by 007hertzrumble | Aug 2, 2013 | Live Tweet Digests, Wraparound
Things got pretty crazy at my house before the live tweet when my toddler toddled into the floorboard and busted open her eyebrow. Only a couple of saved tweets and I had to disappear for a spell during the You Only Live Twice presentation, but goddamn, SLOUCHY BOND still won the day.
by 007hertzrumble | Jul 18, 2013 | Live Tweet Digests, Official Project, Wraparound
I needed one more live tweet to complete my full set of 23 James Bond live tweet digests. This one slipped through the cracks the first time around. Not so this time. Fitting perhaps because #Thunderball was the first live tweet on the initial #Bond_age_ run for which people actually showed up. It was my self-proclaimed kill episode. If nobody tweeted with me, I was going to stop the live-tweets altogether and just focus on my essays. 20+ episodes later, we’re still going. Thanks, everybody!
by 007hertzrumble | Jul 16, 2013 | Live Tweet Digests, Official Project, Wraparound
So much good #Bond_age_ all in a row. Could the #Bond_age_ crew make light of From Russia With Love, one of the more serious, straight-faced Bonds? Or would we resort to becoming a Sean Connery, Robert Shaw, Daniela Bianchi, fashion and travelogue lovefest? If you’ve tuned in or read any of the live tweet digests, you already know the answer… and the answer is a lot of both.
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by 007hertzrumble | Jul 12, 2013 | Live Tweet Digests, Official Project, Wraparound
Technical difficulties have temporarily derailed the #FRwL Live Tweet Digest but not so with the #GOLDFINGER tweets. Read on as we delight in the ways that Sean Connery says “PUSHY.”
by 007hertzrumble | Jul 9, 2013 | My Favorite #Bond_age_
From Russia With Love: The Master of Suspense and Calculated Visual Pleasure
by James David Patrick (@007hertzrumble)
Hitchcock’s sphere of influence over popular cinema cannot be overestimated. He perfected the psycho-drama, created the slasher and excelled at popcorn action thrillers in addition to technical innovations in camerawork and editing. In fact, his North by Northwest (1959) heavily influenced the direction of Dr. No (1962) and From Russia With Love (1963). EON (Harry Saltzman and Cubby Broccoli) not only tried to hire Cary Grant to play James Bond, but Ian Fleming sent a telegram with the intention of gauging Hitchcock’s interest in directing the first Bond movie (which, at the time of the telegram concerned the script that would eventually become Thunderball). Not that Hitch would have agreed, of course, because as far as I know, he dismissed the enterprise without so much as a conversation. After all, he was more interested in how extraordinary events affected the layman rather than the tales of the world’s most famous agent of espionage.
From our perspective, looking back on 50 years of Bond, the idea that James Bond could even be considered a project for the great and legendary Alfred Hitchcock appears farcical. We’ve seen Bond drive invisible cars, diffuse a bomb dressed as a circus clown, steamroll a henchman with a Zamboni and command a legion of screaming ninjas in a volcano assault (just to name a few isolated events). Despite our collective affection for the Bond franchise, it must be admitted that Bond is Hitchcock material in fanciful theory only. But it wasn’t always that way. Once upon a time, Bond seemed like a logical receptacle for Hitchcock’s talents. (more…)
