Posts tagged Sean Connery

JAMES BOND QUIZ — The Answers.

Nov13
2012 Leave a Comment Written by classicmovieguys

As we mentioned last week, the 23rd James Bond installment, Skyfall, just opened in the U.S., and what better time to test your knowledge about what we consider to be the reel 007. The earliest one.

Hello, everybody.  Joe Morella and Frank Segers, your classic movie guys, hearkening back to the early-1960′s origins of the Ian Fleming spy series thanks to inspiration provided by a most entertaining article in the October issue of Vanity Fair. We like to think that the earlier titles in the series starring you-know-who are the best. Agree?

However you may regard Daniel Craig, the current Bond (and we have mixed feelings), Skyfall – directed by Sam Mendes and filmed in the U.K., Turkey and China – is well on its way to becoming the biggest franchise hit ever at the box office.

Enough about money.  Let’s get the answers to last week’s quiz. (And, we should add, as classic movie lovers, we take our inspiration from the Bond movies that star our man, Sean Connery.)

Question:  What was the verbal response from Terence Young, the director of the very first Bond movie, to the casting of Connery as 007?  1)” Terrific!” 2) “Interesting but he may need work” 3) “Oh, disaster, disaster!” or 4) “He’ll do”?

Answer: No. 3.  But Young calmed down, and proceeded to take Connery under his wing, molding him into the best of the Bonds, in our opinion.

Question: Who did novelist Fleming prefer to play the leading role? 1) Cary Grant, 2) David Niven, 3) Charles Laughton, or 4) Laurence Olivier?

Answer:  Niven or Grant.  The novelist felt Connery just wasn’t classy enough.  He was wrong. (By the way, it would have been a hoot to see Laughton as 007.)

Question: Which movie launched Connery into the Bond role? 1) Operation Snafu, 2) Macbeth, 3) Darby O’Gill and the Little People, or 4) Tarzan’s Greatest Adventure.

Answer:  No. 3, a forgettable 1959 Disney live-action item.  When producer Albert Broccoli’s wife, Dana, spotted Connery in the movie, she is said to have exclaimed, “That’s our Bond.”

Question: Which of the early Bond “girls” was described as even more beautiful in real life except that she had “a voice like a Dutch comic?”  1) Claudine Auger, 2) Shirley Eaton, 3) Daniela Bianchi or 4) Ursula Andress?

Answer:  No. 4.  Andress’s lines in Dr. No were consequently dubbed by another actress.

Question:  It may surprise you to learn that novelist Ian Fleming had trouble selling his books to Hollywood. Which producer told Fleming in the beginning that “these books are not even good enough for television?” 1) Mike Todd, 2) Joseph E. Levine, 3) Otto Preminger or 4) Irving Allen.

Answer: No. 4, who was Broccoli’s business partner.  Boy, was he wrong.

Question:  Which late night tv comic passionately kissed a Bond “girl” on camera to express his enthusiasm for the early pictures in the 007 series? 1) Jack Paar, 2) Ernie Kovacs, 3) Arthur Godfrey or 4) Johnny Carson?

Answer: No. 4.  Carson had a real thing for actress Honor Blackman, who played “Pussy Galore” in 1964′s Goldfinger. To promote the movie on his TV show, Carson insisted that Blackman recreate an athletic seduction move from the picture, after which he “passionately kissed me at the end, which wasn’t planned.”

Question:  Which actor, who later played Bond, was originally considered for the role of 007?

Answer:  Roger Moore.

Question:  Sean Connery and his Dr. No leading lady, Ursula Andress, become engaged while making the picture? True or false?

Answer:  False. The Switzerland-born actress was married at the time to actor John Derek.

Question:  Which principal cast member of the early Bond films described the 007 role as that of a “dull, prosaic English policeman?” 1) Robert Shaw, 2) Harold Sakata, 3) Sean Connery or 4) Gerte Frobe?

Answer: No. 3, our Bond himself.

Question:  In the mid-Fifties, CBS aired a TV adaptation of Casino Royale.  Who played Bond? 1) Ben Gazzara, 2) Dan Duyrea, 3) Paul Newman or 4) Barry Nelson?

Answer:  No. 4, Barry Nelson.

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GOING GREENE AGAIN

Jul13
2011 Leave a Comment Written by classicmovieguys

Hello Everybody. It’s us again, Joe Morella and Frank Segers, your Classic Movie guys, with another visit from Larry Michie, our good friend and Books-2-Movies maven.

Larry has more thoughts on the novels to films of Graham Greene.

(Can you identify the pair pictured above, and the Green-inspired movie in which they appeared? No?  Read on.)

Here’s Larry:

Greene’s “The Third Man” classic is murky and morose, although sometimes funny. But his “Our Man in Havana,” another cinema classic, is outright hilarious, although frequently sad.

It’s a talent the Brits have: Really funny, really sad. With Greene, it’s a direct reflection of his own heart of darkness. A convert to Roman Catholicism, Greene even on his best days wouldn’t have qualified as an altar boy.

Best news: Carol Reed again was the director, a match made in celluloid heaven.

Although Greene appropriately insisted that none of the characters or events in “Our Man in Havana” were reality-based, it was a lovely coincidence that the 1960 movie came out just before JFK had to deal with the Cuban missile crisis – and not long before the first James Bond movie, which in its own way was even more absurd than “Our Man in Havana.”

Alec Guinness is Jim Wormold, a vacuum cleaner salesman in Havana whose wife has left him. He is barely able to pay his bills, is worried about a nubile daughter who is being leered at by the lecherous police chief (portrayed curiously by Ernie Kovacs), and is tenuously clinging to his modest way of life.

Along comes a British spy (definitely NOT Sean Connery) who recruits him as an operative. Wormold can’t resist the promised payments for intelligence information, so he makes up an increasing number of informants – based on people he barely knows and rarely sees – and guess what? ‘C’ in London buys it.

Wormold comes under increasing pressure to gather more information, and he comes up with the brilliant idea of sending off a schematic copy of one of his vaccum cleaners – an intelligence coup that is regarded in London as proof of the existence of a weapon of massive destruction – and this was BEFORE the Cuban missile crisis.

Give the man credit, Greene knew what he was doing, even though it was nothing but a comedy. Catch this show. The movie featured Burl Ives, Maureen O’Hara, Kovacs, Noel Coward, Jo Morrow and, as ‘C’, Ralph Richardson. The movie version of the novel gets a little off track at the end, but nothing to make you throw your copy in the dumpster.

But about that funny/sad business: The Alec Guinness character is Catholic, his wife will not come back to him, and consequently he is one sad dude. Because of his religion, he can never marry another woman. Ouch.

Read the book and/or watch the movie of Greene’s “The Heart of the Matter.” It has a major sad quotient, along the lines  mentioned above. It’s a great book, though, and was a 1953 movie (1954 in the U.S.).

The cast (those Brits are not only good, they all seem to work for a living) includes Trevor Howard, Elizabeth Allan, Maria Schell, Denholm Elliott and Peter Finch.

“The Quiet American” will give you a few chills and cause for thought. Greene explored Vietnam after the French debacle, and his novel is piercing. Again, not a particularly loving self-portrait in the 1958 film, if you’re inclined to equate the fictional character who seems quite a bit like Greene.

The cast included the improbable Audie Murphy, along with Michael Redgrave, Claude Dauphin and Bruce Cabot, among others. The movie was remade in 2002, with Michael Caine and Brendan Fraser. Too bad Greene isn’t around for Iraq/Afganistan/Pakistan.

On second thought, maybe not.

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LANA TURNER and a FUTURE SAINT

May25
2011 Leave a Comment Written by classicmovieguys

Hello everybody.  The Classic movie guys, Joe Morella and Frank Segers, here again.

Can you identify the actor shown with Lana Turner in this movie publicity still?

Not easy, we admit.  The guy appears almost baby-faced. (He was in his late twenties when this staged photo was taken.) The faux-Elvis-style haircut doesn’t help either.

The presence of older-by-six-years Lana, who looks a tad spacey in this shot, is a giant hint. These two made only one movie together. Another hint is the headline of today’s blog.

Our man was an only child, an athletic swimmer and someone who loved school.  Nonetheless his formal schooling ended when he was 15 when he went to work for a maker of  animated cartoon films.  After joining the studio workers’ union, he was fired.

He was injured during World War II military service but not in combat.  A car accident left him with a split jaw and serious head injuries. Before being discharged, our man spent months in a German hospital.

He’s big pals with Sean Connery and Michael Caine.

He has survived prostate cancer, kidney stones and heart problems.

He is still working.

OK, now.  Who is this guy with Lana?

YESTERDAY’S PIC: From left to right were Lloyd Bridges, Dana Andrews, Richard Conte and Norman Lloyd, with John Ireland on the ground in “A Walk in the Sun” — one of the best combat films of all time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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