| The Best of
James Bond, Agent 007
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This Series is an Aero Theatre exclusive!
The year was 1963. John F. Kennedy was President, TOM JONES was Best
Picture and "Combat" was the top action series on ABC. With little fanfare,
United Artists launched, in wide-release, a spy movie called DR. NO with an unknown
British actor in the leading role. Theater owners grumbled that it starred "that
limey truck driver" and if you had called a theater in Los Angeles that week and
asked what was playing, a manager might have mispronounced him as "Seen
Connery." They might have grumbled at the lack of star power and marquee value, but
they couldn’t argue with the box office returns which reached their pinnacle at
Christmas 1965 when THUNDERBALL brought in the type of numbers we see today for
SPIDER MAN and PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN. To honor the early classic James Bond titles in
this amazing movie series, the 21st official title of which, CASINO ROYALE has
rocked the international boxoffice and stirred talk of the early days of 007, with new
restored prints of DR. NO, FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE, THUNDERBALL, YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE and
ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE. As an added bonus, James Bond film historian
Steven Jay Rubin will host a Sean Connery/James Bond Trivia Marathon at 4:00 p.m.
Saturday, February 3rd. Screenings of the first two James Bond movies, DR. NO and FROM
RUSSIA WITH LOVE will follow at 7:30 p.m. Prizes will include DVDs and signed copies
of Rubin’s book, The Complete James Bond Movie Encylopedia. So pack your
briefcases with plenty of tear gas, load up on ammo for your Walther PPK and prepare to
spend serious time in the trenches with your fellow 007 buffs. James Bond is forever!
Thursday, February 1 – 7:30 PM
New Restored 35mm Print!
ON HER MAJESTY’S
SECRET SERVICE, 1969, MGM Repertory, 140 min. Dir. Peter Hunt. After Sean
Connery took a brief hiatus from the role of Bond, producers Albert Broccoli and Harry
Saltzman turned to former male model George Lazenby to play Ian Fleming’s
superspy - and wound up with one of the most satisfying (and underrated) of the
1960’s Bonds. Lovely Diana Rigg (who Bond actually falls in love with and
marries before the last reel unspools!) proves more than Bond’s match as the two team
up to topple scar-faced Ernst Blofeld (Telly Savalas) in the Swiss Alps. Scripted
by 007 veteran Richard Maibaum (DR. NO, GOLDFINGER), and shot by Michael Reed (DRACULA
PRINCE OF DARKNESS). None of the filmmakers took Bond this seriously again until the
latest (and one of the best) installments, 2006’s CASINO ROYALE.
Friday, February 2 – 7:30 PM
New Restored 35mm Print!
THUNDERBALL, 1965, MGM Repertory, 130
min. Dir. Terence Young. We have to admit this is one of our favorite Bonds, with
three of the most dynamic "Bond women" ever: Claudine Auger as Domino,
compromised heroine and mistress to eye-patch-wearing villain, Emilio Largo (Adolfo
Celi); fiery Luciana Paluzzi as Fiona Volpe, an extremely lethal femme fatale;
and Martine Beswick as Paula, Bond’s assistant. Bond gets his therapeutic rest
cure cut short when a British bomber with two A-bombs aboard is hijacked by SPECTRE and
secreted below the waters of the Caribbean. Winner of the Oscar for Best Special Effects
(John Stears).
YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE, 1967,
MGM Repertory, 117 min. Director Lewis Gilbert directs the fifth movie with Sean
Connery as 007 before he took a one film breather (skipping ON HER MAJESTY’S
SECRET SERVICE, only to return for DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER). This was the first Bond effort
to depart significantly from an Ian Fleming source novel. The book had been on a
relatively small scale with Bond subjected to master villain, Ernst Blofeld’s garden
of horrors in Japan (with Fleming giving ample evidence he had read Octave Mirbeau’s
poetic masterpice of cruelty, Torture Garden.) The filmmakers reduced this garden
to an afterthought in passing here. Instead, to fit the grand scale of cinematic
brinkmanship the producers felt the public expected, a plot of SPECTRE kidnapping America
and the Soviet Union’s space capsules while in orbit, all to foment WWIII, had been
grafted on. To give 007 a headstart on the opposition, Bond’s death is faked.
He’s then sent to Japan to track down SPECTRE’s missile silo and liaison with
Japanese secret service honcho, Tetsuro Tanba and operatives Mie Hama and
Akiko Wakabayashi (two of Toho Studios’ then most charsimatic contract
actresses). Karin Dor, veteran of numerous German-lensed krimis pictures
also appears as a villaness. To cap things off, the great Donald Pleasence is
Blofeld. With a script by Roald Dahl and Ken Adam’s most sleekly spectacular
production design ever.
Saturday, February 3 – 4:00 PM
Steve Rubin, James Bond Specialist will lead a FREE 3-hour James
Bond trivia game starting at 4:00 PM, with many prizes.
SECURE YOUR SPOT AS A CHAMPION OF
CLASSIC JAMES BOND MOVIE HISTORY
Remember when 007 movies had amazingly quotable dialogue and the
films were packed with amazingly proportioned women, cool gadgets and the king of secret
agent coolness himself, Sean Connery. Well if you remember your facts, you should enter
the Classic James Bond Trivia Marathon on Saturday afternoon February 3rd at 4:00 p.m. at
the Aero Theater in Santa Monica. A team of seven examiners, led by author Steven Jay
Rubin (The Complete James Bond Movie Encyclopedia) will be quizzing you on the
seven films in the series that starred Sean Connery. Arriving contestants will each be
assigned a number and questions will be asked in a spelling bee format. In other words, if
contestant #1 answers the first question, the next question goes to contestant #2. If
contestant #1 misses the question, then contestant #2 gets the same question. The
tournament is "triple elimination" which means you can miss two questions and
still be alive. However, if you miss your third question, you're given the same fate as a
Spectre henchmen - you're out! The top five survivors will all receive cool prizes and the
champion will receive, among other things, the status of Classic 007 Champion and a signed
copy of Rubin's 007 compendium. After the tournament, we get to stay and watch two of the
best Bonds - "Dr. No" and "From Russia With Love." The James Bond
Trivia Marathon competition first took place in 1981. The 1983 tournament was publicized
on the old Johnny Carson Show where Carson actually asked Sean Connery some of the trivia
questions. In fact, to answer the question as to which film featured the singing voice of
Sean Connery, Connery, himself, warbled a few bars from "Underneath the Mango
Tree." Quite the show stopper.
Saturday, February 3 – 7:30 PM
Double Feature:
New Restored 35mm Print!
DOCTOR NO, 1962, MGM Repertory, 111
min. Dir. Terence Young. Now almost taken for granted, this initial adaptation of
Ian Fleming’s spy novels was a subversive breath of fresh air, depicting for the
first time a secret agent who was an unapologetically suave, promiscuous - not to mention
homicidal -- hero. Sean Connery proved amazingly popular as the ultimate sexy
beast, James Bond, ushering in the entire 1960’s spy film craze. One of the best of
the Bond films, with its Caribbean locale, Ursula Andress’s sensual presence
and Joseph Wiseman’s malevolent, metal-handed arch-villain.
New Restored 35mm Print!
FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE, 1963,
MGM Repertory, 118 min. Dir. Terence Young. Sean Connery’s second 007
outing more than lives up to expectations with Bond scouring exotic Istanbul for an
elusive Lektor decoding machine. He’s helped by sly Pedro Armendariz and
seductive Russian spy, Daniella Bianchi, as well as hunted by Aryan super killer
Robert Shaw and sinister, butch Lotte Lenya as stiletto-toed Rosa Kleb. The
nerve-shredding fistfight between Connery and Shaw aboard the Orient Express is one of the
all-time greatest ever committed to pre-1970’s celluloid and is not to be missed. |
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