Great Movies Revisited - James Bond #2: From Russia With Love (1963)

As part of my James Bond review series I’m looking at Sean Connery’s second outing today, and From Russia With Love is rightly considered another of the untouchable classics of the franchise. It’s here that the Bond we all know and love really starts to take shape thanks firstly to a more confident Connery but also more action scenes.

From chess championships in Venice to SPECTRE Island to the Basilica Cistern beneath Istanbul (long before Robert Langdon got there) this film doesn’t disappoint and the plot is driven by expertly-drawn baddies Rosa Klebb and Kronsteen as they try and lay their hands on a decoding device while reporting to Blofeld and his famous cat. It is here that chess grandmaster Tov Kronsteen announces to Blofeld that his plan is foolproof and there will be no failure. Oh dear.         

One thing I always end up asking in these movies is – just who the hell would work for a man like Blofeld? This is someone whose idea of offering an employee early retirement is pulling a lever and dropping them into a shark tank/alligator pit, etc. Do staff members not talk in the SPECTRE canteen about all their missing colleagues?

The dialogue in the film is snappy and tight and this movie is in many respects the real springboard for the rest of the series. For this reason, many people rate this as the best Bond, and in some ways that’s hard to argue with, but it depends on what you’re measuring. For me this is at the top, but not the best. In fact I think my favourite Bond film(s) are going to be quite controversial choices...

Something of interest to me in this film is that the Baddies (with a capital B) are not motivated by the usual world-destroying megalomania, but instead desire a simple decoding device, as mentioned above. Giving a villain his motivation is an integral part of stories like this and cranking it down a notch from total world-domination is a brave decision – almost as brave as eating in the SPECTRE canteen.

A gripping fight scene on a moving train leaving Zagreb and Bond being hunted through the mountains by a Hiller UH-12 helicopter, not to mention more great gags and innuendo plus the inimitable Blofeld and his Siamese fighting fish – come on!! This is great stuff and a timeless classic that you should watch tonight!

My rating: 9/10

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Vault of Poseidon Anniversary and Word Cloud

I can hardly believe it, but The Vault of Poseidon was published a year ago this week! I made this word cloud to celebrate the anniversary, and if you like it you can do the same right here http://www.wordclouds.com/

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Great Movies Revisited - Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

While we’re on the subject of brilliant movies, let’s talk about one of the greatest of them all – Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), and see if we can get to the end without asking why no one can make films like this anymore.

This was a formative movie for so many, and captivated people right from the outstanding opening sequence starring Harrison Ford, Alfred Molina and, of course, Paul Freeman and his truly great villain-archaeologist René Belloq. Who could forget the pacing and atmosphere as Indy takes the golden Inca idol but then must flee the Peruvian temple with the now legendary rolling boulder chasing after him? Or the moment the fantastic WACO biplane lifts off out of the water just in time to save the hero from the tribe’s poison darts? This was real adventure fiction – almost a kind of pulp fiction - presented in homage to the classic serial films of the pre-war era and it’s done with real style, much like the excellent original theatrical release poster by Richard Amsel (above).

 

This movie was made when screenwriters still had a sense of humour and knew how to use it. They felt that putting some real laughs into the film didn’t detract from the serious parts of it, and they were right. Slowing a film down and putting some gags in it makes the faster bits faster and the darker bits darker. This is something we see far too little of now, especially in thrillers.

I find it hard to criticise this film, and it’s weird how this movie was made with a nostalgic eye on the movie-making and entertainment of the 1930s, and yet now it’s possible to watch it with a nostalgic eye on the movie-making and entertainment of the 1980s. Raiders perfectly blends adventure, romance, humour, villainy, amazing locations, and even throws in a supernatural lightning storm that kills Nazis. I mean, come on.

And on that last bit, something else this film does really well is incorporate that supernatural storyline into what is other than that a standard adventure thriller, and this is not an easy thing to do. Where to draw the line is a hard thing to know, and this came up a bit when the ‘alien thing’ happened in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. In the 2008 revisit to Indy’s world, the film wraps up with the now notorious ‘alien thing’ which many people felt wasn’t coherent with the universe of Indiana Jones which had spent three previous (excellent) films and 27 years drawing the line at religious mysticism and the supernatural.

But Raiders was a deserved hit and box office smash, winning Spielberg the Saturn Award for Best Director, and scooping several Academy Awards as well. Not only that but it was followed up by two more great films – Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) and the outstanding Indana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989). I’ll go into these in more detail, and Crystal Skull, later.

I’m not rating this film – I’ll leave that for my reviews of the Bond films – but let’s just say it’s a masterpiece of adventure thriller pacing and makes great use of some amazing locations as well. The only question I have is why no one can make films like this anymore...

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James Bond Revisited #1 Dr No

It’s no surprise that I’m a lifelong fan of James Bond, both the original novels by Ian Fleming, and the film productions which have entertained countless millions of people since way back in 1962. Like any long-running series, the James Bond films divide the fans, and so I’ll say up-front that all these reviews are are just my personal opinions of the films and I know many will disagree with what I’m sure will be seen as some controversial decisions! I’ll add as a chaser to that shot that for me the reasons the films have had such successful longevity is because of the way they have so deftly weaved humour into the action-thriller element.

I’ll also add that these reviews are of the films not the novels, and there are many important differences. While some of these may come up, I want to focus on the movies. I’ll give them a rating out of 10 and at the end sort that into a definitive rank! Finally, these reviews are not about trivia and won’t contain spoilers (well, maybe a couple...). They’re just my impressions of the movies and how they influenced me as a writer, so this is a list of my personal favourite Bond films, and why.

So without further ado, we’re going to start in the logical place, which is the first James Bond movie ever made – Dr. No (1962).

Even looking back over the incredible 54 years since Dr. No first hit the screens in 1962, the film still doesn’t disappoint and has aged extremely well. Often with franchises as massive as Bond it’s almost blasphemous to criticise the series-starter (same goes for bands and their first albums) but we don’t have to go there with Dr. No because the film delivers (nearly) everything you want from the genre.

The original novel was Fleming’s sixth in the series, and producers originally wanted to make Thunderball as the first movie, but a legal dispute had tied things up so Dr. No was chosen instead. Considering some of the iconic moments in the film, perhaps this was fate intervening.

The plot starts with the traditional ‘call to adventure’, in this case Bond being briefed by M to investigate the disappearance of an MI6 asset in Jamaica. After a series of twists and turns Bond hooks up with the CIA’s Felix Leiter and later on the now legendary Honey Ryder and they find their way to Crab Key, an island owned by Dr. No, and there the final act unfolds. (Hmm – secret island bases... what a good idea - someone should tell Joe Hawke ;)

No one had played Bond before, so Sean Connery had the advantage of being able to shape him the way he wanted and be compared only to the original literary character. Such was Connery’s commanding performance of the role that subsequent Bonds are measured up against him, and rarely the original character created by Fleming.

Being the first outing, the gadgets made so notorious in later films are missing here, and instead our hero must save the world with nothing more a Walther PPK and his wits. Later films would give Bond flame-throwing aerosol cans, wheelchair missiles and even x-ray vision (in fact the gadgets started to get ridiculous – but that’s a later review), but when Connery is attacked by a tarantula in Dr. No he must improvise and bash it to death with the heel of a quality slip-on loafer. Presumably SIS issue, of course.

Joseph Wiseman also leads the way for countless international villains in his icy depiction of Julius No, pulling off the Nehru jacket and metal hand with grim poise. Also, the stunning cinematography which brings Jamaica to life on the screen deserves a mention, as does Terence Young’s measured but classy direction.

Many argue that Dr No is more a mystery, or whodunnit than a straight-forward action-adventure thriller and looking back they make a good point. But it was 1962, and they were establishing a character and a franchise. An endless series of explosive set-pieces wouldn’t have allowed for this important groundwork. Also we have to remember the more conservative time – the Vatican condemned the film when it was released – anything raunchier or more violent might have ended up on the cutting room floor. Another consideration is the high cost of producing action movies, but luckily writers can make set-pieces as explosive as they like without destroying expensive sets, as my readers will know...

For me what’s so important about Dr. No is that it lays out a solid path for the escapist action-adventure thriller genre but importantly includes humour as a part of the package. I want to talk more about the role of humour in this genre (and the increasing lack of it) but that’s me wrapping up for now.

My rating: 9/10

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Getting Serious About Writing - or not...

This week saw the release of the first Joe Hawke action-adventure thriller, The Vault of Poseidon, and this was a very exciting time, even though I am now almost finished with the second Joe Hawke novel and beginning to iron out the plot of the third one.

Between all this writing and managing the "post-production" process, it's fair to say there isn't a lot of time left over for much else. In fact it's worth saying that anyone starting out on a similar journey shouldn't underestimate just how much time will be needed to manage your writing after you've typed "The End".

The reason I came to the blog today was because as I launched Poseidon and watched her sail out of the dock and into the digital ocean, I wondered if I should have put some kind of disclaimer in the front of it, just a short note telling people not to take the story too seriously.

My writing is not confined to the inimitable Joe Hawke (or as inimitable as a hero in an action-adventure genre can get anyway...) and I have several other characters and stories that I would like to write about. Some of these (horror of horrors) are more "serious" than others, but the Joe Hawke books are just my attempt at producing pure escapist fun. They are my way of saying "it's actually okay not to be really serious all the time" and you can just relax into some old-school Bond escapism here if you want to do that.

So in the end I decided I had made the right decision not to explain all that somewhere in the story, and instead I'll throw it into the blog and now get back to finishing Hawke 2.

The Vault of Poseidon and Other Matters...

With the release of The Vault of Poseidon looming on the horizon, I have been asked some questions on Twitter about the novel, so I'll answer those here and say something general about the books I write and explain why I write them.

I wrote my first fictional story when I was eight or nine, and I've enjoyed writing ever since. I have written all kinds of stories, from whodunnits to historical to fantasy to scifi, but my favourite kind is the thriller. For me, writing is an opportunity to get away from the real world, and I hope that as a reader you are able to join me in what is nothing more than honest, pure escapist fun... or so I hope.

I write a lot, but like so many other creative pursuits, writing a novel takes a lot of time. First there's the idea, then the plan, then the research, then the plotting, then the first draft, then the second, third... however many other drafts, and then there's the editing, proof-reading, finding a simple mistake that changes the entire story... so many pixels, so little time.

So if you want some honest, fun escapism then I hope you'll join me as we get away from our lives together and go into these stories which I write to entertain myself, and hopefully you, too.

As of right now, I am aiming for a release date in May 2015 for The Vault of Poseidon, and it should be available for Pre-Order from Amazon in April. I will release more details about the novel in the next few weeks, but in the meantime, it's back to the grindstone for me...