SPY VIBE

CONTEST: ILLUSTRATED JAMES BOND

SPY VIBE BIRTHDAY PRESENTS

What's a birthday without presents? Spy Vibe celebrates its first year with a series of contest give-away prizes! Need hints? Think... Gold Key, Irwin Allen, James Bond, Secret Agent...

THE AVENGERS & MATT HELM: WATCHDOG

Spy Vibers will want to stop by Barnes and Noble this weekend and pick up a copy of issue #154 of Video Watchdog. The front and back cover not only feature beautiful photos of John Steed and Cathy Gale from The Avengers, but also cinema's original international man of mystery, Matt Helm. Much of the issue is devoted to writer Kim Newman's excellent (and thorough!) coverage of surviving episodes of the first season of The Avengers as well as complete coverage of season two episodes in the order they were originally taped. In addition to the meaty, Spy Vibe tasty text, Newman provides a number of fantastic photographs. If that wasn't enough to whet your secret agent appetites, Newman also reviews the Matt Helm Lounge box set of the four Dean Martin classics, The Silencers, Murderers' Row, The Ambushers, and The Wrecking Crew. If you can't find Video Watchdog at your local retailer, you can also order issues directly from them here.

Fellow C.O.B.R.A.S. agent Bish reported recently about another special edition magazine on stands now. Put together by the editors of American History, "100 Greatest Spy Movies" is available at Borders and other retailers. The magazine highlights most of the top espionage thrillers throughout cinema history. Though I did not see Deadlier Than the Male listed (what gives?), I did note the newsworthy mention of Triple Agent by French New Wave auteur, Eric Rohmer, who recently passed away. Titles covered from the 1960s are: The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, Goldfinger, Manchurian Candidate, Ipcress File, Dr. No, Funeral in Berlin, Looking Glass War, Army of Shadows, The Deadly Affair, From Russia With Love, The War is Over, Torn Curtain, The Counterfeit Traitor, Our Man Flint, Operation Crossbow, Billion Dollar Brain, Guns of Navarone, The Venetian Affair, Modesty Blaise, Ice Station Zebra, and Quiller Memorandum. The films are not listed in order of rank or alphabet, so I'm hoping a Spy Vibe reader will uncover a code. The magazine also features many sidebars about how some of the films relate to real spy cases in history.

JASON'S SONG/FILM ON YOUTUBE

Spy Vibe Jason's winning song/film project with the Plastic Ono Band is now listed on Yoko Ono's YouTube Favorites. The visuals are black and white, experimental scenes of ocean creatures, but I think readers may enjoy the Lounge/Jazz approach of the music. You can read more about the project here. Before creating Spy Vibe, I have been composing music and making films for the international festival circuit. My previous film, I Was A Dancer -filmed in Japan- was short-listed for the Sundance Film Festival and screened around the world. Being a lifetime fan of 1960s revolutionary artists like Ono and The Beatles, I feel thrilled and blessed to have had a chance to collaborate with the Plastic Ono Band and to share the results. Thanks for checking it out!

THE WHO: BLU MOD GROUP

Breaking out as The High Numbers, Pete Townshend, Roger Daltry, Keith Moon, and John Entwistle embraced the 1960s Rock and Roll explosion with tunes tailored to Britain's Mod scene. The flip side of their initial single echoed the sub-culture slang, "I'm the Face." To be The Face meant to be popular or cool. With a change in management, the group was reborn as The Who, and embodied the youth generation through Pop Art and Auto-Destructive Art concepts. The use of military insignia (the RAF target) and other icons as fashionable Pop symbols ignited the imagination, and continues to sell T-shorts today! In 1965, the year of the big spy boom and The Beatles' Help, The Who released "Can't Explain" and "My Generation" and rocketed to stardom. As the culture evolved in 1966 and beyond, The Who began to experiment with concept albums and linked song cycles, first in short story/Pop Art form (A Quick One, The Who Sell Out), and then moving into full-blown rock opera (Tommy). Along with The Beatles, perhaps no other band stands today as a reflection of the 1960s as an era of ever-changing narrative and visual revolution. On March 2nd, Universal Music Group will release the excellent documentary, The Kids Are Alright on Blu-ray. Play it loud! Spy Vibers may also want to check out a new (still unseen) documentary called The Who, The Mods, and The Quadrophenia Connection. Looking for Mod clothes? Check out I'm The Face.

MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E: TIM ESTILOZ

A short celebration of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. by reporter/performer Tim Estioloz, originally aired on the Comcast Network.

007 MAGAZINE IS BACK

After a 3-year sabbatical as an online Internet publication only, 007 MAGAZINE is set to return with not one, but two separate titles. The sister publication will be entitled 007 MAGAZINE ARCHIVE FILES, and the first issue will feature articles and many never-before-seen images from the making of On Her Majesty's Secret Service, in the film's 40th anniversary year.

As stated on the official 007 Magazine website, each issue of 007 Magazine Archive Files spotlights various elements of one particular James Bond film featuring rare and never-before-seen imagery coupled with informative and definitive information. 007 Magazine Archive Files #1 examines the filming of the exciting and brutal beach fight that opens the sixth James Bond film, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969) starring one-time Bond George Lazenby, and the filming at The College of Arms in London. Featuring never-before-seen images from a scene cut from the final movie when Bond discovers the villainous Ernst Stavro Blofeld’s spy has infiltrated the college and is listening-in to 007’s top secret conversation with Sir Hilary Bray. Bond fans can purchase 007 Magazine Archive Files #1 at the official 007 Magazine website. Check out their list of back issues, too!

007 Magazine first appeared in print in April 1979 and premiered on the World Wide Web during 1997, while its more recent web persona evolved during September 2004. 007 Magazine publications and website feature the definitive work on the subject, covering everything relating to the James Bond phenomenon and spanning six decades from 1952 to the present day. During its 30-year history 007 Magazine & Archive has become the foremost worldwide focal point for countless inquiries relating to Bond, James Bond and provides the ultimate resource for James Bond enthusiasts worldwide, and a unique commercial picture agency & information centre for the world's media.

Thanks to agent Wes Britton for the heads-up and to the 007 Magazine website. Additional information and James Bond news at the excellent community and research site, Commander Bond Network.

Spy Vibe turns One today! How did it all start? After a number of movie and comic scripts, and a non-fiction book about cartoon art, I was adapting a movie guide book I wrote into a new blog project. It would be a place to discuss how films go together like elements of a fine feast. A little Fellini here, an echo of Woody Allen there- discussions of the great auteurs and genres in cinema history. But then I heard about the passing of actor Patrick McGoohan. I began to reflect on The Prisoner and the other spy-related artifacts from the 1960s that were so much a part of my background. Before I discovered Fellini, Bergman, Kurosawa, etc, my imagination was ignited by images of secret agents in tight suits, the sleek lines of the Jaguar XK-E, and Jazzy-Lounge music of 007, Man From U.N.C.L.E. and The Avengers. I remembered the spy-fascination of my childhood: making silencers for cap guns out of painted rolls of paper, making cassette recordings from the TV so I could re-experience stories as radio dramas, and collecting spy memorabilia. An avid James Bond fan, I joined the fanclub and savored issues of the club magazine, Bondage. And I waited patiently each year to catch a broadcast of my fave film of the era, The 10th Victim by Elio Petri. As an adult, I loved to look deeper into these old adventures and relish the cultural significance of their production design, costumes, and stories. The influence of the space race, the sexual revolution, and the baby boom was, and remains, thrilling to explore. Although the movie guide book was a solid project, I could not escape the lure of Swingin' 60s Spy Satisfaction. I began the Spy Vibe blog and website on January 11, 2009 with a tribute to Patrick McGoohan.

JASON WINS REMIX COMPETITION

During the flurry of Beatles and Mod style-related posts in the fall, Spy Vibe announced that Yoko Ono released an exciting and richly artistic album with the Plastic Ono Band. Members included Sean Lennon, Yuka Honda, and Cornelius. The band, now on a US tour, held a remix competition in November for their song, The Sun is Down. Music has always been a big part of my life, including remixing, songwriting, guitar & bass, film scores, and many spy-sampled lounge tunes. I jumped at the chance to collaborate with these guys! Yoko provided a handful of vocal clips. It was up to the remixers/composers to interpret as we wished. I planned a number of solutions, but had a busy fall as Spy Vibers will know. In the end I completed a lounge/jazz song- which was chosen as one of the 20 winners of the competition! When I'm not teaching and writing films, fiction, and comics, I'm busy making short films. With my song on the award list, I made an experimental film to promote the track. See it here on YouTube. Remembering John Lennon's nickname for Yoko, Ocean Child, I shot black & white footage of dancing sea horses, jelly fish, and a dolphin on my iPhone. The film is dedicated to my brothers-in-film Kousuke Ono, Michele Civetta, and Jack Criddle. No stealthy spies or mini skirts in this one, but I hope Spy Vibers will check it out. More news about Yoko Ono and the Plastic Ono Band at Yoko's website Imagine Peace. Information about Jason's films and projects at jasonwhiton.com.

CONE OF SILENCE

The genius of Mel Brooks and Buck Henry ensured that Get Smart would be a true original. Defining secret agent, nitwit humor, Max Smart spawned many imitations (including most of the kid's programs recently covered in Spy Vibe's look at trench coats). The "cone of silence", here from the pilot episode, still cracks me up. Happy Friday to all Spy Vibers!

IT TAKES A THIEF

Spy Vibers of the 1960s-1970s era thumbed through TV Guide each week like explorers looking for rare treasure. Was a station airing The Avengers or Wild West West? Maybe The 10th Victim or On Her Majesty's Secret Service? Because if they weren’t listed, it meant that it could be another week, another month, or even years until those thin black ties and silencers would show up again on the screen. This was a time before streaming video, before Netflix, Blu-ry, DVDs, VHS, Laser Disc and Betamax. Like many kids, I loved any chance to see the likes of The Prisoner, UFO, Man From U.N.C.L.E., and James Bond. Unless shows were in first run, or we're looking at the 80s -when Bond marathons became more regular, we just never knew when they'd be on. But I had a vision of the future. I dreamed of growing up and having a studio with a kind of library, where I could enjoy studying these adventures in depth. One cannot underestimate the power of the technological floodgates that opened and flourished during this past decade. Not only did we make the transition to DVD, Blu-ray and streaming, various studios around the world have also been busy releasing archival editions of virtually every Spy we ever hoped to find. Apart from a few that still have not made it to release, that dream of the library has come true. A few titles that have eluded major digital releases in disc-form have at least found their way to streaming venues like Hulu. Fellow C.O.B.R.A.S. agent Armstrong Sabian recently posted a reminder that some U.N.C.L.E. episodes are available. Hopefully Spy Vibers have the box set collection for the full complete-library experience. Amazon currently has the set on sale. Armstrong's reminder got me thinking again about other titles that are streaming on-line.

It Takes A Thief made a brief comeback in the wake of Austin Powers when Mike Meyers hosted a week of 60s spies. I seem to recall that episodes started airing briefly. It Takes a Thief began in January 1968 and ran for 65 shows until 1970. The premise: Alexander Mundy (Robert Wagner), an infamous cat burglar, is offered a full pardon in return for lending his special talents to his country. Spy Vibers may recall Mundy's SIA controller cajoling, "I'm not asking you to spy. I'm asking you to steal." Sort of a Mod Squad meets The Saint adventure show, It Takes a Thief has not seen a full digital release, but 63 episodes are available for viewing on Hulu! This is not breaking news, but may possibly be off the radar of some readers. The show is a cool classic that is worth checking out. Head over to our favorite magazine, Cinema Retro, for a wonderful past article about It Takes on Thief on-line.

GERRY ANDERSON UFO MOVIE

Director Matthew Gratzner is working with producers Avi Haas and Henri Kessler to bring a re-imagination of the sci fi classic, UFO created by Gerry Anderson, to the big screen. Legendary producer Robert Evans is behind the scenes in a collaboration with ITC. The movie website's synopsis seems close to the original: Based in the near future - 2020, where a super secret military organization SHADO (Supreme Headquarters Alien Defense Organization) becomes operational. Its purpose, to defend Earth from an Alien race, which has been abducting humans from all corners of planet earth for decades. SHADO's cover is a Movie Studio with their main headquarters hidden deep below the surface. SHADO is run by the extremely dedicated "Studio Mogul" and SHADO Commander Ed Straker who has a cadre of crack operatives with an arsenal of cutting edge futuristic weapons systems and hidden bases on earth and beyond.

Forbidden Planet has posted an interview with the director where they address casting, as well as fan concern about how the new version will incorporate essential elements from the original show. I would not want to see a campy or dated revision, but I do count purple hair, miniskirts, Nehru jackets, space-aged sleek cars, and Barry Gray organ lounge music as essential elements. Partial joking aside, Gratzner says in this excellent piece that "My biggest goal for this is firstly to not alienate the fans of the original show. We're not picking up where the series left off - we are starting from the very beginning. We really take the franchise seriously, unlike a film such as Thunderbirds, where they were saying 'here's a franchise that was great and everybody loved it, now let's put a whole new spin on it...'. We're not doing that. There's a reason UFO has a following, there's a reason that Gerry Anderson has a following, and for us to overlook that or take that for granted would be foolish." Sounds like the project is in good hands.

From FP: "What I want to do with UFO is what Christopher Nolan did with the Batman franchise, or Martin Campbell did with Casino Royale." says veteran Hollywood visual effects wizard Matthew Gratzner, now the director/co-producer of a $130 million Hollywood adaptation of Gerry Anderson’s cult 1970 UK TV show. "UFO is not a spoof, or a parody or a kids' movie. It's a pretty dark story, actually…it is not a show for young children." UFO is set for a 2011 release with photography starting early this year. Spy Vibe will be watching for more updates. Fans may also want to check out the UFO Series website and the Gerry Anderson website, Fanderdson.

GEORGE LAZENBY INTERVIEW TONIGHT

AGENT Wesley Britton has been busy with some fantastic projects, including a Best of The Decade compilation of essays that I am looking forward to reading. As many Spy Vibers will know, he is also behind many memorable interviews on Dave White Presents. As we leave 2009 and the 40Th anniversary of On Her Majesty's Secret Service, it is fitting that one of the most popular shows in the program was his chat with 007 actor, George Lazenby. For Spy Vibers who missed it, the full interview is being re-broadcast and will be available on-line. More from Dr. Britton's press release:

When DWP debuted in Aug. 2008, many of our interviews were broken up into parts and broadcast over several shows. Without question, the most popular was Wes Britton’s lengthy conversation with former 007 George Lazenby, which first aired on our Dec. 24, 2008 and Jan. 7, 2009 broadcasts. As a New Year’s gift to all our fans, and Bond lovers in particular, our Jan. 5, 2010 show will include that interview in its hour plus entirety from beginning to end. If you missed it the first time around, or would like to hear the conversation without interruption, here’s your chance to hear George’s memories in one go—and listening to George telling his story adds dimensions to the saga not always quite so poignant in printed versions of how On Her Majesty’s Secret Service came to be. It will debut Tuesday night, Jan. 5, at 7:30 p.m. Pacific Time, 10:30 EST at KSAV. Wednesday, Jan. 6, the broadcast will be available for 24/7 access at Audio Entertainment. More info at Spy Wise.

SECRET ORIGINS OF JAMES BOND

Wesley Britton presents an in-depth article by Spy author and C.O.B.R.A.S. ally agent, JEREMY DUNS. Announced today from Spy Wise: "Duns’ 16 page history and analysis traces the previously unexplored literary influences of novelist Dennis Wheatley on the James Bond books in character descriptions, scenes in the novels, and innovative writing techniques. It’s surprising no one has called attention to all this before- Duns has provided us all with a richly detailed window into what literary wells Ian Fleming drew from, most notably in Thunderball. Jeremy Duns is, of course, the author of the spy sensation of 2009, Free Agent. This article is his expansion and revision of an essay he posted on his 'Spy Novels' list serve. The Secret Origins of 007 is available as a PDF download in the 'James Bond Files' at Spy Wise."

FERRARI BY LELOUCH

The New Year offers us a chance to pause and consider resolutions and the passing of time- and nothing says "passing of time" like Ferrari! In the driver's seat today is film director Claude Lelouch. Lelouch had been working on documentaries and was just about ready to pack it all in when he created his Academy Award-winning (and career saving) film A Man and a Woman in 1966. Lelouch had a true knack for capturing the poetry of everyday lives and relationships, and it didn't hurt the film that it starred Jean-Louis Trintignant as a race car driver and Anouk Aimee as a script girl. Poetry-in-motion, indeed. Lelouch was a car enthusiast, and years later he made a rather infamous short film called Rendezvous. The concept? During the length of one reel of film mounted to the bumper of his Ferrari 275GTB, a man rushes through the streets of Paris (without stopping for traffic or lights!) to meet with his love on the other side. The camera was set, the film started, gears slammed into place- and the Ferrari blasted off on its uncertain journey. Absolutely exhilarating! Legend has it that Lelouch could not (or did not) get a permit to make the film, leaving the streets open to the public, and that he hired a professional driver to take the wheel. Made in 1976 (video below), the classic style and sound of the Ferrari roaring over cobblestones in retro Paris has Spy Vibe written all over it!

Claude Lelouch's Rendezvous... from Dat on Vimeo.

WELCOME NEW C.O.B.R.A.S.

Busy with missions throughout the fall, I haven't had a chance yet to officially welcome all of our new C.O.B.R.A.S. agents. The HMSS WEBLOG is an editorial based magazine blog that covers James Bond and spy-related news. A current post reminds fans about one of my childhood faves, Lancelot Link Secret Chimp (mentioned in Spy Vibe's Spy Kids: Trench Coat review). Johny Malone's UNA PLAGE DE ESPIAS is a fantastic site that brings fans into the world of spy fiction in Spanish. Phillippe Lombard's QUANTUM OF BOND offers 007 and spy articles in French. This is a cool pad where you will find Spy Vibe faves like OSS 117, comics, spy fiction and more. Spy Vibers may remember that the C.O.B.R.A.S., a collective of blog writers about spies, formed early last year. Like agents responding to chalk marks on park benches, a core group found one another and has continued to grow internationally (check out this cool book cover from Johny Malone below). I'm pleased to welcome our newest members at last and I encourage readers to check in with all of the C.O.B.R.A.S. for your daily dose of espionage culture.

U.N.C.L.E. SALE

The complete Man From U.N.C.L.E. box set is currently on sale at Amazon for $115.99. The 41-disc set, which was designed to look like an attache case, contains each season housed in its own box and slipcase as well as a number of additional discs with bonus material. The set includes one of the theatrical films (One Spy Too Many) and the pilot episode (Solo). More from Amazon by Donald Liebenson:

For Baby Boomers, owning a season or two of a fondly remembered TV series on DVD is enough to satisfy any nostalgic yearnings. The Man From U.N.C.L.E., though, warrants the full-series treatment. It's a wild '60s flashback to the Espionage era that was ushered in by Ian Fleming's James Bond adventures. According to a series retrospective that's just one of this cleverly packaged set's prodigious extras, Fleming himself was recruited to create a spy series for American television. His contribution was the name "Napoleon Solo," the moniker of a crime boss in Goldfinger. That movie, which would kick Bond and spy mania into overdrive, had not yet opened when viewers were introduced to Robert Vaughn's Solo and David McCallum's Illya Kuryakin, agents of the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement. This covert agency operated out of Del Floria's Tailor Shop in New York under the command of true Brit Alexander Waverly (Leo J. Carroll, playing much the same character he portrayed in North by Northwest). The Man from U.N.C.L.E. offered a bit of hope in Cold War America that an American and Russian could work together to stop a common enemy, THRUSH, a ruthless organization bent on world domination. The intriguing conceit of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. was to give audiences an empathetic surrogate who would be plucked from their humdrum lives for whirlwind adventures with Solo and Kuryakin. In the pilot episode, Patricia Crowley guest-stars as a housewife who acts as bait to foil the plans of her former college boyfriend, who is plotting the assassination of a world leader. In a series benchmark, "The Never-Never Affair," a pre-Get Smart Barbara Feldon stars as an U.N.C.L.E. translator who unwittingly becomes involved in actual espionage. Seasons one and two are the series' best, with a stellar roster of guest stars ("The Project Strigas Affair" features the first onscreen pairing of William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy), stylish direction by directors who would go on to some renown (Michael Ritchie, Richard Donner), smart scripts, and great action (a movie theatre shoot-out in "The Never-Never Affair"). In its third season, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. adopted Batman's campy and absurdist tone with shark-jumping results While this season has its share of groaners (in one episode, Sollo watusis with a gorilla), several "Affairs" stand out. Jack Palance and Janet Leigh as a long cool woman in a white dress are great villains in "The Concrete Overcoat Affair." Harlan Ellison wrote the witty "The Pieces of Fate Affair," in which he takes some sly digs at television and literary critics (a THRUSH operative is a book reviewer). Joan Collins makes like Eliza Doolittle in a dual role as a Bronx stripper and a countess in "The Galatea Affair." The series went back to basics in Season Four, but by then, The Avengers was a bigger hit and the writing was on the wall for this once trendsetting series. This lavish box set affair contains upward of ten hours of bonus features, including the unaired series pilot, a series retrospective, an interview with a reunited Vaughn and McCallum, dossiers on each season's guest stars, one of the U.N.C.L.E. feature films edited and expanded from a two-part episode, segments about the great gadgets and cool music, U.N.C.L.E. designs and blueprints, and season-specific booklets.This definitive box set does full justice to a series that had such an impact on popular culture (as witness the bonus Tom & Jerry cartoon, "The Mouse From H.U.N.G.E.R."). More than a blast from the past, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. is still a potent blend of "cloak and swagger."

CHRISTMAS RUSH FOR 007
Before Pierce Brosnan uttered his "Christmas in Turkey" line in 1999's The World is Not Enough, George Lazenby kept 007 in a frantic Christmas rush for survival in 1969's On Her Majesty's Secret Service. No holiday rest for secret agents! After a heart-pounding ski chase down a mountain at night, Bond is rescued by Diana Rigg- another reason to love this classic! Here in French (refresh window if video does not load). Happy Holidays from Spy Vibe!

SPY KIDS: BACK IN TRENCH COATS

Secret Squirrel found its fun Spy Vibe elements in conventions like lethal gadgets- a spy squirrel with a machine gun cane? Now that's 1960s surreal thinking! Episodes showed up on a recent DVD release of classic 60s cartoons and I enjoyed revisiting this dangerous little rodent. But as I started to look at other spy-related programming for kids during that era, I found that they all offered the same basic package: nitwit comedy cloaked in a throwback to hard boiled crime fiction- the trench coat. As we saw on Spy Vibe earlier this year, it was the peeling off of these drab macs that helped give 1960s spies a fashionable boost over their private eye counterparts. Bond's tux hidden under the tight wetsuit! Yet, the trench coat endured throughout spy fiction and remains a catch-all symbol for sneaky intentions (no connection to "dirty mac" stories here- we're PG13). 1960s London counter-culture centerpiece, Barry Miles, said that there was a major turning point in the early-mid 1960s when the cash-earning baby boomers started to come of age. To paraphrase, he said that before the shift, young people all dressed to look like middle-aged people. But after the shift, everyone started trying to dress like young people. So when Cold War spies became popular entertainment, we saw examples of productions embracing the youth-generated curve of that shift. Great examples were The Avengers with those kinky leathers and The Girl From U.N.C.L.E. with Mod outfits and miniskirts. In the comedy productions, especially those made for kids, there was a slightly middle-aged approach that downplayed the sexuality and expressiveness that otherwise was a great part of 1960s liberation. Instead of cartoon characters in wild new fashions, the form was watered down for mass consumption and took on the trappings of the older generation. Replace the stubble and Fedora of the private eye with sunglasses and a gadget and you've easily turned the symbol of the 1930s-1950s "gumshoe" (Philip Marlow, Sam Spade) into the symbol of a "spy-in-disguise." Luckily overcoats were more popular back then- maybe a trench coat spy might have had a chance of blending in with the commuters!

There are two claims to the invention of the trench coat, but Burberry certainly has a firm hold on the garment's history. They originally began producing long coats to protect officers from the elements during the Boer War in 1895. A few modifications and wars later, the jacket began to evolve closer to its modern image during WWI, when it was dubbed the "trench coat" as officers wore them in the first trench battles. I'm sure that there are scholars of pulp fiction, Black Mask magazine, etc who could trace when the jacket became indelibly linked with crime fiction. Early pulps pictured private eyes dressed in the look we all associate with Bogart's portrayals of heroes by Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. 1965's Secret Squirrel even borrowed from the Bogart lexicon by giving him a sidekick based on Peter Lorre! The WWI aviator's version of the trench coat showed up in European intrigue films, like Fritz Lang's Spione (1928). The trench coat look swept into fashion, and was acculturated for rush hour workers; men and women throughout the decades standing on metrolpolitan train platforms. As Hugh Hefner's sexual revolution took hold in the 1950s and beyond, he was in many ways rebelling against that grey flannel suit/raincoat lifestyle. Bond and the spies that followed in his wake ran with the young crowd in sexy, thin gear. But for kids and spy comedy? It was keep on the baggy side of life.

Imagine we were producing the major spy comedies targeted for younger viewers during the spy boom. We are like Mr. Briggs or Mr. Phelps of the Impossible Missions Force, flipping through our portfolio of secret agents: Boris Badinov (Bullwinkle), Secret Squirrel, Max Smart and Agent 99 (Get Smart), Cool McCool, Fred Flintstone (Man Called Flintstone), Lancelot Link, MAD's Spy Vs. Spy. They all have the outfit. Even the bungling Inspector Clouseau (Pink Panther) had the right wardrobe to face international intrigue, as did other spoof-film characters played by Doris Day (Glass-Bottomed Boat), Fabian (Dr. Goldfoot), and others. The comedy-spy characters of the 1960s clearly had the same tailor. Just as Bond baddies dressed "Nehru," this batch came from Central Casting with one requirement- wear a trench coat. The costuming and storytelling did not alter much among this group. They didn't have great style. But the characters made us laugh and remain important to 1960s spy culture (and the contemporary spin-off market). In some cases, like the bikini-wow Dr. Goldfoot films, the trench coat reads as a kind of "straight man" symbology in the comedy. What most of these productions lacked in fashion, they made up for in fun gadgets- a theme taken up years later by another trench coat-wearing crime/comedy firgure, Inspector Gadget.

The one major spy character for adults in the 1960s to actually look right in a mac was Michael Caine's Harry Plamer (The Ipcress File). Somehow his working bloke's portrayal brought authenticity to the jacket. It read more as ubiquitous than iconic; character-driven rather than cartoony.

To step into the Swingin' 60s side things, check out Spy Vibe's PEELING OFF THE TRENCH COATS. And because I love getting The Beatles into any discussion if possible, check out The Dirty Macs, a one-off 1968 band that included John Lennon, Keith Richards, Mitch Mitchell, and Eric Clapton!

SPY KIDS: SECRET SQUIRREL

In the wake of the James Bond phenomenon, the world of entertainment and merchandising brought Cold War spies into the fold alongside cowboys and army men. As we saw in the Mattel toy commercials earlier this month, fantasy play took on a taste for intrigue and gadgets- for the stylish world of Espionage! Spy Vibe takes a look back at some of the secret agent programming for kids that was part of the Spy Boom in the mid-1960s.

Secret Squirrel made his debut in Hanna-Barbera's The Wold of Atom Ant and Secret Squirrel in 1965. He was Agent 000 for the International Sneaky Service and took his orders from his chief in England, Double-Q. Secret shared his missions with a fez-wearing sidekick named Morocco Mole (with Peter Lorre accent). Taking cues from the 007 franchise, Secret battled a Goldfinger-like baddie named Yellow Pinkie with a cool spy arsenal -hat and trench coat filled with gadgets and a machine gun cane. The main voice actors were veterans Mel Blanc (Looney Tunes), and Paul Frees (Boris Badenov in the Bullwinkle Show and the voice of John Lennon and George Harrison in The Beatles cartoon!). Secret Squirrel ran both solo and as part of the Atom Ant show for three seasons.

Secret Squirrel Lyrics

What an agent, what a squirrel

He's got the country in a whirl.

What's his name?

Shhh...Secret Squirrel.

He's got tricks, up his sleeve,

Most bad guys, won't believe.

A bullet proof coat, a cannon hat,

A machine gun cane with a rat tat tat tat.

Fights foreign spies

In his disguise,

Takes him many places,

He's a squirrel of many faces,

Who's that?

Who's that?

Who's that?

Shhh...Secret Squirrel.

Shhhhhhhhhhh.

007 AUDITIONS 1969

It's always interesting to look back at film and television projects to see who might have won the leading roles had auditions gone differently. LIFE magazine has posted a wonderful collection of photos from the auditions held to fill Sean Connery's tux for On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969). I seem to remember having a copy of the magazine and seeing some of the images, but a number of unpublished photos have been added to their website. Chosen from 400 hopefuls, five actors were in the running: John Richardson (She, One Million Years B.C.), Anthony Rogers (El Dorado, Camelot), Robert Campbell, Hans de Vries (Shalako), and commercial actor George Lazenby.

As seen in the photos, each candidate went through screen tests to determine their on-screen chemistry to woo women, dispatch baddies, and sip martinis. The story is that Lazenby broke a stuntman's nose during the tests, which gave him a physical edge over the others. But take a look at the still test shots over at LIFE. It seems to me that Lazenby shines with a kind of charisma and rises above the rest. I think he was a fantastic Bond and On Her Majesty's Secret Service remains among my top few 007 faves. Check out the audition pictures. Who would you have chosen as James Bond? If you could go back in time to cast the 1969 film, who would you have suggested for the role? Discuss at the Spy Vibe Blog.

NORTH BY NORTHWEST SALE ALERT

Alfred Hitchcock's North By Northwest remains a reference piece for fans of Mid-Century Modern design and spy/thriller yarns. The film showed the director continuing many elements and conventions he'd established throughout his long career starting in the silent era: the dashing man wrongly accused, combining suspense with humor, action motivated by a MacGuffin, and a nail-biting climax in a larger-than-life, landmark setting. But the alchemy of Cary Grant (and a brilliant cast), Mid-Century aesthetics, Mount Rushmore, and a Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired set firmly establish this as a time capsule of the Cold War and a crystalization of Hitchcock's vision. The film recently made its debut on Blu-ray and is currently a low $18.99 on Amazon! More at Spy Vibe's North By Northwest coverage.

EUROSPY ON HULU

The watchful eye of Spy-Fi Channel has spotted a little gem on Hulu that will be of interest to Spy Vibers. Hulu is currently showing the MST3K version of Secret Agent Super Dragon (1966) starring Ray Danton and the ever-lovely Marisa Mell (Danger Diabolik). The film is also available in the MST3K Vol 12 box set. Check it out for a limited time on-line for free.

REMEMBERING JOHN LENNON

GERRY ANDERSON UFO SALE!

Spy Vibers can pick up this ultra-cool classic right now from Amazon- the complete series- for $27.99. From the organ-fueled lounge music of Barry Gray, to the purple wigs, mini-skirts, Nehru jackets, and Anderson-style high-tech gadgetry, UFO is one of those must-see programs that defines the Spy Vibe mission: 1960s Style Meets Action. Pick up the megaset if you don't have it in your collection. On a completely different aesthetic note, 1960s TV fans may also be interested to know that the complete Wanted Dead or Alive series with Steve McQueen is on sale right now at Amazon for $12.99.

Land of the Giants: The Complete Series

AGENT ZERO M: MOVIE CAMERA

AGENT ZERO M: SONIC BLASTER

AGENT ZERO M: RADIO RIFLE

THE MAN FROM A.N.T.I.C.O.L.

SPY TOYS: U.N.C.L.E. GUNS & MORE

SPY TOYS: SECRET SAM CASE

SPY TOYS: 007 ACTION PACK

SCI FI ASSASSIN: LOGAN'S RUN

In this Cold War-influenced classic, Logan's Run is a cautionary tale about a post-nuclear society that copes with overpopulation by killing off its citizens at age 30 (the novel and 2010 re-make set expiration around 21). Humanity has been confined for generations in a shopping mall-like dome, allowing for some very cool futuristic set design by Dale Hennesy (In Like Flint, Fantastic Voyage, Dirty Harry) and Set Decorator Robert De Vestel (Batman, Green Hornet, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea). Spy Vibers will recognize a 70s slant on a number of elements we've explored here in 1960s design, including globe lamps and monitors and Kubrick-style white, minimal rooms. With its famous electronic score by Jeremy Goldsmith, its revealing (!) unisex wear and jumpsuit uniforms by Bill Thomas (The Black Hole), the tone of the future, like THX 1138 by Lucas and Fahrenheit 451 by Truffaut, is quite lulled into submission by consumerism and pleasure (in this case- sensual pleasure). At age 30, everyone enters a Colosseum-like chamber where they float up into an electric field that vaporizes them. To desire life and to run from this ritual is deemed deviant by society and punishable by death. Logan, the main character of the film, is indeed an assassin- a member of a sanctioned death squad that hunts down 'runners' and executes them with laser blasters. Logan is sent undercover on a mission to join the runners and expose what the government fears is an underground railroad to freedom in a place whispered about in dark alleys called Sanctuary. So begins Logan's Quest that brings him, and his community, toward self-awareness and survival. The film was released in 1976, just prior to Star Wars, and remains a stylish and evocative experience. Logan's Run is out today on Blu-ray and includes commentary by director Michael Anderson, star Michael York, and costume designer Bill Thomas. Additional cast includes Jenny Agutter, Farrah Fawcett, and Peter Ustinov. Movie trailer and score/photo video on the Spy Vibe website. We'll let the lovely Agutter guide us on a tour of the sets and costumes:

MASTER SPY ILLUSTRATORS & NEW COBRAS AGENT

Our Man in Vermont Steve Bissette is winding down a multi-part exploration of the career of master illustrator Frank McCarthy. In "McCarthy Does 007 (& nobody does it better), Steve offers up a fantastic review of McCarthy's spy images from the 1960s, including promotional art for Thunderball, You Only Live Twice, On Her Majsty's Secret Service, The Venetian Affair (Man From U.N.C.L.E.), and a discussion of McCarthy's collaboration with fellow artist Robert McGinnes. Head over to learn more and to check out some very cool 60s poster and album art. Steve adds praise for Peter's The Illustrated 007 blog as one of the best resources of Bond art on the Internet. Spy Vibers will be familiar with Peter's complete archive of 007 artwork and will be pleased to hear that he has recently accepted an invitation to join the COBRAS. Peter, welcome to our Spy Network!

NORTH BY NORTHWEST BLU-RAY- OUT TODAY!

Spy Vibe fans of Alfred Hitchcock will be happy to hear that his classic North By Northwest is now available on Blu-ray. Although Hitchcock had already developed his trademark conventions (the maguffin, the wrong man, climax in an epic location), North By Northwest is remembered by many as the ultimate Hitchcock thriller. A suave, successful New York advertising executive finds himself mistaken as a spy and is embroiled in a web of intrigue, lost microfilm, seduction, and murder. Stars Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint (Grand Prix), James Mason, Martin Landau (Mission Impossible, Space 1999), Leo G. Carroll (The Man From U.N.C.L.E.), and Edward Platt (Get Smart).

Hitchcock set out to create a theme endearing to Spy Vibers in North By Northwest by accentuating the main character's isolation in the lap of mid-century modernist luxury. As Sandy MacLendon points out on JetSetModern, Hitchcock created a carefully crafted world of affluence that would be recognizable to a mass audience: The director himself chose Eva Marie Saint's wardrobe from Bergdorf Goodman and jewelry from Van Cleef. Chris from Clothes On Film discusses Grant's famous grey Kilgour suit, which has been recognized by GQ as an iconic look for men. Characters were put behind the wheels of the latest chic cars by Mercedes, Lincoln, and Cadillac. But where the film really shines for design fans is in its choice of locations: Plaza Hotel/New York, estate house/Long Island, UN Building/New York, Grand Central Station/New York, aboard the Twentieth Century Limited train to Chicago, and the piece de resistance- the modernist Vandamm home in the style of Frank Lloyd Wright. According to MacLendon, Wright had agreed to design a previous Hollywood film- for ten percent of the project's budget! Never to be thwarted, Hitchock had his design crew set to work on a Wright-style house that audiences would recognize, using Wright's signature materials and lines, and through matt photography, placed it atop Mount Rushmore. They added support beams for dramatic effect, providing a way for Grant's character to climb into the house undetected. MacLendon points out that "The living room set was dressed in the best of 1958’s furniture and art, and it makes a very interesting point. The furniture is largely Scandinavian Modern. There is Chinese art, and a Pre-Colombian statue figures prominently in the action. Greek flokati rugs are on the floors. Vandamm’s spying is meant to set the nations of the world at war, but it seems they co-exist peacefully enough under his roof!"

The title sequence by Saul Bass is also noteworthy. Bass had begun to design for Hitchcock on his previous film, Vertigo, and Bass pushed the theme of modernity further for North By Northwest. As the Design Museum describes: "In 1958’s Vertigo, his first title sequence for Alfred Hitchcock, Bass shot an extreme close-up of a woman’s face and then her eye before spinning it into a sinister spiral as a bloody red soaks the screen. For his next Hitchcock commission, 1959’s North by Northwest, the credits swoop up and down a grid of vertical and diagonal lines like passengers stepping off elevators. It is only a few minutes after the movie has begun - with Cary Grant stepping out of an elevator - that we realise the grid is actually the façade of a skyscraper." The use of bold fonts and animation based on perspective accentuated the geometric, sleek modern tone of the film.

According to John Patterson at The Guardian, "North By Northwest has been called the first James Bond movie (screenwriter Ernest Lehman called it "the ultimate Hitchcock picture" while he was writing it, but no matter). And the similarities are evident. In 1960 Hitchcock himself briefly considered directing Thunderball. Ian Fleming originally wanted Grant (who was a good friend of Bond producer Cubby Broccoli) to play 007 in Dr No, and North By Northwest surely had a lot to do with that (Grant turned down the part). 1959 was also the year Fleming published Goldfinger, the first truly ridiculous Bond novel (delightful though it is), which, as the third Bond movie, would perfect the NXNW-style template from which the series would barely deviate until the advent of Daniel Craig." Patterson's review of Goldfinger notwithstanding, the idea of a Hitchcock-directed Bond has been a point of discussion among 007 fans.

The film has been ranked #7 in the top-ten greatest mystery films of all time by the American Film Institute.

THE MUSIC OF ITC

The folks at Network will release a very cool soundtrack collection this week that spans a large number of our fave ITC classics. Network does an incredible production job on their products. I have the Danger Man and Prisoner sets and they are like archival treasures from the ITC vaults. Network operates like the Criterion Collection and loves to add great extras for fans. The new collection is a great way to sample a variety of theme and incidental music from series such as Man in a Suitcase, The Protectors, Strange Report, Department S, Jason King, The Champions, The Saint, The Prisoner, Gideons' Way, The Baron, Strange Report, The Persuaders!, The Adventurer and more. the CD is being released at a sale price of $21.

Consisting entirely of original as-used-in-the-series recordings (no lacklustre cover versions here!), this set contains some of the best music ever made for television. Celebrated composers Edwin Astley, Albert Elms, Ron Grainer, Robert Farnon, Roger Webb, John Cameron and Wilfred Josephs showcase their skills with a diverse range of musical styles and some legendary theme tunes. Alongside a commemorative booklet it also includes exclusive music suites from The Persuaders!, The Zoo Gang, Return of the Saint and The Baron that are not available elsewhere.

THIRD MAN OOP

A quick Spy Vibe transmission to let readers know that the Criterion Collection Blu-ray edition of The Third Man has gone out of print. No updates so far about when they may resume production. Until then, scope out your local shops to pick up copies before they are gone.

THE ADVENTURES OF RICHARD SALA

Secret messages dropped into hollow tree trunks in the East Bay... Unusual chalk markings at the pier... Spy Vibe meets Richard Sala in the virtual shadows to discuss our love of adventure/thrillers, evil masterminds, The Avengers, and more! Richard's new book, Cat Buglar Black is available now. He has also recently completed his four-book series Delphine for Fantagraphics.

Your books are filled with many adventure/thriller elements (including mysterious baddies, quirky henchmen, trap doors, secret chambers, assassinations, good-hearted sleuths who get more than they bargained for). Without thinking of this as formula, what are the essential conventions that make a story fun for you to write? What does the Richard Sala sandbox have in it?

That's my favorite part of writing -- when the time comes to flesh out the story and I get to start adding all those cool and spooky details. I fell in love with B-movies and comics and pulp fiction and monsters when I was very young, so I've pretty much spent a lifetime absorbing all the creepy and mysterious stuff you mention. To me, what makes a story - especially a mystery or a thriller - fun, ARE those details. If you have one character having a secret meeting with another, for example, why choose a relatively mundane place like a diner when you can have them meet at night in a toy shop or a wax museum? I'm not trying to create anything resembling realism, so I get to have fun with details like that. Does there need to be a scene in a park? Okay, but let's put a big weird statue there, and let's make a hidden door in the base of the statue that leads down underground to a secret hideout. You just keep taking things another step farther, building on things. But being careful to never go too far -- you don't want the details to become obnoxiously "cute" or irritating. You have to be able to see the line -- you don't want to annoy your audience by being overly "clever" -- and that's a line I (hopefully) learned to see by watching a show like The Avengers, which was brilliant when it came to details like that. If you look at certain shows from the 1960s - like The Avengers or Man From UNCLE or The Wild Wild West or The Prisoner - they are overflowing with that kind of imagination and atmosphere, mixing in details of mystery, horror and the fantastic in a way that is at once tongue-in-cheek and deadly dangerous. The style of those shows was a huge influence on me.

Are there particular cliffhanger serials, films, TV shows, or books that inform your experience with adventure conventions? Tell us about your faves.

Growing up in the 1960s, I was exposed to that decade's nostalgia for the pop culture of the 1930s. There was a rediscovery of a lot of things that had become passe or forgotten during the previous couple of decades, and those things were not only being brought back into the culture, but were being celebrated as "pop art". You couldn't go anywhere without seeing posters of King Kong or Frankenstein, The Marx Brothers and W.C. Fields, Flash Gordon and Doc Savage, The Phantom and The Shadow. I was aware that these things were "old" (thanks to my Dad, who was a movie buff, as well as magazines like Famous Monsters ofFilmland ). But, as a kid, they may as well as have been as new as James Bond and The Beatles. It was all one big, wonderful stew. So, yeah, I think it was that mixture of 1930s pop culture and 1960s pop culture that shaped my style into whatever it became.

I watched old Flash Gordon serials on Saturday mornings, and then saw Barbarella in a theatre a few years later. I'd read the 1930's adventures of The Shadow and Doc Savage, which were being reprinted in paperback, then go see Thunderball or Danger: Diabolik . I'd watch the old Sherlock Holmes movies and the latest episode of The Avengers on TV. I recognized the threads connecting these things. Magazines like Famous Monsters or, especially, Castle of Frankenstein covered these things equally. In fact, I'd read about The Avengers in Castle of Frankenstein a couple of years before it came to the US. They were always featuring articles on things we kids could only dream of seeing -- lots of European films that were much more sexy and violent than American ones. That really fired my imagination.

One of my personal favorites as a kid and one of my biggest influences to this day was the comic strip Dick Tracy, which I started cutting out of the newspaper and saving when I was in the fourth grade. I loved comic books, too, of course, but Dick Tracy is where I learned how to tell (long, complicated) stories, visually, and where I learned how much more interesting a story is if you populate it with grotesques and weird-os!

Many of your stories feature female heroes that have a tendency to dress in black catsuits, including your new book Cat Burglar Black- a title which I like to think of as a fashion statement! I know we share a love of The Avengers. (Mrs. Peel was my first crush). Tell us about your experiences and thoughts as an Avengers fan.

I may have had other crushes as a kid, but she was my first real serious one, that's for sure! I loved (and still do) everything about The Avengers. In the years before VHS or syndication, you saw these shows when they aired ONCE - maybe twice if you were lucky and they reran it. So there were lots of kids like me who would try to remember everything about the episodes they had just seen. I had notebooks where I wrote down plots and titles. Doing that I became aware of how awesomely clever and smart the episodes were -- and I loved writing down the names of the oddball characters. I tried to get cast names, but often wasn't fast enough (no IMDB or episode guides back then!). I took photos off of TV with my little Instamatic camera -- a whole ordeal that's probably worth a separate article. My brother and I would record shows on our reel-to-reel tape-recorder because it was the only way to have a record of the shows we loved. Then we'd listen to them over and over. (To this day, I can recite whole scenes of dialogue from The Outer Limits!)

I didn't have any friends (or family members) who loved The Avengers as much as me. It was truly a cult show - even back then. A lot of people didn't seem to "get it", but I did for some reason. I got caught up in the whole spy "craze". I did all the things kids do (at least kids who have just moved to a new town and haven't made any friends yet) -- I wrote away for photos, sent fan letters, joined fan clubs, purchased fanzines - which seem awfully primitive now, of course - but it was a way to get information about the show (though of course any "news" was months and months late). The newsstand movie mags of the day would print the addresses where you could write your "favorite stars". I think I wrote Patrick Macnee and Diana Rigg care of ABC, but their replies came from the UK. That was magical for me! Diana Rigg just sent a photo (which was plenty!), but Patrick Macnee also included a typed letter which he signed as well as a one-page biography(!). I can scan them for you, and you'll see the edges of the photos are damaged by tape marks, since I hung them up on my wall! 

Does the black catsuit also reflect an interest in the serial Les Vampires? Did you see the modern film homage, Irma Vep?

I mentioned Castle Of Frankenstein -- which was an incredible magazine that covered fantastic cinema from all over the world. In one issue there was an article on Georges Franju's Judex that showed a photo of a woman dressed in the classic cat burglar get-up. That had a major impact on me for some reason -- just that photo, since it would be years until I'd see the film (which became one of my favorites). Also, it seemed that there were a lot of "generic" spy girls in a very similar outfit -- form-fitting black turtlenecks and pants, in movies like Goldfinger or Carry On Spying. So I always found that look attractive, with it's connotations of intrigue and danger. There was a whole ad campaign in the '60s based around that look that featured Pamela Austin in that outfit in many print ads, often tied up (try that nowadays!) -- it was something to do with cars, but all I remember is her! There's also an early episode of The Avengers where Emma has to fight off a dance class of similarly clad spy girls. That's one of my favorite episodes and in fact I "borrowed" a fairly major plot device from it for my book Mad Night. (It's the most respectful of homages, believe me!). I did enjoy watching both Les Vampires and Irma Vep, but I only saw those long after the impression of that outfit had been burned into my brain!

On Spy Vibe we often discuss the Prisoner, Bond, Gerry Anderson, Flint, Diabolik, etc. Are there other spy faves of yours? What about them inspires you?

Favorite 1960s spy (etc) movies (some I saw in the theatre, some not until years later) and TV shows: The Flint Movies (I had a Coburn poster on my wall in my teen years -- he was another hero of mine), Diabolik , UFO, The Sean Connery Bond films, The Prisoner, Man (and Girl) From UNCLE, Secret Agent. I'm crazy about The President's Analyst, The Tenth Victim and Dr. Mabuse movies. I love all the spoofs and the campy stuff, all the Euro-Spy stuff, Fu Manchu. I can watch (or tolerate) many of the lesser of these that friends & colleagues have a hard time sitting through. Casino Royale (actually a personal fave), Matt Helm, even shows like "Amos Burke, Secret Agent", which, although arguably pretty "bad", I still find fun to watch. I guess I watch for something that goes beyond "good" or "bad" -- I watch for the imagination and the outrageousness. As long as they're not boring!

Your stories are populated by such characters- they are marvelous eccentrics! We’ve seen ingenious disguises, macabre outfits and accessories, and even a character who’s chilling commands came from a small sack (was he just a head?). Does that eye for quirky detail come from favorite stories growing up? Your rogues gallery far surpasses anything from Charles Addams or Gorey.

That's very kind of you to say, although I only wish I could have created something as classic and timeless as The Addams Family! I mentioned Dick Tracy before -- and that's certainly where a lot of my desire to create oddballs and grotesques comes from. I began reading it in the 1960s, which is when a lot of the "old-time" fans or the Dick Tracy "experts" believe the strip has begun to go downhill. They couldn't be more wrong -- it was actually an incredibly fertile time for Chester Gould's imagination. It's a tragedy that almost none of that has been widely reprinted. They always reprint the older stuff, which is classic. of course. But Gould in the 1960s was being influenced by James Bond and the crazier story lines of the day, and he never let up on the violence or bizarre characters. People today wouldn't believe what was on the front of the Sunday Comics back then! The first story line I read and collected involved a leering, nervous criminal who murdered his rivals and kept their shrunken heads in a cabinet (seen often). His equally evil sister, Ugly Christine, falls to her death into a smokestack, long legs exposed, which was shown over and over again throughout the week. It was amazing stuff, full of energy and delirium. Things just got weirder and weirder until in the 1970s it almost started to seem unhinged. But for some reason no one ever reprints that stuff and that's too bad. Of course, the many, many bizarre characters on The Avengers were a big influence. So were old movies with characters like Peter Lorre, Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff, etc. I was always crazy about all the gleefully creepy character actors like George Zucco, Lionel Atwill, John Carradine and on and on. The kind of types they always played -- that is something else I realize now has been a huge influence. The Doctor in Cat Burglar Black is definitely one of those "types".

Are you a Vincent Price fan? I was already collecting your books when I finally saw the Dr. Phibes movies, and I think reading your work helped me appreciate them that much more.

Yes! I was recently asked to compile a top ten list of horror movies and The Abominable Dr. Phibes was in there. When I first saw it, I felt a kind of Avengers vibe -- and sure enough (along with several familiar British actors), the director Robert Fuest had done some episodes. And, yes, Vincent Price can do no wrong in my eyes.

Who were your literary heroes as a boy? Did you read any of the spy series authors (007, Saint, etc)?

I read all the Bond paperbacks, though the one I remember the best as a reading experience was Dr. No, for some reason. I even remember reading the hardcover of Colonel Sun by Kingsley Amis (it was my mom's copy) which had this weird Dali-esque cover. I even read that James Bond Dossier, which I remember being very inspiring and fascinating. I was also reading every Shadow, Doc Savage and Fu Manchu paperback I could find. I read lots of movie novelizations of films I was dying to see (and thought I never might) like Scream and Scream Again and Countess Dracula. By the time I got out of high school and had moved on to college, though, I pretty much left the genre & series books behind -- and it was that way for many years until sometime in my early thirties I got hooked on hard-boiled stuff and after I'd burned through that in about ten years I was ready to rediscover the stuff I loved as a kid again. And I remembered why I wanted to be a writer and artist in the first place! Funny how those things work...

If you were a evil villain, what would you choose as your: name, evil lair, and evil scheme?

I always kind of identified with Peter Lorre, especially in Mad Love from 1935. He's not really evil - he's just in love! Beyond that, I'd have to say I've always been partial to the hooded or masked kinds of phantoms or masterminds. I always thought it would be cool to be some kind of Phantom of Suburbia, where at night you put on your cloak and jump over your neighbor's fence, then creep through various yards, trying to avoid the barking dogs or tripping over the barbecue grills or plastic kiddie pools. I'm still not sure what exactly the point would be, but it sounds fun! Seriously, I think the most interesting kinds of villains are not motivated by greed or world domination, but by neurotic quirks or emotions of jealousy or revenge. Something everyone can relate to!

Thank you to Richard Sala for spending time with Spy Vibe! Discovering Richard's work was like finding a lost treasure chest in the family attic. Growing up on the cusp of the 1960s/1970s, I remember a similar fascination with this style of stories and characters. Like Richard and fellow fans who grew up in the days before Netflix and YouTube, I also tape recorded the audio of Spy and Beatles programs when they ran on television. That way I could experience the stories again and again during the year while I awaited the next broadcast! The last time I remember pushing play and record on a tape deck next to my black and white/mono set (can modern Spy Vibers visualize this?) was to tape the sounds of On Her Majesty's Secret Service. Hearing the soundtrack still conjures up images of Bond escaping in the night and racing down the slopes for his very life! Like radio, it created a kind of "theater of the mind." In the days before the Internet, we really had to be resourceful and quick- taking notes on episodes as they aired, snapping photographs of the TV screen. I'm glad to hear I wasn't the only one doing that! I found my old Prisoner notes about two years ago and sent them to David Webb Peoples as a gift (he is writing The Prisoner film -in development).

Among my own collection of original art, a framed page from Richard's Chuckling Whatsit hangs over my couch. The shape of his ink lines, the density of blacks, the style of shading and lettering are elements that give Richard's work a kind of woodblock print vibe. His love of great thrillers and adventures is evident throughout his stories, and like The Avengers, his ever-present wit runs counterpoint to the poison daggers and shots in the dark. It's no surprise that Dr. No stands out as one of his fave Ian Fleming stories. I can imagine a comic version of the evil Dr. No on his remote island, spinning his schemes of greed, sabotage, and experiments with endurance and death- only to be buried under a mountain of guano by a delirious spy who just escaped a giant octopus! Did I mention the doctor has claws for hands and a fire-breathing dragon tank? It would all fit beautifully into Sala's oeuvre.

Spy Vibers may already be familiar with Sala's many books, and with his Liquid Television animated series Invisible Hands. To dive further into the wonderfully macabre and thrilling world of Richard Sala, I recommend slipping through your trap door to the nearest bookshop and ask for: Cat Burglar Black, Chuckling Whatsit, Delphine (series of 4 comics), Maniac Killer Strikes Again, and Peculia. Visit Richard's blog and website for more information about his projects. The complete Dick Tracy volumes and Richard's Big Book of Horror (with Steve Niles) are available from IDW Publishing. Scans of the above Avengers memorabilia are from Richard Sala's childhood collection. Current exhibit of work through December 13, 2009 at the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco.

THE 10th VICTIM THEME

Spy Vibers know that I have a special thing for this film. I don't know how I came upon it as a kid, most likely on WOR TV out of NYC. I remember looking in the back of TV Guide each week for two things: Beatles films and this stylish gem from Elio Petri starring Marcello Mastroianni. Just as the tunes from the Beatles cartoon, A Hard Days Night, and Help informed my tastes, so did the 10th Victim soundtrack by Piero Piccioni. The vocal scat performance by Mina seemed to promise a kind of fantasy/romance that I could grasp as a youngster. I imagine that the style might sound odd to someone who did not grow up with it. But if you are a fan of other Italian composers who used unusual sounds, vocalizations, and instrumentation (Ennio Morricone for example), that may provide an audio context to enjoy the 10th Victim music. I found a lovely short video of the English version of the theme song, Spiral Waltz, on YouTube that offers a look at some rare stills, covers, and posters.

RETRO SPOOKY STYLE

Spy Vibers may be interested in checking out a current sale over at Deep Discount. Classic horror flicks are 2 for $10, and the list includes some films that represent some of the coolest spooky style and design of the period. Any fan of the macabre, stylish work by Tim Burton, Edward Gorey, Richard Sala, Charles Addams will love the Dr. Phibes films with Vincent Price. These really are a must-see and I will write more about them in the future. Also on the list is the cult Hammer Horror classic The Vampire Lovers with the lovely vamp herself, Ingrid Pitt. Other titles include Invaders From Mars, Die Monster Die, and a grindhouse double feature I've not seen called Mini-Skirt Mob/Chrome and Hot Leather. That sounds like a contender for Mystery Science 3000. Check out the sale and enjoy some retro, stylish storytelling during the Halloween season.

007 PROP REPLICAS

The Commander Bond Network announced something rather exciting today. For those of us who combed toy shops as kids for 007 toys, and more often, had to work like NASA engineers to create Bond-style gadgets cobbled from household items (cardboard and black paint make a great silencer), a better-late-than-never deal is in the works to produce officially licensed props from the films themselves. The most interesting prop listed so far is a replica of Scaramanga's golden gun. I wonder if it will assemble from a golden lighter, pen, etc? Click image below to enlarge. 

From the CBN: Big Chief Products Ltd. is proud to announce a license agreement with Eon Productions/Danjaq LLC to produce a range of movie prop replicas, based on the gadgets and related items from the James Bond film series. Working in partnership with appointed exclusive distributor Factory Entertainment Ltd. Big Chief will release a comprehensive range including entry price point replicas, through to high-end collectibles. These authentic, highly detailed replicas of iconic items featured in the James Bond films are officially licensed by EON Productions/Danjaq, LLC and are based on studies and examinations of the actual screen-used props to ensure maximum accuracy.

Items currently in development include 1:1 scale replicas of: Scaramanga’s golden gun from The Man with the Golden Gun (1974); the fearsome metal teeth worn by Jaws in films The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) and Moonraker (1979), and Solitaire’s tarot cards as featured in Live and Let Die (1973). Factory Entertainment will begin offering these exciting new James Bond collectibles both direct to consumer and at wholesale, worldwide from late 2009.

Big Chief director Mark Andrews said: “We are thrilled to be working with EON Productions. As fans ourselves we know people have been eager for James Bond prop replicas for many years. We are committed to delivering a range of products from the heritage era films right up to the current Daniel Craig films which people will be proud to own.” Big Chief and Factory Entertainment are each comprised of industry veterans, who are passionate about delivering high-quality limited edition collectibles and operate offices both in the UK and USA and have worldwide distribution channels.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ROGER MOORE

Celebrating Roger Moore’s birthday today, I keep thinking about something Paul McCartney said about admiring Elvis as a kid- that Presley “just looked perfect.” Growing up with reruns of The Saint, I looked to Moore with a similar kind of attention. Not only did he fill those stylish suits with an archetypal heroic physique, he had a perfectly gelled haircut that swooped back across his head- just as heroically. Moore brought a roguish charm to The Saint, raising an eyebrow to the camera and inviting us into that deliciously decadent world of 60s jet setters. The notion of being a jet setter didn't just seem like grist for adventure tales to me as a young boy- it seemed like a future career option! The Volvo P1800, the gentleman thief/spy, the gorgeous actresses and exotic locations. The world of Moore’s Saint was “just perfect” and introduced me, along with The Avengers, to a life-long passion for something that Roger Moore had a lot of- Style.

Roger Moore starred in the first James Bond film I ever saw on the big screen. Though the clothes (and cars) were slightly less cool to my 60-s Spy Vibe tastes, I remember being completely swept up by the soundtrack music, the gun barrel opening and title sequences, and most of all, Roger’s Saint-like charm. Though I enjoy all of the 007 actors, Roger Moore will always carry a certain degree of panache and British-ness that I hold dear. Despite periods when I though I needed 007 to be edgy and serious, I have ultimately realized that the world of 007 offers a cool and fun experience for every mood. After meeting Richard Kiel recently, I re-watched The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker as a double feature. It brought me back to those early experiences in the theater and I found myself once again cheering for the heroic, witty, and roguish Roger Moore.

Some highlight clips from Roger’s career: In an episode of The Saint from 1963 (Luella), viewers got a 9-year sneak preview of future Moore’s Bond with David Hedison (Felix Leiter). Note the hair, the suit, and those winking glances at the audience. In 1964 Roger made this Bond spoof (included as a special feature on the Live and Let Die DVD and Blu-ray disc). Moore starred with Tony Curtis in The Persuaders just before making the leap to Bond. The show grows on me as I open up to its playful tone and 70s-cusp aesthetic. Here is an especially dramatic moment for Moore’s character that offered him a bit more acting room. Lastly, the trailer from The Spy Who Loved Me. If videos fail to load, try viewing from the Spy Vibe Blog site. Images from the Getty Collection and the Daily Mail.

THE 60s EXPOSED

Sue Steward of the Evening Standard reported today that a Photography exhibit has opened at the National Portrait Gallery that captures the decade's styles and design trends through a look at Pop stars. With names like David Bailey, Angus McBean, The Beatles, David Bowie, and Mick Jagger, we know we are in for some Spy Vibe-cool artifacts. A highlight, she writes, is the work of Fiona Adams. Her 1965 image of Bowie and a Mod-styled Jeanette is below. Adams made the now-famous image of The Beatles leaping for the Twist and Shout EP, which has been revived as current Rock Band iconography. 007 Thunderball vocalist Tom Jones is also featured. See below for a 60s live performance! From the Evening Standard:

The subtitle to this autumn blockbuster, "the 60s exposed", carries a whiff of sex'n'drugs'n' rock'n'roll revelations. In fact, it is a nostalgic, impressive documentary marking the rapid changes in pop, contemporary design and photography between 1960-69. A shot of press photographers in raincoats waiting for The Beatles at York Station, by Northern photo-journalist, Ian Wright, epitomises the generation gap.

Each year of the decade, occupies an exhibition space that includes a vitrine-decorated like a Sixties teenager's bedroom with record covers, signed portraits and leading pop magazines, Rave and Fabulous. Opening pre-Beatles, the silk-suited, Elvis-quiffed Billy Fury, Cliff Richard, and Adam Faith are still lodged in Fifties America then everything explodes into pop, psychedelia, rock, mods and soul boys, and the music industry discovers modern marketing, experimental typography and myriad photographic styles.

Old masters such as Norman Parkinson come on board (shooting the Beatles at Abbey Road in deck shoes and slacks), and Angus McBean is keyed into Modernism with hand-painted backdrops to his portraits. Publications chart the new psychedelic lettering and acid colours, designers imitating photographers such as David Bailey. His iconic portrait of Mick Jagger in a parka occupies his personal enclosure. The experimenters were at their peak: Gered Mankowitz making meticulously artfully composed pictures with The Rolling Stones, and Vic Singh experimenting with prism lenses to match The Pink Floyd's psychedelic music.

Of the many now overlooked but outstanding photographers represented, Fiona Adams is best-known for the leaping silhouettes of the Beatles, and her lack of credit for the cover of their EP, Twist and Shout. Light years away, Tony Frank took Tom Jones back to the Welsh Valleys and produced the most lyrical shot in the show. If you’re bored with the glut of Sixties exhibitions, think again: this magnificent collection draws the line under the era- until a new generation discovers it. Until 24 January, 2010 (www.npg.org.uk)

OUR MAN IN LONDON: ROB MALLOWS

Spy Vibers who have been reading Armstrong Sabian's wonderful series on Harry Palmer over at Mister 8 may also be familiar with The Deighton Dossier website and blog. Created by UK writer Rob Mallows, The Deighton Dossier is the most comprehensive and current resource about author Len Deighton on the Internet. Mallows offers spy fans a well-researched world to explore that goes beyond Deighton's life, books, and films, into a fascinating, broader world where Deighton's work meets historical/cultural aspects of espionage, news, art, and design. Spy Vibe welcomes The Deighton Dossier as a new C.O.B.R.A.S. member! Head over to the blog site to read current pieces about the influence of the Berlin Wall in literature and a Swinging 60s retrospective of Photography by Brian Duffy.

BOND BLU-RAY BOX

Although there are no new titles announced so far to complete the 007 collection on Blu-ray, the currently available titles have been bundled into a box set due for release in early November. Spy Vibers who shop Costco had a sneak peak when the set was available through the chain. The box does not include the Blu-ray edition of Connery's "unofficial" entry Never Say Never Again. The collection lists for around $200, but Amazon currently has it for pre-order for around $139. Hopefully we will be able to report soon that the remaining 007 films will see Hi-Def release on Blu-ray. Titles that have not been transferred to the new format are: You Only Live Twice, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Diamonds Are Forever, Spy ho Loved Me, Octopussy,View to a Kill, Living Daylights, Goldeneye, and Tomorrow Never Dies.

SPACE FASHION

The Baby Boom, the Bomb, and the Space Race- what I like to call the three "booms" of influence on the world of the imagination during the Cold War. I recently posted a short piece, Fear and Fashion, about Space-Age aesthetics and the development of new materials in clothing design. My fascination continues and I have uncovered some wonderful treasures on Youtube recently. Spy Vibers may remember that Astro-Mod looks were popular on both sides of the Iron Curtain, though the stand-out names that come up tend to be Courreges, Rabbane, and Cardin, and the unforgettable costumes from The 10th Victim, Barbarella, and Danger Diabolik (and Roman Coppola's CQ). In this fashion news clip, we get to look through the capsule window of a West German designer (unnamed in the clip), who has offered us cool variations on the whole moon girl image!

KEN ADAM

Ken Adam discusses his background, working with Kubrick on "the war room" for Dr. Strangelove, and the design style that would ultimately define the larger-than-life look of the James Bond films. From the excellent Cold War Modern interview series.

DR MABUSE

When I planned to show my filmmaking class a variety of historical movements in cinema history last spring, I brainstormed a number of genres for one that could span the scope of time and culture. I couldn't quite cover all the bases I wanted to with spies, but crime as a theme eventually rose to the top of the list. Students looked at great classics from all over the world from the early days of feature-length films to the present. Snatch was a big fave, but one name kept coming up when they chose to present their findings to the group- MABUSE! Lang's Testament of Dr. Mabuse (Criterion edition) made a huge impression. By the end of the class they would share knowing glances, shiver, and shout, "the Mabuse!" It's fantastic to see teenagers get amped over a foreign film from 1933! Our group viewing inspired me to go back and re explore the other films in the series.

Currently there is a budget DVD box set in the US that offers a number of the low-budget Mabuse films from the 60s- spawned I gather from the success of Lang's re-launch of the character in the excellent 1,000 Eyes of Dr. Mabuse. The rest of the series kind of goes down in quality from there, but I still recommend them as entertaining Spy Vibe viewing. I enjoy them mainly for their use of fun genre conventions, like secret rooms, trap doors, sneaky escapes, mystery villains, daring assassinations, etc. And as reported earlier this week, PAL viewers can now see the best of the series- the titles directed by Lang himself- in a restored Mabuse box set due for release later this month. Another inspiration for an all-region player! I wonder how much that new McIntosh Blu-ray/DVD/SACD/DVD-Audio hybrid will cost?

To find out more about the Mabuse legacy, I did track down this book on Amazon, The Strange Case of Dr. Mabuse by David Kalat. I have his excellent Critical History of Godzilla (who doesn't?). I haven't checked the Mabuse book out yet, so I hope some fellow Spy Vibers will leave reviews in the comments section. Check out Movie Goods for Mabuse posters. About the book:

The Mabuse phenomenon is recognized as an icon of horror in Germany as Frankenstein and Dracula are in the United States. This work is a study of the 12 motion pictures and five books (and some secondary films) that make up the eight decades of adventures of master criminal Mabuse, created by author Norbert Jacques in the best-selling 1922 German novel and brought to the screen by master filmmaker Fritz Lang in the same year. Both on screen and off, the story of Dr. Mabuse is a story of love triangles and revenge, of murder, suicides, and suspicious deaths, of betrayals and paranoia, of fascism and tyranny, deceptions and conspiracies, mistaken identities, and transformation. This work, featuring much information never before published in English, provides an understanding of a modern mythology whose influence has pervaded popular culture even while the name Mabuse remains relatively unknown in the United States.

DR MABUSE BOX SET

Eureka's Masters of Cinema series will release an exciting box set on October 19th - The Complete Fritz Lang/Dr Mabuse films! For Mabuse fans in the US with multi-region players (set is PAL format), this means a long-awaited restored print of Lang's 1960 cult classic The 1,000 Eyes of Dr. Mabuse. Set details are as follows:

From the early stages of his career across five decades to his final film, Fritz Lang built a trilogy of paranoiac thrillers focused on an entity who began as a criminal mastermind, and progressed into something more amorphous: fear itself, embodied only by a name – Dr. Mabuse.

For the first time on home video, all three of Fritz Lang's Mabuse films have been collected for one package, in their complete and restored forms.

Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler. [Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler.] (1922)
Lang's two-part, nearly 5-hour silent epic detailing the rise and fall of Dr. Mabuse in Weimar-era Berlin.

Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse [The Testament of Dr. Mabuse] (1933)
A tour-de-force thriller rife with supernatural elements, all converging around an attempt by the now-institutionalised Mabuse (or someone acting under his name... and possibly his will) to organise an "Empire of Crime".

Die 1000 Augen des Dr. Mabuse [The 1000 Eyes of Dr. Mabuse] (1960)
Fritz Lang's final film, in which hypnosis, clairvoyance, surveillance, and machine-guns come together for a whiplash climax that answers the question: Who's channelling Mabuse's methods in the Cold War era?

The Complete Fritz Lang Mabuse will be released as a special 4-disc DVD box set on 19th October 2009 by Eureka as part of the Masters of Cinema series at the RRP of £49.99. Special features will include:

• Original German language intertitles for Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler., along with newly translated English subtitles for each film;
• Newly recorded feature length commentaries on all three films by film scholar and Fritz Lang expert David Kalat;
• Three video featurettes totalling 90 minutes in length on:
  • The score of Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler.;
  • The creation of Norbert Jacques' 'Mabuse' character;
  • The motifs running throughout the works.
• 2002 video interview with Wolfgang Preiss, the star of Die 100 Augen des Dr. Mabuse;
• An alternative ending to Die 100 Augen des Dr. Mabuse taken from the French print of the film;
• Optional English language dub track for Die 100 Augen des Dr. Mabuse;
• Three lengthy booklets containing a new translation of Fritz Lang's 1924 lecture on 'Sensation Culture', an essay by critic David Cairns, extracts from period interviews with Fritz Lang, an abundance of production stills, illustrations and marketing collateral, and more!

AVENGERS LEATHER IN COLOR

Start your week off with the fabulous John Steed and Emma Peel in this 1966 color short promo. The Avengers Forever website offers some interesting trivia from behind the scenes, including one tidbit that will "appeal" to fashion Spy Vibers: although Mrs Peel is well-remembered for her zippered black leather jumpsuit, the outfit didn't make the transition from monochrome to color with the rest of the show for the 1967 season. This is the only color film of Rigg in her iconic catsuit. Check out Avengers Forever for more. I've always loved this clip because it captures so much of the wit, wisdom, and wardrobe that made The Avengers an eternal fave.

MID-CENTURY MODERNIST

If you haven't visited the Mid-Century Modernist website recently by writer/graphic designer Stephen Coles, stop in for a sweet dose of inspired design. His recent posts include photos of a gorgeous record player by Dieter Rams (good timing as I'm currently fantasizing about buying the new remastered Kraftwerk albums on vinyl), and Eames chair collections.

GET FLINT -WINNERS!

Thank you to all of the many Spy Vibers who entered the FLINT contest! All entries were put into a hat and two winners were pulled in a random drawing. Congratulations to Cameron Kilgore (Our Man Flint) and Brad Wrolstad (In Like Flint)! Find out more about Flint and the contest here. Stay tuned for future Spy Vibe prizes.

DANCING RAUMPATROUILLE ORION-STYLE

I thank our Spy Vibe community for introducing me to the German TV show Raumpatrouille Orion, a gem I hope to track down on DVD someday. There are some fantastic clips on Youtube, mostly in the campy-cool area, but this scene of the characters chatting it up in a night club as contemporaries from the future hit the dance floor is just absolutely amazing and a must-see moment if you are in need of a dose of sudden giggles. Try some double clicks if video fails to load.

THE PRISONER BLU-RAY

Juan Calonge at the Blu-ray website posted an update regarding the upcoming release of The Prisoner. I've been waiting for this edition for a long time and look forward to seeing McGoohan in Hi-def (not to mention the Peter Wyngarde tribute sketch!). The set hits stores October 27th and Amazon currently has a 49% off pre-order price of $50.49.

From Blu-ray: Our friends at TV Shows on DVD have the release details for the US Blu-ray edition of the classic British series 'The Prisoner', which will hit store shelves on October 27, released by A&E Home Entertainment, in conjunction with Network DVD. The series will come in five discs, featuring a complete high-definition restoration and 5.1 Dolby Digital audio. Special features include:

• "Don't Knock Yourself Out": this exclusive, feature-length documentary is the definitive look at the production of THE PRISONER, told by those involved in its creation. It includes a combination of archive and newly-filmed interviews with nearly 400 people, including Amette Andre, Bernard Williams, David Tomblin, Derren Nesbitt, Peter Wyngarde, Anton Rodgers, Michael Grade, George Baker and Peter Bowles.
• Additional featurettes:
  • "The Pink Prisoner:": Peter Wyngarde pays tribute to the series in this unique cross between an interview and comedy sketch
  • "You Make Sure it Fits": music editor Eric Mival discusses his role behind the scenes in making 'The Prisoner' and provides a unique look at the Music Bible for the show
• Newly restored original edit of "Arrival" with an optional music-only soundtrack featuring Wilfred Josephs' complete and abandoned score
• Original edit of the episode "The Chimes of Big Ben"
• Production crew audio commentaries on seven episodes
• Image Archive: individual galleries of over 1,200 stills are featured throughout this set, including episodic shots, generic/PR Photos, coverage of the original press conference in 1967 and Jack Shampan's designs.
• Archive material, including textless titles with clean themes by Ron Grainer, Wilfred Josephs, and Robert Farnon, as well as material from Rover, Foreign 'Filing Cabinet' title footage and the McGoohan photo montage from "Arrival."
• Production Paperwork Archive: original scripts for each episode, along with other rarely-seen production documentation, press releases, call sheets and other memorabilia. This unique collection is sourced from the personal archives of Tony Sloman, Steven Ricks, and Simon Coward and is reproduced here with their permission and assistance. (DVD-ROM Feature)
• Exposure strips gallery
• Commercial break bumpers
• Trailers for all episodes
• Preview of AMC's 'The Prisoner' mini-series remake

SWINGING LONDON

A fantastic collection of mid-1960s fashion footage, including Mary Quant, the Mini Skirt, PVC boots and raincoats, and Our Man Patrick Macnee from The Avengers! Try some double clicks if video fails to load.

BIRTH OF COOL

Spy Vibers with an eye for mid-century modern and the culture of modernism will want to check out The Birth Of Cool -a lushly illustrated and researched coffee table book. Flipping through the pages is like club-hopping to visit the movers and shakers  of the era. Major designers and milestone designs are covered from architecture, furniture, record sleeve design, movie set and title production, mass media, etc. There's even some space for Hugh Hefner as they discuss the revolutionary notion of being a cool guy. Other Spy Vibe faves are mentioned, including Hitchcock's North By Northwest.

THE SILENCERS

No actual silencers, but a fantastic video clip of the Dean Martin film, The Silencers, theme song over at the Spy-Fi Channel. Christopher writes: "Continuing my efforts to find rare spy-fi-related clips: buxom Joi Lansing performs the theme from the Dean Martin Matt Helm film The Silencers in this burlesque-inspired musical short for scopitone "video jukeboxes" of the Sixties.

SPY VIBE BRIEF: SILENCERS

Out of the many elements that define the 60s spy vibe, the silencer itself is an important addition to spy fashion and an essential extension of the overall sneaky, thrilling action of the stories. The image of Mrs. Peel in the credits of The Avengers and the ritualistic assembling of the U.N.C.L.E. gun in The Man From U.N.C.L.E. are both prime examples of the silencer as stylish symbol. Then of course, there is the sound! That strange, sudden burst of tire-pump squeal, the target slumps, and the assassin slips away undetected. It's pretty morbid actually, but in the fictional world of spy adventure, the silencer remains a cool accessory. Video clips below of those iconic moments, plus a memorable moment in 007 history when Bond shoots Dent in Dr. No. After the villain unloads his gun into a bed fixed up with pillows, Bond fires a number of shots after his famous line, "That's a Smith and Wesson. And you've had your six." (see time 5:30). Did you ever wonder how silencers really work? Here's a brief explanation on the How Stuff Works website. If videos fail to load below, try some double clicks.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GEORGE LAZENBY

Spy Vibe wishes a happy birthday to George Lazenby! For years, I counted On Her Majesty's Secret Service as my fave 007 film (I now accept that there are shifting moods that can even put Moonraker right up there!). I still love the film and really enjoy his performance alongside Diana Rigg and Telly Savalas. From what I've read, Lazenby put in a great effort to make the sudden transition from modeling to acting. He jumped into the franchise during a film that required more range from its leading man, but ultimately I think it came together well. The script was so exciting and touching. I wonder how he might have developed had he stayed on for more films?

DESIGN WITHIN REACH SALE- ENDED

Design Within Reach is currently running a mix-and-match 15% off sale (plus free shipping!). Launched in 1999, Design Within Reach is a fantastic source of classic modern furniture that was traditionally only available through designers and viewable to collectors and MOMA visitors. Here you will find collections with names like Eames and Frank Lloyd Wright. Their shopping experience is like a mini-course in design history. So if you're finally building that bachelor pad or evil lair and need that special ellipse table or artichoke lamp, these guys will take care of your Spy Vibe needs. Some readers may recall that Our Man Tony at Design Within Reach identified a number of pieces in James Bond sets during our set countdown, including the Arne Jacobsen chair in Tanaka's office in You Only Live Twice. Browsing through their on-line catalog, I spied a beautiful Jacobsen Egg chair that looks quite nice in "cloud blue." I suggest that you visit their shops in person if possible because it's so fun to see the pieces and try them out. Store locations here. The 15% sale ends September 14th. Store Blog.

MOD FASHION BY LIAM

Amidst the news that Oasis has (at least temporarily) split, is the recent spring launch of a fun creative project by Liam Gallagher in the form of a new fashion line for men called Pretty Green. The current front page item on the website is a cool Mod parka (limited run of 350) sporting Liam's logo patch and the copy: "Liam's got #1. Paul Weller's got #2. Which number will you get?" From Pretty Green: Pretty Green is an up-front, straight talking, classic clothing range owned, founded and designed by Liam Gallagher. The Pretty Green team is made up of key industry professionals. The clothing range, which is entirely 'limited edition', will include classic designs across footwear, denim, knitwear, jackets, trench coats, parkas, t-shirts, hats, scarves and accessories; all subject to Liam's final approval. "Clothes and music are my passion. I'm not here to rip anyone off and I'm not doing it for the money either. I'm doing it cuz there's a lack of stuff out there of the things I would wear." -Liam Gallagher 2009

In the short promo films below, Liam talks about his passion for clothes and about the Mod movement and the Who film Quadraphenia as inspirations. As we reported earlier this summer, Paul Weller has also gone into clothing design. It's not a new phenomenon for musicians to cross over into fashion. A notable example is the Beatles' launch of their Apple boutique, which was in part set up as an enterprise to diversify and invest their income in response to the heavy 90% tax they were under at the time. The boutique quickly lost money and was shut down in an event where the public was actually invited to take away remaining inventory for free. Spy Vibe is a big fan of Mod style and of Liam and we wish him the best in his new project. Hopefully he'll have great fun and success working on future collections as well as success as the fantastic songwriter he's proven to be in the last seven or eight years.

DISCOTHEQUE DANCING

A Spy Vibe treat to get your weekend hopping- from ESL Music and Chris Joss. The video's room design at the start may seem familiar to readers. You saw it posted way back in the Spy Set Countdown, which included information about designer Verner Panton.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SEAN CONNERY

A quick Spy Vibe note in celebration. Although he left the role of James Bond and returned- twice- Sean Connery will always be seen by many as the quintessential 007. He had everything working for him: Handsome and charming, deadly and physical, and importantly, he had the era of the 1960s -making his films iconic time-capsules of 1962-1967 culture. This was the era of the space race, the sexual revolution, youth-targeted fashion and consumerism, Swinging London, and despite his famous quip in Goldfinger, the era of The Beatles (prior to psychedelia). The earliest films were produced during Ian Fleming's lifetime. Bond was the original blockbuster adventure (each new film release was "The Biggest Bond Yet!"), inspiring the Spy Boom in entertainment in the mid-1960s. For any Spy Viber who has enjoyed the imitators (Eurospy movies, etc), fun though they are, none can hold a candle to 007, nor, especially, to Connery as leading man -not even his brother Neil/Operation Kid Brother. Connery fit those suits and walked like a panther, brawled with a true sense of animal frenzy and danger, and delivered lines with his iconic Scottish lilt and soft S's. On two personal notes, when I first played with a programmable computerized voice in the early 198Os, I programmed it to deliver dialog from Goldfinger in Sean's accent (the scene when he catches the baddie cheating and confronts him over the radio)! And I have the photo below framed with an autograph in my office, something I envisioned for my adult life back when I was a lad. We love Connery for his Bond, and of course, for his long and continuing career as a fine actor. Essential Connery for me also includes Marnie, The Hill, Robin and Marian, Zardoz, Outland, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and Rising Sun. Additional videos below. Read more about Connery's career and birthday wishes on The Commander Bond Network.

SAINT'S VOLVO P1800 RIDES AGAIN

Thanks to a heads up from COBRAS agent Armstrong Sabian, we have a new design gem to drool over. Spy Vibers will surely remember Roger's Moore's sleek little Volvo P1800 from The Saint. From Autoblog:

 Mattias Vöcks is at it again. Back in 2006, the Swedish-born designer who normally spends his days hand-assembling supercars for Koenigsegg used the SEMA to debut his show-stopping custom 1967 Volvo Amazon that was once voted "Sweden's Hottest Volvo." That title may soon go out to another of Vöcks' stunning creations, this time based on the classic Volvo P1800 made famous in part as the car driven by Roger Moore in the British television series The Saint from the 1960s. With help from Bo Zolland from Swedish design firm Vizualtech, Vöcks has added a few modifications to bring the shapely Swedish beauty to modern standards. Aerodynamics are improved by a rear diffuser, flat underbody tray and a front fascia that's been smoothed out and lengthened by 70mm. Powering the beast is a 4.4-liter V8 borrowed from a Volvo XC90 SUV that's been force-fed by a turbocharger and routes its 600 horses through a six-speed manual transmission to the rear wheels. According to a report by Auto Express, this custom Swede is slated to enter small-scale production at some unspecified date in the future. We can hardly wait.

Read more about the classic P1800 from The Saint on The Saint website.

FUTURE FASHION: URSULA ANDRESS

For keeping those cosmic rays out, nothing says Space-Age Futurism like a plastic visor! One of my favorite costumes from The 10th Victim with Ursula Andress (recently re-released on DVD), has a slight Gaultier-Fifth Element feel with its minimalist approach to using strips of cloth. In my research on cold war anxiety and fashion, I've seen many visors/helmets, but none capture my imagination and design-love like the one that Andress wears briefly in one scene in the film as she de-planes in Rome. The white strip over her head echoes the overall theme of the outfit with strips connecting her gloves and arm, and strips fastened around her ankles. It gives her a wonderful cartoony look in contrast to the alternating white and black stripes on her companions' sleeves. Add spy-fi Italian soundtrack music and a story that involves international assassins and you can see why The 10th Victim is one of the only films that I look to as a collector of stills and posters. For more on futuristic fashions (including video), also visit the Mods to Moongirls and Fear and Fashion articles on Spy Vibe. Movie stills and posters are available at Movie Goods.

RICHARD SALA'S CAT BURGLAR BLACK

Out of my collection of original drawings by Ashley Wood, Ben Templesmith, Hector Casanova, Dik Brown, Mort Walker, Johnny Hart, Matt Kindt, and others, the first and prominently framed piece on my wall is a page from the Chuckling Whatsit by Richard Sala. Sala weaves wonderfully textured pages filled with the elements Spy Vibers love to see: disguised mystery baddies, evil lairs, trap doors, secret societies, revolving bookcases, shots in the dark, gruesome henchmen, Calagari-like streets, mystery solving, and sometimes, strong female heroes in Mrs Peel-like jumpsuits :) Sala is back with a new book due out on September first called Cat Burglar Black. I think he probably got your attention at "Cat Burglar?" Once you start reading, his hypnotically macabre style and humor will draw you back again and again.

When K. Westree arrives at Bellsong Academy, she thinks she's left her cat-burgling past behind her. But K. soon discovers the school has a mystery of its own, a hidden treasure left behind by its founder, and she's the only one who has a hope of finding it. As she resumes her cat-burgling in an attempt to discover the school's secrets, K. begins to question if a normal life is really what she wants. Order here on Amazon.

CALDER EXHIBIT

A very special exhibit for Spy Vibers and Modernism enthusiasts in the Bay area: The San Jose Museum of Art is currently showing work by Alexander Calder through December 13th. Calder (trained as an engineer) challenged the long-held notion that sculpture was static and monumental. His inventive, colorful, animated “mobiles” epitomize the innovative, optimistic spirit of early-twentieth century modernism. In all of Calder’s mobiles, his objective was not to represent or refer to nature, but to capture its dynamic actions and unpredictable, living systems. This exhibition will include mobiles, jewelry, and works on paper drawn from Bay Area collections, including the holdings of several of the Museum’s founders and longtime supporters.

On a personal note and shout to my Putney School tribe out there, I enjoyed meals and working under a fabulous Calder mobile for years in the school's dining hall (the "KDU"). The Putney School, located in southern Vermont, has had a long relationship with the Calder family, including two of my schoolmates who are well-remembered for dry wit as much as for their upper-classman inspiration to me as a young photographer. A generation later, I had the joy of having one of their sons as my student. The Calder mobile was donated to the school and, after a long stint in the KDU, is now spinning beautifully in the school's recently completed performing arts center. I can't wait to see the exhibit in San Jose. Hopefully, I can even bring some of my students from San Francisco. The red shapes on the Calder piece below suddenly take on new meaning when I think about the passing of time and of the many relationships and bonds one experiences as a student, and eventually, as a teacher.

IAN FLEMING REPRINTS

I just picked up the first paperback edition of Ian Fleming's The Diamond Smugglers and am already hooked. It's the true story about a master spy-chaser who was brought to Africa to dry up an illicit diamond pipeline. For Spy Vibers who haven't been watching the Commander Bond Network, Ian Fleming Productions have recently reprinted Fleming's two non-Bond books, The Diamond Smugglers and Thrilling Cities. Orders can be made directly from their website.

MODERNISM GUIDE

I came across this new book yesterday that might be of interest to Spy Vibers who collect Mid-Century Modern or might need a visual reference for projects (or to ID production design in your fave 60s Spy Films!). It's a richly illustrated identification and price guide for modern furniture and home design. From Amazon: The cool designs, sleek lines and fashion-forward forms of the open and optimistic feel of the modernism furniture and design is as reflective of attitude as it is ingenuity. The enthusiasm and boundless hope of post-War 1950s America, not unlike our country’s current eagerness for a shot of optimism, is represented in the pages of this beautifully illustrated, inspiring, and informative book. Warman’s Modernism Furniture & Accessories features the furniture and designs that emerged during the prime of the movement, between 1945 and 1985. The collection of 1,000 rich and robust color photos, real-world auction prices and extensive descriptions make this a fundamental reference for anyone with an interest in modernism furniture.

JACQUES TATI PLAYTIME

In the Criterion Collection’s new efforts to bring masterpiece films to Blu-ray, one particular release this week should be on the radar of fellow Spy Vibers who love modern design- Jacques Tati’s Playtime (1967). As he had done in his previous film, Mon Oncle (1958), Tati uses his alter ego Monsieur Hulot to examine and poke fun at the mid-century fascination with all-things Modern. Tati studied the architecture of airports, offices, supermarkets, and other public institutions during his promotional trips for Mon Oncle, making observations that became his next project. In this outing, Hulot enters an architectural labyrinth, like a modern-day Thesius, and makes his way through a variety of humorous situations. The 70mm photography of Paris buildings and interiors alone is worth the price of admission, especially knowing that Tati's crew built the sets (and actual buildings!) from glass, plastic, wood, and concrete over a production period between 1964 and 1967. The set was dubbed Tativille. They constructed beautifully modern spaces, vast with long hallways, glass walls, cubicals, escalators, and decorated the sets with minimal furniture and props that often became the source of his humor. To trim the budget, Tati used cutout extras for crowd shots who stood in the background to "interact" with live extras.

In one of my favorite scenes (see video below), Hulot accompanies a friend home where he lives with his family in a kind of department store window. We watch from outside as they sit, chat, watch TV, and people pass by on the sidewalk. Soon their actions appear to interact with the neighbors (in a facing shop window). It is a wonderful, quirky comedy play on consumerism and the isolation of modern lifestyles- not to mention a foreshadowing of the voyeuristic nature of contemporary reality show entertainment and the films, The Truman Show (Peter Weir/1998) and The Model Couple (William Klein/1977).

Tati's films are mostly without dialog and the humor is quite charming. If you saw the fabulous animated film The Triplets of Belleville (a tribute to Tati), then you will know a bit what to expect. Much of Tati's humor in Playtime is based on sounds- the sounds of people moving within and interacting with modern spaces and technologies. There is a fantastic essay on this over at Spectacular Attractions. If you read French, check out the Tati exhibit of sets, sketches, models, props, fashion and more at the Cinematheque Francaise.

DVD Beaver: Jacques Tati, the choreographer of the charming, comical ballet that is Playtime, casts the endearingly clumsy Monsieur Hulot as the principal character wandering through modernist Paris. Amid the babble of English, French and German tourists, Hulot tries to reconcile the old-fashioned ways with the confusion of the encroaching age of technology. Jacques Tati’s gloriously choreographed, nearly wordless comedies about confusion in the age of technology reached their creative apex with Playtime. For this monumental achievement, a nearly three-year-long, bank-breaking production, Tati again thrust the endearingly clumsy, resolutely old-fashioned Monsieur Hulot, along with a host of other lost souls, into a bafflingly modernist Paris. With every inch of its superwide frame crammed with hilarity and inventiveness, Playtime is a lasting testament to a modern age tiptoeing on the edge of oblivion. [See also the Blu-ray review.]

SHAG INTERVIEW

Josh Agle (Shag) has captured our imaginations and retro-lovin' hearts by mining elements of the Spy Vibe form of 50s-60s culture in his paintings. His universe is filled with evil lairs, bachelor pads, femme fatales, cocktail lounges, Tiki and Mid-Century Modern, and Vespa-riding hipsters. Read more about his influences, career, and more over at Mod Culture, and a cool nod over at My Design Fix.

FEAR AND FASHION

A recent trip to NYC yielded some excellent Spy Vibe treasures, the cream of which is the book Fear And Fashion in the Cold War by Jane Pavitt. Pavitt is the Senior Research Fellow in Product Design at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. She has acted as lead curator for numerous exhibits and has published essential studies of post-war design, including Fear And Fashion in the Cold War and Cold War Modern: Design 1945-70. What our C.O.B.R.A.S. agent Wesley Britton has done for the field of spy fiction and cultural history, Pavitt has brought to the world of architecture, fashion, and design of the Cold War era- a style that I feel is an essential element to 1960s Spy Vibe. Would the James Bond films have been as successful, for example, if Dr. No had been a two-bit mobster instead of a radiation suit-clad baddie plotting to sabotage space tests? It brought the world of spies away from the mahogany desk world of the private detective and into the futuristic, larger-than-life world that we now love as 60s spy adventure. Read more on our Fear and Fashion page. See also the Spy Vibe article, MODS TO MOONGIRLS.

SPY VIBE MUSIC

Spy Vibe music was composed by me (Agent J) back in the day with live recordings, loops, samples, and Sony Acid Pro, often with audio samples from The Avengers, The Prisoner, Bond, and Eurospy films. Listen to MP3 or WAV files on the Spy Vibe Music page.

KEVIN DART INTERVIEW

On the eve of the 2009 San Diego Comic-Con, Spy Vibe had a chance to ask Kevin Dart a few questions about the exhibit for his new book Seductive Espionage: The World of Yuki 7, his all-time favorite illustrations and films, his projects, and about his plans for this week's convention. Read more on Spy Vibe's KEVIN DART page. Also, check out Double O Section for a fantastic review of Kevin's book and the aesthetics of 60s spies.

OUR MAN IN DENMARK: THOMAS PEDERSEN

One valuable resource of EuroSpy films has been the pet project of Thomas Pederson, who has uploaded over two hundred clips on Youtube on his channel thmace. Pederson is more than a spy movie maven, he is also an aficionado and collector of great design. Last week he took some time out from a busy week to speak with Spy Vibe before leaving for his summer adventure. Read the Interview and see video clips Here.

PATTI'S GROOVE

A wonderful track on the Garage Girls compilation by Patti's Groove has been put to a fantastic collection of Space Age, Op & Pop Art-inspired fashion stills from the 1965-66 era. Have a groovy day!

SCI FI ASSASSIN: LOGAN'S RUN

A Cold War-influenced classic, Logan's Run comes to Blu-ray this November. Humanity has been confined for generations in a shopping mall-like dome, allowing for some very cool futuristic set design by Dale Hennesy (In Like Flint, Fantastic Voyage). The tone of the future, like THX 1138 by Lucas and Fahrenheit 451 by Truffaut, is quite lulled into submission by consumerism and pleasure (in this case- sensual pleasure). Overpopulation is controlled by deatha t age 30. To run is deemed deviant by society and punishable by death. The main character of the film is indeed an assassin- a member of a sanctioned death squad that hunts down 'runners' and executes them. Logan is sent undercover on a mission to join the runners and expose what the government fears is an underground railroad to freedom in a place whispered about in dark alleys called Sanctuary. So begins Logan's Quest that brings him, and his community, toward self-awareness and survival. Read more on our SPIES ON DISC page.

BRIEFLY BERGMAN

One of the joys of the current Criterion Collection sale at Barnes and Noble is a chance to re-visit and further explore some of the great masters of cinema. As fellow C.O.B.R.A.S. writer Armstrong Sabian and I have discussed, there are many titles in the collection that will appeal to Spy Vibers, including films by Hitchcock, Melville, Suzuki, and titles such as The Spy Who Came Into the Cold and Charade. For many years now I've enjoyed programming film events for schools and communities, and Criterion's move to Blu-ray has upped the level of our digital viewing experiences. I picked up the new copy of The Seventh Seal by Ingmar Bergman and have found myself swept away in a fabulous re-discovery of his work. Though Bergman can't be accused of making stylish spy films, he is important to mention as a member of the small community of filmmakers who truly showed mastery of the medium through his blend of deeply human motifs and themes and outstanding (and stylish!) photography. He is indispensable as a key figure in the cinematic art scene of the 1950s and 1960s. Among my various experiences this week with Bergman, I came across two bits that may be of interest here. Fans of the stylized thrillers of Mario Bava (Danger: Diabolik) who think Bergman only made quiet chamber pieces may be excited to re-visit his 1968 film Hour of the Wolf (trailer below).

Another wonderful surprise came from one of my all-time favorite writer/directors and heroes- Woody Allen (Casino Royale/photo below), who wrote in the introduction to Bergman's Images: My Life in Film (Arcade Publishing/2007): "Bergman, for all his quirks and philosophic and religious obsessions, was a born spinner of tales who couldn't help being entertaining even when all on his mind was dramatizing the ideas of Nietzsche or Kierkegaard. I used to have long phone conversations with him. He would arrange them from the island he lived on. I never accepted his invitations to visit because the plane travel bothered me, and I didn't relish flying on a small aircraft to some speck near Russia for what I envisioned as a lunch of yogurt. We always discussed movies, and of course I let him do most of the talking because I felt privileged hearing his thoughts and ideas. He screened movies for himself every day and never tired of watching them. All kinds, silents and talkies. To go to sleep he'd watch a tape of the kind of movie that didn't make him think and would relax his anxiety, sometimes a James Bond film." Fans of Allen will recognize his many nods to Bergman themes and visuals throughout the years. The most comical being of course Woody's spoof of the dance with death (The Seventh Seal) in his 1975 comedy Love and Death, pictured below.

In our culture of compartmentalization, it is refreshing to remember that Art, and cinema is Art, can appeal in all kinds of ways as we need it to in our lives; That a Spy Viber in love with Mid-Century Modern, 60s spear guns, silencers, and Jaguar XKEs can find the style and human expression of Bergman deeply satisfying; That Ingmar Bergman, while dwelling over stories like Persona, Hour of the Wolf, Through a Glass Darkly, and Fanny and Alexander found joy and satisfaction in the exploits of Ian Fleming's secret agent 007. Look at the composition of the second still below from Persona. The tilt of the hat, elbow, piping, sunglasses, and roof lines- one of the great designs of 1966 at the height of the spy boom. If you are up for re-exploring or discovering Art House cinema of the 1950s and 1960s, I encourage you to add Ingmar Bergman to your list. His films vary in pacing and tone (he made about 60 movies), and are often worth the investment.

NORTH BY NORTHWEST BLU-RAY

Spy Vibe fans of Alfred Hitchcock will be happy to hear that his classic North By Northwest will be coming to Blu-ray this fall. Read more about the design aspects of this much-anticipated release on our SPIES ON DISC page.

IAN FLEMING RAYMOND CHANDLER INTERVIEW

Our Man Jeremy Duns, author of the new spy thriller Free Agent, alerted us to a fantastic conversation between Ian Fleming and Raymond Chandler posted on-line. The two authors discuss the nature of heroes, villains, research and details, and of the adventure novel. Click here to sit in on this historic interview.