fashion victim

bricks II

nite, nite...

J u d y

John Minihan ~ Francis Bacon and William Burroughs, London, 1989

AmericanShippingService

bricks

Cycles of life

James Bond 50° Anniversary : "The Spy Who Loved Me" Script History - from MI6

Of all the James Bond films, perhaps one of the most complex pre-production tales comes from "The Spy Who Loved Me". Following from the box-office disappointment of "The Man With The Golden Gun", Albert R. Broccoli (now operating without co-producer Harry Saltzman after he sold his share of Eon Productions) made a conscious decision to bring Bond back to his biggest, and best. 

But the road to success would prove to be one of the most winding of all the Bond productions as the building block for the film - the screenplay - went through more iterations than any production during the 40 year history of 007 on the silver screen. 

It all started with the title. As "The Spy Who Loved Me" novel was a departure from the usual Ian Fleming canon, and told from the perspective of a young woman with Bond only appearing the the final quarter of the story, Fleming never wanted his controversial book to appear on screen. But as most of the Fleming titles had been exhausted by the movie franchise at this point, Broccoli requested the Fleming estate give him permission to use the novel's title only - which they granted. Broccoli now had a title for his next movie, but no story. 

Following a visit to Russia, Broccoli devised a plot befitting the title whereby a female Russian spy would fall in love with James Bond. The seeds were set for Bond's tenth film. Above: Cubby Broccoli went through a dozen writers until he got the film he wanted. "You Only Live Twice" screenplay writer Roald Dahl recommended comic writer Cary Bates to Broccoli, and this would be only the first of several parallels between the two films. The New Yorker created the first screenplay based on a loose adaptation of Fleming's "Moonraker", which saw SPECTRE using a large underground base in Loch Ness, Scotland. The villain's plot mechanism of hijacking nuclear submarines would see it through the following ten writers to the final film, although in Bates' treatment Bond and Tatiana Romanova teamed up to foil Hugo Drax and his henchmen Pluto and Plato (a chain smoker and alcoholic respectively).

Broccoli was not happy with the screenplay and brought in novelist Ronald Hardy to start from scratch. His plot also involved nuclear submarines, but this time the villain was equipped with tracking technology for capturing the subs. This idea would be carried on throughout the project despite Broccoli moving to the third writer. 

Anthony Barwick picked up from where Hardy left off and recycled the submarine tracking device idea, but axed SPECTRE and brought in a villain obsessed with art. Zodiak's plan was to ransom the world to give up its art treasures with the threat of destroying the West's nuclear fleet using long range torpedoes. Barwick's most original contribution was the introduction of the villain's henchmen, which in his treatment were albino triplets Tic, Tac and Toe - all three of which would be killed by 007. 

Broccoli then brought in Derek Marlowe, Sterling Silliphant, Tom Mankiewicz, John Landis and Anthony Burgess in turn after Barwick departed the production. At this point a director was assigned to the floundering film. Guy Hamilton was not a surprise choice, having directed the previous three films ("Diamonds Are Forever", "Live And Let Die", "The Man With The Golden Gun") and brought with him Bond family member Richard Maibaum to work on the script.

Maibaum brought back the shadow of SPECTRE but scrapped the idea of a megalomaniac villain in the shape of Blofeld or Zodiac. In one of the most interesting ideas devised for the Bond series, but as yet unused, SPECTRE would be overthrown by a collection of terrorist groups. Leaders of the Japanese Red Army, Black September Organization, Bader-Meinhof Gang and Red Brigade would storm into a SPECTRE meeting and assassinate the old guard, taking over control of the world's largest criminal set-up. The plot saw the new SPECTRE throwing out revenge and extortion as ideals, preferring to settle for annihilation by destroying the world's oil supply with captured nuclear submarines. Broccoli liked Maibaum's treatment, but considered it too controversial for 1976 and would later order changes. Considering the state of the world today, Maibaum's idea is scarily plausible, and if too controversial back then it is unlikely to see the light of day in the 21st century. 

Richard Maibaum explained, "They level the place, kick Blofeld out, and take over... They're a bunch of young idealists. In the end, Bond comes in and asks 'All right, you're going to blow up the world. What do you want?' They reply, 'We don't want anything. We just want to start over - the world is lousy. We want to wipe it away and begin again. So there's no way we can be bribed!' 

Guy Hamilton quit the production in favour of the new "Superman" franchise, although he was replaced on that project by Richard Donner, and failed to see either film through to completion. Lewis Gilbert was signed to take over the helm of "The Spy Who Loved Me", and brought with him writer Christopher Wood to pick up from Maibaum's draft.  

Under the order of Broccoli's instructions, the terrorist group were removed from the story, and the megalomaniac villain was back in the form of Stavros, a wealthy shipping magnate. 

Stavros would use huge tankers designed with a special bow to kidnap nuclear submarines - similar to how Blofeld captured space capsules in Gilbert's "You Only Live Twice". 

The idea of using a supertanker as the device of villainy was not new either, as Maibaum's early treatments for "Diamonds Are Forever" saw Goldfinger's twin brother (to be played by Gert Frobe), and later Blofeld, firing a huge laser weapon from the deck of the ship.

For the final draft screenplay by Wood, the nuclear submarine tracking device was to be used by SPECTRE to capture British and Russian submarines with Bond and Anya Amasova teaming up in Cairo after being played off against each other by the third party - a typical SPECTRE plot line similar to "From Russia With Love". Bond and Amasova would them travel to Sardinia to face off with Stavros in his underwater base. The villain's henchman became Jaws, whose steel capped teeth were inspired by the goon from Fleming's novel - despite Broccoli's agreement not to use anything except the book's title. 

Just when everything was going smoothly, in stepped Kevin McClory who claimed Eon Productions had no rights to use the SPECTRE organisation which the courts had awarded to him during the 1963 "Thunderball" legal settlement. Faced with the possibility of another long drawn out battle in the courts, Broccoli asked Wood to remove all references to SPECTRE from the screenplay - even changing the colour of the villain's private army from black to red - to avoid any claims from McClory. 

Without SPECTRE, Stavros evolved into shipping billionaire Karl Stromberg, who would threaten to destroy humanity alone. Despite all the changes, McClory was still not happy with Broccoli's production, but eventually dropped an injunction on the film's production, probably due to realisation of the potential legal costs involved with stopping the Bond juggernaut. 

Another old alliance would haunt the production of "The Spy Who Loved Me". Back in 1970, "Thunderbirds" creator Gerry Anderson was asked to provide a treatment for the next film which was planned to be "Moonraker". Anderson teamed up with his script editor on his popular TV series "UFO" - Anthony Barwick. 

The partnership created a seventy page draft which featured a supertanker, a villain named Zodiak and identical triplets Tic, Tac and Toe. The treatment was turned down and Eon Productions decided to move ahead with Sean Connery in "Diamonds Are Forever" instead. Unsurprisingly, Anderson recognised the similarity of this treatment with the one Broccoli received from Barwick in the mid-1970's for "The Spy Who Loved Me", and brought legal action against Eon Productions.  

Gerry Anderson explained in his authorised biography, "My lawyers weren't show business lawyers, so I was really in a very weak position. I must confess I became very frightened, and after a few weeks decided to drop the matter." Anderson was persuaded that a court case would not be in the interests of anyone, and he dropped his claim in return for selling the treatment rights to the production for £3,000. 

The final shooting script was nailed down on 23rd August 1976, but several further changes would be made by Christopher Wood and the production team during the filming. Less than a year later on 13th July 1977, "The Spy Who Loved Me" opened with a Royal Premiere at the Odeon Leicester Square in London and concluded one of the most turbulent and creative Bond productions in the 40 year history of 007's movie exploits.

Isle of Loreto, Lake of Iseo

The Family Plot musical score

Holiday for two

Banksy's Ballerina

An Animated Zoetrope Cake Inspired by Tim Burton

Happy Birthday!

Marvel Comics for Anthony Smith

Anthony Smith is a four-year-old boy from New Hampshire who was born with a chromosomal disorder that left him mostly deaf. He started wearing a hearing aid, which he calls "blue ear" because it's blue, and it made a huge difference in his life by allowing him to go to school and socialize more easily with people. 

A few weeks ago he suddenly refused to wear it anymore. He told his mom it was because "superheroes don't wear blue ears." 

His mother, desperate to convince him to keep using his "blue ear," sent an email to Marvel comics asking if there were any superheroes who had hearing aids. They wrote her back the next day and sent her a picture of Hawkeye, a superhero who suffered hearing loss in the line of duty and actually does wear a hearing aid. 

But one of their comic book artists did something else: he drew a picture of Anthony with Hawkeye and also one of Blue Ear, a brand new superhero who wears a blue hearing aid. His mother says Anthony immediately latched onto the picture of Blue Ear and wouldn't let it go. He started wearing his blue ear again, and says he's now going "fight bad guys and help people." He brought his new drawings to his preschool, which is for hearing-impaired kids, and spread the inspiration around.

SKYFALL Production Videoblog : Production Designer Dennis Gassner

crew cut, please

Portrait Of A Monk Of The Benedictine Order, Holding A Skull

mermaid@thewindow

R.I.P.

walk in my mind

wrapping trees

SKYFALL - Official Teaser Trailer

Michael Marsicano – Winter Untitled

alone by ~Saucyblue

eat fish, fish eat

Time's an illusion

Sean Connery is back!

Sir Sean Connery returned to the public stage yesterday – after spending two years out of view. 

The 81-year-old James Bond legend’s low profile since 2010 had fuelled worries about his health. 

But as he rang the bell to start trading on the New York stock exchange, the beaming actor showed he had lost none of his trademark swagger and poise.

Skyfall first teaser poster

Saul Bass title sequence - Bunny Lake is missing (1965)

Saul Bass's work always looks effortless and timeless. That's what makes his work so appealing – it can be enjoyed on a basic level. Like a child seeing simple shapes and colors for the first time – a white line on black paper. Maybe there's something soothing about that simplicity next to the visual chaos of the world.

One of the best examples of a simple yet smart Saul Bass idea is the main title sequence for Bunny Lake is Missing. The film is about an emotionally disturbed person involved in the disappearance of a child. To hint at the character's state of mind, a hand tears shapes out of a black screen, each hole revealing another credit. The torn edges are jagged and help to set the mood of the film. It ends with the shape of a girl being torn out of the paper, as if she's missing from the sheet of paper (which is then used again in the poster). It seems like such a simple idea but getting there is difficult. It takes years of experience to have the ability to boil ideas down to this kind of purity and Bass didn't muck it up with anything he didn't need: no color, no jumpy edits, no tricks. Just the raw, naked concept standing on its own. You can see this same approach time and time again in his work: great ideas condensed down to their purest form, then simply executed.

It proves that basic shapes, colors, and compositions in the hands of an experienced artist can become something magical. You could compare him to Matisse, who spent his entire career as an artist refining his style over 50 working years and ended up cutting simple shapes out of painted paper in his later years. He made some of his best work at the very end of his life. But all those years of experience were necessary for him to cut those shapes just right. Saul Bass was at that same level in the design world. Look at the title sequence to Psycho. Matisse would have loved it – Bass did it all with just rectangles.

James Bond 50° Anniversary : Royal Mail commemorative James Bond stamp sheet

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the James Bond film series, Royal Mail and EON Productions have launched a commemorative sheet featuring labels to sit alongside first class stamps featuring the top 10 Bond posters, as voted for by members of the public earlier this year (me too).

the elephant

ace of heart

crow of the day

Bank Robbery Bear

Barkwell Dog Food Commercial 1968

how to ride your bike

Bubble Series By Melvin Sokolsky

Sean, 1971 c.a.

crow of the day

Rear Window Timelapse

The Other (1972)

The Other is a 1972 psychological horror film directed by Robert Mulligan, adapted for film by Tom Tryon, from his bestselling novel.

It stars Uta Hagen, Diana Muldaur, and Chris & Martin Udvarnoky.

Set in idyllic 1935 Connecticut, The Other follows young twins Niles and Holland as they run about their small farm fishing, playing in the apple cellar, harassing the old lady down the lane and caring for their heartsick mother. 

Niles is the “good son.” He reads to his mother, spends time with his grandmother and is always hesitant to become involved in Holland’s schemes. Holland, on the other hand, sneaks around and enjoys playing tricks on people…tricks that soon turn deadly. 

Holland is clearly the amoral mischief maker, though sympathetic Niles is often caught in their shenanigans. Niles carries a Prince Albert tobacco tin with several secret trinkets, including the Perry family ring, which came down from their grandfather, and something mysteriously wrapped in wax paper. He asks Holland to "take them back," but Holland insists "I gave them to you, they're yours now." 

Their cousin Russell finds the boys in the forbidden apple cellar, and promises to snitch on them. Their mother is a recluse in her upstairs bedroom, grieving over the recent death of the boys' father in the apple cellar. Grandmother Ada, a Russian emigrant, dotes on Niles, and has taught him a psychic ability to project himself outside of his body, for example in a bird; this ability she calls "the great game." As the summer progresses, Holland appears to play some deadly practical jokes. A pitchfork left hidden in some straw in the floor of the hayloft takes the life of their sneering cousin Russell (he leaps from the upper loft onto it) before he can betray their secret hideaway in the apple cellar. A frightening magic trick for nearby spinster Mrs. Rowe causes her to have a fatal heart attack. After Russell's funeral, Niles' mother finds the ring, and the severed finger that is wrapped in wax paper. That night she demands Niles to tell her how he has taken possession of father's ring. "Holland gave it to me," he answers. She's shocked, and asks him when he gave it to Niles. "In the parlor, after our birthday," he answers. Holland appears, whispering, "Give it back!" After a struggle on the handing over the ring, she falls down the stairs and is rendered partially paralyzed. Ada finds Holland's harmonica at Mrs. Rowe's house after her body is discovered. Finding Niles in church, transfixed by the image of "The Angel of a Better Day," she asks Niles about Mrs. Rowe, and he identifies Holland as the culprit. Ada drags Niles to the family graveyard and demands that Niles face the truth: Holland has been dead since their birthday in March, when he fell down the well. He was thought to have been buried with his father's ring ... which, of course, is in Niles' possession. At home, Ada blames herself for teaching Niles "the game," but insists that he not play it anymore. But Niles continues to talk with Holland. Holland helps Niles to remember how he got his father's ring: Holland insisted that he cut his finger off while he lay in his casket in the parlor. In the stairway, Ada hears Niles whispering.... 

More tragedy strikes the family. During a storm, Rider and Torrie's newborn baby is kidnapped, a copycat of the recent Lindbergh tragedy. (News about the trial is seen in a newspaper, and Niles has a crayon portrait of Bruno Hauptmann in his bedroom.) As the adults mount a search for the baby, Niles sneaks off to the barn. Ada suspects that Niles knows more than he's letting on. When she discovers Niles in the barn, pleading for Holland to tell him where the baby is, she fears that Niles is beyond hope. She insists that he, Niles, has done all these things, but he refuses to believe her. The baby is found, drowned in one of Mr. Angelini's pickle barrels, and they apprehend the (innocent) handyman. Returning to the barn and shutting the door, Ada hears Niles in the apple cellar where the boys like to hide, whispering with Holland. She empties a can of gasoline into the apple cellar, and, clutching an oil lantern, dives into the cellar, starting a cataclysmic fire. 

As autumn begins, the ruins of the barn are being cleared. The camera zooms in on a padlock that has been cut open with a bolt-cutter. We find that in spite of the fire, Niles is alive and well. His mother is a catatonic invalid, Ada has died in the barn fire, and no one knows Niles's terrible secret.

The film was shot entirely on location in Murphy's, CA and Angels Camp, California. Director Robert Mulligan had hoped to shoot the film on location in Connecticut, where it takes place, but because it was autumn when the film entered production (and therefore the color of the leaves would not reflect the height of summer, when the story takes place) this idea was dropped. 

This would be the only movie appearance by the twins Chris and Martin Udvarnoky, the featured stars. Mulligan never shows the brothers in frame together. They are always separated by a camera pan, or an editing cut. John Ritter would make one of his earliest appearances in the film, as the boys' brother-in-law, Rider Gannon. Ritter appeared as Father Matthew Fordwick on The Waltons; coincidentally, film-music composer Jerry Goldsmith also scored the TV series' theme, as well as the soundtrack for The Other. Rider's young wife and the twins' sister, Torrie, is played by Jenny Sullivan, who, at the time, was married to singer-songwriter Jim Messina of Loggins & Messina fame. 

Despite the grotesque nature of the plot, composer Goldsmith elected to give the film a mostly upbeat score to reflect the childish innocence of its main character. More often than not, the film's darker scenes feature no music at all. Goldsmith's compositions for the film can be heard in a 22 minute suite found on the soundtrack album of The Mephisto Waltz. This CD was released 25 years after the release of the film. According to the liner notes of the soundtrack, over half of Goldsmith's music was removed during the film's post production. It does not specify whether this was the result of deleted footage or a decision affecting the music only.

bushing

crow of the day

TheHappyAmericanFamily

The Birds by Daniel Norris

Michael Sowa

mothers

Skyfall teaser-ing 14