Bondsploitation trailers

A painting by 1960s Bond poster artist Robert McGinnis

For those who like their kitsch shaken and not stirred, here are some interesting clips and trailers from 1960s James Bond-inspired spy films.

My favourite ‘Bondsploitation’ film is Deadlier Than The Male (1967) with Richard Johnson as a suave Bond-influenced version of Bulldog Drummond. Virginia North makes a brief but impressive appearance as Brenda. The film is almost as much fun as a contemporary Connery Bond film. How could it miss with bikini-clad assassins played by Elke Sommer and Sylva Koscina?

The sequel, Some Girls Do (1969), is much less interesting.

The following trailers are courtesy of a YouTube contributor who goes by the Graham Greene-inspired moniker OurManInHavana (nearly thirty trailers are accessible here; seventy opening titles have been posted by a user called thmace). These low-budget European Bond imitators are known as ‘Eurospy’ films.

Operation Kid Brother (1967) was an attempt to cash-in on Sean Connery’s fame by casting his younger brother Neil. The producers apparently hired all the Bond regulars as well as a former Bond girl and former Bond villain. Here is the trailer, which is more exciting than the picture purportedly is:

Here is Secret Agent Super Dragon (1966):

And A Man Called Dagger (1967):

Links roundup: Numerous Eurospy Posters are available at this website. Also see the EuroSpy Forum. Dean Brierly at cinemaretro.com discusses the Dick Malloy films starring Ken Clark. Cinema Strikes Back looks at the Kommissar X series on DVD. The blog Permission to Kill “brings you the best Spy Films from around the globe”. In 2004 Matt Blake and David Deal published The Eurospy Guide (Luminary Press) to “examine the more obscure cinematic manifestations of sixties spy mania.”

The ‘Bondsploitation’ genre also encompasses American comic spoofs such as the Derek Flint movies starring James Coburn and the Matt Helm series with Dean Martin.

Austin Powers, a postmodern riff on the genre, seems to have been inspired by the imitators rather than the original Bond movies.

Here is one more Robert McGinnis painting. There is a recent documentary about his work called Robert McGinnis: Painting the Last Rose of Summer. Trailer here. The painting below seems to have been created for the Derek Flint series.

One more reason to turn vegetarian

“The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization…estimates that livestock production generates nearly a fifth of the world’s greenhouse gases – more than transportation does.”

- from ‘The staggering cost of rising world meat production’ by Mark Bittmann, six months ago in the International Herald Tribune.

Despite the Western media’s current focus on global warming, and the need to change the way people consume, few commentators have dared to challenge meat consumption. And yet it is one of the principal causes of environmental damage. The consequences are shocking:

“Global demand for meat has multiplied in recent years, encouraged by growing affluence and nourished by the proliferation of huge, confined animal feeding operations. These assembly-line meat factories consume enormous amounts of energy, pollute water supplies, generate significant greenhouse gases and require ever-increasing amounts of corn, soy and other grains, a dependency that has led to the destruction of vast swaths of the world’s tropical rain forests.”

Visit People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

Trailer for “The Boot Cake” documentary

A new documentary: http://www.thebootcake.com/