Posting the Goldfinger theme put me in a James Bond mood. On the audio player is the classic James Bond theme by Monty Norman (disputed by John Barry), taken from the same LP mentioned previously. For me this just edges out Henry Mancini’s famous theme for Peter Gunn.
[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/MAR07/JamesBond.mp3]
The most adult and, I think, best James Bond movie is From Russia With Love. Some of the credit for that goes to the presence of the stunning Daniela Bianchi, who was only 20 when the movie was filmed.
Bianchi’s English wasn’t the best, so her voice was dubbed by the English stage actress Barbara Jefford. But no matter. Over 30 years before that, Hitchcock had Joan Barry dub the voice of German actress Anny Ondra, for Blackmail, the first talkie in England.
The From Russia With Love theme song was sung by Matt Monro. A couple of years later they probably would have given this track to Andy Williams to record.
[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/MAR07/FromRussia.mp3]When the movie Thunderball was being released, the Aston-Martin DB5 that had been been introduced in Goldfinger made an appearance at the Caldor in Norwalk CT. Caldor, a defunct discount chain store, was headquartered in Norwalk. I’m not much of a car person, but that is one beautiful piece of machinery, and I made my father take me back for a second viewing.
Here’s another often-heard Bond piece of music. It’s called simply “007”.
[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/MAR07/007.mp3]
Yeah, Tom likes “Peter Gunn” better. Don’t forget that Mancini wrote the theme to the TV version of “Mr. Lucky,” which lasted a whole four episodes on TV!
I also remember seeing the car at Caldor. My immediate reaction was” It’s not shiny!” As I recall, we were there for one of the “ejection seat” demos. It was unbelievably crowded with rubber-neckers, too. I’m sure it didn’t take much to bribe Dad into taking you back; he loves this kind of stuff!
Request! Tom wants one of the best of those sleazy, campy 007 opening credit scenes blogged. You know, the ones with the er “lightly” dressed girls in silhouette? You get to choose! As I recall, ANY of the Bonds with Sean Connery had good introductory sequences, as did the early Roger Moores.