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1922: Dana Broccoli is born--New York City, New York. (She dies 29 February 2004 at age 82--Los Angeles, California.)
1928: Philip Locke is born--St. Marylebone, London, England. (Dies 19 April 2004.)
1982: Albert "Cubby" Broccoli receives the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Los Angeles, presented by Roger Moore. (That Oscar night title song "For Your Eyes Only" was nominated for Best Original Song.)
1999: A court ruling confirms sole rights of the Bond franchise to MGM (and EON) over Sony (and McClory), who sought to produce rogue missions due to the original Thunderball complications.
1950: Robbie Coltrane is born--Rutherglen, Scotland.
1958: Raymond Chandler reviews Dr. No in The Sunday Times.
THE TERRIBLE DR. NO (March 30 1958)
By RAYMOND CHANDLER
Ian Fleming first attracted me for three qualities which I thought—perhaps wrongly—almost unique in English writers. The first was escape from mandarin English, the forced pretentiousness, the preoccupation with the precise and beautiful phrase, which to me is seldom precise or beautiful, since our language contains an interior magic which belongs only to those who in a sense, care nothing about themselves.
The second was daring. He was not afraid to attempt any locale anywhere. He wrote expertly of
New York’s Harlem and Florida’s St. Petersburg, in both of which he didn’t miss a trick. He wrote of Las Vegas and did miss one small trick. He forgot the glass of ice water which is always the first thing a waitress or bus boy would place on your table.
What has happened to him in “Dr. No” is what happens to every real writer. He has found that a novel, a thriller, or what you choose to call it, is a world, that it has its own depth and subtleties, and that these can be expressed in an offhand way, without calling attention to themselves, and be very much alive.
The first chapter of “Dr. No” is masterly. The atmosphere and background of the elegant Richmond Road in Kingston, Jamaica, are established with clarity and charm. They had to be, or the ruthless violence which takes place there would be in a vacuum.
The third thing that attracted me in Ian Fleming’s writing was an acute sense at pace. How far to go, when to stop, when to destroy a mood and when to regain it, when to write a scene on a postcard and when to write richly and with leisure. Some of the most honoured novels lack this completely. You have to work at them. You don’t have to work at Fleming. He does the work for you.
The story concerns itself with a strange disappearance of two British agents in Jamaica, and why they disappeared, when no possible reason seemed clear. All was peace, so why suddenly in the night are they gone? James Bond is sent to find out—a trivial matter, a vacation in the sun. Yeah?
I have a few complaints. The beautiful girl does not appear until page 91, but in return for this she is allowed to live, and the last love scene is more gentle and compassionate than Ian Fleming usually permits. My second complaint is that the long sensational business which is the heart of the book not only borders on fantasy, it plunges into it with both feet. Ian Fleming’s impetuous imagination has no rules. I could wish he would write a book with all but one of his other qualities, yet with a plot which, at least to my world, seems part of what I know to be actual. The sequence is beautifully written, there are many very good things in it, especially detailed descriptions of the locale, the birds, the fishes—Fleming seems to be in love with rare fishes, and other dwellers in the water—some interiors, and a long torture scene which I thought a bit too sadistic, as though, he liked to write this sort of thing for its own sake.
The terrible Dr. No is a strange creature, but his motives become clear and his end very original. The beautiful girl this time is no sophisticated doll from the night clubs. The ending of the book is, as I said, written with an unusual tenderness—for Ian Fleming. I’m glad of that.
1985: British Hovercraft Corporation/Vickers Supermarine's Princess Margaret SR.N4 Mk (as used in Diamonds Are Forever) is blown onto a Dover breakwater killing four.
1922: Bob Simmons is born--Fullham, London, England. (He dies 21 October 1987 at age 65.)
1943: Christopher Walken is born--Astoria, Queens, New York City, New York.
1958: Ian Fleming's sixth Bond novel Dr. No is published by Jonathan Cape.
1931: George Baker is born--Varna, Bulgaria.
1944: Aliza Gur is born--Ramat Gan, Israel.
1961: Goldfinger ends its run in The Daily Express. (Started 3 October 1960, serials 698-849.)
John McLusky, artist. Henry Gammidge, writer.
1965: Ian Fleming's twelfth and final Bond novel The Man With the Golden Gun is published by Jonathan Cape.
2015: Skyfall filming in Mexico comes to a close.
2016: The Daily Mail prints an exclusive--Broadchurch actress Olivia Coleman cast as first female James Bond.
1925: George MacDonald Fraser is born--Carlisle, Cumberland, England.
(Dies 2 January 2008 at age 82--Strang, Isle of Man, United Kingdom.)
1962: Producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Salztman complete a deal with United Artists that finances the first Bond film Dr. No.
1965: Kingsley Amis reviews The Man With the Golden Gun in The New Statesman.
https://mi6community.com/discussion/comment/847292
***
1926: Director of photography Jean Tournier is born--Toulon, Var, France.
(He dies 5 December 2004 at age 78--Paris, France.)
1942: Wayne Newton is born--Roanoke, Virginia.
1961: The Daily Express comic run of Risico begins. (Ending 24 June 1961, serials 850-921.)
John McLusky, artist. Henry Gammidge, writer.
1921: Peter Burton is born--Bromley, Kent, England. (He dies 27 November 1989--Chelsea, London.)
1928: Monty Norman (Monty Noserovitch) is born--London, England.
1958: The Spectator prints an article by Ian Fleming called "Automobilia" about his Ford Thunderbird, friend Noël Coward, and driving around Jamaica.
1909: Albert Romolo "Cubby" Broccoli is born--New York City, New York.
(He dies 27 June 1996--Beverly Hills, California.)
https://telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/7733431/Albert-Cubby-Broccoli.html
Albert "Cubby" Broccoli
Albert "Cubby" Broccoli, the film producer, who has died in Beverly Hills aged 87, was the driving force behind the phenomenally successful James Bond films, 17 of which he either produced or co-produced.
2:36PM BST 29 Jun 1996
Photo: REUTERS
A vast, unhurried man with the deeply shadowed eyes of a perpetual jet-setter, Broccoli, ensconced in the calm of his Mayfair office, could remind visitors of one of James Bond's sensual, cat-stroking adversaries.
But he was noted by the profession for his geniality, and for the fatherly interest he took in his productions. Despite the enormous riches he accumulated from putting Ian Fleming's books on screen, Broccoli was almost believed when he said: "I have always felt that Bond is bigger than all of us."
In 1960 he formed Eon (standing for "Everything or Nothing") Film Productions in London with the Canadian Harry Saltzman, who held an expiring option on the film rights to all Fleming's Bond books except Casino Royale.
Broccoli and Saltzman agreed that the film industry should be international in scope, but their working methods were contrasting. While Saltzman revelled in his tough image, Broccoli became known as one of the industry's nice guys. As Michael Caine said, "Cubby is Harry's sense of proportion. They're like two policemen: Cubby gives you a cigarette and Harry knocks it out of your mouth."
Their break came in 1962 when they persuaded United Artists to provide backing for Dr No, and made the inspired casting of Sean Connery - who, they thought, had the right walk - as Bond. An immediate hit, the film was followed by From Russia With Love (1963), Goldfinger (1964) and Thunderball (1965).
By then the partners were pounds 4 million the richer. Their partnership, which was always combative, endured until 1975, when Saltzman sold his share and Broccoli became the undisputed chief of the Bond industry. As such he took an unusually involved approach, embroiling himself in every stage of a film's development.
"Bond is the only script written by a committee," he said. "I sit down with the writer, director and executive producer and we decide what we want in the script. The final decision," he added, "is made by me."
Albert Romolo Broccoli, always known as "Cubby", was born in New York on April 5 1909, the son of Italian immigrants. His father was a bricklayer. With no idea what he would do with his life, young Cubby helped an uncle who ran a market garden in Long Island. He would later claim that this uncle brought the first broccoli seeds to America and gave his name to the well-known vegetable. Etymologists think otherwise.
After a spell managing a coffin-factory, Broccoli was alerted by a holiday in Hollywood to his desire for a career in films and he moved out to the west. Not an immediate success, he worked as a street-corner Christmas tree hawker and as a salesman of hairdressing products in San Francisco, where he lived in one room with only a rat for company.
"I really looked forward to seeing that rat. I fed him. He became a friend. Then one day I won a few dollars at the races. That was it: I said goodbye to the rat and made for LA." He became a teaboy at 20th Century Fox studios and soon progressed to the post of assistant director.
During the Second World War, Broccoli served in the navy. Afterwards he worked in Hollywood as an agent and then settled in London. In 1951 he formed Warwick Film Productions with Irving Allen and produced a large number of competent pictures with tough characters and lots of action. These include The Red Beret (1953), Safari (1956) and The Killers of Kilimanjaro (1959).
Although generally jovial and given to dishing up spaghetti for cast and crew, Broccoli could be stern. In 1970 he explained why the contract of George Lazenby, who played Bond in On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969), had not been renewed. "Our parting was not by mutual desire," he said, "but by our desire. I wouldn't use him again. He's a pain in the arse."
Broccoli returned to Hollywood in 1977, for tax reasons. In 1982 he was honoured at the Oscar ceremony with the prestigious Irving G Thalberg award. He was appointed OBE in 1987.
Extremely skilful at negotiating a fair share for himself from the Bond films, Broccoli amassed an estimated pounds 100 million.
He married, in 1959, Dana Wilson; Cary Grant was best man. They had two daughters.
1940: Pedro Armendáriz Jr. is born--Mexico City, Distrito Federal, Mexico.
(He dies 26 December 2011 at age 71--New York City, New York.)
2011: Sam Mendes and Barbara Broccoli scout South African locations for Bond 23.
2016: James Bond #6 Vargr is set for release this date (delayed to 20 April).
2007: Barry Nelson (Haakon Robert Nielsen) dies at age 89--Bucks County, Pennsylvania.
(Born 16 April 1917--San Francisco, California.)
2010: Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson with David Pope engage in an international phone conversation to discuss whether the next Bond film production can go forward considering the state of MGM.
THR Cover: How the Bond Franchise Almost Died
After MGM's collapse threatened to derail 007 for good, "Skyfall's" $17 million star Daniel Craig lined up director Sam Mendes and villain Javier Bardem -- over drinks — and delivered the biggest Bond yet.
This story first appeared in the Nov. 16 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine.
On April 19, 2010, James Bond effectively died. After almost a year and a half of trying to get a new 007 film made while its parent studio, MGM, was spiraling toward bankruptcy, producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson finally pulled the plug.
PHOTOS: The Making of 'Skyfall': Bond is Back, Better Than Ever
That's when the London-based half-siblings issued a statement: "Due to the continuing uncertainty surrounding the future of MGM and the failure to close a sale of the studio, we have suspended development of Bond 23 indefinitely. We do not know when development will resume."
Today, the 23rd James Bond film, Skyfall, has opened to record numbers at the European box office and is drawing rave reviews from critics. It earned $287 million in its first 10 days, boding well for the picture's Nov. 9 debut in the U.S. Its success will add significantly not only to the franchise's value (which some estimate as high as $1.2 billion), but also to that of MGM, which co-owns Bond with Broccoli and Wilson and is expected to launch an initial public offering in 2013.
That is great news for MGM and Sony, which jointly financed the roughly $210 million film (less than $200 million after tax breaks) and for Daniel Craig, 44, who earned $17 million for his third outing as Ian Fleming's spy.
All this seemed a distant dream, however, back in 2010.
"We were gutted," says Broccoli, who took over the series from her late father, Albert R. "Cubby" Broccoli. "But the physical studio, Pinewood, was on hold, and so were people all around the world, and we had no choice. It was a horrible thing to do, and we'd already been through all this before." She had vivid memories of the years Bond spent in the wilderness, between Timothy Dalton's final 007 venture, 1989's Licence to Kill, and Pierce Brosnan's first, 1995's GoldenEye: "We thought, 'Here we go again.' "
Skyfallfirst really kicked into life in 2009, when American Beauty's Oscar-winning director, Sam Mendes, ran into Craig at a birthday party for their mutual friend Hugh Jackman in New York City.
"It was in the evening, and Sam turned up late," Craig recalls of the man who previously had directed him in 2002's Road to Perdition. "I hadn't seen him for a long time and he apologized for saying to Entertainment Weekly that I wouldn't be a good Bond! He was also complimentary about Casino Royale. And, very selfishly, I started picking his brains."
As their conversation escalated, Craig discussed how he wanted to restore a sense of humor to Bond, one that he had initially felt uncomfortable with and was mostly absent from 2006's Casino Royale and 2008's Quantum of Solace. The actor confided his desire for the new film to be very much a contemporary thriller. In turn, "Sam's ideas started coming out, and I'd had a few too many drinks and I completely overstepped the line and said, 'Why don't you do it?' And Sam said, 'Why not?' "
The next day, Craig sheepishly called Broccoli and Wilson to mention the conversation, and discovered they were thrilled. The producers had been wrestling with a treatment written by Peter Morgan (The Queen) and regular Bond scribes Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, but they were dissatisfied with the storyline and hadn't even approached a director. Martin Campbell, who'd already rebooted Bond twice -- with Casino Royale and GoldenEye -- had made it clear he wanted to move on to other challenges, while Marc Forster's Quantum had been met with widespread critical indifference, even though it earned $586 million around the world.
So, two weeks after the Craig call, Broccoli, 52, and Wilson, 69, flew to New York and had lunch with Mendes at Cookshop restaurant in Chelsea, close to his then-home.
"I was very honest about Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace and where I thought it might be possible to take this movie, in the most general of terms," Mendes recalls. "Michael did say at one point, 'Why would an auteur or somebody who has a career in serious pictures want to do a Bond movie?' I said, 'Bond is a serious movie.' And I stuck to that throughout."
He continues: "I wanted to know, would they consider killing M and bringing back Q and Moneypenny? And did they want -- as I did -- a more flamboyant, old-style villain, the sort that emerged in the Sean Connery movies? And the answer to all those things was yes. And that was in many ways our starting point for working out what the story would be."
From fall 2009 into 2010, Mendes, 47 -- whose last movie was the 2009 low-budget dramedy Away We Go -- refined the script with Purvis and Wade, and also persuaded nine-time Oscar-nominated cinematographer Roger Deakins (No Country for Old Men) to join the team.
Everything seemed headed toward a late 2010 start -- and then the continuing financial issues that had plagued MGM reached their nadir.
"They couldn't guarantee anything," Broccoli laments. "The company was going into bankruptcy, and they didn't know how it was going to emerge. But we needed to know we would have financing and distribution -- and there was no deal with Sony in place at the time." (Sony had distributed the previous two Bond films.)
Mendes admits he seriously considered pulling out. In London, following his split with wife Kate Winslet, he was developing an adaptation of Ian McEwan's 1960s-based drama On Chesil Beach but had problems casting it. Other offers came his way -- he even had brief talks about helming The Hunger Games -- and yet he resisted.
"I was tempted to go," he acknowledges. "I said to Barbara, 'Can you give me some assurance this is going to happen?' She said, 'To be honest, I can't.' But I had a feeling it would be sorted out, so I took the risk of turning down other work and just waiting." Later, Mendes says he came to regard the forced break as a gift: "While we sat around waiting, we quietly carried on with the script, and as a consequence we ended up with a much better draft."
The director then took the Purvis and Wade draft to longtime friend and screenwriter John Logan (The Aviator). "He and I spent about six weeks together just talking," Mendes says. "He came to me in London, and even joined me when I went to visit my kids in Paris [where Winslet was shooting Carnage]. He wanted answers to every single question: what the shape of the film would be, what we would retain, what we would abandon."
Logan praises the script he received as a "great machine" and saw his job "not so much about cataloguing changes as bringing a certain sensibility to the material" -- helped by his familiarity with Fleming's novels. "I'm a great fan of the books and coincidentally had listened to all of them," he notes. (He reportedly has since been hired to work on scripts for Bond 24 and Bond 25, which may, for the first time, carry a story across two movies.)
The writer and director discussed favorite films that might color various sequences, including Charles Laughton's haunting 1955 drama The Night of the Hunter. "Sam and I talked a lot about why a Bond movie is a Bond movie and not a Bourne or a John le Carre," Logan says. "It has to do with that intense seriousness and a pain that hurts and also this sense of panache and elegance."
Before the Skyfall machinery could fully be engaged, MGM's financial uncertainty had to be resolved. Broccoli and Wilson shuttled endlessly across the Atlantic.
"We had different meetings with everyone from [MGM CEO] Harry Sloan [before he was pushed out in August 2009] to Stephen Cooper, who was brought in [as MGM vice chairman] by all the equity guys to reorganize the company. We had meetings in Los Angeles, in New York, all over the place. We were meeting a lot of people, because it was a revolving door, and to try and get a handle on the situation was chaotic. It didn't look like it was going to be resolved for some time and we didn't want to be a pawn in all this. The whole situation looked very opaque."
Saddled with debt, MGM desperately sought a buyer but failed to find one willing to meet its $2 billion minimum asking price. Without that, the studio simply didn't have the cash to fund Bond.
Broccoli, Wilson and their Los Angeles-based colleague David Pope arranged a transatlantic telephone call on April 7, 2010, to discuss whether they could realistically go ahead, bearing in mind that Mendes' option had to be exercised by May 31 or they would lose him.
"Between April 7 and April 15, we had discussions with both Sony and Warners [potential MGM buyers] and realized nothing was going to happen with MGM before the summer," says Pope, a co-producer on Skyfalland CEO of Danjaq Llc., which controls many of the rights to Bond. "We were trying to work out, would MGM be stable enough for us to engage [Mendes]? It became clear that things would be up in the air for a while."
On April 17, Broccoli, Wilson and Pope had one final conversation on the subject in which "we made the decision to postpone the film -- and on April 19 we announced the delay," says Pope.
"You feel devastated," notes Wilson. "A lot of people had come to us and said, 'Should we take this other thing?' And people would hang back and not commit to those things -- and that's a terrible thing to do. At a certain point, we just had to cut the cord."
Broccoli adds: "We had suffered through a six-year hiatus and were looking at the possibility of the same thing again. We had the 747 loaded up and ready to go down the runway, and we were being told MGM was going into bankruptcy. It was a very perilous situation."
When the studio emerged from bankruptcy at the very end of 2010, however, everything changed. Its new owners brought in former Spyglass chiefs Gary Barber and Roger Birnbaum as co-chairmen (Birnbaum has since departed) and, more important, they obtained a $500 million revolving credit line through JP Morgan and Deutsche Bank.
Sony Pictures Entertainment co-chair Amy Pascal was keen to move ahead, and agreed to a complex deal through which Sony funded the film with MGM, also taking a stake in Bond 24, while MGM co-financed The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.
The film that had variously been known as Silver Bullet, A Killing Moon and Once Upon a Spy -- as well as Bond 23 -- finally was a go.
Now the production team began to lock in the elements -- not least signing Javier Bardem to play Raoul Silva, a flamboyant and probably gay former agent whose mission is to destroy M (Judi Dench).
Mendes disputes reports that he talked to Anthony Hopkins and Kevin Spacey about joining the cast, and Bardem confirms he started conversations after being collared by Craig -- like Mendes. "I was at a fund-raiser for Haiti at [Crash director and Casino Royale writer] Paul Haggis' house," Bardem explains, "and Daniel approached me. Of course, he excused himself for bringing business into the conversation, but he asked, 'Would you be interested in doing a Bond movie?' And I said yes. Daniel is the soul of the whole thing."
The Spanish actor immersed himself in his role, having the screenplay translated into his native tongue. "I usually do that, because there is something organic to the words, and when you are speaking a language that is not your mother tongue, words can be misunderstood," he observes. "You need to have the emotional knowledge."
Even before that translation, "The first time I read the script, I knew there was something very powerful," he says. "And then I spoke to Sam, and he told me the key word for the character was uncomfortable. This was not about creating fear or menace; it was about creating an uncomfortable situation for the others."
While Bardem experimented with different looks, eventually dyeing his hair blond for the role, the production team searched for the sort of exotic locations that have long been critical to the Bond brand. At first, the film was meant to open in Mumbai, with a long chase that has Bond racing through a densely populated market, jumping on a motorbike and eventually fighting an opponent on top of a train as it hurtles into the countryside.
But Mendes' hopes of filming in Mumbai were dashed when he discovered the sheer impracticality of an Indian shoot. "It is logistically incredibly difficult to shut down the center of an enormous Indian city," he says. "We tried to make it work and to embrace the chaos, but in the end there were too many dangers -- I don't mean from people trying to sabotage production, but there are narrow streets [that are difficult to film in]. I was very disappointed."
Exploratory trips to Cape Town and Johannesburg proved equally fruitless. And then, for the first time in his life, Mendes visited Istanbul. "I found it was everything we wanted and more, and gave us so many ideas," he says. "Suddenly you are walking through the Grand Bazaar and someone says, 'You can go up on the roof,' and then you find a way of factoring that into the story," with Bond's pursuit leading him over the rooftops of the city.
Budget limitations restricted plans for filming in Shanghai and Macao to just four nights in the former; an ultra-modern stadium at England's famed Ascot racecourse stood in for Shanghai's Pudong International Airport.
Shooting began Nov. 7, 2011, in London, with a simple scene in which Bond drives into a subway tunnel, and the crew -- numbering about 400 at its peak -- subsequently moved to the "Bond stage," the vast space at Pinewood Studios just west of London, where they would work for almost a year. There, they filmed one of the most challenging sequences ever shot for a Bond feature, where a subway train crashes through a roof and into an underground hideout.
"That was real, not CGI," Mendes observes. "The head of special effects, Chris Corbould, constructed a track high above the set that was pointed down so that the train came crashing through the roof. We built two carriages and crashed them through the ceiling, and shot it with 11 cameras. We had to evacuate the stage to shoot, and when it came crashing through, it dismantled most of the 007 stage."
"It was a one-shot deal," he adds. "If it hadn't worked out, it would have been two million quid [roughly $3 million] to reshoot. That was pretty nerve-racking."
So was the opening sequence, which has Craig (strapped to a safety wire in reality) chasing that opponent on top of a moving train. It ended up being just about the last thing filmed and eventually involved three separate Turkish cities -- Istanbul, Fethiye and Adana -- where it was shot over 53 days.
"You are literally only getting one setup every four or five hours and having to work around the local train timetable, and it was 110 degrees," Mendes notes. "That's where Daniel's real heroism came in: He was on top of the train in a suit, attached by a wire." With all the takes, he needed "something like 30 different versions of the same gray suit" in different states of disrepair, Mendes laughs. "And these were very fine suits!"
British actress Naomie Harris, who plays one of the two Bond girls -- she was hired on the recommendation of director Danny Boyle, who had worked with her on 28 Days Later, and she likely will have a recurring role in future films -- remembers feeling guilty when she messed up a shot. "I was shooting and I left my safety catch on the gun, and everyone said, 'Fire!' -- and there was nothing. That was a massive wait, and I felt awful."
Throughout the 127-day shoot, which wrapped May 25, Mendes insisted on live action rather than CGI wherever possible. Indeed, there are only 500-some-odd CGI shots in the 143-minute movie (including one where MI6's London headquarters is blown up), compared to more than 2,200 effects shots in The Avengers. This meant Craig had to perform many of the stunts in difficult situations. And yet the only injury he suffered came during rehearsals, forcing two weeks of the film to be rescheduled while he healed.
"I tore a muscle in my calf doing something completely innocuous," he remembers. "I was trying to kick a stunt man, and stepped back on my foot. I heard it go snap and thought, 'Who the f-- did that!' "
The pain, both real and metaphysical, has paid off.
"Dramatically gripping while still brandishing a droll undercurrent of humor, this beautifully made film certainly will be embraced as one of the best Bonds," wrote THR's chief movie critic, Todd McCarthy, adding that it "leaves you wanting the next one to turn up sooner than four years from now."
If MGM has its way, it will. Bond's return to the screen has been crucial to the studio, whose anticipated IPO features the Bond franchise and Peter Jackson's upcoming The Hobbit trilogy as its two prized possessions, along with a library of 4,000 titles.
Analysts are reluctant to place a value on Bond, whose ticket sales to date have reached almost $5 billion -- not to mention billions more in DVD and ancillary sales -- but the combined promise of Skyfall and The Hobbit have increased MGM's value.
On Oct. 22, THR revealed that MGM Holdings had decided to delay the IPO, which insiders believe will take place in 2013 rather than before Skyfall's opening, as originally planned. That's largely based on the studio's confidence in Skyfall and The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, which opens Dec. 14.
"[Skyfall's success] would be incrementally positive to any proposed stock offering," says Piper Jaffray analyst James Marsh. "First, it likely increases estimates. It also likely raises the short-term growth rate, improves predictability of future cash flow. It was debatable if this franchise was getting a little long in the tooth; outperformance like this suggests it has a longer life."
If it does, MGM can thank Broccoli and Wilson, who have devoted most of their own lives to Fleming's creation. They recently signed Craig for at least two and possibly three more movies and hope to have the next Bond ready a couple of years from now. "It's been a great partnership," Broccoli says of Craig. "You couldn't ask for a better leading man."
Still, after four years on Skyfall, she admits she is too exhausted to think far ahead. "We only finished the film last Wednesday," she said on Thursday, Oct. 18, as she raced from one press conference to another. "We warned Sam how tired he'd be, but he didn't quite believe it. Right now we just want to enjoy the moment."
(Born 13 May 1946--Rugby, Warwickshire, England.)
2018: Heritage Auctions' April 7-8 Movie Poster Auction in Dallas, Texas, includes one of Bond's rarest: the Thunderball advance British quad. Plus many other Bond pieces.
https://movieposters.ha.com/c/search-results.zx?N=54+793+794+791+792+2088&Ntk=SI_Titles&Nty=1&Ntt=bond&ic4=KeywordSearch-A-K-071316
LOT #86419 |
Thunderball (United Artists, 1965).
British Quad (30" X 40") Advance Quad Crown Style, Frank McCarthy and Robert McGinnis
https://movieposters.ha.com/itm/james-bond/thunderball-united-artists-1965-british-quad-30-x-40-advance-quad-crown-style-frank-mccarthy-and-robert-mcginnis-ar/a/7178-86419.s?ic4=GalleryView-Thumbnail-071515
1931: John Gavin (Juan Vincent Apablasa) is born--Los Angeles, California.
(He dies 9 February 2018 at age 86--Beverly Hills, California.)
1957: Ian Fleming’s fifth Bond novel From Russia With Love is published by Jonathan Cape.
(That's after the London premiere 10 October 1963/UK release 11 October 1963, and prior to the US general release 27 May 1964.)
2017: Ian Fleming Publications releases a 60th anniversary image recognizing From Russia With Love.
[Checking my reference, I actually misapplied the film title--was intending to recognize From Russia With Love using those original dates.]
1991: Maurice Binder dies at age 72--London, England. (Born 4 December 1918--New York City, New York.)
1929: Max von Sydow is born--Lund, Skåne län, Sweden.
1975: David Harbour is born--New York City, New York.
1992: Cec Linder dies at age 71--Toronto, Canada. (Born 10 March 1921--Timmins, Ontario, Canada.
1960: Ian Fleming's first story collection For Your Eyes Only is published by Jonathan Cape.
2011: Angela Scoular dies at age 65--London, England. (Born 8 November 1945--Maide Vale, London, England.)
2018: Dynamite's Casino Royale comic is published, print and digital.
1944: Society hostess Maud Russell writes about Fleming in her diary.
https://telegraph.co.uk/women/life/spies-affairs-james-bond-secret-diary-ian-flemings-wartime-mistress/
Wednesday 12 April, 1944
I. dined. Still we don’t mention Muriel. He’s just back from Scotland and looks better. I am seeing about his rations. Found Muriel used to. He was in a state and I saw he wouldn’t feel like bothering about any mortal thing connected with himself. So I said nothing but took round marmalade, sugar, butter etc. of my own and said I would look after him till he wanted someone else to.
[Some refilming required due to the Bond imposter looking a bit too much like Connery Bond.]
2012: Late by previous standards, Skyfall on-set photos come available.
2018: James Bond in A Convenient Lie (an opera!) begins its 12-14 April run--Centrepoint Theater, Ottawa, Canada.
ottawaseniors.com/events/event/james-bond-in-a-convenient-lie/
A New Opera in English
Presented by Savoy Society of Ottawa in collaboration with Malfi Productions
Centrepointe Studio Theatre
8 p.m. April 12 – April 14, 2018
Lyrics by Kyle McDonald, Music by various composers
Bond, James Bond. An Opera Unlike Any Other
A new opera in pasticcio featuring the “hits of opera”, combined with an original storyline, James Bond: A Convenient Lie offers a never before seen kind of operatic spectacle blending the beautiful and demanding classical style of singing with the fast paced and exciting story of a contemporary film!
Fast, Funny, and full of Fights
Bond, with the help of Audrey, a French actress, and her tech genius brother, Pierre, must confront a bee-keeping eco-terrorist – who calls himself The Naturalist – and his henchmen, Salvatore the Sword, Tiny, and the sultry Miss Bliss, and stop his evil plan to make humanity suffer for its heedless consumption.
1937: Edward Fox is born--Chelsea, London, England.
1942: Bill Conti is born--Providence, Rhode Island.
1953: Ian Fleming's first Bond novel Casino Royale is published by Jonathan Cape.
two months ahead of Eon's You Only Live Twice.
1912: Joie Chitwood is born--Denison, Texas. (He dies 3 January 1988 at age 75--Tampa, Florida.)
1917: Richard Wasey Chopping is born--Colchester, Essex, England.
(He dies 17 April 2008 at age 91--Colchester, Essex, England.)
2048: The first Ian Fleming Bond novel Casino Royale will enter the public domain in the United States.
(And each of the following 13 years another book will do that.)
1947: Lois Chiles is born--Houston, Texas.
1960: Bond comic The Double Take (Risico) ends its run in The Daily Express. (Started 11 April 1960.)
For anyone who's served, his uniform tells an impressive story with the combat infantry badge and overseas service stripes (a total of 7, each indicating 6 months in a combat zone).
He is awesome.
1917: Barry Nelson (Haakon Robert Nielsen) is born--San Francisco, California.
(He dies 7 April 2007 at age 89--Bucks County, Pennsylvania.)
1918: Syd Cain is born--Grantham, Lincolnshire, England. (He dies 21 November 2011 at age 93--England.)
Production designer behind the deadly gadgets used by James Bond – and his foes
Kim Newman - Thu 1 Dec 2011 13.29 EST - First published on Thu 1 Dec 2011 13.29 EST
Syd Cain at Pinewood Studios with the model used in the explosive climax to On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969). Photograph: 007magazine.com
The production designer Syd Cain, who has died aged 93, was one of many behind-the-scenes professionals elevated to something like prominence by the worldwide interest in the James Bond films. An industry veteran who began work in British cinema as a draughtsman in 1947, contributing to the look of the gothic melodrama Uncle Silas, Cain is credited on a range of film and television projects, but remains best known for his work in various design capacities on the 007 series, from Dr No in 1962 to GoldenEye in 1995.
Born in Grantham, Lincolnshire, Cain served in the armed forces in the second world war, surviving a plane crash and recovering from a broken back. Working at Denham Studios in Buckinghamshire in the 1940s and 50s, he moved up from uncredited draughtsman (on Adam and Evelyne, The Interrupted Journey, You Know What Sailors Are and Up to His Neck) to assistant art director (for The Gamma People, Fire Down Below, Interpol, How to Murder a Rich Uncle and The World of Suzie Wong). During this time, he developed a habit of slipping his name on to the screen among documents provided as props. In Carol Reed's Our Man in Havana (1959), where the blueprints for a vacuum cleaner are mistaken for rocket secrets, he is listed on the papers as the designer of the device. His first credit as art director was on The Road to Hong Kong (1962), the British-produced last gasp of the series of Bob Hope/Bing Crosby comedies. Cain also worked on the Hope vehicle Call Me Bwana (1963), best remembered because of an in-joke reference to it in From Russia With Love, where a sniper is concealed behind a billboard advertising the film.
Having worked as a draughtsman on Hell Below Zero (1954) and assistant art director on The Cockleshell Heroes (1956), both produced by Albert R Broccoli, he was chosen by Broccoli to work on the Bond films. Though uncredited, he worked with the production designer Ken Adam – in whose shadow he modestly remained for much of his career – on Dr No, taking over as art director when Adam was not available for the immediate follow-up, From Russia With Love (1963). This was the film that introduced the character of Q (Desmond Llewelyn). Cain was responsible for the design of the gadgets issued to Sean Connery's Bond, notably the briefcase with concealed sniper rifle and tear-gas talcum tin. For the villains, Cain also provided Rosa Klebb's shoes, with poison-tipped blade, and the chess-themed decor of Blofeld's lair.
Later, he was production designer for On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969). With a new Bond (George Lazenby) and a move away from the gadgets and vast sets of Connery and Adam's later work, Thunderball and Goldfinger, this tried to seem less fantastical – the only contraption issued to Bond is a photocopier. Cain was the supervising art director on Roger Moore's first Bond film, Live and Let Die (1973), then left the series, eventually returning as a storyboard artist for Pierce Brosnan's 007 debut, GoldenEye.
Arguably more impressive than his Bond associations, Cain worked with a number of notable film-makers throughout the 1960s and 70s, as assistant art director for Stanley Kubrick (Lolita, 1962), art director for Ronald Neame (Mister Moses, 1965) and François Truffaut (Fahrenheit 451, 1966), executive art director for Richard Lester (A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, 1966) and production designer for Ken Russell (Billion Dollar Brain, 1967), Alfred Hitchcock (Frenzy, 1972) and Jack Gold (Aces High, 1976).
Contributing to lasting British pop-culture artefacts, he was also art director on the Cliff Richard vehicle Summer Holiday (1963) and production designer of the revival series The New Avengers (1976). After the popular, action-oriented Alistair Maclean adventure Fear Is the Key (1973), Cain became associated with a brand of high adventure that grew out of the Bond films, working with Peter R Hunt (director of On Her Majesty's Secret Service) on the Moore movies Gold (1974) and Shout at the Devil (1976), both set in Africa, and with the producer Euan Lloyd on a series of boozy, British macho epics – The Wild Geese (1978), The Sea Wolves (1980) and Who Dares Wins (1982).
Cain retired as a production designer after Tusks (1988), but contributed storyboards to a select run of high-profile films, including Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988). His final credit was on the Michael Caine boxing movie Shiner (2000). In retirement, he illustrated children's books, wrote an autobiography (Not Forgetting James Bond: The Autobiography of James Bond Production Designer Syd Cain, 2002) and was a well-liked guest at Bond-themed fan events.
Cain was married twice. His five sons and three daughters survive him.
• Sidney Cain, production designer, art director and illustrator, born 16 April 1918; died 21 November 2011
(He dies 22 October 1995 at age 73--London, England.)
1962: Ian Fleming's ninth James Bond novel The Spy Who Loved Me is published by Jonathan Cape.
Watermarked promotional letter in early editions.
Richard Chopping at work.
1930: Rémy Julienne is born--Cepoy, Loiret, France.
1959: Sean Bean is born--Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England.
2008: Richard Wasey Chopping dies at age 91--Colchester, Essex, England.
(Born 14 April 1917--Colchester, Essex, England.)
1964: Screenwriter Ben Hecht dies of a heart attack while reading on a Saturday.
That's after writing three serious Casino Royale script versions for Charles K. Feldman.