Tag: Roger Moore

The Persuaders! – Classic Action/Adventure TV

In my earlier article, The Invaders – Classic Sci-fi TV, I made the comment that its opening title sequence was unarguably the most atmospheric for any TV show ever made. The way it ominously leads you into the premise of the show and the protagonist’s situation is, to my mind, quite simply perfect. The eerie music, the heavy, monotonous tones of the narrator bringing you up to speed with how the nightmare began for architect David Vincent is a touch of genius and has never been bettered. However, there is another show with an opening title sequence that works in much the same way and, in my opinion, is just as evocative. I’m talking, of course, about The Persuaders! which, with its blend of glamour, action and humour, really was and still is, a thoroughly watchable romp.

Again, the opening titles, this time accompanied by John Barry’s superb theme tune (Did this man write some great music or what?), are pure class and do a great job of informing us what the show is about. Using a split-screen layout they reveal the backgrounds of the two main characters of the show played by Roger Moore and Tony Curtis. Side-by-side, a pair of folders, one red and one blue, labelled Danny Wilde and Brett Sinclair narrates their lives via photographs and old film of the two men from childhood through to their current status as international playboys. Live footage and torn newspaper clippings offer glimpses into their lifestyles and explain, in part, their various successes and then the sequence culminates in showing the two men enjoying a life of glitz and glamour in exotic locations surrounded by beautiful women, fast cars, diamonds and Champagne.

The premise of the show is straightforward and fairly typical of television at the time which for the best part of a decade had been churning out one action adventure series after another. Two men from very different backgrounds are brought together by a retired judge and persuaded to team up and solve cases which the courts cannot. Danny Wilde (Curtis) hails from the slums of New York City, a streetwise urchin made good. He escaped a tough neighbourhood and a probable life of crime by enlisting in the U.S Navy and later became a millionaire several times over via Wall Street and the oil business. Brett Sinclair (Moore) was born with the proverbial silver spoon in his mouth. An English aristocrat – the 15th Earl of Marnock to be precise – he attended Harrow and Oxford before serving as an officer in a Guards Brigade, then became a Grand Prix racer and race horse owner. The two characters could not have come from different backgrounds and much of the humour of the show plays on this fact as well as the general differences between British and American customs. The two actors’ playful banter and adolescent attempts at oneupmanship are what help make this show so great.

Laurence Naismith plays Judge Fulton, the man who brings this mismatched pair together. Despite being retired from the Bar, he is determined to continue his personal crusade for justice but needs someone to do his legwork for him. So, he arranges for the two men to meet on the French Riviera and coerces them into helping him. Having studied them and deeming them ideal for his purposes, he presents them with an offer they can’t refuse – to be of use to society and to do good for mankind rather than to waste away their lives in Martini hazes and all night parties. Naturally they elect to help him (particularly when they learn a beautiful woman is involved) and voila, a sparkling new crime fighting duo is born!

Each episode is an adventure in itself, sometimes set in a glamorous European locale but more often based out of Sinclair’s London home (just around the corner from St. James’s Park tube, if you’re interested). By today’s standards, the stories are rather simplistic but they always look terrific and are great fun to watch. The show also has certain signatures. There are always pretty women, there are always punch-ups and there is always humour even when the heroes are at gunpoint – fortunately both actors had wonderful comic timing. And then, there are the cars they drove – a handsome Aston Martin DBS for Sinclair and a gorgeous Ferrari Dino 246 GT for Wilde. A testament to the cachet the show was expected to carry was that both cars were given to the show’s producers courtesy of the manufacturers. I mean, come on, what’s not to like. This show had it all, it had to be a success. Right?

The series was released in the autumn of 1971 and was a big hit pretty much everywhere except the US, which was a vital market for the show’s producers. American audiences however, were not persuaded to switch over from Mission: Impossible, which aired on an opposing channel on Saturday nights and because of this, the ABC network pulled the plug even before all 24 episodes were shown. This resulted in the show not being commissioned for a second season.

Despite some speculation about the working relationship between Moore and Curtis, you cannot help but surmise that they had an absolute blast making this series. Both men appear to be in their element throughout and for me, their on-set chemistry was simply wonderful. Roger Moore was directly involved in the production of the series and already had a good relationship with Robert S. Baker and Lew Grade, having achieved great success in another ITC production, The Saint. Apparently, the three of them sealed the deal of this new series with a simple handshake and no contracts were signed. Curtis was actually Moore’s third choice for the role of Danny Wilde after Rock Hudson and Glenn Ford passed on the offer – luckily for us. At the time, The Persuaders! was the most expensive British TV show produced with each episode costing on average £100,000 (that’s almost £2,000,000 in today’s money) but with the locations and the general high quality of filming, it’s no surprise as few television shows offer quite the spectacle of The Persuaders!

Both stars were of similar age during filming although, where Curtis had enjoyed great success in Hollywood throughout the 1950s and ’60s his star was waning. His work would become less significant and he appeared often as a special guest star on series and movies made for TV but Moore’s stardom was about to go supernova with his donning of James Bond’s tuxedo in 1973. Moore has often said that prior to the filming of Live and Let Die, the Bond producers asked him to cut his hair and to lose some weight and seeing how trim he appears in his first Bond outing compared to his appearance in The Persuaders!, it’s obvious he succumbed to their request. He reportedly gained 20lbs over the course of filming The Persuaders! and he attributes this to the use of real Champagne during filming. And I for one, quite believe it.

So, if you’ve never caught this show, I recommend you give it a try. To witness these two great charismatic stars having an absolute hoot together is a wonderful thing to behold and one that we may never see again. Yes, I’m aware of the rumours of a movie remake, but in all honesty, will a Starsky and Hutch style remake ever live up to the twenty four classic hour-long episodes? I think not.

 

The Best Bond?

In his new book entitled Bond On Bond, Sir Roger Moore says that not only is Daniel Craig the best actor to play the world’s greatest fictional spy but that he also has the best build of any Bond to boot. Is he right? Is he wrong? Does it matter? Do we care? We are talking about an actor and an imaginary character after all and the nights will continue to draw in and our taxes won’t change depending on our verdict.

Of course, there is no real answer to the question because, like a ‘best’ meal or a ‘best’ holiday destination, everyone has a favourite based on their own individual tastes. One person’s Lobster Thermidore will be another’s cheeseburger and curly fries. Paradise for some would be relaxing on an island in the Indian Ocean while for others it would be trekking across the American northwest. It’s all relative you see. Likewise, can it truly be said that John Wayne’s portrayal of Rooster Cogburn in True Grit was better than that of Richard Burton’s King Henry VIII in Anne of the Thousand Days? Wayne did win the Academy Award that year, after all. Or was it simply two great artists doing what they do extremely well but being pointlessly compared to one another in a competition where only one can triumph?

Surely then, this is the same pointless comparison for the six actors who have so far played Bond. Each one different, each one bringing something new to the role, each one interpreting the role in their own way from their own prospective. While it’s true that some of the films are better than others, generally a result of a more rounded script, can the better films be accredited solely to the actor in the lead role? Probably not. On Her Majesty’s Secret Service is one of the strongest stories in Fleming’s series of novels but was made with a relatively inexperienced actor in the lead role and a fast-paced editing style, making for a slightly wooden Bond and a different looking movie overall. But in spite of this, with a script that leaned more towards plot than full on action while keeping remarkably true to the original story, it remains one of the more intelligent films in the franchise and a firm favourite with fans.

For me, Connery defined the role. He was tall, dark and brutally handsome. His Bond oozed masculinity, had an intrepid sense of fun and an over-stimulated libido, things that quickly became trademarks of the character. Under Cambridge alumnus Terence Young’s direction, Connery was able to portray a man who had had a university education at, among others, Eton (albeit cut short by unruly behaviour) as well as having enjoyed European adventures during his formative years. Connery’s Bond was well educated, had a certain continental exuberance and a graceful British refinement. His wardrobe was simple yet stylish, tailored perfectly to his athletic physique with an elegance no subsequent Bond has managed yet. Certainly Brosnan and Craig are well-decked out in their expensive tuxedos and assorted outfits but by comparison they are starched and look over-dressed. A case perhaps of the wardrobe department trying too hard.

There was a glamour that surrounded the character in those early ’60s films, something exotic that is no longer there. Remember, this was a time when a large majority of us had probably never been abroad (save for those servicemen and women who were stationed overseas during and after WWII) and so Jamaica, Turkey, etc would have been incredibly exciting locales to cinema-goers. Today, a much greater number of us have travelled abroad, experienced far-flung destinations like those places visited by 007 and consequently a part of the mystique of this man’s world has been removed. The same could be said of the exotic car associated with the character as well because the chances of seeing a DB5 (of which just over a thousand were built) around in the mid ’60s was much lower than catching sight of a Vanquish today. Indeed, I’ve no doubt a huge proportion of the younger (and not so younger) generation have probably even driven a Vanquish, if only via a PlayStation console. The mystery, the intrigue of the world that this most secret of men inhabits is all but gone.

The majority of us would likely admit to preferring the James Bond actor that we grew up watching. It’s that age when our minds are most fertile and impressionable and nostalgia often affects a strong influence too. Roger Moore was Bond when I grew up and as much as I enjoyed his 007 (The Spy Who Loved Me being my personal favourite of his) he never threatened to replace Connery’s face in my mind as I re-read Fleming’s novels. I loved Moore’s acting though, it was glib and humorous and highly entertaining (as it was in all he did save perhaps The Man Who Haunted Himself, which I recommend anyone to see) but his Bond didn’t seem as dangerous as Connery’s, or as real. And suddenly we get to the heart of the matter. Realism. Sure, the novels are fiction, we all know that, but they were written by a man who worked for British Naval Intelligence, a man who experienced the world of espionage and managed to translate that experience onto the pages of his novels via his writing style.  And those first two movies, Dr No and From Russia With Love, were respectfully true to the writing, hence, they retained a certain realism. Particularly From Russia With Love, which involves a somewhat low key plot that concerns the acquisition of a decoding machine and the revenge assassination of Bond. Simple stuff by today’s standards but no less entertaining and thrilling for it. As for action, the fight between Bond and Grant in the train compartment is surely one of the best choreographed punch-ups in movie history. Connery and Shaw really do struggle with each other as they smash into the wooden doors and wardrobes. And they make it look so real. By contrast, today’s Bond seems to bulldoze his way over his enemies like a Terminator, showing no emotion and barely any effort as he leaves broken necks in his wake. The editing and pace of modern movies is such that a choreographed fight is less of a scene and more of a splicing together of lots of different moves.

Something else that came to define Bond’s screen character (if not his literary one) was the dry wit, the humour, the witty one-liners. Connery started it, Moore expanded it, Dalton removed it, Brosnan resurrected it and now, Craig has totally overlooked it. But wait a minute, isn’t this humour an integral part of 007’s screen persona? Take that away and you removed a part of the man. We have come to expect Bond to deliver some daft tongue-in-cheek remark after despatching a bad guy from a rooftop. However, let’s not assume that these witticisms are easy to deliver, for it takes a certain ability, a certain (dare I say it) X-factor that an actor either has or doesn’t have and some, perhaps even most, actors just don’t have it. Sometimes a joke can be seen a mile off and come across as simply too obvious, as it did on numerous occasions in the Brosnan films. Yes, they make you chuckle but they come across as having been carefully placed into proceedings by a scriptwriter rather than a flippant off-the-cuff remark by the character himself, something Connery and Moore did so well.

When Timothy Dalton took over the reins in 1987, he said he wanted to take 007 back to the books and the grittiness of Fleming’s writing. He did this and his portrayal was a great departure from Moore’s, which was perhaps no bad thing at the time, when the series was losing momentum but he took a step too far and made Bond dull, boring, sensible, unsexy. The story lines of his two films were not necessarily at fault but in his portrayal of Bond, he lacked that certain something that made him at once deadly and yet likeable and charming.

Like Dalton, Brosnan lacked that undefinable quality to be a great James Bond although he did at least bring the fun back to the series. But by this time the films were nothing more than globe-trotting blockbusters with little of the essence of the novels in evidence, save an Aston Martin and a dry Martini. The story lines were fantastic and the stunts totally unreal simply because the cinema-going public had grown used to all of Hollywood’s heroes escaping from enormous explosions with their shirt tails on fire while riding a high-powered motorcycle one handed through a plate glass window. Nowadays, the cinematic world is full of Jason Bournes and Frank Martins, riveting audiences to their seats with high octane action. So, is James Bond still unique among contemporary movie characters?

Casino Royale was a great film and according to polls, one of the most popular Bond films to date. Again though, do we credit the lead actor with this success or the screenplay, which was pretty darn close to the original story? Daniel Craig certainly redefined the role to fit him as an actor but if we are going to attempt a pointless comparison with the previous five actors, then I think it’s a little premature to label him the best Bond ever. For my money, he completely lacks the charm, the wit and the elegance of Fleming’s creation and as I said earlier, he tends to trample his enemies like a Terminator. He’s more of a well-dressed thug than a suave secret agent and despite his tuxedo, he exudes the qualities of a man who’d prefer a beer than a Martini. Yes, he may have set female pulses racing around the world with his emergence from the ocean in a scene precariously reminiscent of Hally Berry in her orange bikini from Die Another Day, but he’s made the character a lot less likeable and consequently, less fun to watch. The films themselves have become too big, too spectacular, too fantastic and because of this, the stunts and the story lines become ever more unbelievable. How wonderful it would be for the producers to return to Fleming’s roots and give us an intelligent espionage thriller once more instead of another saving-the-world mega blockbuster that is nothing more that a series of death-defying stunts strung together by an unbelievable story line.

So, is Sir Roger merely fanning the flames of the series after the relative disappointment of Quantum Of Solace or does he have a point? Is Daniel Craig a better actor than those who preceded him in the role and does he have the best build of any of them? Being the only one to come in under six feet, he’s certainly the shortest and stockiest but the best? Personally, I think Daniel Craig needs to lighten up a little and let us see that he’s enjoying the role of the world’s coolest secret agent before he gets anywhere near Connery’s portrayal. But that’s just my opinion. And we all have one.

Skyfall will doubtless make millions of dollars and ensure that Bond returns once more but at the end of day, the difference between today’s Bond films and the early ones will be explicated by the historians. Critics and fans alike already view Dr. No, From Russia With Love and Goldfinger as ‘classic’, genre-defining moments of cinema. The rest of the titles in the series, well, however much we love them, they are less likely to garner such acclaim and will probably be spoken about in the same way as the majority of rip-roaring blockbusters that Hollywood churns out.