* BONDLIST: Film & Fleming Treasures *

[Matt Sherman]

WOW: We did it! CIAO, OO7! was a romp through dozens of Bond film and book locations with bonus locations from U.N.C.L.E., Mission Impossible, John Wick and more. More than 30 fans toured scenic overlooks and historic sites with us, too. CIAO, OO7 was a "typical BondFanEvent" with great food and drink, great people, and unprecedented access to locations that are closed to the general public! Janine Sherman and I share our sincere THANK YOU for all of our patient and fan-friendly attendees, and to our guest guides, Richard in Rome, Shana, Mihai and Claudia in Siena, and Station B's "Agent S Samuele" and Professore Merlo in Venice. Thanks also to Jeff Marshall for a beautiful event poster!

What's next for BondFanEvents? Egypt? Montenegro? New Orleans? Watch this space for updates, and while we wait, take a look at our ROMAN HOLIDAY inside CIAO, OO7. We visited over a dozen gorgeous historic sites in Rome and superb locations from SPECTRE, DEVIL MAY CARE, RISICO and more at http://www.bondfanevents.com/httphotos/BFE_20Rome_20_282025_20Tour_29/index.html. You can also learn more about Richard Bagnold's events at https://richardbagnold.com/live-%26-let-dine. Richard specialises in bespoke experiences in London of a premium nature and will be happy to provide a free consultation. Day experiences start at £2,000.

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BIG BOND AUCTION: BONDLIST has learned that Sotheby's BOOKS, MANUSCRIPTS & MUSIC, their biannual key print auction on December 11, will feature one of the best Bond book collections of recent decades! These books include everything from exceptionally rare first editions to paperbacks, biographies and ephemera, most of them with great literary and/or actor and film production signatures, making for a wide range from affordable to high-end collectibles. And Sotheby's told BONDLIST that some of the Fleming titles will be featured soon in media releases and on display live at their London headquarters, home to us as fans for OCTOPUSSY and THE PROPERTY OF A LADY. This will be a "Legends Of Bond Sale" so watch this space and https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2025/books-manuscripts-music-l25401?locale=en.

NEW AND NOTEWORTHY: New collectibles are being issued, much-updated and more accurate replica casino plaques from FOR YOUR EYES ONLY and THUNDERBALL, available exclusively to BONDLIST members!  Only two known genuine plaques survive in collectors' hands from the casino that lent them to the production of THUNDERBALL, so how does owning a set or more of all four different colored on-screen replicas sound?! Likewise, the FOR YOUR EYES ONLY genuine plaques are almost equally rare, so these updated FYEO replicas will make fine additions to your collection. Write BONDLIST if you are interested in placing an order.

. . . And we also have some genuine LICENCE TO KILL casino chips for you, the same exact chips used also by EON Productions on screen for GOLDENEYE!

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SELLING FOR PREMIUM? Like some collectors, after my buying addiction, I found myself addicted to trading and selling. To date, I've handled over one million dollars ("you were wondering what it cost") worth of sales collectibles--and I'm ready to help you get top dollar for your items! Janine and I have helped famous and historic collectors, actors, authors and film technicians sell and auction their Bond and other items. Write soon.

NEVER SAY NEVER: I heartily recommend THE NOVEL AND THE DEEP BLUE SEA: THE STORY BEHIND NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN. This book was published with attractive and rare images and gives a superb overview of the THUNDERBALL/OCTOPUSSY/NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN history and battles, with unbiased perspectives shared from both sides of the fight. Author Bryan Tyrrell is "one of us", a devout Bond fan, and he did a superb job with this book, citing Ian Fleming's Thunderball and links to other productions for context--TNATD BLUE SEA reads fast and smooth, like a Bond thriller: https://www.amazon.co.uk/NOVEL-DEEP-BLUE-SEA-behind/dp/183654751X.

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CONGRATULATIONS: Congrats to BONDLIST'er Dr. Oliver Buckton on the issuing of his Ian Fleming biography, THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH, in a paperback edition. Don't miss this one! https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/world-is-not-enough-9798881806293

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SPY-FI WITH OUR LITTLE EYE: BONDLIST'er Danny Biederman held another marvelous SPY-FI EXHIBIT (absolutely unique Bond and spy collectibles) at the big Pacific Symphony gala. You can see photos from Danny's world-class collection, and read the story, at https://we.tl/t-QjRsJv59pM or https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=25259694376952993&set=pcb.25259774746944956.

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FEAR AMAZON? Never! In one sentence, "The new Bond director and screenwriter both claim to be fans since watching DR. NO in theatres, and they've done a great job with the PEAKY BLINDERS and DUNE franchises." . . . So expect some greatness from the new Bond film!

Speaking of Amazon, congratulations to BONDLIST'er Dr. John Flynn on his newest book, THE FANBOY'S GUIDE TO SCI-FI MOVIES, a compendium of over 700 science fiction features spanning more than 120 years of movie history. And which films can you recognize from the book cover image above? Amazon has a handful of John's other new books, too, including: LIGHTSTORM: THE FILMS OF JAMES CAMERON, updated versions of DISSECTING ALIENS and 100 YEARS OF UNIVERSAL MONSTERS, his latest Kate Dawson Bond-styled thriller CHINA WHITE-BLACK DEATH and THE FRANKENSTEIN MYTHOS: https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B001K8Z3AI/allbooks?ingress=0&visitId=316d6a33-b129-41bd-9568-0459b656d6bb&ref_=ap_rdr&ccs_id=1bc905dd-909c-462a-b2f9-33bae9683d8c.

GUEST ARTICLE: Greg Van Cott takes us on a cultural Bond tour and helps us think through Bond music and Bond rip-offs and collaborations:

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How do you think through, how do you listen through, the music of Bond? And does anyone really think or talk enough about the film vocals that aren’t title tracks?

For example, “We Have All the Time in the World”, absolutely the non-title song most in our zeitgeist, and of course, also Louis Armstrong’s final and John Barry’s favorite recording. It’s a beautiful montage song in the film, in the vein of Burt Bacharach for BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID (1969). Yes, the same Bacharach who gave the world his magnificent “The Look of Love” for CASINO ROYALE ‘67. (Fun side note, one of the BondFanEvents tours visited a SUNDANCE KID location around touring OCTOPUSSY locations.) Or for another doozer, as early as ‘72, George Martin was rearranging the title for LIVE AND LET DIE for B.J. Arnau as a smokin’ nightclub number.

Yet, I’m not merely musing over songs that evoke character reactions in Bond films. Even the background music can be compelling! Think of the many bands on a phonograph or even a CD, like the one playing distantly in Madeleine Swann’s childhood home in Norway. So it is that we have “Underneath the Mango Tree” three times in DR. NO, not just as Honey’s (Niki van der Zyl’s) and Connery’s voices, but as a bartender singing a cappella and as vinyl spinning while Bond works to thwart Professor Dent with three (used) pillows.

Another notable is perhaps the bluest song of the bunch, heard at Hector Gonzales’ pool orgy, “Make It Last All Night” by Rage, a song even more blatant than Don Black’s sexy lyrics for THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN. It’s hilarious! Hide the kids before you read aloud, “If you come to late—UH! You’ll have to wait—to get that good sensation!” It works as we wipe away the sleaze we feel from Gonzalez and crew, and their ladies, just as in the original Fleming story.

Other tunes demand a closer analysis, like the contributions of The Pretenders to THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS (“They want the kingdom but they don't want the king, they want his throne . . . ”) and the end credits songs of the awesome decade from DAYLIGHTS through TOMORROW NEVER DIES. These we often hear debated by fans, and they also ask why we had to wait again until NO TIME TO DIE to get another end credits with “Time in the World” on reprise.

Put differently, “Where Has Everybody (Every Title Song) Gone?” This example, WHEG, becomes a murder spree accompaniment for Necros as he gets “pumped to kill”. This repetitive song is deliberately so, as Necros goes to stomping mode, with blaring brass and smashing piano, evolving into nearly a brazenly classical rock song. (Trapped between musical worlds of jazz and rock, like Barry for Bond.) Music to our ears, but for jazz greats’ ears, dirty, slinky guitar music.

So when our good friend, Matt Sherman, asked me to write up these “wrong songs” I thought of some fodder for discussion . . . how do you feel about the very French song in NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN’s massage parlor, “Un Chanson D’Amour”, which would have been regarded as a fabulous song except for its unlikely film placement? Or how about the French action Mrs. White is blurry to, as she drinks to excess and ignores her child, in NO TIME TO DIE, “Dans la ville endormie” by Dalida?

And what do readers think about Bond meta-jokes like “California Girls” as covered by Gidea Park in A VIEW TO A KILL or Silva’s single and double booms, “Boum!” and “Boom Boom” in SKYFALL—two “boomer” songs describing protests and shooting people, and in this case, his own “mother”, M . . . or is it Emma?

Lots to converse about, so let me buy you a drink (or Matt and Janine can buy us both one!) perhaps atop Skyfall lounge in Vegas as at their VIVA VEGAS, MR BOND fan event, or perhaps at Rome’s Grand Hotel as in CIAO, OO7!, at their next BondFanEvent. --Greg Van Cott

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And if you would like a bonus with this BONDLIST at no extra charge, you will enjoy learning about this odd curiosity, CONTROL, a music video by the controversial Traci Lords. In 1995, she produced a music video with her frequent collaborator, director John Waters (CRY BABY), that somehow legally used the James Bond Gun Barrel! Any fan would presume they received permission from EON Productions to use a trademark under the Broccoli/Saltzman front company's ownership, Danjaq (named after the producers' wives' nicknames).

But there is no record as to how the gun barrel was used, for example, Wikipedia's entry is as vague as the front page of a secret service dossier. The end result, however was purposeful, a loving Bond tribute to encourage fans about Bond's return to pop culture with GOLDENEYE in 1995. And the Mountain Dew commercial of 1996 (below) took a similar approach: Get people excited by Bond without any official film or book connection.

So without a GoldenEye, Pierce Brosnan or anything but the Bond hook, CONTROL is still full of James Bond iconography from Traci playing Jill Masterson to a slimmer Oddjob to a fun hodgepodge of 007 imagery. The song's inspiration is likely the era's BritPop (ala mid-90's era Radiohead, Pulp, Spice Girls, Natalie Imbruglia), despite Traci Lords being very American herself. You can find the curio below in extended-cut form.

Traci Lords music video, Control, 30th anniversary edition: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uHdmSEThqU

Mountain Dew (1996) commercial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZCYAqB-TE4

-- Greg Van Cott

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Best, Matt Sherman 007

Bacon 3 - Connery 1 - YM 0