This week Pam and I finally found a skippable Steele episode from Season 2. Just one. We should offer this skipped episode up as homework. There will be quizzes at the end of the live tweet.
We settled on “Steele Knuckles and Glass Jaws” and “My Fair Steele” because of notable guest-stars for classic film fans. The episodes are mid-tier but that shouldn’t negate any live tweet shenanigans, except those that concern Murph as he’s still on sabbatical.
Our first episode, the 9th episode of Season 2, concerns mobsters and boxing and child endangerment. The episode guest stars Bert Remsen, Ken Foree and Paul Stewart. Stewart appeared in a few small projects by the names of Citizen Kane, In Cold Blood and Kiss Me Deadly. You may have heard of them.
In our B-Side episode this week, a terminally-ill millionaire hires the Steele agency to locate the twin sister of his cantankerous adopted daughter. The actress playing the twin sister dual roles happens to share my birthday (September 13th) and appeared in Jaws 2 as Tina.
Dust off your lady fedoras. This week it’s time to do some more investigating with Remington Steele. Join #Bond_age_ for the 11th Volume of Remington Steele live tweets on Wednesday, September 6th @ 9pm ET. We’ll be watching Episodes 9 and 10 from Season 2. Follow #Bond_age_TV hashtag.
We started Tom Cruising sometime last year because we thought Tom Cruise had a filmography worthy of all the live tweet fodder. We may not have pinpointed Days of Thunder as the apex of the live tweet Cruise-ography. Some might argue in favor of Top Gun and I might agree, but for the sake of the self-promotion at hand, let’s call it Days of Thunder.
I don’t know if you remember, but when Days of Thunder was released in 1990 this was peak Cruise. This was audiences frothing at the mouth for what appeared, by any measure, to be an ersatz Top Gun sequel. TOP GUN WITH CARS! I was OMG dying to see this film when it came out. I was 12 so you’ll pardon the misguided tenacity of my childhood enthusiasm. I should note a few things about how the Cruisness and the marketing for this film clouded my judgment. I had never seen a NASCAR race and quite honestly had no interest in ever stumbling across one. Arguably the closest I’d come to such a thing was playing Pole Position in the arcade. But Tom Cruise in race cars. YES. SO MUCH YES.
All that said, even at the age of 12, I understood that Days of Thunder was, well, worthy of a live tweet. I didn’t know what the hell a “live tweet” was at the time, but given enough time and thoughtfulness things could have worked out thusly:
Days of Thunder : Live Tweets :: Toilet : flux capacitor
I’m just saying. It could have happened.
Join #Bond_age_ for the live tweet of Tom Cruising Vol. 6 – Days of Thunder on Wednesday, August 30th @ 9pm ET. Follow #Bond_age_ hashtag. And remember…. his name’s Cole, not Dick.
It’s weird that we haven’t live tweeted a Harry Palmer movie yet. It’s weird that even when we do start to live tweet the Harry Palmer movies, we’re starting with Billion Dollar Brain because themes. It just so happens that the third Harry Palmer film dropped during 1967 and we’re currently exploring the spy films of 1967 through the Year of the Spy 1967 retrospective.
This works because A) Harry Palmer movies are not especially beholden to each other; B) Billion Dollar Brain is the most Bond-like of the bunch; and C) I said so.
The Billion Dollar Brain was directed by Ken Russell, marking the controversial director’s only outing as a mainstream director-for-hire. It’s an odd fit for the director, but some of the auteur’s flamboyant touches remain even filtered through the pop-culture spy craze.
Join #Bond_age_ on Wednesday, August 16th at 9pm ET for the Billion Dollar Brain live tweet. Follow #Bond_age_ hashtag.
I’m still struggling to find skippable episodes. Pam and I had a meeting of the minds and we decided to air episodes 6 and 7 from the second season of Remington Steele. We skipped episode 5. The twist here is that the main attraction for this pair of episodes happens to be the second episode “Love Among the Steele.”
First a recap of episode 5: Someone wants to frame Steele for murder and there are no overt references to classic cinema. Moving along…
First up, we’ve got Season 2, Episode 6 – “A Steele at Any Price.” This one’s fun because Remington Steele indulges his love of the heist in a case about stolen paintings. He gets to tease his past a little bit and solicit some Laura eyerolls. As you can imagine, this episode boasts references to a couple of classic heist films.
You’ll not want to miss “Love Among the Steele” which has the second slot of the evening. This one is essentially the “Jon Voight’s car” episode of Remington Steele. The real attraction here is the escalating Laura/Steele sexual tension and rampant double entendres. All this stuffed inside a wacky narrative which provides a platform for some excellent screwball moments.
R: “I think someone’s shooting at us!”
L: “Why?”
R: “Because we’re kissing! Somebody always shoots at us when we’re kissing!”
Dust off your lady fedoras. This week it’s time to do some more investigating with Remington Steele. Join #Bond_age_ for the 10th Volume of Remington Steele live tweets on Wednesday, August 9th @ 9pm ET. We’ll be watching Episodes 6 and 7 from Season 2. Follow #Bond_age_TV hashtag.
In the Tom Cruise filmography, there’s one film that’s often disassociated from the star’s 1980’s output. Sure, you’ve got your Top Guns and Days of Thunders, your Risky Businesses and All the Right Moves. But how does one place Ridley Scott’s 1985 epic fantasy Legend in the Tom Cruise oeuvre? That’s what we’re going to find out.
Wednesday @ 9pm ET, the #Bond_age_ crew is going unicorn deep in the realm of mystical fantasy. Our first voyage into these lightly trodden waters since our bit of time traveling with Terry Gilliam’s Time Bandits. If I’m being completely honest I don’t remember much about this movie other than Mia Sara (because let’s face it, we all had a Mia Sara crush in the 80’s), sparkly unicorns and Tim Curry. Which is more than enough to make it our feature presentation for Tom Cruising: Volume 5.
We’re also welcoming another live tweet host into the #Bond_age_ HQ this week. Alec Deacon (@MrAlecDeacon) will be steering this week’s pleasure cruise because he is A) a huge Tom Cruise fan and B) another warm bodied live tweet host that can fill in when I’m on the lam.
Originally, I’d planned on a little Diana Rigg action this week, but the chosen film that once existed on YouTube now can only be viewed in some mis-framed abomination that I just will not allow on my #Bond_age_ broadcast network. Never fear, I’ve taken the opportunity to order a UK DVD of the movie and Diana will make her Ladies’ Night appearance at a later date. What this means for you more immediately is that Jill St. John got moved up to fill Emma Peel’s shoes. I realize that this is not a one-for-one swap, but I have faith that the film that we are scheduled to view this week will make up for the Jill St. John to Diana Rigg deficit.
Jill St. John’s most visible big screen role was of course Tiffany Case in Diamonds Are Forever. But here are a few things about Jill St. John that you might not realize.
At age 11 in 1951, Jill St. John (born Jill Arlyn Oppenheim) appeared in two episodes of the George Burns and Gracie Allen Show. She signed her first motion picture contract with Universal at 16 and made her big-screen debut in Summer Love (1958) starring opposite John Saxon. She received a 1964 Golden Globe nomination for her performance in Come Blow Your Horn (which also featured a guy named Frank Sinatra). She also appeared in the first two episodes of the Batman television series as the Riddler’s moll Molly and appeared in “The Yada Yada” episode of Seinfeld withhusband Robert Wagner.
Our Jill St. John movie of the week is the Rod Taylor-starring semi-sincere spy thriller The Liquidator (1965). Dropped in the middle of the spy-crazed 60’s, The Liquidator features a title-track sung by Shirley Bassey and a Lalo Schifrin score. Schifrin claimed to have consciously distanced himself from the Barry-style scoring done for the Bond films. Taylor plays Sergeant “Boysie” Oakes, an agent that literally “oopses” himself into the employ of the British secret service to eliminate leaks within the agency. Off the record, of course. Things go well until Jill St. John enters the picture (Isn’t that always the case? Get it? CASE? TIFFANY CASE?) and Oakes finds himself in over his head.
Join #Bond_age_ for the Ladies’ Night live tweet of THE LIQUIDATOR on July 19th @ 9pm ET. Follow #Bond_age_ hashtag. An embed will appear on the Programming tab of this site.
