Hello!

Respected correspondent Edward Sullivan pointed us to this article related to our favorite non-Connery 007 movie, 1969’s  On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.

The article is from The Observer, by author Jonathan Coe. It’s a good read that comes under the heading ‘movies that influenced my work.’  The feeling he describes happens fairly often for film fans in Los Angeles or New York City — turn a random corner and you’ll be thinking, ‘Buster Keaton performed a gag here 100 years ago,’ or, ‘This is where William Holden walked into Paramount pictures in Sunset Blvd. In this case Mr. Coe had a revelation on a certain beach …

Boy, Coe really likes that movie. We do too, but we want to see it remastered with its original rich and dark color scheme. The Amazon-MGM people just did a great job with the Sean Connerys, so we’re hoping they’ll be able to do the right thing transfer-wise with this very different original 007 offering. Coe’s article pegs OHMSS as a preferred Christmas movie. He references a place in Portugal called Guincho beach:

And just to prove that we at CineSavant think about more than little plastic discs … a suitable second column item eluded us, so you get to see some pix from an outing to Beverly Hills. The city is presently sponsoring an impressive art installation, to be in place until August 1.

The exhibit is a full hundred full-sized pachyderms made of steel and an Indian plant called lantana camara. They’re spread across a three-block span of downtown Beverly Hills, in the park that fronts Santa Monica Blvd, right across from city hall.

It’s a pleasant sight. We dropped by fairly early on Sunday, before the crowds arrived and when the parking was free. Beverly Hills is the last stop of a year-long tour through 7 U.S. cities. We wonder how many trucks were needed to cart the herd. More info:

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson