Author: Mark O'Connell (Page 30 of 33)
Mark O’Connell is a comedy writer. He has written for a range of top comedy actors, directors and performers including the legendary Ronnie Corbett, plus numerous sketch shows, sitcom projects, stand-up acts, promos and online shorts. His work features on the BBC, Channel Four, Five, various Edinburgh Fringe productions and various comedy and film festivals. He has worked with leading comedy names, such as Jon Plowman, John Sullivan, Paul Mendelson, and Jonathan Harvey (who Mark featured alongside in a BBC3 The Last Laugh documentary about gay comedy).
Mark has won the Jerwood Film Prize for Skedaddle, the Lloyds Bank Film Challenge for Carrying Dad, one ninth of a BAFTA, repeat praise from Time Out and the Coen Brothers, plus a Five Star album from a local radio phone-in he has yet to receive.
He was also chosen by London 2012 and BT to be one of the official Storytellers of the London Olympics.
CATCHING BULLETS - MEMOIRS OF A BOND FAN is his debut book. It has received great reviews, a starry line up of contributors and was shortlisted for the Polari First Book Prize 2013.
O'Connell is working on a second book.
From an opening fumble in the cruising bushes of a San Francisco park, HBO’s new series Looking makes great play of not really being another gay show that starts with an opening fumble in the cruising bushes of a San Francisco park. Our main guy Patrick (Jonathan Groff) is already on the phone joking with his nearby pals like friends lost in a zoo no-one visits anymore. Already the path-paving brilliance of Russell T Davies’ Queer As Folk and its American remake cousin with all their nubile young lovelies and their helium heels hauled skywards now somehow seems so turn of the century.
Less a gold lamé baton handed on from the hindsight, camp and shock of Tales of The City, Will and Grace and Queer As Folk respectively, HBO’s Looking is not about running forwards. Like British director Andrew Haigh’s previous [and pitch-perfect] feature Weekend (2011), this is about half-seen exchanges outside busy bars and stolen conversations on various Lower Haight sofas as the work talk and weed pipes get passed round as inconsequentially as the prawn crackers from a Thai takeout (not a euphemism!). “I’m proud of you – you’re a pervert now” dismisses one of Patrick’s friends as Looking quickly proves it is not about coming-out stories, Cher gags, fantasy Madonna dance-offs in the bus queue or bottom licking commotions. This is not Sex And The City but just done with gay men replacing the ladies. We’ve had that. It was called Sex And The City.
Everything the possible detractors will level at Looking is exactly why it works. It is not a peaks and troughs screaming queen of a comedy-drama with sexual pratfalls and verbal grenades. Nor does it wear its politics on its leather/denim/tattooed sleeves. Equal marriage, Prop 8 and DOMA is not its agenda as it is not all of ours either. The show and us are aware of the principles at stake, but how many of us really fuss about it 24/7? When very straight comedies and dramas are tapping gay marriage as a narrative normality, it would be wrong of Looking to be throwing its bouquets out the pram in every episode (a wedding episode obviously touches upon such matters but from Patrick’s perspective of messing life up with his intended plus-one).
The opening story especially is a wilful almost inconsequential slow build – an afternoon-paced overture to these characters lives that may lose some viewers, but please stick with it. Episode Five is a beautifully languid Before Midnight exploration of a day off in Golden Gate Park, the planetarium and the kind of affecting character interplay which only Haigh’s Weekend ever got right in recent times. Yes, Looking is savvy enough to throw in a Golden Girls put-down (what isn’t, Rose?), but its gay pulse is not predicated on them.
Spring-boarding off creator Michael Lannan’s previous short film Lorimer (2011), there is actually an affecting delicacy to the lives and exchanges of games designer Patrick, lost artist Augustin (Frankie J Alvarez) and nearly-forty waiter Dom (Murray Bartlett). Like San Francisco itself, the differences and expressions of everyone’s sexuality is a given. There are no closeted jocks or intimate-shy handmaidens here. Moving too fast is a deliberate fault of some characters sex lives, but never the show’s writing or insight into at least three generations of contemporary gay men. These are [almost] nice people doing their thing – the Augustin character is a deliberate hard sell and carved with such pitfalls of attitude one realises he is totally familiar. The difference here is that for gay audiences – for good or bad – this is our thing now; and as one character astutely notes, “guys are guys”.
A key motif of Looking is “being who we think we are”. For the trio of main characters “looking” is indeed key. But looking for what? Maybe some are looking for love, intimacy, a better street to live on, better praise from their peers, better sex from a threesome (or not) or just looking for others who are also dissatisfied with their lot to validate everything (Augustin’s problem). All held together with a solid cast, the show slowly pulls you in. Whilst how Groff’s Patrick really knows Alvarez and Bartlett is perhaps not flagged up enough early on, the friendships are believable with a pleasing short-hand and explanations do arise without surprise.
Likewise Lauren Weedman’s Doris is a savvy, bubble-bursting best mate, Raúl Castillo’s Richie is a hot and kind Mexican and Scott Bakula is an old guard Castro florist with age and hindsight on his side – “we still had sex, but it was friendlier” he notes about the one-night stands of the 1980s and 1990s. Cyber-dating is of course a support app of the show – unavoidably used but not exclusively. Though there will be many a moment when some of us in the audience look to our overpriced brogues with acute embarrassment at the behaviour on show. Patrick and pals research their past and present dalliances and shag-obsessions on the Instagrams, okaycupid.coms and Grindrs of this world. Characters over-worry about the Instagram photos of a dinner date and the successful exes now with their own Wikipedia page. But their real stories are often advanced from chance encounters on the MUNI train, accidental glances through a bar doorway, in an empty sauna and works drinks nights. The relationship between Patrick and Richie is particularly lo-fi, not remotely reliant on new technologies. The politics of “friending” on social media and being “an 82%” match“ is rolled out, but so too are the real-life concerns about what messages Patrick gives his new Brit boss Kevin (Russell Tovey) when working overtime on a Sunday and when exactly does a three-way become a problem or a plus? And just when is it no longer polite to mock the Brits after too many bottles of free Bud?!
But is it identifiable to non-San Franciscan, non-American audiences? Of course it is. In the same way Haigh’s Weekend chimed with Top Ten film lists the world over, Looking is a wholly identifiable show, carved with the same incisiveness of its creators previous work. “If I was embarrassed about it, I wouldn’t do it” is a telling line from content, well-earning sex-worker CJ the adrift artist Augustin desperately wants to be like. Not every piece of dialogue need be a barnstormer. Not every quip requires its own t-shirt. Though “you gave him a winky, smiling face? What are you – a Japanese teenager?might do the rounds. It is never a glib show. Nor is it a dot.com, labels and luxury lifestyle fest. With an easy blend of ages and social backgrounds, Looking is thankfully never about whiny, white rich gays. The basement apartments, corridors and streets of Looking are worn and lived in. Like the characters and their love lives, not everything is new and shiny but all of it is functional. That is what San Francisco affords this series. And that is why it is the vital fourth character. Real-life Castro drag artists Peaches Christ and Honey Mahogany are on well-manicured hand, the Castro Theater cinema is the noble granddame backdrop it always has been, the leather-bound Folsom Street Fair plays itself to great effect mid-way through the series, Dolores Park plays Dolores Park, The Stud bar is a location must and the forever-vintage streets of Mission Dolores, Market, the Castro and their pizza [and men] by-the-slice sidewalks are recognisable to anyone familiar with the worlds of Maupin and Milk. What San Francisco brings to Looking is what the show itself gets very right. It is that sense of community, of a neighbourhood of characters and shared experiences often ticking over through nothing but an inexplicable and shared shorthand.
We may not have had the best timeline of televisual representation over the decades. But what doesn’t always embody us makes us stronger – and all that article-writing jazz (maybe). The landmark likes of Tales of The City, Queer As Folk, Will And Grace, Angels In America, Beautiful People, Queer As Folk and the queer Carrington boy in Dynasty may have been all we had. But they were still ours. Looking represents a smart new chapter. Season Two has been greenlit and audiences – despite a minority of initial and lazy reactions declaring “it’s boring” (it’s not) – have grown and spiked just as the series and its wise writing has. And in the fun, warm, unexpectedly raw, real and fresh-telling style it has on offer, going through this Looking glass could well bring us to a wonderful wonderland.
Looking began in the US on HBO on January 19th 2014 and in the UK on Sky Atlantic on January 27th 2014.
Mark O’Connell is on Twitter and the author of 1980s gay childhood memoir, Catching Bullets – Memoirs of Bond Fan. With thanks to Sky Atlantic.
There is a refreshing honesty to Alec Mills’ writing and it is an honesty predicated on making no bones of not being honest. Part compelled by the books that have emerged from his film industry peers and pals, and part inspired by realising (and believing) his career as one of Britain’s key camera operators and directors of photography will have hold enough anecdotal momentum for the retirement project of penning a book, Shooting 007 And Other Celluloid Adventures pulls a compelling focus on one of the most interesting periods of British mainstream cinema.
The self-deprecating “young fool” that so many of Mills generation purport to be – the likes of Peter Hunt, Lewis Gilbert, Terence Young, Bryan Forbes and John Glen – are also key participants in some of British and Western cinema’s celluloid landmarks. Born in 1932, Mills’ economically details how his film and television career was a gem-specked array of luck, fortune and hard bloody work. From a clapper loader for John Huston in Moby Dick and Powell and Pressburger’s The Battle of The River Plate (both 1956) to focus pulling for Joseph Losey, Ken Annakin, J Lee Thompson and Michelangelo Antonioni (1966’s Blow Up) and then eventually becoming camera operator on The Saint, Where Eagles Dare, Carry On Cleo, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, Gold, Shout At The Devil, Aflie Darling, The Awakening and Eye Of The Needle – Alec Mills has been either partly or wholly responsible for more than his fair share of iconic cinematic imagery. But like all folk fortunate enough to call this world their life, it is the relationships, dramas, learning curves (always check whether a “gelatin filter” has slipped or not) and friendships that mark the successes, not the box office tallies for the suits in Burbank and Wardour Street.
And it is not all Home Counties back-lots and camera dramas by the tea urn. Mills details working for Disney on such “fantasy land” pictures as Swiss Family Robinson (where Mills made the Disney football team under “team manager” John Mills), Greyfriars Bobby and The Prince And The Pauper – an era of photography one could argue is later evident in the rich, bright and near-Technicolor hues of the two Timothy Dalton Bond movies Mills lensed in the 1980s. And of course he was the camera operator on that barely noticed b-movie by the name of Return of the Jedi (1983). Mills uses that particular experience to kindly suggest none of us get on with everyone in life, and just how damning a cold shoulder can be on a film gig that can last for months. Likewise, Mills explores the tempers and “war of words” with director John Guillermin on the set of 1978’s Death on the Nile, only to be curiously called up again by the director in 1986 to lens his doomed King Kong Lives (“was he taking this opportunity to settle an old score and sack me?”). For some reason the line “Linda Blair arrived from Hollywood to complicate matters” is an intriguing bon mot and indicative of the book’s honesty and swift ease in moving through its subjects.
It is around this point in Shooting 007 that Mills recounts the life luck of Bond director John Glen urging Mills to come out of semi-retirement to camera operate Octopussy in 1982. Having been an operator five times for Eon Productions and the Bond movie-machine, Mills was subsequently invited twice to perform director of photography duties on Timothy Dalton’s Bond bullets, The Living Daylights (1987) and Licence To Kill (1989). It was an invite initially delivered by Ken Adam on the set of King Kong Lives and one Mills proudly notes, “I was lost for words; this had to be the most exciting time since I came into the industry in 1946”.
The encouragement and support of his wife Suzy does not go unnoticed – almost acting as Mill’s very own light meter, checking for a truth and a through-line of narrative. When Mills is in doubt at his own recollections and the need to even discuss close [and not so close] colleagues, a curious interaction between author and his use of stories peppers the writing. There are frequent junctions in Shooting 007 buoyed up by the author questioning why such and such a detail is even necessary. Intentional or not, it makes for an absorbing, almost too apologetic biography. From WWII childhood to dashing from afternoon trips to the pictures to make evensong and that first tea boy / clapper loading apprenticeship at Carlton Hills Studios (where Mills had already joyously worked out his first wage packet represented “twenty one visits to the cinema, sitting in the front seats!”) via an asthma-induced and maybe welcome “discharge” from the Navy in the early 1950s all to a subsequent and timely film industry fortune in the guise of a nine year apprenticeship under famed cameraman Harry Waxman BSC (Father Brown, The Roman Spring of Mrs Stone).
And of course it makes an apt requirement that a book about a director of photography should feature a rich array of photographs, with Mills’ metaphorical light meter checking throughout for matching anecdotes and prime conditions to discuss and highlight (including some of his own on-set photographs). From a great early snap of Mills standing in for Octopussy’s Kristina Wayborn with a jokily amorous Roger Moore (complete with Mills clutching the Faberge egg behind his back) to the rich roster of many an unseen Bond-on-set still from the Eon/Danjaq archives, globe-trotting camera gigs for Swiss Family Robinson, candid shots of Peter Sellers perched atop a king’s throne nursing a brandy and having an Aboriginal tracker whip in half a cigarette in Mills mouth whilst shooting Rank’s Robbery Under Arms, Shooting 007 is a personable tour of cinema peppered with what ‘Camera A’ doesn’t see. Or wouldn’t see.
A welcome addition to that generation of post-war film-makers and creatives who possibly bridged the old and the new, the old school way of making pictures versus the world of new technologies, new management structures and story needs, Shooting 007 And Other Celluloid Adventures is a brisk, upfront but detailed read about a very different time of British-based cinema.
Shooting 007 And Other Celluloid Adventures by Alec Mills is published now by The History Press.
Director Ryan Murphy clearly has no glee left in him for this thumping, harsh, but selfless adaption of Larry Kramer’s landmark 1985 play, The Normal Heart. Chronicling the part-biographical real life sorrows and fights of Kramer’s own early 1980s world, this ensemble piece drops any pretence of a slow build for a fearsomely frank look at the early impact of HIV/AIDS on the gay communities of New York. The Normal Heart is less about the hedonism hangover of the 1970s and more about the fear of losing the social and political progress (such as it was) to do all of that all over again if needs be without prejudice.
It is 1981 and Ned Weeks (Mark Ruffalo) is travelling to Fire Island for a bout or three of ‘Mighty Real’ no-strings debauchery. Clearly not at total ease with being in love, Weeks is a sexually adrift soul plagued by a small sense of self-loathing and a big of sense of self-righteousness. Within minutes friends begin falling by the wayside as director Murphy puts over the breathless speed and impact of the early 80s AIDS deaths via a clever piece of zeitgeist gay casting proving no-one was exempt. As this devastation takes its cruel hold, Ned is instantly compelled to begin the fight for better mayoral assistance and medical messages in a fiercely homophobic and two-faced world. Immediately, a concerned and already clued-up Dr Emma Brookner (Julia Roberts) is dealing with the now constant stream of patients and a bubbling resentment her Polio-blighted world sees her in a wheelchair as all around her guys are gambling with their very lives for a human contact she has never had. Enter Ned into her initially cold world of pragmatic facts and health budget honesty.
As lesions spread like Rorschach spots testing the psyche of the whole gay community, The Normal Heart throws most of its trailer beats out in the first fifteen minutes. The end result is that you don’t know what the end result is. Exploring the merits or not of “promiscuity” becoming a “political agenda”, the film is partly about sex versus sense as Ned battles his own role in gay society – defying harsh truths posed by his older brother Ben (Alfred Molina, on terrific form) and assuming all past infatuations should become romances. But make no mistake – The Normal Heart is a grenade of a film about a grenade of a plight. Kramer’s adaption of his own play shares the operatic emotions of Tony Kushner’s Angels In America but has none of the fantasy relief. Or even the episodic structure to gather breath. As cold food is left in hospital corridors by medical interns too fearful to feed the dying victims and gay activist friends refuse to ask favours of influential colleagues for fear of outing themselves, the multi-stranded hypocrisy of it all is almost as much of a gut-punch as the very frankly played effects of the virus.
Clearly trying to remember the stage foundations of the original play, Murphy and Kramer let ensemble dialogues unfurl in single rooms before showing the scared panic of lovers hauling their dying partners across town or further (one flashback anecdote from Taylor Kitsch’s Bruce is truly shocking in its telling). Ruffalo is on aggravating form as Ned – possibly becoming too much of an irritant as others are trying to tread more cautiously and sometimes fairly. Dr Brookner suggests his “big mouth” is not an irritant but a “cure”, but Ned does do a lot of shouting. This is a piece where many a central character is afforded a powerful monologue that will just – like the original play – truly floor the audience. Joe Mantello’s Micky has a particularly salient and honest monologue, a volunteer Estelle (Danielle Fernand) wants to do anything to help and details the tragic reasons why and Roberts’ last act lambasting of the bureaucrats required this viewer to have a press of the ‘pause’ button before continuing.
Almost too separately pitched from his campaigning colleagues to make him in any way likeable (and possibly creating the vaguest of faults of the film), Ruffalo’s Ned is however unexpectedly granted a true love in the guise of Matt Bomer’s Felix – a figure he has known before (played out in a nearly fun retro flashback advertising the pitfalls of the bathhouses within faux ads for themselves). By bringing that deliberately beautiful and fresh Clark Kent canvas to the story, Bomer’s Felix is a welcome breath of cute fresh air. But a single tear running down his chiselled cheekbones whilst making love is a chilling coda of Felix’s future. “Men do not naturally not love”, he remarks, “ – they learn not to”. Bomer will get award recognition for this. So will others. Not that awards are why narratives like The Normal Heart need to be told. There is the film’s constant dialogue about equating history turning its back on the gay communities for gay men who blindly do the same with the next casual partner. The film and play both catalogue all facets of the gay condition – its support friendships, contradictions and gay homophobes. But Larry Kramer, Ryan Murphy and The Normal Heart do not make judgments. Judgments don’t help the dying. The Normal Heart is about the search for dignity – in the characters loves, their workplaces, their campaign tactics and ultimately their deaths. The film does have its flaws. It ends far too abruptly and offers scant respite. But that is maybe its point. And Murphy is reportedly prepping a sequel for Ned.
And there are pockets of not-bleak. Jim Parsons’ quick-witted Tommy is the only near-fun figure of the film, becoming a calm and waspish mediator for both the characters and audience. His use of suddenly unneeded Rolodex cards – his “cardboard tombstones” – is particularly affecting, as is the film’s end coda with a choice of music that is almost too much to ever hear again without seeing all those faces that are not here anymore. Tommy serenely observes when pondering now dead colleagues, artists and writers – “all those plays that won’t get written”. Larry Kramer should forever know he did write this and Ryan Murphy’s brutal film creates a new immortality for a vital piece of writing about those who had so such luck.
The Normal Heart airs on HBO in America on Sunday 25th May and on Sky Atlantic in the UK soon.
Following on from fiftieth anniversary screenings in Nottingham, Adelaide, Calgary, the Florida Film Festival, Edinburgh’s famed Cameo Cinema, at the Egyptian in Hollywood and Norway already in 2014, many other global cinema-spots are getting out the gold paint to mark the golden anniversary of the classic 007 blueprint, Goldfinger with their own special screenings.
PLEASE NOTE THIS EVENT AND SOME OTHERS HAVE NOW PASSED.
Marking the first time a restored vintae Bond film has been screened in this style in Norway, organizers Morten Steingrimsen and Anders Frejdh are pleased to announce that the film’s production designer Ken Adam (countless iconic Bond films as well as Dr Strangelove, The Madness of King George, Barry Lyndon) and his biographer Sir Christopher Frayling (Ken Adam Designs The Movies). This is the first time Adam has come to Oslo in this context and organisers are justly excited. Joining Adam and Frayling will also be Norman Wanstall (Oscar winning sound designer on Goldfinger) and Margaret Nolan (Bond’s first girl, Dink and title sequence star) will also be in attendance. Adam, Wanstall and Nolan will participate in a Q&A following the screening. The British Ambassador in Norway, Ms. Jane Owen, will also be in attendance to open the festivities.
‘Forventer du at jeg skal snakke?’
‘Nei, Mr Bond, jeg forventer at du skal dø!’
The May 22nd screening and Q&A will be a closed and exclusive event for 292 invited guests. The film will be shown with a newly restored version and all manner of 007 accoutrements will fill the evening in apt style.
A public screening will follow on May 23th – with Norman Wanstall and Margaret Nolan also in attendance.
For more information, click here.
Goldfinger
Oslo Kino, Oslo
May 22nd & 23rd August 2014
8.00pm
PLEASE NOTE THIS EVENT HAS PASSED.
Birmingham’s Botanical Gardens in Alabama is launching Flicks Amongst The Flowers with their first film taking viewers back to the decade the Gardens were founded for their screening of Goldfinger.
The free event will take place in the Formal Garden in front of the newly renovated Conservatory.
“Couples are encouraged to enjoy a unique, themed menu created by Kathy G. which includes “Gold Dust” Truffle Popcorn, Homemade Parmesean Potato Chips, the “Operation Grand Slam,” a unique take on the Cuban sandwich and a Smoked Portabella Panini. The evening’s drink menu will include beer, wine, champagne and martinis” (www.bbgardens.org)
Gates open at 6 p.m., and the film begins at 7:30 p.m. Visitors are encouraged to bring a blanket and find a spot on the lawn to enjoy the film.
For more details.
Goldfinger
Botanical Gardens, Birmingham, Alabama.
May 16th 2014
7.30pm / Free
PLEASE NOTE THIS EVENT HAS PASSED.
And the American Film Institute (AFI) is getting itself in on the celebratory action with three nights of screenings also this May at its Silver Theatre in Maryland, US.
For more details.
Goldfinger
American Film Institute @ Silver Theatre, Maryland, US
May 23rd, 26th & 29th 2014
8.30pm / £18 & £30
PLEASE NOTE THIS EVENT HAS PASSED.
London’s Courthouse Hotel is proud to present their Cinema Club’s own summer showing of Goldfinger in their unique venue.
For more details.
Goldfinger
Courthouse Hotel, London
June 7th 2014
Evening / Cinema Club members only
PLEASE NOTE THIS EVENT HAS PASSED.
London’s Grosvenor Square (home of the real US Embassy) is the setting for The Nomad Cinema’s pop-up cinema screening of Goldfinger. Founded to give 100% to charities, The Nomad Cinema is a roaming cinema experience, setting up camp in the strangest of settings to bring cracking cinema to movie fans. Please note – this screening is silent with Wi-Fi headsets.
For more details.
Goldfinger
The Nomad Cinema (Grosvenor Square)
Thursday 10th July 2014
8.00pm / £16.50 (all profits go to the Sustainability
Institute)
Not to be outdone, the savvy and retro minded Cinespia is hosting a downtown Los Angeles open air screening of the film in perhaps one of the most unique locations Goldfinger has ever been shown at. The film is being screened outdoors on Fairbanks Lawn, a field inside the Hollywood Forever Cemetery (and a stone’s – or hat’s throw – from Paramount Studios). Bring blankets, pillows, picnic and drinks. Wine and beer is permitted, but no spirits please. DJs spin the decks as the sun sets and after the film too.
For more details.
Goldfinger
Cinespia @ the Hollywood Forever Cemetery (6000 Santa Monica Blvd)
Saturday 12th July 2014
7.00pm doors / 9.00pm screening / $14
And hot on the golden heels of these Goldfinger events comes news from London that Luna Cinema in association with the Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre is screening the 1964 classic. To mark the 50th anniversary of Goldfinger, arguably the most iconic Bond film of them all, famed outdoors exhibitors Luna Cinema presents a special celebratory screening in the unique tree-lined setting of Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre on Sunday 17th August 2014 at 8.30pm.
For more details.
Goldfinger
Regent’s Open Air Theatre, London
Sunday 17th August 2014
8.30pm / £18 & £30
Illinois’s Classic Cinemas’ Paramount Theatre is holding a Bond weekend. Beginning with a newly restored version of Goldfinger in the evening of September 5th, the weekend is also screening The Man with the Golden Gun and The Spy Who Loved Me (both on Sunday 6th September 2014).
For more details.
Goldfinger
Paramount Theatre, Kankakee, IL
Friday 5th September 2014
7.15pm / $5
Masterminded by the Swiss 007 club, James Bond Club Schweiz, their Goldfinger – Reloaded event forms a full day of all things golden. Beginning with a location bus tour (following the famed mountainous Furka Pass route of the Swiss-bound cars in the film’s first act – including the DB5), the day also involves a meet and greet with Oscar winning sound designer Norman Wanstall and Bond actress Tania Mallet (Goldinger‘s Tilly Masterson), plenty of photo opportunities, a three course dinner and more…
For more details.
Goldfinger Reloaded
6490 Andermatt, Furkapass/Schweiz
Saturday 13th September 2014
12.00pm / 190 Euros
From the James Bond Club Deutschland, comes a September screening of Goldfinger at the UFA Palast, Stuttgart. With Bond fan Danny Morgenstern, cars and a Vodka Bar on standby, the day’s events start at 3pm. For more details.
Goldfinger
UFA Palast, Stuttgart
Saturday 27th September 2014
From 15.00pm / 8 Euros
“Why not make it for always?”
On Her Majesty’s Secret Service
by Ian Fleming (1963)
Following on from the success of the radio adaptations of Dr. No in 2008, Goldfinger in 2010 (with Ian McKellen on duty as the titular villain) and From Russia With Love in 2012 (starring Catching Bullets very own foreword-er Mark Gatiss), husband and wife production company Jarvis & Ayres present their new Ian Fleming adaptation, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.
Adapted by Archie Scottney and both directed and narrated by Martin Jarvis as the voice of Ian Fleming, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service once again stars ex Bond villain Toby Stephens in the role of James Bond 007. Alfred Molina is on vocal duties as arch nemesis Ernst Stavro Blofeld and actress Joanna Lumley steps into the heavy boots of hench-bitch Irma Bunt. Lumley of course was in the 1969 film version of OHMSS, playing one of Blofeld and Bunt’s Angels of Death, narrated OHMSS for BBC Radio Four in the 1990s and in 2008 presented BBC1’s Ian Fleming – Where Bond Began in October 2008.
James Bond seems more interested in gambling at the Casino Royale than tracking down elusive SPECTRE chief Blofeld. Then he meets Tracy, emotionally disturbed daughter of mafia boss Draco. Now he has a double motive: seek and destroy Blofeld, and prevent Tracy killing herself.
(BBC press release)
On Her Majesty’s Secret Service was broadcast on BBC Radio Four on Saturday 3rd May 2014. It is available to hear for a small amount of days via here.
California obviously has more than its fair share of glittering movie houses with a history. Hollywood has of course the famous Grauman’s Chinese and Egyptian Theatres, San Luis Obispo has the Fremont and San Francisco has the Roxie and the glittering old paddle steamer that is the Castro Theatre. But just across the water from San Francisco in neighbouring Oakland stands one of movie exhibition’s most beautiful monoliths. Opened at the peak of the Art-Deco movement in 1931 and designed by Timothy L. Pflueger (who also designed the Castro Theatre), the Paramount Theatre is one of the most luxuriant, ornate and precious working movie houses.
Greenlit in the 1920s by Publix Theatres (the then exhibition face of Paramount Pictures) and taken on by Fox-West Coast Theatres before construction was even complete, the Paramount eventually fell into neglect as movie audiences queued up at their own home box office to watch that personal movie-box they called television. In the 1970s (when its namesake production studio was about to have a heyday at the hands of playboy producer Robert Evans) the cinema was eventually taken over and its thirty years of neglect replaced with a gilt-edged renovation that drops the jaw to this day.
Having been fortunate enough to be invited to Paramount to see an apt screening of Hitchcock’s 1959 classic North By Northwest (apt as it is one of the classics of movie making and movie going), to enter this Babylonian enclave is itself as cinematic as it gets – with a scale of design, scope and detail that would not be out of place onscreen in Fritz Lang’s peer contemporary Metropolis or RKO’s 1933 King Kong. The 2025 Broadway front facia alone is an emerald green neon tower of letters beckoning the queuing audiences in to its world of cinematic Ozmosis. Heck, there is very nearly a yellow carpeted brick road weaving into every corner of a gargantuan front lobby replete with Chrysler era flat, dancing metallic gods betraying their Egyptian influences like graphical guardsman in an ancient Luxor tomb. Brass fixtures, vintage telephone kiosks, cigarette vendors, candy machines, “Mezzanine” signage, stair rails and light guards combine to bling ring you into an ancient world of exhibition opulence. “Always The Best Show In Town” is not just a promise as more emerald green twirls and swirls above the punters heads and Lang’s Metropolis comes to life as 1930s friezes stack up like graphical depictions of pre-WWII skylines. And this is just the front lobby.
The Paramount’s greatest structural tic and trick is its hidden scale. Taking your seat is now a dirty carpeted chore, as we trudge in our multiplexes past bored students with their fave film quote (as decided for them by people who are clearly not film fans) emblazoned upon their creased shirts like threadbare welcome mats. But at the Paramount, the welcome is the experience. And that welcome is yours to investigate. Part of the cinema’s monthly screenings (it is a key venue on the live music and performance circuit now too) involves plenty of time to explore the theatre itself. And that possibly takes longer than all three versions of King Kong played back to back. Proud and suited staff are on hand to guide with a [sadly] yesteryear panache but the beauty is taking a look yourself as the cliff-face sized red curtain of the only screen in the house follows you upwards and into the gods as each further level proves it is not the last.
There is no welcome to the cheap seats as there aren’t any. Every viewpoint, every row of chairs, aisle, end row fixture and side panel is truly glorious. This is a movie house with a “Ladies Smoking Room” more opulent and spacious than most new cinemas. This is a movie house – like the Castro Theatre – with a working Wurlitzer organ. This is a movie house with over 3040 seats with access spread out over at least five levels of carpeted and brass luxuriance. This is a movie house with a men’s lounge, a woman’s lounge, a hydraulic orchestra pit, its own historically documented mosaics and at least two bars. This is a movie house that does not need the movies for its thrills and awe. This is a movie house that was declared an official American National Historical Landmark in 1977. And this is a movie house that charges just $5 dollars a movie ticket. That’s right. North By Northwest. At the Paramount. For $5. Always the best show in town indeed.
For more details about visiting the Paramount click here.
“I’ve had some optional extras installed”
Aston Martin V8, The Living Daylights (1987)
From the opening shot of the opening Bond movie Dr. No (1962) where three “blind” assassins trundle on a mission of murder across traffic before cowering in a private members club car park, James Bond’s onscreen romance with automobiles was a given. Instantly part of the machismo, panache and kinetic pace of 007, these various fold-up planes, model trains and high-end automobiles are now Bond’s necessary co-stars, sidekicks and maybe even love interest. In 2012’s Skyfall, the fiery death of the Aston Martin DB5 was lent nearly as much impact as the onscreen death of Bond’s wife Tracy forty or so years before. It was certainly as shocking. Maybe. And an earlier reveal in a London lock-up got the biggest cheer in many a screening of Skyfall, including a right royal applause on premiere night.
“I hope my back end will stand up to this!”
Mercury Cougar XR7, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969)
Mercury Cougar XR7, ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE (Photos © Mark O’Connell / 2014)
So it now makes perfect sense for 007 creative house Eon Productions to celebrate Bond’s various vehicular speeding bullets with the London Film Museum’s newly launched exhibition, Bond In Motion. A collaboration between both parties (following a highly successful and extended run at the National Motor Museum in Beaulieu through 2012 and 2013), Bond In Motion is the largest official collection of original 007 vehicles and a rich pageant to some of cinema’s most iconic cars. And planes. And motorbikes. And jet packs. And speedboats. And underwater tow-sleds. And that crocodile submersible thing.
“No, some men just don’t like to be taken for a ride”
Thunderball (1965)
Overseen by Raoul Silva, GOLDENEYE’s Aston Martin DB5 and the scale model of the same car as used in SKYFALL (Photo © Mark O’Connell / 2014)
Kindly invited by Eon Productions and the London Film Museum to a recent preview of Bond In Motion, the day quickly grew faster than an Aston Martin’s self-inflating tyre with surprise reunions, typical Bond glamour, some welcome bubbly and a possible nugget or two of news about October 2015’s Bond 24. Granted a quieter session of grace to fully take in the whole exhibition before the world’s press descended like Japanese ninjas, it was a welcome opportunity to chat to the gathering Bond alumni, particularly top Eon archivist and the ‘M’ of the various Bond exhibitions travelling through the globe, Meg Simmonds. Added to that production designer Peter Lamont, stunt driver and 007 fan Ben Collins (who currently doubles for Daniel Craig and took part in the frenetic Italian road chase in Quantum of Solace), Casino Royale‘s Caterina Murino (who does not have a fear of hammocks as I first queried but does admit they are awful for reading in), current Moneypenny and all-round car wrecker herself Naomie Harris, husband and wife stunt legends Vic Armstrong and Wendy Leech, 007 producer Gregg Wilson, special effects head Chris Corbould (who was able to answer another pressing query of mine – namely, ‘did we do our Christmas shopping last year at the same place?’ … we did), actress Maryam D’Abo (Kara, The Living Daylights), writers Robert Wade and Neil Purvis (Skyfall, The World Is Not Enough) and soon to be three-time production designer Dennis Gassner (following on from Quantum Of Solace and Skyfall).
“Boy with toys” – Various souped up examples of Bond machinery from THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH, THE SPY WHO LOVED ME and SKYFALL.
(Photos © Mark O’Connell / 2014)
Amidst all the fantasy apparatus and Q-Branch hardware, this Bond author chose instead to not chat to Peter Lamont about his favourite Bond car or maybe even the prop that caused him the most design grief. No, this Bond film author chose instead to take the opportunity to chat about the Octopussy bed (all spray-painted polystyrene and destroyed not long after filming… criminal, I know). Cutting a far too youthful gait for someone in his eighty-fifth year, the now retired Lamont (Titanic, Aliens) was glad to have gone out on 2006’s Casino Royale, which he suggests is one of his best Bonds. That film’s presence is certainly marked in Bond In Motion by one of the Aston Martin DBS’s used for that film’s record-smashing multiple roll, and the curious magic-shattering add-ons necessary to make it happen.
The different phases of Bond production design – all perfectly underlined by Bond In Motion – have always held a fascination. Not just for me, but cinema audiences, design students, new directors and cineastes the world over. Ken Adam’s influence on design (and not just cinema) is immense. Globally renowned architects often cite him as an influence, his bombastic war rooms and HQs are no longer a retro fantasy (The Avengers Assemble and Inception certainly owes him a debt – or an apology), Apple’s flagship stores ape his style, and material contradictions and angular excesses are all over the likes of London’s Canary Wharf tube station.
Ken Adam’s iconic designs @ The Storyboard Gallery, BOND IN MOTION (Photos © Mark O’Connell / 2014)
To witness Mr Adam arrive – and equally cutting a far too youthful gait for his ninety-three years – to a warm welcome from Peter Lamont and current 007 designer Dennis Gassner was a moment to treasure. Clearly, Bond producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G Wilson couldn’t have been happier to mark such an exhibition with three generations of 007 designers in attendance and some of the most famous examples of all their work flanking proceedings.
(L) Artists Royale : a rare and special moment for BOND IN MOTION. 007’s top production designers (Dennis Gassner, Ken Adam & Peter Lamont) unite with Barbara Broccoli and Michael G Wilson to prove the charcoal sketch pen is always mightier than the sword.
(R) “So how many Oscars have you got?” – Dennis Gassner, Ken Adam & Peter Lamont catching up in the BOND IN MOTION café.
(Photos © Mark O’Connell / 2014)
And of course Bond producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G Wilson were on hand to proudly talk up Bond In Motion for the press, the legacy of all these cars, their own favourites and what the likes of CUB 1 means to the Broccoli family and the history of Bond film production. Naturally the question of 007’s immediate future came up and the astute pair were traditionally coy. However, Wilson confirmed that Bond 24 – Daniel Craig’s fourth spin of the wheel – will feature a brand new Aston Martin. Writer John Logan is indeed hard at work on the script with Daniel Craig crucially inputting as before, the process of casting a villain will begin in earnest in the next few months, the production is based at Pinewood Studios and the film is based on an “original story”. Broccoli declared how this is “the fun bit” – where casting, story arcs, choosing the various creatives and heads of department, planning the stunts and feel of the film is debated and planned to get into enough shape for the commencement of principle photography in the Autumn.
Flanked by the family wheels (CUB 1 – as seen in A VIEW TO A KILL, THUNDERBALL and CATCHING BULLETS), 007 producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G Wilson chat to the press about all things BOND IN MOTION
(Photos © Mark O’Connell / 2014)
Unfortunately, the gathered Eon ensemble will not be on hand when the doors properly open for the public. But rest assured, there are enough vehicular stars, shiny beauties and colourful flying co-stars on display to keep every Bond fan boy and girl, man and women completely happy. Oh, and the gift shop – don’t let me forget the gift shop! And the ‘get your own gunbarrel pose’ photo room (complete with tuxedos, oh yes).
![One [not] careful owner : an Aston Martin DBS, a SPECTRE Bath-O-Sub & a Ford Mustang, BOND IN MOTION (Photos © Mark O'Connell / 2014)](http://y2b.413.myftpupload.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/BOND-IN-MOTION-montage-6.jpg)
One [not] careful owner : an Aston Martin DBS, a SPECTRE Bath-O-Sub & a Ford Mustang, BOND IN MOTION (Photos © Mark O’Connell / 2014)
Astutely situated in London’s Covent Garden (and a gearstick’s length from Bond director Sam Mendes’ current West End hit, Charlie and The Chocolate Factory), from the moment one steps off the street into the immersive and white gallery space of 45 Wellington Street, it is instantly apparent just how much thought and design care has gone into Bond In Motion. Multiple screens herald and celebrate 007’s car moments, Bond anthems are all around you and a 1/3 scale (but still sizeable) model of Skyfall’s Augusta Westland helicopter hangs very carefully on an equally sizeable hoist. Incidentally it was the same hoist that lowered each and every car into the exhibition space in what Bond In Motion’s very own Q – the London Film Museum’s Jonathan Sands – admits was a sweaty process as each car had its own weights, structural concerns and no doubt insurance premiums. And it is the very idea of logistics and planning that sees an upstairs gallery space dedicated to numerous storyboards and design thinking from Bond’s transport options over the last six decades. Including sketches and vehicle concepts by Bond production designers Ken Adam, Peter Lamont, Peter Murton and Syd Cain, the collection contains some top notch examples of 007 artistry from the Eon Archive – some of which has never been seen publically before, such as all that now remains of Thunderball’s SPECTRE yacht, the Disco Volante.
“That look like a boat stuck in the Sheriff’s car there, Eddie?”
Glastron V-162 Futura, Live and Let Die (1973)
Sgt Pepper’s lonely boat club banned….The Glastron GT-150 speedboat from LIVE AND LET DIE
(Photo © Mark O’Connell / 2014)
With an optional tour guide cell-phone ably guiding those that opt for the pre-ordained flow, Bond In Motion takes off proper when one ventures downwards into an underground Aladdin’s cave of 007 delights. Filling a labyrinthine space that once housed a vast flower storage warehouse (serving the Covent Garden’s famed trade) this is now the London Film Museum’s chamber of 007 secrets, an apt underground garage housing the capital’s most expensive run-arounds. Flanked by Auric Goldfinger’s beautiful 1937 Rolls Royce Phantom III (which Bond producer Michael G Wilson drove himself to the Skyfall premiere in October 2012) and the all-important Rolls Royce Silver Cloud II aka “CUB 1” from 1985’s A View To a Kill (which due to a familial link is one of the key players in my own Catching Bullets – Memoirs of a Bond Fan), this exhibition very quickly lays it cars on the table with a luxuriant bombast.
“Little Nellie got a hot reception. Four big shots made improper advances towards her, but she defended her honour with great success”
Wallis WA-116 Agile, You Only Live Twice (1967)
Little Nellie causing a big stir, BOND IN MOTION (Photo © Mark O’Connell / 2014)
Of course the original factory-floor artistry of these Aston Martins, Lotus Esprits, BMWs, Cougars, Mustangs, Jaguars and Roll Royces speak for themselves. Most of the gathered vehicles here deserve their own pedestal whether they shared screen time with Sean, Roger and Daniel or not. Albert R Broccoli’s very own CUB 1 is a beautiful example of early 1960s car-tistry, regardless of her two Bond film appearances – a lush metallic zeppelin of curves, passenger head room and corners. Likewise, the various incarnations of Aston Martin’s famed relationship with Bond never ceases to amaze even the least car savvy of punters for their sleek aesthetic and low-lying finesse. Rest assured, Bond In Motion is not solely for Bond or film fans. This writer is no petrol head, but the way this exhibition presents itself, the way it allows itself and its visitors room to breathe and let these cars tell their own derring do tales is a key lure for the slightest of Bond geeks. Because this is Eon’s Bond and because their own filmmaking ethos dictates the real thing being real at all times where feasible, this collection is also a high-end reminder of the opulence and quality invested in each new film. There are no Smart cars or family friendly Skodas here. This is an A-grade ensemble of vehicles. The investment Eon pumps into its various filmic projects is no more apparent than in this exhibition.
“Ejector seat? You’re joking!”
Aston Martin DB5, Goldfinger (1964)
Of course a great many of these vehicles come with – as 1987’s Bond Timothy Dalton remarks – “a few optional extras“. An added joy is seeing just how the various special effects gurus and design heads over the decades have souped up cars that are so damn cool they didn’t need accessorising. Yet this is the world of James Bond and witnessing the fantasy of that up close is a major plus point of Bond In Motion. So of course the various added missile launchers, studded tyres, ski supports and revolving number plates mark these already special cars as being just that bit more special. Take your time to study the exhibits and props. The amount of detail put into a GoldenEye train, model helicopter or a nearly throwaway Brosnan surfboard is as important to this exhibition and understanding the effort spent on Bond as the smooth fender of an Aston Martin DBS or a Mustang’s red paint job.
One of these looks stunning emerging from the surf. The other is a Lotus Esprit from THE SPY WHO LOVED ME (Photo © Mark O’Connell / 2014)
“Ever heard of Evel Knievel?”
AMC Hornet, The Man With The Golden Gun (1974)
(Photo © Mark O’Connell / 2014)
All delicately lit with aptly positioned montage screens and film friezes adding individual Bond film context, each car is often showcased with visitor access as key. Whilst petting the exhibits will no doubt be frowned upon, this is not an exercise in keeping the public at bay. With a loose theme for the various zones – water, the DB5s (there is more than one), bikes, ski-doos and Skyfall Honda bikes, the destroyed DBSs (the Daniel Craig Astons are invariably Royale-y trashed) and all punctuated with props, miniatures, random helmets, jetpacks and cool piton guns – this exhibition has its own natural flow with a breathing space between these four and two wheeled beauties and plenty of photo opportunities for everyone’s 007 fantasies. Museum head Jonathan Sands has a self-declared fondness for the Roger Moore era (good man) and there is a fun array of 1970s Roger-mobiles. Likewise, there is a lot of Connery kit, particularly showcasing the design alchemy genius of one Ken Adam. Like the quirky cousin that must be in every family photo, You Only Live Twice’s famed gyrocopter Little Nellie is of course in there too – taking pride of place in a spacious wing with various two-wheeled motorbikes, Octopussy‘s tuk-tuk, For Your Eyes Only’s canary yellow Citreon 2CV and The World Is Not Enough’s Parahawks.
“Lean over!”
Ford Mustang Mach 1, Diamonds Are Forever (1971)
Yes, maybe the Lotus Esprit could have been more showcased (or showboated) in the layout scheme of things, but actually its not-obvious placement creates a great “oh my – is that the Lotus?” realisations for any kid of any age to suddenly make an eager beeline for. One of the feng-shui successes of Bond In Motion is how sizing up one car offers a nearby peek of another classic from yesteryear. It’s like being at a school reunion where every conversation is interrupted by someone better to veer towards. More than one sweep through and starting at the end and working backwards is much recommended. And yes – check out the gift shop, nicely sited in one of the underground flower storage catacombs of the museum and inadvertently echoing the “new digs” MI6 end up in 2012’s Skyfall. The ladies can traipse around town with their buff boy Hollister bags, but the Bond fan boys are going to be fighting for a Bond In Motion boutique bag stocked full of mugs, DVDs, prints, clothing and pencils (who isn’t a sucker for a museum pencil?). It also houses a neat case of vintage Bond car memorabilia. And just like how the rather snazzy and kid friendly Scalectrix set available in a canteen room for all to play demonstrates, Bond In Motion straddles a careful line of history, geekery and contemporary.
BOND IN MOTION (Photo © Mark O’Connell / 2014)
And my favourite exhibit? Yes, the Astons are beyond lush and the mecha-flippered Lotus Esprit is always going to be the biggest Bond car toy made real. Diamonds Are Forever’s Mustang is – like Las Vegas itself – a bit weather-worn but still holding its sparkle and Blofeld’s Bath-O-Tub from the same film is possibly the campest exhibit in a subterranean world of machismo. But the one that kept catching this bullet catcher’s eye…? Diana Rigg’s Mercury Cougar XR7 from 1969’s On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Complete with a vintage rack of White Wing skis, this car is simple in its own intent and that of the film it features. No bells. No whistles. Just Steve McQueen cool.
Like a 1970s double-taking Frenchman clasping a near-empty bottle of plonk as a Lotus Espirit motors from the surf, these cars make you pause. Strikingly laid out and physically choreographed by Jonathan Sands, Eon and their respective teams, the exhibition echoes Eon Production’s sister exhibition – Designing Bond – for its insistence on leaving space to let these metallic exhibits breathe. However, it might well overtake Designing Bond on a hairpin bend for the best current exhibition celebrating cinema’s favourite son and spy. Amidst the hardware, ammo and machismo of these cars and vehicles there is an unexpected grace to this collection. But as you shift down a gear for your final lap of the exhibits, there is a private and selfish joy in standing back and surveying the biggest Bond car toy box ever opened in one place. A highly roadworthy experience from lots of careful and not-so-careful owners, Bond In Motion passes its 007 fan MOT with flying (and driving and diving) colours.
“I love a drive in the country, don’t you?”
Citreon 2Cv, For Your Eyes Only (1981)
Bond In Motion opens on March 21st 2014.
Tickets are £14.50 for adults, £9.50 for children and a family ticket is £38. The Museum is currently recommending booking ahead (especially in these early weeks) but also states how people are equally welcome just to turn up and try their chances.
With thanks to Jonathan Sands, Meg Simmonds, Barbara Broccoli & Eon Productions, Sam Fane & Sal Porter at Freuds and the team at London Film Museum. And to Remmert Van Braam, Ben Williams, Adam Bollard & Morten Steingrimsen.
For a whole car boot full of more photos of the exhibition and launch – check out Catching Bullets Facebook page.
Loosely imagining Wes Anderson and his wonderful world taking on the mantle of James Bond and his equally wonderful world …. all to a quirky soundtrack…
