Mister 8

Do you want the good news or the bad news first? The bad news? OK. Here goes.

I’m going to be suspending the Harry Palmer Files series for a while, because life is quite busy, and random posts on whatever I have on hand will be easier and less stress than a planned series.

The good news? The good news is we’ll be resuming the Harry Palmer series in December with A CONTEST!

The book we were due to cover next was Horse Under Water, the least-known of the “Palmer” novels due to the fact that it was never made into a film. We here at Mister 8, inspired by Robert Green and Carl Barber’s imaginary soundtrack for such a film (which we’ll be showcasing here), and Kevin Dart’s trailer for an imaginary Yuki 7 film, want to see what you readers could do with the material.

THE DETAILS:

So here’s the challenge: Give us a glimpse of what an adaptation of Horse Under Water might look like. Show us a movie poster, a scripted scene, a theme song, an animation, a trailer, a level from a video game, a comic, a selection from a radio play, etc. etc. We’re not too particular. Just get it to us by midnight EST on Dec. 12th by emailing your submission (or a link to your submission) to mister8 (at) mister8.com! Improve your odds with multiple entries!

This contest is open to anyone in the world, except for yours truly. I’ll be doing solo judging on this one, in case any COBRAS or friends of the site want to enter. I promise to be fair and impartial!

GRAND PRIZE:

Len Deighton Autograph

Above is a rarish sort of item, a Trivial Pursuit Baby Boomer Edition card with the question “Whose spy novels included An Expensive Place to Die and Billion Dollar Brain?” The answer, of course, is Len Deighton, whose autograph is scrawled on the back of the card (the tape is on the plastic card holder, not on the card itself). I recently purchased this from an autograph dealer who wrote: “This would have been forwarded through his publishing house back in the ’90’s and was returned from his residence in Ireland. He has since moved and since arriving in the United States has been to my knowledge next to impossible to obtain.”

OTHER PRIZES:

I’m still working on putting these together, but will likely be a mix of new and used copies of Len’s novels!

THE FINE PRINT:

By submitting an entry, you agree to allow us to display, discuss, and make available for download your material. Shipping will be on me.

From American Comics Group, Oct. 1952, a story from Spy-Hunters #20. This story was published in the years between World War II and the Fantastic Four when superheroes weren’t synonymous with comic books as they are today. Writer and artist are unknown.

This story seems to be a sort of parallel to The Third Man, which had hit screens three years prior, with an American coming to Vienna to investigate the death of a friend. “Vengeance in Vienna” doesn’t quite live up to its inspiration, but considering it’s only nine pages long, it’s still an accomplishment.

(Thanks to reader Woollsey for sharing this scan with us!)

From Russia With Love Score

While the rest of the score to From Russia With Love was composed by John Barry, who’d previously done some work on the James Bond theme in Dr. No, the theme song was written by Lionel Bart.

     Dm     Bb    Gm7    A7
E|--------------------------||
B|--------------------------||
G|-----------3---2-1---2----||
D|----0-3--0-------------2--||
A|--0-----------------------||
E|--------------------------||

[See full tablature]

Barry tells Royal S. Brown in the latter’s Overtones and Undertones that, “Lionel Bart wrote the main song because, although I had written some instrumental stuff, and although I’d written one or two small songs, I had never had a big, hit song. Lionel Bart was coming in off Oliver!, and he was the hottest song writer in England. I did not write a note of the song ‘From Russia With Love.’ I orchestrated it and did it for the movie.”

For the vocals, the Bond producers turned to “the singing bus conductor,” Matt Monro. A Youtube user named LuiECuomo has kindly swapped out the instrumental version from the opening credits for Monro’s version:

The Bond theme formula was not yet in full effect, though the bare bones can be heard here in Barry’s orchestration, and the single did not fare well on the charts. Jeffrey Paul Smith writes in his “The Sounds of Commerce: Marketing Popular Film Music”:

In March 1964, UA released the soundtrack album for From Russia With Love on their subsidiary record lable to coincide with the film’s April release. Improving on the performance of its predecessor, Russia reached number 28 on Variety’s album charts and remained there for over four months. More importantly, though, the title tune quickly became Unart Music’s most recorded song. Within a month of the film’s release, Bart’s tune was featured in eighteen different single versions, both vocal and instrumental, and also turned up as a track on numerous albums. The heavy activity on the Russia music was driving UA’s music publishing operations to a peak level and racking up considerable licensing fees in the process.

From Russia With Love Single

None of these singles, however, was able to crack Billboard’s “Hot 100.” To some extent, the single’s poor performance was likely due to the weak placement of Monro’s vocal version within the film. It is heard only twice, first as a snatch of radio music during Bond’s picnic with Sylvia Trench, and then later in a more complete version over the end credits. Neither of these instances does a particularly good job of selling the song or reinforcing the film’s dramatic material. In the former, the excerpt is so short that it can be easily missed; in the latter, it is easily ignored.

The tablature provided today is not a full arrangement, but chords with tablature for the vocal melody. I wrote it years ago, when I was attempting to put together a spy-surf band, called The Yuri Gagarins (which was to also feature my then-girlfriend, now wife, on bass). I’ve shared this little MP3 from one of our practices before, but here it is again!

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Byron Lee and the Dragonaires - Dance the Ska

The James Bond films have long been an influence on ska music, and have been inextricably linked with the genre since Byron Lee and the Dragonaires provided incidental music for 007’s first screen outing in Dr. No. David @ Permission to Kill recently featured a few Bond-related ska songs, Desmond Dekker’s “007 (Shanty Town)”, and The Skatalites version of the Bond theme.

A number of first, second and third wave ska bands have, unsurprisingly, taken on the James Bond Theme. But as I was looking through my files, I was also impressed with the number of From Russia With Love covers that I’ve found: I’ve seen this version listed as being by both Roland Alphonso and Jackie Mittoo, who were both founding members of the Skatalites, so I wonder if it’s actually a Skatalites recording:

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This version, with a similar arrangement, is by Alphonso and the Studio One Orchestra:

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This version is definitely by the Skatalites, from the 2002 album From Paris With Love, but by that time neither the late Alphonso nor the late Mittoo were alive enough to record with the band:

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The Ventilators covered FRWL on their 1997 album Orange Flowers:

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This ska-soul version is by The Blues Busters, was released in 1964 and collected on their 1997 In Memory Of Their Best Ska & Soul Hits 1964-1966:

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And I turned up a slightly more upbeat version (pick it up, pick it up, pick it up!) on YouTube by a group called The Moonshots:

My compadre Jason @ Spy Vibe made a special request for this version of the James Bond theme, by second wave ska band The Selecter. This was the final track on their debut (and best) album Too Much Pressure:

Brian Cronin at the excellent Comics Should be Good blog wrote an excellent book about comic book urban legends, and Comic Book Resources is giving away a copy!

Dick Bruna OSS-117 covers

I’m a big fan of the illustration / graphic design blog grain edit, and they recently showcased a cover by illustrator Dick Bruna for a Jean Bruce OSS-117 novel. In trying to track down others, I hit the motherload with this Flickr collage which shows a number of other beautiful designs by Bruna.

This is the same OSS-117 that inspired the recent secret agent pastiches, which are also quality work.

To paraphrase the immortal Ice Cube, I have to say today was optimal (use of the AK was optional). My wife, knowing that I’ve been under an immense amount of school-related stress lately, forced me to take the day off to go on a number of surprise excursions. We started in the direction of Vermont, where we spent a few hours taking in the majesty that is a New England autumn, celebrated the coming of the moose in Bennington, and on our return home stopped by a hidden used book store that’s only 15 minutes up the road from our house.

Housed in what, from the outside looks to be an old barn, the bookstore turned out to be a bit of a TARDIS, a labyrinth of what had to be hundreds of thousands of books on the inside. I’d already accumulated an armful across two stories and an hour’s worth of searching, and was checking out when I mentioned to the elderly owner that I was disappointed that there wasn’t a paperback thriller section. He smiled and asked if I’d been downstairs yet.

Here’s what I picked up from the store, Dog Ears Antiquarian Books in Hoosick, NY:

Donald Hamilton - The Silencers

Donald Hamilton - Murderer's Row

Donald Hamilton - The Ambushers

Donald Hamilton - The Wrecking Crew

I’m not incredibly familiar with Hamilton — I’ve only read The Interlopers, from the middle of the series — so I grabbed the four titles I was familiar with, namely those who share names with Dean Martin films. I am tempted to say, having looked over the list, that the whole lot were there, and I may go back and pick them up a few at a time until I’ve built the whole collection. I might also do the same for the Edward S. Aarons Sam Durrell series. And I’m already thinking about reviewing these, the movies, and perhaps an episode or two of the show (if I can get my hands on it) somewhere round-about Christmas in a multi-part series called “Helm for the Holidays.”

Yes, I know my plate’s already a bit full, but I can’t pass up that pun, can I?

The Avengers: Too Many Targets

I already had a copy of this one, but couldn’t resist picking up a copy from the first printing on the cheap (this cover is much cooler than the other version I have as well).

Billion Dollar Brain

I FINALLY turned up a copy of this one on the cheap without turning to eBay. Yes, I started the Harry Palmer Files without even owning all of the books, but thanks to the fact that this bookstore owned every book ever, I now have a copy for myself! I also picked up a non “Harry” book Bomber, said to be Deighton’s best by many critics (including Kingsley Amis).

The First Saint Omnibus

While I love the show, I’ve never actually read any of the Charteris books. Thought this would be a good place to start, a nice smelly old edition.

The Complete Mission: Impossible Dossier

This looks to be a nice addition to my TV spy reference shelf, and it’s the major 60s-era spy show about which I know the least, for some reason.

The Official James Bond Movie Book

From the era of Living Daylights. Because I can’t turn down cheap James Bond ephemera. (And yes, I’m being lazy and stealing these pictures from other sites).

Allen Dulles - The Craft of Intelligence

And lastly, but certainly not least…ly, a paperback copy of Allen Dulles’ thoughts on the intelligence business in 1963. Chock full of fun and informative bits by the director of the CIA (just after he was ousted actually, following the Bay of Pigs). We’ll be quoting bits of this here in a regular series, as soon as I can think of a witty title. I’m thinking “A Dulles Moment,” or “Mere Dulles Ink.”

All of the above rang up to roughly $15. Not a bad haul, and I’m sure I’ll soon be going back for other books I had to leave behind.

On the way home, I also scored 70 issues of Heavy Metal for mere cents at a garage sale. And then we watched two wonderful films — Toy Story I and II — on the big screen in 3D. What a great day.

Oh, and as I’m typing this, news has come in over the wire that we have a new member of the COBRAS, Rob Mallows of the Deighton Dossier. I’ll give Rob an official welcome tomorrow, but for now…I’m exhausted!

Welcome to the newest COBRAS member, Rob Mallows of Deighton Dossier blog and website fame. Rob has been a big supporter of the Harry Palmer series here at Mister 8, and we’re pleased to welcome him into the esteemed echelon of espionage essayists.

And I don’t want to leak intelligence out of school, but I’d expect some other forthcoming membership announcements….

Allen Dulles (1893-1969) had a long and storied career in intelligence, including as the first director of the Central Intelligence Agency from 1953-1961. The following is an excerpt from his book The Craft of Intelligence, written in 1963.

There is a fundamental question about our intelligence work which, I realize, worries a good many people. Is it necessary, they ask, for the United States, with its high ideals and its traditions to involve itself in espionage, to send U-2s over other people’s territory, to break other people’s coded messages?

Many people who understand that such activities may be necessary in wartime still doubt that they are justified in time of peace. Do we spy on friend and foe alike, and do we have to do it merely because another less scrupulous and less moral type of country does it to us? I do not consider such questions improper, frivolous or pacifist. Indeed, it does us credit that these questions are raised.

Personally, I see little excuse for peacetime spying on our friends or allies. Apart from the moral issues, we have other and far more important ways of using our limited intelligence resources. Also, there are other ways of getting the information we need through normal diplomatic channels. Of course, we have to take into account the historical fact that we have had friends who became enemies — Germany on two recent occasions, and Italy and Japan. Hence, it is always useful to have “in the bank” a store of basic intelligence — most of it not very secret — about all countries. I recall that in the early days of World War II a call went out to the public for personal photographs of various areas of the world, particularly the islands of the Pacific. We did not then have adequate knowledge of the beaches and the flora and fauna of many places where our forces might shortly be landing.

But the answer to the question of the need for intelligence, particularly on the Communist bloc, is that we are not really “at peace” with them, and we have not been since Communism declared its own war on our system of government and life. We are faced with a closed, conspiratorial, police-dominated society. We cannot hope to maintain our position securely if this opponent is confident that he can surprise us by attacking the Free World at the time and place of his own choosing and without any forewarning.