Film Pairings – A Night With Ian Fleming

Fleming

Ian Fleming only wrote 12 James Bond novels, but sold more than 100 million copies. All of his Bond novels have been made into films, some more than once. There are also been Bond novels written by others, some of them well regarded by the literary world.  Moreover, Bond movies continue to be made using the Bond character long after Fleming’s death at 57. Seven actors have played Bond over the years including Sean Connery, Roger Moore and Pierce Brosnan.  But what about the creator?

The Man Who Would Be James Bond — Spoiled, privileged and much tougher on the women in his life than his male adversaries, Ian Fleming lived the life he would eventually write about. Watch this four-part, BBC-produced bio drama to get a glimpse of a mama’s boy who made good largely, in my opinion, because he understood the nature of drama – life, death, power, and romance as shallowly, coldly and clearly as he observed it in his own life.

Biopic Of Fleming's Early Years

I’ve read and enjoyed every one of his books and I’ve watched and enjoyed most if not all of the James Bond films. They are potboilers, but nearly perfect ones.  Let’s not worry about nuance, or the why of things. Let’s not be subtle. Let’s create this wonderful travelogue. Throw in some sex, skiing, sailing and flying. Let’s do it all elegantly, expensively and  let’s eliminate the increasingly despicable bad guys who without James Bond’s last minute magic, would destroy the world.

Dominic Cooper plays Fleming in his active “Intelligence” agent days for the British Royal Navy, where he presumably gathered the material for his fiction. In those days young Ian played second fiddle to his brother Peter ((played by Rupert Evans) who was already a successfully published author. This series offers an introduction to one of the most successful film franchises of all time. Hints of the movies that would follow are subtly rendered in the music that underlies some pretty decent cinematography.

Bond's Latest Film Adventure With Daniel Craig

Spectre  — Bond’s most recent celluloid adventures star craggy Dennis Craig.  Once again Bond comes up against arch villain Blofeld, a megalomaniac who seeks to control the world.  We travel from Mexico City to Rome and eventually back to London in an attempt to keep Blofeld from having complete control over all intelligence operations on earth. There’s no question that his is action-packed adventure appeals to all of us who like action-packed adventures.

Ralph Fiennes plays M, and Judy Dench, (former M, now deceased) is reprieved on video.   Chris Waltz plays Blofeld.  My favorite is Chris Wishaw who plays Q, who designs Bond’s deadly gadgetry that saves Bond’s life when the plot won’t. Sam Mendes again directs the standard, but altogether enjoyable offering.

While watching, we must have a vodka martini, shaken, not stirred, or perhaps some fresh lemons squeezed into some fizzy water.

Opinion — Casting One’s Characters More Fun than Casting Stones

A talk-radio blowhard accidentally opened up an interesting topic.  During all of Sony-Kim Jong Un silliness a secret was revealed. British actor Idris Elba was (is) under consideration to be the next actor to play James Bond in the incredibly popular franchise.  Not quite yet a household name, Elba has a growing list of successful small (“The Wire” and “Luther”) and big-screen (American Gangster and Thor) roles. He is at least as popular as Daniel Craig was when he was tapped for the sacred spot.

Anytime the role has been up for grabs, there has been debate. It’s all part of the 007 spectacle.  And years after one actor or another has landed the role, the debate raged anyway.  There are the Sean Connery purists.  He was good.  He was also the first and the one who established expectations. The fans who accepted Connery, eventually accepted Roger Moore, Pierce Brosnan and now Craig.  Each performed as Bond multiple times and has earned Bond producers a serious fortune.  But what about Bond’s creator?  Which one was the truest to 007 creator Ian Fleming’s vision?  And because Craig is bowing out after one more epic adventure, who should be anointed?

Idris Elba As Bond?

Any choice would have been challenged.  We have our favorite Bonds.  And if you are basing it on the books, who knows how you have imagined the icon — a hero of your own imagination.  In this case one of the objections is that Elba is Black.

One person argued that if Fleming had intended Bond to be Black he would have said so, alluded to it in one of his early 007 novels. I agree with that. Given that Bond was loosely and flatteringly based on the author himself, I suspect the Bond in Fleming’s eye was white.  In fact, if Fleming had his way, David Niven would have been James Bond. I would have liked that as well. I loved watching David Niven. He might not have been as gymnastic as the others, but he would have projected the most sophistication. As it is we’ve adjusted to the tough, serious Bond of Connery as well as the tongue-in-cheek Moore and the dour Craig.  So far, after a few moments of adjustment, I’ve liked them all, including Brosnan who seemed a blend of Connery and Moore.

More to the point, though, since when did we abide by the original creator’s suggestion in any movie based on a book or series?

Lucy Liu Is Watson

If any fictional, crime-fighting literary character could out-icon Bond, it would be Sherlock Holmes. What say ye about Benedict Cumberbatch’s modern take on the world’s most famous detective? From a pipe-smoking, bookish private eye, we have a wonderfully outlandish and flamboyant narcissus in current day London.  Or, we might look at his incarnation in the American TV version, where a less stylish but more annoying narcissus solves murders in New York with help of his best friend Watson who has become for this 21st Century series a lovely Chinese woman. Jack Reacher, the newest best-selling superhero in books, is described as being 6’5”, size being a factor of no little importance to his character’s tough-guy profile. Reacher is being played on screen by the diminutive Tom Cruise.  Reacher’s creator, Lee Child, has said publicly that he likes Cruise in the role. So?

So, Elba is a fine British actor, great looking, and he has proven his screen presence.  How can he not be a prime candidate?

But there is an interesting question here.  How faithful should (can) films be to the books on which they were based?  I imagine a number of writers have thought about who they would cast to play the characters in their novels.  Of those whose books (and heroes and heroine) went to Hollywood, how many authors were satisfied with the choice of actors and actresses?  Robert B. Parker was said to have been extremely unhappy with Robert Ulrich’s TV series portrayal of popular Boston private eye Spenser. I’ve done some fantasy casting for my Shanahan series.  For years I imagined Paul Newman in the role of the elderly semi-retired private eye. He did make a great film about an older P.I. (Twilight). Just not mine.  Clint Eastwood has also come to mind. Shanahan in the forthcoming Killing Frost is a somewhat disabled 72.  (Eastwood is 86). I’ve also imagined Ed Harris, who is only 64. That’s not a huge stretch for a talented actor and gifted make-up artist.  Throw Morgan Freeman into the mix and I would be hard pressed to choose which one I’d pick for the Shanahan role

P.S. Rumors are afoot suggesting Cumberbatch is in the Bond sweepstakes as well.

Blatant Self-Promotion —Mysteries, Thrillers, Suspense Are Not All The Same

Coming Soon

Not too long ago, people who wrote fictional pieces about crime were called “mystery writers.”  Many people still use that name and in many bookstores that’s the name of the section where you’ll find suspense, thrillers and, for lack of a better word, whodunits. Or perhaps a better word would be “mystery, if it weren’t confused with such notions as suspense or thrillers.”  In the last few years, there has been a general movement to use “crime fiction” as the general category, a trend I like because I think we should reserve “mystery” for books that encourage the reader to engage in the investigation and solve it before the protagonist does.

I’m not in any way ranking one kind of crime book over another, just calling for a more accurate way of identifying them.  I grew up with The Rockford Files and Columbo as top of the line crime shows.  I read every James Bond Ian Fleming wrote. Like everyone else, I didn’t mind knowing who the perpetrator was during the first five minutes. I also know that one book can be both a mystery and a thriller. And probably most crime fiction benefits from achieving the highest level of suspense possible. But they are not necessarily the same thing.

What I write – for better or worse — are mysteries.  All of them, whodunnits.  One of the things I do before submitting a manuscript to a publisher is ask a few people I know to read it.  I want them to tell me where in the book they stopped reading each time they stopped reading and when interest flagged. I welcome all comments and encourage them to be not to be bashful about criticism.  But the comment I look most forward to hearing is when the reader made his or her first guess about who did the deed.  And if they had a change of mind later, I want to know that too.  I truly want to stump the reader.  But I want a level playing field just as much.

With a mystery comes perhaps a stricter set of rules. I’d put them under the general heading of “fair play.” Here I’ll use an Amazon review of Death in the Haight from my late friend and writer, Randy Rohn.

E-Book Available Now

“I always look forward to Ron Tierney's books. His characters, although flawed, are real and in their very human way, heroic. This novella packs a wallop. Well-drawn characters, great plot and an interesting take on a social issue that's making headlines these days. The descriptions of San Francisco make the city come alive. The story is a genuine mystery in the finest sense of the word. There are no cheap tricks like leaving out details until the very end to make the "twist" more unexpected. In this one, you find all the clues just as the protagonist Private Investigator Noah Lang does. And as he muses on different scenarios, you are invited into his thinking process. I read this book in one sitting, because I just couldn't put it down. One caveat, this book might be bad for your diet. Ron's descriptions of San Francisco restaurants were so well conceived, it made me hungry.”

I couldn’t resist leaving in all the flattering remarks.  But the real point of it is his statement that “you find all the clues” just as the P.I. does.  Fair play.

By the way, all my books are mysteries in that sense.  Lately, I’ve been writing shorter tales, tailored to one-sitting reading.  I’m preparing three separate novellas for publication soon and the 11th full-length Deets Shanahan mystery for late next year to celebrate the series’ 25 years in print.

Film Pairings — James Bond and Jack Reacher, Peas In Separate Pods

There’s never a shortage of superheroes.  At the moment The Lone Ranger and the zillionth portrayal of Superman, are dazzling or disappointing filmgoers.

However, we home-alone viewers with Netflix accounts are not necessarily “trending.”  We are catching up. The local theaters are no longer showing the two films I highlight here.  They are Skyfall, the latest of many James Bond films and Jack Reacher, the first of what is likely to be a new franchise searching for iconic status and profits.  They are about smart, tough guys who save the world or, in Reacher’s case, a tank of a man who cleans up a piece of a smaller domain.  The main characters in each are human though impervious to death. In both cases their near superpower comic-book feats take an immense suspension of disbelief.  Yet we do suspend it even if the Reacher character, designed by his creator at a towering, and intimidating 6’5, 250pounds,” is played by the diminutive Tom Cruise.  We want to believe.

When I was in my teens I read all of the 12 slim volumes of Ian Fleming’s 007 adventures.  I was mesmerized.  This was before I saw any of the movies.  I probably would have cast (as I learned that Fleming preferred as well) the sophisticated David Niven before the earthier Sean Connery, though it didn’t take long for me to buy into the Scotsman. I was disappointed to learn that he and Bond had separated after seven films, but quickly accepted Roger Moore who, in many ways for me, better captured the original, light-hearted spirit of the character.  I thought Pierce Brosnan split the difference and did so very well. So too have I, an avid cinema fan, accepted and welcomed Daniel Craig, though it seems we’ve almost come full circle — the most solemn of the lot.  He seems old and grumpy (I can identify with that), not the original, carefree Bond. This is also in keeping with the way we are seeing American superheroes these days, wit buried under stone.

Craig’s two Bonds, like it or not, have changed the Bond franchise. To drive the point home in Skyfall, with appropriate symbolism, the elegant Aston Martin is blown up on a dystopian landscape not disappearing out of the frame on a scenic highway along the French Riviera as it should.  This Bond is weary, sullen, craggy, yet demands your attention. He seems, perhaps — his superhuman feats aside — too human.  There’s not an ounce of a Devil-May-Care martini in his veins.

For Jack Reacher, maybe it would have been too easy to cast someone like Ryan Gosling as Reacher, the character inhabiting the best selling 17-book series by Lee Child.   Or maybe Channing Tatum.  Seriously. For me Tom Cruise is a sort of journeyman leading man.  And a case could be made that physicality aside, this was a perfect role for him.  Not a lot of nuance here to worry about.  As we expect from both films it is about right and wrong, good and evil.  We root for our heroes to win so we can go to bed believing the world is safe for the few minutes it takes to go off into our own dreamland.  These two heroes are not cut from the same cloth, however.

Bond, however rebellious at times, works for the bureaucracy in service to what we must presume or at least hope to be a larger good.  After all, he pretty much saves the world in each adventure.  Not so, Reacher.  There’s a line in the movie, which I don’t have precisely; but the gist is our hero doesn’t believe in the law or justice.  He believes in what is right.  Right is what is right in his world and the story may be written so we, in our secret vigilante hearts, agree and root for the three-in-one protagonist — judge, jury and executioner.  We do so with, I hope, a little caution from our better selves.

The director and cinematographer do a good job conveying Reacher’s worldview if it can be described so broadly.  Bond is filmed against incredible, wide-sweeping landscapes. It’s a big world with lots of moving parts.   In Reacher the camera is completely focused on Cruise.  He is constantly, slowly, importantly entering a room with music and lingering camera angles that emphasize his self-assured domination of the small world around him.  It is all immediate and personal.  It is all about him.  He is standing tall.  That seems to be all that matters.

Both films provide a couple of hours of worthwhile escape from our less eventful daily lives.  Jack Reacher is not complex as a movie or character.  The upside of that is the film is finely plotted and clearly told. Robert Duvall makes a cameo, as does Werner Herzog. Also on screen is the talented Richard Jenkins, who is clearly under utilized here.   Of the two, Bond is not only richer cinematically (also more than twice the budget), but also treats us to a cast of acting legends.  In addition to Daniel Craig, we have Judi Dench, Ralph Fiennes, Javier Bardem and Albert Finney.

For the evening viewing of Bond, a martini is appropriate of course, if for no other reason than a tribute to an earlier era.  For Reacher, maybe a Pabst to reflect a film and a lead actor, both delivering the goods in an efficient and timely manner.

On Writing — To Be Or To Be Someone Else, The Resurrection of Marlowe

I’ve covered this territory before, but with the announcement that still another contemporary writer wants to take over still another legendary writer’s characters there are some questions.  Mine is: Why?

Raymond Chandler

The first thing that comes to my mind is that known characters like Holmes, Spade or Marlowe, in this latest case, gets the writer some level of instant recognition.  This provides a sales advantage in a cluttered marketplace.  The writer doesn’t have to fight the anonymity of starting from scratch with an original character — or as original as one can get. The theory is if you liked Raymond Chandler’s Marlowe, you’ll like the clone rumored to be on its way from John Banville aka Benjamin Black.  Though, in this case, the writer is well known, there is marketing power in combining all the known names together.  That would be literary writer (Banville), his genre nom de plume (Black), and one of the most famous fictional detectives ever (Marlowe).  In the corporate world, the process is called “value added.”

Then again, I’m not inside Banville’s head, so I can’t know.  And I suspect that Banville is more capable of getting inside Chandler’s head than I am of getting into Banville’s.  So I shall leave well enough alone.

John Banville

The second thing that comes to mind is that some writers may want to make a game of it or they are excited by the challenge. Lord knows, writing James Bond books became a kind of playful hobby for half dozen writers, with such literary lions as John Gardner and Kingsley Amis, participating.  Then again, possibly even our lions fall on hard times and need the money.  The truth is that many genre writers are paid far more than the so-called literary ones.  But popular writers joined the Bond game as well. Best selling thriller writer Jeffrey Deaver took a shot at it.  And another highly respected writer, William Boyd, is expected to have his own post Ian Fleming Bond out next year.

The third possibility that comes to mind when we ask “why” is homage.  A writer can be so enamored with his or her predecessor that continuing the series is a way of honoring the one who went before.  As I understand it, Max Allan Collins, for example, worked with Mickey Spillane before the legend passed away and Mike Hammer’s life in crime fiction was extended with the original writer’s blessing.  Cool.  That isn’t likely the case with Chandler and Banville.

Or finally and fourth, the writer doesn’t have a great deal of imagination and has to feed upon someone else’s carcass to create something of his or her own.  That sounds harsh.  Oops.  Art is created in many different ways and who am I to judge? Certainly I wouldn’t have created private eye characters if there hadn’t been a whole slew of them before me.

Though, whatever it is, using some other writer’s characters without permission* goes against my perhaps misdirected sense of honor and order.  Which Bond is this? The Deaver Bond or the Amis Bond? Of course that may be the purpose of the game. How about a writing competition among the top performers?  They could be Olympic-type events.  Now, competing in the Hammett are….  So and so won the Gold in the Macdonald.  And why wait until their gone?  Who won the Banville this year?

Perhaps I’d be more likely to appreciate adaptations — that is if there is a significant difference in say, time, place or interpretation.  If Banville brought Marlowe into 21^st Century L.A., that might be something.  Or maybe bring Sherlock Holmes into the present.  Oh, the BBC did it and a mighty fine job as well.  And now we have it on an American network TV, coming soon to a TV set near you.

*In the case of a dead writer, the estate may grant or withhold permission.  If the writer's work is in the public domain (quite likely Sherlock Holmes for example, though there is some debate), one may pillage Doyle's characters.

Opinion — Feeding the Franchise: Co-Authors, Pen Names and Ghost Writers

We have a famous thriller writer who is putting out what — five or six novels a year with the help of a team of co-authors. We have famous characters — James Bond and Mike Hammer — who, like immortal energizer bunnies, just keep popping up though their original creators are dead. And Spencer is about to join the club. We’ve got writers who have a literary reputation to uphold so they change their names in order to write genre fiction. Gore Vidal did it as Edgar Box. The lauded John Banville is doing it as Benjamin Black. We have some writers who write so much and so often they have to have a couple of names so we don’t tire of them or because one series is so vastly different from the others that to use the same name — the real name — would confuse the public — or perhaps the publishers. Then we have someone who is famous as hell, but can’t write. But they figure if they can attach their names to perfumes and clothing lines that they had nothing to do with, why not put their high Q-rated names on the covers of books they didn’t write?

Then there’s Castle. Heat Wave, the book on the store shelves, is written by a fictional character on TV. Not a ghostwriter, but a fictional character. Even on Amazon, the writer is described as Richard Castle and there is a picture of the actor who plays Richard Castle posing as Richard Castle, when he obviously isn’t Richard Castle even if there were a Richard Castle. The book is published by Hyperion (a publishing house owned by Disney). The TV show appears on ABC (owned by Disney). Both the book and the TV show take place in New York City (possibly owned by Disney). The saving grace here is that there is a kind of tongue-in-cheek humor in the show as well as in the pretend-deceitful promotion of the book. Everyone is laughing and some are laughing all the way to the bank. Ah, the conceit of it all! But talk about branding, franchises and cross promotion! This has to be some new high or low.

Franchises, celebrity, and brand names — that’s the name of the game. If Sarah Palin wanted to write a mystery — say How’s that Bullet Working for Ya? — someone would write it for her and it would be published. And it’s doubtful a ghost writer would get any credit. The stamp of fame on unrelated products isn’t entirely new, I confess. Some have said that Elliot Roosevelt, son of Franklin Delano was the most prolific dead author who ever lived or died or something. Books kept coming out, long after his demise. Another presidential offspring, Margaret Truman, daughter of Harry, did the same, another Truman following another Roosevelt. The question is, did any of his or her semi-famous fingers ever touch a typewriter key? Not only are there questions whether Roosevelt and Truman actually wrote their books — they might have — but they continued writing them long after they shuffled off their mortal coils.

Popular TV celebrity Steve Allen was a gifted writer, but his ghostwritten mystery series (Die Laughing and Talk Show Murders among them), featured himself and his wife Jayne Meadows as protagonists in a series of books gladly autographed at bookstores. Did he accept congratulations without disclosing the actual author? I don’t know. Did Gypsy Rose Lee write the G-String Murders? Doesn’t seem so. But no one exposed her. Pun intended.

What about Spenser, Bond and Hammer and their hyperactive afterlives? Are there any ethical guidelines being trammeled? What do readers have a right to know or expect, if anything? Personally, I would shy away from a James Bond written by anyone but Fleming; but there is no wrong doing here. If the real author’s name is on the book cover or there is some other form of genuine, upfront disclosure, then what’s the problem? James Patterson has been open about the factory nature of his book writing and provides at least “co-author” credit on the cover of his co-created books, which is more than Andy Warhol and Michelangelo* did. To me it’s a bit like vegetarian hamburger. Nothing wrong with tofu. Yet, there has been no deception. And there are indications that the new Bonds and Hammers are really good and will make millions of readers happy by keeping the spirit and beloved characters alive. It is also clear, in the case of Spillane, that the writer who extended Mike Hammer beyond his creator’s grave had a collaborative relationship with Spillane and may well be doing it with the tough guy’s blessing.

Further, if famous “literary” novelists use a nom de plume for their mystery books, good for them. If a professional writer uses more than one name, why not? They, like the literary novelists operating on the down low, are showing a willingness to re-enter the marketplace as an unknown and compete with the others on a level playing field. If a writer can hit the bestseller lists using two different names, that’s quite an accomplishment — though often a subtle, well-timed leak can help with the promotion.

The only deception or misdirection that I really can’t abide are the celebrities who put their names on something they had nothing to do with and that has nothing to do with the fame they’ve achieved. In a way, it’s a form of bullying, or thievery — at least fraud. But then, there are some interesting possibilities. How about a dark and bloody murder novel by Justin Bieber, secretly written by Ken Bruen or George Pelecanos? That would cross some line, wouldn’t it?

*How’s that for name-dropping — Michelangelo in bold face?