Conceptual prints now available from Sylvan Whittingham-Mason, daughter of marvelous screenwritter Jack Whittingham. These represent the first artwork ever for a James Bond film.

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As I watched The Italian Job the other night (the remake; we watched the original last week), I was struck by how much it owes to James Bond.

It’s based on a 1960s action movie, just as modern Bond movies are based on a 1960s-originating franchise. Michael Caine (the star of the original) is a friend of Connery’s, they contemporaneously starred in ’60s spy movies (Caine was Harry Palmer, Connery was Bond), and co-starred in one of the greatest adventure movies of all time (The Man Who Would Be King).

In the Italian Job remake, the Venice boat chase, and later the car chase, are replete with images and clichés we know from Bond movies. The travelogue feel is very Bond. And, it turns out, the original script was written by Purvis & Wade (although it was later rewritten by Donna & Wayne Powers).

It’s a good movie, and Bond fans will enjoy it. If you haven’t seen it yet (I’m a Netflix hound, and see more at home than in the theaters; I think most people are that way these days), I recommend it.

Has Bond become a Mary Sue, Canon Sue or a Gary Stu or has CR/QOS redeemed the movie character? Has Devil May Care weakened or strengthed him?

You decide: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Sue#Canon-Sue_.28in_fan_fiction.29

In May, we learned that pre-production had begun on the next Bond movie. Now Variety tells us that the scriptwriting team is in place, with a tentative 2011 release.

Producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli of EON Productions and MGM are moving forward on the next 007 installment, hiring “Frost/Nixon” scribe Peter Morgan, Neal Purvis and Robert Wade to write the script for the 23rd James Bond film.

Purvis and Wade most recently worked on “Quantum of Solace” and “Casino Royale.”

Daniel Craig is already set to reprise his role as 007, and Wilson and Broccoli are producing. No start date has yet been set, but sources said EON and MGM are eyeing a 2011 release.

I was so struck by this one scene in Quantum of Solace, near the end. Bond and Camille are about to go into the Big Explosive Hotel of Death; they’re crouched behind some big rocks, and Camille is preparing to kill the man who murdered her parents.

If you’ve read Ian Fleming, this scene should remind you of the original short story For Your Eyes Only. Towards the end, Bond and Judy Havelock crouch in the woods as Judy prepares to kill the man who murdered her parents.

But here’s the difference: In the story, Bond does everything he can to try to stop her. Revenge is a man’s business. She doesn’t know what she’s getting into. And in the movie For Your Eyes Only, that theme still applies as Bond tells Melina Havelock the Chinese saying about digging two graves.

But in QOS, Bond respects Camille’s decision, and actually treats her like an adult. It’s genuinely feminist, in the sense of genuinely respecting a woman’s choice as equal to a man’s. Instead of telling her she’s not prepared for the consequences, he prepares her.

It’s maybe my favorite moment in the movie; the respect, the sorrow, the shared acknowledgement between them that this will be painful and perhaps unsatisfying, but it’s what she feels she must do and it’s her own business to make that decision.

With Carl Davis conducting and Mary Carewe as featured soprano as on this CD, Bond tunes took off in Jacksonville, Florida this weekend.

Carl Davis, Does It, Bigger

Davis has lent a hand on orchestration of the symphonic works of Paul McCartney (Live and Let Die) and composed other film scores, but has great affection for Bond’s tunes and Nic Raine’s orchestrations of them in concert.

I took time at the concert for a dinner cruise hosted by Jacoby Symphony Hall director Bill Cosnotti. Bill was an affable host and straight off, introduced me to Richard Karcher, whose fabulous posters adorned this gala event.

Original, Mint Oversized Thunderball

It’s been a few since I had cruised with a boat full of Bond fans. The Jacksonville Princess II was chock full of aficionados, and “the wine was quite excellent” even with clarets… servers tended bar and circulated coconut shrimp and crab cakes (”Crab cakes scare me plenty. Friend of mine went up to Dr. No’s for seafood, only trouble was, he never came back…”) before we adjourned one deck below for prime rib and grilled chicken, greens, and a dessert bar filled with eclairs, cream cake and strawberry cake and more.

A pod of dolphins joined the boat on both sides as we cruised through the heart of the City. Tall ships were in town for a festival, so our ship docked before a water taxi brought us to Jacksonville Landing for the show.

The audience lent the orchestra multiple standing ovations following a robust 2-hour performance (1st Act, classic Bond-John Barry melodies; 2nd Act, ripping modern Bond tunes) and Davis & Co. treated everyone to two encores–Tomorrow Never Dies’ Surrender and Another Way To Die. Carewe sparkled on these tunes and especially on Diamonds Are Forever, The Man With The Golden Gun and other riproarers. She pranced, vogued and mugged on stage while belting out the songs.

On intermission, I hosted a table of Bond wares and took questions from the public with Janine and Ben Sherman.

Bond Goodies On Display

And where else will a concert feature over a dozen songs with “kill”, “die” and “bang”, each song with at least one 15-second high note at the end? Loads of fun.

Rounding out the concert was Davis’ banter and Bond trivia between songs, and lush orchestrations from TSWLM, OHMSS, Goldfinger and more. Some said they planned to come back for the second night’s show again.

Don’t miss this series of concerts when it comes to your town–or state.

Karcher's Mr. Goldfinger

For all you thrifty types, it’s Bondian evil on a budget.

Wild but true, and will you go to this centenary party?

For two hours on May 28 you could have spent £750 on a special, limited edition of The Devil May Care, the new James Bond Novel written by Sebastian Faulks. Published by Penguin in collaboration with Bentley, Bond’s car manufacturer of choice, each book comes in a burnt oak leather case sourced from the tannery in Italy which supplies the hides for Bentley’s interiors. Purchasers also receive a 1:43 scale replica of the modified Bentley R type that featured in Thunderball and On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. (The car never actually existed but Bentley based the miniatures on Fleming’s detailed descriptions.)

Would it have been worth it? From a purely financial viewpoint the answer seems to be a resounding ‘yes’. Only sixteen days later a copy has appeared on the Abe Books website priced at $3,500 (around £1,780). In just over two weeks the book has more than doubled in value.

“Beginn-or-oh-seven Collectors” mostly own a handful of gadget assembled by some Q’s purvey of some DVDs or other gifts. They never thought to collect Mr. Bond. These chaps, and more rarely (okay, much more rarely, chapettes) come home pie-eyed from visiting an experienced collector or checking on thousands of Bond items now on eBay. Once “bitten by the bug,” as Bruce Glover stated in Diamonds Are Forever, even newbies quickly graduate to full-fledged Fleming freaks and boffo (sometimes boorish, but bold) Bond buffs.

Bondologists (I coined the term first for myself, snobbishly) have collected Bond, and themselves as collectors together in small hunting packs like the BCW’s and other events, for decades. The legends of the craft collected Bond in the days when standees weren’t kept (or recycled or repurposed for sustainability), when displays were less important than the toys they housed, and before Bond had six iterations and over 20 films.

It’s been a pleasure to know many of the legends and gawk at their goodies in person or online or both. Graham Rye in the UK, with his Blofeld’s Coat-of-Arms ripped right from the Piz Gloria wall and a monstrous trove of rare photos, magazines and uber-props; Doug Redenius, whose collection is valued at over $2 Million U.S., with 90% of the items on proud display in his Illinois home, Alan Stephenson in California, who is able to present fabulous props and prototypes from each and every film and knows as much about Bond as anyone, mega-book and Flemingiana collectors like Dave Reinhardt, Brad Frank, Steve Kulakoksi and yours truly, clothing and Bond lifestyle masters like David Zaritsky, Charles Axworthy and Greg Bechtloff, video and audio archivists like Paul Scrabo and George Ann Muller, and many, many, devoted more… to Moore, Connery and more. Even up to sheer knowledge collectors, like Dan McCruden, who is enclyopedic on the casts and crew of the movies and the Dutch collector who knows every note of every soundtrack… “ba-ba-ba… let’s see, Moonraker, track is Journey to Space Station, 35 seconds in…”

 You know you’re a fanatic when your extensive collection has occupied a bedroom, basement or attic. You know it when you wonder what you’ll do with all Her Majesty’s items when inevitably they become His Majesty’s Secret Service items.

At this level, we revel in the thrills of locating new items and obscure rarities, to boldly, and if there is enough dust on our shelves, mold-ly, go where no collector has gone yet hence. E-mails are exchanged with collector pals asking to identify finds (or begging them to not bid on auction items you know they already own). I personally have sent UJBFB-master Deb Lipp tractates on tarot cards, bothered Michael VanBlaricum to provenance Mr. Fleming’s letters, asked John Cox to make me a color facsimile of a dustjacket so rare it was on 8 books only, received a first press CD from Vic Flick, and many more.

 All of the above ultra-collectors, including I, can thrill you (bore you?) for days on end with items in the collection, where from, who from and how much, plus endless stories about the book that was lost in the flood, the toy that went for $2 more to the higher bidder, the steal or bargain that drives the fun.

 “Tell me, which lunatic asylum did they get you out of?”

 “Don’t make it tougher on yourself…”

Beyond the Bondologist lies the “extreme” or “psychotic” collector, whom we love as the line between genius and insanity, snobbery and purgatory, as exemplified by the Blofelds, Carvers and Zorins that make Bond’s life worth living, even if the world isn’t quite enough. For example, the legendary book collector who collects Signet paperbacks-one example of every printing of every Signet paperback. Imagine having 48 versions of You Only Live Twice that look identical on your shelf until you turn to the bottom of the inside title page to see “45th printing” or “23rd printing”! Imagine this man’s consternation over missing printing 13 of From Russia With Love or the 27th printing of For Your Eyes Only. Collectively, all 48 YOLT books are worth a grand total of $24 but what the hey-let’s get together and put the show on the road for Christmas with Irma Bunt.

I’ll e-mail you photos of the Dutch legend’s collection with 22 drawers labeled from Dr. No through Quantum of Solace-22 pull drawers in movie order merely to hold pounds of scrap clippings until they can be filed, labeled and stored, all with exacto knives and paste, without aid of any computer help. Or just look inside my own PC, with hundreds of albums of Bond music stored digitally, and a folder of every Bond film with photos inside-stored in movie frame sequence order-and sub-directories for each film with behind the scenes shots-and directories by film for posters as .jpgs, and-and…

But Bond is so extensive, you ought to specialize somehow, also. I know a lovely fellow whose many pristine books all bear Connery or Connery’s likeness on their cover only; a poster collector who “only has” posters-several thousand different posters and lobby displays, etc., etc.

And what separates the “boys with toys” from the men, from the boys, is the depth of their pockets, or depravity, when it comes to buying the best, trading the best, and hoarding the best. And the best of the best. And the best of the worst for fun, too. Have you seen the book with model George Lazenby on the cover in black tuxedo, four years before OHMSS was filmed? Have you read x’s notes.

More specifically, I’ve sold and traded entire sets of books to gather up scratch to buy one rare one. I’ve spent years building an assembly of dozens of Bond books specially bound with never a dustjacket used-all leather and specialty cloth bindings. I proudly own a number of one-in-the-world props and ephemera, and so on.

Newbie? Bondologist? Lunatic? Let’s get the conversation blogging here at UJBFB and share war stories (and trade collectibles).

Collectibles On Display At Museum