007 Code Words

Deborah Lipp wrote "The Ultimate James Bond Fan Book". She's counting down to "Skyfall" with us via 007 about 007 Lists -Editor

One of the coolest moments in any spy movie is when the code words are exchanged. You'll see it parodied, but for me, the beauty of taking it seriously (or semi-seriously) remains. These exchanges are a rarity in Bond films, but as it happens, they have occurred exactly seven times, making this the perfect subject for one of our 007 about 007 lists.

001 In From Russia With Love, we see the following exchange twice:

Agent 1: Can I borrow a match?
Agent 2: I use a lighter.
Agent 1: Better still.
Agent 2: Until they go wrong.

Unfortunately, Bond's enemy, Red Grant (played by Robert Shaw), overhears this code exchange and uses it to successfully fool Bond—for a little while.

002 In You Only Live Twice, when Bond asks for the code sign, he's told I love you, without any counter-sign. The first time, Bond says it to Aki, and she responds, I have a car nearby. The second time, Bond asks Tiger Tanaka, How do you feel about me? and Tiger responds I love you, to the obvious discomfort of both men.

003 For Your Eyes Only has one of my favorites, as old-school is the one in From Russia With Love; this kind of serious spy stuff is rarely found in a Roger Moore movie. Bond is meeting an agent he knows only as Ferrara:

Ferrara: The snow this year is better at Innsbrook.
Bond: But not at St. Moritz.

004 In Octopussy, Bond is looking for his contact in India. A cornier Roger Moore film, this exchange opens with the contact, Vijay, playing the Bond theme on a snake-charmer's flute.

screencap via b+movieblog

Bond: Charming tune, do you take English money?
Vijay: Only gold sovereigns.

005 A View To a Kill was Roger Moore's last Bond film, and overall relied on silliness, but this exchange was done seriously, at the San Francisco wharfs:

Lee: Looking for something special?
Bond: Yes, soft shell crabs.
Lee: I might have some in the back.

006 GoldenEye was Pierce Brosnan's first outing as Bond. In St. Petersburg, he meets up with CIA agent Jack Wade (Joe Don Baker), who doesn't like to play by the rules.

Bond: In London, April’s a spring month.
Wade: Whereas in St. Petersburg, we’re freezing our butts off.

(Somehow, Bond doesn’t regard this as correct.)

007 Finally, we come to Die Another Day. Here, Bond has a long exchange in Cuba, awakening a sleeper agent who has been in place for twenty years. It's obvious that the Delectado cigar is a code word, and also, apparently, the Volado tobacco. How much of the entire exchange is coded is not clear:

Bond: I’m here to pick up some Delectados. [No recognition from the man at the desk.] Universal Exports. Check with your boss.

[After having been taken to see Raoul…]

Raoul: I come to think the Delectados would never be smoked. They are particularly hazardous to one’s health. Do you know why, Mr…?
Bond: Bond.
Raoul: Mr. Bond. Do you know why?
Bond: It’s the addition of the Volado tobacco. Slow burning—it never goes out."

If you had to exchange code words with Bond, what would it sound like?

A Handful of Link

Pop Elegantarium Alexa's Rosemary's Baby costume she was hinting at the other day in her Curio column. Well done!
/Film new images from Django Unchained
In Contention interviews the production designer of Moonrise Kingdom Adam Stockhausen
Big Thoughts From a Small Mind has a mea culpa about Sidney Lumet in 12 Angry Men. Confession: I myself have never seen this movie but I have seen productions of the play so I am unschooled in the furious dozen

 

Unreality reminds us that with that Star Wars purchase, Disney now also owns a certain fedora wearing archaelogist adventurer 
Monkey See predicts several headlines that will appear when the new Star Wars film is released in 2015. Hee
Awards Daily wonders if the lack of the DGA before Oscar nominations, might throw off the usual correlations
Vimeo if you're already missing Halloween -- it was kind of unsatisfying here on the East Coast without the usual festivities -- here's a creepy impressive 30 second short called "Rot" 

And we end with a very well cut fan vid 'James Bond Death Match,' all six Bonds fighting it out for supremacy.

I demand another rematch.

It's a Wrap. October Highlights

We're doing this month's look back a bit differently. Though we wish all readers were year-round TFE maniacs, traffic always spikes during Oscar season so we welcome our fairweather friends back to us as we all link arms and beginning following that yellow brick red carpet road to the Wonderful Word of Oscars. In October we've been busy with plentiful limited series posts so here were some highlights from those batches.

NYFF
My single favorite moment of the NYFF is documented above. Shortly before The Paperboy screening for critics (with Nicole Kidman on hand afterwords to answer questions) the promo reel for the 50th anniversary of the festival froze on this image and stayed that way for minutes. I wasn't complaining. I like to look at her. As for the movies themselves, I was knocked out by three of the Best Foreign Language Films competing for Oscar: Austria's Amour, Chile's No and Bwakaw from the Philippines. Michael was dazzled by Noah Baumbach's Frances Ha with career best work from Greta Gerwig, and Denzel Washington's soon to be Oscar nominated performance in Flight. Meanwhile everyone was talking about Lincoln's Secret Debut "Secret" Debut including Team Experience on the Podcast.

007 Lists for 007 
Deborah has been getting us celebrating the 50th anniversary of the longest running film franchise with James Bond centric lists. Like her 007 favorite films or the *only* 007 femme fatales. And we're asking all of you to vote on your 007 favorites... LAST CHANCE. Voting ends tomorrow, November 1st.

Oscar Horrors
Team Experience was asked to choose from a list of every Oscar nomination bequeathed to the horror genre or thereabouts and write about it -- just one Oscar nomination per post. Pan's Labyrinth got you talking, Addams Family Values got us laughing again (I even watched it again because of the post), and we reminisced about creepy actressing in Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte, Rebecca, The Spiral Staircase and Fatal Attraction to name just a handful of entries.

5 Random Favorite Posts
Which is Yummier?, "Lousy Lay", Guilt Trip Poster, Into the Woods reading and Monty meets Bernie

Happy November Everyone. Here's to the great (we hope) penultimate month of 2012 

Was Oscar Horrors Your "Frieeeeeeend"?

HAPPY HALLOWEEN !

Here Lies... bits and pieces of thieves and murderers all stitched together to form the Robert DeNiro version of Frankenstein's Monster. 

Yes, we close this year's season of "Oscar Horrors" by celebrating the gruesome Oscar-nominated makeup in...(deep breath)... Columbia Tri-Star Picture's Kenneth Branagh's Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994) . So many possessives! And the film, if I remember it correctly, is possessed. Kenneth Branagh has never been a wallflower as a director and his version of Frankenstein has the exuberant gonzo abandon (i.e. shameless confidence) that also characterized his far more artistically successful reincarnation noir Dead Again (1991).

The makeup designs by Daniel Parker, Paul Engelen and Carol Hemming won Oscar's attention but the team lost to a black and white celebration of a more infamous gonzo director, Ed Wood. 

Now. You might be asking "why, Nathaniel, are we looking at shirtless (briefly) buff Kenneth Branagh and his Bride of Frankenstein instead of the Frankenstein Monster?" I may answer. "Have you seen this Frankenstein Monster? He is DIS-GUST-ING. I don't want to look at him anymore." To the make-up teams credit he really does look like bits of thieves and murderers stiched together the skin being different textures, different elasticities, different stages of decay. The stitches look painful and threaded by unsterile instruments. The makeup effects err on the side of gruesome realism. He looks nothing like the traditional Frankenstein monster with a caesar haircut, green skin and bolts in his neck and Branagh even brings him to life in his birthday suit so the makeup team designed borrowed man parts, too; this monster has nuts but no bolts. 

P.S. I also went with Kenneth & Helena photos because other than the Frankenstein experiment (slimy, nude, mad, clumsy -- an original take from Branagh) the only thing I ever remember about this movie is that it marked the end of that most awesome early 90s film couple Kenneth Branagh & Emma Thompson as he threw her over for Helena Bonham-Carter before Helena then left him for Tim Burton... or something like that. Consider this film Helena's "Bridge to Burton". Here in one film she's yanked from her then familiar Victorian doll iconography and lands painfully into the now familiar decayed gothic doll aesthetic.

The Complete Season 2 of Oscar Horrors  
Psycho -Director 
Carrie - Supporting Actress
The Nightmare Before Christmas - Visual FX
The Spiral Staircase - Supporting Actress
Ed Wood- Supporting Actor

Return to Glennescaul - Short Film
Aliens - Visual FX
Jaws - Editing
Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte - Supporting Actress
Phantom of the Paradise -Original Score

Shadow of the Vampire - Supporting Actor
Dogtooth - Foreign Film
Rebecca - Supporting Actress
Monster's Inc - Animated Feature

The Virgin Spring - Foreign Film
Pan's Labyrinth - Art Direction
Them! - Visual Effects
American Werewolf in London -Makeup
Addams Family Values  -Art Direction

Oscar Horrors: Looking into PSYCHO

Here lies… a film no other man could have made – Psycho.

Matt here! Alfred Hitchcock directed Psycho just after he made Vertigo and North by Northwest, two gigantic Technicolor productions for Paramount. Imagine the pitch he made – Shoestring budget, black & white, killing off Janet Leigh after 40 minutes, main character’s a schizophrenic taxidermist motel-owner. He shot it in a few months on the Paramount lot using a television crew, paying for everything himself.

The rest is history. After spending roughly $800,000, it has grossed over $50 million and had enormous cultural impact. Recently, it placed 34th in Sight & Sound’s “Greatest Films of All-Time” critics poll. In 1960, it was nominated for four Academy Awards including Best Director. One single bathroom sequence revolutionized expectations for audiences, filmmakers, and censors. What business does a true-blue, low-budget horror flick have in the pantheon of cinematic art?

While Psycho may not be Hitchcock’s greatest film, it is the apex of his directorial control, his auteurist posture. More...

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