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At least Fleming didn't have Bond and Blofeld face off over a game of Soggy Biscuit.
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Jul 8, 2018 20:20
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"SPECTRE? Really, M; back in Eton, we used to line up three or four of Blofeld's sort, make 'em bend over and use 'em as a toast rack!"
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Jul 8, 2018 21:00
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Chapter 12: The Deadly Tubequote:Bond sat silent, frozen with defeat. He opened his wide black case and took out a cigarette. He snapped open the tiny jaws of the Ronson and lit the cigarette and put the lighter back on the table. He took a deep lungful of smoke and expelled it between his teeth with a faint hiss. Leiter is gone, and Bond figures he doesn't want to look at him after this embarrassment. Vesper is smiling at him, like she doesn't know what's going on. And then the huissier suddenly ducks under the railing and hands Bond a fat envelope, the flap still wet from a fresh sealing. quote:Unbelieving and yet knowing it was true, he felt the broad wads of notes. He slipped them into his pockets, retaining the half-sheet of notepaper which was pinned to the topmost of them. He glanced at it in the shadow below the table. There was one line of writing in ink: ‘Marshall Aid. Thirty-two million francs. With the compliments of the USA.’ One thing to note at this point is more than just Leiter aiding his British companion. Every time Bond looks up at Vesper and sees her smiling at him, he thinks it's because she's a dumb broad who doesn't know anything about the game and has no clue what the stakes are. But every time we've seen Vesper in the past, her actions and appearances have been the polar opposite of Bond's guesses. His initial opinion on hearing that a woman would be on the mission was to lambaste the very idea, as no woman could ever be worth more than her value as a homemaker and living sex toy to Bond! And then she immediately shows the same sort of ability to read a situation as Bond himself, communicated entirely through the text's descriptions of her face and speech. Bond assumes that Vesper is just a happy idiot, when in fact she knows full well what Leiter has done to help him. Consistently, Bond underestimates her because of her gender. quote:The croupier had completed his task of computing the cagnotte, changing Bond’s notes into plaques and making a pile of the giant stake in the middle of the table. As the 32 million-franc bank goes around the table, the chef de partie starts calling out the bank along with the croupier. A stake of this size in baccarat hasn't been reached since Deauville in 1950. Bond leans forward and takes the bet, showing the cash (equivalent to about $865,000 in modern money) to prove to the croupier that he can actually play it. quote:It was when Bond shovelled the great wad of notes out on to the table and the croupier busied himself with the task of counting the pinned sheaves of ten thousand franc notes, the largest denomination issued in France, that he caught a swift exchange of glances between Le Chiffre and the gunman standing directly behind Bond. Bond's description of the cane gun is an accurate description of a firearm suppressor with rubber baffles. The best guns in that class (like the Welrod and DeLisle, both used by the OSS and British Secret Service at this time) have a discharge quieter than that of the hammer or striker firing, which would easily be covered by the noise of the casino. quote:Bond looked across. Le Chiffre was watching him. His eyes glittered back at Bond. His mouth was open and he was breathing fast. He was waiting, waiting for Bond’s hand to gesture to the croupier, or else for Bond suddenly to slump backwards in his chair, his face grimacing with a scream. Bond takes a chance. As the count reaches seven and the chef de partie turns to ask Bond to confirm his bet, he heaves himself backwards with all his strength. Caught in the crossbar of the chair back, the cane gun is wrenched from the gunman's grip and the back of the chair splinters as he hits the ground. The huissier and chef de partie rush over, trying to avoid a scene. quote:Bond held on to the brass rail. He looked confused and embarrassed. He brushed his hands across his forehead.
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Jul 9, 2018 14:20
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I know it's been said, but this chapter just confirms how much less suave and self composed book James Bond is than movie Bond. Even beyond his misreading of Vesper and her abilities due to his sexism, his plan for recovering from his bacarrat loss is that he doesn't have a plan. His mind goes straight to self pity and self doubt. It's just luck and Leiter that give him a second chance. And then, even after he disarms the assassin, his main concern is that he looked a fool in front of Leiter. He makes sure that Leiter gets the cane gun not to keep it safe or out of the hands of Le Chiffre's men, but so that Leiter can understand the reason for Bond's "embarrassing public display".
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Jul 9, 2018 15:53
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There's an excellent blog called Literary 007 that's all about the Bond of the books, and the blog creator has often done interviews, speaking engagements, and research on the character. While reading his posts on this book, I found this one talking about the possible inspiration for Casino Royale. In this case, our "Bond" was double-agent Dusko Popov.  Popov was one of the most talented spies of World War II, a Yugoslavian Serb born to a wealthy family (his father was a lawyer) in 1912. He infiltrated the Abwehr (the Nazi military intelligence service) as a double-agent for the British, feeding the Germans small amounts of real information approved by MI6 for release to cover up his false information. His false info was one of the defining factors in the Germans being unprepared for the D-Day landings, having believed that the Americans were landing near Calais instead. He was also famous for his Bond-esque playboy lifestyle, drinking and gambling the nights away with two or three girlfriends in every city he visited. The story of Fleming being inspired by playing cards with some German agents was originally dismissed as a tall tale, but Larry Loftis's biography of Popov, Into the Lion's Den, presents a story that bears great similarity to the book and (if true) was likely covered up to avoid Fleming being prosecuted for revealing wartime espionage missions. The information was only sheepishly revealed by Popov toward the end of his life when he was sure that there would no longer be any consequences to admitting it. So the story goes, a Jewish merchant named Bloch who had fled the Nazis from Lithuania was an arrogant gambler at the Casino Estoril in Portugal. Fleming was under orders to silently shadow Popov during his stay at the casino (where Popov would often report to his German handlers) where he had $50,000 in MI6 money on him. Bloch sat at the baccarat table and announced unlimited stakes. Wanting to intimidate him, Popov went "Okay, fine" and dropped all $50,000 on the table. The bet never ended up going through as the casino couldn't stake Bloch that much money (equivalent to over $800,000 today), but his face turned pretty green. The plot of Casino Royale is essentially a lengthened dramatization of this. The merchant fleeing the Nazis became a Soviet spy fleeing SMERSH, Popov became Bond (and the bet actually went forward), and Fleming himself a combination of Rene Mathis and Felix Leiter, both of whom took a much more direct role in the story.
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Jul 9, 2018 21:01
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That's very interesting - I hadn't heard of Popov before and the only "real James Bond" that I was aware of was Sidney Reilly.
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Jul 9, 2018 21:22
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Wheat Loaf posted:That's very interesting - I hadn't heard of Popov before and the only "real James Bond" that I was aware of was Sidney Reilly. Reilly was one of many "real James Bonds". Fleming created Bond as a sort of composite of several people mixed with original details, as there was a surprising number of spies who maintained stylish or playboy lifestyles in addition to their espionage work. Reilly also died in 1925, when Fleming was still at Eton. He was a sort of mythological figure in British espionage at the time, while Popov was one of a number of spies that Fleming directly knew or worked with. He still had one very Bondish adventure: quote:In 1909, when the German Kaiser was expanding the war machine of Imperial Germany, British intelligence had scant knowledge regarding the types of weapons being forged inside Germany's war plants. At the behest of British intelligence, Reilly was sent to obtain the plans for the weapons. Reilly arrived in Essen, Germany, disguised as a Baltic shipyard worker by the name of Karl Hahn. Having prepared his cover identity by learning to weld at a Sheffield engineering firm, Reilly obtained a low-level position as a welder at the Essen plant. Soon he joined the plant fire brigade and persuaded its foreman that a set of plant schematics were needed to indicate the position of fire extinguishers and hydrants. These schematics were soon lodged in the foreman's office for members of the fire brigade to consult, and Reilly set about using them to locate the plans. chitoryu12 fucked around with this message at 21:45 on Jul 9, 2018 |
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Jul 9, 2018 21:42
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Hey chitoryu since I've read Casino Royale already, I decided to follow along with the thread by reading the recent comics adaptation from Dynamite... is it ok if I talk about that a bit, post some excerpts? Do you mind if I post some stuff about Bond comics in general as well? As popular as the character has been in movies and literature, he's had a surprisingly checkered career in comics, and it's pretty interesting.
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Jul 9, 2018 22:09
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Lightning Lord posted:Hey chitoryu since I've read Casino Royale already, I decided to follow along with the thread by reading the recent comics adaptation from Dynamite... is it ok if I talk about that a bit, post some excerpts? Do you mind if I post some stuff about Bond comics in general as well? As popular as the character has been in movies and literature, he's had a surprisingly checkered career in comics, and it's pretty interesting. Yeah, go ahead! As long as it's not spoilers for anything not covered.
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Jul 9, 2018 22:10
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Anyone interested in Reilly who hasn't seen it should check out the ITV series Reilly: Ace of Spies from 1983, starring Sam Neill as Sidney Reilly. It's good stuff.
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Jul 9, 2018 23:36
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chitoryu12 posted:In this case, our "Bond" was double-agent Dusko Popov.
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Jul 10, 2018 02:34
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Chapter 13: A Whisper of Love, A Whisper of Hatequote:‘La partie continue,’ announced the chef impressively. ‘Un banco de trente-deux millions.’ Bond checks his cards under his hands. Two red queens, a total of zero. He calls for a card, knowing that this will be the one moment that decides whether or not the mission is over. Le Chiffre slaps the shoe and flips out a 9, the best card he could have possibly given Bond. Le Chiffre flips his own two cards, revealing a king and a three. Le Chiffre is at an impasse. He doesn't know what Bond's total is, only that he has a 9 as part of it. The banker having a total of 3 and drawing a 9 for the player is one of the situations where the odds are basically 50/50 for the banker to decide on drawing a card; the chances of Bond having had a zero initially and being handed a natural baccarat are not one that he expects. While in a friendly game Bond would have revealed his natural on the spot, he decides to let the man stew. quote:The sweat was running down either side of the banker’s beaky nose. His thick tongue came out slyly and licked a drop out of the corner of his red gash of a mouth. He looked at Bond’s cards, and then at his own, and then back at Bond’s. This scene could almost be a form of dramatic irony in which Bond serves as the audience. Ordinarily, dramatic irony has the reader know something the characters don't. Here, Bond knows as well. He intentionally keeps his 9 hidden until the croupier has to flip it, increasing the tension and giving Le Chiffre a false feeling of victory before sweeping the rug out from under him. As the huge pile of plaques are shunted across the table to Bond, Le Chiffre pulls out a wad of 6 million francs from his jacket and throws them on the table. Bond guesses it's the last of his capital, and this is now the moment for the kill shot. quote:Bond sat back and lit a cigarette. On a small table beside him half a bottle of Clicquot and a glass had materialized. Without asking who the benefactor was, Bond filled the glass to the brim and drank it down in two long draughts. Veuve Clicquot is a champagne brand founded in 1772, well-known for its yellow label that many people imagine champagne bottles just naturally come with. In modern day, a typical bottle of their brut is $50 to $60. The second round goes almost instantly. As soon as he receives his cards, Bond calmly flips them over to reveal a 9. Le Chiffre has a zero. The croupier simply pushes the plaques over. quote:Le Chiffre watched them go to join the serried millions in the shadow of Bond’s left arm, then he stood up slowly and without a word he brushed past the players to the break in the rail. He unhooked the velvet-covered chain and let it fall. The spectators opened a way for him. They looked at him curiously and rather fearfully as if he carried the smell of death on him. Then he vanished from Bond’s sight. Bond meets Leiter at the bar for champagne. After a few minutes of discussing the game, he pulls out a .45 ACP cartridge (with the nose cut with a cross to form an expanding dum-dum bullet) and places it on the table. He explains that he handed the cane gun to Mathis, who disassembled and unloaded it. The gunman escaped, and his entrance card (with the war wound pension certificate giving him permission to bring the cane in) likely has fake information except for his fingerprints. They've sent the prints off to Paris and expect an answer in the morning. Bond thanks Leiter warmly for the donation of money to keep the mission going. Before he leaves to go stash the cash, he asks Vesper to join him for drinks at the Roi Galant nightclub in the casino. Bond and Leiter head to the hotel at 3:00 AM, hands on their guns. They don't encounter any resistance, but Leiter suspects that Le Chiffre may make one last shot at getting the money. quote:After the crowded arena of the big table and the nervous strain of the three hours’ play, he was glad to be alone for a moment and be welcomed by his pyjamas on the bed and his hair-brushes on the dressing-table. He went into the bathroom and dashed cold water over his face and gargled with a sharp mouthwash. He felt the bruises on the back of his head and on his right shoulder. He reflected cheerfully how narrowly he had twice that day escaped being murdered. Would he have to sit up all that night and wait for them to come again, or was Le Chiffre even now on his way to Le Havre or Bordeaux to pick up a boat for some corner of the world where he could escape the eyes and the guns of SMERSH?
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Jul 10, 2018 14:09
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Chapter 14: La Vie En Rosequote:The entrance to the Roi Galant was a seven-foot golden picture-frame which had once, perhaps, enclosed the vast portrait of a noble European. It was in a discreet corner of the ‘kitchen’ – the public roulette and boule room, where several tables were still busy. As Bond took Vesper’s arm and led her over the gilded step, he fought back a hankering to borrow some money from the caisse and plaster maximums over the nearest table. But he knew that this would be a brash and cheap gesture ‘pour épater la bourgeoisie’. Whether he won or lost, it would be a kick in the teeth to the luck which had been given him. Keep in mind that this is probably around 3:30 AM. Bond is still going and fueling himself on champagne and breakfast foods. quote:They sat for a time listening to the music and then Bond turned to Vesper: ‘It’s wonderful sitting here with you and knowing the job’s finished. It’s a lovely end to the day – the prize-giving.’ We're seeing a complete reversal in their positions now. At dinner, Bond was the one coldly rejecting any kind of friendliness from her. Now that he's accomplished his mission he's trying to get back into it, but she's the one who seems upset. Maybe she just doesn't like being up so late. They talk simply about the details of the mission. Vesper says they identified the two gunmen, but didn't do anything when he went behind Bond because they couldn't imagine he would try such a daring assassination at the table. While Bond and Leiter went to the hotel to hide the money, she called M's representative in Paris to give the results of the game. quote:This was all she said. She sipped at her champagne and rarely glanced at Bond. She didn’t smile. Bond felt frustrated. He drank a lot of champagne and ordered another bottle. The scrambled eggs came and they ate in silence. Bond is frustrated and tired. He calls for the bill as he finishes his eggs, wishing he could have seen the look on Mathis's face when informed of his success. And then he starts to think that it's really odd for Mathis to send a note for the meeting. He would be more likely to call them up to the bar or joined them at the club regardless of what he was wearing so they could laugh and cheer and have a grand old time celebrating their success. Bond throws cash on the table and runs out without waiting for the change. He hurries all the way through the entrance hall, totally empty of anyone but a handful of officials and guests picking up their belongings. He bursts out the doors almost at a run. quote:The commissionaire came towards him.
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Jul 11, 2018 16:56
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chitoryu12 posted:Yeah, go ahead! As long as it's not spoilers for anything not covered. Thanks. I'm going to wait until Casino Royale is done because there's some scenes late in the book I want to cover in particular. I might do an overview of Bond in comics in general first tho. It's not very extensive but includes James Bond Jr, lol
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Jul 12, 2018 20:39
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So the car that Le Chiffre drives off in is described as a "beetle-browed" Citroën. We know it's a front-wheel drive, something the company pioneered in the 1930s. The Fleming's Bond blog guesses that it's a Citroën "Big 6" Traction Avant. However, the author also admits that it's mostly because he can't picture Le Chiffre driving anything that's not flashy. My personal guess would be a 2CV, a relatively new car at the time designed as an economy family vehicle. It was regarded as the Ford Model T of Europe in its time in terms of originality and low cost. It's definitely beetle-like! 
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Jul 12, 2018 20:52
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Yeah, of the two pics, the 2CV is the only one I'd call "beetle-browed". Plus how flashy of a car is a communist trade union executive going to drive? His dossier even says he has "discreet" tastes. Oh, and excellent thread!
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Jul 12, 2018 21:05
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‘Beetle-browed’ means ‘scowling’. So pick the Citroen with the angriest-looking windscreen.
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Jul 13, 2018 12:31
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Chapter 15: Black Hare And Grey Hound We're 55% of the way through the book according to Kindle. quote:It was the crudest possible forgery. Bond follows bits of dust hanging over the road to find the trail of Le Chiffre's car. He starts letting his misogyny get really ahead of him. quote:This was just what he had been afraid of. These blithering women who thought they could do a man’s work. Why the hell couldn’t they stay at home and mind their pots and pans and stick to their frocks and gossip and leave men’s work to the men. And now for this to happen to him, just when the job had come off so beautifully. For Vesper to fall for an old trick like that and get herself snatched and probably held to ransom like some bloody heroine in a strip cartoon. The silly bitch. We also see Bond's coldness here. He puts the mission above all else, including the life of other agents. As soon as Vesper has been taken hostage, he starts coming up with a plan for how to excuse her death. But at the same time, you also have to wonder just how much is Bond saying it to himself. If he truly wasn't playing Le Chiffre's game, why is he putting so much effort into chasing her down? He's got the money. If he was truly as cold as he wants to be, he could just ignore the kidnapping altogether and catch the next boat back across the Channel. Bond's ranting comes off more as a way of trying to make himself feel better about a situation that he's willingly getting into. quote:Bond’s mind raged furiously on with the problem as he flung the great car down the coast-road, automatically taking the curves and watching out for carts or cyclists on their way into Royale. On straight stretches the Amherst Villiers supercharger dug spurs into the Bentley’s twenty-five horses and the engine sent a high-pitched scream of pain into the night. Then the revolutions mounted until he was past 110 and on to the 120 m.p.h. mark on the speedometer. It's a matter of contention exactly what gun Bond is pulling out here. The Colt New Service revolver (available in calibers like .45 Long Colt and .455 Webley) was sometimes called the Army Special erroneously, so it might be that.  However, a later book has Bond accidentally leave the safety on with it and Fleming should have been experienced enough with guns to know that revolvers typically don't have safeties. In that case, it may have been a very wrong name for a Colt M1911A1.  quote:Ahead in the Citroën there were three men and the girl. Bond closes the gap to a mile between them. A few hundred yards ahead of Le Chiffre is a Michelin post showing where the highway crosses a small country trail. He gives a command to the man sitting next to him, whose hand tightens on the lever, and slows down as they approach the crossroads. quote:Le Chiffre seemed to make up his mind.
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Jul 13, 2018 14:37
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Is a "racing change" in this context a rev-matched gear change? That's bugged me since I read the book 20 years ago and 8 never remembered to look it up. The term comes up fairly often in Bond books when people are driving.
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Jul 13, 2018 15:19
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Midjack posted:Is a "racing change" in this context a rev-matched gear change? That's bugged me since I read the book 20 years ago and 8 never remembered to look it up. The term comes up fairly often in Bond books when people are driving. From what I can find while looking it up, yes. He's using his heel to hit the gas pedal and toe to hit the brake pedal, allowing him to downshift while matching the RPM of the lower gear. This keeps the car stable as you slow down. Normally it's used for quickly decelerating on a corner and then accelerating away by shifting back up, but here he's using it to make a fast and controlled stop while turning off the road.
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Jul 13, 2018 15:58
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chitoryu12 posted:From what I can find while looking it up, yes. He's using his heel to hit the gas pedal and toe to hit the brake pedal, allowing him to downshift while matching the RPM of the lower gear. This keeps the car stable as you slow down. Normally it's used for quickly decelerating on a corner and then accelerating away by shifting back up, but here he's using it to make a fast and controlled stop while turning off the road. Today this is known as a "heel-toe downshift," thanks for the confirmation!
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Jul 13, 2018 17:09
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chitoryu12 posted:It's a matter of contention exactly what gun Bond is pulling out here. The Colt New Service revolver (available in calibers like .45 Long Colt and .455 Webley) was sometimes called the Army Special erroneously, so it might be that. Colt did make an Army Special. It was introduced in 1908 and renamed the Official Police in 1927, having never actually been adopted by the US Army. Available calibers ran from .32-20 up to .41 Colt, but not .45. The reference to it being 'long-barreled' makes me think Fleming had a revolver in mind rather than a 1911. Either way, the idea of shooting out the tires on a moving car at a hundred yards at night while driving another car is laughable.
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Jul 13, 2018 21:48
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Chapter 16: The Crawling of the Skinquote:As Bond hurtled round the bend, caressing the great car against the camber with an easy sway of body and hands, he was working out his plan of action when the distance between the two cars had narrowed still further. He imagined that the enemy driver would try to dodge off into a side-road if he got the chance. So when he got round the bend and saw no lights ahead, it was a normal reflex to ease up on the accelerator and, when he saw the Michelin post, to prepare to brake. This book only has two gadgets in it: the camera case bombs and the spike deployment from Le Chiffre's car. Notice how both of these are villainous gadgets. Bond relies more on his wits and fighting skills than gadgets, especially early on. The film replicates this scene quite faithfully, with the only real difference being the cause of the crash: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-21uPJGXFQ They actually couldn't flip the Aston-Martin with a typical pipe ramp because it was so stable. They had to resort to a compressed nitrogen gas cannon on the underside, accidentally setting a new world record for the most cannon-incited car flips. Le Chiffre and his men approach the car, sitting just a few yards away from the wrecked Bentley. They cut away the fabric convertible roof and haul Bond out inch by inch, trying not to accidentally kill him. After a few slaps, they tie him up with flex wire and confiscate everything in his pockets. quote:It was the sharp bite of the wire flex into his wrists that brought Bond to himself. He was aching all over as if he had been thrashed with a wooden club, but when he was yanked to his feet and pushed towards the narrow side-road where the engine of the Citroën was already running softly, he found that no bones were broken. But he felt in no mood for desperate attempts to escape and allowed himself to be dragged into the back seat of the car without resisting. Bond hears them open the trunk of the car and gather up the length of spiked chain, reflecting that a similar trick had been used against German staff cars during the war. He's suddenly realizing just how badly he underestimated Le Chiffre and the resources at their disposal. As the sun starts to rise, the car speeds down the last few miles to Le Chiffre's villa. quote:Ten minutes later the Citroën lurched to the left, ran on a hundred yards up a small side-road partly overgrown with grass and then between a pair of dilapidated stucco pillars into an unkempt forecourt surrounded by a high wall. They drew up in front of a peeling white door. Above a rusty bell-push in the door-frame, small zinc letters on a wooden base spelled out ‘Les Noctambules’ and, underneath, ‘Sonnez SVP’. The signs read "Night owls, sound please". It's simply saying to ring the bell if you arrive at night; this is a typical rental villa in France for people with lots of cash to spend on holiday when they don't want to be at a hotel. The hairy gunman who had threatened Bond with the cane (whom Bond has taken to nicknaming "The Corsican") pushes Bond forward. Bond decides to take a chance at resisting and kicks backwards into the Corsican's shins and attempts to kick him in the groin, but he dodges surprisingly fast and grabs Bond's foot, twisting him down to the ground. quote:For a moment he lay there, all the breath knocked out of him. Then the thin man came and hauled him up against the wall by his collar. He had a gun in his hand. He looked Bond inquisitively in the eyes. Then unhurriedly he bent down and swiped the barrel viciously across Bond’s shins. Bond grunted and caved at the knees.
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Jul 16, 2018 17:47
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Here's insecure Bond again, feeling puny and impotent, realizing he underestimated his enemies.
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Jul 16, 2018 22:43
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Thank you, mysterious mod, for the thread icon change!
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Jul 17, 2018 03:03
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Chapter 17: My Dear Boyquote:It was a large bare room, sparsely furnished in cheap French art nouveau style. It was difficult to say whether it was intended as a living- or dining-room for a flimsy-looking mirrored sideboard, sporting an orange crackle-ware fruit dish and two painted wooden candlesticks took up most of the wall opposite the door and contradicted the faded pink sofa ranged against the other side of the room. The Corsican takes his folding knife and cuts out the seat of the cane chair, then cuts Bond's bindings and orders him to strip. Bond hesitates for a moment to decide whether or not he can resist, giving the thug the opening to shove him to the ground and slice his jacket in half all the way up the back. Realizing how outmatched he is, Bond starts taking off his shirt. quote:Le Chiffre came quietly back into the room. He carried a pot of what smelt like coffee. He put it on the small table near the window. He also placed beside it on the table two other homely objects, a three-foot-long carpet-beater in twisted cane and a carving knife. You can tell Le Chiffre is a villain because he drinks coffee from a glass. Le Chiffre forces the totally naked Bond to sit on the seatless chair and he's bound up perfectly with no way of slipping out. Bond is a completely helpless, naked prisoner. quote:Le Chiffre nodded to the thin man who quietly left the room and closed the door. Remember when you saw the movie and it got to the point where Bond is brutally tortured by having his balls smashed with a carpet beater over and over and you probably thought to yourself "Man, they really made this movie dark!" Yeah, that's actually directly taken from the book. quote:‘Now let us get down to business and see how soon we can be finished with this unfortunate mess you have got yourself into.’ He puffed cheerfully at his cigarette and gave an admonitory tap on the floor beneath Bond’s chair with his horrible and incongruous instrument. You can definitely see where the suggestions of Fleming being into BDSM come from. Le Chiffre calmly informs Bond that there's no opportunity for rescue here. If he continues to refuse to speak, they'll bring Vesper in and torture her next. If that's not enough, both of them will be killed slowly and painfully and their bodies left in the villa to rot. quote:Bond closed his eyes and waited for the pain. He knew that the beginning of torture is the worst. There is a parabola of agony. A crescendo leading up to a peak and then the nerves are blunted and react progressively less until unconsciousness and death. All he could do was to pray for the peak, pray that his spirit would hold out so long and then accept the long free-wheel down to the final blackout. Extremely sadomasochistic. Le Chiffre tells Bond that they've already searched his room for the 40 million franc check and came up empty. They found the codebook in his toilet tank and the papers taped to the back of a drawer, but searching every inch of his room and tearing apart all of his belongings and clothes was fruitless. Rather than himself, Bond starts thinking about what terrible things Vesper must be going through with those two gunmen. quote:‘Torture is a terrible thing,’ he was saying as he puffed at a fresh cigarette, ‘but it is a simple matter for the torturer, particularly when the patient,’ he smiled at the word, ‘is a man. You see, my dear Bond, with a man it is quite unnecessary to indulge in refinements. With this simple instrument, or with almost any other object, one can cause a man as much pain as is possible or necessary. Do not believe what you read in novels or books about the war. There is nothing worse. It is not only the immediate agony, but also the thought that your manhood is being gradually destroyed and that at the end, if you will not yield, you will no longer be a man.' Hey, some people pay good money for that experience! quote:Bond’s lips were writhing. He was trying to say something. At last he got the word out in a harsh croak: ‘Drink,’ he said and his tongue came out and swilled across his dry lips. I would question how foolproof Le Chiffre's plan is here. While the local police may buy it, I can't see the British Secret Service doing so, especially if Bond is either returned with his testicles smashed to pieces or he never returns at all. I'd imagine that if Le Chiffre were to actually get away with this, they might just go straight for assassination. Bond takes only seconds to contemplate what to do. While Mathis and Leiter will never get to him in time, by refusing to talk he can buy some time for them to figure out what happened and catch up to Le Chiffre before he gets away. The longer he lets himself be tortured, the more chance he has of getting revenge. quote:Bond lifted his head and looked Le Chiffre in the eyes.
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Jul 17, 2018 14:34
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I was definitely not expecting that to be so kinky.
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Jul 17, 2018 23:48
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Sperglord Actual posted:I was definitely not expecting that to be so kinky. After the next update I can post the film version of the scene for those who don't know spoilers. It's....very faithful.
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Jul 18, 2018 00:56
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chitoryu12 posted:After the next update I can post the film version of the scene for those who don't know spoilers. It's....very faithful. I had never read this book, so in the movie it was quite the surprise given the tone of all the other movies. And physically uncomfortable to watch. That movie was *bleak*
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Jul 18, 2018 01:19
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Chapter 18: A Crag-Like Facequote:It was extraordinary to hear the third voice. The hour’s ritual had only demanded a duologue against the horrible noise of the torture. Bond’s dimmed senses hardly took it in. Then suddenly he was half-way back to consciousness. He found he could see and hear again. He could hear the dead silence after the one quiet word from the doorway. He could see Le Chiffre’s head slowly come up and the expression of blank astonishment, of innocent amazement, slowly give way to fear. The SMERSH agent tells the stunned Le Chiffre that he's been sent to kill him and has already killed both of his men. He's under orders to make Le Chiffre's death as painful as possible but lacks the time. quote:‘Do you plead guilty?’ Le Chiffre collapses over the chair. The SMERSH agent approaches Bond and lifts up his chin, giving Bond the impression of a crag-like face concealed by a domino mask, hat, and fur collar. quote:‘You are fortunate,’ said the voice. ‘I have no orders to kill you. Your life has been saved twice in one day. But you can tell your organization that SMERSH is only merciful by chance or by mistake. In your case you were saved first by chance and now by mistake, for I should have had orders to kill any foreign spies who were hanging round this traitor like flies round a dog’s-mess. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEPmn8FHtDA As you can see, the torture scene is replicated almost perfectly in the film. This was a very dark turn for Bond that nobody expected except those who had already read the book. The film makes Bond more defiant and in some ways plays up the BDSM aspects a bit more. Chapter 19: The White Tent quote:You are about to awake when you dream that you are dreaming. Bond finally, fully awakens hours later to the sound of waves gently crashing on the shore outside his window. A nurse sitting beside him takes note, quickly tells him that he's in a nursing home in Royale and she's one of two nurses sent from England, and tells him to lie down and be quiet while she gets the doctor. Bond figures he's under a local anesthetic, since the only major pain he feels is in his wrists and hand. From the feeling of his growing facial hair, he figures it's been 2 days since he was tortured. quote:He was preparing a short list of questions in his mind when the door opened and the doctor came in followed by the nurse and in the background the dear figure of Mathis, a Mathis looking anxious behind his broad smile, who put a finger to his lips and walked on tiptoe to the window and sat down. The choice of .35 caliber is an odd one for Fleming. The only pistol cartridge in .35 caliber at this time that I know of was a proprietary one for the Smith & Wesson Model 1913, only a little over 8300 of which were built. There's two other options. The first is that it could have been an incorrect measurement of the 7.62x25mm Tokarev round, a .30 caliber pistol cartridge used by the Soviets up until the end of World War II. A TT-33 pistol would be easily available to a Soviet agent. The other is that it could be a misprint for .25 ACP, the same caliber Bond and Fleming carried on missions. The Soviets manufactured a .25 ACP pistol, the Korovin TK, and Vasily Blokhin (the most prolific executioner and mass murderer in history) personally killed tens of thousands of POWs and political undesirables for Stalin with German .25 caliber pistols like the Walther Model 2 for their reliability and plausible deniability in case the bodies were found. quote:‘Your own injuries are serious, but your life is not in danger though you have lost a lot of blood. If all goes well, you will recover completely and none of the functions of your body will be impaired.’ The doctor smiled grimly. ‘But I fear that you will continue to be in pain for several days and it will be my endeavour to give you as much comfort as possible. Now that you have regained consciousness your arms will be freed, but you must not move your body and when you sleep the nurse has orders to secure your arms again. Above all, it is important that you rest and regain your strength. At the moment you are suffering from a grave condition of mental and physical shock.’ The doctor paused. ‘For how long were you maltreated?’ Rene Mathis is one of the very few characters in this book to have only ever been played by a single actor, Giancarlo Giannini in the film adaptation and its original sequel, A Quantum of Solace, which kills him off. This is because the 1954 Barry Nelson TV adaptation and the 1967 spoof film both completely removed Mathis from the films, though the 1954 version combined his character with Vesper into Valerie Mathis, Le Chiffre's girlfriend and a secret Deuxième Bureau agent.   While we're talking about it, it should also be noted that the 1954 adaptation also ends before this scene. Bond manages to break free of his bonds (  ) and fight off Le Chiffre and his guards to save Valerie, then shoots Le Chiffre when he tries to take her as a hostage to escape.quote:‘However, that can wait. As you can imagine, there is much to clear up and I am being pestered by Paris and, of course, London, and even by Washington via our good friend Leiter. Incidentally,’ he broke off, ‘I have a personal message from M. He spoke to me himself on the telephone. He simply said to tell you that he is much impressed. I asked if that was all and he said: “Well, tell him that the Treasury is greatly relieved.” Then he rang off.’ Mathis asks Bond to tell him exactly what happened so he can take notes for his own intelligence bureau, but stops after a few minutes when he realizes how traumatic the memories are for him. He tells Bond that they've covered up the SMERSH agent's killings by saying that Le Chiffre killed his own men and himself to avoid the scandal of his misappropriation of union funds, which has put the French Communist Party in an uproar. He also asks Bond where the hell he hid the money; turns out he unscrewed the room number plate on the door and hid the check underneath. quote:‘I suppose you think that’s paid me back for knowing what the Muntzes were up to. Well, I’ll call it quits. Incidentally, we’ve got them in the bag. They were just some minor fry hired for the occasion. We’ll see they get a few years.’ Quite a few questions, in fact. We're only 72% through the book.
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Jul 18, 2018 16:02
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One thing we haven't covered that relates to the movies is songs. For future books I'll open up with them, but they're one of the most famous parts of the Bond franchise and deserve some time to talk about them even if they're something created entirely for the films. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1AMUmkj-ck When Casino Royale was released in 2006, Bond was in a slump. Die Another Day got middling reviews and Pierce Brosnan was out. It was 4 years since the last Bond film was released and EON needed to get away from the CGI-heavy direction the last film had gone in. As the new film was announced and casting decisions were made, fans were divided. Everyone was excited to see the first ever Bond novel given a real adaptation instead of being left as a 1960s spoof with Orson Welles playing trumpet and fifty James Bonds, but Daniel Craig's casting was a huge risk. Everyone knew Bond was tall, dark, handsome, and suave! The thuggish "Blonde Bond" was controversial. There were also concerns about the decision to reboot instead of having Bond remain an experienced agent and fears of going too gritty.  When the film actually released, however, most fears were proven wrong. Casino Royale was one of the few modern Bond films to gain truly good reviews and was the highest grossing Bond film until 2012's Skyfall. For a lot of people, the moment it was clinched for them was the intro. Bond completes his first kill on a traitorous MI6 section chief in Prague in black and white, interspersed with shots of him fighting the traitor's terrorist contact in a public restroom in Pakistan. As the terrorist draws his gun, Bond completes the famous gun barrel intro that every film had included as a simple stylized intro. This time, it leads directly into the theme song. "You Know My Name" is a spectacular orchestral rock song, written and sung by the late Chris Cornell of Soundgarden and Audioslave. The lyrics convey an existential crisis regarding the violent, short life of secret agents that Bond alludes to in the novels, something that had almost never been touched on in the previous films. quote:If you take a life do you know what you'll give? The graphics themselves are equally mesmerizing with their casino-themed CGI imagery. The song was incredibly popular, being nominated for a Grammy, and showcased exactly what the filmmakers intended to convey: Bond is back like never before. chitoryu12 fucked around with this message at 17:05 on Jul 18, 2018 |
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Jul 18, 2018 17:00
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What is the significance of the "M" cut into Bond's hand by the SMERSH agent? VVV Thank you! VVV Lemniscate Blue fucked around with this message at 21:08 on Jul 18, 2018 |
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Jul 18, 2018 18:40
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Lemniscate Blue posted:What is the significance of the "M" cut into Bond's hand by the SMERSH agent? It's not an M per se; it's something that looks like an upside-down M. It's a 'ш', the cyrillic first letter of the Russian word for 'spy'. The idea is to leave an easily-identified, highly-visible scar, destroying Bond's value as a spy in the future. He undergoes some skin grafts so he can keep going and not get shot on sight, but I believe the rest of the series does mention he has some scarring there visible under close inspection. Cassius Belli fucked around with this message at 23:03 on Jul 18, 2018 |
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Jul 18, 2018 18:54
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Also, I'm going to take some time to cover the theme songs of Bond films that weren't based on any of Fleming's stories. Along with being pretty cool and showcasing a variety of singers, some of them have themes that easily remind one of the rest of the books. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGPBFvDz_HM The first Bond film to be totally original (without even taking a name from a Fleming story) was GoldenEye, named after Fleming's estate. The film was sort of the predecessor to Casino Royale in that it was a rethinking of Bond; the legal delays that led to Timothy Dalton's contract expiring meant it took 6 years for a new film to be released, during which the Berlin Wall was knocked down, Germany was reunited, and the USSR very suddenly dissolved. GoldenEye took advantage of this by showcasing how the role of Bond has changed in a post-Cold War world. It opens with an operation against a Soviet weapons research facility in 1986, then jumps to contemporary times when suddenly the British and Russians are working together. The villain has a personal stake in the matter, an angry descendant of the Cossacks who had collaborated with the Nazis during World War II and were massacred after the British repatriated them. The titular GoldenEye EMP satellites he's trying to use for his revenge against Britain are leftover Cold War relics. Bond himself is called a "misogynistic dinosaur" by the new female M. The opening theme's video (sung by Tina Turner) plays into this. While most past Bond themes had simply shown naked girls dancing in some kind of themed acid dream environment, GoldenEye shows the women destroying Soviet monuments. The villain reveal midway through the film takes place in a similar setting, a "statue graveyard" where the remnants of Soviet statues and monuments have been thrown to be scrapped. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BelIZssK1k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5stu6_nZysM Tomorrow Never Dies was the first Bond film made after the death of producer Albert R. "Cubby" Broccoli, who had put his entire energy toward maintaining the Bond franchise ever since he helped start it (with a short break in 1968 for Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. As such, it was produced instead by his daughter and continued Bond producer Barbara Broccoli. Tomorrow Never Dies was a very modern 90s film. Opening with a terrorist arms bazaar on the Russian border (continuing the theme of post-Cold War instability and expanding into the growing threat of international terrorism), the villain is a newspaper mogul who works with terrorists to start a war between China and Britain in the hopes of selling more papers. There's a sort of irony in this, considering Fleming's career as a journalist. Around a dozen submissions for a song were made, with the winner coming from country singer Sheryl Crow. The song sold well but was unpopular due to Crow's difficulty matching the grand operatic style it demanded. However, there was actually a second song! David Arnold, who scored the film, worked with Don Black and David McAlmont on creating a theme that was sung by k.d. lang. While MGM declined to use it as the main theme in favor of the more popular Crow, "Surrender" was placed in the end credits and some critics said they preferred it. In keeping with the film's themes and modern setting, the music video is centered around technology and journalism. What resemble lines of code fly past the screen at the beginning, CGI women are made from the conductive traces of circuit boards, and one figure ends the song by taking a massive dive into a television screen. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzvNDR5OrqM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8C5NLfYdZaE The World is Not Enough was the first Bond film to ever include a major female villain, a decoy Bond girl who reveals herself to be partners in crime with the bad guy and is thus replaced by a much more boring Bond girl whose name is loving Christmas Jones and gets some of the most lifeless acting ever put to screen. In the film, the driving force behind the initial conflict is oil. While it becomes much more complicated and atomic, the opening theme video is entirely coated in the stuff. There are two unique attributes to the song. The first is that it was performed by an entire band, Garbage, rather than a single singer with a hired orchestra (apparently David Arnold offering the song to Shirley Manson resulted in the first time he had ever heard someone screaming over the phone). The second is that they created an entire music video for the song, featuring a robotic Shirley Manson murdering and replacing her to destroy Chicago's New Globe Theatre with an implanted bomb during a performance. The song was quite popular and is well-regarded, probably more than the film itself. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1myXsuuWzSw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXXEpNa3CqQ Die Another Day was the film that finally led to the Daniel Craig reboot. With the USSR gone and terrorists played out, North Korea is cast as the villain. After some questionable CGI and even more questionable gene therapy, Bond's first (and so far only) foray into blowing up Koreans is done with. The nation is depicted far differently from the USSR in the past, painting the entire country except for one general as psychopathic warmongers or mooks waiting to be shot. The old Bond films usually had terrorist organizations like SPECTRE and only had Soviet villains when they were rogue agents. The new theme song is by far the most unique, created by French electronica producer Mirwais Ahmadzaï and sung by Madonna. It has an immediately distinctive electropop sound with nary a hint of the orchestra. While it was nominated for Golden Globes and Grammys, it was generally unpopular with film and music critics for its flat production and extreme change from typical Bond themes. Despite this, it has probably the most unique video in that it showcases the film itself: Bond is captured and tortured by the North Koreans after a disastrous operation in which he's betrayed by a mole in MI6. Instead of the typical themed hallucinatory setting, we see Bond's torture in graphic detail hidden only through the heavy use of filters and CGI. Like the previous song, "Die Another Day" got a separate music video with Madonna. Following the film, it shows Madonna being put through similar tortures as Bond and also includes a fencing duel. The video was subject to some criticism for rather sacrilegious use of Jewish iconography. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMXT3aJxH_A Quantum of Solace shook up the Bond film formula by being a direct continuation of Casino Royale, picking up mere minutes after the ending of the previous film. Bond continues on his hunt for the mysterious Quantum organization behind Le Chiffre, resulting in the death of Rene Mathis and the unveiling of some secrets regarding Vesper. "Another Way to Die" was the first Bond duet, written and produced by Jack White and sung by him and Alicia Keys. The music video takes place on stylized sand dunes, reflecting where much of the action takes place. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4gdhsVKTcs Skyfall continues the reboot, reintroducing Q and Moneypenny (now reimagined as a field agent). Released on the 50th anniversary of the film adaptation of Dr. No, the film because the first Bond film to gross over $1 billion worldwide. The theme is one of the most famous Bond themes, sung by Adele at the height of her popularity. It became the first Bond song to win the Academy Award for Best Original Song, Brit Award for British Single of the Year, Critics' Choice Movie Award Best Song, Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song, and the Grammy Award for Best Song Written for Visual Media. The opening video, on the other hand, isn't anything especially incredible like Casino Royale. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpEZQcY7xnw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jzDnsjYv9A The latest Bond film, Spectre, lives up to its name by reintroducing the infamous terrorist organization and the villainous Ernst Stavro Blofeld. The film received somewhat mixed reviews, suddenly revealing Bond to be Blofeld's adoptive brother and revealing that Spectre had arranged virtually everything from the past films all as part of a grand mastermind plot. The theme song, "Writing's on the Wall", was written and sung by Sam Smith. While it won an Academy Award for Best Original Song, it received mixed reviews (in particular for Smith's high pitched, incomprehensibly breathy chorus that even he admitted he couldn't really sing). The opening video plays heavily on the infamous octopus logo of Spectre. It received its own music video again, featuring Smith singing intercut with footage from the film.
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Jul 18, 2018 22:24
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Amusingly, despite being almost as big as the movie, "Skyfall" couldn't quite make it to number one on the UK charts. It peaked at number two, matching the previous series best set in 1985 by Duran Duran, when "A View To a Kill" got stuck at number two behind "19" by Paul Hardcastle (it was Duran Duran's second number-one hit in America after "The Reflex" the previous year). Conversely, "Writing's On the Wall" was the first Bond theme to make it to number one in the UK singles chart! It probably got there because pre-release anticipation for Spectre was huge when it was released, so it enjoyed this massive debut but then sputtered out a bit and despite technically outperforming "Skyfall" by that one measure and equalling it at the Oscars, it really seems like a disappointment in retrospect. It reflects its movie. 
Wheat Loaf fucked around with this message at 22:50 on Jul 18, 2018 |
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Jul 18, 2018 22:46
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I'm just going to say that the Honest Trailer for Spectre seemed pretty accurate to me.
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Jul 19, 2018 03:47
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I admit, I was kind of excited for Spectre. I mean SPECTRE and Blowfeld? Sign me up. But then Bond being Blofeld's adopted brother and Blofeld revealing he puppet-mastered the events in the previous three movies was a bridge too far for me.
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Jul 19, 2018 03:56
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Skyfall was the first Bond movie I saw in theaters, and when I hit the song sequence I was really impressed, both in that it was visually appealing and that it definitely fit "got shot, going through a near death trip through your life of danger spy stuffs" that just happened. Then I watched Casino Royale, and that opening is oustanding and, again, extremely relevant to the character and scenes it's setting up. I've only ever watched the Craig movies though, and I'd never seen any of the movies made before than. It's strange to go down that list you have and see that pretty much all of it appears to be permutations on naked women dancing. Is that seriously what the traditional Bond movie opening was, before Craig? I went and looked up the first movie's opening credits https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LOqHSXMHJo (Dr. No, if Wikipedia didn't lie to me) wondering if it started as naked ladies dancing and no, that intro is frankly much weirder. I guess, like, what's up with the openings? They're, uh, kinda weird, as somebody who didn't grow up with them. Was it a conscious decision from the filmmakers, or did one of the early ones just have naked ladies dancing and it was wildly popular and they did it forever after?
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Jul 19, 2018 05:14
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chitoryu12 posted:Quantum of Solace shook up the Bond film formula by being a direct continuation of Casino Royale, picking up mere minutes after the ending of the previous film. Bond continues on his hunt for the mysterious Quantum organization behind Le Chiffre, resulting in the death of Rene Mathis and the unveiling of some secrets regarding Vesper. I'm sure you already know and are mentioning it because it's the sequel to Casino Royale but for anyone reading who doesn't, Quantum of Solace is a Fleming short story from the collection For Your Eyes Only that has nothing in common with the movie other than the title. Besides the titular film, A View to A Kill hails from there too. Lightning Lord fucked around with this message at 06:10 on Jul 19, 2018 |
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Jul 19, 2018 06:04
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MORE TAXES WHEN posted:I guess, like, what's up with the openings? They're, uh, kinda weird, as somebody who didn't grow up with them. FWIW Stephen Chow’s early movie Forbidden City Cop has one of the best spoofs of the naked lady dancing title sequences going - https://youtu.be/e6jNlNDv1NM (titles start at about 4.15, but the opening bit of immortal swordsmen duelling on the rooftops before the titular cop shows up and tells them to knock it the gently caress off people are trying to sleep is pretty funny too even if you don’t speak the language).
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Jul 19, 2018 13:36
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