Colonel Sun
Kingsley Amis’ Colonel Sun was the first James Bond book written entirely after the death of Ian Fleming. Amis sends Bond to Greece to foil a Chinese mastermind and delights in abusing M.
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Forever and a Death
Donald E. Westlake, best known for his “Parker” series of thrillers, was hired to write a James Bond movie. In the end, the script was not used, but Westlake reworked the story into an original novel.
Read moreSex and Naps
On the surface, The Wicker Man is the story of one police constable’s attempt to scrooge up a town’s May Day revelries. Delving deeper into its waters, however, is aided by a few key texts that informed the film.
Read moreEverything Gets Boring
On Diabolique, I’m continuing to explore British underground cinema and the BFI Flipside series. Deep End explores the disappointing end of the 1960s and the awkwardness of coming of age.
Read moreOne Slow Descent into Respectability
On Diabolique, I’m digging into one of the most famous scandals in modern British political history, not to mention Pleasure Girls, the bubbly tale of optimistic young ladies struggling to make it in the big, swingin’ city.
Read moreMachine Made Dirt
On Diabolique, I’m exploring underground British cinema by way of the BFI Flipside series. First up: wild jazz beatniks on a lust-fueled rampage! It’s Gillian Hills in Beat Girl.
Read moreFighting the Unknown
As the series begins, Quatermass and his team are in a quandary after their most recent manned space flight vanishes without a trace, only to turn up later when it crashes into a farmer’s field. Rushing to the site, Quatermass is baffled to discover that of the three astronauts launched into orbit, only one is still in the ship.
Read moreHigh Spy: The Espionage Fiction of Adam Diment
In the midst of Swingin’ London, and in stark contrast to James Bond, English author Adam Diment created Philip McAlpine, a reluctant, shaggy-haired, dope-smoking spy in the latest Carnaby Street fashions.
Read moreJames Bond vs. the ’80s
We are increasingly left with a sort of bland guy who just happens to be named James Bond — which, in a way, might be bringing the character back around to how Fleming originally imagined him, as an anonymous blunt instrument into whom a reader could pour his or her own identity; a characterless cypher of a man who might not be interesting but to whom interesting things happened. But honestly, by the middle of the 1980s, with decades of suave, awesome James Bond under our belts, did anyone really want an anonymous 007?
Read moreSpace 1999: Aliens Are Jerks
The short-lived television program Space: 1999 taught us many things about our depressing universe. Chief among its concerns: reminding us every week that our fellow inhabitants of the galaxy are at least as awful as we are, only with magic powers. Space: 1999 taught me two valuable lessons. The first is that space is depressing and best represented by the
Read moreThe 39 Steps
Alfred Hitchcock’s original 1935 version of The 39 Steps is one of those films that’s so seminal that when watched today it can seem like little more than a parade of hoary old clichés; that is, until you consider that The 39 Steps is where many of those clichés originated.
Read moreBurt Bacharach: Casino Royale
Burt Bacharach’s soundtrack is probably the least maligned aspect of producer Charles Feldman’s 1967 film version of Casino Royale. One doesn’t have to love the movie to enjoy the soundtrack.
Read moreWhen Sex Leers Its Inquisitive Head
Around these parts, Wyngarde is revered for his role as Jason King, the swingin’ international man of mystery, adventure novel writer, and part-time espionage agent. But…he also recorded an album,
Read moreThe Chances of Anything Coming from Mars
One year for Christmas, my parents got me a bizarre amalgamation of rock opera and radio play, starring Richard Burton: Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of The War of the Worlds.
Read moreUp All Night!: 56 Northern Soul Classics
To trace the origins of Northern Soul, one has to go back to Britain’s Mod subculture of the early to mid sixties, a subculture that drew heavily upon American soul records in the classic Motown vein for its chosen soundtrack.
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