Thanks a lot! As funny as lovely books are, it's good to get into something actually made with some kind of care. Moonraker actually caught some flak when it was released for being entirely in Britain. While today it's a look at post-war British culture that now only exists in the minds of Brexit supporters, contemporary audiences found it as dull as if the last Daniel Craig movie took place entirely in Bangor. Out of the pre-1969 era, only the Flamingo, Tropicana, Caesar's Palace, and Circus Circus are still open.
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# ? Jan 25, 2019 17:19 |
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# ? Apr 28, 2024 13:17 |
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chitoryu12 posted:In McCarran Airport, there are slot machines everywhere. Even the baggage claim area has banks of them, all run by their own professional gaming organization. Vegas is literally trying to take your money from the moment you set foot in it. No wonder NCR can't get poo poo done.
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# ? Jan 25, 2019 18:43 |
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Flying over the Pacific west of LA to get to Las Vegas is the long way from the east coast!
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# ? Jan 25, 2019 19:35 |
Midjack posted:Flying over the Pacific west of LA to get to Las Vegas is the long way from the east coast! The plane was a transfer from New York. LAX is right on the water so a plane taking off to the west would have to make a 180 degree turn back around.
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# ? Jan 25, 2019 21:44 |
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chitoryu12 posted:The plane was a transfer from New York. LAX is right on the water so a plane taking off to the west would have to make a 180 degree turn back around. Yeah, that was the days before there were dozens of cheap daily flights direct to Vegas to attract the suckers. McCarran was still a relatively small airport at that point (although already starting to expand).
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# ? Jan 25, 2019 22:16 |
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chitoryu12 posted:The plane was a transfer from New York. LAX is right on the water so a plane taking off to the west would have to make a 180 degree turn back around. Yeah, I didn't consider that it would have connected through LA in that era.
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# ? Jan 26, 2019 01:25 |
Chapter 16: 'The Tiara'quote:Bond had lunch in the air-conditioned ‘Sunburst Room’ beside the big kidney-shaped swimming pool (LIFESAVER: BOBBY BILBO – POOL SCOURED DAILY BY HYDRO-JET, said a sign) and having decided that only about one per cent of the customers were fit to wear bathing suits, walked very slowly through the heat across the twenty yards of baked lawn that separated his building from the central establishment, took off his clothes and threw himself naked on his bed. The Tiara is a fictional casino for the book. Considering all the stuff they passed from south to north when Cureo was naming casinos, it should be on the far north end around where the Stratosphere is, slightly past the official "end" of the Strip. quote:He slept for four hours, and during this time the wire-recorder, concealed in the base of the bedside table, wasted several hundred feet of wire on dead silence. I actually don't know of any credible evidence that the Vegas of the 1950s actively spied on every guest that came its way, and that would be a tremendous effort even with the lower number of tourists back then in addition to falling afoul of wiretapping laws. The bigger privacy concerns today are in regards to the 2017 mass shooting causing hotels to begin regular searches of guests' rooms regardless of what's occurring at the time, including accusations of security services lacking official credentials who were filming rooms, rifling through guests' belongings, and confiscating "contraband" like soldering irons. quote:Bond sat at the long bar of the Tiara and sipped a Vodka Martini and examined the great gambling room with a professional eye. This is still how the casinos are to this day. Ever notice the utter lack of windows and clocks? Unless you make a conscious effort to check, there's no way to tell the time of day or how long you've been spending inside. Casinos are often the size of city blocks, a maze of passageways that require 3 or 4 different maps depending on the size of the building and number of floors. Signage is often inadequate for the area, leading to you drunkenly stumbling around in vain trying to find an exit or the way back to your room. You arrive just in time to see the sun coming up, having thought it wasn't much past midnight. You've won nothing. quote:And, when there was the occasional silvery waterfall, the metal cup would overflow with coins and the gambler would have to go down on her knees to scrabble about under the machines for a rolling coin. For, as Leiter had said, they were mostly women, elderly women of the prosperous housewife class, and the droves of them stood at the banks of machines like hens in an egg battery, conditioned by the delicious coolness of the room and the music of the spinning wheels, to go on laying it on the line until their wad was gone. Only a few slot machines in Vegas use coins instead of cards and tickets any more, but it's still absolutely the realm of elderly women (and a few elderly men). They line every wall of the casino that doesn't have doors or hallway entrances, all occupied by identical old ladies with a cigarette and a drink. quote:Bond turned his back on the scene and sipped at his Martini, listening with half his mind to the music from the famous-name band at the end of the room next to the half-dozen shops. Over one of the shops there was a pale blue neon sign which said ‘The House of Diamonds’. Bond beckoned to the barman. ‘Mr Spang been around tonight?’ At least the food is good. Cherrystone clams are relatively large quahogs common on the East Coast but not native to the West. Clams are a delicacy now, but they likely would have been even more expensive in the middle of the Mojave. Despite this, seeing them here isn't really surprising; the 1950s is when you first started to see the industrialization of food and food transport start climbing toward its modern peak, ensuring that you could find seafood even hundreds or thousands of miles from where it was caught as long as you were willing to pay for it. quote:During the excellent dinner that finally materialized, Bond wondered about the evening ahead and about how he could force the pace of his assignment. He was thoroughly bored with his role as a probationary crook who was about to be paid off for his first trial job and might then, if he found favour in the eyes of Mr Spang, be given regular work with the rest of the teenage adults who made up the gang. It irked him not to have the initiative – to be ordered to Saratoga and then to this hideous sucker-trap at the say-so of a handful of big-time hoodlums. Here he was, eating their dinner and sleeping in their bed, while they watched him, James Bond, and weighed him up and debated whether his hand was steady enough, his appearance trustworthy enough and his health adequate to some sleazy job in one of their rackets. In retrospect, this is the longest Bond has spent directly exposed to danger and crime. In Royale-les-Eaux, the overt bad guys were 5 people (two of whom blew themselves up as soon as they made an effort at their jobs). When dealing with Mr. Big, he was hunted but still an outsider who could return to a place of relative safety with allies like Leiter. On the Moonraker project, he didn't even know he was working directly for the villain until the very end of the assignment and spent most of it hunting for clues. With the Spangs, however, he's undercover. Every single person he deals with is a potential threat to him and he's very limited in how much he can even be seen around any friends without blowing his cover and getting buried alive. quote:There were two ways of playing the rest of the game, by lying low and waiting for something to happen – or by forcing the pace so that something had to happen.
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# ? Jan 28, 2019 17:36 |
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Me thinks Bond has a little too much pride.
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# ? Jan 28, 2019 20:31 |
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He really is the worst secret agent
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# ? Jan 28, 2019 20:36 |
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Help miss flight attendant do I put my fake job on the form or the secret one?
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# ? Jan 29, 2019 18:02 |
Chapter 17: 'Thanks for the ride'quote:The scene in the big gambling room had changed. It was much quieter. The orchestra had gone, and so had the droves of women, and there were only a few players at the tables. There were two or three ‘shills’ at the roulette, attractive girls in smart evening dresses who had been given fifty dollars with which to warm up the dead tables, and there was a very drunk man clinging on to the high surrounding wall of one of the crap tables and shouting exhortations to the dice. I'm starting to get the feeling that Spang has a thing about the wild west. quote:At exactly 10.5 Bond strolled easily up to the table and sat down facing her. Bond is dealt a Jack and a 10, with Tiffany dealing herself a 16 and busting with a King. The pit boss almost immediately shows up with a $1000 plaque. The next round has Bond win with a 17, then again with a 19. The final round stalls with both being dealt a 20, but he wins and finally makes his pay for the job. quote:And that was that. The pit-boss didn’t even bother to hand the girl the fourth plaque, but tossed it across the table to Bond with an expression on his face that was very like a sneer. Shady Tree had told Bond under no circumstances to go back to the tables after winning his pay, so he heads to the roulette wheel and puts his entire $5000 wad on red. Keep in mind that this is about $47,200 in modern money. quote:The croupier sat up straighter in his chair and squinted sideways at Bond. He tossed the four plaques one by one down on to the Red, catching them there with his stick. He counted out Bond’s notes, pushed them through a slot in the table, took a fifth plaque from the rack of counters beside him and tossed this down to join the others. Bond saw his knee go up under the table. The pit-boss heard the buzzer and strolled over to the table just as the croupier spun the wheel. Bond wins one last round. Nobody says anything, but he just walked away with the equivalent of almost $189,000 in mobster money on an improbable stroke of luck. quote:Bond put his hand over the four fat plaques in his coat pocket and shouldered his way out of the crowd behind him and walked straight across the long room to the cashier’s desk. ‘Three bills of five thousand and five of ones,’ he said to the man with the green eyeshade behind the bars. The man took Bond’s four plaques and counted out the bills and Bond put them in his pocket and walked over to the reception desk. ‘Air mail envelope, please,’ he said. He moved to a writing-desk beside the wall and sat down and put the three big bills in the envelope and wrote on the front ‘Personal. The Managing Director, Universal Export, Regents Park, London, N.W.1, England.’ Then he bought stamps at the desk and slipped the envelope down the slot marked ‘U.S. Mail’ and hoped that there, in the most sacrosanct repository in America, it would be safe. Yes, $1000 and $5000 bills actually existed! They went all the way up to $100,000 gold certificates and $10,000 federal reserve notes, but all of them ended printing in 1945 and were almost exclusively used by banks, government institutions, and casinos for large transactions. In 1969, Nixon ordered any bills above $100 to cease circulation in an effort to combat counterfeiting and organized crime exactly like Bond is dealing with. While the bills are still legal tender, their rarity makes them more valuable than their face value and the advent of electronic transactions has made them obsolete anyway. quote:Bond glanced at his watch. It said five minutes to midnight. He surveyed the big room for the last time, noted that a new dealer had taken over at Tiffany Case’s table, and that there was no sign of Mr Spang, and then he walked out through the glass door into the hot stuffy night and over the lawns to the Turquoise building and let himself into his room and locked the door behind him.
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# ? Jan 29, 2019 18:19 |
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I can't understand the thoughts going through Bonds head here. His job is to make Spang like him so he can incriminate the whole ring. Why go against orders and effectively steal x 4 your payment in eye sight which is going to piss him off.
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# ? Jan 30, 2019 01:01 |
MonsterEnvy posted:I can't understand the thoughts going through Bonds head here. His job is to make Spang like him so he can incriminate the whole ring. Why go against orders and effectively steal x 4 your payment in eye sight which is going to piss him off. I think he’s getting tired of the slow and methodical progression of his infiltration and has decided to just throw a wrench in everything to make something big happen.
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# ? Jan 30, 2019 01:08 |
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he is a drunken, impatient, barely competent dick
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# ? Jan 30, 2019 01:11 |
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To be fair, a few month ago he just saved his nation's capital, 1 million people including the Queen and Churchill, from nuclear annihilation and maybe prevented WWIII. Now he's tangling with small time crooks who fix horses and smuggle the dangerous drug Marihuana across state lines. You can see how he might feel a bit bored and petulant. BTW thanks for this thread. I read all the Fleming Bond books over a year a couple years ago. Wish I'd had this then as I'd read but it's fun revisiting!
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# ? Jan 30, 2019 02:38 |
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sebmojo posted:he is a drunken, impatient, barely competent dick
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# ? Jan 30, 2019 04:12 |
Fleming did base a lot off of his real experiences. I’m sure he met plenty of spies who were basically impatient alcoholics that would intentionally stir up poo poo to see what would happen. The entire plot of Casino Royale was inspired by him witnessing a major agent plopping down a ridiculous amount of money in a casino just to intimidate an rear end in a top hat gambler.
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# ? Jan 30, 2019 05:15 |
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Fish Noise posted:In some ways, he really does seem more like bumbling bond parodies than the film bonds everyone's familiar with. Bond's good at what he's good at, but a lot of what he's good at is hand to hand combat and killing people. He doesn't like killing people, but when he has to, he''s good at it and ruthless about it. And in a crisis, he's top notch. Not a better man in a stressful situation. What he's not good at, though, is patience. Even when its his benefit to slow down and wait, he won't do it. It's not in his nature, and that impulsivity is what gets him into trouble.
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# ? Jan 30, 2019 05:36 |
quote:‘How d'ya make out?’ Yeah, we actually get something more goofy than the movie! I kinda wish we had gotten to see this put to celluloid instead of Blofeld's oil rig. Bond reminisces about seeing Seraffimo Spang earlier that morning. He had gone to get a haircut at the casino barber shop, where Spang just so happened to be receiving a manicure. quote:Perhaps, with the changing elevation of the chair, the girl’s hand slipped, but there was suddenly a muffled roar and the man in the purple dressing-gown sprang out of his chair, tore the towels off his face and plunged a finger into his mouth. Then he took it out and bent quickly down and slapped the girl hard across the cheek so that she was knocked off her stool and the enamel bowl of instruments went flying across the room. The man straightened himself and turned a furious face on the barber. I'm sure Spang's anger over getting so much of his money taken by Bond will have absolutely no consequences! quote:Ernie Cureo’s voice broke sharply in on his thoughts. ‘We got ourselves a tail, Mister,’ he said out of the corner of his mouth. ‘Two of ’em. Fore an’ aft. Don’t look back. See that black Chevvy sedan in front? With the two guys. They got two driving mirrors and they been watching us and keeping step for quite a whiles. Back of us there’s a little red sex-ship. Old sports model Jag with a rumble seat. Two more guys. With golf clubs in the back. But it just happens I know them guys. Detroit Purple Mob. Coupla lavender boys. You know, pansies. Golf ain’t their game. The only irons they can handle are in their pockets. Just swivel y’eyes round as if you was admiring the scenery. Watch their gunhands while I try ’em out. Ready?’ Goddammit Bond. quote:Bond did as he was told. The driver put his foot on the accelerator and simultaneously turned off the ignition switch. The exhaust let go like an 88 millimetre and Bond saw the two right hands dive into the two brightly-coloured sports jackets. Bond casually turned his head back. ‘You’re right,’ he said. He paused. ‘Better let me out, Ernie. I don’t want to get you into trouble.’ We get some later hints, but the car is likely a 1934 Jaguar S.S.I. The company was originally founded as the Swallow Sidecar Company in 1922 as a motorcycle sidecar manufacturer, then turned into SS Cars Limited, and finally renamed Jaguar in 1945. The Jaguar S.S. was a sporty, cramped two-seater. A rumble seat is a fold-out seat in the trunk for fitting another person or two with absolutely no concern for their safety. quote:It was a straight stretch of road with not much traffic about. The distant tops of the mountains were yellow in the setting sun and the street was beginning to get blue with the fifteen minutes of dusk when you can’t make up your mind whether to switch on your lights. I like how Fleming is still afraid to actually write down swear words stronger than "bitch" but certainly wants to use them. quote:‘Not so easy now,’ grunted the driver. ‘War’s been declared. Watch it. Better get down. The Chevvy’s pulled up at the side of the road. They may try some shootin’. Here we go.’ For all of Bond's incompetency elsewhere, it takes a hell of a shot to knock out a car with a tiny little .25 with the sights ground off. quote:As Bond watched it, waiting for the echoes of the smashing metal to stop ringing in his ears, flames started to bleed slowly from the chromium mouth of the car. Someone was scrabbling at a window, trying to get out. At any moment the flames would find the vacuum pump and run the whole length of the chassis to the tank. And then it would be too late for the man inside. Bond slips behind the wheel and sends the car back onto the road. As Bond looks for the Jaguar, Ernie tells him to drive to the Passion Pit drive-in theater near the intersection with US Route 95 to hide out. quote:The cab came to rest in the back row of half a dozen ranks of cars lined up to face the concrete screen that soared up into the sky and on which a huge man was just saying something to a huge girl. This is so goddamn 50s. quote:‘Mister, for Chrissake willya switch off that crap?’ pleaded Ernie Cureo through his teeth. ‘And keep watching. We’ll give ’em a whiles more. Then get me to a doc. Dig out the slug.’ His voice was weak and now that the girl had gone he was half lying with his head against the door.
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# ? Jan 30, 2019 14:51 |
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Is it just me, or do all of book-Bond's car chases end poorly for him?
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# ? Jan 30, 2019 16:18 |
Darth Walrus posted:Is it just me, or do all of book-Bond's car chases end poorly for him? He wasn't the one to crash this time! He just didn't pick a very good hiding place.
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# ? Jan 30, 2019 16:49 |
So according to the Fleming's Bond website, "passion pit" was actually just a 1950s slang term for a drive-in theater (for obvious reasons). The location off the Boulder Highway close to Route 95 was the Skyway Drive-In, which closed in the 1980s and is now home to the Boulder Station hotel and casino at 4111 Boulder Highway.
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# ? Jan 30, 2019 16:51 |
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ernie got written as a total badass, must have been happy about that.
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# ? Jan 30, 2019 19:22 |
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I read one of the original James Bond books at one point as a teenager, and all I remember about it is a very detailed description of a woman's boobs.
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# ? Jan 30, 2019 19:29 |
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It's kind of a shame Spang was not adapted to film, it would have been fun to see a villain go full cowboy.
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# ? Jan 31, 2019 03:27 |
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And this was about the time I tossed this book away. Metaphorically, since I was reading it online, but still. Once more Bond gets a friendly to pay for his own dumb ideas.
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# ? Jan 31, 2019 05:07 |
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that's unfair: bond suggested letting him off, dude was totally for mafia death chase e: vv oh yeah, true sebmojo fucked around with this message at 05:45 on Jan 31, 2019 |
# ? Jan 31, 2019 05:37 |
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But it wouldn't have gotten to the death chase if Bond had just stuck to the plan instead of mucking things up just because he was bored.
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# ? Jan 31, 2019 05:42 |
Chapter 19: Spectrevillequote:The red Jaguar was outside the entrance, up against the wall of the enclosure. Bond let them take his gun and climbed in beside the driver. Bond is absolutely unbelievable here. "I made him so mad he wants to assassinate me and killed a car full of goons he sent after me. Clearly this will make him offer me a job instead of running me over with a steam train." After 2 hours of driving, rehearsing conversations in his head with Spang along the way, Bond feels the car slow down. He sees a high wire fence and a sign with a spotlight illuminating it, indicating the Spectreville city limits. There's a post with a speaker and button next to the gate. quote:Without leaving the wheel, sideburns reached out and pressed the button. There was a pause and then a metallic voice said ‘Yes?’ The Stutz Bearcat is a classic American sports car produced from 1912 until 1934 in different models; Stutz stopped all car production a year later and filed for bankruptcy in 1937. quote:‘Out, Limey,’ said the driver. The three men climbed stiffly out of the car and on to the raised wooden sidewalk. Bond bent to massage a leg that had gone to sleep, watching the feet of the two men. Bond has done this every single time he's been captured. It has never once gone well for him. quote:McGonigle catapulted back and twisted to face Bond. There was a rising gun in his hand. Bond’s left caught him on the shoulder. At the same time his open right hand slapped down hard on the gun. McGonigle went back on his heels against the door jamb. The gun clattered to the floor. Huh. He actually won this one. quote:It was a girl’s voice and it came from the direction of the bar. Yee haw. quote:Bond slowly took out a handkerchief and wiped his face with it. He was feeling light-headed and the scene in the brilliantly lit saloon, with its brass fittings and its homely advertisements for long-vanished beers and whiskies, was suddenly macabre. The Highland Light is one of the famous 4-4-0 steam trains that just about everyone recognizes as the "old west steam engine". They were designed by William Mason, who took the belief that locomotives should be beautiful works of art rather than just utilitarian transport. They were unique in lacking ornamentation in a time when the Neoclassical style was in vogue, using the natural shapes of the engine and minimalist color. quote:‘Guess you never seen nuthen like that, Limey,’ said one of the guards proudly. ‘Now git goin’. ’ His voice was muffled by the black silk hood. Before he starts, Bond puts his balls right at the front and demands a drink before talking. Spang unhappily lets him get another bourbon and branch from Wint. Having gone through his story in his head over and over on the car ride, Bond starts talking about how it's his right to gamble and not his fault if he won and why didn't they just call down to his room if they wanted to talk instead of shooting at him and-- quote:The black-and-white face against the coloured books didn’t yield. ‘You don’t get the message, feller,’ Mr Spang said softly. ‘Mebbe I better bring you up to date. Gotta coded signal yesterday from London.’ His hand went to the breast pocket of his black Western shirt and he slowly pulled out a piece of paper, holding Bond’s eyes with his. You didn't even keep the real Franks hidden???? quote:Bond knew he was for it and part of his mind slowly digested the knowledge, wondering how it was going to be done. But at the same time another part told him that he had discovered what he wanted to know, what he had come to America to find out. The two Spangs did represent the beginning and the end of the diamond pipeline. At this moment, he had completed the job he had set out to do. He knew the answers. Now, somehow, he must get the answers back to M.
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# ? Jan 31, 2019 15:56 |
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Well Spang saw through pretty much everything. Also looking up images of Spang this is a pretty good one.
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# ? Feb 1, 2019 07:27 |
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MonsterEnvy posted:Well Spang saw through pretty much everything. I like that Wint or Kidd is a cat in a mask. (I take it one of them has a badly-fixed harelip but hell, leave me my happy dreams.)
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# ? Feb 1, 2019 09:13 |
Chapter 20: Flames Coming Out of the Topquote:The black frogman’s suit fitted tightly. It hurt everywhere. Why the hell hadn’t Strangways made certain the Admiralty got his measurements right? And it was very dark under the sea and the currents were strong, pulling him against the coral. He would have to swim hard against them. But now something had got him by the arm. What the hell ...? One thing Fleming is really good at is dealing with loss of consciousness. quote:‘Can you walk?’ Tiffany tosses Bond her lighter, and he begins tipping the gas cans over and splashing fuel all over the room. He lights a bit of scrap newspaper on fire, then leaps onto the handcar and throws the tinder at the pile of cans as Tiffany puts the handcar in gear. quote:Bond turned and looked back at the great bloom of flame they had left behind them. He could almost hear the dry boards crackling and the shouts of the sleepers as they dashed from their rooms. If only it would get Wint and Kidd and catch the paint on the Pullman and fire the wood in the tender of The Cannonball and finish off the gangster’s box of toys! The handcar they've got is one of the gas-powered ones, with just a brake lever and throttle, so unfortunately we don't get the image of Bond and Tiffany angrily cranking away at the levers. For almost an hour, the handcar travels down the track. On their right is the Spectre mountains, and on the left the endless desert. Having been through this part of the Mojave, that's exactly what it looks like everywhere. Suddenly, Bond feels or hears something unusual from the rails. He turns and can just barely see the red glimmer of the Cannonball steam engine behind them in the distance, coming from the flaming ruins of Spectreville. quote:‘What can she do?’ asked Bond. I want an entire book series about Tiffany Case. For 15 more minutes they continue in silence. The Cannonball closes to no more than 5 miles away, close enough for Bond to see the pilot light and sparks from the smokestack. And then the handcar's engine starts sputtering. quote:‘Oh, dear little engine,’ she said plaintively. ‘Beautiful, clever little engine. Please be kind.’ It's okay, Fleming. You can say bad words. We're all adults here. quote:He got painfully out on to the side of the track and limped to the petrol tank at the rear, pulling his bloodstained handkerchief out of his trouser pocket. He unscrewed the filler cap and lowered the handkerchief down so that it must reach the bottom of the tank. He pulled it out and felt it and sniffed it. Dry as a bone. Bond and Tiffany push the handcar past the junction, then both grab hold of the old rusty switch and pull it until the Cannonball is set to be redirected onto the branch line. As the train roars toward them, Bond shoves Tiffany behind the handcar and takes up a duelist's stance with his little Beretta against the train. quote:‘Phut.’ Something whipped into the ground beside him and there was a pinpoint flash from the cabin. .25 ACP: the most powerful cartridge known to man. Over the next 90 minutes, Bond and Tiffany painfully cross the desert to Highway 95 two miles away, Bond collapsing from delirium by the time they make it. Only Tiffany's guidance helped him make it. quote:And now she was cradling his head against her and talking softly to him and wiping the sweat off his face with the corner of her shirt.
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# ? Feb 1, 2019 16:02 |
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Bond's marksmanship continues to strain plausibility.chitoryu12 posted:I want an entire book series about Tiffany Case.
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# ? Feb 1, 2019 18:46 |
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A better use of the gun would have been to jam it into the switch when it was between positions so the engine derailed right there.
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# ? Feb 1, 2019 19:59 |
Just found this delightful chart: One unit of alcohol is actually less than one drink, as it's 10 milliliters of pure alcohol. This is equal to half a pint of 4% ABV beer. An average glass of wine is 1.4 to 2.4 units of alcohol depending on the strength and size of the glass. A single 1.5 oz. shot of 40-50% ABV liquor is about 1 unit. chitoryu12 fucked around with this message at 21:18 on Feb 1, 2019 |
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# ? Feb 1, 2019 21:13 |
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Sperglord Actual posted:Bond's marksmanship continues to strain plausibility. Well he might not have killed Spang with the shots just prevented him from stopping the train. Though no matter the case I doubt Spang survived the train exploding.
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# ? Feb 1, 2019 21:56 |
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sebmojo posted:he is a drunken, impatient, barely competent dick
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# ? Feb 3, 2019 22:20 |
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I watched some (all?) of diamonds are forever last night. It is not like the book. Wint and Kidd show up a lot more than I remembered from seeing it as a kid. Sean Connery is fat and old.
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# ? Feb 3, 2019 23:09 |
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Payndz posted:Book Bond is so much like Sterling Archer the latter barely seems like a parody at times. March into a mission using your real name, get drunk, piss off the bad guy for no reason, get captured and have the poo poo beaten out of you, somehow stumble to victory because despite everything else, you're actually very good at violence. Well in this case it was more Bond being lucky enough that Tiffney decided to backstab her boss and save him, and then being lucky enough that his trolley ran out of gas at a track switch.
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# ? Feb 4, 2019 03:15 |
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# ? Apr 28, 2024 13:17 |
Chapter 21: 'Nothing propinks like propinquity'quote:‘... And when I get into town I call my friend Ernie Cureo. James knows him. And his wife is having hysterics and Ernie’s in the hospital. So I go right along and he tells me the score and I figure that James may need some reinforcements. So I jump on my coal-black mare and gallop through the night and when I get near to Spectreville I see the light in the sky. Mr Spang’s having himself a barbecue, I figure. And the gate in the fence is open so I decide to join the feast. Well, believe me or believe me not, there’s not a soul in the place except a guy with a busted leg and multiple contusions, who’s crawling down the road trying to get away. And he looks to me mighty like a young hood called Frasso from Detroit Ernie Cureo tells me was one of the guys that took James. The fellow’s in no state to deny this and I more or less get the picture and I figure that Rhyolite’s my next stop. So I tell the kid he’ll soon be having plenty of company from the Fire Department and I take him to the gate and leave him there and then after a while there’s a girl standing in the middle of the desert looking as if she’s been fired out of a cannon and here we all are. And now you tell.’ Seraffimo Spang may be in the great ghost town in the sky, but there's still Shady Tree and Wint & Kidd here and Jack Spang back in London. At the rate they're going, Leiter expects to get them in Los Angeles by lunch; the Syndicate will likely try to use their connections to put a bunch of fake APBs out on Bond and Tiffany, so he suggests they get a flight back to New York and from there to London as soon as Bond can walk into the airport. Tiffany is finally starting to catch on that Bond isn't actually a crook, but Leiter just says to ask him herself. quote:Bond smiled to himself and in the long silence that followed he dropped off into an uneasy sleep which lasted until they were half way across California and had pulled up outside a white wicket gate that said ‘Otis Fairplay, M.D’. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmylCJhL-5Q The Beverly Hills Hotel opened in 1912, but it wasn't until the late 40s (especially 1948) that it was heavily renovated and turned into the famous pink building it is today. When Bond visits it, it was known as a favorite haunt of celebrities, politicians, and royalty. A lot of movies were shot there and it was used as the cover for the Eagles' Hotel California. quote:‘Well that’s fixed,’ he said, putting back the receiver. ‘My pals at the office have got you on the Elizabeth. Been delayed by a strike at the docks. Sails tomorrow night at eight. They’ll meet you in the morning at La Guardia with the tickets and you’ll go on board any time in the afternoon. They picked up the rest of your things at the Astor, James. One small case and your famous golf clubs. And Washington’s obliged with a passport for Tiffany. There’ll be a man from the State Department at the airport. You’ll both have some forms to sign. Got one of my old pals at the C.I.A. to work it. The middays have made a big splash with the story – “Ghost Town goes West” and so on – but they don’t seem to have found our friend Spang yet and your names don’t figure. My boys say there’s no call out for you with the cops, but one of our undercover men says the gangs are looking for you and your description’s been circulated. Ten Grand attached. So it’s as well you’re skipping quick. Better go aboard separately. Cover up as much as you can and go down to your cabins and stay there. All hell’s going to bust loose when they get to the bottom of that old mine. That’ll make leastwise three corpses to nothing and they don’t like that kind of score.’ Someone please write a story about Tiffany Case. quote:Felix Leiter chuckled. ‘Come on, lovebirds,’ he said, looking at his watch. ‘We ought to get going. I’ve got to get back to Vegas tonight and start looking for the skeleton of our old dumb friend ‘Shy Smile’. And you’ve got your plane to catch. You can go on fighting at twenty thousand feet. Get a better perspective from there. May even decide to make up and be friends. You know how they say.’ He beckoned to the waiter. ‘Nothing propinks like propinquity.’ The Lockheed L-1049G Super Constellation was introduced to the market in 1951 as a competitor to the Douglas DC-6. The Super Constellation series was one of the top transatlantic airliners of the mid-1950s, along with being just plain cooler than a Douglas. quote:He thought of the lovely face cradled on the open hand below him, innocent and defenceless in sleep, the scorn gone from the level grey eyes and the ironical droop from the corners of the passionate mouth, and Bond knew that he was very near to being in love with her. And what about her? How strong was this masculine protest that had been born on that night in San Francisco when the men had broken into her room and taken her? Would the child and the woman ever come out from behind the barricade she had started to build that night against all the men in the world? Would she ever come out of the shell that had hardened with each year of solitude and withdrawal? He's absolutely right to be in love. Tiffany Case is so far the best Bond Girl in the books and honestly even more competent than Bond at everything but marksmanship. Bond ruminates on the nature of the Syndicate and comes to the conclusion that Jack Spang and "ABC" are the real heads behind the smuggling racket, as Seraffimo only handled the receiving end of things and everyone else seems disposable. There's nothing implicating the House of Diamonds or Jack Spang, so the only evidence he really has to go on is the London phone number Tiffany used to contact ABC. He resolves to just hand the case over to M and Vallance at the Special Branch when he gets back to London. quote:Just ten hours after leaving Los Angeles they roared over La Guardia and turned out at sea for the long run in. The RMS Queen Elizabeth appeared in a Bond film, but in a rather different state: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mq95sPcNVCU The ocean liner was launched in 1938, named after the Queen Consort (later Queen Mother) Elizabeth, the mother of the more famous Queen Elizabeth II still ruling England. She actually started out pressed into service as a troop transport in World War II and didn't start operating as a passenger liner until 1946. When airliners started becoming the predominant method of crossing the Atlantic in the 1960s, she was retired and changed hands between several buyers. Her final owner was Tung Chao Yung, a Hong Kong shipping magnate who planned on converting her into a floating university. Shortly before the refurbishment was completed, the ship mysteriously caught fire (likely to have been deliberate arson, possibly insurance fraud or a conflict between Tung and the unions) and partially sank into the harbor. The Man with the Golden Gun was filmed as the charred wreck was being broken up for scrap, and in the 1990s the final half of the wreck on the sea floor was buried. Because the Queen Elizabeth was in private hands at the time the film adaptation of this novel was made, the SS Canberra was used instead. quote:But, as first Tiffany Case and then James Bond went into the mouth of the gangway, a dockhand from Anastasia’s Longshoreman’s Union had walked swiftly to a phone booth in the customs shed.
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