CineSavant Column
Happy New Years’ Eve!
The post is said to be two years old, but it’s new to me — a link from Joe Dante directs us to a YouTube item by Dalibor Truhlar called 10 Funny James Bond Commercials.
Some are indeed really funny, others are pleasantly amusing, and a bunch look very expensive. The first one up is a knockout. Lots of inside jokes and some vintage 007 cameos. Daniel Craig comes off as a real sport.
John Steed! Emma Peel! This wonder disc showed up a couple of days ago from [Imprint], cheering up our New Years’ weekend. It is such a huge box, we just asked for a couple of check discs to review from. Instead the whole thing arrived, with its fancy insert book, etc.. The The Avengers Emma Peel Collection 1965-1967 is a pricey item, but it contains 16 discs with I don’t know how many episodes, all remastered from original 35mm. Half are B&W and half are in color.
As we didn’t have a color TV back then I quickly checked out the opening of a color episode. The quality looks excellent. Then we watched an entire B&W show. What got me was the overall stylishness plus the precision of direction and cinematography. The show still looks special, unique.
I just handed off the fancy box to Charlie Largent to review. He told me Christopher Lee has an episode as some kind of mechanical man, and Peter Cushing is in a couple of them too. The one episode I saw had two English actors I recognized from other Hammer films. Now I can’t wait to get the box back.
Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson