The early George Sanders films are good.
Louis Heywood and Hugh Sinclair’s takes are perhaps less impressive. Sinclair’s nefarious moustache and awkward laugh are a bit grating even if the stories are good translations from book to screen.
But as ‘for their time’, one hour B movies, I love 'em all.
And when a Joseph H. Lewis or other artist of his caliber happens to be the helmer, then the possibility of the sublime awaits. Just a taste to whet your appetite:
From a similar time is " Boston Blackie " a reformed thief solving crimes. I haven’s seen any in decades but I remember them as fun adventures and full of that quick talking dialogue from the 1930s.
The same time there was a series called The Falcon which starred for the first 4 B movies none other than George Sanders who played a sort of Saint like character, his role got taken over by his own biological brother Conway, who has also played of the Saint on Old Time Radio plays.
Just noticed tonight watching The Saint " The Noble Sportsman " in which Anthony Quale plays a wealthy sportsman who’s life is threatened. The curious thing is he Drives an Aston Martin with a familiar number plate BMT 216A ?
Found this on google …
The aston has the same number plate as goldfinger because it is the same car the db5 prototype used in the saint before it was adapted with gadgets for goldfinger the same car also appeared with roger again in the cannon ball run although by then it had a different number plate given to it when aston martin resold it after the bond film
Seems like my favorite for the next Bond is out of the race now…
I mean, it worked for Roger…
And at the current speed it might even be the same time between that film and the next Bond.
Although it could be another case of Idris Elba (too old now)…
If the MGM/Amazon thing comes through he’d be the perfect age for a long term future…and think the amount of coverage they’d get from the similarity. You can be sick of reading “From Roger to Rege”
I think Elba, only 3 years younger than Craig as he is, was never really going to be an option.
I don’t have a lot to add here, except that I’m seeing a lot of headlines aound this bit of news, and this one struck me as the funniest for some reason:
“Val Kilmer Blockbuster Gets A Remake”
They managed to miss the “hunk du jour” appeal of Page AND whatever recognition the “Saint” brand still has, AND conjure memories of the least satisfying adaptation so far. It’s like trying to gin up click-throughs for a story about the new Batman film with the headline, “Pattinson Cast In Iconic George Clooney Role.”
Haha that is ridiculous. To be fair, Batman and Robin is iconic, but sadly for all the wrong reasons! Val Kilmer’s take on the Saint is just forgotten.
Even if this never comes to exist, it will still be considerably better than that last effort.
Holy smoke! Jim’s comment made me visualize the last Saint effort and realize – after watching nearly a full season of Superman and Lois, and quite liking it – that the central villain on that show is played by the same actor who played Simon Templar, Adam Rayner.
Normally, I’m not so slow on the uptake. No, really.
Just thinking on that, if he does, why not have Elba do a Lazenby or Dalton. One money maker say enough and then we have a bit of time for other candidates to appear for a longer run.
Given that “classic Bond” was a series of disconnected or barely-connected “remakes” of the same formula over and over (not that I didn’t love it), given that Craig-era Bond is a more connected 5-picture “arc” that’ll nonetheless be impossible to carry over to a new actor, and given that lately we’ve only managed one film every 5 or more years anyway, I’m quite open to the notion of casting a new Bond for EVERY entry. Make it a series of “one-offs” with a new actor giving his spin each time. Sort of a Bond “multiverse.” You might attract performers who would otherwise balk at a multi-picture deal, you wouldn’t be limiting yourself to just those actors young enough to weather 10 years or more in harness, and you could tell stories you otherwise couldn’t tell (because you wouldn’t have to end the film with 007 in the same condition you found him).
Of course I’m not in EON’s marketing department and I don’t have the challenge of selling merchandise with ever-changing likenesses.
What a good idea! It could mean shorter lag times between movies. Since every actor is a one-off, productions can overlap, and the catchphrase can be: “This year’s Bond is…” Then–down the road a bit–one of the actors is asked to return for a reprise.
Marketing and promotion is not my specialty by any means (just take a look at my job history LOL), but I think you could get a lot of mileage out of this approach.
If nothing else, you could keep the world in perpetual “who’s the next Bond” phase, where so many folks seem to love being, anyway. If people aren’t happy with “this year’s model.” they only have to wait til the next film for another chance at satisfaction, instead of 15 years (assuming “next film” and “15 years” aren’t the same thing, soon).
The only downside is that it doesn’t leave much wiggle room for the actors who need a couple of pictures to “grow into” the role. But honestly, most if not all of the actors to date were fine their first time out of the gate, and some frankly never surpassed their debut performances. IMHO.
True, but the upside is that an actor, knowing that they only have one shot at the role, will be willing to give it their interpretation without anxiety or concern vis a vis who went before and how they played the part.
It sounds like an intriguing idea. But it also reminds me…
After Raymond Benson’s last Bond continuation, The Man with the Red Tattoo, IFP announced Benson had quit his role and there wouldn’t be any more continuations for a time.
Naturally, fans started eagerly discussing possible routes to take for the literary Bond - one of them the idea to have a new author for every new book, thus giving a broader field of writers a go and potentially raising the chances to get some fairly good ones. I thought it was a fine idea back then.
Next we heard was Sebastian Faulks writing a continuation for Fleming’s Centennial anniversary.
Then Jeffery Deaver supposedly restarting a modern Bond series.
Two years after that William Boyd - an author I had high hopes for myself - handed in his version.
And two years after that, Anthony Horowitz arrived at the scene with his attempt.
Now, whatever we think of the respective entries, there’s little doubt few of them were able to garner the undivided approval of critics or readers. Most of them seem to have followers willing to read further entries. But did they really ignite a passionate demand for more? I’d say not even Horowitz did with his first.
For the films this approach would likely mean a massively scaled down budget, simply because the whole machine of product placement and tax incentives doesn’t run as smoothly with one-off Bonds.
That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t like seeing something like this tried though. You could go into wildly imaginative territory, a 1920s Bond, a sci-fi Bond, an animated Bond or one in a parallel universe. There’d be plenty of possible ideas we would never see realised in the current scheme.