purvis & Wade are to blame for Spectre's failures, which seems unfair since they were the last people brought on board. Personally I'd blame John Logan, because many of the criticisms of Spectre - its fan-wankery, its attempts to answer questions that no-one ever posed, its refusal to ever stop - could also be levelled at Logan's Star Trek Nemesis.
James Bond is incredibly hard to write, as anyone who's read my fanfic While England's Dreaming will attest. Each Bond film or novel needs to be exactly the same as the one before and also completely different to the one before; it needs to be extremely modern and yet still hark back to the fifties and sixties; it needs to present a modern rounded character who is somehow also just a blunt instrument. Few people can do it, which is why the same names keep turning up - Richard Maibaum, Tom Mankiewicz, Michael G Wilson, Bruce Feirstein and, yes, Purvis & Wade. If they can take this formula and make it fresh and interesting time and again, then by all means, keep returning to them. Mickey and Babs are smart enough to know that they can get the old reliables to knock up a framework and then bring in a John Logan or a Jez Butterworth or a Paul Haggis to spice it up.
Having said all that, I do have a few requests, and as someone who occasionally knocks out a Bond blog which is read by literally ones of people, I feel that Purvis & Wade should listen to me. So here's what I'd like to see in Bond 25.
1. No sign of Madeline Swann.
She's dead, she's missing, she just got bored; whatever. Use another bit of leftover Fleming and have her run off to America with a US Embassy attache. I don't care. Lea Seydoux is a lovely actress, and she did her best, but Madeline was just boring. She reminds me of Harriet Horner or Flicka von Grusse, Bond Girls created by later writers who James Bond supposedly considers on a romantic par with Vesper and Tracy. They're not. Give it up. Don't kill her in the pre-titles and have Bond go out for revenge for the rest of the film. In fact...
2. Don't make it personal.
By my count, the last film where Bond didn't have some kind of deep personal reason for fighting the villain was The Living Daylights, thirty years ago. Since then, there's always been a certain level of betrayal or revenge and I'm bored of it. James Bond is a civil servant whose job happens to include a lot of sex and violence. Do that. His motivation should only be that a crime is to be committed against the UK or the world. That's plenty. Turn up at MI6, get your assignment, then bugger off to Hong Kong or Seville or wherever and kill some people before they kill us. Speaking of which...
3. Enough of the Scooby Gang.
Bond is a lone figure. He has few friends and fewer emotional attachments. And part of the glory of a Bond film or book is seeing him manage to overcome the odds all on his own. Spectre, though, had him being aided by M, Q, Moneypenny and Tanner, with Bond's hunt for Madeline being paralleled with the MI6 crew stopping Moriarty. No. I get that when you've got actors of the calibre of Fiennes et al on staff, you want to use them, but no. A bit of help is fine - we all love it when Q turns up in the Bahamas - but beyond that, stop. M can give Bond the assignment. Moneypenny can pine hopelessly. Tanner can... do something. If Bond needs help then...
4. Bring back Felix Leiter.
I never thought I'd be advocating more Leiter, but Jeffrey Wright is great as Felix, and he's barely been in these films. If you want Bond to have someone to talk to and to work with, that's Felix's job. If you can't get Jeffrey Wright back again, then feel free to create an ally for whatever country Bond is in. A new Mathis, a new Vijay, a new Tanaka. You can even kill him if you want to go really traditional; it'll make the baddie look even badder. As would...
5. Give the villain a proper scheme.
Daniel Craig's fought four villains and only one - Dominic Greene - had a proper, Bond movie Evil Scheme. (One which is sadly foggy in the finished film). Le Chiffre was just cleaning up a mess of his own creation, Silva just wanted to kill M, and Blofeld just wanted to get his hands on a lot of information. Boring. I'm guessing we're never again going to see a Bond baddie try to eradicate the entire population of the earth, but how about an ambitious plan to do something properly nefarious? Create a war for some reason. Hold a country to ransom. Threaten something with destruction. Something with a nice big ticking clock and a fight against the odds. And if it involves two huge armies fighting in a secret underground base, all the better. In other words...
6. Make a Bond film.
Finally, please, give in and make a Bond film. Have Bond actually enjoy his job. Have a couple of beautiful girls: one dies, one lives, no-one falls in love. Have some outrageous stunts. Have some jokes. Have lots of jokes. Make it fun and exciting and entertaining. I know you're worried it might go a bit A View To A Kill, but it might go a bit GoldenEye. It might go a bit Spy Who Loved Me. It might go a bit World Is Not Enough. Make a Bond film, not an action movie with James Bond in it. It'd just be nice.
Or, you know, ignore everything I've said and make exactly what you want to make. Let's face it; you've already got my money, so who cares what I think?
James Bond is incredibly hard to write, as anyone who's read my fanfic While England's Dreaming will attest. Each Bond film or novel needs to be exactly the same as the one before and also completely different to the one before; it needs to be extremely modern and yet still hark back to the fifties and sixties; it needs to present a modern rounded character who is somehow also just a blunt instrument. Few people can do it, which is why the same names keep turning up - Richard Maibaum, Tom Mankiewicz, Michael G Wilson, Bruce Feirstein and, yes, Purvis & Wade. If they can take this formula and make it fresh and interesting time and again, then by all means, keep returning to them. Mickey and Babs are smart enough to know that they can get the old reliables to knock up a framework and then bring in a John Logan or a Jez Butterworth or a Paul Haggis to spice it up.
Having said all that, I do have a few requests, and as someone who occasionally knocks out a Bond blog which is read by literally ones of people, I feel that Purvis & Wade should listen to me. So here's what I'd like to see in Bond 25.
1. No sign of Madeline Swann.
She's dead, she's missing, she just got bored; whatever. Use another bit of leftover Fleming and have her run off to America with a US Embassy attache. I don't care. Lea Seydoux is a lovely actress, and she did her best, but Madeline was just boring. She reminds me of Harriet Horner or Flicka von Grusse, Bond Girls created by later writers who James Bond supposedly considers on a romantic par with Vesper and Tracy. They're not. Give it up. Don't kill her in the pre-titles and have Bond go out for revenge for the rest of the film. In fact...
2. Don't make it personal.
By my count, the last film where Bond didn't have some kind of deep personal reason for fighting the villain was The Living Daylights, thirty years ago. Since then, there's always been a certain level of betrayal or revenge and I'm bored of it. James Bond is a civil servant whose job happens to include a lot of sex and violence. Do that. His motivation should only be that a crime is to be committed against the UK or the world. That's plenty. Turn up at MI6, get your assignment, then bugger off to Hong Kong or Seville or wherever and kill some people before they kill us. Speaking of which...
3. Enough of the Scooby Gang.
Bond is a lone figure. He has few friends and fewer emotional attachments. And part of the glory of a Bond film or book is seeing him manage to overcome the odds all on his own. Spectre, though, had him being aided by M, Q, Moneypenny and Tanner, with Bond's hunt for Madeline being paralleled with the MI6 crew stopping Moriarty. No. I get that when you've got actors of the calibre of Fiennes et al on staff, you want to use them, but no. A bit of help is fine - we all love it when Q turns up in the Bahamas - but beyond that, stop. M can give Bond the assignment. Moneypenny can pine hopelessly. Tanner can... do something. If Bond needs help then...
4. Bring back Felix Leiter.
I never thought I'd be advocating more Leiter, but Jeffrey Wright is great as Felix, and he's barely been in these films. If you want Bond to have someone to talk to and to work with, that's Felix's job. If you can't get Jeffrey Wright back again, then feel free to create an ally for whatever country Bond is in. A new Mathis, a new Vijay, a new Tanaka. You can even kill him if you want to go really traditional; it'll make the baddie look even badder. As would...
5. Give the villain a proper scheme.
Daniel Craig's fought four villains and only one - Dominic Greene - had a proper, Bond movie Evil Scheme. (One which is sadly foggy in the finished film). Le Chiffre was just cleaning up a mess of his own creation, Silva just wanted to kill M, and Blofeld just wanted to get his hands on a lot of information. Boring. I'm guessing we're never again going to see a Bond baddie try to eradicate the entire population of the earth, but how about an ambitious plan to do something properly nefarious? Create a war for some reason. Hold a country to ransom. Threaten something with destruction. Something with a nice big ticking clock and a fight against the odds. And if it involves two huge armies fighting in a secret underground base, all the better. In other words...
6. Make a Bond film.
Finally, please, give in and make a Bond film. Have Bond actually enjoy his job. Have a couple of beautiful girls: one dies, one lives, no-one falls in love. Have some outrageous stunts. Have some jokes. Have lots of jokes. Make it fun and exciting and entertaining. I know you're worried it might go a bit A View To A Kill, but it might go a bit GoldenEye. It might go a bit Spy Who Loved Me. It might go a bit World Is Not Enough. Make a Bond film, not an action movie with James Bond in it. It'd just be nice.
Or, you know, ignore everything I've said and make exactly what you want to make. Let's face it; you've already got my money, so who cares what I think?
Saturday, 11 February 2017
James Bond's Greatest Hits
Singing a Bond theme is an honour. It's a privilege. It should be one of the highlights of your career; admission into a select band of artistes.
As such, as far as I'm concerned, there is an absolute: put your Bond theme on your Greatest Hits. I don't care if you're a "serious" artist, I don't care if it didn't actually do as well as some of your other tracks. You sang the theme to a James Bond film; it is a career high point.
Does every performer do this, though? I decided to have a whizz through some of the Greatest Hits albums available on Amazon, and see if the singers in question have kept their end of the bargain. There will be harsh stares if they haven't.
Artist: Matt Monro
Song: From Russia With Love
Album: The Very Best of Matt Monro
Is The Bond Theme There?: YES
That album is absolutely worth buying, by the way. He's a fantastic crooner.
Artist: Shirley Bassey
Songs: Goldfinger, Diamonds Are Forever, Moonraker
Album: The Greatest Hits: This Is My Life
Is The Bond Theme There?: YES
Well, obviously. She IS The Voice Of Bond, after all.
Artist: Tom Jones
Song: Thunderball
Album: Greatest Hits
Is The Bond Theme There?: YES
Did you know Tom fainted when he did that final end note? No? In that case, welcome to Earth, recently-arrived alien.
Artist: Nancy Sinatra
Song: You Only Live Twice
Album: The Very Best of Nancy Sinatra
Is The Bond Theme There?: YES
It's lucky they could find space to squeeze YOLT on there, what with Nancy's many, many other hits *side eye*
Artist: Louis Armstrong
Song: We Have All The Time In The World
Album: The Very Best of Louis Armstrong
Is The Bond Theme There?: YES
You could legitimately make a case that a legend like Louis Armstrong didn't need to include the underperforming We Have All The Time In The World, but there it is.
Artist: Paul McCartney and Wings
Song: Live and Let Die
Album: Wings Greatest
Is The Bond Theme There?: YES
I always liked that Macca.
Artist: Lulu
Song: The Man With The Golden Gun
Album: Erm...
Is The Bond Theme There?: Sort of.
It seems that Lulu has a somewhat complicated history of "Greatest Hits". Her work with various different record companies means that songs are scattered all over the place. The top hit on Amazon, Greatest Hits, doesn't have TMWTGG. But it also doesn't have The Man Who Sold The World or Boom Bang-A-Bang or Independence. The next one, Best of, has TMWTGG and The Man Who Sold The World, but there's no To Sir With Love or Boom Bang-a-Bang or Independence. The third hit, also called The Best Of, has all those songs... but no The Man With The Golden Gun. I think we're going to have to give Lulu a "could do better". Sort it out, woman.
Artist: Carly Simon
Song: Nobody Does It Better
Album: Nobody Does It Better: The Very Best of Carly Simon
Is The Bond Theme There?: Clue's in the title, folks.
I did have a minor panic, because the very first hit on Amazon is for The Best of Carly Simon, which doesn't include Nobody Does It Better. The shock of this sent me to Wikipedia, where I discovered that album was in fact released in 1975. Phew.
Artist: Sheena Easton
Song: For Your Eyes Only
Album: The Best of Sheena Easton
Is The Bond Theme There?: NO
Even though I'm pretty sure the cover art is from the publicity for her Bond Theme, Sheena doesn't include For Your Eyes Only on her Best Of. RUDE. However, I think this may be another Lulu-esque rights issue, because a different Greatest Hits, The Gold Collection, does have FYEO on it. Meanwhile I'm wondering how Sheena Easton can have more than one Greatest Hits collection.
Artist: Rita Coolidge
Song: All Time High
Album: 20th Century Masters - The Millennium Collection: Rita Coolidge
Is The Bond Theme There?: YES
Of course it's on there. In fact, there's a 1993 collection that's actually called All Time High.
Artist: Duran Duran
Song: A View To A Kill
Album: Greatest
Is The Bond Theme There?: YES
Track 3, in fact, ahead of many of their bigger hits.
Artist: a-ha
Song: The Living Daylights
Album: Time and Again: The Ultimate a-ha
Is The Bond Theme There?: YES
It seems that in the years between recording the song and releasing their Greatest Hits, a-ha have mellowed towards their Bond theme: the version on this album is John Barry's mix, not the far more synth-heavy version they petulantly put on Stay On These Roads.
Artist: Gladys Knight
Song: Licence To Kill
Album: The Greatest Hits
Is The Bond Theme There?: YES
This is slightly complicated by Gladys's work with the Pips; most of the Best Of collections cover her work as a group, with maybe an odd solo effort. This album seems to have the best of both worlds. Unfortunately I'm not sure if it's the long mix from the LTK soundtrack or the superior single mix.
Artist: Tina Turner
Song: GoldenEye
Album: All The Best
Is The Bond Theme There?: YES
Tina's a classy lady. Of course she'll include her Bond theme.
Artist: Sheryl Crow
Song: Tomorrow Never Dies
Album: The Very Best of Sheryl Crow
Is The Bond Theme There?: NO
I know Sheryl wasn't over keen on her Bond theme, but really? On an album with 17 tracks, there wasn't room for Tomorrow Never Dies? Compounding the omission is the fact that this is the "UK/Japan" version, and TND was one of her bigger hits in those countries. How dare you, Ms Crow. This is just further evidence that Surrender should have been the title song.
Artist: Garbage
Song: The World Is Not Enough
Album: Absolute Garbage
Is The Bond Theme There?: YES
SEE, SHERYL? TWINE isn't a typical Garbage song, but they still put it on THEIR Greatest Hits. They're CLASSY like that.
Artist: Madonna
Song: Die Another Day
Album: Celebration
Is The Bond Theme There?: YES but see below
There were two versions of Celebration: a single disc version and a 2 CD version. DAD doesn't make it to the single CD version, but for once, that seems fair enough: it's MADONNA. Squeezing all her hits onto a single disc is difficult enough. Die Another Day is on the two disc version (and is also on the earlier GHV2), and yet it still misses out True Blue and Causing a Commotion and Dear Jessie and Rain and other big Madge classics. SEE SHERYL - MADONNA COULD'VE GOT AWAY WITH NOT INCLUDING HER BOND THEME AND YET SHE STILL STUCK IT ON THERE.
Artist: Chris Cornell
Song: You Know My Name
Album: The Roads We Chose
Is The Bond Theme There?: YES
Chris Cornell doesn't actually have a commercially available Greatest Hits album: The Roads We Chose was a promotional CD that received a very limited release. But fair play, You Know My Name is on there.
And that's the end of the line, because Jack White, Alicia Keys, Adele and Sam Smith are yet to release Greatest Hits albums. At a guess, I'd say Skyfall and Writing's On The Wall will take pride of place on their singers' Best Ofs, but Another Way To Die will be quietly skipped past; it's extremely atypical for both artists and, as a duet, it's not going to be as important as their solo work. I hope I'm wrong. Come on, Jack and Alicia. Don't be a Sheryl.
PS: in case you was wondering, Patti Labelle's Greatest Hits does include If You Asked Me To, but The Pretenders, Eric Serra, k d lang and Scott Walker have left their Bond songs off their respective Best Of albums. Somewhat bafflingly, I can find no record of a Tim Feehan Greatest Hits.
As such, as far as I'm concerned, there is an absolute: put your Bond theme on your Greatest Hits. I don't care if you're a "serious" artist, I don't care if it didn't actually do as well as some of your other tracks. You sang the theme to a James Bond film; it is a career high point.
Does every performer do this, though? I decided to have a whizz through some of the Greatest Hits albums available on Amazon, and see if the singers in question have kept their end of the bargain. There will be harsh stares if they haven't.
Artist: Matt Monro
Song: From Russia With Love
Album: The Very Best of Matt Monro
Is The Bond Theme There?: YES
That album is absolutely worth buying, by the way. He's a fantastic crooner.
Artist: Shirley Bassey
Songs: Goldfinger, Diamonds Are Forever, Moonraker
Album: The Greatest Hits: This Is My Life
Is The Bond Theme There?: YES
Well, obviously. She IS The Voice Of Bond, after all.
Artist: Tom Jones
Song: Thunderball
Album: Greatest Hits
Is The Bond Theme There?: YES
Did you know Tom fainted when he did that final end note? No? In that case, welcome to Earth, recently-arrived alien.
Artist: Nancy Sinatra
Song: You Only Live Twice
Album: The Very Best of Nancy Sinatra
Is The Bond Theme There?: YES
It's lucky they could find space to squeeze YOLT on there, what with Nancy's many, many other hits *side eye*
Artist: Louis Armstrong
Song: We Have All The Time In The World
Album: The Very Best of Louis Armstrong
Is The Bond Theme There?: YES
You could legitimately make a case that a legend like Louis Armstrong didn't need to include the underperforming We Have All The Time In The World, but there it is.
Artist: Paul McCartney and Wings
Song: Live and Let Die
Album: Wings Greatest
Is The Bond Theme There?: YES
I always liked that Macca.
Artist: Lulu
Song: The Man With The Golden Gun
Album: Erm...
Is The Bond Theme There?: Sort of.
It seems that Lulu has a somewhat complicated history of "Greatest Hits". Her work with various different record companies means that songs are scattered all over the place. The top hit on Amazon, Greatest Hits, doesn't have TMWTGG. But it also doesn't have The Man Who Sold The World or Boom Bang-A-Bang or Independence. The next one, Best of, has TMWTGG and The Man Who Sold The World, but there's no To Sir With Love or Boom Bang-a-Bang or Independence. The third hit, also called The Best Of, has all those songs... but no The Man With The Golden Gun. I think we're going to have to give Lulu a "could do better". Sort it out, woman.
Artist: Carly Simon
Song: Nobody Does It Better
Album: Nobody Does It Better: The Very Best of Carly Simon
Is The Bond Theme There?: Clue's in the title, folks.
I did have a minor panic, because the very first hit on Amazon is for The Best of Carly Simon, which doesn't include Nobody Does It Better. The shock of this sent me to Wikipedia, where I discovered that album was in fact released in 1975. Phew.
Artist: Sheena Easton
Song: For Your Eyes Only
Album: The Best of Sheena Easton
Is The Bond Theme There?: NO
Even though I'm pretty sure the cover art is from the publicity for her Bond Theme, Sheena doesn't include For Your Eyes Only on her Best Of. RUDE. However, I think this may be another Lulu-esque rights issue, because a different Greatest Hits, The Gold Collection, does have FYEO on it. Meanwhile I'm wondering how Sheena Easton can have more than one Greatest Hits collection.
Artist: Rita Coolidge
Song: All Time High
Album: 20th Century Masters - The Millennium Collection: Rita Coolidge
Is The Bond Theme There?: YES
Of course it's on there. In fact, there's a 1993 collection that's actually called All Time High.
Artist: Duran Duran
Song: A View To A Kill
Album: Greatest
Is The Bond Theme There?: YES
Track 3, in fact, ahead of many of their bigger hits.
Artist: a-ha
Song: The Living Daylights
Album: Time and Again: The Ultimate a-ha
Is The Bond Theme There?: YES
It seems that in the years between recording the song and releasing their Greatest Hits, a-ha have mellowed towards their Bond theme: the version on this album is John Barry's mix, not the far more synth-heavy version they petulantly put on Stay On These Roads.
Artist: Gladys Knight
Song: Licence To Kill
Album: The Greatest Hits
Is The Bond Theme There?: YES
This is slightly complicated by Gladys's work with the Pips; most of the Best Of collections cover her work as a group, with maybe an odd solo effort. This album seems to have the best of both worlds. Unfortunately I'm not sure if it's the long mix from the LTK soundtrack or the superior single mix.
Artist: Tina Turner
Song: GoldenEye
Album: All The Best
Is The Bond Theme There?: YES
Tina's a classy lady. Of course she'll include her Bond theme.
Artist: Sheryl Crow
Song: Tomorrow Never Dies
Album: The Very Best of Sheryl Crow
Is The Bond Theme There?: NO
I know Sheryl wasn't over keen on her Bond theme, but really? On an album with 17 tracks, there wasn't room for Tomorrow Never Dies? Compounding the omission is the fact that this is the "UK/Japan" version, and TND was one of her bigger hits in those countries. How dare you, Ms Crow. This is just further evidence that Surrender should have been the title song.
Artist: Garbage
Song: The World Is Not Enough
Album: Absolute Garbage
Is The Bond Theme There?: YES
SEE, SHERYL? TWINE isn't a typical Garbage song, but they still put it on THEIR Greatest Hits. They're CLASSY like that.
Artist: Madonna
Song: Die Another Day
Album: Celebration
Is The Bond Theme There?: YES but see below
There were two versions of Celebration: a single disc version and a 2 CD version. DAD doesn't make it to the single CD version, but for once, that seems fair enough: it's MADONNA. Squeezing all her hits onto a single disc is difficult enough. Die Another Day is on the two disc version (and is also on the earlier GHV2), and yet it still misses out True Blue and Causing a Commotion and Dear Jessie and Rain and other big Madge classics. SEE SHERYL - MADONNA COULD'VE GOT AWAY WITH NOT INCLUDING HER BOND THEME AND YET SHE STILL STUCK IT ON THERE.
Artist: Chris Cornell
Song: You Know My Name
Album: The Roads We Chose
Is The Bond Theme There?: YES
Chris Cornell doesn't actually have a commercially available Greatest Hits album: The Roads We Chose was a promotional CD that received a very limited release. But fair play, You Know My Name is on there.
And that's the end of the line, because Jack White, Alicia Keys, Adele and Sam Smith are yet to release Greatest Hits albums. At a guess, I'd say Skyfall and Writing's On The Wall will take pride of place on their singers' Best Ofs, but Another Way To Die will be quietly skipped past; it's extremely atypical for both artists and, as a duet, it's not going to be as important as their solo work. I hope I'm wrong. Come on, Jack and Alicia. Don't be a Sheryl.
PS: in case you was wondering, Patti Labelle's Greatest Hits does include If You Asked Me To, but The Pretenders, Eric Serra, k d lang and Scott Walker have left their Bond songs off their respective Best Of albums. Somewhat bafflingly, I can find no record of a Tim Feehan Greatest Hits.
Friday, 21 October 2016
Lift List
The question of "who is the best James Bond?" is one that will never be answered. There's enough difference between each of the six* actors to play the part to make comparisons irrelevant. Daniel Craig lacks the lightness of touch to make Octopussy a success; the bored, overweight Connery of You Only Live Twice would have ruined On Her Majesty's Secret Service; acting novice George Lazenby would have been flummoxed by the rigours of Casino Royale. They are very different men in very different films.
I am here to judge them on a very different criteria. I have boarded a lift to the top of a very tall building, and a James Bond actor has got on the lift with me. Halfway up, the elevator becomes stuck, and we realise that we are trapped there for several hours until help arrives. Which James Bond actors would make this time fly, and which ones would make me lever open the doors and risk leaping down the shaft? It is, in short, a judgement on the public personas of the actors, built up over my three decades of Bond fandom. It's very personal, it might be completely wrong, but here are how I'd rate the 007s, from worst to best:
6. George Lazenby
I genuinely believe that Lazenby regrets a lot of his arrogant behaviour on the set of OHMSS, and age and maturity will have certainly mellowed him over the decades. He still seems like a bit of a self-centred arse though - ask Pam Shriver - and he'd almost inevitably want to talk about his real estate empire in our elevator prison rather than, say, sharing filthy anecdotes about Telly Savalas.
5. Pierce Brosnan
I have long had the impression that no-one, in any room, is as interesting to Pierce Brosnan as Pierce Brosnan himself. Our hours together would almost inevitably be spent discussing Brosnan's paintings, his charity work, his acting training, his devotion to his craft, his house in Malibu, his cooking skills... If he did mention Bond, it'd be the fascinating story about how Goldfinger was the first film he ever saw. Again. I'd probably be asleep when the fire crews arrived.
4. Sean Connery
This one's on a knife edge, because it very much depends what mood Sean's in when we get trapped together. If it's the funny, rollicking Sean, the one that laughs and jokes and twinkles mischievously, then you could have a really good time. However, as he's aged, the other Sean seems to be more common, the grouchy one who bangs on about taxation and Scottish independence and how awful everyone on The League of Extraordinary Gentleman was. That would be absolute hell. (There is a third option, where you get the Sean Connery who talks about golf, and in many ways that would be the worst Sean Connery of all).
3. Daniel Craig
I have long maintained that Daniel Craig has a very sly, very dark sense of humour. I bet he's a really good laugh after a few pints of beer, and he certainly seems to be well-respected by his peers which points to a good personality. However, in the enclosed, airless environment of a trapped lift, jet black jokes about us plummeting to our deaths would quickly wear thin.
2. Roger Moore
Obviously, Sir Rog is an absolute doll. No-one who has ever spent more than five minutes with him has a bad word to say; indeed, if people don't get along with him, you judge them. The problem is that lovely as he is, he has perfected a certain shtick, particularly in the last twenty years, which he will almost certainly wheel out. Imagine the social awkwardness of maintaining a fixed grin as Moore wheels out the Jimmy Tarbuck/Pussy Galore "well, we don't go looking for it!" anecdote again.
1. Timothy Dalton
Another actor who is, by all reports, an absolute sweetheart, Dalton has the advantage over Moore of a certain quiet shyness. Time in the trapped lift would Tim would be less of a rollicking laugh fest, but would be more interesting, and his jokes and anecdotes would be unexpected and appreciated. He also has a calmness that would mean you wouldn't get stressed or panicky. The fact that the boy from Colwyn Bay is also my favourite 007 is pure coincidence.
*If forced to include the unofficial Bonds, David Niven would slot in between Daniel Craig, because that effervescent wit is never unwelcome, while Barry Nelson would go at the bottom of the list because, bless him, once you've asked about Peter Lorre and Stanley Kubrick, what else would you talk about?
I am here to judge them on a very different criteria. I have boarded a lift to the top of a very tall building, and a James Bond actor has got on the lift with me. Halfway up, the elevator becomes stuck, and we realise that we are trapped there for several hours until help arrives. Which James Bond actors would make this time fly, and which ones would make me lever open the doors and risk leaping down the shaft? It is, in short, a judgement on the public personas of the actors, built up over my three decades of Bond fandom. It's very personal, it might be completely wrong, but here are how I'd rate the 007s, from worst to best:
6. George Lazenby
I genuinely believe that Lazenby regrets a lot of his arrogant behaviour on the set of OHMSS, and age and maturity will have certainly mellowed him over the decades. He still seems like a bit of a self-centred arse though - ask Pam Shriver - and he'd almost inevitably want to talk about his real estate empire in our elevator prison rather than, say, sharing filthy anecdotes about Telly Savalas.
5. Pierce Brosnan
I have long had the impression that no-one, in any room, is as interesting to Pierce Brosnan as Pierce Brosnan himself. Our hours together would almost inevitably be spent discussing Brosnan's paintings, his charity work, his acting training, his devotion to his craft, his house in Malibu, his cooking skills... If he did mention Bond, it'd be the fascinating story about how Goldfinger was the first film he ever saw. Again. I'd probably be asleep when the fire crews arrived.
4. Sean Connery
This one's on a knife edge, because it very much depends what mood Sean's in when we get trapped together. If it's the funny, rollicking Sean, the one that laughs and jokes and twinkles mischievously, then you could have a really good time. However, as he's aged, the other Sean seems to be more common, the grouchy one who bangs on about taxation and Scottish independence and how awful everyone on The League of Extraordinary Gentleman was. That would be absolute hell. (There is a third option, where you get the Sean Connery who talks about golf, and in many ways that would be the worst Sean Connery of all).
3. Daniel Craig
I have long maintained that Daniel Craig has a very sly, very dark sense of humour. I bet he's a really good laugh after a few pints of beer, and he certainly seems to be well-respected by his peers which points to a good personality. However, in the enclosed, airless environment of a trapped lift, jet black jokes about us plummeting to our deaths would quickly wear thin.
2. Roger Moore
Obviously, Sir Rog is an absolute doll. No-one who has ever spent more than five minutes with him has a bad word to say; indeed, if people don't get along with him, you judge them. The problem is that lovely as he is, he has perfected a certain shtick, particularly in the last twenty years, which he will almost certainly wheel out. Imagine the social awkwardness of maintaining a fixed grin as Moore wheels out the Jimmy Tarbuck/Pussy Galore "well, we don't go looking for it!" anecdote again.
1. Timothy Dalton
Another actor who is, by all reports, an absolute sweetheart, Dalton has the advantage over Moore of a certain quiet shyness. Time in the trapped lift would Tim would be less of a rollicking laugh fest, but would be more interesting, and his jokes and anecdotes would be unexpected and appreciated. He also has a calmness that would mean you wouldn't get stressed or panicky. The fact that the boy from Colwyn Bay is also my favourite 007 is pure coincidence.
*If forced to include the unofficial Bonds, David Niven would slot in between Daniel Craig, because that effervescent wit is never unwelcome, while Barry Nelson would go at the bottom of the list because, bless him, once you've asked about Peter Lorre and Stanley Kubrick, what else would you talk about?
Wednesday, 22 June 2016
Siren Song
Judging women is wrong, and ranking them in some kind of order is worse. It's sexist and it's immoral and it's cheap. What is this, 1973? YOU MIGHT AS WELL BRING BACK BENNY HILL YOU MONSTER.
Now I've got that out the way, I'm going to totally do it. The Siren sequence in Moonraker is a weird moment in an already out-there movie. But while other strange sequences involve odd gadgets or misfiring humour or bird life expressing amazement at a hovercraft, the Siren sequence stands out for its dream-like atmosphere. Bond crashes the hang glider he's just flown over the top of a waterfall - like I say: Moonraker - and his attention is caught by a beautiful blonde woman in a flowing white dress. He follows her, because he's James Bond, and ends up inside a Mayan temple (please note, the Mayan temple in the film was in Guatemala, and Bond crashed his glider in Brazil, but go with it).
It's an off-kilter mix of modern and ancient, man-made and natural. Greenery on top of plasticky rocks. A concrete roof over a waterfall. And, round the edge of the pool, eight beautiful women to tempt 007. The lead girl, the one in the flowing white robes, crosses a bridge over the pool and beckons for Bond to follow (in a nice Ken Adam in-joke, it looks just like the bridge that dropped Helga Brandt into the piranha pool in You Only Live Twice, and so 007 goes nowhere near it). He ends up in the water anyway, attacked by a clearly stuffed anaconda, while the girls look on impassively.
It's their cool detachment that makes this scene all the better. They stare, cold, unfeeling, perhaps with a hint of a smile. It's great.
But some of the girls are greater than the others, so here's a completely awful and sexist ranking of which Siren is better than their peers. I mean, they're all awesome, but some are just a little bit more awesome.
8. Lady Victoria Devon
Yes, some of these girls actually have names, because they show up earlier in the film. Lady Victoria here was listening to Drax's piano recital, though she's sent away before the cucumber sandwiches come out. She's in last place because she's kind of dull, though well done to Drax for including gingers in his master race: very progressive.
7. Asian Siren
Now, I call her "Asian Siren", but I'm not entirely sure if she is actually Asian or not. She's certainly painted that way, but there's so much make-up on her it's difficult to tell. She could be an entrant in a Japan-themed catwalk on RuPaul's Drag Race. Which is a shame, because there's probably a very pretty girl under the fourteen pounds of mascara.
6. Lead Siren
Also known as the receptionist at Venini Glass, where she is really badly dubbed. There's something a little off about all the voices in Moonraker - practically every line has the slightly tinny air of being ADR'd in months later - but this one's terrible. Not least because she's got a really strong French accent despite being in Venice. She's at number 6 because it really annoys me that she gets to wear a big floaty dress while all the other girls are crammed into DraxCorp spacesuits.
5. Museum Guide Siren
Very pretty, and she's very good at her schtick in the museum. (Incidentally, when she demonstrates the alarm on the glass bowl it's an infra-red system, but when Bond grabs it later, the alarm is based on there being weight on the pedestal, an entirely different system. That annoys me every time). She nods and smiles at Bond in a sort of "oh, I remember you!" kind of way, which is cute. She also steps forward to get a better look when he's about to get crushed to death by a giant serpent, the sick bitch (this is not a complaint).
4. Countess Libinski
LOOK AT THAT HAIR. LOOK AT IT. SO SHINY AND BEAUTIFUL. I JUST WANT TO STROKE IT.
3. Black Siren
Hugo Drax might be a fascist psychopath, but he's not a racist fascist psychopath, as this young lady demonstrates. She's fierce as hell, and I want to know her skin care secrets.
2. Mademoiselle Deladier
This girl gets second place for her transformation. Look at her above: sweet, virginal, pure. A face that could melt the coldest of hearts.
Once the anaconda attacks, however, she looks like this:
HOLY SHIT. That is a flat-out evil stare. She looks like she should be coaching an East German gymnastics team. I'm a little bit terrified and a little bit in love.
1. Big Hair Siren
There's something endearingly daffy about this girl, from the big, big hair down past the arched eyebrows and finishing at the smirk. She looks fun. I'd like to go out for a drink with this girl. I bet after a few V&Ts she'll have her high heels over her shoulder and she'll be dishing out the gossip about all the other Sirens.
She's also incredibly disappointed when Bond survives. Her chirpy joy at the prospect of seeing a man crushed until his eyeballs pop out is destroyed. I hope she at least got to pop a few American astronauts on the space station before her inevitable demise. That'll cheer her up.
Now I've got that out the way, I'm going to totally do it. The Siren sequence in Moonraker is a weird moment in an already out-there movie. But while other strange sequences involve odd gadgets or misfiring humour or bird life expressing amazement at a hovercraft, the Siren sequence stands out for its dream-like atmosphere. Bond crashes the hang glider he's just flown over the top of a waterfall - like I say: Moonraker - and his attention is caught by a beautiful blonde woman in a flowing white dress. He follows her, because he's James Bond, and ends up inside a Mayan temple (please note, the Mayan temple in the film was in Guatemala, and Bond crashed his glider in Brazil, but go with it).
It's an off-kilter mix of modern and ancient, man-made and natural. Greenery on top of plasticky rocks. A concrete roof over a waterfall. And, round the edge of the pool, eight beautiful women to tempt 007. The lead girl, the one in the flowing white robes, crosses a bridge over the pool and beckons for Bond to follow (in a nice Ken Adam in-joke, it looks just like the bridge that dropped Helga Brandt into the piranha pool in You Only Live Twice, and so 007 goes nowhere near it). He ends up in the water anyway, attacked by a clearly stuffed anaconda, while the girls look on impassively.
It's their cool detachment that makes this scene all the better. They stare, cold, unfeeling, perhaps with a hint of a smile. It's great.
But some of the girls are greater than the others, so here's a completely awful and sexist ranking of which Siren is better than their peers. I mean, they're all awesome, but some are just a little bit more awesome.
8. Lady Victoria Devon
Yes, some of these girls actually have names, because they show up earlier in the film. Lady Victoria here was listening to Drax's piano recital, though she's sent away before the cucumber sandwiches come out. She's in last place because she's kind of dull, though well done to Drax for including gingers in his master race: very progressive.
7. Asian Siren
Now, I call her "Asian Siren", but I'm not entirely sure if she is actually Asian or not. She's certainly painted that way, but there's so much make-up on her it's difficult to tell. She could be an entrant in a Japan-themed catwalk on RuPaul's Drag Race. Which is a shame, because there's probably a very pretty girl under the fourteen pounds of mascara.
6. Lead Siren
Also known as the receptionist at Venini Glass, where she is really badly dubbed. There's something a little off about all the voices in Moonraker - practically every line has the slightly tinny air of being ADR'd in months later - but this one's terrible. Not least because she's got a really strong French accent despite being in Venice. She's at number 6 because it really annoys me that she gets to wear a big floaty dress while all the other girls are crammed into DraxCorp spacesuits.
5. Museum Guide Siren
Very pretty, and she's very good at her schtick in the museum. (Incidentally, when she demonstrates the alarm on the glass bowl it's an infra-red system, but when Bond grabs it later, the alarm is based on there being weight on the pedestal, an entirely different system. That annoys me every time). She nods and smiles at Bond in a sort of "oh, I remember you!" kind of way, which is cute. She also steps forward to get a better look when he's about to get crushed to death by a giant serpent, the sick bitch (this is not a complaint).
4. Countess Libinski
LOOK AT THAT HAIR. LOOK AT IT. SO SHINY AND BEAUTIFUL. I JUST WANT TO STROKE IT.
3. Black Siren
Hugo Drax might be a fascist psychopath, but he's not a racist fascist psychopath, as this young lady demonstrates. She's fierce as hell, and I want to know her skin care secrets.
2. Mademoiselle Deladier
This girl gets second place for her transformation. Look at her above: sweet, virginal, pure. A face that could melt the coldest of hearts.
Once the anaconda attacks, however, she looks like this:
HOLY SHIT. That is a flat-out evil stare. She looks like she should be coaching an East German gymnastics team. I'm a little bit terrified and a little bit in love.
1. Big Hair Siren
There's something endearingly daffy about this girl, from the big, big hair down past the arched eyebrows and finishing at the smirk. She looks fun. I'd like to go out for a drink with this girl. I bet after a few V&Ts she'll have her high heels over her shoulder and she'll be dishing out the gossip about all the other Sirens.
She's also incredibly disappointed when Bond survives. Her chirpy joy at the prospect of seeing a man crushed until his eyeballs pop out is destroyed. I hope she at least got to pop a few American astronauts on the space station before her inevitable demise. That'll cheer her up.
Saturday, 14 May 2016
Danny Boy
Last night I was watching Die Another Day on ITV. Or rather, I watched it until my wine ran out, which was just after the parasailing, so I quite happily toddled off to bed before me got to Gustav Graves' Mecha Suit.
Anyway, despite having watched this film a thousand times since 2002, I noticed something odd in the titles. Genius designer and, judging by his Skyfall and Spectre titles, borderline mad person Daniel Kleinman is also a highly regarded director of adverts and pop videos (it was his gorgeous vid for Gladys Knight's Licence to Kill that got him the Bond gig in the first place). He's known to pretty much everyone in the industry as "Danny" Kleinman, but uses his proper name for his professional credits.
So what's this?
I went back to YouTube to check, and...
Did he feel suddenly free and easy? Was he trying to appear friendly? Was this the first sign of his breakdown? Whatever it was, it's another thing to annoy me every time I watch Die Another Day. Like I needed a new one.
Anyway, despite having watched this film a thousand times since 2002, I noticed something odd in the titles. Genius designer and, judging by his Skyfall and Spectre titles, borderline mad person Daniel Kleinman is also a highly regarded director of adverts and pop videos (it was his gorgeous vid for Gladys Knight's Licence to Kill that got him the Bond gig in the first place). He's known to pretty much everyone in the industry as "Danny" Kleinman, but uses his proper name for his professional credits.
So what's this?
I went back to YouTube to check, and...
Did he feel suddenly free and easy? Was he trying to appear friendly? Was this the first sign of his breakdown? Whatever it was, it's another thing to annoy me every time I watch Die Another Day. Like I needed a new one.
Thursday, 7 April 2016
Five Soundtrack Moments Where I Sing The Sound Effects
1. Whisper Who Dares, Live and Let Die:
At 1:07, someone on FDR Drive honks their horn three times. I sing this part.
2. GoldenEye, GoldenEye:
At 2:07 on the soundtrack version of the title song, I make a "bang" noise. This is because in the film, there's a gunshot during Danny Kleinman's titles.
3. Bond Arrives In Rio, Moonraker:
At 0:26, one of the extravangant cars in Rio fires off one of those comedy horns that people used to have on their Capris. I sing the four notes.
4. Escape From Piz Gloria, On Her Majesty's Secret Service:
At 0:37, there's a brief lull in John Barry's score, which I fill by going "wee-wa, wee-wa", like the Piz Gloria siren.
5. Never Say Never Again, Never Say Never Again:
As Lani Hall sings "you've got all the moves" at 1:46, I make the whistling noise of that frisbee thing Bond flings in the titles.
At 1:07, someone on FDR Drive honks their horn three times. I sing this part.
2. GoldenEye, GoldenEye:
At 2:07 on the soundtrack version of the title song, I make a "bang" noise. This is because in the film, there's a gunshot during Danny Kleinman's titles.
3. Bond Arrives In Rio, Moonraker:
At 0:26, one of the extravangant cars in Rio fires off one of those comedy horns that people used to have on their Capris. I sing the four notes.
4. Escape From Piz Gloria, On Her Majesty's Secret Service:
At 0:37, there's a brief lull in John Barry's score, which I fill by going "wee-wa, wee-wa", like the Piz Gloria siren.
5. Never Say Never Again, Never Say Never Again:
As Lani Hall sings "you've got all the moves" at 1:46, I make the whistling noise of that frisbee thing Bond flings in the titles.
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