Wheat Loaf posted:I believe Fleming chose "James Bond" (which was the name of an ornithologist he admired) it was a completely boring, average name which anybody could have. That is correct. Before he became one of the most popular characters in pop culture history, "James Bond" was a very normal and dull name. Hence Tiffany cracking that he may as well be John Doe.
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# ¿ Jan 8, 2019 02:00 |
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# ¿ Mar 28, 2024 11:26 |
Chapter 6: In Transitquote:It was six o’clock on Thursday evening and Bond was packing his suitcase in his bedroom at the Ritz. It was a battered but once expensive pigskin Revelation and its contents were appropriate to his cover. Evening clothes; his lightweight black and white dog-tooth suit for the country and for golf; Saxone golf shoes; a companion to the dark blue, tropical worsted suit he was wearing, and some white silk and dark blue Sea Island cotton shirts with collars attached and short sleeves. Socks and ties, some nylon underclothes, and two pairs of the long silk pyjama coats he wore in place of two-piece pyjamas. This is definitely a pre-TSA world. The camp shirts made from Sea Island cotton Bond brings were a piece of clothing Fleming himself was fond of. Bond receives a call from the hotel staff, informing him that a "Universal Exports" representative has arrived with a letter to be personally delivered to him. It's one of the MI6 messengers, with instructions for him to read the letter and then take it back to headquarters once he's done. quote:There was a page of blue typewritten foolscap paper with no address and no signature. Bond recognized the extra-large type used in M.’s personal communications. While the Spangled Mob is fictional, the Purple Gang was a real Detroit Jewish gang that operated during Prohibition. After its rise to prominence in the Midwest, violent infighting promptly caused it to dissolve by 1932. The "Cleveland Outfit" is a series of mafia organizations that have existed since the 1900s in Cleveland, under the control of John Scalish from 1944 until his death in 1976. At the time Diamonds are Forever takes place, the Cleveland mafia is at its peak. quote:There was no signature. Bond ran his eyes down the page again, folded it, and placed it in one of the Ritz envelopes. I've posted this before, but here's a Beretta 418 someone modified to be identical to Bond's gun. The front sight is filed down to prevent snagging on the draw, the grip panels are removed to make it even thinner and allow Bond to see how many rounds remain in the magazine, and some tape is wrapped around the grip to both provide a better surface for gripping and hold down the grip safety so the gun can be reliably fired even with a sloppy or incomplete grip. quote:The telephone rang. ‘Your car’s here, Sir.’ The Armstrong Siddeley Sapphire 346 was a very new car at the time this book takes place, with the first model being put on sale in 1952 and the book likely taking place in July and August of 1953. About 7600 of these big, powerful sedans and limousines were made. quote:After the roundabout at the end of the Great West Road, the driver pulled in to the side. He opened the glove compartment and carefully removed six new Dunlop 65’s in their black wrapping paper, and with the seals intact. Leaving the engine idling in neutral, he got out of the front seat and opened the rear door. Bond looked over his shoulder and watched the man unstrap the ball-pocket on his golf bag and, one by one, carefully add the six new balls to the miscellaneous old and new ones the pocket already contained. Then, without a word, the man climbed back into the front seat and the drive continued. As Bond enters the departure lounge, Tiffany Case follows behind and takes up a seat between Bond and the door where she can intercept him if he has second thoughts. He scans the crowd over the newspaper and notes that he doesn't recognize any of the other passengers on his plane, which would be a long shot but still nice to know. He notes that one of the two American businessmen drinking double brandies and water takes what appears to be Dramamine pills. quote:‘Final Lounge?’ Cheerful start to flying the Atlantic, reflected Bond, and then they were all walking across the tarmac and up into the big Boeing and, with a burst of oil and metanol smoke, the engines fired one by one. The chief steward announced over the loudspeaker that the next stop would be Shannon, where they would dine, and that the flying time would be one hour and fifty minutes, and the great double-decker Stratocruiser rolled slowly out to the East-West runway. The aircraft trembled against its brakes as the Captain revved the four engines, one at a time, up to take-off speed, and through his window Bond watched the wing flaps being tested. Then the great plane turned slowly towards the setting sun, there was a jerk as the brakes were released and the grass on either side of the runway flattened as, gathering speed, the Monarch hurtled down the two miles of stressed concrete and rose into the west, aiming ultimately for another little strip of concrete carpet on the other side of the world. Good to know the trend of tacky Irish souvenirs in airports has existed for this long! The Irish coffee Bond has was actually invented in an Irish airport by Joe Sheridan in 1943 when a flying boat to the United States was forced to turn back due to bad weather. Sheridan was asked to return to the terminal at Foynes in western Ireland (35 miles from Shannon Airport, which is where Bond's plane has landed) to prepare food and drinks for the cold passengers, including spiking their coffee with whiskey. When asked if it was Brazilian coffee, he joked "No, it's Irish coffee." quote:Bond slept well and awoke only as they were approaching the southern shores of Nova Scotia. He went forward to the washroom and shaved, and gargled away the taste of a night of pressurized air, and then he went back to his seat between the lines of crumpled, stirring passengers and had his usual moment of exhilaration as the sun came up over the rim of the world and bathed the cabin in blood. chitoryu12 fucked around with this message at 17:05 on Jan 8, 2019 |
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# ¿ Jan 8, 2019 16:57 |
Chapter 7: 'Shady' Treequote:The customs officer, a paunchy good-living man with dark sweat marks at the armpits of his grey uniform shirt, sauntered lazily over from the Supervisor’s desk to where Bond stood, his three pieces of luggage in front of him, under the letter B. Next door, under C, the girl took a packet of Parliaments out of her bag and put a cigarette between her lips. Bond heard several impatient clicks at the lighter, and the sharper snap as she put the lighter back in her bag and closed the fastening. Bond felt aware of her watchfulness. He wished that her name began with Z so that she would not be so close. Zarathustra? Zacharias? Zophany ...? Bond's efforts at small talk are in vain. He asks what the next step is and is only told "Shady wants you", which makes him impatient to start throwing his weight around. The car drives to 46th Street in Midtown Manhattan, which Fleming compares to Hatton Garden (the major jeweler's district in London); I can't comment on how accurate this is for the 1950s. They park in front of a very discreet little shop, House of Diamonds Inc. Another gangster is already waiting on the sidewalk for them. After checking with the driver, the driver takes the golf bag and the new man drives the car away. Inside, they leave the golf clubs with a porter and continue further into the building. quote:The driver, with Bond’s clubs over his shoulder, waited for Bond beside the doors of an elevator across the hall. When Bond followed him inside, he pressed the button for the fourth floor and they rode up in silence. They emerged into another small hallway. It contained two chairs, a table, a large brass spittoon and a smell of stale heat. In the film, Shady Tree is played by stand-up comedian Leonard Barr. Because the film moves the action exclusively to Las Vegas, Shady Tree is recast as an old Vegas stand-up comic and part of the diamond smuggling pipeline. The Spangled Mob is also replaced by a reappearance of the infamous Blofeld and SPECTRE, who has Shady Tree killed off as part of his ultimate plan to use the diamonds to make a giant laser satellite. The book isn't quite as grandiose. quote:Bond smiled politely. Bond sits down across the desk from Shady Tree and lights up a cigarette, asking for his $5000. Along with promising Bond a chance at more money, he informs him that his method of payment will also be disguised to avoid the suspicion of a criminal suddenly becoming flush with cash. quote:‘So,’ said the hunchback, ‘I and my friends pay only very seldom and in small amounts for services rendered. Instead, we arrange for the guy to make the money on his own account. Take yourself. How much money have you got in your pocket?’ Bond makes his move, asking if the mob has any extra work available to keep him out of England for a bit. Shady Tree thinks about it, then gives him a solid maybe and asks him to call after betting on the horses. Bond makes the usual shrug and tells the gangster that he's got no problem with whatever work they give as long as the pay's good. quote:For the first time the china eyes showed emotion. They looked hurt and angry and Bond wondered if he had overplayed. The phone number's a bit weird, right? Before area codes, each phone would have its own number and an exchange that it was tied to. If you were already in the area you would just dial 73697 to get Shady Tree. If you had to call long distance, you'd dial the operator and ask for Wisconsin 7-3697, where the woman on the other end would connect you to the Wisconsin exchange so your call could go through. Starting in 1955, AT&T began working on coming up with standardized abbreviations for the exchanges to make the process easier. Bell engineers quickly realized that human operators were rapidly being stretched to their limit and there wouldn't be enough people to hire as operators, leading to the development of automated exchanges (initially acoustic-based, later computerized) where you could simply dial an area code to be automatically connected to the correct exchange. quote:‘Okay,’ said Bond, a pencil poised obediently over his note-book.
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# ¿ Jan 9, 2019 16:22 |
Chapter 8: The Eye that Never Sleepsquote:It was 12.30 when Bond went down in the elevator and out on to the roasting street. Bond is an experienced spy, and he has a good sense for when he's being tailed even if he can't necessarily identify why. He takes a look around and doesn't see anyone suspicious, but he just feels it. Turning right onto the Avenue of the Americas (what we normally call 6th Avenue), Bond ducks into the first doorway where a man in a tan suit is examining the mannequin in the front of a women's underwear store and starts glancing down the street. quote:And then something gripped his pistol arm and a voice snarled: ‘All right, Limey. Take it easy unless you want lead for lunch,’ and he felt something press into his back just above the kidneys. Here's the canon image of Book Felix that I couldn't post in his actor profile earlier, for obvious reasons. In the movies, this disfigurement was moved to License to Kill; it created an odd problem when attempts were made at novelizations of the movies that fit into the Fleming canon, forcing poor Felix to get chomped again with the exact same note placed on his body. The same book also has the reappearance of a character who's killed off in one of the short stories due to the movie incorporating him, which Bond fails to comment on. quote:Leiter avoided the fashionable room at the famous actors’ and writers’ eating house and led Bond upstairs. His limp was more noticeable and he held on to the banisters. Bond made no comment, but when he left his friend at a corner table in the blessedly air-conditioned restaurant and went off to the wash-room to clean himself up, he added up his impressions. The right arm had gone, and the left leg, and there were imperceptible scars below the hairline above the right eye that suggested a good deal of grafting, but otherwise Leiter looked in good shape. The grey eyes were undefeated, the shock of straw-coloured hair had no hint of grey in it, and there was none of the bitterness of a cripple in Leiter’s face. But in their short walk there had been a hint of reticence in Leiter’s manner and Bond felt this had something to do with him, Bond, and perhaps with Leiter’s present activities. Certainly not, he thought as he walked across the room to join his friend, with Leiter’s injuries. Ahhh, Sardi's. How far you've fallen. Sardi's is the successor to The Little Restaurant, opened in the basement at 246 W. 44th Street in 1921 by Italian immigrants Melchiorre Pio Vincenzo "Vincent" Sardi Sr. and his wife Eugenia Pallera. When the building was demolished to build the St. James Theatre, the Shubert brothers gave them space in another building down the block. Sardi's opened on March 5, 1927 at 234 W. 44th Street and has remained there ever since. Sardi's has a storied history. The Tony Awards were conceived there as a way to honor the deceased Antoinette Perry, and for years the nominations were announced there. Sardi's is very famous for over 1000 celebrity caricatures on display, about half of which were made by Alex Ward before his death in 1948. The restaurant (unusually serving predominately Continental European cuisine rather than Italian) was the quintessential Broadway hangout, especially for actors to get dinner and drinks after their performance. Unfortunately, the food quality had already been slipping decades ago. Ever since the 1980s Sardi's has been in a constant cycle of closures and re-openings as they fail to make their monthly payments, including a dramatic closure in 2016 when their cooking equipment was confiscated due to lack of payment. Even as I visited, they were temporarily closed during my stay in the city! I ate in the same upstairs room as Bond and Leiter and had the most incompetently prepared vodka martini of my life, along with very average smoked salmon heaped onto an undressed hunk of lettuce to make it look like there was more on the plate. The menus were clearly printed hastily on folded paper and missing items. As much as Fleming heaps praise on Sardi's, that heyday is long gone. quote:There was a medium dry Martini with a piece of lemon peel waiting for him. Bond smiled at Leiter’s memory and tasted it. It was excellent, but he didn’t recognize the Vermouth. Occasio Winery has made an effort at recreating Cresta Blanca, which has been out of production for decades. They theorize that Fleming had seen a martini recipe using it in a New York Times ad in 1953 and decided to namedrop it. Brizzola is a cut of beef so obscure today that many have assumed it's a fictional creation of Fleming, but I brought it up to a chef friend of mine and he immediately recognized it and there's contemporary accounts naming it as well (such as the 1927 menu at the Hotel Astor). Brizzola is a simply charcoal-broiled cut of prime rib with the bone intact. quote:‘I’ve told them not to hurry,’ said Leiter. He rapped on the table with his hook. ‘We’ll have another Martini first and while you drink it you’d better come clean.’ There was warmth in his smile, but his eyes were watching Bond. ‘Just tell me one thing. What business have you got with my old friend Shady Tree?’ He gave his order to the waiter and sat forward in his chair and waited. How could Bond ever say no to his old flame? Bond tells Leiter about how he's been told by Shady Tree to back Shy Smile in Saratoga as payoff for his diamond smuggling. Leiter is coincidentally on the Shy Smile case as part of a race fixing investigation: Shy Smile got himself sent to the glue factory and been replaced by the nearly identical but much faster Pickapepper. They've even grafted Shy Smile's tattooed lips onto Pickapepper to further stymie investigation. According to a Spang gangster that gave up the plan to avoid drug charges, the Spangs plan to bet a ton of money on "Shy Smile" to fund their operations. Since Leiter and Bond are coincidentally going to Saratoga at the same time for the same reason, Leiter offers to drive up together and let him stay at the fictional Sagamore Motel with him (there's a real Sagamore resort upstate, but it's 36 miles from Saratoga). quote:The smoked salmon was from Nova Scotia and a poor substitute for the product of Scotland I'd call it a poor substitute for food. quote:but the Brizzola was all that Leiter had said, so tender that Bond could cut it with a fork. He finished his lunch with half an avocado with French dressing and then dawdled over his Espresso. Whew, that's a paragraph! Keep in mind any time Bond gets aggressively flirty with Tiffany that she's a victim of rape from when she was a teenager. quote:Bond saw again the eyes gazing sullenly at him out of the mirror, and he heard the record playing ‘Feuilles Mortes’ in the lonely room. ‘I like her,’ he said briefly. He felt Felix Leiter’s eyes watching him speculatively. He looked at his watch. ‘Well, Felix,’ he said. ‘It looks as if we’ve got hold of the same tiger. But by different tails. It’s going to be fun pulling at them both at the same time. Now I’m going to go and get some sleep. Got a room at the Astor. Where shall we meet on Sunday?’
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# ¿ Jan 10, 2019 16:17 |
poisonpill posted:What places mentioned in Bond’s NYC is still worth a visit? It's legitimately hard to say, unless you're quite wealthy. I never managed to get into 21 so I can't speak on the quality of their food (I'll try to get in next time I'm in the city, probably in the summer), but the King Cole Bar at the St. Regis is decent drinks at a very high price point. I simply can't call any of those cocktails worth the $20+ they charge, especially not the very adequate vodka martini. The best thing there would be the selection of rare spirits, which appeal almost entirely to the wealthy clientele of the hotel. The Grand Central Oyster Bar is also fine, and my dislike of the oyster stew may have been personal preference rather than it being cooked poorly, but that's all it is. Fine. And every single place that Bond visited in Harlem is long since closed, often torn down completely. The world has mostly left Fleming's time behind and only a few relics remain, often outpriced and outdone by newer establishments.
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# ¿ Jan 12, 2019 17:33 |
Chapter 9: Bitter Champagnequote:‘I’m not going to sleep with you,’ said Tiffany Case in a matter-of-fact voice, ‘so don’t waste your money getting me tight. But I’ll have another and probably another one after that. I just don’t want to drink your Vodka Martinis under false pretences.’ The 21 Club on 52nd Street holds the distinction of being one of the very few authentic Prohibition-era speakeasies to still be operating in the modern day. It went through several incarnations after its founding in 1921, settling into its current location in 1929. When Prohibition ended in 1933, the exclusive club smoothly transitioned into a proper restaurant and is still decently regarded to this day. Every president since FDR except George W. Bush has dined there, along with numerous celebrities and politicians. Until 2009, men were required to wear a necktie for dinner; jackets are still required. The jockey statues appeared in the 1930s as affluent customers began honoring the restaurant by giving them statues in the livery of their stables. Again, more horse racing themes in this book. quote:‘Listen, Bond,’ said Tiffany Case, ‘it’d take more than Crabmeat Ravigotte to get me into bed with a man. In any event, since it’s your check, I’m going to have caviar, and what you English call “cutlets”, and some pink champagne. I don’t often date a good-looking Englishman and the dinner’s going to live up to the occasion.’ Suddenly she leant towards him and reached out a hand and put it over his. ‘Sorry,’ she said abruptly. ‘I didn’t mean that about the check. The dinner’s on me. But I did mean it about the occasion.’ She's not that far off about the price. I did an estimate of how much money it would take to recreate just Tiffany's meal with the closest approximations on their current menu and it would be $300+ in modern money. Sauce ravigote is a warm French sauce based on a broth or velouté sauce seasoned with herbs and thickened with chopped shallots and capers. quote:The waiter brought the Martinis, shaken and not stirred, as Bond had stipulated, and some slivers of lemon peel in a wine glass. Bond twisted two of them and let them sink to the bottom of his drink. He picked up his glass and looked at the girl over the rim. ‘We haven’t drunk to the success of a mission,’ he said. I've had a lot of lemon twists in my drinks and I've never once seen one sink to the bottom, unless maybe you're tying fishing weights to it. quote:The girl’s mouth turned down sarcastically at the corners. She drank half the Martini at a gulp and put the glass down firmly on the table. ‘Or to the heart-clutch I only just survived,’ she said dryly. ‘You and your drat golf. I thought you were going to tell that man all about the chip shot you holed in oughty-ought. A little encouragement and you’d have taken out a club and one of those balls and shown him your swing.’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkvtrISLTyM quote:‘I haven’t started to shake it yet. You won’t let me get my arms round the trunk.’ The trains she's taking, the 20th Century Limited and the Super Chief, were two of the top express trains of the day. Fancy service, red carpets, gourmet meals for its celebrity clientele, the works. Neither are operating any longer, but Tiffany is clearly not one to spare expenses on herself. quote:The waiter had gone. For a while they ate their caviar in silence. There was no need to answer the question immediately. Bond suddenly felt they had all the time in the world. They both knew the answer to the big question. For the answers to small ones there was no hurry. Bond tries to push her for more information about her work, but she closes the subject off for obvious reasons. The most she can do is warn him about what kind of danger he's getting into by trying to work for them. quote:They were interrupted by the arrival of the cutlets, accompanied by asparagus with mousseline sauce, and by one of the famous Kriendler brothers who have owned ‘21’ ever since it was the best speak-easy in New York. Lieutenant Colonel Maxwell Arnold Kreindler is the "Mac" here, the younger brother of 21 founder Jack Kreindler. Mac returned from the war and took over the restaurant from 1947 until 1955 before moving to their liquor distributor 21 Brands next door. In 1963 he became the chairman of their board of directors and remained as a consultant for 21 Brands before dying in 1973 at the age of 65 (which makes this "young man" around 45 when he meets Bond). I'd imagine Fleming met him during his own dinners at 21. quote:Tiffany ordered a Stinger made with white crème de menthe and Bond ordered the same. The Stinger is a dessert cocktail made from cognac and white crème de menthe, giving a minty flavor to the brandy without affecting the color. It originated in the decades before Prohibition as an upper-class drink to have after dinner, though today you can obviously have one at any point in the day. Some people serve it on ice, but I find it to be the best when served straight up in a cocktail or coupe glass without excess dilution from melting ice. quote:When the liqueurs and the coffee came, Bond took up the conversation where they had left it. ‘But Tiffany,’ he said. ‘This diamond racket looks easy enough. Why shouldn’t we just go on doing it together? Two or three trips a year will get us good money, and that won’t be often enough to make Immigration or Customs ask any awkward questions.’ The Hotel Astor is another place from Bond's time that no longer exists. It was located in Times Square and served a major part in making it "the Crossroads of the World". Contrary to what you might expect, it was surprisingly gay-friendly for the time as long as the patrons stuck to one side of the bar and didn't make a scene. It was common knowledge and nobody would dare cause a fuss about homosexuals in such a high profile upper-crust place. The hotel was closed and demolished in 1968. The building is now One Astor Plaza, a 54-story skyscraper that serves as the headquarters for Viacom and the MTV studios. quote:They got their keys at the desk and she said ‘five’ to the boy on the elevator. She stood with her face to the door as they rode up. Bond saw that the knuckles of the hand that held her evening bag were white. At the fifth she walked quickly out and made no protest when Bond followed her. They walked round several corners until they came to her door. She bent down and fitted the key into the lock and pushed the door open. Then she turned in the entrance and faced him. chitoryu12 fucked around with this message at 16:01 on Jan 14, 2019 |
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# ¿ Jan 14, 2019 15:55 |
Chapter 10: Studillac to Saratogaquote:James Bond spent most of Saturday in his air-conditioned room at the Astor, avoiding the heat, sleeping, and composing a hundred-group cable addressed to the Chairman, Universal Export, London. He used a simple transposition code based on the fact that it was the sixth day of the week and that the date was the fourth of the eighth month. At exactly 9:00 the next morning, Leiter pulls up in a black Studebaker convertible. Leiter lowers the top with a button press (a fancy add-on back in the early 50s) and puts his hook on the wheel for the drive to Saratoga. quote:‘It’s about two hundred miles,’ said Leiter when they were down on the Hudson River Parkway. ‘Almost due north up the Hudson. In New York State. Just south of the Adirondacks and not far short of the Canadian border. We’ll take the Taconic Parkway. There’s no hurry, so we’ll go easy. And I don’t want to get a ticket. There’s a fifty-mile speed limit in most of New York State, and the cops are fierce. But I can generally get away from them if I’m in a hurry. They don’t book you if they can’t catch you. Too ashamed to turn up in court and admit something is faster than their Indians.’ The Studillac was a custom car produced from 1953 to 1955; Leiter's vehicle would have been $1500 (about $14,000 today) if it was a conversion. You take a Studebaker Starliner and fit it with a Cadillac V8 engine, creating a powerful sports car out of what was ordinarily a standard coupe. The black Studillac is the car that William Woodward Jr. let Fleming ride in before his murder. quote:They wrangled cheerfully over the respective merits of English and American sports cars until they came to the Westchester County toll and then, fifteen minutes later, they were out on the Taconic Parkway that snaked away northwards through a hundred miles of meadows and woodlands, and Bond settled back and silently enjoyed one of the most beautifully landscaped highways in the world, and wondered idly what the girl was doing and how, after Saratoga, he was to get to her again. Miller High Life is an unusual choice for someone who's normally a huge foodie, but it was viewed very differently in 1950s America than it is now. It was the first mass produced bottled beer (rather than being sold exclusively on tap for dispensing into glasses or buckets) and was packaged in clear bottles with foil on the necks to resemble golden champagne. After Prohibition set back American alcohol development practically a century, the only beers really available in America were cheap lagers, often padded out with rice and corn to reduce the price and flavor. Better beers were European, and it wouldn't be until Michael Jackson's work in the 1970s that beer really got categorized into identifiable styles. Right now, Miller High Life really is the best Bond can get on the way to Saratoga! quote:‘Eleven months of the year,’ explained Leiter, ‘the place is just dead. People drift up to take the waters and the mud baths for their troubles, rheumatism and such like, and it’s like any other off-season spa anywhere in the world. Everybody’s in bed by nine, and the only signs of life in the daytime are when two old gentlemen in panama hats get to arguing about the surrender of Burgoyne at Schuylerville just down the road, or about whether the marble floor of the old Union Hotel was black or white. And then for one month – August – the place goes hog-wild. It’s probably the smartest race-meeting in America, and the place crawls with Vanderbilts and Whitneys. The rooming houses all multiply their prices by ten and the race track committee lick the old grandstand up with paint and somehow find some swans for the pond in the centre of the track and anchor the old Indian canoe in the middle of the pond and turn up the fountain. Nobody can remember where the canoe came from, and an American racing writer who tried to find out got as far as that it was something to do with an Indian legend. He said that when he heard that he didn’t bother any more. He said that when he was in fourth grade, he could tell a better lie than any Indian legend he ever heard.’ The newspaper clipping is a real one from 1954, in case you want to read the whole story about mob influence in racing. Jimmy Cannon describes Saratoga as "the Coney Island of the underworld", practically governed by mobsters involved in horse racing until Estes Kefauver's highly publicized investigation in the early 1950s led to them fleeing for less obvious rackets. The article (and Fleming by extension) paints Saratoga as a rough town full of illegal bookies and thugs robbing them in the parking lots. quote:Bond folded the cutting and put it in his pocket.
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# ¿ Jan 16, 2019 20:12 |
MonsterEnvy posted:I think the let's read is going in release order. For the most part. We’re doing the short stories before we do Man with the Golden Gun.
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# ¿ Jan 17, 2019 14:24 |
Chapter 11: 'Shy Smile'quote:The first thing that struck Bond about Saratoga was the green majesty of the elms, which gave the discreet avenues of Colonial-type clapboard houses some of the peace and serenity of a European watering place. And there were horses everywhere, being walked across the streets, with a policeman holding up the traffic, being coaxed out of horse-boxes around the sprawling groups of stables, cantering along the cinder borders of the roads, and being led to work on the exercise track alongside the race-course near the centre of the town. Stable-boys and jockeys, white, negro and Mexican, hung about at the street corners and there was the whinny and the occasional trumpeting scream of horses in the air. This is an old 1950s postcard of Saratoga, which should show what Bond's witnessing here. quote:Leiter dropped him at the Sagamore, which was on the edge of the town and only half a mile from the race-track, and went off about his business. They agreed to contact each other only at night or casually in the crowds at the races, but to pay a dawn visit to the exercise track if ‘Shy Smile’ was being given a last workout at sunrise the next day. Leiter said he would know about this, and much more, after an evening around the stables and at ‘The Tether’, the all-night restaurant and bar that was the home of the racing underworld when they came up for the August meeting. Leiter joins Bond in his room. He wants them to head out to the track at 5:30 the next morning to observe "Shy Smile" doing a test ride around the track. He's identified the listed owner as "Lame-Brain" Pissaro, a mobster who used to run the Spangled Mob's drug smuggling across the Mexican border before being left mentally deficient after a stay in San Quentin. The jockey, "Tingaling" Bell, is a legit rider who's just crooked enough that he could be paid off to fix a race. The trainer, "Rosy" Budd, is a habitual criminal from Kentucky who only stopped mugging and raping long enough to help Spang with this fraud. quote:Bond was mystified. ‘But why don’t you just turn them over to the Stewards? Who are your principals in all this? Who pays the bills?’ I've never actually seen a horse race, or been to Saratoga for that matter. Ridden plenty of horses through the forest and on the beach though. After discussing their plan over breakfast, Bond and Leiter go their separate ways and Bond gets to spend his day idling around and watching the weaker races on that first afternoon. Here's an example of that canoe painted in last year's winner's colors. quote:Bond tried out the system made famous by ‘Chicago’ O’Brien. He backed every firm favourite for a place, or ‘to show’ as his first ticket-hatch told him to call it, and he had somehow made fifteen dollars and some cents by the end of the eighth race and the day’s meeting. He walked home with the crowds, had a shower and some sleep and then found his way to a restaurant near the sales ring and spent an hour drinking the drink that Leiter had told him was fashionable in racing circles – Bourbon and branch-water. Bond guessed that in fact the water was from the tap behind the bar, but Leiter had said that real Bourbon drinkers insist on having their whisky in the traditional style, with water from high up in the branch of the local river where it will be purest. The barman didn’t seem surprised when he asked for it, and Bond was amused at the conceit. Then he ate an adequate steak and, after a final Bourbon, walked over to the sales ring, which Leiter had fixed as a rendezvous. Yeah, this is a real thing. Nowadays if you ask for "bourbon and branch" you'll just be given bourbon with some water, but the most particular bourbon nerds will go so far as to get branch water from the stream or river the distillery was built on so they can water it down with the same water used to make the bourbon. I personally don't water down my whiskey with more than a few drops at best, and if you're watering it down enough that the taste of the water affects it you're either using really hard/dirty water or you're using way too much water. Bond heads over to the white wooden overhang where horses are brought up one at a time for auctioning. Sitting behind a scrawny old woman whose wrists are covered in clanging bangles, he observes the horse sales while waiting for Leiter. quote:A pause, a bang of the hammer, a look of sincere reproach towards the ringside seats where the big money sat. ‘Folks, this two-year-old is too cheap. I’m selling more winning colt for this amount of money than I’ve sold all summer long. Now, eight thousand seven hundred and who’ll give me nine? Where’s nine, nine, nine?’ (The mummified hand in the rings and bracelets took the gold-and-bamboo pencil out of the bag and scribbled a calculation on the programme which Bond could see said ‘34th Annual Saratoga Yearling Sales. No. 201. A Bay Colt.’ Then the leaden eyes of the woman looked across the silver ropes into the electric eyes of the horse and she raised the gold pencil.) ‘And nine thousand is bid nine will yer give me ten will yer do it? Any increase on nine thousand do I hear nine one nine one nine one?’ (A pause and a last questing look round the crammed white seats and then a bang of the hammer.) ‘Sold for nine thousand dollars. Thank you, ma’am.’
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# ¿ Jan 17, 2019 16:02 |
Chapter 12: The Perpetuitiesquote:Bond sat high up in the grandstand and through hired glasses watched ‘Shy Smile’s’ owner eating soft-shell crabs. Bond is consistently mocking these gangsters and showing how little respect he has for them or how dangerous they can be. He's even delighted in the opportunity to throw his big dick secret agent weight around and gently caress with them. I'm sure this won't come back to bite him any time soon! He looks at the racing program. "Shy Smile", #10 on the roster, is forecast at the lowest 15-to-1 odds. The big light-up board keeps updating with the odds as bets come in, with the fake Shy Smile going as low as 20-to-1. Before the race, Leiter had quietly blackmailed the mafia jockey with knowledge of the horse swap to throw the race. Leiter wants him to come in first place but get disqualified, which will help cover him from reprisals from Pissaro. He gave Bell $1000 and Bond is going to meet him after the race at the Acme Mud and Sulfur Baths to give him another $2000. quote:Bond picked up his glasses and swept them round the course. He noted the four thick posts at the quarter miles that held the automatic cameras that recorded the whole race and whose film was available to the Stewards within minutes of each finish. It was this last one near the winning post whose eye would see and record all that happened at the final bend. Bond felt a tingle of excitement. Five minutes to go and the starting-gate was being pulled into position a hundred yards up to his left. Once round the course, plus an extra furlong, and the winning post was just below him. He put his glasses on the big board. No change in the favourites or in ‘Shy Smile’s’ price. And now here came the horses, cantering easily down to the start. First came No.1, ‘Come Again’, the second favourite. A big black horse carrying the light blue and brown colours of the Whitney Stable. And there was a cheer for the favourite, ‘Pray Action’, a fast-looking grey carrying the Woodward white with red spots of the famous Belair Stud, and, at the tail of the field, there was the big chestnut with the blaze face and four white stockings, and the pale-faced jockey wearing a jacket of lavender silk with a big black diamond on chest and back. The race comes to an end. Bell barely has enough time to remove his saddle before "OBJECTION" pops up next to "Shy Smile's" name on the board. A notice comes over the loudspeaker to the betters not to destroy their tickets and that an investigation is beginning into the race conduct. quote:Bond took out his handkerchief and wiped his hands. He could imagine the scene in the projection room behind the judges’ box. Now they would be examining the film. Bell would be standing there looking hurt, and, beside him, No. 3’s jockey looking still more hurt. Would the owners be there? Would the sweat be running down Pissaro’s fat jowls into his collar? Would some of the other owners be there, pale and angry?
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# ¿ Jan 21, 2019 16:00 |
So, fun thing about horse racing: every name can only be used once. As soon as a name is taken, it's permanently on the register and can never be used again for another horse. 140 horses have won the Kentucky Derby with names like Burgoo King, Dust Commander, Mine That Bird. This website is the largest compilation of horse names in the world if you want to go hunting for the truly ridiculous, from Daddy's Overdraft and Mr. Blobby to My New Nikes and Fat Chance Cinnamon. I read once about a man who submitted an entire list of possible horse names along with an angry screed at the bottom, only to find out that all of the names were taken when his horse was registered as something like "I Hope One Of These Goddamn Names Isn't On The List."
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# ¿ Jan 21, 2019 16:13 |
It’s still the big thing for the region, but my entire knowledge of horse racing is basically what I posted here and the popularity of Mint Juleps at the Kentucky Derby so I can’t describe how worthwhile it is.
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# ¿ Jan 21, 2019 17:02 |
Pee is stored in the Pissaro.
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# ¿ Jan 21, 2019 21:36 |
Chapter 13: Acme Mud and Sulphurquote:In the small red bus there was only a negress with a withered arm and, beside the driver, a girl who kept her sick hands out of sight and whose head was completely shrouded in a thick black veil which fell to her shoulders, like a bee-keeper’s hat, without touching the skin of her face. This scene was based on the road trip Fleming had taken to Saratoga, where he and his friends got lost trying to find a high quality mud bath spot and accidentally ended up at a budget spot. Mud baths (or "mineral baths") are still around in Saratoga thanks to the supposed healing and invigorating qualities of the naturally carbonated spring water. While the movie never visits Saratoga, it keeps the mud baths in the sense of having Bond hunting down Blofeld as he puts him and his plastic surgery clones through them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RUTuW44YOk quote:Outside the bus the smell of sulphur hit Bond with sickening force. It was a horrible smell, from somewhere down in the stomach of the world. Bond moved away from the entrance and sat down on a rough bench under a group of dead-looking firs. He sat there for a few minutes to steel himself for what was going to happen to him through the screen doors and to shake off his sense of oppression and disgust. It was partly, he decided, the reaction of a healthy body to the contact with disease, and it was partly the tall grim Belsen chimney with its plume of innocent smoke. But most of all it was the prospect of going in through those doors, buying the ticket, and then stripping his clean body and giving it over to the nameless things they did in this grisly ramshackle establishment. I get the feeling that Fleming was viscerally offended by showing up at a low-rent mud bath place. quote:A faded woman with a screw of orange hair above a face like a sad cream-puff raised her head slowly and looked at him through the bars, keeping one finger on her place in True Love Stories. *deep sighing* quote:It was a square grey concrete room. From the ceiling, four naked electric light bulbs, spotted with fly droppings, threw an ugly glare on the dripping walls and floor. Against the walls were trestle tables. Bond automatically counted them. Twenty. On each table was a heavy wooden coffin with a three-quarter lid. In most of the coffins the profile of a sweating face showed above the wooden sides and pointed up at the ceiling. A few eyes were rolled inquisitively towards Bond, but most of the congested red faces looked asleep. I've never had a mud bath and have no intention of having one, but you can see the similarities to the contraption in the film. I'm assuming Fleming's descriptions are not meant to endear the reader to the concept. Because Bond is new, the attendant starts him at 110 degrees, still hot enough for the mud to sting when he gets in. After he gets in, he starts slapping mud all over Bond's body. quote:The mud was a deep chocolate brown and it felt smooth and heavy and slimy. A smell of hot peat came up to Bond’s nostrils. He watched the shining, blubbery arms of the negro working over the obscene black mound that had once been his body. Had Felix Leiter known what this was going to be like? Bond grinned savagely at the ceiling. If this was one of Felix’s jokes … At least it's not as bad as Live and Let Die.... quote:The door opened again and one of the card players put his head in. Bond's underestimating of the mob picked possibly the worst time to come back to bite him. One of the men pistol whips the black attendant with his revolver to force him to say where Bell is. As he walks over to Bell's box, he stops and noticeably takes a hard look at Bond's face. Instead of doing anything, however, he jumps onto the lid of Bell's box. quote:‘Well, well. Damifitaint Tingaling Bell.’ There was a ghastly friendliness in his voice. quote:The man stepped swiftly aside and hurled the empty bucket at the man with the cauliflower ear, who stood still and let it hit him. Then he moved fast across the room to where the other man with the gun stood near the door. chitoryu12 fucked around with this message at 16:23 on Jan 22, 2019 |
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# ¿ Jan 22, 2019 16:18 |
Chapter 14: 'We don't like mistakes'quote:‘Then what happened?’ Hm. I wonder who we've seen before who was terrified of traveling? I mentioned them before, but Wint and Kidd appeared in the film adaptation played by Bruce Glover (Crispin Glover's father) and Putter Smith (a prominent jazz bassist) respectively. The film sticks with only implying the homosexuality that the book tries to make explicit. As the films are generally far campier than the books at this point, they're essentially a comedic duo. quote:Bond stripped and spent ten minutes under the shower, lathering himself all over and washing his hair to get rid of the last filthy memory of the Acme Baths. Then he dressed in trousers and shirt and went over to the telephone booth in the reception hall and put in a call to Shady Tree. Bond is amused by the constant use of gambling to cover up his payment, but realizes that it makes sense as a cover. As he sees how many steps in the illegitimate operation are given legitimate alibis, he's starting to recognize how meticulous these gangsters are. They're not just playing a part for their egos like he expected. Shady Tree calls back. Bond is heading to Vegas from New York City, where he'll have a reservation at the Tiara waiting for him. At 10:05 PM he goes to the central blackjack table in the side room by the bar, plays the maximum of $1000 five times to win rigged hands, and gets his check from the casino bank. quote:‘Check,’ said the hunchback. ‘Don’t talk and don’t make a mistake. We don’t like mistakes. You’ll find that when you read tomorrow’s paper.’ Caruso sauce (or Salsa Caruso) actually originates from Uruguay, of all places. It's a warm cream sauce with ham, cheese, nuts, and mushrooms. The sauce was invented in the 1950s in the Mario and Alberto restaurant in Montevideo, so seeing it all the way up in Saratoga at this time would be highly unusual. I'm wondering if Fleming may have encountered it on his recent travels or reading and decided to incorporate it despite the improbability for the setting. I can't find an easy record of a Pavilion restaurant existing in Saratoga, but there's the big Pavilion Grand Hotel on Lake Avenue that's been open since 1819. It might be a reference to that hotel or a restaurant inside it. quote:It was late and most of the diners had finished their meal and gone off to the sales ring. They had a corner table to themselves and Leiter told the head waiter not to hurry with the lobsters but to bring two very dry Martinis made with Cresta Blanca Vermouth. It's hard to imagine Sean Connery cackling over "Baby needs a new pair of shoes!" over a drink with Jack Lord. Even harder to imagine Roger Moore doing it. I spent two nights in Vegas a few months ago on my big trip out west. The Strip is basically decadence personified, right down to very relaxed public drinking laws. Strippers and burlesque are advertised openly right next to the McDonalds full of kids, pedestrian bridges have you taking roundabout routes to cross the street, and every inch is full of advertisements, neon, buskers, and girls dressed up as stereotypical "showgirls" trying to get people to pay for pictures with them. Everything is more expensive than it needs to be. It's a sensory overload designed to siphon your wallet. The funny part is that Vegas was literally nothing just decades before this book takes place. There was a Mormon fort there in the 19th century, but it was abandoned after only a few years. It wasn't founded until 1905 or incorporated as a city until 1911, and it was nothing but a few wooden buildings in an empty patch of desert. Even now, Vegas is surrounded by desert for miles. I don't know of any major city that's more isolated from the rest of civilization. What changed was 1931. Nevada legalized gambling, reduced residency requirements, and began construction of the Hoover Dam nearby. All of this meant that a gigantic amount of cash suddenly flowing into the town, which rapidly opened up casinos and restaurants to take advantage of the booming population. The economic boom after World War II expanded the city even further, and by the 1950s it was firmly established in popular culture as the city it is today. In the 1950s, Vegas is also known as a town of mobsters. The mafia rapidly moved in when opportunity came a-knockin', establishing casinos or getting involved in existing ones. It's an open secret that much of the city's profits go into gang pockets. In a way that only America could ever be, it's also the town of nuclear explosions! Nuclear testing was done in Nevada from 1951 to 1963, close enough to the city that anyone in a tall building or on one of the mountains surrounding the city could see the bright flash and mushroom clouds going off from the 100 bombs they detonated above ground. This was immediately seized as a tourist attraction as bars, restaurants, and hotels created atomic-themed merchandise and cocktails. Tickets were sold for viewing parties when a test was scheduled so you could put on sunglasses and watch the atom get split with an Atomic Cocktail in hand (made from vodka, brandy, sherry, and champagne). There were beauty pageants where the girls wore dresses resembling mushroom clouds. America, right? quote:‘Must have been good publicity.’ Leiter takes advantage of Fleming's research on casino security: quote:‘Mark you,’ said Leiter between mouthfuls of broiled lobster. ‘The dealer should have known better than get caught with his duke in the tambourine. They’ve got a good trick in these Vegas casinos. Take a look at the ceiling lights. Very modern. Just holes in the ceiling with the light beamed through on to the tables. They throw a very strong light with no sideways glare to upset the customers. Take another look and you’ll see there’s no light coming from the alternate holes. They just seem to be there to make a pattern.’ Leiter slowly shook his head from side to side. ‘Not so, my friend. Up on the floor above, there’s a television camera on a dolly that moves around the floor taking an occasional peek through those empty holes. Kind of a spot-check on the play. If they’re wondering about one of the dealers, or about one of the players, they’ll take a picture of the whole of one session at that particular table and every drat card or throw will be watched by the guys sitting quietly upstairs. Smart, hn? These dumps are wired for everything except smell. But the dealers know it, and this guy just hoped the camera was looking somewhere else. Fatal error. Too bad.’ Video surveillance was a very new thing at the time. Some of the first closed-circuit television cameras were used by the Germans in World War II for watching rocket tests from afar. Commercial security cameras were fewer than 10 years old at the time this book was written. quote:Bond smiled at Leiter. ‘I’ll watch out,’ he promised. ‘But don’t forget I’ve somehow got to get another step down the pipeline. To the tap at the end of it. In fact, I’ve got to get right up close to your friend Mr Seraffimo Spang. I can’t do that by just sending up my card. And I’ll tell you something else, Felix.’ Bond’s voice was deliberate. ‘I’ve suddenly taken against the brothers Spang. I didn’t like those two men in hoods. The way the man hit that fat negro. The boiling mud. I wouldn’t have minded so much if he’d just beaten the jockey up – ordinary cops-and-robbers stuff. But that mud showed a nasty mind. And I took against Pissaro and Budd. I don’t know what it is, but I’ve just taken against all of them.’ Bond’s voice was apologetic. ‘Thought I ought to warn you.’
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# ¿ Jan 23, 2019 16:49 |
Chapter 15: Rue De La Payquote:The plane made a big curve out over the sparkling blue Pacific and then swept round across Hollywood and gained height so as to make the Cajon Pass through the great golden cliff of the High Sierras. Few things date a work so fast. This is a view of part of Las Vegas Boulevard (better known as the Strip) around the same time as the book. You can see how the desert just stretches for miles out of the city before you hit mountains. Once you leave town, it gets very desolate very quickly. In general, that part of the United States is extremely underpopulated and it's common on the interstate to go an hour or more between even the tiniest towns or individual houses. There's large swathes of Utah, Arizona, Texas, etc. with little to no cell service even now. quote:The heat hit Bond’s face like a fist, and he had begun to sweat in the fifty yards between his cool plane and the blessed relief of the air-conditioned terminal building. The glass doors, operated by seeing-eye photo-electric cells, hissed open as he approached and slowly closed behind him, and already the slot-machines, four banks of them, were right in his path. It was natural to bring out the small change and jerk the handles and watch the lemons and the oranges and the cherries and the bell-fruits whirl round to their final click-pause-ting, followed by a soft mechanical sigh. Five cents, ten cents, a quarter. Bond gave them all a try, and only once two cherries and a bell fruit coughed back three coins for the one he had played. This isn't an exaggeration. 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. quote:As he moved away, waiting for the baggage of the half-dozen passengers to appear on the ramp near the exit, his eyes caught a notice over a big machine that might have been for iced water. It said: ‘OXYGEN BAR’. He strolled over to it and read the rest: ‘BREATHE PURE OXYGEN’, it said. ‘HEALTHFUL AND HARMLESS. FOR A QUICK LIFT. EASES DISTRESS OF OVER-INDULGENCE, DROWSINESS, FATIGUE, NERVOUSNESS AND MANY OTHER SYMPTOMS.’ And yes, the oxygen bars are real too! Today they're actually set up as a proper "bar" and have different flavors. quote:The loudspeaker asked passengers to collect their luggage and Bond picked up his case and pushed through the swing doors of the exit into the red-hot arms of noon. He's also a friend of Ian Fleming! Ernest Cuneo was an American lawyer who was appointed as a liaison officer between the OSS, British Security Coordination of MI6, FBI, US Department of State, and Franklin D. Roosevelt himself. Along with abusing his position to selectively leak stories and damage the reputation of officers he and his friends didn't like, Cuneo became friends with all of the British celebrities who worked in intelligence like Noel Coward, Roald Dahl, and Fleming himself. He contributed the basic plot of Thunderball and over half of Goldfinger to Fleming and outlived him by 24 years. quote:‘Sure,’ said the driver, over his shoulder. ‘Nice guy. Told me to watch out for ya. Be glad if I can do anything while ya’re here. Staying long?’ Bond has a habit of getting exposed really easily. quote:They were just entering the famous ‘Strip’. The desert on both sides of the road, which had been empty except for occasional hoardings advertising the hotels, was beginning to sprout gas stations and motels. They passed a motel with a swimming pool which had built-up transparent glass sides. As they drove by, a girl dived into the bright green water and her body sliced through the tank in a cloud of bubbles. Then came a gas station with an elegant drive-in restaurant. GASETERIA, it said. FRESH-UP HERE! HOT DOGS! JUMBOBURGERS!! ATOMBURGERS!! ICE COOL DRINKS!!! DRIVE IN, and there were two or three cars being served by waitresses in high-heeled shoes and two-piece bathing suits. This is so 50s it's painful. The motel with the glass-sided pool is the Mirage, no relation to the modern Mirage that was built in 1989. As fancy was it was, it suffered from leakage problems and increasing amounts of money were needed to keep it renovated over the decades. After Steve Wynn purchased the rights to the name, it was renamed the Glass Pool Inn, closed in 2003, and demolished. The site is still a vacant lot today, just a few blocks from the famous "Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas" sign. quote:‘On ya right, The Flamingo,’ said Ernie Cureo as they passed a low-lying modernistic hotel with a huge tower of neon, now dead, outside it. ‘Bugsy Siegel built that back in 1946. He came over to Vegas from the coast one day and took a look round. Had a lot of hot money looking for investment. Vegas was goin’ great guns. Town wide open. Gambling. Legalized cat-shops. Nice set-up. It didn’t take long for Bugsy to catch on. He saw the possibilities.’ The Flamingo is still open and bigger than ever. It was originally an empty 40-acre plot of land owned by Charles "Pops" Squire, one of the first settlers of Las Vegas. It changed hands until it came into the possession of Billy Wilkerson, owner of The Hollywood Reporter and popular Sunset Strip nightclubs. When he had difficulty getting funding to develop the huge resort he wanted, Bugsy just so happened to be in town looking for a place outside the city limits where he could get mafia money involved in Vegas. Posing as a legitimate businessman, he bought a 2/3 stake in the project and provided the money to keep it going. The casino hemorrhaged money and Bugsy was suspected of skimming the profits, so he got a few .30 Carbine rounds in the head for his troubles. Moe Sedway and Gus Greenbaum of the nearby El Cortez took over ownership and revamped the concept, turning the failure that killed Bugsy Siegel into an incredibly profitable enterprise. In 1953 when Bond is visiting, the Flamingo has just gotten a gigantic remodeling giving it that neon sign and tower. The Sands is another one that's closed, being demolished in 1996 and replaced by The Venetian (where I got incredibly drunk, ate empanadas, and had to navigate a whole maze of passageways to find the parking garage for my Lyft). The Rat Pack and Jerry Lewis performed here constantly, to the point where the Sands is forever associated with Sinatra and the gang. October of 1953 is actually when Frank Sinatra makes his first performance at the Copa Room. The Sands is also where Sinatra would start the process of racial integration in Las Vegas. In 1955 (after he had bought a minor share in the hotel), he witnessed Nat King Cole eating alone in his dressing room because blacks weren't allowed in the dining room. Sinatra blew a gasket and threatened to have every waiter and waitress fired if he wasn't allowed in. In 1961, he and Sammy Davis Jr. witnessed a black couple being denied booking; Sinatra personally made the bouncers stand down and erupted on the phone to casino manager Carl Cohen to finally integrate the hotel. Sinatra had a rather volatile relationship with the rest of the casino (especially new owner Howard Hughes, who had a rivalry with him over Ava Gardner) and threw a tantrum when his gambling addiction was stymied by attempts to limit his credit, resulting in him tripping waiters and harassing staff. It finally came to a head when Sinatra crashed a golf cart through the window of a coffee shop, began screaming anti-Semitic insults at Cohen, and got into a fistfight with him. He wouldn't perform at the Sands again until the 1980s. quote:‘Well then, here’s The Desert Inn. Wilbur Clark’s place. But the money came from the old Cleveland-Cincinatti combination. And that dump with the flat-iron sign is The Sahara. Latest thing. Listed owners are a bunch of small-time gamblers from Oregon. Funny thing, they lost $50,000 on their opening night. Would ya believe it! All the big shots come along with their pockets full of dough to make some courtesy play, make the fust night a success, y’unnerstand. It’s a custom here for the rival outfits to gather round at an opening. But boy, the cards just wouldn’t co-operate and the opposition guys walked off with fifty Grand! Town’s laffing about it still. Then,’ he waved to the left where the neon was wrought into a twenty-foot covered wagon at full gallop, ‘Ya get The Last Frontier. That’s a dummy Western town on the left. Worth seein’. And over there’s The Thunderbird, and across the road’s The Tiara. Snazziest joint in Vegas. Guess ya know about Mister Spang and all that?’ He slowed down and halted opposite the Spang hotel, which was topped by a ducal coronet of brilliant lights that winked on and off in a lost battle with the glaring sun and the reflections from the highway. The Desert Inn is relatively new at this time, having been built in 1950. Frank Sinatra made his debut in Vegas at the Painted Desert Room (later the Crystal Room) in 1951. It was known for its high profile clientele and opulence; Howard Hughes rented out the top two floors in 1966 for 10 days, and when he was asked to stop staying past his reservation so they could rent the rooms out he simply bought the hotel. The money for the hotel came from Moe Dalitz of the Mayfield Road Mob in Cleveland, the original "Mr. Las Vegas". Dalitz was never convicted of a crime in his life despite being widely known as a gangster and was so influential in the development of Las Vegas that the Anti-Defamation League awarded him the Torch of Liberty in 1982, presented by Joan Rivers. 4 months after the resort's 50th anniversary, new owner Steve Wynn closed it down. The building was imploded and replaced with the Wynn Las Vegas, the 7th largest hotel in the world. The Sahara opened in 1947 as Club Bingo, then got renamed in 1952. It's still too new at the time Bond is visiting to be of major importance, but over the decades it would get a very popular Don the Beachcomber restaurant location and have just about every major Vegas performer (Rat Pack and The Beatles included) play or stay there. It shut in 2011, but reopened as the SLS Las Vegas in 2014. The hotel is expected to be rebranded this year, possibly as another Sahara incarnation. The Last Frontier started out as the Pair-O-Dice nightclub in 1930. By 1942 the nightclubs on the area had been rebuilt as the Last Frontier, a resort themed around the Old West. Elvis Presley had his first ever Vegas appearance in 1956, a year after it had been renamed yet again to the New Frontier. After some trials of mafia members who had been secretly controlling the casino (during which it was renamed again to just The Frontier), it was purchased by Howard Hughes. In the 90s, the Culinary Workers Union Local 226 had a strike that lasted over 6 years and (after returning the name to New Frontier) the troubled resort was finally closed in 2007 and demolished. The site remains undeveloped. The Thunderbird was the fourth hotel on the Strip to open. It featured a Navajo theme and the only bowling alley on the strip, as usual secretly controlled by mobsters like Meyer Lansky. Rosemary Clooney (aunt of George Clooney) made her first singing appearance in Vegas at the Thunderbird in 1951 and Judy Garland made her last in 1965. It was renamed the Silverbird in 1976, then El Rancho in 1982. Despite Rodney Dangerfield opening a comedy club inside, the hotel closed permanently in 1992. There were fights over who would take ownership, but by the time any of the property owners had managed to raise funding for a new hotel the property was rotting and filled with chemicals and asbestos. The site was used for the development of the Fontainebleau Las Vegas in 2007, only for the project to go bankrupt. The building is now planned to open as the Drew Las Vegas (presumably named in honor of Steve Witkoff's son Andrew, who died of an OxyContin overdose) in 2020. Okay NOW we can get on with the book. quote:‘Yes, I know the outlines,’ said Bond. ‘But I’d be glad for you to fill them in some time. And now what?’ chitoryu12 fucked around with this message at 15:45 on Jan 25, 2019 |
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# ¿ Jan 25, 2019 15:34 |
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 |
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 |
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 |
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 |
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 |
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 |
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 |
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 |
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 |
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 |
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 |
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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# ¿ Feb 4, 2019 16:46 |
The_White_Crane posted:It is, in fact, essentially the only thing Book Bond is actually very good at.
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# ¿ Feb 4, 2019 18:59 |
I'm going to be in Boston until Saturday on a business trip, so I'm putting out another chapter to help tide you over. Chapter 20: Love And Sauce Béarnaise quote:Punctually at eight, the great reverberating efflatus of the Queen Elizabeth’s siren made the glass tremble in the skyscrapers and the tugs fussed the big ship out into midstream and nosed her round and, at a cautious five knots, she moved slowly down-river on the slack tide. I have a feeling getting all this italicizing right will be very annoying soon. The zig-zags and U-Boat packs were a fact of life of transatlantic crossings in World War II. The Battle of the Atlantic is classified as the longest military campaign of the war, from the time it started in 1939 until it ended in 1945. As an island nation cut off from Europe by the German occupation, the UK was reliant on ships and planes for supplies to keep the war going. Thousands of ships crossed back and forth, zig-zagging to avoid any kind of predictable route that could be intercepted, and engaging in well over 1000 battles and ship vs. ship encounters. Repainted in battleship gray, the RMS Queen Elizabeth was a valuable troop transport for her high speed. She carried over 750,000 troops during the war before entering her intended role as a passenger liner. quote:He picked up the telephone and asked for Miss Case. When she heard his voice she gave a theatrical groan. ‘The sailor hates the sea,’ she said. ‘I’m feeling sick already and we’re still in the river.’ Seriously. Every single line from Tiffany Case makes her out to be an incredibly interesting and engaging person who clearly gets up to a lot more action than just this book. It also makes the travesty that is the film adaptation even worse in how it treated her. quote:‘Just as well,’ said Bond. ‘Stay in your cabin and live on dramamine and champagne. I’ll be no good for two or three days. I’m going to get the doctor and the masseur from the Turkish bath and try and stick the bits together again. And anyway it won’t do any harm to stay out of sight for most of the voyage. It’s just conceivable they picked us up in New York.’ On the third day of the voyage, Bond and Tiffany make a date for cocktails in the Observation Lounge and dinner at the Veranda Grill. quote:‘What kind of a table’s this?’ she inquired sarcastically. ‘You ashamed of me or something? Here I put on the best those Hollywood pansies can dream up and you hide me away like I was Miss Rheingold 1914. I want to have myself some fun on this old paddleboat and you put me in a corner as if I was catching.’ Bond may drink a lot of whiskey, but I can see where the "vodka martini, shaken not stirred" came from. He downs tons of them and will even order them for other people without asking. In the era of the craft cocktail, I find them perfectly boring and okay drinks for getting drunk without much care. quote:‘Dear Diary,’ said the girl, ‘having wonderful time with handsome Englishman. Trouble is, he’s after my family jewels. What do I do? Yours truly puzzled.’ Then suddenly she leant over and put her hand on his. ‘Listen, you Bond person,’ she said. ‘I’m as happy as a cricket. I love being here. I love being with you. And I love this nice dark table where no one can see me holding your hand. Don’t mind my talk. I just can’t get over being so happy. Don’t mind my silly jokes, will you?’ Tiffany asks for Bond's real identity, and he finally admits to being a government agent (though he'll only go so far as "civil servant" rather than "secret agent") trying to shut down the smuggling ring. She asks him why he hasn't married and just sticks to having affairs. quote:‘I expect because I think I can handle life better on my own. Most marriages don’t add two people together. They subtract one from the other.’ Tiffany's backstory is even more captivating than the rest of the girls we've seen so far. Vesper was a girl manipulated into becoming a Soviet agent by torturing her boyfriend, Solitaire was a Haitian plantation girl brought to New York by a criminal, and Gala Brand was a no-nonsense cop who had no time for Bond's shenanigans. Tiffany has had a lovely life from day one of her existence, hosed by fate every step of the way, hardening her but turning her into a wisecracking professional criminal. Even in her early 20s, she can maintain a perfect poker face while backstabbing one of the most dangerous mobsters in America. The girl's hardcore. quote:She paused and smiled up at him. ‘Now it’s your turn again,’ she said. ‘Buy me another drink and then tell me what sort of a woman you think would add to you.’ I think Fleming was a big fan of Japan, despite the relationship he had with it in the war. Bond does indeed have a lot of fun there later. quote:‘I guess every girl would like to come home and find a hat on the hall table,’ said Tiffany moodily. ‘Trouble is I’ve never found the right sort of thing growing under the hat. Maybe I haven’t looked hard enough or in the right places. You know how it is when you get in a groove. You get so that you’re quite glad not to look over the edges. In that way I’ve had it good with the Spangs. Always knew where the next meal was coming from. Put some money by. But a girl can’t have friends in that company. You either put up a notice saying “No Entry” or you’re apt to pick up a bad case of round heels. But I guess I’m fed up with being on my own. You know what the chorines say on Broadway? “It’s a lonesome wash without a man’s shirt in it”.’ And of course he just has to torpedo everything before it even starts. quote:Bond cursed himself. He put some money down on the bill and hurried after her. He caught up with her half way down the Promenade Deck. ‘Now listen, Tiffany,’ he began. If you recall Tiffany's childhood, she hasn't really had any kind of serious love in her life. Her first experience with sex was being gang raped as a teenager. She reacts to love with suspicion and fear, unwilling to trust if any man who seems attracted to her is just planning to use her for their own ends. It's important to note that Fleming is writing such a complex character in the 1950s, long before any serious modern feminist movement became mainstream and less than 40 years after the UK granted women the right to vote. While he may stumble and fail to live up to modern standards, Tiffany Case has been a very rounded and engaging female deuteragonist who can easily match wits with James Bond, the very picture of masculine fantasy. quote:She turned away from him and looked out of the window at the endless blue sea and at the handful of dipping gulls that were keeping company with their wonderfully prodigal ship. After a while she said: ‘You ever read Alice in Wonderland?’ I think following a hot bath or shower with a cold one is another Fleming quirk that he added to the character. I don't think I know anyone else who does it. quote:There was a knock on the door and his steward came in with a small tray which he placed on the table.
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# ¿ Feb 5, 2019 05:14 |
It’s very interesting because Fleming is a lot more “feminist” than many men of his period, but seems to be struggling to conflate that with his upbringing. Remember that he was 10 years old when British women gained the right to vote. He consistently writes strong and complex female characters who claw themselves out of adversity and provide serious help in defeating the bad guys, but are still secretly emotional and need the help of a man to solve their issues. It’s similar to his treatment of race. The same book will include tons of racist statements and slurs, but also depict both black villains and allies as strong and equal to the white men. If he had been born 60 or 70 years later, he’d likely have been pretty progressive in his social views. As it is, he’s almost got a cognitive dissonance between his actual experiences with women and racial minorities and the way he was raised to find himself superior as a white Englishman.
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# ¿ Feb 7, 2019 19:18 |
Chapter 23: The Job Comes Secondquote:It is an intoxicating moment in a love-affair when, for the first time, in a public place, in a restaurant or a theatre, the man puts his hand down and lays it on the thigh of the girl and when she slips her hand over his and presses the man’s hand against her. The two gestures say everything that can be said. All is agreed. All the pacts are signed. And there is a long minute of silence during which the blood sings. Betting pools on the ship's mileage were common in the days of passenger liners. You would try to guess how many miles the ship would travel each day, usually within 10 miles above or below the captain's own estimate. Roald Dahl (who shares a similar history as Fleming, being an author who worked for British intelligence in World War II) wrote a short story, "Dip in the Pool", about a desperate gambler who dives off the ship in the hopes of slowing it down and winning the bet, only to find that his sole witness is a dementia patient who isn't believed. quote:A steward offered the box of folded numbers to the richest-looking woman in the room and then handed up the piece of paper she had drawn to the auctioneer. The betting continues. Eventually a man calls out a 200 pound bet and Bond turns to look at him. quote:It was a biggish man. His face had the glistening, pasty appearance of a spat-out bullseye. Small, cold dark eyes were looking towards the auctioneer’s platform through motionless bifocals. All the man’s neck seemed to be at the back of his head. Sweat matted the curly black algae of his hair and now he took off his glasses and picked up a napkin and wiped the sweat off with a circular motion that started with the left side of the face and swirled round to the back of his head where his right hand took over and completed the circuit as far as the dripping nose. ‘Two hundred and ten,’ said someone. The big man’s chin wobbled and he opened his tight-buttoned mouth and said, ‘Two hundred and twenty’ in a level American voice. Bond asks Tiffany, but she doesn't recognize either of them. The fat man wins the auction with a £500 bet, then shocks the crowd by betting low. The weather is perfect and the ship is doing about 30 knots. Nothing would slow the ship down unless he knew something everyone else didn't. quote:Bond turned to Tiffany. ‘That was a queer business,’ he said. ‘Extraordinary thing to do. Sea’s as calm as glass.’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘The only answer is that they know something.’ The matter was of no interest, anyway. ‘Someone’s told them something.’ He turned and looked carelessly at the two men and then let his eyes swing past and away from them. ‘They seem to be quite interested in us.’ Knowing Bond, that is a dangerous request. quote:And Bond bent down and put an arm round her thighs and picked her up and laid her gently on the floor.
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# ¿ Feb 11, 2019 15:56 |
Astroman posted:The man knows how to turn a phrase! Fleming's descriptions are downright intoxicating, especially if you drink as much as he did before reading.
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# ¿ Feb 12, 2019 04:42 |
Chapter 24: Death is So Permanentquote:The last thing Bond remembered before the telephone rang was Tiffany bending over him in bed and kissing him and saying, ‘You shouldn’t sleep on the heart-side, my treasure. It’s bad for the heart. It might stop beating. Turn over.’ And obediently he had turned and as the door clicked he was at once asleep again with her voice and the sigh of the Atlantic and the soft roll of the ship holding him in their arms. Bond calls Tiffany's room, lets it ring 4 times, then hangs up. Running up the corridor to her cabin, he finds her bag on the floor just inside the doorway, the contents scattered about as if it had been dropped. Bond stops to turn off his emotions and let his mind calculate. They probably would have taken Tiffany back to their cabin to work on her undisturbed, as they would need to interrogate her as to what she knew and who Bond was before killing her. Bond could alert the crew, but they'd never believe his story of a gangster kidnapping when it could just be a drunk lover's quarrel or someone trying to slow the ship down to win the Low Field bet. quote:The Low Field! Man overboard! The ship delayed! Bond rushes for his attache case. He removes the Beretta and fits it with a silencer as he starts planning and reading the ship's map that came with his ticket. The door is likely bolted and they could just toss Tiffany out the porthole if he tried to get the staff to open it peacefully. But the map says Wint and Kidd's room is right below him. quote:Bond shoved the gun into his waistband and wrenched one of his two portholes wide open. He thrust his shoulders through, relieved to find that there was at least an inch to spare. He craned down. Two dimly lit circles directly below him. How far? About eight feet. The night was still dead calm. No wind, and he was on the dark side of the ship. Would he be spotted from the flying bridge? Would one of their portholes be open? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0afkYn8vT8 quote:Bond put all his strength on the rope. Should hold. As he tied one end round the hinge of the porthole he glanced at his watch. Only twelve minutes had been wasted since he had read the cable. Had it been too long? He set his teeth and threw the rope out down the side of the ship and climbed out head foremost. Bond goes flying into the cabin through the porthole, somersaulting and landing in a crouch. His gun is up, waving between Wint and Kidd. quote:‘All right,’ said Bond, coming slowly to his full height. Bond is not only keeping Tiffany safe from any stray bullets, but also to keep her from witnessing whatever's about to go down. Though considering Tiffany, I'm sure she'd be eager to watch. quote:There was five yards between the two men and Bond reflected that if they could draw fast enough they had him bracketed. With men like these, even in the split second of his killing one of them, the other would have drawn and fired. While his own gun was silent, its threat was infinite. But with his first bullet, for a flash, the threat would be lifted from the other man. Wint stops, his gun barely raised, and drops it at Bond's command. At Bond's orders, he puts his hands over his head and walks to the chair to sit down. quote:He stood facing Bond and quite naturally he let his hands fall down to his sides. And the two hands, relaxed, swung naturally back, the right hand more than the left. And then suddenly, at the top of the back-swing, the right arm tautened and flashed forward and the throwing-knife bloomed from the tips of the fingers like a white flame. Bond pulls the knife out of his chest and tosses it out the porthole. It's not a bad wound, just nicked his rib. quote:Almost reluctantly he turned back and faced the shambles of the cabin. He looked it over thoughtfully and with an unconscious gesture he wiped his hands down his flanks. Then he carefully picked his way across the floor to the bathroom and said, ‘It’s me, Tiffany,’ in a tired, flat voice and opened the door. It's not outright stated, but I think there's an implication that Tiffany's kidnapping had given her some kind of flashback to her gang rape as a teenager. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5e5GjnyMHI This scene in the film is, uh, slightly different. quote:Bond gave her a reassuring smile and walked out and shut the door of the bathroom behind him and went about his business, doing everything with great deliberation and pausing before each move so as to examine its effect on the eyes and minds of the detectives who would come on board at Southampton. Bond covered everything really well here. A powder burn from a contact shot, using his own gun as the drop so the bullets and casings match for forensics, and dumping Kidd's body so it couldn't be investigated. quote:At all events, reflected Bond, it would stand up until the police arrived at the dock, and by that time he and Tiffany would be off the ship and away and the only trace of them in the cabin would be Bond’s Beretta, and that, like all other guns belonging to the Secret Service, had no numbers.
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# ¿ Feb 12, 2019 17:35 |
It's very interesting to see the evolution of Bond from the page to the screen. The books are firmly pulp detective and adventure stories, but even from the first movie there's a focus on elaborate sets and advanced gadgetry (both for the villains and the heroes) that very quickly rises to camp. I'd be very interested in seeing a faithful adaptation of the books.
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# ¿ Feb 13, 2019 01:49 |
Chapter 25: ....The Pipeline Closesquote:There was now no scorpion living in the roots of the great thorn bush which stood at the junction of the three African states. The smuggler from the mines had nothing to occupy his mind except an endless column of Driver ants flowing along between the low walls which the Soldiers had built on both sides of the three-inch highway. Imagine being so racist that you hate ants because they're black. quote:A mile away in the low bush the big iron ear of the sound-detector had already stopped searching, and the operator, who had been softly calling the range to the group of three men beside the army truck, now said: ‘Thirty miles. Speed one-twenty. Height nine hundred.’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65ZewIslLbA The Bofors is a big Bofors L/60 40mm anti-aircraft gun. It's fully automatic (albeit with a very slow rate of fire) fed by clips from the top. They were extremely common during World War II on both sides of the war and are still in use today among third world militaries. quote:Now they could hear the distant clatter in the sky. Bond gave a short laugh. ‘Helicopter,’ he said. ‘Nothing else makes that racket. Get ready to take the net down when he lands. We may have to give him a warning shot. Is the loud-hailer switched on?’ After the Queen Elizabeth landed in England, Bond was sent on a Canberra bomber down to Africa. He was called by M first for an update, where he surreptitiously let M know about his killing of Wint and Kidd so he could keep the Secret Service out of the investigation. MI6 has confirmed that "ABC" is Jack Spang under the alias of Rufus Saye and have tracked his movements to Africa. They suspect that he's closing off the diamond pipeline, killing everyone down the line. As for Tiffany Case, Bond sent her to his flat. He recommends against prosecuting her, since she's been such a big help after all. quote:The smuggler from the mines stood and waited, holding the fourth torch in his hand. There it was. Coming right across the moon. Hell of a noise as usual. That was another risk he’d be glad to get away from. As the smuggler starts to ask a question, he's cut off by Spang drawing a gun and shooting him. I guess he's not getting the raise he demanded. quote:‘Don’t move.’ The clanging voice came over the plain with the screeching echo of the amplifier. ‘You’re covered.’ There was the sound of an engine starting up. The old Bofors is a somewhat unusual weapon. It uses pedals for the triggers and is able to be continuously fed with clips by assistant gunners; while it only holds 4 rounds at a time in the magazine, a skilled team can keep up a high rate of fire. quote:‘Boompa’. The helicopter spirals down into the brush. Jack Spang, the boss of everything that Bond had only ever seen in person for a few minutes, is royally hosed. quote:Bond could imagine the scene in the narrow cockpit, the big man holding on with one hand and wrenching at the controls with the other as he watched the needle of the altimeter dip down through the hundreds. And there would be the red glare of terror in the eyes, and the hundred thousand pound pocketful of diamonds would be just so much deadweight, and the gun which had been a strong right arm since boyhood would be no comfort. With everything finished, Bond lights up a cigarette from the seat of the AA gun. Essentially by accident through his own impatience, he killed his way across America and back and destroyed an entire diamond smuggling operation and the gang that ran it. quote:Bond put up a hand and wiped it across his dripping forehead. He pushed back the damp lock of hair above the right eyebrow and the red blaze lit up the hard lean face and flickered in the tired eyes. And that's another one down. The film would ruin just about everything good about the book, turning one of the strongest Fleming women into a screeching moron, dialing up the camp to absurd levels, and replacing the American mobsters and anti-aircraft gun in the African brush with Blofeld and an oil rig. Unfortunately, we're inevitably forced to leave Tiffany Case behind for a new lover. Maybe one day someone can write a book about her. Our next book is From Russia With Love, the book that finally got Bond recognition in America thanks to its popularity with the president himself. We finally get a setting that virtually all of the thread readers will find exotic and one of the most surprising endings in the series. I think you'll all enjoy it.
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# ¿ Feb 13, 2019 15:51 |
Sperglord Actual posted:Well why not? They already brought back Pussy Galore, didn't they? That's actually something I had thoughts about doing, along with possibly doing the later non-Fleming books. In 2015, Anthony Horowitz (the creator of the Alex Rider series) released Trigger Mortis, a book set two weeks after Goldfinger and showing the difficulties Bond and Pussy Galore have in trying to actually maintain their relationship. What makes it really interesting is that the opening chapter is taken mostly from Murder On Wheels, an unpublished treatment Fleming wrote for a canceled Bond TV series in the 1950s. Bond would be assigned to prevent SMERSH from assassinating Stirling Moss (a real British racing driver) by being trained as a racer himself to take out the Russian agent in a crash during the race.
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# ¿ Feb 13, 2019 22:56 |
Lord Zedd-Repulsa posted:chitoru, how many books have you been through in this thread and how many Fleming books do you still have to do? Diamonds was the fourth book. There’s 10 books remaining if you include the short story collections. This, uh, will take a while.
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# ¿ Feb 14, 2019 14:38 |
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# ¿ Mar 28, 2024 11:26 |
From Russia With Love From Russia With Love was the most significantly rewritten book of any of Fleming's first drafts at the time. He wrote it as Diamonds was still being edited in January 1956 and feeling burnt out from spending so many years writing a new Bond book every time he flew down to Jamaica. This contributed to the book receiving its shocking and ambiguous ending in case he decided not to continue with the series. The book was based on Fleming's trip to Istanbul the previous year to cover an Interpol conference for The Sunday Times. Darko Kerim was modeled heavily on Nazim Kalkavan, an Oxford-educated ship owner he met there. A major part of the book also comes from the story of Eugene Karp, an American intelligence agent in Budapest who took the Orient Express to Paris with documents detailing compromised American spy networks in the Eastern bloc. Unfortunately for Karp, there were Soviet assassins on the train; the conductor was drugged, Karp killed, and his body thrown out as they passed through a tunnel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lRuXckWC_8 From Russia With Love was the second ever James Bond film and is generally regarded as one of the best. The success of Dr. No led to United Artists doubling the budget and giving Sean Connery a big bonus; adjusted for inflation, his pay for this film was around $1.275 million. The film is a relatively faithful adaptation of the book, with some of the biggest changes being the switch to SPECTRE as the villainous organization, additional action sequences after the Orient Express and a modification to the ending that better matches Fleming's first draft. The film added many of the conventions that are now expected for Bond films, from the title sequence with nude women dancing around to Bond's gadgets. It also acts as the film universe's introduction to the infamous Blofeld, albeit left unnamed and virtually unseen. And here we get the first ever Bond theme. Lionel Bart, the creator of Oliver!, was asked to compose it. Funny thing about Lionel Bart: despite being a world famous composer and one of the most influential figures in the history of British musical theatre, he never learned to read or write musical notation. The song was sung by Matt Monro, "The Man with the Golden Voice". He was one of the most popular British pop singers of the time, setting the trend of hiring prominent contemporary singers and bands to give more clout to the Bond themes.
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# ¿ Feb 14, 2019 16:57 |