Mister 8

Are you the only Bond aficionado in your group of friends? Do they question your appreciation of Timothy Dalton? Do they schedule outings during your Bond marathon and encourage you to cut out one of the “less important” Bond movies? Do they tape over your copy of The Spy Who Loved Me with an episode of America’s Strongest Man?

Alan Partridge understands your pain. Glang! Glang a lang a lang a lang a lang a lang!

In honor of Father’s Day, a question: Does anyone really believe that this was James Bond’s nephew?

James Bond better watch out, or else his…nephew…will grow up singing songs like Austin Powers:

P.S. I love you, Susanna Hoffs.

Through July, or at least until I run out of things about which to talk, we’ll be looking at the Harry Palmer series of novels (in which the character doesn’t actually have a name), their author — Len Deighton, the films based on them, the star of those films — Michael Caine, and the television movies that followed. I will be re-reading the whole series of novels, re-watching the films, and giving my thoughts on all I encounter. I’ll inevitably be drawing heavily on the collection of Kees Stam, author of The Harry Palmer Movie Site, and Rob Mallows, creator of the Deighton Dossier, and other odds and ends that I’ve turned up over the years.

Snobby Wiltons lobster

We’ll hopefully have a more in-depth post on The IPCRESS File tomorrow, but tonight, I need sleep as soon as possible. So let’s zoom out a level and look at our author Len Deighton again, and his interactions with another famed thriller, Ian Fleming. This will be the first in a series of pieces where we compare the two franchises of Palmer & Bond, and examine instances where they “cross over.” Sort of.

To start, I want to cite sections of LeRoy Panek’s The Special Branch; the British Spy Novel, 1890-1980, where Panek discusses what he believes to be the key difference between Deighton and Fleming, their literary heritage:

Both these writers rely, to a large extent, on reproducing mechanical, external elements of the hard-boiled hero without understanding the deeper significance of the figure. Deighton is different. For one thing he does not derive his inspiration from degenerate heirs of the hard-boiled story, like Spillane, as Fleming does. Instead he was lucky enough to start writing late enough to take in Raymond Chandler–a later-comer to the form, writing well into the fifties. Deighton learned much from Chandler. He alludes to him–through Philip Marlowe–in Spy Story, and it is evident that some of Deighton’s habits of description were learned from Chandler, as a passage from An Expensive Place to Die can illustrate:

“Summer rain is cleaner than winter rain. Winter rain strikes hard upon the granite, but summer rain is sibilant soft upon the leaves. The rainstorm pounced hastily like an inexperienced lover, and then as suddenly was gone. The leaves drooped wistfully and the air gleamed with green reflections. It’s easy to forgive a summer rain; like first love, white lies or blarney, there’s no malignity in it.”

Short sentences, similes, personifications, alliterations: this is figurative prose like so many passages in Chandler. In An Expensive Place to Die Deighton also makes a pretty clear comment on the other side of the hard-boiled tradition. Here a windy English writer holds forth in a bar on the subject of James Bond:

“‘But I have always immensely adored violence. His [Bond's] violence is his humanity. Unless you understand that, you understand nothing.’”

Whereupon someone punches the speaker into insensibility with great technique and precision. Only an imbecile or an anthropoid would, this incident says, love violence. Sam Spade does not love it; Marlowe does not love it. Even if deviants like Mike Hammer love violence, Deighton’s hero does not. What counts in the original hard-boiled writers is style, and here Deighton understands Hammett and Chandler better than shoals of smaller fish have. The essence of the hard-boiled story lies in placing a man in a perverse relationship with authority and circumstances. That man’s responses in word, thought and deed mark him off as a hero–as someone from whom readers can learn important things.

I hadn’t yet made the connection to Chandler myself until yesterday, when thriller novelist Jeremy Duns commented that, “Deighton wrote like an angel, and there are single lines in IPCRESS that are more exciting and evocative than whole novels by other writers.” This is also how I feel about Chandler, and I also feel that the shortcomings of The IPCRESS File — the reactionary, sometimes passive narrator who has to explain the holes in the plot at the end — mirror the shortcomings of much of Chandler’s work. But like Duns, I find it easy to overlook these elements in favor of the quality sentence-to-sentence writing.

Scholars of Fleming, including Kinglsey Amis and O.F. Snelling, cite other influences, most frequently Bulldog Drummond, but the difference in influences is still notable.

* * *

In my review of The IPCRESS File, I called the narrator character the opposite of James Bond.  Duns took me to task for this, noting that, “There are as many Bondish elements to the books as there are counters: he loves his food and appreciates other cultures, exotic locations, beautiful women throw themselves at him, gadgets in cars, technical expertise, a feeling of getting the inside scoop on espionage, etc.” With the caveat that I’ve only read one of the Deighton novels so far, I would agree with Jeremy to a point. The Deighton character, I feel, treats these elements more…I hesitate to use the term, but at this hour, I can’t think of another…realistically.

Bond is, for all intents and purposes, a fantasy hero (one critic, I can’t remember who, posited that writing the 007 novels prevented Fleming from going out and attempting to live the fantastic Bond lifestyle himself), and thus cannot veer from the course of the adventure. For instance, while it is clear that Bond appreciates the places he visits during his missions, his appreciation seems to come in the form of a dossier with bullet points — here’s the local history, the relevant landmarks, a handful of observations about the local folk — before he has to go off and shoot someone. The narrator’s enjoyment of, for instance, Adem’s house in Lebanon seems to go deeper. He is taken aback by Adem’s visits to see the animals don’t involve shooting — with either guns or cameras — but later, after a sort of sublime moment staring out at the landscape and listening to the opening bars of Mozart’s Symphony 21, he thinks to donate to Adem’s preservation fund. I’m not sure if the Fleming character, detached and often cruel, is capable of having a sublime moment.

There was a particular passage in IPCRESS that I thought interestingly mirrored a passage from Fleming, when Dalby takes the narrator to lunch:

Dalby didn’t fool about with expenses; we went into Wiltons and settled for the best of everything. The iced Israeli melon was sweet, tender and cold like the blonde waitress. Corrugated iron manufacturers and chinless advertising men shared the joys of our expense-account society with zombi-like debs with Eton-tied uncles. It was a nice change from the sandwich bar in Charlotte Street, where I played a sort of Rugby scrum each lunch-time with only two Ph.D.’s, three physicists and a medical research specialist for company, standing up to toasted bacon sandwich and a cup of stuff that resembles coffee in no aspect but price.

Over the lobster Dalby asked me how things were going in the work on Jay. I told him that it was going just great and I hope someone will tell me what I’m doing some day. I wouldn’t have remembered Thursday at all, apart from the fine lobster salad and carefully-made mayonnaise, if it hadn’t been for what Dalby then said. He poured me a little more champagne and crunching it back into the ice bucket, said, ‘You’re working with the same information that I am. Unless I’m wrong we are moving in from opposite ends to the same conclusion.’ Then he changed the subject.

…Which might be compared to the early chapter in Moonraker where M takes Bond to dinner at the private Blades club. Bond jumps at the opportunity, and is treated to an exquisite meal:

The head steward was already behind Bond’s chair. He placed a broad menu card beside his plate and handed another to M. ‘Blades’ was written in fine gold script across the top. Below there was a forest of print.

“Don’t bother to read through all that,” said M., “unless you’ve got no ideas. One of the first rules of the club, and one of the best, was that any member may speak for any dish, cheap or dear, but he must pay for it. The same’s true today, only the odds are one doesn’t have to pay for it. Just order what you feel like.” He looked up at the steward. “Any of that Beluga caviar left, Porterfield?”

“Yes, sir. There was a new delivery last week.”

“Well,” said M. “Caviar for me. Devilled kidney and a slice of your excellent bacon. Peas and new potatoes. Strawberries in kirsch. What about you, James?”

“I’ve got a mania for really good smoked salmon,” said Bond. Then he pointed down the menu. “Lamb cutlets. The same vegetables as you, as it’s May. Asparagus with Bearnaise sauce sounds wonderful. And perhaps a slice of pineapple.” He sat back and pushed the menu away.

“Thank heaven for a man who makes up his mind,” said M. He looked up at the steward. “Have you got all that, Porterfield?”

“Yes, sir.” The steward smiled. “You wouldn’t care for a marrow bone after the strawberries, sir? We got half a dozen in today from the country, and I’d specially kept one in case you came in.”

“Of course. You know I can’t resist them. Bad for me but it can’t be helped. God knows what I’m celebrating this evening. But it doesn’t often happen. Ask Grimley to come over, would you.”

“He’s here now, sir,” said the steward, making way for the wine-waiter.

“Ah, Grimley, some vodka, please.” He turned to Bond. “Not the stuff you had in your cocktail. This is real pre-war Wolfschmidt from Riga. Like some with your smoked salmon?”

‘Very much,” said Bond.’

“Then what?” asked M. “Champagne? Personally I’m going to have a half-bottle of claret. The Mouton Rothschild ’34, please, Grimley. But don’t pay any attention to me, James. I’m an old man. Champagne’s no good for me. We’ve got some good champagnes, haven’t we, Grimley? None of that stuff you’re always telling me about, I’m afraid, James. Don’t often see it in England. Taittinger, wasn’t it?”

Bond smiled at M.’s memory. “Yes,” he said, “but it’s only a fad of mine. As a matter of fact, for various reasons I believe I would like to drink champagne this evening. Perhaps I could leave it to Grimley.”

The wine-waiter was pleased. “If I may suggest it, sir, the Dom Perignon ’46. I understand that France only sells it for dollars, sir, so you don’t often see it in London. I believe it was a gift from the Regency Club in New York, sir. I have some on ice at the moment. It’s the Chairman’s favourite and he’s told me to have it ready every evening in case he needs it.”

Bond smiled his agreement.

“So be it, Grimley,” said M. “The Dom Perignon. Bring it straight away, would you?”

Even here, in the area of gourmet cooking where Deighton and his character are famous, I feel there’s a recognizable difference in the authors’ treatment of the menu. In Fleming’s novel, the food is near-unattainable, and much is made of rarity and ages and dates. In Deighton’s, the narrator recognizes his good fortune and is thankful he’s not eating a bacon sandwich (I also feel that, in addition to utilizing Deighton’s knowledge of cooking, the gourmet tendencies of the narrator are a form of over-compensation stemming from his class issues, but more on that in a later post).

In a way, these areas that Deighton’s character and 007 seemingly have in common actually do more to clearly delineate the differences between the two. But, as I said before, I make these observations with the admission that I’ve only read one book in the Deighton series.

Next time around, we’ll reprint a tongue-in-cheek account of the first meeting between Deighton and Fleming, written by journalist Peter Evans for The Guardian, later reprinted in the book For Bond Lovers Only, and examine reports that Fleming and Deighton discussed establishing their agents as part of the same narrative world.

Through July, or at least until I run out of things about which to talk, we’ll be looking at the Harry Palmer series of novels (in which the character doesn’t actually have a name), their author — Len Deighton, the films based on them, the star of those films — Michael Caine, and the television movies that followed. I will be re-reading the whole series of novels, re-watching the films, and giving my thoughts on all I encounter. I’ll inevitably be drawing heavily on the collection of Kees Stam, author of The Harry Palmer Movie Site, and Rob Mallows, creator of the Deighton Dossier, and other odds and ends that I’ve turned up over the years.

I must admit that I thought we’d have about 20 posts overall in this series, so I’m very delighted that we’re on File 015 and haven’t even gotten to the films yet! I’m also fairly happy that we’ve stayed on schedule, but want to warn you that posts might be delayed or even non-existent over this weekend as my wife and I travel to Chattanooga, TN (home of the famed Choo-Choo, and Rock Mountain!)  to see my wife’s sister get married. I’m taking the notebook PC with me, and let’s keep our fingers crossed that the hotel has a wireless connection, but the real issue might be having time to post.

In any case, let’s proceed with the second of our series on areas where Bond/Palmer and Fleming/Deighton cross-over, shall we? Much of today’s post is taken from an enlightening conversation at the wonderful James Bond fan/news site Commander Bond.net, where, in a forum post, the user Silhouette Man asks the question:

In the 2000 Updated edition of ‘The Bond Files’ by Andy Lane and Paul Simpson, there is a piece which states that Fleming and Deighton had discussed co- ordinating their novels together. Here is the quote from page 394,

“Fleming enjoyed Deighton’s books, and once suggested (perhaps not entirely in jest) that they co-ordinate their books so that Bond was disparaging about ‘Palmer’ and ‘Palmer’ returned the favour at more or less the same time.”

Now I’ve never read this anywhere else and I was wondering whether anyone else at CBn knew any more. In Lycett’s biography it said that when Fleming was ill he returned Deighton’s ‘Funeral in Berlin’ when he was asked to review it.

User Atticus17 kindly obliges by reproducing the essay “Rendezvous with the Man From the IPCRESS File” from the book For Bond Lovers Only (my laziness led to my finding this series of posts — originally, I was just going to type up the account for you all, but I decided to Google to see if someone else had done the work for me!). This was written by Peter Evans, the journalist and friend of Deighton’s whom I’m sure you remember from The Truth About Len Deighton, and who was one of the first to interview Deighton even before the success of The IPCRESS File.

For Bond Lovers Only

He selected a cigarette, placed it in his ebony holder and lit it with a gold lighter. It was all done with the studied rhythm of a man playing for time while thinking of exactly what to say.

“I look forward to meeting this fellow,” Ian Fleming said finally, tilting his head toward the ceiling and gently blowing smoke after his words.

With one finger he pushed aside the curtains of the private room over the restaurant not very far from Tottenham Court Road and looked down into the street.

“Yes, indeed,” he said after another long moment, “it should be a most fascinating encounter. Even perhaps memorable.”

Indeed. For the missing guest was Mr. Len Deighton, the author whose first spy book, The IPCRESS File, had made him the biggest threat to the suave Mr. Fleming and his equally suave hero James Bond since SMERSH.

Deighton’s unnamed agent has been acclaimed by the critics, snapped up by Bond’s own publishers, Jonathan Cape, and signed by the same producers who filmed Doctor No.

What is even more fascinating is that where Mr. Fleming is reputed partly to have modelled Agent 007 on himself, so Deighton’s fumbling, cheapskate hero has more than a touch of his illustrious creator.

Mr. Fleming, who himself nominated The IPCRESS File among the “Books of the Year”, said: “I simply have to meet him, you know. It is important to know the kind of fellow you are up against.”

Some fifteen minutes late, Deighton arrived — an untidy man in one of those 1963 suits with the 1957 price tags. He made it look lumpy. On his cufflinks were colour pictures of Littlehampton. He is a man who looks in a perpetual state of surprise.

“This is a bit posh, isn’t it?” he said, shaking Fleming’s hand. “They very nearly didn’t let me in downstairs.”

Mr. Fleming arranged his face into a bleak smile. “It is rather a pleasant little restaurant,” he said, searching his rival’s face like a map-reader searching for a bearing.

There was the kind of sharp silence that occurs in the first round of a boxing match, when the crowd is waiting for the first punch to be thrown.

Mr. Fleming got up. “My favourite restaurant is Scotts, actually. Almost got arrested there during the war, as a matter of fact. They suspected I was a German spy. Awfully amusing.

“I was working for Intelligence and giving some U-Boat commander a slap-up lunch. The idea was to pump him full of scotch and stuff, then pump him for information. Cost about £25 AND the blighter didn’t talk. Saw right through it, obviously,” Fleming admitted pleasantly.

“Anyway, the waiters heard us yapping away in German and in no time we were surrounded by police. I got a most frightful rocket when I got back to my office.”

Deighton’s head began to rock slowly backwards and forwards, as if mesmerised by Mr. Fleming’s story.

“You were in intelligence yourself, weren’t you?” Mr. Fleming put the question across like an angry schoolmaster who has caught one of his pupils dozing.

“Yes. Air Intelligence,” admitted Deighton.

“I guessed as much,” said Mr. Fleming, a look of satisfaction seeping over his face like a blush. “You get pretty near the knuckle in some parts, I must say. Anyway, I realised you knew what you were talking about — as indeed I do.”

“Your next book,” said Deighton slowly, “is set in Japan.”

“Correct,” said Mr. Fleming, his face a mask. “It’s called You Only Die Twice. I’ve just been to Tokyo actually. Ran over on the old willow pattern route. Very jolly. Sake and kimonos and all that damn bowing amuses me enormously. Ever been to Tokyo?”

“Yes,” said Deighton.

“Fly?”

“BOAC,” said Deighton.

“Pleasant?”

“I was a steward,” said Deighton.

Again that circling, first-round silence. “I have a rotten feeling,” said Deighton moodily, “that my car’s going to be towed away.”

“What do you drive, old boy?” asked Mr. Fleming, perhaps sensing a common bond in cars.

“A beaten up old Volkswagen actually,” said Deighton, adding brightly, “but I’ve installed a telephone. Yours?”

“I’ve just got one of those new Studebaker Avantes. Nought to 60 in 4.5 seconds, 175 miles an hour with four passengers up. Supercharged, of course. I must say I adore it,” said Fleming.

Silence. Then; “You know what we should do?” asked Mr. Fleming suddenly. “We should start a running joke in our books. Like those chaps Crosby and Hope. I’ll get Bond to knock your chap — you really should give him a name, you know — and you can get him to tear the hell out of Bond.”

“Super,” said Deighton. “I’d love to knock Bond. You remind me of him in many ways.”

A thin smile traced across Mr. Fleming’s face. “Really? Well, I do identify myself with him in a few things.”

Mr. Fleming smiled a sad smile. “But of course Bond has a far better digestion than I have, and his prowess with women is considerably greater than mine, unfortunately. Needless to say, he has more guts.”

Deighton asked: “Do you honestly like Bond?”

Mr. Fleming thought about this question for a minute, then: “I began by disliking him intensely. I’ve grown to like him. To be honest, I think your fellow is rather more solid — indeed, Bond is often quite cardboard — but I have put him through so much it would be too disloyal not to like him now.”

It was, as Mr. Fleming predicted, a most fascinating encounter.

The user spynovelfan follows up with an extended selection from An Expensive Place to Die, which we wrote about yesterday:

On a staircase, a wedge of people were embracing, laughing like advertising photos. At the bar, a couple of English photographers were talking in cockney and an English writer was explaining James Bond.

A waiter put four glasses full of ice cubes and a half-bottle of Johnnie Walker on the table before us. ‘What’s this?’ I asked.

The waiter turned away without answering. Two Frenchmen at the bar began to argue with the English writer and a bar stool fell over. The noise wasn’t loud enough for anyone to notice. On the dance floor a girl in a shiny plastic suit was swearing at a man who had burned a hole in it with his cigarette. I heard the English writer behind me say, ‘But I have always immensely adored violence. His violence is his humanity. Unless you understand that you understand nothing.’ He wrinkled his nose and smiled. One of the Frenchmen replied, ‘He suffers in translation.’ The photographer was clicking his fingers in time to the music. ‘Don’t we all?’ said the English writer, and looked around.

Byrd said, ‘Shocking noise.’

‘Don’t listen,’ I said.

‘What?’ said Byrd.

The English writer was saying ‘…a violent Everyman in a violent but humdrum…’ he paused, ‘but humdrum world.’ He nodded agreement to himself. ‘Let me remind you of Baudelaire. There’s a sonnet that begins…’

‘So this bird wants to get out of the car…’ one of the photographers was saying.

‘Speak a little more quietly,’ said the English writer. ‘I’m going to recite a sonnet.’

‘Belt up,’ said the photographer over his shoulder. ‘This bird wanted to get out of the car…’

‘Baudelaire,’ said the writer. ‘Violent, macabre and symbolic.’

‘You leave bollicks out of this,’ said the photographer, and his friend laughed. The writer put a hand on his shoulder and said, ‘Look my friend…’ The photographer planted a right jab into his solar plexus without spilling the drink he was holding. The writer folded up like a deckchair and hit the floor. A waiter grabbed towards the photographer, but stumbled over the English writer’s inert body.

‘Look here,’ said Byrd, and a passing waiter turned so that the half-bottle of whisky and the four glasses of ice were knocked over. Someone aimed a blow at the photographer’s head. Byrd got to his feet saying quietly and reasonably, ‘You spilled the drink on the floor. Dash me, you’d better pay for it. Only thing to do. Damned rowdies.’ The waiter pushed Byrd violently and he fell back and disappeared among the densely packed dancers. Two or three people began to punch each other. A wild blow took me in the small of the back, but the attacker had moved on. I got both shoulder-blades rested against the nearest piece of wall and braced the sole of my right foot for leverage. One of the photographers came my way, but he kept going and wound up grappling with a waiter. There was a scuffle going on at the top of the staircase, and then violence traveled through the place like a flash flood. Everyone was punching everyone, girls were screaming and the music seemed to be even louder than before. A man hurried a girl along the corridor past me. ‘It’s those English that make the trouble,’ he complained.

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘You look English.’

‘No, I’m Belgian,’ I said. He hurried after the girl…

Silhouette Man returns with a bit from The Len Deighton Companion (I’m still waiting for this one to arrive via inter-library loan):

I recently got the hold of a copy of THE LEN DEIGHTON COMPANION by Edward Milward-Oliver and in his interview with Deighton, he mentions that HORSE UNDER WATER was published by Jonathan Cape. Deighton responds, “That’s right. And that enraged some people, who claimed I was now going to be trained as the successor to Ian Fleming, who Cape also published.”

And Atticus returns with a rare photo of Deighton, Fleming, and cover designer Raymond Hawkey who worked on both of their novels (more on him later this week!):

Len Deighton, Ian Fleming and Raymond Hawkey

Lots of nice historical background today, much more than I would have had to offer, had I not been so lazy! My thanks go to all who uploaded this info in the first place at Commander Bond!

Next up in this series: When Deighton wrote Bond.

Through July, or at least until I run out of things about which to talk, we’ll be looking at the Harry Palmer series of novels (in which the character doesn’t actually have a name), their author — Len Deighton, the films based on them, the star of those films — Michael Caine, and the television movies that followed. I will be re-reading the whole series of novels, re-watching the films, and giving my thoughts on all I encounter. I’ll inevitably be drawing heavily on the collection of Kees Stam, author of The Harry Palmer Movie Site, and Rob Mallows, creator of the Deighton Dossier, and other odds and ends that I’ve turned up over the years.

John Tomlin, of the no-longer-updated-but-still-useful Unofficial Len Deighton Page, shared scans of this interesting article from Playboy, March 1966, with The Len Deighton Discussion Group on Yahoo! (where you can find the original PDFs in the file section). Written by Len Deighton, it’s an interesting look at the “spy boom,” which Deighton calls phony, the circumstances created by the Bond phenomenon, a brief bit on the creation of The IPCRESS File, and a lamentation of the wave of spy shows that Deighton feels are devoid of talent.

It’s an interesting article, and it seems to me that Deighton is working through his feelings on what role Fleming and Bond may have played in his own success, and attempting to absolve himself of guilt for inspiring (through his own spy successes) other works in the “spy boom” that he feels aren’t up to snuff.  It also may be interesting to note that in May of 1966, The Avengers was just hitting its stride in the Emma Peel years, and The Prisoner had yet to debut, although The Man From UNCLE had gone downhill in its second season. The sequel to 1965′s IPCRESS File was, I believe, currently filming, debuting in December of ’66.

Playboy May 1966

WHY DOES MY ART GO BOOM?
as the spy craze continues to spiral skyward, the author of “the ipcress file” files a personal report on the phenomenon

article By LEN DEIGHTON

What is a spy-book boom? I don’t think I like the sound of it. Does it mean that a lot of people are using the same subject matter? Then when the hell is the boy-meets-girl boom going to end?

Does it mean that books on this boom kick get sold whether they are good, bad or indifferent? Don’t expect me to get enthusiastic about that one.

Does it mean that readers are instructed to buy books that are booming? Getting warmer. Land booms are the harmonious conjunction of sucker and speculator, so why not book booms? I’ll tell you why not: Book buyers are book readers and book readers are no suckers. I’m a book reader.

There is nothing new about spying. There is nothing new about writing of it. Xenophon and Caesar wrote of it. The Bible perhaps owes a large part of its high sales to its spy stories. Other writers have tried their hand from time to time. Conrad, Le Queux and E. Phillips Oppenheim all had a deft touch. John Buchan showed how spies could serve imperialism when the going grew too shallow for a gunboat. Eric Ambler threw an idealistic left at the fascists of the Thirties and Graham Greene wrote some of the best of all between fulfilling his contract with God.

It was Maugham’s agent Ashenden, in the opening paragraphs of The Hairless Mexican, who set a portentous note, however, when he reported back to his intelligence chief R.;

“‘Do you like macaroni?’ said R.

“‘What do you mean by macaroni?’ answered Ashenden. ‘It is like asking me if I like poetry. I like Keats and Wordsworth and Verlaine and Goethe. When you say macaroni, do you mean spaghetti, tagliatelli, rigatoni, vermicelli, fettucini, tufali, farfalli, or just macaroni?’

“‘Macaroni,’ replied R., a man of few words.

“‘I like all simple things, boiled eggs, oysters and caviare, truite au blue, grilled salmon, roast lamb (the saddle by preference), cold grouse, treacle tart and rice pudding. But of all simple things the only one I can eat day in and day out, not only without disgust but with the eagerness of an appetite unimpaired by excess, is macaroni.’

“‘I am glad of that because I want you to go down to Italy.’”

R. Was a character who came before M, but apart from superficial appeal, is there much resemblance between Ambler, Buchan, Conrad, Fleming and Greene? There is a certain pre-Nuremberg-trial readiness to shrug off irresponsible behavior on the plea of orders. Indeed, Bond’s unswerving loyalty earned him an accolade from America’s extreme political right. But did Fleming do anything that could detonate a boom?

He exploited kinky sex and doll-like women. He enthroned the WASP when the WASP’s role in the world was a little shaky. But Fleming’s importance to the business world was the way he wrote always about what he called the serial character–James Bond–pursued a tested format and made a great deal of money. Fleming boomed.

It’s a well-known fact that people don’t make money because they are clever, highly trained or brave. They make it either because they are lucky or because they have a secret.

The secret-hunters pawed through Fleming’s writings, as intent as cryptologists. They are still doing it. “Spies,” they pronounced, “that’s Fleming’s secret. Spies make money. Spies boom.” In Fleming’s case they were right, but before the first Bond film, who had Fleming earmarked for boomsville?

In the spring of 1950 I was working on my first book–IPCRESS File. I was earning enough money as an artist to write anything I chose. I chose a spy novel, as I still do. I liked to have a problem or enigma that could follow the action of the book, but I wanted the book to be ragged and untidy, as life is. I wanted the characterizations and the dialog to control the enigma, rather than the other way round as had been the case with the detective novels of the Thirties, which had become puzzles rather than stories. Above all, I was interested in the permutations of deceit and mistake.

Too many people in the fiction I had read told the whole truth all the time and never seemed to make a mistake of judgment. I decided to write a first-person narrative in which the narrator would lie to anyone if it suited his purpose. This narrator would finally make such an error of judgment that his life would be saved by a man (Ross) who he had continually told readers was a fool. I dismissed the detective story because I didn’t know enough about the regular police force, and chose a secret-agent format so that I could use the political background that interested me. My hero was bespectacled, low-salaried and slightly overweight. There was no sex interest to speak of. It owed a debt to Chandler, but was inspired by Beat the Devil, an old Bogart-Lorre film which, prodding at greed, fakery and the English class system, had produced terror and belly laughs. At the box office, it boomed.

Autumn 1962 was the publication date of IPCRESS File and the opening of the Dr. No film. The critics were generous to me and, although it sounds unbelievable today, somewhat hostile to the Bond film. The income from IPCRESS was adequate by my standards, but Dr. No buried the box office in gold. It was an attractive sound that caught the ear of a goodly number of otherwise unmusical people.

Harry Saltzman bought the IPCRESS film rights. He said, “A lot of people are going to be after your book because of the success of Dr. No,” adding, “and I’m the only producer who, you can be certain, won’t make an imitation Bond film from your book.” Saltzman, of course, had options on the other Fleming properties and so didn’t need to. The news of the film-rights sale brought more Fleming comparisons, and when I changed publishers, so that Fleming and I both had the same one, some people–not including Fleming–were enraged. Donald McLachlan, editor of the Sunday Telegraph, went into print to say that he deplored the way I had been “…brought into the select stable of Jonathan Cape where Mr. Fleming was the first thriller writer to be trained for the big circulation stakes.” I was, it seems, “…being coached by Mr. Fleming for the succession.”

In the autumn of 1963, my second book, Horse Under Water, was published and Saltzman bought the film rights of that, too. There was more conjecture in the press. “Out-Bonds Bond” and “Anti-Bond,” they said. Out of curiosity, I read Fleming for the first time. I could see no connection whatoever, but no one was asking me.

Fleming’s Bond was a proved success, the industry read the entrails. Famous ex-novelists began to write literary critiques about Fleming’s meaning. But the big word on the book jacket was going to be Bond.

Publishers reshuffled their lists, old reviews were scanned to find comparisons with Bond. Sci-fi was out and spy-fi was in. If Fleming was going to be deified, then Buchan could be anthologized. Reprints were artfully retitled to include words like, “spy,” “secret agent” and “espionage.”

In the autumn of 1963 The Spy Who Came in from the Cold appeared, its film rights sold even before publication. It climbed onto the best-seller list and stayed there a history-making period of time. The last stragglers were converted. People who had found Fleming’s work rubbish began to see it as fun. Publications that had ignored Le Carré limped belatedly into print with reviews that saw his promise.

It was settled, then: Add up Le Carré, Fleming and Deighton, divide by three and the answer is spies. There was no time for long-term tests and, like Thalidomide, the spy formula was stirred hastily and a long-suffering public told to open its throat. But the public didn’t. The most interesting thing about the spy boom is to what extent it hasn’t been accepted.

Spy scent, spy trousers, film rights and series contracts. The book ads in the Times grew larger and larger, booksellers were faced with bewildering lists of books, all of them guaranteed to home in to the best-seller list. The flacks were inserting the zeros and omitting the options so that the entertainment industry seemed to have found what it had always been looking for–a substitute for talent. But of this wave of spy-boomery that hit the beaches complete with local money and pay-war units, how many reached the finish line? One would expect the best-seller list to be riddled with spy books by now. If they are there, they are hiding behind strange titles. The assault, however, continues despite heavy casualties. When Funeral in Berlin went onto the list, the combat troops were given new heart. Mr. Conrad Knickerbocker, writing in Life magazine, said, “…the Great American Washed at last have a folk hero of their very own.” He felt that all the “new-style thrillers” needed was a bitter hero and Berlin as a locale. Mr. Knickerbocker felt that they were appearing at “the rate of one per day.”

From the other side of the counter it didn’t seem so easy. Coward-McCann (Le Carré’s publisher) growled, “If it was as simple as that we’d all be retired to our yachts months ago.”

Considering the very high percentage of spy novels being published, it is remarkable how few ever do anything. Perhaps there is no magic way. Perhaps publishers, like mushroom pickers, just have to know enough to make their own choices. Perhaps the public is doing just that–boom, phony boom or no boom at all.

But if the best-seller list has been the scene of a fine defensive actoin, the small screen has long since been overwhelmed. It’s no coincidence that the American TV industry was chosen as ground zero for the spy-boom blast. Its programs ranged from A to D, and here was a chance to narrow the choice. The ad agencies–masters of the wishful think–relished the thought of a “spy trend.” A trend made the agency role important, a trend had changed often enough to keep the cash jingling, trends meant that some agencies could be trendsetters. And trendsetters could soften up teh ground way before the next trend was announced. “Spes,” the sibilants splashed across the polished-mahogany board rooms. “Give me a child of five and tomorrow we will have eliminated those troublesome writers altogether.”

The sands of the great writerless desert that is U.S. TV stirred.

Was it to be “Secret Gunn” or “77 Sunset Spy”? What’s the difference, the same gay rogues that outwitted the guttural villains of yesterday against back-projection Bermuda, two flats and a practical door, are there still, but now they are part of the spy boom.

The phony spy boom is another attempt to relegate humans to the role of cogs. Writers are not cogs. They are not even, although some reviewers see it otherwise, mutations and subdivisions of other writers. Nor is a book a refrigerator. A house that contains a Bellow can still use a Mailer. Plenting of room for Kipling as well as Eliot. Time for Bach and time for Beatle. If the industry succeeds in selling fashionable trends instead of using and paying writers, it will do so. The skilled painstaking publishers will go to the wall and hordes of mediocrity will eliminate writers in favor of packaging. If you think I am a vested interest, you’re right. If you think it wouldn’t be so bad, switch on your TV.

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:

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!

Classics Illustrated - Dr. No

As has been noted by a number of my other COBRAS comrades (including new COBRAS member[s] The HMSS Weblog — more on this shortly), actor Joseph Wiseman, who played the titular character in 1962′s Doctor No, and thus became the first James Bond film villain, passed away this week. In his honor, we here at Mister 8 want to look at some of the adaptations of Ian Fleming’s Doctor No, starting today with a comic that was published in multiple places, including the British Classics Illustrated, Detective Series (supposedly — I’ve not seen any online evidence of this, and will check my copy of James Bond: The History of the Illustrated 007 when I get home tonight), and DC Comics’ Showcase series.

Comics creator / historian / anecdotalist Mark Evanier discusses this issue in an entry at his site on the history of DC dropping the ball on the one franchise in the world bigger than Superman or Batman (or, I suppose, Mickey Mouse, who currently owns their rival, Marvel Comics):

The first Bond film, Doctor No, debuted in England in October of 1962. To coincide with that release, the British publisher of the Classics Illustrated comic book series issued an adaptation that was drawn by Norman J. Nodel. It was not, by the way, a terribly precise adaptation, at least of the movie, which Nodel does not appear to have seen when he drew the book. It has been suggested that the publisher had the right to adapt the screenplay but not necessarily the film based on it. The likeness of the lead character makes it seem like Nodel was told to draw a Bond that looked a lot like Sean Connery…but not exactly.

In any case, the company that arranged the adaptation wanted to have it published in America when the movie was released here the following May. The American publisher of Classics Illustrated was in no position to do so. They had a marketing program that avoided most of the main newsstand outlets — the obvious place to sell such a book — and concentrated on classrooms and other educational venues. The Bond people, not wanting to miss an opportunity, tried to arrange to publish the Doctor No comic book themselves. They approached the largest comic book distributor, Independent News, which was owned by the same folks who owned DC Comics.

Independent said no, they would not handle a one-time publication from a new publisher…but they would buy the rights to publish an American edition and issue it as a DC Comic. The Bond licensing people liked this deal or at least accepted this deal. They did like the idea, which was briefly discussed, of DC publishing an ongoing James Bond comic book if this first one did well. The contract when it was concluded included an option clause that would allow DC to do a regular series for a modest fee.

Bob Brown drew the new cover for the DC Showcase issue, which was the March-April 1963 issue of the series. Thanks again to user Woollsey, who sent the following images along with a bevy of spy comics scans from the golden / early silver age of comics that have not been republished. I’m not sure where rights issues currently stand with this, but I imagine they’re fairly murky and this issue is unlikely to be reprinted. Copyright holders, feel free to correct me if I’m wrong, and I’ll take these images down: