Due to massive demand –
or put another way; due to no demand at all, here is the next
instalment of the charity shop book review*; (Don't worry, sooner or
later I'll realise no-one gets it and change the name.)(While trying
desperately to pretend it was dropped because I fancied a change.)
Tum-te-tum... yep.
Sinclair McKay,
'formerly assistant features editor of the Daily Telegraph'
is the author of, apart from other things, A Thing of
Unspeakable Horror: The History of Hammer Films
– but I didn't call you to this place for a book on silly old
horror filums...NO, that would never do...
The
Man With The Golden Touch
(Aurum, Hardback £18.99/£1.99 Cats Protection League ISBN – oh go
and get a pen then...ready?, good; ISBN 978-1-84513-355-9) is, as you
might well suspect from previous offerings/disappointments/outrages a
book on James Bond films – the tag-line goes; 'How the BOND films
conquered the world' – handily proving I'm not making this up...
Its
a big old brick of a thing at 369 pages, there's some rare piccies,
most of which I'd never seen before and an index for those of you
with too much time (Although, I'll be honest and state that books
without indexes are maddening if you need to refer to them in a
hurry).
TROLLOPS, COUNTDOWNS & CATS
Basically the book can be summarised
as a film by film critique of the series with some interesting facts
and anecdotes added – (it omits only Quantum of Solace
as it was published in 2008). Its all well-written, but one thing
that I particularly appreciated was Mr.McKay (UK Readers born before
1968 add Porridge jokes
here please) (All the rest, Google it – or Doogle it if Scottish)
yes, Mr.McKay (Still with me?) actually likes his subject. Not far
back, I reviewed a similar tome, Simon Winder's The Man Who
Saved Britain – and the
contrasts are clear; Winder, although much loftier in tone and
vocabulary, sneers at Fleming and his creation – sort of a
disgruntled toff, sniffily dismissing another toff while pretending
not to have the social advantage a University edumacation brings. I
treasure both books to be sure, but McKay's is much warmer and
accessible.
O.K. I'd better explain; during the
read I became aware that McKay was born somewheres around the late
sixties, possibly even the same 1967 that saw my gurgling entrance –
hence he's – wait for it – A Child of the Seventies! -
yes the awful and badly worn
phrase that tells people what your era of cultural reference will be.
Lets face this; we become people in a certain decade, everything we
know and feel, our experience and viewpoint is formed and
crystallises in that decade. For McKay – and self handily, it's the
Seventies, hence he gets the Bond films of that era in the same way I
do. I apologise for those of you from later/earlier on, by now you
must feel like a tramp outside a posh restaurant – i.e. horribly
excluded.
The title of this bit? - at the end he sums up the Bond films neatly
with the observation that they all seem to have girls of easy virtue,
ticking countdown timers on bombs and a fair few feature a certain
feline... (Try saying those last six words over and over when
drunk...)
The problem; it's this; what have
Molly Wildflash, the Queen Mary and golden lasers have in common? -
well, Molly Wildflash was the Doctor in The World is Not Enough, The
wreck of the Queen Mary featured in The Man with the Golden Gun and
Goldfinger menaced Bond with a golden laser beam. Go and get the
films from your DVD shelf – no, go on, I'll wait... Seen them? -
(Lets say we did...) O.k. Then; four things are now apparent; I was
lying about the Doc, the Ship and that laser – and you don't
actually have the DVD
of Goldfinger. No-one does.(It'll be on some time this month...)
What's my point? - well, in the book, Sinclair (We're on first name
terms now) does tend to – in British parlance – drop a few. Put simply, he makes quite a few errors on details. (Warmflash/Queen Elizabeth/Red laser if you ever do wonder). He really
does himself an injustice here, because this is a cracking read in
other respects. Pernickety? ME? - it depends on where you stand on
this.
As an aside, Sinclair does rather
give the game away; any pretence of being an artful critic is dented
a touch by his admission that during a screening of The
World is Not Enough he leapt up
and, pointing excitedly exclaimed “My Flat!” as the famous boat
chase zoomed through the Docklands area of the Thames. Oddly, this is
the only note of approval for any of the boat chases – he really
doesn't seem to be a fan of water at all; describing boat chases as
being inherently dull, underwater scenes boring and super-yachts are
always 'naff'. Naff is also a word reserved for those staples of Bond
the Casino. Basically James Bond's second homes, the casinos and
hotel rooms of the series are painted as 'naff' or variously horrid;
Sinc (Affectionately shortening forename now) has a point though as
some of these places are, on closer inspection, quite nasty. I
disagree with his verdict on Scaramanga's yacht-bedroom though... I
think it is a masterpiece of Seventies chic and style; if I ever win
the Lottery that wall hanging is mine!.
Finally – Sin (Too short?) is right when he finishes the book in
upbeat fashion, with his statement that four of the most cheering
words in the English language are...
JAMES BOND WILL RETURN
*In America, I believe these shops are called Goodwill Shops or
similar – basically they are shops that sell second-hand books,
clothing and bric-a-brac donated by the public for various Charitable
causes. Hence the title of these posts.
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