James Bond : OCTOPUSSY (1983)

For Your Eyes Only had turned out to be an extremely successful film. Cubby Broccoli felt that the next Bond had to be at least as sophisticated as FYEO, where a number of themes created by Fleming in his short stories had been combined into one coherent screenplay. Michael Wilson, George MacDonald Fraser and Bond Screenwriting Veteran Richard Maibaum took a number of story themes again to combine them into one slick, sophisticated storyline.
Agent 009 shows up at the British Embassy in Berlin, carrying a fake Fabergé Egg but he dies before he can give them any information. MI6 suspects the Russians may be involved in the assassination and instruct 007 to investigate. Bond finds out a real Fabergé Egg is being sold at a London auction. He manages to exchange it for a fake while outbidding an Afghan Prince, Kamal Khan (Louis Jourdan). In doing so he forces this Khan to pay a considerable sum for a fake egg.
Following Khan to India, Bond angers the Afghan Prince by winning a backgammon game by using Khan’s own fixed dice, narrowly evades several attempts on his life but is subsequently seduced by the lovely Magda (Kristina Wayborn), an associate of Khan’s who is also part of the Octopus cult and steals the real Fabergé Egg back for Khan again.
Khan’s henchman Gobinda (Kabir Bedi) captures Bond, takes him to Khan’s palace, but Bond escapes and finds out Khan is working with a renegade Soviet General named Orlov (Steven Berkoff) who wants to expand the Soviet borders at European expense. Bond manages to meet the leader of the Octopus cult, a wealthy woman who uses the name Octopussy (Maud Adams). She owns a circus troupe thru which Khan intends to smuggle valuables to Europe, when the circus goes on Tour to Germany, where Orlov is to meet with Khan.
Returning to Europe, Bond infiltrates the circus, discovers Orlov has had the valuables switched by a nuclear bomb, deals with Khan’s associates and Orlov is shot while trying to escape. Bond convinces Octopussy to help disarming the nuclear device and then accompanies her to India in order to take out Khan at his home base. Khan and Gobinda flee from their palace by plane, which Bond climbs on to, disposes of Gobinda, disables an engine and jumps off while Khan’s plane crashes into the mountain. In the finale, Bond is seen recuperating with Octopussy on her boat. (Roger Moore style, of course. Very tongue in cheek. His tongue in her cheek.)
After For Your Eyes Only, Roger Moore had intended to move on and not do any Bond movies anymore. His contract for 3 Bond films had been fulfilled with The Spy Who Loved Me so for Moonraker and For Your Eyes Only, his contracts were set up per film. Cubby Broccoli and Michael Wilson had already been looking for a new Bond (they had checked out Pierce Brosnan already when Brosnan’s wife performed in For Your Eyes Only) and were closing in on Timothy Dalton and James Brolin. Brolin had done 3 screen tests (that have been released on the Ultimate Edition DVD of OCTOPUSSY) but there were concerns he might make Bond sound too American. When Broccoli and Wilson were informed they would have to compete with Kevin McClory’s production of NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN, they felt Roger Moore would stand a better chance of competing against Sean Connery in the role that made him a star. Roger Moore does fit the role like a glove therefor but it shows that he is starting to get too old for these shenanigans. Other than that, his presence does give the film a spectacular, sophisticated look, even though the rating was probably for General Audiences. This film was the first appearance of Robert Brown as M, since the passing of Bernard Lee. Maud Adams had previously appeared in The Man With The Golden Gun (and was killed off in that film) but she was better suited for the part of Octopussy than any other actress the casting agency could come up. Steven Berkoff would return a few years later again as a Russian villain in Sylvester Stallone’s RAMBO First Blood Part II. Kabir Bedi, who played Gobinda, had previously been a big star in India when he had played Sandokan in the mid-1970s.
Octopussy may have a pretty serious storyline but it also has a lot of humour, which gives the film a bit of a spoofy tone. One scene certainly adds to that: the scene where Vijay, Bond’s contact in India, plays the James Bond theme to indicate he is affiliated to MI6. Other scenes that tend to push the limit are Bond dressing up as a Clown, the Tarzan yell in the India chase scenes and Bond’s inane jokes with Q’s equipment. Another scene that comes to mind is the tiger that goes all pussy when Bond says “SIT!”. Nevertheless, John Glenn’s direction is extremely slick and makes this film very enjoyable. John Barry’s presence with his music is also a highlight of the film.
In the end, Roger Moore did compete with Sean Connery reappearing as Bond in an unofficial Thunderball remake titled NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN. Whereas NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN was not a bad film, it did suffer from poor production values and a terrible musical score. OCTOPUSSY enjoyed the usual sumptuous EON production values and a terrific John Barry score, which may have helped OCTOPUSSY win out over NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN at the box office. Nevertheless, NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN was also a very interesting THUNDERBALL remake. But ultimately, OCTOPUSSY won out, because it led to one more Roger Moore 007 adventure, A VIEW TO A KILL.

The ZOMBIE Phenomenon!!!

Vampires and Werewolves, watch out !! The Zombies are back in town!!!

The success of Zombies as a phenomenon can be seen as remarkable. Zombies have a long tradition in horror, dating back a long ways. One of the first films to show Zombies was WHITE ZOMBIE, a 1932 Bela Lugosi independent horror flick, that may not have measured up to the 1931 successes of DRACULA or FRANKENSTEIN, but it certainly had enough success to warrant continuation of the species. Jacques Tourneur made his most famous horror movie in the early 1940s: I walked with a Zombie, in which VOODOO was also referenced.


Of course in these days, the zombies were not of the flesh-eating kind, but reanimated corpses doomed to obey their masters until their bodies literally fell apart. The Plague of the Zombies, a 1967 Hammer horror film follows more or less the same conceit but it was a young American filmmaker by the name of George Romero, who would give zombies a new face.


Romero made his film NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD on a shoestring budget with no name actors and friends as co-producers and so on. NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD tells the story of a few people who are trapped in a house surrounded by the living dead. The story is simple but very persuasive, economically filmed and incredibly effective, considering the film was a big financial and critical success.


It should be noted that the film was radically different from other zombie horror films. Zombies would earlier just be portrayed as reanimated dead people who can not find rest and must follow the wishes of their new master in what mostly were melodramatic horror films, devoid of much talent. Romero's zombies were people who were deceased, come back to life and eating human flesh!!! Although Romero would not revisit the theme until the mid-1970s with his DAWN OF THE DEAD classic, NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD would remain a longtime classic amidst a heap of melodramatic crap around it.


When Romero wrote DAWN OF THE DEAD, he had just seen one of the new shopping malls in the Philadelphia area and he thought he could make an interesting film if he could film inside one of these. The story told of a group of ragtag people bonding together and finding solace in a shopping mall that would allow them to live a life and keep the zombie infestation outside. Of course, things would happen to complicate this and other survivors besieged the shopping mall and brought the zombies inside as well. DAWN OF THE DEAD was again filmed with no name actors but had a budget of half a million dollars, that was put to good use. It was made and distributed without having been rated first by any board of film classification. The film made more than 55 million dollars internationally and Romero saw his future as a filmmaker assured. He would later revisit the theme (zombies) several more times.


Other filmmakers also jumped on the bandwagon now. The Italian director Lucio Fulci released a hugely successful ZOMBIE 2 in 1979, even though this film was totally unrelated to Romero's film DAWN OF THE DEAD, which in some countries was titled ZOMBIE. Fulci showed more explicit gore and from the story it was obvious his film was less interesting than Romero's but ZOMBIE 2 was banned in several countries due to the excessive amounts of gore.


One particularly grisly and explicit scene was one in which a girl has her eye gouged out because her face is being pulled towards the opening of a door by a zombie. Her eye is gouged out by a splinter of wood, sticking out from the moment the zombie's arm crashed thru the wood. Another memorable scene was an underwater battle between a zombie and a shark. Although this film also did not star any major actors, the lead is played by Tisa Farrow, Mia Farrow's sister.


Before Romero was back with his next zombie flick, Dan O'Bannon jumped in with a very enjoyable zombie comedy RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD in 1985. The very plausible plot told of a few putrid bodies remaining of the original zombies of the first George Romero film, which had actually been a documentary and not a fictional film. When a young man starts working for a company where these bodies are stored, something goes wrong, the bodies are cremated and the gases coming from the burnt bodies reanimates corpses of the cemeteries around. O'Bannon, who had earlier co-written ALIEN, entered a great deal of humor in the plot, for instance, when cops are killed by zombies, the reanimated cops call for help. "Send more cops!" The film was so successful it spawned two more sequels in the 1980s and early 1990s (neither of which were very good) and two more 15 years later.

George Romero, Grandfather of all Zombies
In the meantime a lot of films have gone the way of the zombie theme. George Romero, who by now may be considered the grandfather of all zombies, has revisited the theme at least once every ten years since NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD and even now has plans for more. Paul. W.S. Anderson also delighted us with his first film of the RESIDENT EVIL series in 2002 starring Mila Jovovich as Alice, an amnesiac who turns out to be very efficient as a Zombie Killer in this former computer game movie franchise. For my own tastes, I don't bother with these.


My own personal choice now, to sum the whole thing up with is the current television series hit THE WALKING DEAD, which is now in it's second season. Frank Darabont was involved in the first season and the first few episodes of the second season before he was dismissed from the show.


Glenn Mazzarro is now the leading executive on this show that depicts a group of survivors looking for a new and safe place to stay and spend their lives. It features plenty of scares but this show is so good, it is about the people who have to deal with an unusual problem.


The show was based on Robert Kirkman's comic strip, which has also been very successful so far. The television show has not even finished it's second season but is already locked for a third. It's most definitely on my MUST WATCH list.


Finally, one last note. Even Brad Pitt seems to think Zombies are hot. He is currently playing a lead role in WORLD WAR Z, a film by Marc Forster (director of QUANTUM OF SOLACE) and based on the novel by Max Brooks. The screenplay is written by J. Michael Straczinsky (famous for BABYLON 5 and for a very successful run on The Amazing Spider-Man comics) and Matthew Michael Carnahan. The film is currently under production and enjoys a healthy budget of 125 million dollars. It is slated to be released december 21, 2012, so we will have yet to wait to see if Pitt is any good as a Zombie Killer.

In the meantime though, as this piece is by no means meant to be a complete listing of the theme, feel free to report to me personally if you find something along the same lines that is interesting. Report to armentus@gmail.com . I'll give you one really cool example. MARVEL COMICS has done two miniseries in which their Superheroes are nearly all killed and eaten and then turned into zombies. Cool reading stuff, if you have the stomach for it.

RIP Pete Rugolo 1915-2011

Pete Rugolo was an Italian born composer of music for film and television. I must admit I am not too familiar with most of his work but what I do recall very well is his work for the popular 1960s television show THE FUGITIVE, starring David Janssen. His music also led to plenty of gigs working for Stan Kenton, Nat King Cole, Mel Tormé and a great deal of other artists of the 1940s, 50s and 60s.

Rugolo left a great legacy behind in wonderful music, also beyond THE FUGITIVE. His last work was done well into the 1990s. Rest Peacefully, Pete, you've earned it!!

RIP: GENE COLAN

Last week we were shocked by the loss of another great MARVEL COMICS artist. GENE COLAN, often popularly referred to (By Stan Lee mostly) as Gene, the Dean, passed away after having been comatose for almost a week.

Gene Colan was born in New York in 1926. He started working for Marvel as early as in the 1940s (when Marvel was called Timely) and came back to them in the 1960s with a vengeance on the superhero scene. At first he used a nickname Adam Austin (mostly on titles like The Sub-Mariner) but soon started using his own name. Especially on DAREDEVIL, Gene Colan had a great influence on the popularity of the character. He also had a great artistic influence on DR. STRANGE for a long time.
I mostly remember Gene's fantastic art on TOMB OF DRACULA from the 1970s. This was phenomenal art for a medium as lowbrow as comics.

Gene drew most of the superhero characters for Marvel and also worked for a lot of DC comics.

But one of his most unusual characters (although he had no hand in it's creation) was HOWARD THE DUCK. Along with writer and Howard the Duck creator Steve Gerber, he also drew another of these unusual characters in STEWART THE RAT.

Colan had been in the news the last few years because of his poor health. He passed away last week. Gene Colan was one of my favorite artists and if you google him, you will not only find his own site but many others that feature his work as well as interviews.

Gene, You will be missed.

Hilarious or Serious?

Sometimes it is particularly difficult to cast a role. And if the obvious is no longer an option, the outrageous actually gets attention. In a recent interview actor/director Clint Eastwood said he had been approached to play both James Bond (which is true, as when Sean Connery wanted to leave the part after YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE, the producers actually had Eastwood called for the part) and Superman.

For Bond, Clint actually suggested that Bond should be British. Which was pretty much on the money, considering the days. Still, it would be interesting to create at least a visual idea of how he would have looked.

"Do you feel lucky, punk?"

As for Superman, once Richard Donner was starting up the production of SUPERMAN THE MOVIE in 1976, his intention was at first to have an unknown actor fill in that part. Yet, the studio wanted to have all kinds of big names tested. So, here too, Clint was asked.

Clint found it easy to walk away from both parts. He felt "they were for somebody but not for me." A good judgement on the part of Clint Eastwood, who might have looked fairly ridiculous in the Superman outfit. After all, figure this:

"For the people, the country and mom's apple pie. Even if mom's apple pie stank."
Now if you have the gall to think, what if? A lot of possibilities that boggle the mind could come to mind.

But in my view, Clint was right on both counts. Thanks, Clint.

STAR TREK : Where to go boldly from here?

Personally, I have been a fan of Star Trek since the first time I laid eyes on it, way back in 1970 or so, when Dutch television started to show the show with some regularity. The funny thing was, the Belgian TV Channels and the German ones decided to do just that, as well, at just about the same time, so we basically saw an episode three times back then. (And of course, one of the three times was in German. I can hear you groaning right now, but when you are a child of 4 years old, you are not complaining about that. But you’d be right in saying I would not watch them like that anymore.)

In any case, I liked what I saw at the time from the first episode onward and did not mind seeing it again. If the term ‘couch potato’ was already in use back then, one might have called me one for I watched a lot of television in those days. At first of course with mom and dad and my brother and two sisters, but later on I also grew more discerning in what I liked to see and what not. For me the 1970s were pretty much all the way in the shadow of this television show that came to mean a lot for me. But then in 1980, something unusual happened. STAR TREK THE MOTION PICTURE was released in the Netherlands.



Star Trek The Motion Picture , no matter how good or bad the film was, started the idea that a television show could go into movie theatres (most of the time in the past it had been the other way around). Of course, the original show was no longer in production and when you did see the actors in other parts, they grew considerably older than in the original show. But the 1980s sort of belonged to the STAR TREK MOVIES, because from this one film, that easily could have been all, came a movie franchise that I still love.

The Original Cast ended their very successful Movie Franchise with Star Trek VI The Undiscovered County in the early 1990s. But that was not the end of that: in the meantime Star Trek The Next Generation had appeared on television and was making good progress into becoming the number one Sci Fi TV Show of the times. And when Star Trek The Next Generation was finished, the people involved in the production immediately when on to make movies of this series.


The Star Trek TNG movies may not be as great as the first 6 Star Trek Movies. I usually put the blame on the fact that the same people were writing these films and therefore what you ended up with was basically a television plot worked out to feature format: ST Generations and ST Insurrection really show this to great effect. ST First Contact sort of arose above that. ST Nemesis unfortunately plays the part that Star Trek V plays in the Original Cast Film Franchise. Nobody set out to make a bad movie and really, it isn’t all that bad, but the timing was wrong for it and it was no longer fresh and exciting so Nemesis got the short end of the stick. Out went the ST TNG cast.

But I would like to point out that the money was indeed on the screen and on the soundtrack: special effects and sets and props were tops, as well as the musical score by the late and legendary Jerry Goldsmith.) Still, Nemesis was the end of the TNG Movie Franchise. And after 7 years of TNG on television, followed by 7 years of Deep Space Nine (in my eyes an even better show), 7 years of Voyager and unfortunately into the 2000s only 4 years of Enterprise, Star Trek seemed to also be finished on television. (Also here I wish to note that Rick Berman may have made mistakes but 17 consecutive years on television with 4 television shows is not at all a bad effort. Mr. Berman, thank you for your efforts.)

Star Trek The Next Generation

Star Trek Deep Space Nine

Star Trek Voyager

Star Trek Enterprise

So from 2004 on, it seemed that Star Trek was dead. However several behind the scenes attempts were made to bring the concept back to television. In the last few months, some quotes have been released on the internet that Jonathan Frakes entered a bid on the franchise. He was apparently given a straight no for an answer. Other names were also mentioned (William Shatner, Bryan Singer, maybe others too) but not all of them may have been accurate, but nevertheless, attempts were made to bring Star Trek back. And the answer to that, was NO. While I do agree, a few more years of silence might be useful before bringing back a show of that type, I do wonder why the powers that be said no to what may have seemed like good ideas, maybe in need of more development but still, good ideas.

J. J. Abrams probably felt it was time to reintroduce the audience to the kind of Star Trek he always liked and would want to see. This was not a continuation of what we had seen before with new characters but he decided he wanted to see Kirk, Spock and the classic Star Trek characters back in action. Of course, in casting this would mean we would start to look at young, new actors in established roles. Sort of like James Bond, who has also been re-cast numerous times. Of course, Abrams must have thought, wouldn’t it really be great if we could ground it in some way by having one major character of the old generation present, and even more, make him crucial to the whole storyline!!!

And indeed: Leonard Nimoy played Classic Trek Spock at a high age, who inadvertently is involved in the creation of a deviation in the original timeline, therewith rewriting established Star Trek history.

In other words: sophisticated REBOOT !!!

I must admit it was a clever script that succeeded on many levels but I do say I find it a shame if that will mean that the original timeline will henceforth forever be abandoned. You see, for me, the moment you see a film or episode or read a book, is the moment that it takes place. As the writer or director you can determine on how many levels you want the information given to the audience to be of importance. What I mean to say is: I think it would not have been necessary to negate the previously established Star Trek history in order to introduce new actors in the known roles. Just as with James Bond, new fans would have been able to accept new actors in the roles of Kirk, Spock and McCoy and the rest.



(If I were to go on in my criticism of the film, I would most certainly say something derogatory about the somewhat exaggerated Enterprise itself, which looked like a hotrod of the 1950s and not a sleek spacecraft of the 1960s and I might say something to the effect that keeping open the option to return to this timeline or the old timeline might actually work to our advantage later on. But that is not the goal of this article.)

You see, at this moment, knowing that the powers that be at CBS / Paramount have said NO to several attempts at a new series, it is pretty clear that the thinking concerning the failure of Star Trek Nemesis and the Star Trek Enterprise series is that it was too much at the same time, causing franchise fatigue. And so seemingly they want their upcoming Star Trek 2 project to be unfettered by any television project along the same lines. I find that a shame. You see, STAR TREK started on television. Its emphasis should also still be on television. It is on television that you build up a more extensive storyline and background. Not in 6 films over 12 years.

With the current pressures on J.J. Abrams, in order to greenlight his Star Trek 2, I also fear that in the foreseeable future, it might be that interest in his take on TREK will also wane with the audience. And then Star Trek might really turn out dead. So, Mr. Abrams, I ask you: where do we boldly go, from here?

Will Star Trek continue only in Abrams’s universe or will CBS / Paramount allow someone else later on perhaps another look at the prime timeline (the one that got jettisoned in Abrams’s film)? I do accept that you got to go with the times for as Spock used to say: “It is illogical to assume that things will remain the same.” But that does not mean I do not care to see Star Trek remain on a high level of quality in my book.

Unfortunately, I doubt someone at CBS / Paramount or Mr Abrams will be willing to inform me about any plans they have for what may be their oldest franchise. So, if anyone from CBS / Paramount is reading this, or Mr. Abrams perhaps, please, do not forget your fans. Let us know, please, what you intend to do.

Where do we go, boldly, from here ?

The Honorary List of Names to Remember

As a film music lover I see a lot of composers leaving this mortal plane these days. As regrettable as that is, it is also part of the human condition. But to assuage that tremendous feeling of loss, said composers leave an incredible body of work behind that will keep on shining for years.

Miklos Rosza for instance (1907-1995) who wrote a great many scores of classic Hollywood days, as well as QUO VADIS, KING OF KINGS and BEN HUR, wrote music well into the 1970s.


Alex North (1910-1991) was a composer who put all of his intellect into his music and this showed. For A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE he used jazz in his music to delineate the steamy climate of the tale. After having scores Kubrick's SPARTACUS, Kubrick removed the score North composed for his science fiction epic 2001 A SPACE ODDYSSEY and replaced it with popular classical music. North's music however came back with a vengeance in the 1990s.


Bernard Herrmann (1911-1975)was a composer who loved to overdramatize things. In his career, highlights were the Hitchcock films as well as his Orson Welles films. In the last few years of his life he was being rediscovered by the younger generation of filmmakers such as Brian de Palma and Martin Scorsese.


Maurice Jarre (1924-2009) was a composer who, after many years of orchestral scoring, dared to go all synthesizer on us. WITNESS was one of his biggest hits but who can forget his scores for LAWRENCE OF ARABIA and DR ZHIVAGO for the David Lean classics?


Henry Mancini (1924-1994) was a musical genius who knew how to write for mood music, popular music (as in songs) as well as for dramatic music. His highlights were the film he scored for Blake Edwards, The Pink Panther films and lots of other comedies like Who Is Killing The Great Chiefs Of Europe.


Elmer Bernstein (1922-2004) was the composer of not only film music but of a whole style of Americana in his creating modern music for the American Western, after the generation of Dimitri Tiomkin and the like. Bernstein scored some great movies but one of his best is TO KILL A MOCKING BIRD.


Leonard Rosenman (1924-2008) was a composer who would just as easily have given up on Hollywood and composed serious classical music. But his success at scoring films like FANTASTIC VOYAGE and BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES led him to compose a great number of other scores. One of his best works was the ill-fated animated version of THE LORD OF THE RINGS that Ralph Bakshi produced in 1978. But he also scored STAR TREK IV THE VOYAGE HOME and Robocop 2.


Only last month we lost John Barry, composer of the music of 11 James Bond movies and many other exciting titles. Barry (1935-2011) also left an incredible amount of music behind ranging from THE KNACK to DANCES WITH WOLVES and beyond.


And last (for now) but certainly not least (of these), Jerry Goldsmith (my personal favorite) who worked in television and film from the 1950s til the early 2000s, was famous for having scored 5 out of the first 10 STAR TREK movies. Also Jerry Goldsmith influenced a great many other composers who followed him, but Jerry will never be forgotten.

I did not intend this to be a complete list. So if you think I forgot somebody, I am sorry. I just know that the above mentioned composers will be missed by me personally as I greatly admire their work. So in homage to them;

Gentlemen, you shall be remembered !!!!

Life is Beautiful at 80 !!!

After so many wonderful people passing on, it is good to hear about people still alive and well at the wonderful old age of 80. William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy, the well known actors who played Kirk and Spock on the original STAR TREK show, celebrated their 80th birthdays this past week.

William Shatner was born near Montreal, Canada on March 22nd 1931. Leonard Nimoy was born in Boston, Massachusettes on March 26th, 1931. Both men made early steps in the 1950s to become stars in their own right. Leonard did bit parts and played a science fiction Zombie in the serial ZOMBIES OF THE STRATOSPHERE in the early 1950s but Bill played alongside Yul Brunner in THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV and alongside Montgomery Clift, Judy Garland, Spencer Tracy, Richard Widmark and Burt Lancaster in JUDGEMENT AT NUREMBERG. Following that film, he worked with Roger Corman on THE INTRUDER and proceeded to star in a lot of television episodes and shows. Leonard and Bill also happened to meet and work together in a first season episode of THE MAN FROM UNCLE : The Project Strigas Affair.

Leonard Nimoy had to work hard to make ends meet before he struck gold with the SPOCK persona in STAR TREK. William Shatner had one part after the other for a long time, ranging from films and television. Their teaming on STAR TREK proved to be nothing less than legendary, lasting for 79 episodes and 6 films.

Of course, Leonard also did two episodes of Star Trek The Next Generation.

And Bill did Star Trek Generations, in which Kirk died.


And then Leonard was asked to be in J.J. Abrams' STAR TREK !!!
"LEONAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRDDDDDDD!!!!!!!!!"